Damaskas

Many years ago, back when I used to listen to The Dr. Demento Show live on KMET in Los Angeles—actually I was in Claremont, but you get the idea—a guy called Damaskas used to perform manic songs under the smogberry trees, sometimes alongside Barnes & Barnes or Sulu even Weird Al. Songs of his that have stuck with me include “Making Love in a Subaru,” “Robert Hillburn,” “Jim Morrison’s Revenge,” “Asteroids” (a takeoff on Devo’s “Mongoloid”), and “Number One” (a takeoff on Blondie’s version of “The Tide is High”).

Okay, so what? you ask. So, I reply, this is now the third time I’ve dug up information about the guy without retaining it, or even being able to locate my notes again. He’s not in Wikipedia (lack of notability, I suppose), and his Discogs presence is minimal, so I thought—what the hell? Maybe I’ll just note what I’ve got about him here in my weblog, and see if that doesn’t help me remember him in the future.

So here’s what I’ve got. Dan Hollombe was born 20 November 1957 and originally submitted his work to The Dr. Demento Show under the name Damaskas Hollodan before settling on just Damaskas. He was a regular on the show for many years in the late seventies and eighties, before apparently drifting into obscurity. And so it goes, I suppose. If I’d been betting on anybody from that milieu to be the next Allen Sherman—or even Tom Lehrer—it would have been Damaskas. Instead, well, sic transit.