DRAG CITY CONFIDENTIAL
DATELINE — DRAG CITY RACEWAY, WARDGLENN, CA
My name is Roxy Calder. I write about the ghosts that haunt Drag City — racers, fans, and sometimes bands who left behind more rumor than record. I never saw The Sinisters live, but I’ve chased their echoes through old vinyl, half-remembered stories, and whispered rumors. This is their story, as best as anyone can tell it.
Shadows in the Bleachers
Every town has its ghosts. Ours wore black suits from thrift stores, red armbands painted with dollar signs, and sunglasses at night. They prowled the bleachers at Drag City Raceway, leaned against the pit fences, and lurked in the paddock with cheap beer in their hands. They called themselves The Sinisters, and from 1982 to 1986 they were Wardglenn’s very own proto-sleaze cult band — a group as loved as they were feared, as remembered as they are misremembered.
The Band
- Vex Vulture (Victor Valenti) — Frontman. Wiry, sweat-drenched, a feral alleycat with a microphone.
- Slash Mercury (Sean Miller) — Guitarist. Chrome addict, leather junkie, trickster with a wall of feedback.
- Hex Cadillac (Henry Cadwallader) — Bassist. Pompadour greaser, always grinning like death itself.
- Ratt Poison (Rick Parsons) — Drummer. Shirtless brawler, treated his kit like it owed him money.
They weren’t polished, but they didn’t need to be. Their power came from raw energy — and the feeling that something dangerous might actually happen when they played.
A Band Born at the Track
Drag City was their second home. They weren’t racers, but they were fixtures: hanging at the entrance gate, scrounging beers in the camping zone, or loitering in the garages.
The back cover photo of their Dragstrip Judas EP was even shot at the Drag City entrance gate — four young punks glaring at the camera as if the Speedway itself was theirs.
Baden Worrell (racer, Sinisters fan):
“I was hooked from day one. I love rockabilly, psychobilly, any kind of ~billy, and with The Cramps being my favorite band? The Sinisters were a no-brainer for me. I’ve got every single record they pressed — even the bootlegs. I met them a couple times at the track. They weren’t stars, they were just there. That’s what made them so cool. And the best thing? Their most obscure tracks are their best ones; “Piston Whipped” and “Smoke Ghost” rock so hard that I can’t lose on the track with them blasting through the speakers!”
Jason Carter (track worker, mechanic, skeptic):
“Baden loved those guys. I get it; that’s his sound, his scene. I never bought into it. They were more into their look than their sound. Good for scaring parents, sure, but me? I thought they were clowns. Still do.”
The Soundtrack of Panic
Their songs were built from fuzzed-out guitars, pounding four-on-the-floor drums, and creepy samples lifted from mondo VHS tapes, all drenched in lo-fi reverb. Lyrically? Cars, sex, Satan, small-town decay.
In the early 1980s, America was gripped by the Satanic Panic, and Wardglenn was no exception. Preachers warned parents that The Sinisters were devil-worshippers. Local cops eyed them like criminals. And the band? They leaned into it. They sometimes wore red armbands — sometimes with crosses, sometimes with dollar signs — and reveled in the outrage. The band’s appearances sometimes changed; “Vex Vulture” was seen with and without a moustache, and “Slash Mercury” sometimes bleached his hair blonde, but once they really got going, they strove for a uniform look that was primarily composed of black, black, and black – black hair, black jeans, black “creepers,” and black shirts or jackets with or without “leopard print” flourishes. It worked: their look matched their sound, and as the hype around their alleged “occult behavior” grew, the band got noticed.
By late 1982, they were in San Diego and Orange County more often than dusty Wardglenn, playing at the region’s many punk clubs and dive bars, where they began to develop a contingent of fans. By the end of that year, they had drawn the attention of San Diego’s indie label Gasohol Records, an imprint that specialized in the psychobilly sound. Their first single, “Midnight Transmissions,” was on the stamping machines right before Christmas.
Anonymous fan, Club Babylon regular:
“They weren’t Satanists. They were pranksters. But you’d better believe they loved winding up the church crowd. They knew fear was good for ticket sales.”
By 1983, The Sinisters were on their way, gigging with heavy hitters of the SoCal Rockabilly & Punk scene including The Gun Club, Social Distortion, and their idols The Cramps. That same year they played 2 gigs with New York’s infamous Misfits, including a Halloween show at San Diego’s Babylon Club people still talk about today. Early in ’84, they even supported the SoCal leg of Australia’s psychobilly-pop outfit King Kurt on their first US tour.
The Records That Survive
- Midnight Transmission / Piston Whipped – 7” single (Gasahol, 1982)
- Dead Man’s Drag / Blood on the Chrome – 7” single (Gasahol, 1983)
- Dragstrip Judas – 12” EP, 4 tracks (Gasahol, 1983)
- Sinister Rhythm – 10-track LP (recorded 1984, never released)
Collectors will trade their souls for the first two 7-inches, and the Dragstrip Judas EP has become a holy grail of sleaze rock vinyl. But the real legend is the unreleased album...
The Lost Album: Sinister Rhythm
They recorded it in San Diego with Marty Klein, Gasahol’s house producer. He still talks about it like a ghost that haunts him.
Marty Klein (Gasahol Records producer):
“I had them in the studio. Ten tracks, rough but alive. Then — gone. They walked out before the mix was finished. Never came back. The reels went into storage, and then… well, let’s just say not everything in Gasahol’s warehouse stayed put. Those masters are out there. I know they are.”
One track has surfaced on a bootleg tape, traded hand-to-hand like contraband. And lately, a few Wardglenn locals swear they’ve heard others on a mysterious pirate radio station that cuts into the FM dial without warning.
Could it be a friend of the band who works at the track? Or one of The Sinisters themselves, hiding in plain sight?
The Breakup: What Happened?
Why did they split just before their album dropped? No one agrees.
- Some say it was just personal differences — too many egos in one van.
- Others whisper about darker reasons: drugs, debts, or a feud that turned violent.
- The wildest rumors? That one member was killed in a Chicago street fight, and the others scattered — one allegedly to Europe, one vanishing into thin air, and one still living in Wardglenn today, maybe even behind the wheel at Drag City.
What we know is that after the split, all 4 members of the band seemed to just disappear; friends and fans claimed never to have heard from them again, and the few family members that could be tracked down were reticent and unwilling to talk. This strange turn of events led to rumors as varied as demonic possession and shape-shifting to alien abduction. To this day, no one knows where any of them went; their disappearances remain one of the most baffling unsolved mysteries of the 1980’s music scene.
Eyewitnesses Speak
“Mad Dog” Ramirez (Drag City racer, retired):
“They’d drink our beer and hang around the garages. They were pests — but lovable pests. When they played in the campground that one time? Best chaos I ever saw. Cops hated it. We loved it.”
Old classmate, Wardglenn High:
“Vex told me once he’d sell his soul for a record deal. I laughed, but he didn’t. He meant it.”
Anonymous crew member, Drag City:
“Last summer I swear I saw one of them in the garages. Kept his head down, didn’t want to be recognized. But it was him. I’d bet money.”
Roxy’s Reflection
I never saw The Sinisters play. My experience of them comes secondhand — from Baden’s record collection, from Jason’s dismissals, from scraps of old zines and catalogs. And maybe that’s why I can’t stop chasing their story.
Because legends aren’t clean. They’re blurry, contradictory, half-remembered.
The Sinisters were born at Drag City, scared the parents, thrilled the kids, and then vanished just as the spotlight was about to find them. They left behind a handful of records, a pile of rumors, and maybe — just maybe — a lost album waiting to be heard.
And if you ask me, that’s the most rock ’n’ roll ending of all.
Legacy…?
Are The Sinisters just another footnote in Southern California’s vast music scene — or are they still out there, ghosts in the garages, cutting pirate broadcasts into our radios late at night?
All I know is this: at Drag City, you can still hear their echo in the hiss of a blown amp, the rumble of a V8, and the whispers that never die.
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