Julio Venegas
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Julio Venegas was an artist and musician from El Paso, Texas who committed suicide in 1996.
The Mars Volta, a rock band comprised of former members of the El Paso band At the Drive-In and other musicians, released a debut album entitled De-Loused in the Comatorium, which is a concept album about a character named Cerpin Taxt, whom the band has said is based almost entirely on Venegas. The lyrics are often cryptic or unintelligible, but a lyric book released later revealed that the album details his descent into a coma after overdosing on morphine and his subsequent visions. After deciding to wake up, he reenters the world and finally takes his own life. The band has said that the album is a sort of eulogy to Venegas, with whom they were friends while in El Paso.
Venegas' later life experiences were similar to the lyrical story; having been scarred from allegedly injecting rat poison into his arm, he slipped into a coma from a drug overdose. Some time after he awoke from his coma, Venegas committed suicide by jumping from the overpass to the Mesa Street exit and into moving traffic.
Venegas was also the subject of or inspiration for two other songs: At the Drive-In's "Embroglio" (on Acrobatic Tenement), which is often considered a loose precursor to De-Loused in the Comatorium; and the Mars Volta's "Concertina" (on Tremulant).
[edit] See also
- Los Dregtones
- Phantasmagoria (American band)
