There aren’t many times a local writer can start a story with, “It all began with Rivers Cuomo from Weezer,” but this is one of them. That’s because new debut album Morbid Little Thing by Bones Shredder—the alias for local musician Randy Moore—wouldn’t have existed if Moore had never met the Weezer frontman in April 2024.
“Getting to meet him—and the same with Matt Skiba [Alkaline Trio]—and ‘see how the sausage is made’ humanizes them,” Moore explains.
“These people that I look up to but only see what is put out to the public makes you realize ‘Oh, everybody does this process like me.’ It makes it more palatable and less overwhelming when trying to create your own art.”
The result is a 10-song, 26-minute horror pop punk album that Moore will celebrate on Sunday, Oct. 3 at Art Boutiki in San Jose with fellow friends in Dog Party, Teens in Trouble and Cartoon Hearts.
“Randy has been playing at Art Boutiki since there’s been an Art Boutiki,” says Art Boutiki owner Dan Vado. “Pretty much since he was a kid, playing in different bands.”
Which isn’t hyperbole.
The prolific Moore has been in, recorded with or written songs for a long list of bands, including but not limited to Get Married, The Moore Family Band, The Atom Age, Spiritworld, Dan Andriano & the Bygones, Dark Ride, Stellar Corpses, LEKTRON, Doki Doki, and Decent Criminal. He’s even a guitar slayer for an internationally celebrated masked hard rock outfit that cannot be named but haunts the charts.
So when he talks about his trepidations in writing, recording and releasing his solo project, it comes as a bit of a shock.
“I had written songs for other people but when it came down to this record I wanted to be unapologetically myself,” he says. “And I wanted to pull influences from the things I love, whether it’s Beatlesesque rock ’n’ roll or The Cure’s synthpop stuff.”
The result is just that: an album that doesn’t ask for forgiveness for what it is. Put out on his own Sunken Teeth label—which also serves as a clothing line and more—Morbid Little Thing falls within the horror punk range with the name, artwork, lyrics and music videos. However, musically it’s a sonic blast of pop punk, synth and, yes, even some Beatles.
One of the biggest influences on the album is Alkaline Trio, the three-piece horror pop punk band from Chicago. Along with being a fan of the group, Moore has worked with the band’s frontman recording tracks for Skiba’s sideproject, LEKTRON. Earlier this year Skiba also invited him to be a guitar tech for Alkaline Trio when they played on a bill with Blink-182—a band Skiba spent seven years in—at a charity show in Hollywood, with proceeds supporting Los Angeles wildfire relief efforts.
“I learned that guitar teching is a very different set of skills and anxiety levels I was not prepared for,” Moore laughs. “If something goes wrong, it’s on me to fix it! Everybody was super nice—Alkaline Trio is basically like family now—but I was so skittish, like ‘If the guitar goes out, I’m done for!’”
What makes Morbid Little Thing so much fun is that Moore perfectly blends different sounds and styles onto the album. Who knew that songs influenced by Weezer, Alkaline Trio, The Cure and The Beatles could flow so easily together? Sometimes even on the same track. And while he might wear his influences on his sleeve for this album, he also rides the fine line of not stealing from or copying them. The songs are unabashedly his and he’s not afraid to dive head-first into a catchy hook or melody.
Along with embracing authenticity, there are two more lessons aspiring musicians can learn from Moore’s career: every step can lead to something else and always remember who’s helped along the way.
Moore grew up in a musical family with his siblings—and parents—all musicians and music lovers in their own right. That led to him wanting to play music since he was a child, which led to playing in bands like Get Married or with his siblings in The Moore Family band.
Playing shows led to Moore meeting Mike Park of Asian Man Records.
“Discovering Asian Man is in my backyard changed everything,” Moore remembers.
He says during 2020 he would help Park assemble and distribute records from Asian Man’s headquarters—Park’s garage—with the door open, of course. It was through Park that Moore was introduced to Skiba and the dominoes just kept connecting down the line.
“I can pinpoint little things I’ve learned from each session, show or person that adds to the great scheme of things,” he says.
And he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.
Moore is personally connected to every band on the bill for Sunday.
“They’re all a part of the Bones Shredder family,” he admits.
That includes the venue itself, Art Boutiki.
“His family have always been huge supporters of the space,” Vado says. “Now he’s achieved a huge amount of success and didn’t know we were closing when he hit me up about the show.”
Yes, sadly after nearly two decades in business, the comic shop and cafe venue will close its doors after a blowout New Year’s Eve show at the end of this year.
“I’m glad we get to have something that ties into that part of our history,” Vado says of the Bones Shredder record release show. “And it’s going to be a big show.”
Vado says before Art Boutiki was ever an idea, the infrastructure for the business was already there. The seedling began out of the SLG Publishing warehouse Vado ran. Known for launching the careers of indie comic authors like Jhonen Vaquez, Gene Luen Yang and Evan Dorkin, Vado’s warehouse had plenty of space they weren’t using. So instead of abandoning it for a smaller building, he remodeled and rebranded as Art Boutiki with a comic shop and art gallery in the front and a venue in the back.
They soon opened up for regular pop-ups such as the South First Friday Art Walk where they’d book musicians to play. However, at the time the need for local venues was great and soon more and more musicians called for gigs.
“It wasn’t really the plan to start a venue, but the venue became the thing because we were using it that way without even realizing it,” Vado says.
After the original landlord gave them a notice to move—the building was going to be demolished—Vado found the current location on Race Street, where Art Boutiki has been since 2013.
“I realized this place was perfect even if it required a little investment,” he remembers. “I thought, ‘We managed to do okay accidentally—let’s see what we can do on purpose.’”
First, Vado invested in new sound equipment. He brought his sons—both who are musicians—to run the sound logistics. He says it was a “constant evolution,” working on one part of the business to the next.
For now, Art Boutiki still has a few more shows lined up, including the New Year’s Eve show and a Halloween cover show presented by Heavy Lemon with Pacing playing songs by The Beths, Christian Francisco as The Postal Service, Friendship Games covering Weezer and Later Alligator as Los Campesinos. Art Boutiki’s GoFundMe is also still up and running online for supporters to donate to help pay some of the space’s bills and overhead.
Vado says he doesn’t have any concrete plans after he closes the doors but he’s working on a book or two, so who knows what the future will hold. He tells Metro this will also free up some time for him to go back to publishing more comics through SLG. It’s his hope that people will see what he’s done with Art Boutiki and they will be inspired to take a chance on their own projects.
“If you have something that is driving you, make sure you need to do it rather than just want to do it,” he says. “You have to have that level of passion of doing it for the sake of doing it. Not because you’re expecting a reward or people to put you on a pedestal. But if you have a story to tell, a song to sing, a thing in your heart you feel is so important to you that you can’t think about doing anything else, then you should do it.”
