Tales of Terror

Sammytown: Paul Rat liked us and so he started giving us really good shows. We had a lot of connection with Paul Rat and Tales of Terror. We used their manager. One of my closest friends became the guitar player for Tales Of Terror, Lyon Wong. Lyon’s dad was Victor Wong, the guy that was in Big Trouble in Little China, the old crazy Chinese guy with the fucked-up eye.

Dave Chavez: Tales of Terror used to get so hammered that it would just be a complete joke. But it was entertaining because everybody was pretty drunk. Tales of Terror should have been bigger. They were that interesting. They tied the whole thing together. Hard rock and blues and psychedelia and hardcore and garage, just every genre that was fun.

Tales of Terror were pretty much my favorite band in the ’80s. My friend Dave Wilcox – we used to call him Shade — he was the roadie for Tales of Terror. And he gave me the nickname Koko, for the gorilla from National Geographic, the gorilla that had the cat.

Hef: Paul Rat took Tales of Terror on tour as their manager. He put all their equipment in a van, rented a U-Haul trailer to tow behind the van and put them in the trailer. At some point he stopped along the road, in the middle of nowhere between towns, unhooked the trailer and drove away in the van. He probably just couldn’t take it anymore.

Dave Chavez: With the right management and maybe a little bit of rehab here and there, Tales of Terror probably would have been the Nirvana and broke. If it wasn’t for the murder of Lyon Wong.

Hef: Lyon Wong lived in Sacramento. He was just walking down the street one day, and some redneck jerk in a pickup yelled something at him, and he yelled something back. The truck circled around the block and came back, and these guys jumped out and attacked him.

Dave Chavez: Hit him in the head and he fell and hit the ground. Brain aneurysm. Died instantly.

Sammytown: Lyon was one of these guys, he’d be drunk and belly-flop off the roof. You could hit him, and he’s one of these people that you think of as indestructible.