My name is Mark Hartenau and I’ve been involved in music since the 1990’s. I first started playing drums when I was in junior high (middle school) in the Mira Mesa community of San Diego, California. It wasn’t long before a metalhead guitar player and I started jamming (a project we called “Open Arsenal”). We played one show that I remember as “Open Arsenal” because it was at our school, Challenger Junior High (now called “Challenger Middle School” and always named after the terrible Challenger space shuttle catastrophe). The show was during an event called “Multi-Cultural Day” where students would exhibit and share things from their cultural heritage. For example, the Filipino kids brought lumpia to share. So my metalhead friend and I brought in our instruments, found an out-of-the-way hallway, and played for all the school’s stoners and rockers. Moshing broke out in the outdoor hallway and by the end, there was blood left on the stucco walls. Haha! That was probably my first ever drum performance.
By the time we both hit freshman year of high school, we added a singer/bass player to the lineup, changed our musical genre to more of an alternative rock sound than metal, and changed the band name to “Gimp”. As “Gimp”, we had a few shows. One was during a Fourth of July event at the Mira Mesa Community Park, another was during lunch at Mira Mesa High School, and the others were little parties for friends.
By sophomore year of high school, my guitar playing friend moved out of state and I also transferred out of the school district as my Dad and I moved to the North County (Solana Beach). Unfortunately our singer/bassist didn’t want to continue with the band so I looked for all new members and restarted Gimp. At the school I transferred to (Torrey Pines High School), I befriended a bass player first. Then he and I distributed a flyer as we looked for guitar players and a singer. We found everyone and the consensus was we wanted to do punk (it was the mid 90’s by this point). And this new punk version of Gimp went wild in San Diego! We were playing monthly shows at Soma (the legendary punk and alternative music venue of the era) as well as The Showcase Theatre, The Che Cafe, and even a gas station once! Some of the larger bands we played with were:
- Millencolin
- No Use For a Name
- Strung Out
- Pulley
- Diesel Boy
- Glue Gun
- Pivit
- Rubber Neck
- Total Chaos
- Dogwood
- The Neighbors
- Against the Wall
- Notice
- The Excrements
- Chronic Masturbators
- Best Buy
- Subversion
- Channel 44
- Turkey Mallet
- S.O.L
and what seems like countless more.
In our time, we released a demo on cassette tape, a full-length two-sided album on cassette tape (released by our friend who was doing a label called “Lurid Records”), and an 8-song EP on CD (released by our friends who were doing a label called “New Left Records” and also had their own band called “The Cause”). Gimp frequently played shows along with The Cause. And by the way, CDs were a thing all along. It was just cheaper to press tapes than CDs. Both Gimp and The Cause were also featured on multiple compilation CDs (two of which were released by New Left Records: “MTVs Most Unwanted” and “MTVs Most Unwanted II”).
By the time the EP CD was released (called “Lost Aspiration”), we lost our signer (he moved away) and so our lead guitar player took over vocal duties. Not much later, we all graduated high school and unfortunately had to break up as half of the remaining band went to colleges out of state.
During the later part of high school, I had another project going on in addition to playing drums in Gimp. I was trying to start a local TV show on the punk, ska, hardcore, alternative music scene. A friend and I were going to call it “Inside Out Television” (the idea being: bringing inside information about the bands out). She had a cousin who worked at the local cable company and we found out through him about something called “leased access” (which is a cable TV channel that any independent producer could lease time on). We already knew about public access (which is free) but the problem with public access is you can’t advertise on it. So we would have no way of paying our bills. So we were looking at leased access (even though it would cost us). The show would have basically been a music video show (like MTV was but also included interviews with bands.) So we went out and shot interviews with:
- AFI
- Buck-O-Nine
- Blink 182
- Unwritten Law
- MxPx
- Sack Lunch
- G.F.I.
- Turkey Mallet
- One by One
- Flooded
- Shleprock
and I don’t know how many more!
I also had a giant broadcast-quality tape deck (that records onto 3/4 inch tape) in my room as a high school kid- probably the only one! Haha! But like I mentioned, leased access was going to cost us to air the show so we had to find a way to fundraise. We tried putting on shows (you could rent out an Elk’s Lodge in Poway, California for $200 and put on your own punk rock shows).
And we also tried releasing a video compilation called “Parental Advisory Explicit Punk” that had:
- Blink-182
- Millencolin
- MxPx
- No Motiv
- Bigwig
- 30 Foot Fall
- Fenix TX
- Voice of Defiance
- Gimp
- The Cause
- One by One
The bands, their labels, and managers all agreed to let them appear on the compilation as “gratis basis” (for free) because they knew it was a fundraiser which was supposed to lead to an awesome TV show that was much needed in the scene. However, none of the fundraising efforts worked. The shows at the Elk’s Lodge just broke even and sales from the video compilation trickled in so slowly it was practically nothing. I was still a naive young one.
Shortly after that experience (right around the millennium) I was approached by a few fans of Gimp that wanted me to start a new band with them. At first I hesitated because a couple of them were still new at their instruments. There wasn’t going to be any shredding on guitar and bass like in Gimp. But they had a good singer and could write good enough songs so I decided to work with them on it. The band was called “Camerica”. The name combines the words “Canada” and America” (as our singer hailed from Canada). We were most known for having a music video on a brand new, international, cable channel that was getting off the ground called the Independent Music Network (IMNTV). It turned that not many other bands submitted music videos (or could make one on their own in those days) so they gave us a ton of rotation! You could catch our music video at all hours of the day and night on IMNTV!
The success of that music video attracted the attention of a brand new record label that was starting called “Galactic Pop Records”. And they signed us! They released our 6-song EP CD, “Blue Sky Stereo” and got us a lot of shows around Los Angeles (where they were out of) at venues like The Cat Club and Getronik Studios while we booked ourselves shows down here in San Diego at The Epicentre, Venus Nightclub, Dream Street, some coffee shops and even an ice rink once! It’s also worth noting that we also played with a band called “609”, who’s frontman was the singer/bassist from Gimp number 1. It’s funny how things come back around.
It was around this time that I started a video production company called “In Your Face Productions”. I was making music videos for my friends’ bands and I tried releasing another VHS compilation called “Upthrust” (released on In Your Face Productions). Upthrust featured a lot more punk bands but none of them were nearly as big as the ones on Parental Advisory Explicit Punk so sales went even slower. I ended up sitting on boxes filled with hundreds of extra copies that didn’t sell. Although, they were mainly only sold in local record stores that I could drive to and only a few copies up on Interpunk.com.
The Camerica guys and I also thought we’d give television another shot. But this time, we just did public access. We knew there was no money to be made but we could use the show to help promote the band and just be more immersed in music and help us to make more connections. So we started a weekly show called “In Your Face TV”. Again, it was mostly music videos along with interviews with bands. But we had the Camerica guys as the hosts of the show so they did skits and other antics in between the music videos. We filmed interviews with:
- New Found Glory
- The Ataris
- No Motiv
- The Beautiful Mistake
- Subseven
- Wheatus
- Devil Driver
- The Unseen
- Bleed the Dream
- Never Heard of It
- Army of Freshmen
- Crowned King
- Trivium
- The Classified
- The Cause
- No Gain
and many more I just can’t recall right now.
Music videos were pouring in from labels like:
- Epitaph Records
- Fearless Records
- Nitro Records
- Kung Fu Records
- Lobster Records
- Victory Records
- Sessions Records
And after awhile, Rive Video Promotions started sending in videos from lots more labels like Tooth N Nail and many that I had never heard of. We even started to catch the attention of majors like RCA who’s publicists frequently sent over stuff.
Some of the music videos I remember airing were of bands like:
Atreyu • Pepper • The Descendants • AFI • Tsunami Bomb • New Found Glory • Millencolin • Grade • Snapcase • The Material • The Refused • Gob • Hope • The Cause • MxPx • Guttermouth • The Vandals • Shelter • No Fun at All • Bodyjar • Rubberneck • Grey Area • Camerica • Second Chance LA • Rudiger • Midtown • River City Rebels • Burning Heads • Gimp • Swindle • Cooter • Unwritten Law • One Hit Wonder • Mo*Par • Earth Crisis • Shutdown • 59 Times the Pain • Dynamite Boy • The Guido Incident • Breach • Blink-182 • NOFX • Whippersnapper • Ten Foot Pole • Face to Face • The Mr. T Experience • Buck-0-Nine • Longfellow • No Motiv • Jughead’s Revenge • Sum 41 • GFI • PBR Street Gang • West Beverly • Kung Fu Chicken • Makeshift 3 • The Bouncing Souls • Auto Pilot Off • Green Day • Waterdown • Downway • Student Rick • Thursday • OZMA • Useless ID • The Ataris • Catch 22 • The Line • Letdown • Sublime • Bloodlet • Voo Doo Glow Skulls • Pivit • Parker Theory • Taking Back Sunday • Off by One • The Beautiful Mistake • Subseven • Wheatus • Devil Driver • The Unseen • Trivium • Never Heard of It • Army of Freshmen • Bleed the Dream • Crowned King • Silverstein • Anberlin • Dub Trio • Spoken • Treble Charger • Slick Shoes • Bodyjar • Totalfat • Yellowcard • Brand New • The Transit War • The Sound of Urchin • Hawthorne Heights • Further Seems Forever • Armor for Sleep • Goodbye Blue Monday
The show was only on public access for its first few years, then it got picked up by a national syndication network called “America One” and we were being beamed out via satellite to over 120 million homes across the U.S.!
We got invited to go to Japan (for free), got shown a good time, filmed plenty of content for the show, and I helped our gracious hosts over there start a record label called “Nutcase Entertainment”.
In 2006, I got invited back to Japan again to film a tour around the whole country (that Nutcase Entertainment put on). The bands on the tour were Bleed the Dream, Never Heard of It, Army of Freshmen, Crowned King (out of Canada) and a bunch of local Japanese acts.
I finally discontinued the show in 2008 because of one “small” thing, it never actually made money. It became a drain. There were a lot of good times had and a lot of connections were made but not money. And we even had clothing companies like Volcom and Anarchy Eyewear sending in product we could wear on the show, just never any money. So the whole thing got pointless.
Then I stayed away from music all the way until 2019 when I released a studio project via Distrokid. The band name is “Feral Humans” and they’re the project I talk about in my Distrokid review.
I formed this band completely online. I found the songwriter, vocalist, and guitar master through the internet and then recorded the drums at the same studio where the Gimp and Camerica stuff was recorded, “Doubletime Studios” (the same studio where early Blink-182, Buck-0-Nine, and many others were recorded at).
Well, that’s it! You now know my entire music life in a nutshell.