Greg Jacobs: from record store to recording stories.

Greg Jacobs met John Reis when they both worked at Cargo Records in the early ‘90s. Jacobs had previously worked for the legendary Los Angeles-based label SST and its subsidiary, Cruz Records in the late ‘80s. “My interview with [Black Flag guitarist/SST owner] Greg Ginn was half to get a job and half to get [Costa Mesa-based pop-punk band] Big Drill Car signed, and both of them worked,” Jacobs says.

A different sort of van life.

Jacobs was also managing Big Drill Car around this time, and that work experience may have played a role in Reis offering him a similar gig with a certain fast-rising San Diego act. “At one point early in our friendship, he came over to my apartment. We both lived in Ocean Beach at the time, and he invited me to go with him to Pacific Shores. We sat at the bar. He ordered two beers, slid one in front of me, and said, ‘Quit your job and manage my band.’ I didn’t say okay immediately, because I had just moved from Orange County down to San Diego and I was a little nervous about the whole thing. But I just figured that this was the opportunity to chase my rock and roll dream, so I did it.”

“It was fun,” Jacobs recalls. “I was at Cargo fielding calls from major labels inquiring about Rocket from the Crypt — and not telling them that I was becoming their manager. So, I was kind of working things on both ends. It was a unique situation that worked out pretty well.” His earliest days with the band were during their Circa: Now! era. He has fond memories of that album’s video shoots, especially “Ditch Digger.” “It was just insane,” he recalls. “We rented the bull ring in Tijuana and it was just nuts. I never felt more like Little Mister Rock Manager. I was standing on my cell phone in the middle of the bull ring, talking to MTV and asking them about the Tecate signs that were all around the ring. They were all, ‘You can’t have any advertising in your video. You’ve gotta cover those up.’”

Circa 1993/94, Jacobs ended up sharing an office space next to the Casbah with another former SST employee, Gary Hustwit. Hustwit had a publishing company at the time, and asked Jacobs if he had any ideas for a book. Jacobs pitched a compilation of tour stories from various bands as a concept, and Hustwit bit. “It was hard to get ahold of bands. We were basically dealing with phone calls and meeting bands at soundchecks at the Casbah. Gary and I would just go down at, like, six o’clock when we would see a band pull up, and we would just run over there and see if they would give us a story and record it.” Their primitive methods worked, and the original Hell on Wheels was released in 1994. Fast-forward 30 years, and a new edition of Hell on Wheels is set to be released this October. It will feature 54 new stories and 20 “greatest hits” tales from the original edition.

Jacobs’ old workmate John Reis contributes two different stories centered on two different visits to Milan, Italy. The first involves a dog at a gig, and the second revolves around an unusual meal before a show. Also making the cut for the “greatest hits remixed” section are two wild driving stories involving local bands. The first finds aMiniature losing one of their van’s wheels while on a highway in Ohio. The second and more harrowing tale involves the band Chune. They were on their first tour, heading to a gig in San Luis Obispo. Fifteen minutes into their drive, they got into an accident and their van flipped six times on I-5. Venturing beyond San Diego acts, there is an account of FEAR playing Saturday Night Live in the early ‘80s as told by Lee Ving, a fascinating story about Descendents offshoot ALL visiting the Berlin Wall literally hours before it came down later that same day, and a tale of Ronnie Wood pranking drummer Kenney Jones during a Faces gig as told by Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock. “I’m just a geeky fanboy at heart,” Jacobs says. “Glen Matlock gave me his cell phone number. He’s driving through London talking to me on the phone about Ron Wood, and I was thinking, ‘This is just mind-blowing. I’m basically talking to a Sex Pistol about a Rolling Stone.’”