LP - Johnny Legend - I Itch!

Singer, actor, wrestling promoter, horror archivist and movie producer Johnny Legend exists in a bizarre cultural vortex whose undertows perpetually whirl him into an episodic cycle of shenanigans that just get curiouser and curiouser. The wild eyed, weird bearded, long haired dynamo, internationally known as the Rockabilly Rasputin, is a manic force, one you can find at just about every unsavory corner of the Hollywood underground.

Legend formed his first band, the Seeds Of Time, in 1966. Conducting their own personal riot on the Sunset Strip, they played every joint in town working the same circuit as? The Seeds, Love and The Doors. They were kind of a progressive folk-rock band. The band changed their name to Shadow Legend in 1967 and became more harder edged, doing hard rock and playing the Hullabaloo and the Galaxy right next to the Whisky A-Go-Go. 

In the early 1970's Legend snuck into the film business, working PR campaigns, writing trailers and composing soundtracks. He also appeared in the Z-grade exploitation flicks and ran with the lowlifes who pioneered pre-Deep Throat XXX.

Circa 1971 Legend emerged at the forefront of the Los Angeles 1950s revival with a new group, Blue Midnight, which was actually formed for Gene Vincent shortly before he died. Legend then quickly formed an outfit with volatile rockabilly fanatic Ronny Weiser?, future X guitarist Billy Zoom and veteran singer stand-up bass master Ray Campi.  Momentum built slowly and as the Rollin Rock Rebels, they embarked on a bizarre career as the first authentic rockabilly band since the 1950s.

Bookings included some of the scariest places you'd ever seen joints filled with ex-cons where within ten minutes someone had smashed a guys head through the jukebox leaving him bleeding on the turntable, while a shocked and very young Doctor Demento looked on.

In the early 1980s Legend along with several other Rollin Rock artists toured Europe with supercharged 1950's style concerts. These were wild, drunken blitzkriegs, where Legend usually appeared in full Confederate general uniform, caterwauling The South Will Rise Again along with such demented originals as Soakin? The Bone and Mexican Love, the latter a favorite of the late Dennis Wilson, one of a small army of celebrity affiliations Legend seems to magnetically attract.

From Russ Meyer Ultra Vixen Kitten Natividad to the late film noir bruiser Lawrence Tierney to modern affiliations with Quentin Tarantino, Jim Carrey and others, Legend has commingled with just about everyone. The melding of horror movies, rock n roll and lucha libre is hardly novel at this late date, but for Legend, it all converged with a frightening inevitability. He was responsible for the recording of Classy Freddie Blassies immortal Pencil Neck Geek and later the movie My Breakfast With Blassie, and enjoyed associations with such wrestling aficionados as Andy Kaufman and the Aztec Mummy. Legend the horror actor has suffered gruesome ends in movies such as Bride of Re-Animator, Children of the Corn III and 20001 Maniacs, co-starring with Robert Englund.

Legend's frantic pace is constant. Curating an endless series of underworld sideshows, he pinballs on a hit-and-run, shock-and-thrill spree of film festivals, club dates, horror conventions, wrestling shows and acting jobs. He's always there, lurking in the shadows, rattling off staccato accounts of his bizarre feats, usually climaxing with a statement along the lines of "Well, they finally pulled the plug on, everybody went berserk, and we had to get the hell out of there!"