User:Cheapo

Johnny Cheapo

b. Jose Juan Calderon, 19 August 1970, San Bernardino, California, USA. Johnny Cheapo is an American born singer, songwriter, guitarist who mainly composes in the Punk Rock genre of Rock N Roll. Johnny Cheapo first gained a miniscule amount of notoriety as lead singer and songwriter of punk-rock flag wavers Fighting Cause. Using his real name, Cheapo played in a varietey of "unknown" bands since the late eighties including Denied Innocence (on bass), Divided Soul (singer-guitarist), Chronic Disorder(guitar), and more recently The Felony Anthems (guitar)and country/honky-tonk revivalist TrailerHitched (guitar) and many other unnamed projects. After spending the better part of the ninties gigging, recording and touring with Fighting Cause under indie-punk label Last Resort, Jose decided to call it quits. He decided to go solo and re-christianed himself Johnny Cheapo.

As Johnny Cheapo he has written, produced and released his music on his own label called Smut Records. Currently he is very active in the southern California Punk Rock scene playing many dates at many a dive. He also has been touring the West Coast and is very active in his local music scene. Cheapo is also involved with Black Coffee Films, an independant film company started by Fighting Cause drummer Ron Tidwell, and has written music for an upcoming movie. Tidwell also directed a music video for the song "Rock N Roll Queen" which was released in June of 2010 after the release of his third CD Misbehavin'.

The current revival of all-women's roller derby has also thrusted Cheapo into the spotlight but this time as a roller derby referee for the Inland Empire Derby Divas founded by Dana Maiden singer for TrailerHitched. After retiring as a referee in November of 2009, he began to do announcing roller derby games for IEDD and other leagues in Southern California.

In February of 2012 Johnny Cheapo quietly, and with little fanfare went on hiatus after playing, recording, touring and general musical carousing for 13 years. 8 months later he joined L.A. based punk rock band The Blank Expression with original Cheapo guitarist Andre Lozoya(guitar) and his wife Rita Venegas(vocals), as replacement guitarist for Rebel Noise web zine founder John Brunkner. In March of 2013 Blank Expressions released a 6 song CD on Rebel Noise Records. They currently play many high-profile punk shows in Southern California and are planning a tour to New York City for a series of shows.