Dennis Pepa, who founded Death Angel and sang and played bass on the records that made the Bay Area name, has Stage 4 duodenal cancer. On Sunday 24 January the scene he helped build is playing the DNA Lounge for him.
Heal As One is billed as An Evening With Friends, and the friends list reads like a roll call of the city: current and former members of Exodus, Slayer, Death Angel, Testament, Forbidden, Drain, Heathen, Nevermore, Vain, Sacrilege B.C., Skinlab and D.R.I., with Hirax as special guests. More names are coming.
The night opens with P.O.S., the San Francisco punk band fronted by Pepa's son Roman, and Pepa's own side project Big Shrimp joins them to close that set, which puts two generations of the family on the same stage.
The reason it is needed is plain in the announcement: diagnosed early this year, he then lost the job he had held for years, and the medical and living costs have kept coming. Proceeds go to him, his fiancee Gemalyn and his sons. Mark DeVito drew the poster and Ashley Mitchell of Vain, who drew the original Death Angel logo, drew the lettering.