It originated at an event at the DNA Lounge in 1990, "The Sleazefest", put together by future Hayride to Hell drummer Joey Myers, Wrestling/Music/Movie entrepreneur Johnny Legend, and local music/events promoter August Ragone.

This show featured live music performances by The Mummies, The Phantom Surfers, and Johnny Legend and His Rockabilly Bastards, video presentations, and a Lucha Libre match between Ragone and future Hellbillys frontman, Barrie Evans.

The Lucha Libre aspects were built upon with each subsequent Johnny Legend show at various venues around the Bay Area, until the early part of 1995, when they were tapped to do their first all-wrestling event.

Ragone and Kibele subsequently asked band manager, Audra Angeli-Morse (then employed at the Paradise Lounge), to come aboard and handle the business end of the show, while they and Legend, worked on the creative aspects.

Classic Horror Film fests at the Castro Theatre, and authored Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters (Chronicle Books, 2007 & 2014), which received positive reviews (including from Time magazine).

Participants in ISW included El Homo Loco, who wore a pink tutu, and the Poontangler, a female wrestler who claimed to have many illegitimate children (and fought several “paternity suit” matches).

Notable bands who performed at ISW shows during its height in the 1990s, include Mike Watt, NOFX, The Supersuckers, The Bomboras, The Dickies, Fear, The Ghastly Ones, Legendary Invisible Men, The Queers, Demented Are Go, The Donnas, Deadbolt, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and The Mad Capsule Markets.