Bakersfield’s Backstage reveals the ghost of Bam Bams - By N.L. Belardes

Two generations in Bakersfield rock: 15-year-old Lando from Dirty Spanglish talks to Dennis from Fifth Wheel (formerly of Bakersfield punk legends, Active Ingrediants) at Bakersfield's Backstage

Bam Bams is the name of a rock music venue that lives in Bakersfield infamy. For years the venue at 20th and M Street in downtown Bakersfield remained closed. Only the ghosts of Bakersfield’s punk past stirred the dust of nearby streets. Who knows, maybe those moshing ghosts have reappeared through the years at the dance studio that now takes up half of what once was the first big punk rock venue in Bakersfield.


Dirty Spanglish recently performed at Bakersfield's Backstage, formerly Bam Bams, with Hornz and Haloz and Fifth Wheel

I asked Kenny “Motor” Mount of The Filthies about memories of old Bam Bams and if he ever performed there. He's been performing in Bakersfield area bands for more than 15 years:

Around 1990 I saw Green Day at Bam Bams. I was there with Jason Bonilla. He was in a band called the Hitchcocks with me. Everyone else was in the bar having a beer and ignored Green Day, who weren’t even supposed to play. I think they were there with friends. I remember they kept saying “We’re Green Day from the Bay Area” as if that was going to be a big deal. But they sounded horrible then… They were the first band to play that night. There was maybe twenty people in Bam Bams. But only me and Jason and some other drunk guy listened. The drunk guy kept yelling ‘You suck!’

Every time he played—he had a Fender Stratocaster—he kept turning his guitar down from strumming it because his hand kept hitting the knob; so he’d turn it back up. They played four songs and the only one I recognized was ‘409 in my Coffeemaker’.

I performed there with the Hitchcocks and Brian Jones Was Murdered. And then punk rock bands in high school like Crucified Bovine. and a bunch of punk bands that I never had names for. Oh yeah, and the door handle was gone off the women’s restroom…


Bakersfield band, Hornz and Haloz also performed at Backstage recently

Matt Munoz of Mento Buru has also been performing in Bakersfield area bands for more than 15 years. Here's what he had to say about Bam Bams and Kenny Mount's bathroom statement:

I don’t know, Kenny. I never spent time in the women’s bathroom.

Now, John Bentley changed the name of Bam Bams a few times because of the IRS. I remember one of the names was The Zoo. It was no secret to all of us working there. John was a nice guy and everybody developed a way of dealing with him. A lot of bands were just starting out. For us, we started in 1991, but didn’t gig until 91 or 92. Jake Chavez DJ’d that first night. It was a Sunday night. A handful of people were there; Matt Barajas was there. Bentley's typical payment: either a few hundred bucks or rolls of change.

When it was Bam Bams the cops were coming down on alternative lifestyle people. Nearby, the Mint was known as a place for local misfits.

The young gay kids used to hold protests in front of the courthouse. I remember seeing my friend’s brother on the news. “What’s he doing on the TV for?” He’d just come out of the closet. The cops were harassing young gay kids and punk kids. It was so new to Bakersfield. A punk venue had never taken off. They had shows at VFW and American Legion Halls. Marc DeLeon’s dad was a Vietnam vet so we had access to those venue. You had to have your dad or a connected family member help you out in those days.

But at Bam Bams there was harassment from the get go. That old parking lot was where everything went down. We learned about the ways and the woes of life right there. Even though it was rough and tough there was a common bond. We were all creating something new. Skinheads, punks, gays, everybody could go there and it was no big deal. Everybody for the most part got along. Bakersfield social misfits finally had a place to call their own and it was called Bam Bams.

As far as the owner, John Bentley? You loved him or hated him. Without him, where were you going to play? Who was going to give you the place to throw the shows? It’s no secret he was having some problems. A lot of us who are now in the entertainment business, we learned from that. Spike 1000s first CD that ever came out was dedicated to: “Bend me over gently, Bentley”. I don’t think it was a gay insult. A lot of bands felt screwed. I think as young bands, most of us were just happy to play.


Backstage as it appears today...

Cradle of Thorns would pack that place out. The first time I had ever seen Cesareo Garasa, Paperhouse was opening up for the lonely there.

Before Mento, Big Joe Vasquez was friends with Paperhouse. I ran into Joe there. “I’m going to stand here and make sure no one rushes the stage,” he said. Only 15 people were in attendance and big Joe was standing there with his arms crossed. I remember Mike Brown’s analog keyboard was so large he had to set it up on the floor near the stage. You know those white plastic Adirondack chairs you see at picnics? That’s what he sat on… He played trumpet in the BC marching band with us. He had to go outside of Bam Bams and calm down just because his band had gotten together and debuted. He was so excited. I will never be able to have that feeling again when Mento debuted. My bottom lip was shaking so much I had natural vibrato on my sax.

I was just this young guy from McFarland. I was developing my own musical identity as a performing musician. Some of the stuff I saw there I thought whoah man this is a trip. But I wasn't scared. Although for people on the outside it was a nightly Freak Show.

It was the punk rock Studio 54.

The only band I saw pack that place out was Cradle of Thorns. We played with Rice and Beans from Goleta and Let’s go Bowling from Fresno. That was a big show. KBCC had a fund raiser like the Radio Rain Dance called the Toe Jam. Me and Joe played horns with Lily Cigar. We headlined and we were young and everybody went crazy and were moshing to ska. We thought we were on to something here… We always talk about those Bam Bam days… It was closed for a long time afterwards. It was even a local museum. John Bentley tried to open it again, but it didn't happen.

About a year ago Frank Kruz re-opened the venue under a new name: Backstage. The space is about half the size as old Bam Bams, but boasts a great sound system, rock star lighting, and a wall covered in posters. I’ve attended a few shows, but the best thus far was a recent show with Dirty Spanglish, Hornz and Haloz and Fifth Wheel: all Bakersfield area bands.

At the end of the night I interviewed Dennis from Fifth Wheel, formerly from the recently retired Active Ingrediants: Bakersfield’s longest running punk rock band at 15 years. Dennis, who works at Front Porch Music near the Nile Theatre in downtown Bakersfield, is still punk rock. His new band boasts rural rock punk all the way: punk with a dash of the Bakersfield Sound. “You gotta keep to your roots,” he said in an interview at Backstage. Dennis reminds me a little of the gruff everyday man look and unique thrashing sounds of a Frank Black, mixed in with a punk skaterboy hipness and the working class toughness of wearing a punk-metal jacket honoring Metallica and Iron Maiden.

Only a few youth were in the house by the time Fifth Wheel performed. Most of the crowd had arrived for Hornz and Haloz. But that was enough for Dennis to speak out about the history of the venue, and to blacken the eye of Jerry’s Pizza a little.

Watch what Dennis had to say about Bam Bams of yesteryear and listen to one of their tunes:



I followed up Fifth Wheel’s performance with an interview with Dennis. Check it out:



Although I’m sure there are others (I just don’t hear about them) there are only a handful of really young high school age bands in Bakersfield. I was sad when Freedom Bleeds Chaos broke up. But there’s still The Pants, Smash the State, Aural Attack, and Dirty Spanglish who performed first at Backstage with Hornz and Haloz and Fifth Wheel.

I like that my kid Lando performs in a rock band that hits the Bakersfield scene. I’m really impressed that they’re maturing all the time. Between writing music and always pondering his next big film, Lando and the rest of Dirty Spanglish are rural rock punk that reflects a fun side of Bakersfield youth. “We just have a lot more fun things to talk about in our songs than what you usually hear in the Goth or emo music scene,” Lando said. Yeah, I know Lando and his buddies take their music seriously. He writes most of their songs and debuted another new pop punk ditty when they played Backstage.

And that’s cool, especially coming from a bunch of high school sophomores from Bakersfield High. These kids were mostly friends since attending Curran Junior High. They formed Dirty Spanglish their freshman year, have gone through a few drummers, with Chris being their latest, but everyone else are original members: Shaun and Nick.

Their songs have remained a vibrant youthful mix of punk energy and fun. It’s not the hardcore punk out of the bands associated with Bakersfield’s Going Underground Records that regularly perform at Munoz Gym. Some of those guys tour the country with virtuous intentions as the true torchbearers of rock from the Bakersfield punk scene.

There’s just a lot of different kinds of punk music coming out of Bakersfield.







Dirty Spanglish are punk-influenced kids having a good time with the pop side of the punk genre that I like to call rural rock punk. They’re influenced by old punk like the Dead Kennedys and new punk like The Filthies, and even play a decent cover of The Filthies' “Donut Shop”.

One Dirty Spanglish song titled, “The Big No” is a tongue and cheek anti-Fresno Falcon hockey song. They boast another hockey song titled “Zebras” which pokes at big-headed ice hockey referees. “She’s a Jones Soda” is about relationships, while “Electric” Lando says, “is a song about kids in a band practicing next door to a shop where the owner hates loud noise.”

I dig it.


Dirty Spanglish watches Hornz and Haloz

And don’t forget these rural rock punk kids play a mean cover of the Johnny Cash hit “Folsom Prison Blues”. Lando, a big fan of Bakersfield’s Crystal Palace venue, Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, is even in an alt country band called Black Dog (Named in honor of the now defunct Black Dog blog, and because Lando’s brother performs on a mean black violin) (Read the controversy about the band name Black Dog: The remnants of The Elitist Press tried to stir John Jones emotions over the name. I talked to John over the phone to assure him that the name Black Dog is a great name for a band, and honors the spirit of his old blog with great alt country covers and original tunes. One of the Buckaroos, Dave Wulfekuehler, is slated as their incognito drummer. Black Dog will debut this Saturday at The Empty Space Theatre from 4-6PM and will be accompaniedby Matt Munoz).

Check out an interview with Dirty Spanglish:



And then check out the band performing “Electric” ( I apologize for terrible sound. When I stand close to a band to get good images, guitar distortion kills the MIC. But check it out…! Oh yeah!)



The second band up for the night was the most popular of the evening. Why? Hornz and Haloz had a huge crowd! I’ve written before about the working class metal movement out of Bakersfield, and these guys who are all hard working Bakersfield men prove it.





Hornz and Haloz played a rock fusion of punk, classic rock, psychobilly, and metal and even finished up the night with a rousing encore. The crowd chanted “One more! One more!” and got it in style with an Back in Black-Born to be wild mix that had everyone going absolutely insane.

These working class twenty-something guys give a new name to “Bakersfield rock metal anthem” with dramatic guitar solos, dark bass riffs, and a lead man complete with rock star poses and a killer spiked mohawk.

Hornz and Haloz interview:



Hornz and Haloz performance (sorry about the sound):

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Thursday, December 21, 2006. You can leave your response.