This is the story of one of Sacramento's best, almost forgotten bands

Listen to almost any old Sacramento punk rocker, and he or she will probably tell you Tales of Terror was the best band this city'’s ever produced.

The thing is, that’s no exaggeration. The group approached hardcore with a dark, psychedelic, highly dynamic quality that was unique in 1984, and still holds up in 2014.

Unfortunately, it’s mostly just those old Sacramento punk rockers who even remember Tales of Terror these days—them and a handful of other random music fans across the country. The band certainly never made it big.

A couple of those nonlocal fans, however, happened to get really famous in the ’90s—most notably Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, who named Tales of Terror’s self-titled LP his 32nd favorite album of all time (from a handwritten top-50 album list).

Mark Arm, first of Green River and later Mudhoney, also loved Tales of Terror. Green River covered “Ozzy” on its 1987 album Dry as a Bone. In 2008, Mudhoney wrote a song called “Tales of Terror” in tribute.

And in 2013, Melvins covered the group’s “Romance” on its Everybody Loves Sausages album.

On September 1, Tales of Terror’s lone album turns 30, but even with its admirers and a documentary in the works, the band hasn’t found much of an audience in the years since its release. That’s in part because the record’s been out of print since the group disbanded in 1986, with the exception of a 2009 digital-only release.

But that lack of recognition is only a small piece of this band’s sad, complicated story.

Tales of Terror split up after the sudden death of its guitarist Lyon Wong, who, following a verbal altercation, was physically assaulted by a carload of young men in Midtown on the evening of January 5, 1986.

Wong (son of actor Victor Wong) suffered a head injury after falling and hitting his head on the curb. He died in the early hours of January 6. His attacker, a minor, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six months in prison.

Years later, in 2004, bassist Geoff Magner died of a methadone overdose. And just five years ago, singer Pat Stratford (known as “Rat’s Ass,” a nickname inspired by a rat drawing that hung on the wall of his father’s bar) suffered a series of strokes that put him in a coma for three-and-a-half weeks. It left him seriously impaired, with low short-term memory functionality. When Stratford first woke up from the coma, he thought it was 1985 and he was late for a gig.

Even now, back in the present, he struggles to remember much at all. Stratford lives with his parents in their home in Rancho Cordova—the same house Tales of Terror practiced at in the early days. Stratford’s brother Charlie moved back home for a little while to help out when Pat first woke up; he took over running the Tales of Terror Facebook group. He says he’s been using it as a means to jostle his brother’s memory—but also a way to remind the world of Tales of Terror.

“I just want my brother to get recognized for what he did for the Sacramento punk scene—for the punk scene in general,” Charlie said. “Tales of Terror deserves to be recognized.”

Tales of Terror’s origins, like many other punk bands before it, was one rooted in youthful restlessness. A couple years before the band formed, Pat Stratford played drums in a band called the RC Boys—one of the first hardcore bands in the area. Well, at least the first one in Rancho Cordova.

Punk had long been a part of the downtown bar scene, but the all-ages, DIY hardcore scene was just beginning—and it was happening in Rancho Cordova of all places, at Kins Coloma, a Chinese restaurant whose owners were lax on liquor laws, and would charge kids the low price of their buffet to get into the show.

RC Boys singer Dennis Yudt remembers it as a teenage haven.

“We were the first hardcore band in Sacramento. We were all kids, 15 to 17 years old,” Yudt said. “We played a lot faster than all of our older contemporaries. … We were just bad kids playing music.”

After the RC Boys broke up, Stratford and a couple guys from local punk band Withdrawn formed the Square Cools. Stratford sang and played bass, but they eventually added Magner on bass so Stratford could be untethered in front of the mic.

Kins Coloma had a short run, but boxing promoter Stewart Katz picked up the slack, getting shows for the band. The first gig was with Dead Kennedys in 1981 at the American Legion Hall in downtown Sacramento, with the Square Cools and Rebel Truth opening.

Sacramento’s all-ages punk and alternative-rock scene grew alongside Katz’s production company, Clear and Distinct Ideas. He booked the touring punk acts at various halls, theaters and parks until opening Club Minimal in 1983; there he booked the Square Cools at several gigs.

When the Square Cools disbanded that same year, Stratford and Magner started Tales of Terror with Wong and drummer Mike Hunter. A second guitarist, Steve “Capt. Trip Mender” Hunt, later joined the band.

Katz booked Tales of Terror a lot. In fact, they were practically the house band at Club Minimal.

“I liked Stratford. He had a certain degree of popularity. … He was charismatic, but self-destructive,” Katz said.

The Square Cools had done well: The group, along with locals Rebel Truth, scored tunes on Maximum Rock N Roll’s Not So Quiet on the Western Front seminal 1982 West Coast hardcore comp.

But Tales of Terror was something completely different. A lot of that could be attributed to Wong, who brought an eclectic influence to the band with his love of jazz and various shades of rock ’n’ roll.

“They were good out the gate,” said Scott Soriano, who published the zine Spamm in the ’80s and currently runs S.S. Records.

“Lyon added an adventurous—but still angry—psychedelic element. He was listening to stuff that was beyond anything anybody else in the band was listening to,” Soriano said. “When I first met him, I asked him what he was listening to, and he said [blues singer] Lightnin’ Hopkins—I had no idea what a Lightnin’ Hopkins was.”

Onstage, Wong was the most reserved. Everyone else brought an explosive, chaotic energy, particularly Stratford, who had been a gymnast and a skateboarder. Onstage he was known to do backflips, even on top of club speakers.

The band’s sleazy, glam-rock, thrift-store image—a mix of the Misfits and New York Dolls—predates Guns N’ Roses and other Sunset Strip-era bands. During this time, there was also a steady increase of LSD making its way into Sacramento, which the band participated in, particularly when they moved into Midtown’s Stucco Factory, an artist warehouse where they practiced and threw parties. While their approach to punk had always been experimental, this influx of acid pushed them even further out there.

The band’s most lasting artifact, of course, was its record, especially considering that in the ’80s most bands couldn’t afford to record an album. Tales of Terror, however, got help from the punk label CD Presents, after San Francisco promoter Paul Rat introduced them to the label’s owner, David Ferguson. Rat was certain they were going to be huge.

“He thought Tales of Terror was the future,” Katz said. “He thought they were the real deal.”

The album took a long time to make. Recording in the traditional isolated chambers of a studio wasn’t giving Tales of Terror the takes it wanted. Then the engineer quit because the band was drinking too much. Finally, Ferguson suggested they just record live, with an audience of friends. And so they made the album using a single microphone and no overdubs in a San Francisco studio.

After the album’s 1984 release, Tales of Terror toured the West Coast a few times and also did an extensive U.S. tour. But then Wong died just a little over a year after the album’s release. With no band left to promote it, stores weren’t motivated to keep the record stocked—besides, it just wasn’t selling that well anyway.

After Wong’s death, Tales of Terror’s remaining members drifted. Stratford and Magner moved to Los Angeles to form Pirates of Venus, but never really made it. And the rest, of course, is punk history, mostly remembered via dusty record-store bins and old show fliers.

The aftermath

Now, decades later, there are signs that Tales of Terror could finally get its proper due. Filmmaker Tyler Lee Osborn, who caught many Tales of Terror shows back in the day, wants to revive the band's legacy with a documentary. Recently, Osborn's worked with cinematographer Dave Seoane, pairing old footage and photos with new interviews from key players.

“I’m hoping this film can get them a wider audience than they’ve ever had,” said Osborn. “To [this] day, [Tales of Terror put on] some of the best live shows I’ve ever seen.”

Ferguson is also in talks with labels to work out a licensing deal for the record, which he hopes will get released in conjunction with the documentary.

Both Osborn and Ferguson insist that Tales of Terror was a major influence on the Northwest grunge movement. While that might be difficult to prove, the question isn’t so much how they influenced music, but what Tales of Terror could have become if Wong had lived.

“We were just getting a little bit more in grips with who we were and what we could do with music. It was really coming together and starting to gel,” Hunt said. “I saw me doing this until now with these guys. It just didn’t pan out.”

Still, what Tales of Terror did accomplish in its short run remains impactful here. Local musician Charles Albright—too young to be part of Tales of Terror’s scene back in the ’80s—is now a vocal advocate for the band.

“My goal is to turn more people on to Tales of Terror,” Albright said. “They are a band Sacramento can feel genuinely proud about and look to for inspiration—it’s OK to be weird, deranged and yourself. As long as you do it with passion and sincerity.”