TANGENT SUNSET

"Whatever Happened To The Beat Villains?"
by Alex Cosper


So close and yet so far...

The Beat Villains were my first band. We played live shows in Sacramento throughout the nineties and made a few recordings. Looking back on why the band didn't make it despite big opportunities, I'd have to say it just needed a lot more work, especially on my part. I simply did not have the time to dedicate myself to a music career and a radio career at the same time. The band ended up having a different line-up with almost every gig. I simply couldn't keep a unit together, it just kept falling apart. But the band actually made money and had fans and was even considered by major record labels before it completely dissolved in the late nineties.

For what it was, the Beat Villains actually had an amazing buzz around town for awhile, partly because I talked about it sometimes on my radio show. As I learned from my radio career, just because something gets played or mentioned on the air, doesn't mean it will be a hit. In fact, most new songs that get played on the air turn out to be rejected by the public in the long run. The Beat Villains were ironically a genuine crowd pleaser, despite the fact that I held the band back artistically in many ways.

After scoring local airplay and great response to my song "Waves On The West Coast" in 1989, I decided I wanted to keep on making recordings while working in radio at the same time. Well, it didn't exactly work out that way. I was fired from KWOD in late 1989 because a new management team came in and decided to make radical changes - that didn't quite work out. So they hired me back in 1991 and I was on the air again. I then created a local artist show Sunday nights because I had a lot of friends in local bands and I wanted to do them a favor. I also wanted to do myself a favor and have some kind of outlet where I could slip in my own music in a way that wasn't so blatantly self-promoting.

Whereas "Waves On The West Coast" was played around the clock, I decided from then on if I were to play my own record on the air, it would be in the context of other local music. And it wouldn't be every week, just whenever I made a new recording. My co-host Morris B (later known as Morris Knight on San Francisco classic soul station KQSR "Kiss FM") wrote and recorded songs as well. Subsequent hosts such as Aaron Kinney and David Conley on the show called "The Sound of Sacramento" also slipped in their own songs from time to time. I hosted the show the first year and it was mainly through this show that I was able to become known in the local band scene.

My songwriting repertoire had been steadily growing since high school. I now had over a hundred songs, but maybe only twenty were presentable to other musicians. After recording "Waves On The West Coast" with Harrison Price in 1989, I moved on later that year to work with Producer David Houston, who arranged and produced seven songs that I sung. He seemed legendary because he had produced hit artists such as Club Nouveau and Tony! Toni! Tone!

But by 1991 I had grown tired of the synth sound and wanted to do something more rockin' so I switched to Paradise Recording Studios, where I worked with the production team of Kurt & Craig, who engineered for Tesla. I certainly didn't want to do a hair band thing because my hair wasn't long enough and my attitude wasn't bad ass enough. I wanted to do modern rock, but I also wanted to work with someone who knew how to record guitar-bass-n'-drums only. No more keyboards - I wanted a more authentic sound as opposed to a slick sound. One of the songs they produced for me was called "Orange Underworld," which would be a future Tangent Sunset song and the name of my publishing company.

Kurt & Craig did a good job but the only reason I didn't stay with them was that I found a new producer who would work with me at no cost. His name was David Conley. I met him in 1991 at Naja Davis' house. Naja was my high school friend (and future Raiderette) who sung background on a song for me called "Survival" in 1989 during the David Houston phase. She had me DJ her wedding and David was the husband of Naja's sister Carla. David was also the first manager for the band Cause & Effect, who were signed to Zoo Entertainment/BMG and had a few national hits such as "What Do You See" and "You Think You Know Here." David was heavily into techno music and tried to push me back into that direction musically. He was convinced that was where music was heading. It was actually David who influenced me more than anyone to launch the local show "The Sound of Sacramento" on KWOD.

David produced a few recordings for me in his little home studio throughout 1992. He even got me to play my first live gig in his modern rock cover band called the Plastic Violets. David played keyboards and had me pose as a bass player even though the bass lines were coming from sequencers, not me - at least for the first set. The second set was live - and that's when I learned that I was no bass player, maybe even not a real musician at all. I kept trying to tell David in practices leading up to the gig that I wasn't ready but he kept saying "you'll do fine."

David figured the bass lines were too simple to mess up - even for a beginner. What David didn't understand was that even though I had been strumming guitar since 1976, I had no clue about rhythm. I simply did not understand timing and I couldn't seem to communicate to any musician what my weakness was. That night at Candlerock Lounge has become a blur to me now. All I remember was that the first set - all sequenced - was flawless and the crowd of about 100 people ate it up. The second set - all live - opened with Nirvana's "Come As You Are" and I blew it from the first note. It sounded worse than the worst garage band and the crowd quickly thinned out. Needless to say, the gig was a disaster and David promptly fired me after one gig. It was probably that experience more than anything that convinced me I needed to get out of techno all together and learn to play a damn instrument.

But David and I remained friends and he continued to invite me over to his house to record. One of the recordings he produced for me was called "Deeper Cult Awareness" which eventually was reworked into the future Tangent Sunset song "Dr. Demise." Other future Tangent Sunset songs we worked on included "Everyday Hideaway" and "Skeleton River." I liked David's musicianship and production skills but I knew deep in my heart that I was lacking something as far as performance quality. I knew how to write songs and I could strum chords on a guitar and I could sing within a narrow range, but I just didn't have that naturally comfortable sound that people expect. My performance skills were sluggish and awkward.

David actually agreed to play live with me again for a gig that he set up. I came up with the name The Beat Villains because in my mind I had a way of killing the beat of the music. In June I met a drummer named Ron Givens at a night club and he agreed to play bongos for the gig set July 4 at Java City in Downtown Sac. We did mostly my original songs and a few covers such as "Things We Said Today" by the Beatles and another attempt at "Come As You Are" by Nirvana. This time we pulled it off. It was a packed house - mainly because it was an Independence Day celebration. We invited several friends and were given a warm response. It was that gig that made me realize that I can be a live musician after all.

In August a record company friend of mine name Bill Pfordresher (who worked at Curb Records at the time and later Elektra) invited me to hang with him for a week in Los Angeles. He had heard some of my home recordings and David's production. He particularly liked the songs "Everyday Hideaway" and "Alien Sunset" and decided to book some studio time for me with his buddies in Malibu to re-record these songs. Bill's main claim to fame up to that point was that he had worked in the studio with Ambrosia during their hit success years in the early eighties. Bill eventually helped Kenny Wayne Shepherd get a record deal.

At this session I felt very comfortable. It was a small studio with keyboards everywhere. Bill's two producer friends laid down the basic keyboard tracks after listening to my demo. As much as I tried to get away from the synth sound, they had a way of making it all sound legit, plus I insisted on throwing acoustic guitar on top of it. The session took all day and when it was over both Bill and I were very happy with the results. For whatever reason, though, it went nowhere from there even though I was sure both songs could be national hits.

As KWOD's very first alternative music festival in October 1992 approached I became more serious about my music career. I asked Station Manager Gerry Cagle if my band could open the festival and he had no problem with it. We even added KWOD's night jock Ally Storm to the line-up since she could sing and play saxophone. Ally would later become a radio star in San Francisco doing middays at Live 105. She was good looking, had a good-sounding radio show on KWOD and was a talented musican. So David, Ron, Ally and I practiced at David's house frequently. In the meantime I had Kevin Pratt at Bill Rase Recording Studio compile my best studio recordings from various producers and put together an album on cassette. This first Beat Villains album was called West Coast Pop Art Revival and included Kevin's remix of "Waves On The West Coast" as well as "Alien Sunset" and "Everyday Hideaway."

On October 7 the Beat Villains opened the station festival called "KWOD-a-palooza," which of course was named after the popular national festival "Lollapalooza." It was held outdoor at the Radisson in North Sacramento for a capacity crowd of about 1,000 people. Most people showed up early to catch the full line-up, which included Miss World, Material Issue, Cause & Effect and headliner Shakespeare's Sister, who had a huge current modern rock hit called "Stay." I'm willing to bet the main draw, though, was local heroes Cause & Effect, who were gaining national attention. Sadly, it would be the last time Sacramento would see keyboardist/singer Sean Rowley in action. He died a month later in Minneapolis from cardiac arrest triggered by an asthma attack. KWOD jock Michael Hayes preserved the entire show on video.

While none of us could foresee the tragedy that would strike Cause & Effect, we all had a great time at the show. The crowd reaction to the Beat Villains was incredible. This time I was very comfortable and was well-rehearsed, as I had now become pretty familiar with my own material, especially songs like "Everyday Hideway" and "Alien Sunset." David, who played keyboards, got to share the spotlight by singing one of his songs. Ally also sang one of her songs. All together we did seven songs. At one point I stopped to tell the crowd "we have free cassettes in the back for the first hundred people who want one." I had no idea that the entire crowd would suddenly rush over to the booth to collect their cassette. It was a mob scene and I was stunned. Then again, it was free, so maybe that had something to do with it. I was pretty sure after the gig was over from watching the video that we upstaged all the other acts except maybe Cause & Effect.

In my mind the Beat Villains were on a roll and headed for the big time. But as usual, what slowed the progress of the band down was the fact that I had to put in a lot of work at KWOD, where I wore many hats. In January 1993 Gerry Cagle left for a music industry job in L.A. and I was given much more responsibilities. I was already Program Director and Midday Personality, but with Cagle's departure I was now in total charge of programming and only had to report to the owner, who left a lot of the decision-making up to me. So I ended up spending more time at KWOD and less time concentrating on the Beat Villains.

Nevertheless, throughout 1993 I booked recording time with yet another producer, Aaron Kinney, who had a studio Downtown called PasKey. For reasons I can't remember David Conley, Ally Storm and Ron Givens all dropped out of the Beat Villains so I had to find new players. Through a local band I liked called Mature Innocence, I was introduced to drummer John Young, who had just moved to Sacramento from Los Angeles, where he had grown tired of the glam scene. John and I had a lot of the same musical tastes - being Beatle fans. David Conley had also been a huge Beatle fan, which is kind of why I liked working with him even though I kept trying to move out of techno. But while David had thought rock was dying, John still had a positive sense that rock was evolving. I liked the fact that not only could John play drums, he could play guitar and sing as well. After he introduced me to his bassist friend George Peterburs the Beat Villains had a new line-up.

We practiced a few times at John's house but most of what came out of the PasKey sessions was the result of on the spot playing on the part of John and George. They pretty much showed up a few times and nailed the tracks. As for me, I was still uncomfortable singing in the studio environment. I also had to deal with Aaron Kinney, who was more of a techno keyboardist producer, even though he said his all-time favorite band was Led Zeppelin. He seemed to be another musician who had thought rock had run its course and was zooming into the emerging world of techno. So it was hard for me to communicate to him that I wanted to make a rock record that sounded modern. His idea of modern rock, like so many other musicians at the time, was that guitars were being overtaken by synthesizers. I didn't mind hearing his or other people's techno music, it just wasn't really what I wanted to create.

The project was finished in March 1993 and ended up being another free cassette release of the Beat Villains. The album was called Freestyle and featured my own cover art (see above) of a wacky cartoon depicting weird-looking characters who appeared to be dancing awkwardly. I didn't believe it was undanceable music, I just believed it was something besides typical dance music. The album featured a new version of "Everyday Hideaway" and a kookie song called "Level Headed Penguin." Like the last album, I made up about two hundred cassette copies and gave them away free to friends and industry people. From there it kind of went nowhere. The song that got the strongest reaction was "Level Headed Penguin" in which the lyrics were as follows:

LEVEL HEADED PENGUIN
by Alex Cosper

You come from a different class
that's why I just have to ask
where do you get your information?
could it be the level headed penguin?

You think you can hypnotize
that's why you think you are wise
you're so convinced you'll sweep the nation
guided by the level headed penguin

Control is what they preach (level headed, level headed)
your soul is within reach (level headed, level headed)
don't you wanna have power? (level headed, leaded)
more intense than flower power

Now you tie logic in a web
making sure the strings connect
then you salute your congregation
workin' for the level headed penguin

Control is what they preach (level headed, level headed)
your soul is within reach (level headed, level headed)
don't you wanna have power? (level headed, leaded)
more intense than flower power

Now if your show comes on TV
don't think you'll be selling me
because I'll be alert to change the station
turning off the level headed penguin

I'm gonna turn you off, gonna turn you off, I'm gonna turn you off, gonna turn you off...

© 1989 Alex Cosper. All Rights Reserved.



As KWOD's ratings began to rise in 1993, under my programming, I began to focus more on radio than music. In fact, I kind of forgot all about the Beat Villains for about a year. Then in February 1994 I got together with John Young again to record ten new tracks for yet another album. This time I had an idea to make the recording very spontaneous. I wanted John just to come in and lay down all his drum tracks in one session even though we didn't spend much time together rehearsing the songs. To me, I didn't know much about drums anyway and figured whatever happened on drums would be fine. So John came into Aaron's studio, which was now at his friend Mark's house and hammered through ten songs in one session.

After John did his part it seemed like I kept coming back to the studio time after time recutting vocals for the same songs and was just never satisfied. I was just too wrapped up in KWOD to really devote time to getting the songs down right. I was constantly going to concerts, having dinner with industry people and just spending long nights at KWOD trying to compete in the radio market with lots of imagination and limited promotional resources. It turned out to pay off on the radio side, but the new Beat Villains album ended up getting scrapped except for one song called "Joker X."

Somehow throughout the haze of constant radio work I was able to put together a Beat Villains gig for PBS-TV station KVIE Channel 6 on June 25, 1994. My friend Rick Neal, who formerly worked at KWOD, actually talked another former KWOD employee, Greg Hopke, who was now in charge of KVIE promotions to put my band on the bill. It was supposed to be some kind of festival event, but what it turned out to be was a super-low turnout in which we played for a sparse crowd of about ten people. It still seemed great to play at a TV station's festival, but you have to remember the last Beat Villains gig was in front of about a thousand people. Going from a thousand to ten can be a bit demoralizing, but then again, neither gig had anything to do with us being a main attraction. We were just there for the exposure - if you can actually call it that.

But my excitement level for the Beat Villains picked up again in March 1995 when Karen Holmes, my former Music Director who followed Cagle to Los Angeles, informed me that she had talked her boss at VirtuallyAlternative (a magazine I would later write articles for) into including the song "Joker X" on the trade publication's CD sampler issued to alternative and rock stations around the country. The sampler was sent to radio stations on April 18 and I gave it to Ally to play on her nightly music test to see what the audience reaction would be. To my horror, out of the fifteen calls she put on the air only six liked the song. The ones who liked it sounded over 18 while the ones who trashed it were definitely much younger than 18.

I had thought the lyrics alone would entertain people since they were kind of nutty. But I was also cautious that "cool people" might perceive it as a slam or satire on cults. Or maybe people might think I was putting down the so-called "generation X," which was supposedly our target audience. I don't know if it was the lyrics or the overly-pronounced bouncy rhythm (like a sixties swing record) that turned off the teens, not that it was a scientific survey to begin with. I just knew that I wasn't going for teens anyway. I wanted the forward-thinking adult crowd that wanted something with more depth than the typical vagueness of bar rock. The lyrics went like this:

JOKER X
by Alex Cosper

If you want me to join your secret society
I'm curious but I need to know more
I'm not a sucker for a scam that tries to make me feel insecure
I don't just fall through any open door

And when I read between the lines
I see the signs are so complex
it's not too clear what's going on here
in the acceptance of Joker X

Joker X is a strange, hard to explain character type
but just a little recognition makes an alter ego shine
and if you find that you're not of the norm
Joker X will invite you to conform

Joker X is a mask made of anything you decide
Joker X covers up everything you want to hide

Joker X will be looking for you
when the moon shines in your eyes
Joker X will resemble you
when you put on your disguse...
put on your disguise

© 1994 Orange Underworld Music, BMI. All Rights Reserved.


Meanwhile, Ron Givens told me about a new producer to work with named Michael Sylvestre (aka Stubby). Stubby's claim to fame was that he won a huge lawsuit against the band Warrant for plagurizing his song "Heaven," which he had shopped around to the industry prior to it being recorded and becoming a huge national hit. Stubby was also friends with Tesla and had produced a lot of local rock music at his studio called The Attic. I definitely wanted to get into the warmer analog studio environment all along, yet I kept hooking up with people who ran digital studios. I went ahead and recorded a haunting groove ballad called "One Long Winter" for KWOD's upcoming flood relief album called Overflow. In fact, I had Stubby compile all the tracks for the album from various local bands. Stubby was allowed to contribute one of his songs from his funk/rock band Love Symphony.

The first ten tracks on the Overflow CD all had to do with the devastation caused by the recent flooding in the Sacramento area, which cost many people their homes. Most of these songs were based on lyrics put together by the KWOD audience. It was a fun and unique project. I had listeners call in on my show to contribute a phrase or line and then gave these lyrics to local bands and had them set it to music. There was a lot of enthusiasm from the community about this project because it supported local bands as well as the Red Cross. The idea was to throw a concert and anyone could show up for free and get a free copy of the CD in exchange for a canned food item. On the CD jacket, songwriting credit was given to all couple hundred contributors.

Following these ten tracks was a "hidden album" of ten more tracks. The name of this hidden album was Buried Treasures and it featured ten local bands who sang about various themes. As a tribute to Jim Pantages, a local musician and television cameraman who had been murdered after a gig on the K Street Mall in 1995, I included one of his songs as a hidden track upon family approval. I knew Jim personally. Rick Neal introduced me to him in 1989 during the time "Waves On The West Coast" was getting airplay. Jim, Rick and I actually got together for a rehearsal once after I had been asked to perform the song live at the California State Fair, but the gig never materialized. The venue where he was murdered also paid tribute to him by renaming the place the Panatages Theatre.

The Overflow CD was released in December 1995 and the concert was held at the Classic Jukebox in Roseville. The Beat Villains were the opening band and played for a crowd of about 175 people. The line-up included Ron Givens on drums and Jason Smith, who I met through Ron, on bass. At that show Ron introduced me to another drummer named Jimmy Brasier, who actually played with Green Day before they were famous when they were known as Sweet Children. At the scene was Frank Simpson from TV station Channel 31, who interviewed me and covered the event as a top story on their 10 O'Clock newscast that evening. By the end of the night we had given out 425 CDs in exchange for a greater number of canned goods, which made the Red Cross happy.

Although we spun "One Long Winter" a few times on KWOD I preferred that we give more airplay to the other artists on the album, because I felt I had already had my share of airplay from "Waves On The West Coast" six years earlier. So every hour for the next month I let the jocks play whatever track they wanted off the album. It was the beginning of KWOD playing local artists every hour for the next year. Cake had broken nationally in 1995 and there was a sense of excitement that more Sacramento bands were about to hit the big time.

One of the bands that looked poised for national success was Chance The Gardener out of Davis. They had just been signed to Warner Brothers and were building a following around town. I liked their music, which was introduced to me by their young manager Zack Layton, who was also a regular listener to my midday show and always tried to get me to play more of the Brit pop bands, who were fading from popularity due to the Seattle explosion. Now he was pitching Americana music, which included Chance The Gardener. We started playing their song "Smoke" and then "Boise" in regular rotation along with other local bands who weren't even signed to major labels such as Tattooed Love Dogs and As Yet Untitled. Mother Hips were signed to American Recordings but they pretty much stayed a regional band and we gave them a ton of airplay as well. We were even playing the hard-edged Deftones at night, who were now signed to Maverick.

In early 1996 Zack Layton convinced me to have the Beat Villains open for Chance The Gardener at a small coffeehouse gig in Elk Grove. I'm sure he saw the promotional value of an on-air personality from Sacramento's most listened to rock station being the opening act. Of course I promoted the gig on the air like all the other jocks did, but mostly because we had started playing Chance The Gardener and were supporting the local scene. The March 22 gig attracted about 75 people and it marked the first time the Beat Villains got paid, which was a whopping $75. By now the line-up included Jimmy Brasier on drums, Ron Givens on guitar, Jason Smith on bass and myself on guitar and vocals. I stumbled through the set, forgetting my own lyrics at times. But somehow the show still felt good, partly because I added witty comments in between songs.

On April 14 we played possibly our dumbest gig of all at a small place in Placerville called the Attic. It was dumb because I invited a friend from the record industry to check us out and it just turned out to be a low turnout of 16 people and a bad performance triggered by poor room acoustics and a lousy engineer. Whoever it was had all the instruments drowning me out, so I might as well have not been there. It was also a long ass 50 mile drive just to play for free. The record friend, Chris Bacca, was a promoter at the time but later got Save Ferris their deal with Epic. Chris told me we weren't ready to be signed. And you know what? He was absolutely right. We were sloppy and noisy. The only other memorable thing about the show was that a local band named Triple O Nine opened for us and they went on to become a top local band several years later under the name 7th Standard.

The next KWOD local artist CD project would also feature a few Beat Villains tracks as well as one from Chance The Gardener. It was a clean air awareness album called Transcentury Detour, which encouraged people to drive less and be more conscious of the environment. The reason I picked this theme was that Sacramento now was rated seventh worst city in the nation for air quality. David Conley contributed an eerie track about pollution called "Breathe" under the name Taint. Naja Davis also came up with a haunting song that warned about pollution called "Brown Air." Cherry Murmur, who featured Jimmy Brasier on drums, covered one of my songs called "Story of the Open Road," which loosely and metaphorically documented the history of the automobile. The Beat Villains contribution was a song called "Contour Drive," which finally had the R.E.M. type sound I was looking for thanks to Stubby's warm production and my improved guitar playing. It was a song about trying to escape a polluted environment. We also did the title track, which was simply an upbeat surfy pop/rock instrumental under the name Cultural Dissolve. The album of ten songs concluded with "an underground talk show" featuring Ron Givens and myself talking about the probable causes and possible solutions of air pollution.

But the Transcentury Detour idea did not have the same impact as the previous projects I had orchestrated. I remember one person flippantly saying to me "Transexual what now?" Then the gig at the outdoor patio venue Paradise Beach in Citrus Heights on July 20 surely marked the project as mediocre when it drew a painfully obvious low turnout despite a week of on- air hype. We even promised everyone who showed up a free CD but the gig only drew about 100 people that afternoon. The problem was, it was only about ten to twenty people at a time who filtered in and out on that very hot 100 degree scorching day. The venue could easily hold a thousand people, so that made it even more embarrassing.

The Beat Villains, as usual, were the opening act. We had narrowed down to a three piece with just Jimmy, Jason and myself as Ron had defected to David's band Taint. The good news was that we were becoming a tighter band and the performance was smoother than usual. It was the first time I had ever performed "Waves On The West Coast" live in public, so it meant something to me, even if only ten people watched and didn't realize the song had been a hit on the radio six years earlier. Chance The Gardener, the major label headliner who had more airplay in town than any other local band, also played for a sparse crowd. After the event even Zack came up to me and said "this gig was a bust."

It was a far cry from the exciting optimism just a few months earlier when the Beat Villains opened for Chance The Gardener at Old Ironsides, a club that only held 200 people, but was packed. It was Chance The Gardener's major label CD release party on May 17. We played to a screaming crowd despite having a last minute stand-in on bass. Jason couldn't make it because his father passed away that week. I completely understood but the show still had to go on, so a couple days before the gig I went on the air and asked if anyone wanted to play bass and I immediately got a call from Clay Burden, who offered to step up to the plate. He did virtually one rehearsal with us and pulled off all the songs. Of course, they were all simple songs except for quirky time changes here and there, but I was totally amazed that he sounded like he had practiced with us for years. Also in that line-up was lead guitarist Scott George, who I met through Jimmy as they both played in Cherry Murmur.

Five days after the Paradise Beach show on July 25 I drove to San Francisco and hung out at an annual radio industry bash known as The Gavin Convention. I ended up in a room with other alternative radio programmers who chose the music for their stations. One of them was Mark Hamilton, who I had known for years. He was now programming KNRK in Portland, Oregon. I played for him on a walkman headset the Beat Villains song "Orange Underworld," which we had recently re-recorded at Stubby's studio. He liked it and said, "I would play this." It gave me new hope that we were on the right track, but I never followed up on it and nothing ever happened with it. I guess I figured we'd eventually put it out on CD (instead of a cassette) and at that point when the package looked more professional I would send it to him.

In August the Beat Villains were back in action as the middle band with headliner Chance The Gardener and opener Triple O Nine. It was at Harlow's, which was kind of an elite jazzy place for hip insiders. We had actually played two songs there in March during a Tattooed Love Dogs intermission and got a good reaction in front of a full house of about a hundred people. It was full again, as the club tended to be on weekends no matter who played. Even though we played for free it was a return to playing for a good size audience and it felt good. Somehow, though, we were double booked that night and had to hurry off to Old Ironsides after the set. So we played for a hundred more people that night, this time for $60. We were the middle act but our show kind of cut into the playing time of the headliner Sex 66 and Jimmy kept getting dirty looks from their drummer Dan Grady. That was probably because everyone knew that crowds at Old I tended to thin out after midnight no matter who the headliner was. But it all worked out and we hung out and had laughs afterwards. I didn't know it at the time, but Dan's brother George, who I met a few months later, would someday become my business partner and we would put together Sacramento's first internet station SacLive.

The next Beat Villains gig would come in September at an all ages club in Roseville called River Rock Cafe. It was small but held 200 people and it was a very packed house that night. It was always packed because it was one of the few places in town where teens could check out a local show at night. The headliner was As Yet Untitled, who had a familiar nice melodic song on KWOD called "Across The Water." Most of their music, though, had a more worldbeat/rock hybrid sound and they definitely had a huge local following. Unfortunately it was one of those gigs where I stumbled in my playing and singing all because I still had not mastered the art of timing. The most awkward moment was when I switched to bass, an instrument I still didn't quite understand, and tried to play and sing at the same time. The song had the simplest bass line/chord progressions in my whole repertoire. It was "Everyday Hideaway," which simply repeated the same notes (G-C-D-A) over and over. In theory a monkey could play that song. Yet I found a way to lose my place and mess up the timing. Even so, the audience gave us a loud cheering applause.

After the set I knew I had been busted by drummer Jimmy. I might be able to fool a crowd of kids but I know I didn't fool him. He just nodded his head "no" and didn't accept my alibi that everything was cool. He said it was sketchy and I knew he was right, but at the same time I wanted to look at the positives. For Jimmy, though, sketchy is skethcy and there's no way to candy coat it. My date, though, Vicki, said she liked it, which made me feel a little better on top of the fact that we made $40, which is actually good money for screwing up in public, even being split three ways. The only one else who came up to me to let me know it wasn't that great was a fan of my radio show. He was a middle-aged attorney who told me I better stick with radio. The irony, though, was that my radio career was about to take a big nose dive - and so was my music career for that matter.

But the Beat Villains were not quite over with yet even though there was still a mix of good and bad to come. On October 5 we played a kick ass gig on a kick ass bill with the Plimsouls and Oleander at the Press Club, which was a tiny shoe box venune that crammed in 75 people. The Plimsouls had just headlined a major KWOD festival a few months earlier for 2000 people (in which the main attraction was the quickly rising sexy Jewel) and now they were doing this small gig that made it look like they were on the way down and we were on the way up. Oleander were friends of mine who had appeared several times as guests on "The Sound of Sacramento" under their previous name Jack. They were now getting a ton of airplay in town - not on KWOD but on our competitor KRXQ who jumped on the song "Down When I'm Loaded." They had just been signed to Universal, which was about to become the biggest record label on the planet.

We made a very funny movie that night of the event, which included an interview with Doug Eldridge, Oleander's bassist. We interviewed several people who obviously thought the whole night was killer. Our set for the first time seemed flawless and felt great. In fact, it was probably our greatest performance to date. The crowd pleasing song at all the gigs had been the wacky anti-conformist bouncy song "Level Headed Penguin." People said it was in the spirit of the Violent Femmes. That song got people rocking every time, no matter how botched the gig. This time the whole set seemed to get that same kind of wild reaction.

The line-up was Jimmy on drums, Scott George on bass and myself on vocals and guitar. We had such a good time we decided to stay for the other two bands after we put our gear away in Jimmy's truck. Then after a few rounds of drinks and festive socializing, the bad news - which later became part of the humor on the video - came when Jimmy approached me almost in a state of shock. He said, "A.C., someone broke my window and stole both of your guitars out of my front seat. They tried to steal your amp too but they left it on the sidewalk."

It didn't quite hit me like a ton of bricks because I was still in such a good mood. I was mellow. So we went and checked out the damage and sure as hell, someone had ripped me off, cancelling out the possibility that this was just a prank. I had just bought one of the guitars for $600 and I didn't exactly have the money to replace it right away. Somehow, though, I still took the whole thing lightly, maybe because I thought I was on my way to becoming a rock star and the whole thing would just work out. I looked around and noticed there was a loud frat party going on a block away. I assumed it was someone at the party who did it, or at least there was someone at the party who witnessed the break-in.

We hung out but I missed both Oleander and the Plimsouls except for a few peeps. I stayed outside most of the time talking with people about the incident, trying to find out if anyone saw anything. It was useless. We ended up back at Jimmy's apartment and did more videotaping, this time making ridiculous remarks about the irony of how the night unfolded. It became a hilarious video that highlighted the fact that things simply were not meant to be great for the Beat Villains, no matter how optimistic things appeared at times. Part of the joke was that the gig paid $50, which was a start for buying a new guitar.

The following Monday I talked about the burglary on the air. Then a few days later I met George Grady, brother of Sex 66 drummer Dan Grady, at Old Ironsides. He said he heard me talk about the incident on the air and felt bad for me. He said he was a private investigator and that he would try to track down the bastards, but nothing ever became of it. On the other hand, it marked the beginning of a relationship that led to us launching SacLive a few years later, which would become a 24 hour live streaming internet radio station for local bands, the first of its kind for our hometown.

On October 19 I was lucky enough to have a sympathetic friend loan me his guitar for yet another Beat Villains gig with Oleander at Old Ironsides. This time it was for a small crowd of about 40 people but it marked another solid performance for the group. We made another $40. But I was kind of in a more lucid state of mind by this point and for the very first time in years I was completely unsure about my future. Two days earlier I put in my 30 day notice at KWOD after a disagreement with the owner about the direction of the station. The ratings were sliding and KRXQ, once a beaten dinosaur, was now kicking our asses handily. Part of the reason was that the music industry was putting out lame novelty songs for alternative stations and groups like Metallica for rock stations. Another reason was that the owner had been pressuring me all year to back off guitar music and get back into slick pop-sounding records. The stress was too much so I quit, thinking somehow I could spend more time concentrating on my first love, which was making music.

I told Jerry Perry, who interviewed me for his local band publication, Alive and Kicking that I would still be around and to look for me to play more shows in town with the Beat Villains. I sincerely believed that I was making a transition from radio career to music career, that it had to be and was meant to be. As it turned out the Beat Villains did one more show on November 2 before going on hiatus. It was the band's highest paying gig to date. For $200 we played for 40 people at the Nevada Club in Grass Valley with opening act Cherry Murmur. By this point the two bands had the same line-up with different lead singers. Their singer was Tom Bixby, who I went to high school with but didn't know it at the time. Bixby played in an early eighties band called Mod Philo, who I saw at American River College back then, marking one of my first local band concerts that I ever attended. "Bix" sang harmonies on a few songs with the Beat Villains after his set with Murmur. Scott and Jimmy played in both sets as well. It turned into an all night jam session that was worth the long ride.

I had pioneered a new kind of radio for Sacramento, which included a local song every hour. It definitely forced KRXQ to start incorporating local music in their regular programming, which became the key to Oleander getting signed. Local artists seemed to understand and give me credit that I was the driving force behind airplay finally being given to their scene. So in that realm, I felt a sense of accomplishment that I had done something great for my hometown. But after I left local bands, even Cake, began dropping off the air from KWOD as the station made plans to go more commercial and try to get back into the ratings race with KRXQ.

Bad things started to happen to alternative radio from that point on. It had nothing to do with my resignation, it was just a negative wave sweeping the whole alternative community at once, like a downward spiral that could not be stopped. Chance The Gardener got dropped from Warner Brothers shortly before my resignation. The reason was because the label had to negotiate a record-breaking $80 million dollar contract with R.E.M., one of my all-time favorite bands. In order to keep R.E.M. they had to drop a bunch of new bands. It turned out to be a money burner in the sense that subsequent R.E.M. albums failed to be big sellers. So depression struck lead singer Stu Blakey who also was suffering from personal relationship problems. He committed suicide by hanging himself and Chance The Gardener was finished. Ratings started to tumble for a lot of alternative stations across the country and record sales in the format also began to sink even for major artists like Pearl Jam. Then big corporations started taking over radio, even alternative stations thanks to the Telecom Act, which paved the way for a very predictable and homogenized sound.

I had no idea how I was going to pay the bills. All I knew was that I had built up a huge savings account and that I could afford to take some time off - maybe even a whole year. I wanted to use that time to write songs and try to get signed. By some temporary miracle, it looked like maybe a record label was about to sign me.

Ron Givens, who was the interim PD at KWOD for a few months, told me he got a call from an A&R exec at a major label named Bruce. Apparently Bruce liked the Beat Villains tape that I had given to a rep at his label named Rick. I called Bruce as soon as Ron told me the news and Bruce confirmed that he liked my songs. He asked if I had a manager and I said no. He said, "if we're going to throw a lot of money at you the first thing we need to do is get you a manager."

After the call I immediately called Chris Bacca and asked him to be my manager. He said sure. But then the next time I talked with Bruce the mood seemed to change. I told him Chris was my manager and he said, "Oh, Chris Bacca, huh? I guess you don't need me for nothin.'" I couldn't tell if he was joking or trying to send me a message. I didn't hear from Bruce again until several weeks later when he said "the next step is to see if the label wants to sign you." But I thought that was his decision. I guess it wasn't.

More weeks went by until finally in January 1997 Bruce called and said the label was going to pass on the Beat Villains because the songs all sound like singles and he was looking for an album band. It didn't make sense to me. The entire industry was moving away from album bands and pushing hit song-oriented bands. He said my songs "needed to breathe" and that they were too tightly structured like hit songs. I tried to understand his comments but they seemed to be full of contradictory rhetoric.

On one hand he said things like "it's a solid album...you're going in the right direction...it has serious potential... it's in the better half of the pile...you'll get a lot of attention in the industry." On the other hand he countered all those comments with "it's missing consistency...it's a little too laid back...a little too frat rock...not a lot of challenge...needs a more aggressive stance." I asked Bruce if he would still consider my music in the future and he said "absolutely."

After I got off the phone I said to myself "I'll show him." I was determined to get signed anyway. So I quickly threw together ten packages and sent them out to ten other labels. To my surprise, within a week I had four responses. Three were polite rejections but one was a message on my answering machine from a lady named Missy who said her President liked the tape and asked to find out a show date so she could fly up to see us.

I booked a gig at Harlow's for April 9 after convincing the owner that it would be an important gig, because it could be the gig that got us signed, which would be historic for his club. I guaranteed that I would fill the place because of my notoriety as a radio personality in town and the fact that I had developed a long mailing list.

During the months leading up to the gig I wrote some new songs including "Eye Of A Raven," which I considered my best song to date. I recorded it with Jimmy and a new bassist named Peter Torelli at the Attic with Stubby producing again and I thought it turned out marvelous. I really felt it was the record that would finally get us signed because I felt it sounded better than anything I was hearing on the radio. Of course, all bands say that, but I at least had a track record in radio that proved I knew how to pick the hits.

I practiced thoroughly every day and told everyone I knew about it, that this was my big chance to get signed. What made the April 9 gig even more exciting was that another record friend of mine named Anthony said he would check out the gig. He was now in a position to scout bands at his new label. Another plus was that the show was going to be broadcast live on the worldwide web, which was a new phenomenon at the time. Local computer guru Jamie Mangrum had a website called Digimag that was completely dedicated to the local scene and he was trying to promote his site by offering to do live remote broadcasts over the internet for free. It was pretty revolutionary for the time.

Things started to unravel a bit when Jimmy quit the band to join the Toadmortons, which was essentially the new Chance The Gardener. We had become friends with them through the gigs we had done together, and under the direction of singer Steve Bryant, the band pretty much picked up where they left off with their rootsy country/rock flavored Americana sound. There was a wave of that kind of music starting to become popular and Jimmy no doubt saw more potential in that than in my project. Toadmortons, did however, agree to open for the Beat Villains for the April 9 gig, which I thought was great. So, basically I needed a drummer as Peter Torelli remained on bass. Who did I call? Good old John Young. But he couldn't do that date so he recommended the guy who originally introduced me to him, which was Eric Murray. John, however, was committed to playing an April 10 gig with us at Old Ironsides. So I ended up rehearsing with two drummers for two different gigs.

After all that optimism, April 9 arrives and it's 9pm at Harlow's. No sign of Anthony or Missy but the place was filling up and there was a long line outside the door. It was a Wednesday night, typically a slow night at any Downtown Sacramento club, but somehow we were beating the odds. I recognized most of the people who showed up, because most of them were friends I invited, although I forgot to mention the three dollar cover, but that was still a deal, let's face it. All together 90 people showed up. None of them, however, worked at a record label. I sensed I was about to be stiffed.

I was more concerned, though, that the opening band hadn't started yet and it was now 10pm. Apparently Jimmy, who loved to be fashionably late at his own gigs just to prove that the clock was no big deal, was slow getting there and setting up. "Can't start without the drummer," was his attitude. I was getting pissed not so much at him but at the fact that it was a weeknight and it was getting late. Some of my friends even told me they had to get up early in the morning for work and couldn't stay late. The Toadmortons asked if I wanted to switch and let them be the headliner but my ego told me that would diminish our chances of getting signed, as I still was clinging to a thread of hope that either record jerk would should up. It turned out neither did, but the show went on.

After the Toadmortons finally played we went on stage around 11:15. We opened with a rocker called "Island of Lost Art," which was also the name of my new website, hardy har har har. As corny as it seemed, it got the crowd up and dancing. What was so amazing was that the crowd never stopped dancing. They boogied to our music all night. Unfortunately it was not our best night musically because it was a litte sloppy and confused at points but for some reason the crowd didn't care. They loved it and cheered wildly. The crowd only thinned out a little in our second set, but remember, a lot of these people were my friends. One of the high points was our cover of "House of the Rising Sun," done in a more upbeat dance rock style. The gig turned out to be the Beat Villains' highest paying ever, as we reeled in $270 from the door. Being the fool that I was, I paid the Toadmortons $90 even though they said we didn't have to pay them, leaving each Beat Villain with $60 to take home.

After the show one of the managers told me we did a good job. He was impressed that we could pull such a decent crowd on a typically slow night. But I said to him, "yeah, but we could have played better, plus the record people didn't even show up." I was happy about the loyal turnout but my emotion leaned more toward depression because the record labels had let us down. I started thinking to myself "this sure was a lot of work for nothing." I think it was that night I decided the whole dream was over, that the Beat Villains were not going to be signed and that being just a local band getting a few dollars here and there just wasn't worth it. I was tired and disillusioned and it felt better just to let it all go.

The Beat Villains played one final gig the next night before fading into eternal obscurity. We played at Old Ironsides for 25 people with John Young returning to drums, opening for Cherry Murmur and the Kramdens. We made $25 that night, which was good for at least a few rounds of beers for each of us. A month later I did a solo gig at Border's Books and Music in Roseville for $100 only because I overheard an employee there say the scheduled act that night cancelled so I spoke up and said I would do it. They warned it had to be mellow, though, and had to cater to a family crowd. At several points during the gig they had to turn the sound down because I was getting kind of screechy on vocals, which was odd, because usually I sang too softly. My friend Frank Simmons dropped in and I let him do his cover of "For What It's Worth" during my intermission between two sets. The first set was full of laughs as I cracked jokes between songs for the full house. But the second set was weaker material, weaker singing and a dissolving crowd. I felt empty inside at the end of the night.

After that I decided my savings were running out and I needed to get back to work. So I sent my resume out and eventually got hired at a radio station in Milwaukee, which lasted about six months due to the fickle management who were known for blowing employees out frequently. It seemed to be a continuation of the bad vibes that had plagued me since the night my guitars were stolen. Somehow I just couldn't catch a good break. By the time I moved back to Sacramento in August 1998, everything had changed. Radio everywhere had become more corporate, fixed and sterile.

Although I did return to radio briefly at KZZO in Sac the following Jaunary, it just wasn't fun anymore. I was discouraged from making funny remarks on the air because all that seemed to matter anymore to the big business of radio was not the music, the personality or the audience, but just the commercials. It was about how many commercials you could get away with playing in an hour. At that point I realized I needed a new career besides radio.

I returned to mobile DJ work and became more and more interested with the internet. George Grady and I ran SacLive from 1999-2000 and offered local bands internet airplay. It was fun, but it was too ahead of its time to make money. It folded because we both had other opportunities to pursue. For me, though, it was more bad luck as my job offer to move to L.A. and work full-time for the trade magazine I was writing for just never materialized. I decided at that point that I was going to put quality of life ahead of my career and move to the San Francisco Bay Area where the air was cleaner and the scenery was more beautiful. I continued to earn a living as a mobile DJ, hooking up with several agencies as an independent contractor.

In the early 2000s I finally came to the conclusion that I don't want to be signed by a major label or work for a radio station again because I want to be in control of my destiny - and neither of those venues offer such an opportunity. What I would like, however, is for my music to be heard by internet surfers who want something different than the generic formulas continuously being pounded out on corporate radio.

That's why I realigned my dream and created Tangent Sunset, which is mostly me playing with various friends who have been in the Beat Villains including Jimmy, John, George and Clay. It's still my songs but now with a different attitude and a different goal. I've concentrated on improving my musicianship and songwriting as well as learning how to produce my own music, even though the sonic quality of Tangent Sunset recordings may not quite match industry standards. I'm more concerned about the music than the technology, but I am open to learning more as I go along. I no longer seek fame or fortune although I'm not against either and would not shun it. I just want to make music I like that others will like not because it's me, but because I have something thoughtful to share with the world. I hope cyberspace gives me that chance.

© 2004 Alex Cosper. All Rights Reserved.