Roger Pinnell started his first band in San Diego when he was 19. After a couple of false starts came Violation 5. Drummer Pete Verbrugge had been a DJ at the Skeleton Club and went on to play drums briefly in The Injections. Guitarist “Jungle Cat“ Pat Raftery later played with Boston’s Negative FX. V5‘s greatest virtue as a punk band was that they were a musical trainwreck, composed of 4 genuine beginners making something out of nothing. Their best work was going to Roberto‘s for rolled tacos at 2:00 a.m.
Out of this wreckage came a much stronger outfit, The Brood. Fronted by ex-V5 members Roger on vocals and Chuck Cole on bass, The Brood played primal post-punk in an era when other local bands couldn’t see beyond generic hardcore. Both bands were short-lived, both were history by the summer of 1982.
As soon as Roger moved to San Francisco in ‘85, he founded Piglatin with bass player Donny Diaz, another escapee from San Diego who had arrived three years earlier. Both shared an unhealthy attachment to film noir, strip joint music, and certain records from Alice Cooper and the No Wave era. Their music was an extension of this. The first gig was on Halloween of that year.
The band released the EP “My Hands Go Blind,” and the LP “Jackpot” on their own Vital Organ Records. Bananafish magazine said of the album, “Somewhere a strung out stripper’s dying to choreograph this.“ Later releases were the live “Pigacide” and “Coming Up Snake Eyes,” recorded during a brief stint in New York City. There were far too many line-up changes. Key members included Todd Elkin on scrap metal and drums, John Lieb on trumpet, and Chris Anderson and Max Sentry on tenor sax. Donny Diaz died in January 1990, of pneumosistis pneumonia. He was 31.
A CD featuring the best moments from these years has been remixed and will hopefully see the light of day before Armageddon.