Happy Birthday Commencement!
20 fucking years later.
Back in the year 2000 I was all over the place.
My Grandma had just passed. I got arrested for literally absolutely no reason. My Dad and I were moving to a new apartment and some crazy stalker was randomly keying my car and the Bakersfield music scene was running wild. Korn was the biggest band in the world or something and my friends in Orgy were about to release their second album.
Out of nowhere my friend R called me up and asked me if I wanted to go to the Orgy CD signing in LA. I hadn’t really thought much about it but I said sure. We climbed into my rental car I had at the time because my car was yet again in the shop for another paint job and went to Los Angeles to go to Tower Records. On the way down, R did what he does, he took control of the CD player and started playing me this band, Deadsy.
So my life got ruined some time between Magic Mountain and North Hollywood.
I didn’t know anything about them. R had found them looking for Korn and Orgy shit on Limewire. Yes, I’m that old.
I believe he played me “Mansion World,” “Sleepy Hollow” and “Itty Bitty Titty Girl” while we were on that freeway. I instantly loved the band and demanded he make me CD’s. We went to the Orgy signing and saw my friends and went home.
(Me at the Vapor Transmissions signing with my friend Ryan. Dig my Swatch watch)
The internet was still like pretty shitty back then. I mean it worked a lot better than when I was using a dial up modem that you had to put the phone on top of a box to get to a DOS menu looking BBS but it still was weird and new. Never the less, I looked up Deadsy. I found their website that was always broken and their message board with incredibly awful colors and signed up to be a member.
My first screen name was nowheregrrl. I joined everyone in counting down the time until Commencement would be released. R and I bought tickets to see Deadsy at their very first PUBLIC live show at the Roxy in December of 2000.
It would be the first time for me, seeing them. It wouldn’t be the last. Not by a long shot. Also Commencement which had already been shelved once would be reworked and fucked with and dangled in front of us for another two years.
Before I continue I have to do the obligatory “Who in The Fuck Is In Deadsy?” paragraph. Like why did anyone give a shit about this band to an almost cult like degree when they hadn’t even put out a fucking album… Let’s review…
Deadsy’s frontman/creator of dreams and nightmares is Elijah Blue Allman. You might know him from such adventures of being Cher’s son that she had with Greg Allman and being in the video for “If I Could Turn Back Time,” and Gene Simmons giving him a guitar and briefly dating Nicole Richie.
(Cher is a very nice person.)
The other members of the band are also famous for various reasons. Alec Puro for instance is like BFF’s with Robert Downey Jr (also a very nice person) and scores movies. One of his biggest was “The Singing Detective.” Renn Hawkey eventually ended up married to Vera Farmiga (she’s the blonde chick in “The Departed”) and Carlton Bost keeps himself busy playing with the new version of Orgy, Stabbing Westward and Berlin.
In other words, this band was famous before they even dropped one song to radio. You know Jared Leto and his little band 30 Seconds To Mars? Wouldn’t exist without Deadsy’s influence. Seriously, Jared even took the color scheme motif, the idea of the random symbols that probably are jibberish and naming their street team something incredibly weird off of Deadsy. In fact an early demo of the first 30 Seconds To Mars album has a song that name checks Deadsy. The lyrics were changed before 30STM’s major label debut.
Also Jared Leto is an asshole. No sources needed. I’m the source.
Moving on… 20 years ago today this long awaited, long fought over, long delayed little album dropped to the mainstream. Like you could walk into Target and buy it. It was an EVENT even though all the real hardcore Deadsy fans had had the original version of it since 1999. No shit.
There are slight changes to the cover art. A blue lake instead of a lake of a blood. A sax solo edited out of “She Likes Big Words,” etc. And of course the crowning glory the thing that was supposed to be their big debut single and radio was going to just LOVE. “The Key To Gramercy Park.” (Video directed by Fred Durst no less…)
By this point I was neck deep in the Deadsy world. I worked in radio after all and could “help,” get them some kind of airplay in battle of the bands and whatever. I ended up one morning getting a phone call from my program director after I had done a night shift and telling me I had the weekend off because Deadsy and Elementree records requested my presence at the CD release party. They were also buying me a hotel room, on the Strip in Hollywood.
What the fuck?
(yes I look like trash here, but that’s Elijah behind me and Shavo from System of a Down at the CD release party. This was at the Dragonfly in West Hollywood.)
I’d been going to every and any Deadsy show between 2000 and 2002. Like if they played I went, so I had been planning to go to this one and just drive back to Bakersfield but it became a giant event.
(This is at On The Rox, I don’t remember which show or why it was happening, but there we were.)
In support of this album, Deadsy went out on the road with Taproot. The radio station I worked for was throwing a big summer festival. We were playing Deadsy sparingly here and there because I’m a giant pest and I believed in this weird little band and we wanted them to play the show. It went back and forth but Deadsy left the tour to come play our festival in Bakersfield. Parts of the video for their second single “Brand New Love” were filmed at our show. Any time you see them outside in day light with a big black banner with a white crab on it, that’s my station’s show.
During the Commencement era I met so many cool people. Life long friends. I’ve been to weddings, held “Deadsy Babies” and traveled all over because this weird assed band existed. I ended up working for them as the West Coast Street Team leader and message board moderator and helped with their MySpace shit, on their second album. I was in charge of California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho, keeping people on task for promotions and mailing them materials. My living room back in Grover Beach looked like a storage space at Blockbuster.
And then there is this.
My Deadsy tattoo. And my Deadsy chain.
I’ve worn that white chain on my left hand since my friend R and I made them back in 2000. I have literally worn it every day since. I got married in it. I also got divorced in it. I’ll probably be buried in it.
There are too many weird stories and too many friends I’ve collected because of this band. There are too many celebrities I’ve met just like “Oh hey Paris Hilton, how are you today?” to even start talking. I have seen them play over 20 times. When they toured in support of their second album I was lucky enough to also befriend the Deftones crew who were cool enough to take them on tour.
(Ventura Theatre)
This weird little band that literally NO ONE could figure out how to market, how to promote, how to book… even how to deal with sometimes, changed my life. I can’t curse them out or thank them enough for that.
Happy 20th Birthday “Commencement.” You were a life event.
(Cheers from nowheregrrl circa 2002.)
I was trying to figure out what station you worked at, so I could request them again lol
You're a fucking legend, basically. And as a kid, I wished so much that I was all you cool, lucky L.A. cats going to all those shows on Sunset BLVD.
I don't know if you've seen this, but it blew my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbSRRynPMsk
When I was 13 years old Ryan was the reason I'd picked up a guitar, I thought he looked COOL AS FUCK, so I wanted to do it too. This then led to an obsession with Metallica, so I played them exclusively (which is how I actually learnt how to play, because all the tab sites in the year 2000 were completely wrong LOL Unlike Metallica, who actually had correctly annotated tab books). But, like you, I also found out about Deadsy after first listening to ORGY
"Its a like a Deadsy song/pretty but something's always wrong/show me your secret mason sign" This was hard to get when it first came out, but it's all over the internet today. I remember me and a few people were passing it around, we thought we were so cool because we had a rare "The Deleted Version" lol
30STM's first cd was actually pretty good, I think. When they were still part of The "SynthRock" genre. It was after that cd they went full emo on everyone. They sold records. There's that. But goddamn did they sell out. Someone told me before Jared started the band he was asking all the members of Deadsy about the equipment they used, and he bought all the same stuff. (someone described what they did as a "carbon copy" Deadsy) I told myself, if I ever see Jared at a department store I'm going to point to the ceiling, to the music, whatever is on, and sing out loud, "it's like a Deadsy song, pretty but..." and if he acts weird about it, I will scream out loud, "WHY ARE YOU HERE? ARE YOU LISTENING?! CAN YOU HEAR WHAT I AM SAYING?!"
Imitation is flattery, they say. Whatever happened there, I just think the first 30STM album was fine. I was on their message board too before they blew up, and people said this guy "L." was actually Leto, he told me not to join cults because he had looked into a group briefly and they followed him around for a while. Long story short, it was because of Deadsy I developed an obsession with esoteric subject matter, and yes, found some cults out there for sure.
But anyway, Amir has a cool youtube channel. I think he just uses it to sell equipment, but he does some cool audio experiments on there that an appreciator of experimental music can dig.
It wasn't Josh's fault the band didn't blow up. To be quite fair, I think it was the band's fault for not continuing to make music... despite the downturn. You've probably heard of Jinjer, who went super viral and considered one of the greatest acts in metal currently. This is a band that grinded for nearly A DECADE, doing not just a few local shows, or a single national tour, but numerous WORLD TOURS during those ten years. It took them literally TEN YEARS, despite being At The Top Of Their Game and literally World Class before they even got recognition worthy of their talent. Then you got people like Ethel Cain who just fucking blow up, all the sudden, because THAT ONE person finds their shit who happens to be an established artist already, who plugs them into a distributor and pushes them, hooks them up with good management.
The music industry is no doubt, the most difficult business to make it in. I work as a local truck driver, and I make as much money as some world famous musicians who tour the world and aren't home every day. They're somewhere around the world, or in some other city. And that might be a dream come true for some, but for me, I'm a studio musician. So being able to be home is much better for me. But yeah... unless you seriously blow up, there's like no money in this shit, unless you're indie, own your own masters, do a lot of shit yourself, do tours, make money from your own merch, and have a good booking agent who can get you on loudwire, on pitchforktv, get you a VICE interview, etc. etc. every time your new cd is about to drop.
I think DEADSY should've just continued to release albums, true to their sound. (not sell out like 30STM) Just incrementally release something over a period of every 2 to 3 years. That's how they would've not only retained, but CONTINUED TO GROW a fanbase. So that future releases, future shows (should they have toured) would've been increasingly successful.
The saddest thing to me about Deadsy, and hopefully I can say this as confidentially as one could in a public place such as this, is what appears to be the wasted potential. Other folks in the band went off and did other shit, cool. But had they of just continued to release shit... they'd of been doing FINE today. They'd have a booming, beaming fan base.
They can still get it back, but goddamn. Had they of just kept releasing records... just one every two or three years.
You've seen "Celtic Pride"? I thought it'd probably be a good idea to kidnap them and force them to live in a shack and not release them from there until they've released TEN quality albums. I told myself if I ever become dictator of the world... this is what I will do.
But you know what also makes life valuable? Is the idea that it doesn't last forever, either. So the time that we do have, the things that we do have, it's all rare, and precious. It has a real value, and it should be cherished. Because it doesn't last forever, is exactly what makes this all so precious and meaningful.
I think about that a lot, in general, and specifically in relation to the Deadsy and ORGY cds we got that were actually good.
For good or for ill, life moves on. Because all life is, is Constant Change and is thus, Constantly Changing. Because all we are, and all everything is, is atoms moving through space and time. From one side of Infinity to The Other. And if the world seems small at times, despite how large it is, it's because we're all connected, somehow, to IT ALL. And that's beautiful, every form that it takes along the way. Every new discovery, every experience that literally Defines us along The Way.
Be me for a second, Okay? I'm over here listening the fuck out for Xasthur and DARKHER for years. Then I see on the video description for a Darkher video about a Rayshele. I go "no way..." And it is literally Lunarclick* Rayshele who is behind some of my favorite fucking bands, wtf?! lol
the world is seriously super small, and we are all literally the same being breathing the same air throughout the infinite, we all just can't see it because of our egos and the limitations of our physical senses telling us "otherwise", and this is also what freaked Einstein out the most, this idea of "Quantum Entanglement". But once you get used to the idea that we're all the same being, the Swami Vivekenanda shit, and all the Yogi shit in general becomes a lot more palatable; not just from an abstract or philosophical touch, but it becomes a more integrated reality. One's universe becomes a living, breathing situation.
And the more I think about it. To me at least, Deadsy wasn't just about music. They were about ideas that provoked me to learn more about metaphysics, mainly. I have to ask: how much more could I have honestly gotten out of Deadsy?
I couldn't have gotten more if I tried, or even if they'd released 20 cds. So I'm good. Me personally, I'm doing Fine! But I do worry about Elijah Blue. I hope he's happy. I hope he's surrounding himself with people who love him. I hope he's happy and fulfilled in this life and all the next ones. I didn't know that he didn't really have a father and I didn't either, so when I was like 14 he was like 25 and I literally looked up to him. As silly as it might sound, I'm serious. And for just talking online, and not saying nearly anything in person, he was one of the most important people I've ever met in my life due to how present his influence was in tuning me into concepts that'd eventually change and enrich my entire freaking life. So if not another single Deadsy cd ever comes out, I just hope he's happy, that he's okay. That's he lives a long, long time, and that he'll always be okay and do alright.
Okay, that was weird and emotional lol
Sincerely,
Natalie S@xelby
just kidding,
Rossco ;p :) <3