Mario Rubalcaba

Skateboarding career

In the late 1980s and early 1990s Rubalcaba was a professional skateboarder, skating for Team Alva. Though he no longer skates professionally, he does work at Black Box, a skateboarding distribution company and skate park in San Diego.

Musical career

Rubalcaba's drumming career began in 1990 with the San Diego Post-hardcore band 411. The group released the single Say It in 1990 and the album This Isn't Me in 1991 before disbanding. He next joined the hardcore punk band Chicano-Christ, playing on their eponymous 1991 album. In 1994 he became involved with the Louisville, Kentucky-based Metroschifter, a recently launched project of singer/guitarist Scott Ritcher. The four band members each lived in different cities and wrote songs by mailing recorded tracks back and forth to each other. The band's first tour in May 1994 was booked before the members had ever met each other in person, and they practiced together only twice before beginning the tour. Their first album, The Metroschifter Capsule, was recorded two weeks after the band formed. Lacking the funds to mix and release it, they took pre-orders for personalized copies and raised enough money to release it on Ritcher's Slamdek label. Rubalcaba recorded two singles with Metroschifter, For the Love of Basic Cable in December 1994 and Number One for a Second in May 1995, before leaving the group on good terms in December 1996.

Rubalcaba next joined Clikatat Ikatowi, which included guitarist Scott Bartoloni, performing on Orchestrated & Conducted by Clikatat Ikatowi (1996) and August 29 + 30 1995 (1997). In 1997 he simultaneously joined the indie rock band Thingy, performing on the album Songs About Angels, Evil, and Running Around on Fire. He next performed on Clikatat Ikatowi's final release, the EP River of Souls (1998). From 1998 to 2000 Rubalcalba moved to Chicago; there he collaborated with guitarist Bill Skibbe and bassist Jessica Ruffins of The Jaks in an experimental, instrumental group called Sea of Tombs. Their recordings were later released as an eponymous EP in September 2001. In 1999 and 2000 he performed on four releases by The Black Heart Procession: on the tracks "A Light So Dim" and "It's a Crime I Never Told You About the Diamonds in Your Eyes" on the album 2, all tracks on the EPs Fish the Holes on Frozen Lakes and A Three Song Recording, and "A Heart Like Mine" on the album Three. All four releases also included contributions by Jason Crane of Rocket from the Crypt, a band that Rubalcaba would later join. 2000 also saw Rubalcaba's final recording with Thingy, on the album To the Innocent.

In September 2000 Rubalcaba returned to San Diego to join Rocket from the Crypt, replacing original drummer Adam Willard. He performed on the albums Group Sounds (2001) and Live from Camp X-Ray (2002) and their accompanying tours. In 2001 he became a founding member of the instrumental psychedelic rock band Earthless with bassist Mike Eginton and guitarist Isaiah Mitchell. In 2002 he also joined a new lineup of the hardcore punk band Battalion of Saints, reuniting with Clikatat Ikatowi guitarist Scott Bartoloni. In 2003 he joined Mannekin Piss, in which he played guitar with future Sultans bassist Dean Reis, performing on the 2004 EP Planet Death. In 2004 he joined one of Rocket from the Crypt singer/guitarist John Reis' other bands, Hot Snakes, replacing drummer Jason Kourkounis. With Hot Snakes he performed on the album Audit in Progress (2004) and the Peel Sessions EP (2005). Earthless' debut Sonic Prayer was released in April 2005.

After a tour of Australia in Spring 2005 Hot Snakes announced their breakup. A live performance recorded that May for Australian radio station Triple J was released in 2006 as Thunder Down Under. Rocket from the Crypt soon announced their breakup as well; their final performance on Halloween 2005 was recorded and released in 2008 as R.I.P. In January 2006 Rubalcaba replaced Tony Di Prima in another of John Reis' bands, the Sultans, which also included Reis' brother and former Mannekin Piss bassist Dean Reis. The Sultans performed infrequently until their breakup a year later. In 2007 Earthless released their second album Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky. Later that year Rubalcaba performed on the track "From Nothing to Nowhere" on Pinback's album Autumn of the Seraphs and filled in for J Mascis in Witch for several live performances. In October 2008 Earthless released the live album Live at Roadburn. He is also part owner of the independent record store Thirsty Moon in the Hillcrest Area of San Diego.

In 2009 Rubalcaba joined the hardcore punk supergroup Off! with singer Keith Morris, guitarist Dimitri Coats, and bassist Steven Shane McDonald. The band's first album, First Four EPs, was released in 2010.

Discography

This section lists albums and EPs on which Rubalcaba has performed.