Is it hard to be a rock promoter and also raise a young family?
Ralph Carrera: Uh, yeah, ha ha!  They kind of clash, you know what I mean?  It’s been hard to put on this event while raising a baby.
Totally!  But since back in the day, you’ve always had family around you—your brother was a part of Tiger Mask.
Ralph Carrera: Oh, yeah.  Rudy was the head buyer at Aaron’s Records for years, and he also was a psych and progressive rock collector—he’s been a big help to me over the years.  He’s an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and he’s been seriously considering becoming a monk.
Do you think he was just influenced by the band the Monks?
Ralph Carrera: Ha ha!  He just wanted their haircuts!
When did you start promoting shows?
Ralph Carrera: I started at this place in Hollywood in 1991, at this place called the Hollywood Boulevard Studios Auditorium, on the corner of Hollywood and Ivar, an all-ages venue and coffeehouse.  I was the house DJ there, underneath Nigel Mitchell—some people know him as “Biff.”  He’s in a band called Tunnelmental, and he was one of my mentors when I started promoting.  I started learning how to talent-buy and promote.  We had a bunch of great bands there—Ethyl Meatplow, and Tad, and Weezer before they were signed.
When did you graduate to doing your own shows?
Ralph Carrera: After the Auditorium shut down in early ’93, I kind of got into psychobilly, garage rock, and alternative.  I was contemplating doing a nightclub, and coffeehouses were really big at that time, around ‘94—Jabberjaw was the main place to play outside of places like the Troubadour, the main place where garage and surf bands were playing, and I really liked going to their shows.  I also liked going to go see greaser bands and punk bands play, like Total Disaster, and the Reverend Horton Heat.  And I was also tour-managing for bands like Sex Gang Children and the Meteors at that time, so I really had a driving need to start promoting after I got a taste of being on the road.
You went on the road with the Meteors?
Ralph Carrera: Oh yeah, we went up and down the coast twice, and went through the South.  I went on a national tour with Sex Gang Children, and Demented Are Go, and the Guana Batz.
What’s the craziest thing you saw as tour manager?
Ralph Carrera: One time in New York, I took a big hit of what I thought was going to be a joint or something, and it ended up being laced with PCP.  I started hallucinating and fell down a flight of stairs in the middle of a nightclub, and landed flat on my face.  I was so knocked out by the fall that I started hearing people saying “he’s dead!”  And in my mind, I thought I was a ghost, hovering over my body.  Some bouncers picked me up and threw me in a corner for the rest of the night.
And road experiences like these made you want to start your own club?
Ralph Carrera: Ha ha, yeah, and I was also heavily influenced by professional wrestling.  It was territories at the time, not like a national league.  And I’d watch wrestlers go from territory to territory, about 12 hours of wrestling per week.  And one wrestler’s name was Tiger Mask, a Japanese light-heavyweight wrestler.  He looked awesome, he was quick, he had a cool mask, and he had amazing matches, and I loved his name!  And years later, when I was record collecting and was thinking of a name for a club, I lifted the name “Tiger Mask,” because it just had kind of a 50’s, 60’s vibe to it.  It just rang in my head.
Whenever I think of biker chicks in 60’s movies, they’re always wearing leopard-print stuff, so “Tiger Mask” seems to fit.
Ralph Carrera: It was a very exotic name!  And that’s pretty much how it started.  I lifted the name from a Japanese wrestler, and we’d package garage and surf and blend it in with the modern punk, greaser, and glam bands of the time.  I was really into presenting a rock and roll package that nobody else was doing at the time, and really stepping up the marketing aspect.  I didn’t look at promoting as a local thing: I looked at it as a territory thing.  I would promote in all of Southern California.  I’d go out to Long Beach and San Gabriel Valley, all the record stores and clothing stores.  If I couldn’t drive out to them, I’d mail flyers to them.  It wasn’t just L.A.  And I think that’s initially why our club was successful: our scope was a little bit broader.  Our focus was narrow—it was rock and roll, garage-punk, rockabilly—but our coverage area was larger than most promoters.
How did you come to have shows at the legendary Hollywood Moguls?
Ralph Carrera: Well, if I remember correctly, I was tipped off about that venue by a friend of mine.  There was a promoter there that was doing shows, and I was currently at Bar Deluxe, and they said, “This room is pretty good!  You should see this band called the Bomboras.”  And I said, I know who they are, and I went down there.  I loved the layout, and I talked to the owner, and I told him, I think we can bring some people in here.  And he said, “Sure, go for it!”  And somehow it worked!  From 1996 to 1998 was a great time for Tigermask.  We were the hottest rock and roll club at that time.  We put on the best shows.  We almost always had a packed house—something like eight or nine sellout nights in a row.  It was a perfect venue.  They had free parking, drink prices were cheap, the layout was great, we got to show movies in the back room.  Everything you wanted with a club was there.  They had multiple rooms, it was right on Hollywood Boulevard.  No hassles from cops or Fire Marshalls.  It was eighteen and over!
I remember seeing a lot of wrestling at Hollywood Moguls.
Ralph Carrera: You’re talking about the Incredibly Strange Wrestling shows.  That was Johnny Legend.  He played for us a few times, and then he told me about his Incredibly Strange Rock and Roll Wrestling.  I loved the idea!  Basically, we acted as the promoters—we would book the talent, and he would book the wrestling and the PR, and all I did was handle the marketing and the band booking.  We stayed out of each other’s business pretty much.  And it worked!  He was really good at what he did.  My partners at Tiger Mask were good at what they did—they had a good street team going.  The only problem we had was that we didn’t have enough room!  It was cool was it lasted.
What was the best band/wrestling combo?
Ralph Carrera: I would have to say the Go-Nuts and Nashville Pussy.  Or maybe it was the Fuzztones night, when Chris Farley showed up!  The combination of having him involved, before he passed away, and having acts like the Go-Nuts who used what they called the “Snack-a-pult” to launch powdered sugar and packaged goodies out to the crowd, and making a mess of the club!
What brought it to a close?
Ralph Carrera: There was a neighbor who had issues with the club bringing negative attention to his hotel down the street.  I don’t remember all the details, but one person accused the other of doing illegal things, and it just got out of hand.  Moguls didn’t do anything wrong, but the neighbors were just complaining.  And unfortunately, it went down to a midnight curfew, where we couldn’t have bands performing after midnight.  It just wasn’t the same after that.
Can you tell me more about the Chris Farley night?
Ralph Carrera: The Fuzztones and Bomboras were playing one night.  And Chris Farley showed up with a group of people.  It was one of our wrestling shows, and that guy was just out of control, having a ball!  So he just hops up on the ring apron, and he starts getting involved in the match! He writes himself into the storyline.  And of course, our play-by-play guy basically just ad-libbed Chris Farley coming in on the storyline, as if he was supposed to be there.  Chris Farley acted like he was a manager, and started harassing one of the wrestlers.  Everyone was thrilled.  What was sad is that he did a skit on wrestling the week after on Saturday Night Live, before he died.
When did you move to the Garage?
Ralph Carrera: I believe that was 99.  We had a big wrestling/Tiger Mask wrestling show at the Hollywood Athletic Club that drew nearly a thousand people.  And as soon as we did that one show, the ownership changed.  And we had nowhere to go!  We do a big show, and now what?  At that time, L.A. was going through a lot of changes in night clubs, as it does every few years or so, and Steve Edelson said, “hey, why don’t you promote at my club?”  I’d known Steve for a few years—he was always good to me, and still is.  But he wanted me to do a weekly/bi-weekly basis, which I wasn’t too sure about, because prior to that we were doing it monthly.  And there were a lot of other promoters at the Garage at that time, which I’m never a big fan of.  Because you know, you have one or two promoters inside a club besides the in-house people, and it’s not really your home base.  My ideal situation is an in-house club where they do promotion in-house, and you maybe come in once a month, and maybe there’s another night that is doing something different than us, and you kind of establish your own night.  Out there, where you’re booking the same bands, the prices get jacked up on the talent, and promoters are fighting for the same bands, and there’s a lot of problems with that.  But I loved the Garage in a lot of ways, because it wasn’t a huge club to fill up.  We could do more shows, and we could take more risks.  We could try to bring in more talent or do new things.
Do you remember the night Rudy Ray Moore played there with the Flash Express?
Ralph Carrera: Oh yeah, I was Rudy Ray Moore’s agent for a few years as well.  And one night, on my birthday, he happened to be outside the Garage, and I said, “Rudy, it’s my birthday.  Won’t you come say hi to the crowd?”  So Rudy came in and did his magic.
It was with the Flash Express, and he came on and said, “I got a big dick!  I like to spread them pussies good.”
Ralph Carrera: Yeah, that old chestnut.
At the time, I remember lots of rumors that he was gay, but it was never confirmed.
Ralph Carrera: Uh, I will not confirm it either.
What were the best nights at the Garage?
Ralph Carrera: Every night there seemed like a party.  Guitar Wolf.  Zen Guerilla.  The Real Kids.  We had a Bomp 20^th Anniversary Show, where we had the Zeros, and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and Wayne Kramer, and Beachwood Sparks.  We had a lot of stoner rock, like High on Fire.  It definitely got more punk and more rock.  We started developing more of a rock audience.
What was the most eclectic show you ever did?
Ralph Carrera: One show that I’m very proud of, at Mr. T’s Bowl, I had the Warlocks, Throw Rag, Beck, the Bomboras, and the Demolition Doll Rods all on one night.
You booked the Warlocks before almost anybody else!  Is that why the Warlocks are playing the Las Vegas Shakedown?
Ralph Carrera: Bobby Hecksher is an old friend of mine, and I’ve always been a fan of Spaceman 3 and psychedelic bands.  And I think having the Warlocks and Spindrift play my event is something that most garage-rock festivals don’t do.  The Warlocks are co-headlining with Andre Williams!
When Andre Williams played the original Las Vegas Shakedown, in 2000, did you think he would be around in another ten years to play again?
Ralph Carrera: I thought he’d be dead the year after!  Myself and Andre Williams had gotten into a major fight just a few days before that, in Portland.  I was his agent for years, but we argued about things we just had no business arguing about.  I was surprised he showed up in Vegas.
What was your inspiration for the first Shakedown?
Ralph Carrera: Tom, who was DJ’ing with me, came to me and said, “Look, I’m having success with this event called Viva Las Vegas, and I’m thinking about doing a punk weekender.”  And I said, yeah, but I wouldn’t just do a punk event.  I would want to do a rock and roll event.  You can pigeonhole punk, and I just saw that the kind of fans that we were looking for weren’t into so much punk, but they were more into rock and roll as a whole.  And he saw what we were shooting for, and he said, okay, let’s do it!  I didn’t want to do it purist.  This one we take the vintage element, but we book contemporary bands, because those are the ones that will drive the press, those are the ones that are going to get us a crowd that we wouldn’t normally get.  And the event was very successful.  First time events normally don’t do that well, and we were lucky.
The Real Kids played the first Shakedown.  And the Donnas—they were only like 16 at the time.  Did they get crazy?
Ralph Carrera: No, they were very professional!  Totally cool.  But it was so fun.  Having Andre and Rudy Ray together at the same place was a blast.  And the likes of Johnny Legend, the Dictators, the Real Kids, the Murder City Devils, Electric Frankenstein, the Cheater Slicks, Dead Moon… Europe doesn’t even have weekenders like that.
What was the scariest part of the weekend?
Ralph Carrera: I think it was right before the Dictators played.  A number of security guards swooped down on a lot of heavily intoxicated people.  They must have taken 20 or 30 people away right before the Dictators took the stage.  They came in like an army, and started grabbing people left and right!  They Dictators were the last band of the last night, and they wanted to do crowd control early.  That was probably a smart move by the hotel, but that was intimidating to watch.
You weren’t allowed back at the Gold Coast the next year.
Ralph Carrera: I think it was a business decision on the part of the Gold Coast.  To mix a rock and roll crowd with a business that caters to the elderly, to cowboys, and to rodeo fans—it’s a big contrast!  If you’re not spending money on gaming, they don’t want you.  That’s the bottom line.  And if our crowd is scaring away their crowd, it doesn’t make sense for them to do an event for this.  It might have been great for hotel sales and bar sales—the managers at the time were saying how great it was—but not the gaming managers!  More than anything, that was the reason that the Shakedown didn’t end up happening at the Gold Coast.  And it’s too bad.  That was the perfect place for it.
The next year you had a good lineup, too.  I think you had DMZ reform?
Ralph Carrera: The second Shakedown was turning out good, with a good line-up.  But the second year, it wasn’t inside a casino, and a lot of the bands that we attracted were bands who at that time were starting to break.  That works for you, and it works against you—we had the White Stripes booked, but they outgrew the event and had to go tour with Sleater-Kinney in Europe.  The Warlocks, same thing.  They got too big too quick.  And 911 happened!  The event happened two weeks after 911, and a lot of bands cancelled.  But there were a lot of bands being real troopers, like the Swinging Neckbreakers and the Fleshtones, who said “We are playing this thing no matter what,” and I really appreciated that.
Who’s on the line-up for this weekend?
Ralph Carrera: The way it’s set up this year is a lot different from how it was set up in previous years.  It’s like a pub crawl or a bar hop along Fremont Street.  It’s really hip, there’s a whole lot of development going on there right now, and it’s the most ideal place to do an event!  I figured, I’ll have these clubs going on at the same time on Fremont Street, free parking, cheap drinks, everything’s walking distance, all in the same area, and it’s so convenient and cost-effective!  It just makes physical sense.
More of a Vegas event this time.
Ralph Carrera: Oh yeah, absolutely.  That’s what sold me.  The crowd I’m promoting to, that’s where they want to be.  Right there on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street, you have the Beauty Bar, the Brass Lounge, and the Las Vegas Country Saloon.  These clubs are right next to each other, all the hotels are all walking distance, and the Fremont Street Experience is going to go off for sure!
What happened to make you kind of get out of the promoting game for so many years?
Ralph Carrera: The L.A. Shakedown.  It was a hard event to put through.  Originally it was going to be in Pasadena, and then the Hollywood Athletic Club.  And then my partners in the Hollywood Athletic Club left town, and there wasn’t a contract signed, so their manager took another deposit, so we had to move it to the Variety Art Center.  And everything was set to go, and we were looking forward to the event for about a month.  And then the owner, I guess started getting cold feet on the event, because he had Cock Sparrer playing a year earlier, and there was a riot downtown, shattered glass on Figueroa Boulevard.  So he said, “Take your deposit, we’re not going to do the event.”  And mind you, this is a week before the event!  And at that point, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do.  I thought, well, I can just cancel by the event, but sort-of luckily, the Grand Avenue decided to let us do the event.  And we decided to fit as many people as we could into the event, but we could only get I think 1200, and we ended up turning away 3, maybe 700 people.  That’s a lot of people to turn away!  I think at that event I paid a third of the talent, and the other money was just sitting a few feet in front of me, but I had no room to put them in.  They couldn’t open the top floor, which had a 1500 person capacity.  So I had 1200 people on the bottom floor, and I could have fit in at least another 1500 paying customers, and I would have been okay.
It almost worked, but it didn’t.
Ralph Carrera: It almost worked, and it didn’t.  And after that, I had a lawsuit that settled out of court, and I decided not to promote again.  After taking a hit that bad, it makes you go, “Uh, this maybe isn’t worth it.”  It was a hard thing to go through.
Musically, as well as culturally, are things in a better place now than they were then?
Ralph Carrera: Things were a lot different when I started again.  MySpace was there, Indie 103 was there.  There was a lot of assistance.  The days of flyers and taking out big ads and spending a lot of money on advertising is I guess a thing of the past, not as necessary as it used to be.  The weird thing is that the labels started disappearing!  You find out about bands on MySpace that you normally would have found out about through labels.  But the labels you’d go to for the best bands, or a lot of times where you got your knowledge of certain scenes or bands, who’s selling how many records, and who likes them—you don’t really have that anymore.  It’s a different marketing landscape, a different information landscape, and, you know, it was exciting!  I wasn’t used to it, but I said, okay.  It’s like riding a bike—you don’t forget!