Curse of Cretins: Saint Patrick’s Day Concert, Nevada City, California – March 17, 2017

As a band, we’ve always invited our friends up to do Kretin Karaoke with us, which culminated in a Halloween Ramones set with two handfuls of guest singers. The stress of organizing/scheduling practices made us rethink that strategy, so we decided to just focus on original material, alone. We’re getting close to an album’s worth of material.

Funny thing, as soon as we made that decision, our friend Chappy, from Sleazy Action® remembered seeing our Ramones set and asked if we’d be willing to a 60’s garage set. He wanted us to open for Isaac Rother and the Phantoms on St. Patrick’s Day…we might have strayed off the path and Cretinized the songs, but you can see from the video, we decided to do the gig, but didn’t invite our friends to join this time.

Curse of Cretins are a garage punk band out of Nevada City, California. The core band members, youngest to oldest, are Ty Rodrigues, Hayes Burris, Doug Gaylord and Carl Helm.

Ty is our lead guitarist and also plays drums in another band, (Bootlegs). He’s also been in Reload and Anarchpeace and is the only native Californian of the group. He’s 17, a leader in the growing teen punk movement in northern California and likes the energy of Curse of Cretins.

Hayes played bass in Moral Conflict and Sudden Dismissal back in North Carolina and Virginia. He moved out to California in 2002 and played with The Burls and Single Jack, both progressive rock bands. His east coast hardcore/metal roots made him a driving force in Nevada City metal band, ( Ear Wrecked ), which sadly fell apart after their debut album was released. He’s involved in gigging with a blues band around town, but he’s drawn to the raw power of what we’re playing and has made us a much tighter outfit.

Doug is from Montana, but didn’t play in bands until he arrived in California. His band, ( El Dorko ), self-released a DIY hardcore LP in 1996 to good reviews in Maximum RocknRoll. He started ( Pug Skullz ) with Jarade Lucca (Thanx 4 Nuthin’, Free Radical) and Carl in 2011, but Carl left when Pug Skullz started to veer heavily into hardcore. Pug Skullz had a few solid years, but then ran into a Spinal Tap-like series of drummer problems, which only recently solved themselves. During a particularly long hiatus, Doug and Carl regrouped to form Curse of Cretins.

Carl Helm got his start in Canada’s longest running punk band, ( The American Devices). He would sit in on drums when their drummer was late, even though he had no idea how to play. The band liked his strange style and kept him around to release the 1988 LP ‘Decensortized’. Dave Rave (Teenage Head) called The American Devices, “The original DIY. A living example of the beginning of punk.” Carl and his wife got transferred to California, where Carl started playing drums for One-Ton Eyelid before his brief stint in Pug Skullz. Using his love of the New York Dolls, Iggy and the Stooges and the Ramones as a means of propulsion, Carl helps ground the Cretins in real rocknroll.