Back in dreamland. Settling into DragonCon2003 was a little more hectic than last year. Rather than commute the 40 miles from Jonathan Hickman’s home to the Marriott and Hyatt in downtown Atlanta, I’m staying onsite. This year I brought my teenagers. I figured four days down the rabbit hole might do them some good. My daughter is into Goth while my son loves sci-fi, games and girls. They both will walk away from this event satisfied. Enough of the family background.

DragonCon is best experienced by actually staying in one of the two hotels hosting the event. Things come to life when the sun goes down. I spent most of Day One hunting down interview prey, making introductions and watching the sea of costumed humanity parade across the universe of their imagination.

It’s difficult to get interviews the first day. I learned this last year. Introduce yourself, get the mark to commit to an interview at their convenience, move on. The Alabama automobile license plate has the saying "Stars Fell on Alabama." This weekend the stars fell on Alabama’s neighbor, Georgia. If all goes right, I’ll have interviews with David Caradine, Mark Singer, Forry Ackerman, Michael Jai White, Aria Giovanni (WOW!), Noah Hathaway and others.

The costumed characters are on parade once again. The women are walking around in things you’ve only fantasized about. Of course, some of them should not be wearing these things. I know that’s chauvinistic, but if you can imagine a woman who looks like Mimi on "The Drew Carey Show" wearing a thong and a bustier, you might agree with me. My daughter summed it up when she said this place represents freedom: "No one says you are a freak or strange." At DragonCon you can let your freak flag fly.

My daughter was being followed by a strange guy who kept saying, "Hello Doll, I love you." She was rescued by Rick and Jeff from the band "The Last Dance." I was most appreciative. I checked out their display table. Great music and a hot babe spitting fire. Their music had a nice 80s rock edge with hints of darker things. I’m not a music journalist but I know what I like and I like these guys. I did an interview with lead singer Jeff Diehm, guitarist Rick Joyce and bassist Peter (I swear he looks like Corey Feldman with a Mohawk) Gorritz. Their new CD is entitled "Whispers in Rage."

All the guys greeted me warmly. The band has been around in one incarnation or another for nearly 14 years. Jeff and Rick were high school buddies. I mentioned that I noticed an 80s undertone to the music I had listened to. The guys admitted that they were influenced by the New Wave and techno rock of the 80s. They gave me a list of influences. After going over their influences, Jeff pointed out that my tape player was dead. After a quick battery change, we moved on.

EI: Jeff, you’re the lead singer. Do you also play?

Jeff: I used to play guitar, and then I kinda gave it up to concentrate on performing. And I sucked at it anyway. I never got better! I played and played. I just wasn’t cut out to play guitar.

Peter: He does some keyboards and programming. All of us do.

Rick: His place is on stage now. He’s a better performer without the guitar or even a wire on his microphone.

EI: So, Peter, you’re the bassist.

Peter: Bass, programming.

Jeff: Peter was primarily a guitar player. He stepped down to play bass.

Rick: It makes for some interesting sound checks. I’m a terrible bass player, but I love to do it.

EI: You have a new CD coming out.

Rick: Our new CD just came out August 19^th. This is actually the first day we have had it for sale.

My daughter asked how many CDs the band had released.

Rick: This is our fifth album. We’ve done a couple of EPs also. This is the fifth album with all new material.

CONCERT REVIEW: The band performed the music from "Whispers in Rage" at their Sunday Night concert. They opened for David Carradine’s band "Soul Dogs." The band performed before a large, enthusiastic crowd. Peter Gorritz laid down a heavy backbeat. He was complimented by the power riffs of performing drummer Tom Coyne. Gorritz’s axe could have leveled any number of giant Redwood trees. While the band has a dark ambience, Rick Joyce’s guitar adds a melodic undertone that sets their music apart from any number of groups that they might be compared with. While most of the audience members appeared to be Goth, their music has a wider appeal. Lead singer Jeff Diehm’s voice reminded me of David Bowie filtered through Lou Reed. Tell the truth, Jeff’s voice is his own. On the drive home from DragonCon I played the band’s new CD and compared Jeff’s studio voice with his concert voice. The concert play list followed the CD. While his studio voice had a gravelly ‘Alice Cooper’ timbre. In concert, Jeff’s voice was smoother but still deep and dark.

The band was accompanied by a group of very sexy dancers. The young ladies had spent the previous two days passing out flyers for the concert and catching the eyes of many men and women at the convention. On stage, the dancers went through several costume changes. Man I am getting old. I was old enough to be their father. Me and my impure thoughts. Back to the interview.

EI: I was watching your concert video. Are you planning to release a DVD?

Rick: We’ve talked about it, but that’s as far as it has gone. That video was footage we threw together last year for promotional purposes. We’ve got some friends who are in that genre of doing music videos. We’ve talked about doing a concert video or other things.

EI: How long are you going to be on the road?

Rick: This is just this weekend. We do a few weeks here and there. We have a lot of shows coming up. We’ve got two shows in Hollywood and one in San Diego when we go home. A few weeks of then back to the East Coast. We usually play more on the road than at home.

At this point Peter Gorritz face was driving me crazy. He looked like someone very familiar. I hope I didn’t hang a new nickname on him but I may have.

EI: (to Peter) You look like someone.

Peter: I am someone!

EI: (laughs) Yeah. No, you look like someone else. I don’t want to say Corey Feldman.

Rick and Jeff laugh.

Peter: Cory Feldman!

Christy White: I can see what you’re talking about.

EI: I have thing for faces. Yours is very familiar. Have you ever been charged with a felony in Memphis? Maybe I represented you?

Peter laughs, but I think he wants me to move away from the Corey Feldman reference. (By the way, The Last Dance could annihilate Corey Feldman’s band even on their worst night!)

In order to distract me from my Corey Feldman obsession, the band offers me the story of how they got deported from England.

Rick: We showed up. We had played in the UK before. We walked in and they said, "What are you here for?" And we said, "Oh we’re just here on vacation." They were the only country that we had been to that actually required work visas. The rest of the band got through all right. Jeff and I walked up. I had my guitar and all of our tour documents with how much we were getting paid and where we were going to be, which was stupid. Some guy walks out this booth, he was watching us. He was from immigration. They were very nice. They gave us tea and let us smoke in the non-smoking area.

Jeff: Yeah, we spent two hours signing autographs and talking about our band in the back while they were drawing up our deportation papers. That was bad. We had a manager who got us back to catch the tail end of tour. A month later we were going to Germany. Technically you are supposed to have a work visa. We walk into Germany and we do this whole thing where we split up and walk in different groups. We didn’t have any instruments. The agent is flipping through our passport and he sees the big red X, the deportation stamp and says, "What’s this?" I said "We got kicked out of England for not having work permits." The guy laughs and says, "Welcome to Germany."

Last year we went to Slovakia. That’s still a very Eastern Block country. They let you in, but you have to bribe your way out.

Peter: There were a lot of uniforms and machine guns.

Jeff: Yeah. We got a little nervous. They said we didn’t pay the road tax. We said "How much." $500.00." We asked for a receipt and they said it would be $1,000.00 for a receipt!

EI: Do you have a good fan base overseas.

Jeff: We actually have a pretty decent following worldwide. The biggest problem is that it is spread out. If we had the same following locally, we would probably be making a lot of money!

Peter: If we could get them all in the same damn arena at the same time!

I notice Peter’s face again!

EI: It is Corey Feldman! From "The Lost Boys!"

Peter: "The Lost Boys!" You’re saying I look 13!

EI: No, it’s the intensity in your face. Your brow and eyes.

Peter: He was a little kid in "The Lost Boys."

EI: It’s bugging me.

I imagine this was bugging Peter also.

Jeff: But I think you just got a new nickname!

Peter: Noooo!!!!!

EI: I’m at einsiders.com. If they don’t let up you can hit me with a virus and get even!

Peter: It’s all good!

TIME FOR BED

Friday night was spent napping, people watching, dreaming of Aria Giovanni and exploring. Lloyd Kaufman from Troma showed "The Toxic Avenger 4" to a large crowd. The Hyatt was the happening place. Conventioneers had their choice of wrestling, a live version of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," concerts by actor Billy Mumy, actress Julie Kaitlin Brown, Green Goblin and all night dancing with a techno DJ of some renown. Man, I’m getting old!

Rusty White