Out of remission

Dinah Cancer rises from a self-imposed grave

BY JEFF INMAN

There's no use hiding anything from kids. They always find out what you're up to, especially when you're leaving the house dressed like a middle-aged Scooby Doo vampire. So rather than hide all the black corsets anymore, last year Dinah Cancer took her daughter to a show, Cancer's show, so she could see what exactly it was that mommy did with her nights.

"She couldn't believe it," says Cancer, onetime frontwoman for L.A. goth punk legends 45 Grave and now leading Dinah Cancer and the Grave Robbers. "She said, 'Mom, you're a rock star,' and I was like, 'Yeah, I am a rock star, in a way. I'm not Britney Spears. I'm more of a folk hero from the early '80s.'"

Normally, Cancer does the kind of things kids find drop-me-off-two-blocks-from-school embarrassing: Singing in outrageous cult punk bands, living every day like its Halloween, dressing like an Anne Rice fanatic. But after seeing the show and explaining it all -- Cancer's standing among punks and horror flick aficionados, her original goth status -- her secret has now become a family affair. "Now my kids help me pick out my costumes and make-up before my shows," she says.

It's an odd Betty Crocker moment for a woman who helped turned early punk into performance art and, along with Glenn Danzig, gave it a shockingly shticky sheen. The original 45 Grave sprang up in 1979, just as the L.A. punk scene was discovering it didn't need to be anything like New York. Groups like the Cramps and X were forgoing the tough hipster aesthetic of the Ramones et al and instead cutting raging guitars and absurdist showmanship with rockabilly and SoCal sensibilities. Cancer and 45 Grave had a slightly different idea. All fans of Alice Cooper's circus of horrors and classic Hammer vampire flicks, the group decided to dress punk up in a Halloween costume of blood and fishnets. The band's songs ranged from spastic blasts to crunched metal to cheeky novelty a la "The Monster Mash."

At the core, though, was always a campy shock value and Cancer's magnetic vampire persona.

Like most L.A. punk bands, 45 Grave had its own dedicated following around lower California, as well as large enough pockets of fans around the country -- just enough to keep working for a decade. That all came to an abrupt end in 1990 when bassist Rob Grave died of an overdose. Soon after, the band broke up. Dinah Cancer put away her blood red lipstick and became Mary Sims, an early childhood development teacher. She focused on raising her two daughters, Ilse, now 13, and Eirika, now 9. She became an old-fashioned model citizen, and Dinah Cancer became little more than a few funny-looking black outfits in the closet. It would be 12 years before she came out again.

"It took me a long time to separate Dinah from Mary," she says. "For a long time, I was at odds with her, especially after I had the kids. Ilse was born in 1991, and coming out of 45 Grave, I said to myself that I'm a mom and I can't do this right now. I always say that if you want to meet Dinah, she's in the closet."

It seemed like she was going to stay there permanently. Despite numerous calls to resurrect Cancer and a bump in profile for 45 Grave, the band's music playing a prominent role in The Return of the Living Dead and videos on late-night MTV, Sims refused to don the make-up again. It was only when she felt her daughters could understand what the hell she was doing did Sims finally make the transformation. "I wanted them to watch me do these things they've heard about," she says. "Now they have a better sense of what I do."

And much to Cancer's surprise, so does she. Though it might have taken her a few years to get reacquainted with the character, which she did during a two-year stretch in the band Penis Flytrap, Cancer is now as comfortable as ever with her on-stage persona. She's playing the music that made her famous, the Grave Robbers sticking strictly to classic 45 Grave's material. She's reaching out to new fans that didn't discover the band until after Rob Grave died. And she finally understands her duel personalities.

"I'm turning 44 the week after we go to Vegas," she admits. "The days of hopping over fences and running into cemeteries are over. But I feel more comfortable and at home than I have in years, and that's almost better."

Dinah Cancer and the Grave Robbers

Double Down Saloon (with Casket Life, Hillside Stranglers and Divine Chaos)

Aug. 7, 10 p.m.

702-791-5775

Free