The South Bay recently lost one of most unique and beloved figures in the local underground music scene. Cy Thoth, aka Phil Herz, who hosted the Firebunker show on KFJC at Foothill College every Thursday at 2pm, passed away on March 11th, only four days after his seventh anniversary show. He was 58 years old.

Herz was known for playing the darkest, most obscure songs he could get his hands on—doom-metal, psychedelic-noise, hypnotic chants and meditative droning. But perhaps more than his playlists, he drew in listeners for his deep baritone voice and distinct on-air personality, which more closely resembled a spoken word performance than standard DJ banter.

“The content of his monologues and mic breaks were incredible,” says Moris Minor aka Andrew Noto, fellow KFJC and keyboardist/drummer in Herz’s group Qumran Orphics. “Folks liked it just for that alone, and he did have great knowledge of philosophy, history and the like. His knowledge of vocabulary was seemingly endless. He was an amazing wordsmith,”

Herz had joined KFJC in 2004, he was an avid listener to the station, which always tended toward the weird and the eclectic. He would even call in and tell the DJs how much the music they played inspired him while he was doing his drawings and writing poetry, which he gladly shared with them.

“He would speak out these poems, word-play kind of things, with ancient philosophy, religious themes, but also with great funny silly humor, lots of rhyming and alliteration,” says Noto.

Once Herz got involved with the station, it became his life. During the annual fall fundraisers, he would volunteer six days a week, sometimes for as long as eight consecutive weeks. We would also volunteer nearly every month to help clean up along the stretch of Hwy 280 that KFJC had adopted. And if there was a KFJC event, he would be the guy at the front door, greeting KFJC listeners, of course, dressed in his cloak.

“His show was on Thursdays, which were also always Thanksgiving days,” Noto says. “Every year at our KFJC meetings he would tell everyone that if they had no place to go on Thanksgiving, they could hang out during his show. He’d bring the turkey, dessert and drinks.”

News of his passing came just a week and a half before his band Qumran Orphics were scheduled to play the Blank Club. Qumran Orphics were a sort of a fun project consisting of different KFJC DJs that rarely played live shows, and the DJs never played their own music on KFJC. But Qumran Orphics played the kind of crazy noisy music Herz would have gladly played on his Firebunker show if he wasn’t in the band. His contribution to the group was spoken word, much like he would do on his show, and some thoroughly engaging theatrics.

“He would wear a cloak and had a large wooden mask that he would slowly move thru the audience with—and then prop it at the front of the stage. He would sit in a chair with the flashlight on his book of writings, and read from it with his scary dark round glasses on,” Noto says.

Herz was a friend to all the DJs at KFJC. Once he became friends with someone, Herz liked to leave these long, absurd, rhyming messages on their voice mails. They were so weird that most of the people that received them never deleted them. After Herz’s passing, many of the KFJC DJs got together at the station and listened to the different messages that Herz had left each of them, laughing and crying.

“He was friend to us all, a co-pilot on a cosmic sonic adventure, a DJ, a musician, a poet, a philosopher, a chess master, an artist, a freak, a comedian, a really amazing person who had a tremendous effect on people, always,” Noto says.

Black Sabbath-influenced stoner-metal has been on the rise in underground music since the 70s. Locals Dark Earth take all the best elements of this sound—loud meaty licks, bluesy grooves, howling vocals, and create something fresh, but still familiar. We asked the trio (James Sotelo—guiars/lead vocals, Bobby Daly—Bass, Kevin Boockholdt) about their upcoming releases and how they write their songs:

Tell me a little bit about your recent record deal with F.U. Hollywood? How did that come about?

KB: Our friend, Dave Nevin from San Jose Rock Shop, introduced Greg Brodick to us. He liked our music and has been looking to put out a vinyl featuring San Jose artists. He offered us a deal to put out a 12″ split vinyl with Bibles and Hand Grenades, as well as a potential full length album release. The split will have some of the songs from the 42012 EP, along with a digital download that includes the complete 5 song EP.

It seems like there’s been a lot of bands this past five years that play 70s Sabbath metal. Why do you suppose this sound is making a comeback?

BD: I think it’s been going on under the radar continuously since the 70s, but it’s definitely gotten a lot more attention lately. This is our favorite music so we’re a little biased. It rules, that’s why!

Your songs, while obviously rooted in this old sound, have a vibrancy to them. What do you do to give it a modern edge, or is that even needed?

JS: We don’t really think of it that way. We just play what we feel at the time and write songs that come out of those jams. From the beginning, we’ve been improvising whole practices and pulling music out of that. We improvise a lot of parts live but that’s part of what makes playing a visceral experience. We each bring different influences to the table.

How much of what you play is deliberately creating new sounds versus specifically paying tribute to the music you love?

KB: We can’t separate ourselves from our influences, but we’re not a tribute band, in any sense. Our music comes from moments of inspiration while we’re playing together. Improvisation!

Tell me a little bit about the band name, Dark Earth. Where does the name come from?

KB: Honestly, James came up with it while working. James and Bobby were working at the same place and James approached Bobby and asked him what he thought of the name Dark Earth. We agreed that it suited our present reality.

So many different subgenres of metal have evolved from the 70s metal sound, the most extreme being thrash. You guys are taking influence directly from the source. What do you think you and other more “modern” metal bands have in common?

KB: It’s hard to compare across so many subgenres what makes us more or less like the other bands outside of our differing influences. Everyone feels like their own thing is different from everyone else in their own minds. We are just playing the music that we enjoy and comes naturally to us.

Tell me a little bit about your live shows. The style and sound you play, typically makes for some heavy, intense shows. Is that what yours are like?

BD: We play really loud live. We play loud all the time because it’s the best way to play! We bring high volume, our music, and ourselves to the shows.

I find the idea of the power trio interesting since everyone’s role in the band is critical to the band. How do you think that being a trio has shaped your sound and songwriting?

BD: As a trio, we play off of each other. It’s easy to jam and improvise.

Dark Earth play the Caravan on Thursday March 21. The show starts at 10pm. It is free.

Quietly tucked away in downtown Mountain View, the Dana Street Roasting Company puts on wild, high energy shows a couple times a month. One of the defining characteristics of the shows has always been the variety of styles present on any given bill—punk rock, hip hop and folk bands regularly share a same bill on a typical night at the DSRC. There are, however, exceptions to this rule, like on Sunday, October 21, which will be a night filled with nothing but Doom Metal.

That doesn’t mean there won’t be diversity between acts. The lineup includes every different shade of doom metal and ear-drum bleeding heavy-alternative metal there is. Headlining are Qumram Orphics, which features former members Hans Keller. They play eerie, electro-metal druid drones, which are sure to freak everyone out. Also on the bill are Silly Creature, a Santa Cruz instrumental prog-metal, math-rock group; Dark Earth, a San Jose stoner metal band that channel the sounds of early Black Sabbath; and Sewer Thug, a weird one man sludge-metal outfit, who takes inspiration from early Flipper.

Doom Metal night at the Dana Street Roasting Company is on Sunday October 21st at 6:30pm. The show is only $3.