Vampyre Staked : Teen-Age Punk Nightclub Dies, but Site Will Be Born Again

Too poor to live, too cool to die quietly, the Vampyre Lounge Cafe closed its doors over the weekend with one last blast of chaotic, caffeine-fueled punk music.

The scruffy Simi Valley club, evicted for not paying the rent, is to be transformed into a Christian coffeehouse.

Punk musicians, prominent poets and ‘zine publishers had adopted the Vampyre as their cultural headquarters in east Ventura County.

It was a popular nighttime haunt for many teen-agers. For some, it was literally home.

“It’s a major loss,” said Hawk, 19, bare-chested and breathing hard from careening around the mosh pit at Saturday night’s farewell punk concert.

Hawk, who gave no last name, said he wandered into the Vampyre three months ago, homeless and looking for work.

The owners had him scrub off a pentagram that some Halloween-night death-metal band had splashed on the back wall with animal blood. In exchange, they let him sleep there ever since to guard the place at night, as they have done for a handful of other homeless youths.

“After this closes, the kids are going to have no place to go,” Hawk said. “We’re losing a major place of refuge here.”

On weekends, the Vampyre was a punk pilgrimage, with cutting-edge bands packing the dance floor.

Many patrons--and parents--saw the club as a safe haven where teen-agers could hang out without the threat of drugs, booze or gang violence.

On weeknights, the Vampyre invited jazz and blues musicians in for open jams.

And eminent writers from all over California brought their latest works to well-attended poetry readings, Simi Valley writer Jordan Jones said.

“In a sense, it had the opportunity of being a counterculture center,” said Jordan, editor of the Bakunin literary magazine.

“What goes on in the suburbs is that you get places like the arts center in Thousand Oaks, and they’ve essentially said they don’t want to have any controversial art,” Jones said. “As far as I’m concerned, if it’s not controversial, it’s not art. . . . What the Vampyre was offering was new and challenging work.”

The problem was, the owners admit, many patrons were too tightfisted--or poor--to buy even a single cup of coffee.

“I wasn’t really making any money here, but maybe I’m an incompetent businessman,” part-owner Paul Rattner said. “The customers would show up and have a lot of fun and hang out, and we’d have a lot of people here. (But) it’s very tiring to get up and say, ‘Excuse me, please buy a drink.’ ”

On closing night Saturday, more than 300 fans crowded the tiny stage, oblivious to the sign on the wall: “Max Capacity 80 persons.”

“What’s the fire marshal going to do?” said part-owner Jeff Smith, tossing his hands up with a chuckle. “Close us down?”

The band Strung Out surged into a tight, hard set of thrashing, 70-second punk songs. The guitarists lunged and bounced to the kick of the blue-haired drummer while Jason Cruz belted staccato lyrics into the microphone.

In a half beat between breaths, Cruz reached down to the crowd, grabbed the top of a boy’s head and turned him to face the girl beside him. All three grinned, and Cruz resumed screaming.

Slam dancers capered counterclockwise around the dance floor, gleefully smashing into each other in a flurry of sweat and Day-Glo hair. Spectators’ heads jerked in a pall of cigarette smoke flavored with the tang of coffee and clove cigarettes.

Normally subdued, club manager John Buettgen shrugged and joined half a dozen punks who took turns diving off the graffiti-scrawled bar and splashing into the crowd.

Outside, kids on skateboards scraped over curbs trying to perfect trick jumps, while bouncers dragged a troublemaker out by his collar.

Sweat gleaming off his purple hair and a pierced eyebrow, Gerry Franzen took a breather from the mosh pit and contemplated the Vampyre’s death.

“I think it sucks,” said Franzen, 24, of Simi Valley. “After this, the only places to go are in Hollywood. Every place that’s good for kids to hang out gets shut down, and then they complain about kids hanging out, drinking and causing trouble.”

Inside, Strung Out yielded the stage to its roadies, a band of 15-year-old punks called Retail Price.

They pounded out a handful of short, noisy tunes until their spike-haired bassist unplugged and walked out in a huff, leaving his band mates to vamp helplessly in a rising chorus of boos.

“That’s it for the Vampyre Lounge,” Smith announced, shooing out the band and the crowd so that a private farewell party could start. “For all of you who did spend money here, thank you. For all of you who didn’t, this is what happens.”

The crowd of Vampyre staff and friends squeezed out the paying guests and tapped a beer keg.

“I am so sad!” wailed Pamela Stricker, 34, embracing employee Jaci Coe, 16. “Where are we going to go now?”

A self-styled “lounge mom,” Stricker said she often brought her 15-year-old daughter to the Vampyre because it felt safe.

“They may look a little strange, but they’re all good people,” she said. “I think there’ll be a lot more kids roaming the streets now.”

Members of the band Frankenstein, close friends of the owners, pounded out goofy monster-pop tunes like “Black Blood.” Employees boogied atop the bar, and couples kissed, cigarettes and beer cups dangling from their hands.

Less than an hour later, the keg was empty.

Someone had slapped a sticker onto the bar, a benediction. It read: “MAY NIGHT SHOW PROMISE. MAY FORTUNE FAVOR THE FOOLISH. MAY DREAMS COME TRUE. LOST VAMP.”

The landlords said they are none too sorry to see the Vampyre go.

“They didn’t pay rent and their insurance and maintenance,” said Charles Carrington, who helps his daughter, Samantha Carrington, manage the Los Angeles Avenue strip mall. “Two months rent and seven months insurance and maintenance.”

Punks trampled the shrubbery to mud, kicked out the sprinklers and smoked so much that neighbors complained of the stench seeping into their stores, he said. Just 16 months of business left the plate-glass windows scratched, the plaster full of holes and the concrete floor scarred.

“The ceiling is black; he painted it,” Carrington said. “You know how much this is going to cost me? I have to get an estimate from the contractor. The whole thing has to be changed.”

On Sunday morning, evangelist Kevin McGuire stood outside the Vampyre, discussing his past and outlining plans for the club’s future.

Kicked out at age 13, McGuire said, he lived on the streets of Simi Valley and the San Fernando Valley with his buddies, sleeping in cars and abandoned houses. He said he rolled drunks, broke into houses, and sold and used amphetamines.

“I was definitely incorrigible,” said McGuire, now 36, a tattooed, goateed Simi Valley father of three who runs a messenger service in Sylmar.

Revelation came 10 years ago in a Thousand Oaks church.

“I figured this was the place to pick up on good-looking girls who are kinda stupid, naive,” he said. “There I was, sitting there like a wolf among sheep, and the Lord spoke to me. . . . He told me all my life I’d been sinning against him. And since then, I’ve been studying the Bible.”

McGuire said he heard of the Vampyre only a week ago, and then “the Lord laid it on my head to open a place that ministers to the needs of the youth.”

Now he has a verbal agreement with the Carringtons, which will be finalized as soon as the property repair bills get sorted out, he said.

“My plan is to have a place where young people can come to enjoy themselves,” McGuire said. “I want to have Christian bands, Christian entertainment on a nightly basis, basically doing a lot of the things Paul is doing now, including serving cappuccino and snacks. And I’d like to have dancing.”

McGuire said Paul Rattner has offered plenty of tips on running the place and dealing with city officials.

And Rattner said of McGuire: “I wish him the best of luck. . . . It’ll be the only place to hang out--still.”