Post #999 - This Machine Kills Fascists Happy Birthday Woody Guthrie

This is not my photo; I don't know to whom the photo credit belongs, but this is WOODY GUTHRIE. Today is his birthday. He would be 97 years old had he lived, but his message and his music live on.

Pop culture as agitprop wasn't born with Woody, but he was one the phenomenon's greatest instigators. Many of my favorite artists took a page from his performance art - Bob Dylan, The Clash, Billy Bragg, to name but a few.

The sticker on Woody's guitar reads: This Machine Kills Fascists.

Its a slogan that keeps on giving and for me, lived through the Clash and Billy Bragg. If I had that sticker, I'd put it on the back of my camera.


this is what i mean...

July 14 is most famously celebrated as Bastille Day, and that is a fitting coincidence - the birth of the French Revolution back in 1789 denounced the feudal way of life in France and brought the power of Hope to the common people.

Its something to sing about.... People have the power!


Patti Smith sang "People Have the Power

Woody Guthrie wasn't the first protest singer, nor will he be the last. He was however, one of the most compelling. Maybe my socialist roots were planted during the primary school sing alongs of "This Land is Your Land." I certainly took that message seriously! I respect the musicians who carry Woody's torch.

On another somewhat related note, this is Post #999. This blog has been around since February 2005. Thanks for sticking with me.

In a salute to the number, here's the English Oi band - 999

Congress Dems Go Punk!! TAX THE RICH

The Dils

The Dils just might be thrilled at one of today's headlines in the paper of record, The New York Times. Leaders in House Seek to Tax Rich for Health Plan." Click on the post title to be transported by the magic of the innerwebs to the New York Times to read all about it. With songs like Class War and I Hate the Rich, Chip and Tony Kinman as well as their San Francisco punk compadres The Avengers promulgated what seemed like a socialist agenda... but they were just forward-thinkers in my opinion.



This manhole cover I photographed on the corner of Sunset and Fountain in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles really does say it all - City of Los Angeles, Made in Mexico... California's largest city, the second largest city in the USA, was built on the cheap, near slave labor of immigrants doing the kind of work US born citizens didn't want to do, and by so doing, you have the ages old story of the brown people building the palaces of gold for the white people... or the poor building up the rich.


The Avengers


Here's the lede:
WASHINGTON — House Democrats will ask the wealthiest Americans to help pay for overhauling the health care system with a $550 billion income tax increase, the chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee said Friday.

The proposal calls for a surtax on individuals earning at least $280,000 in adjusted gross income and couples earning more than $350,000, said the chairman, Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York.

now go read the rest while you listen to Class War. For us aged and aging punk rockers... time has come!

Casting the Runaways Movie.... and now as The Ramones...

Dee Dee Ramone

I guess everyone who cares knows that there is a motion picture feature about The Runaways in the making... I wondered who would be cast as whom... the one thing I had known for a long while that it was going to be directed and written for the screen by Floria Sigismondi, who is best known for her photography and for directing a ton of high profile music videos (Bowie, Marilyn Manson, White Stripes, The Cure, Raconteurs, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and more). She's a good 5 - 10 years younger than the median age of the 70s punk rock era people, so I have also always wondered how this age gap would work in terms of her being able to translate my particular "coming of age" period (and I'm 8 years older than she is) in a cultural milieu that my generation made safe for hers. It all remains to be seen, of course, but news comes from the PR machine about the casting of The Ramones in this story.


Johnny Ramone

Here's the actual press release.

New York, NY, July 8 – St. Louis garage rockers Living Things are about to appear as one of their hero bands, the Ramones in the now-filming The Runaways, the biopic about the groundbreaking 70’s all-girl hard rock group led by Joan Jett. Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame plays Jett, with Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie and Academy Award-nominated actor Michael Shannon as the band’s “Svengali” Kim Fowley.


Kim Fowley svengali-ing it up in 2004

In the scene, which is shooting this month, the Ramones are playing at Rodney Bingenheimer’s notorious English Disco nightclub in Los Angeles circa 1975. Living Things have already recorded a cover of "We're A Happy Family" for the scene.


Rodney Bingenheimer on Sunset Blvd., not far from the location of his club - which was at 7561 Sunset. Rodney's English Disco closed in 1975

In addition to having a useful resemblance in attitude to the punk progenitors, the band has a direct line into the production – singer Lillian Berlin is the husband of the film’s writer and director Floria Sigismondi.

“I love Joey Ramone,” said Berlin. “He is like the Elvis of punk. It's a mystical, exotic vacation to step into his shoes for a moment.”



If you are curious about this band cast to play The Ramones, the Living Things are currently on the road in support of their latest album Habeas Corpus. They will be appearing at Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park on August 8th.

The Runaways is scheduled to hit theaters in 2010.

You won't see anything like this (below) however. The movie is based on the few months leading up to the band getting signed.



By the time this photo was taken, in 1978, the 20-year old Joan Jett was already a high-profile musician... Billy Idol was thrilled to meet her and her friends, also seen in this photo: Darby Crash and Lorna Doom of The Germs.

Bon Voyage Gories and Oblivians!

Sometimes, you DO have to leave home to make a dent in your milieu. When the Gories and Oblivians were active new bands back in the 80s and 90s, respectively, they each had a fan base in Europe. That fan base grew and has never stopped growing over the past decade and a half. 

Back in the day, at home, the Gories were voted "worst band in Detroit," their home town, despite a niche fan base that has stayed loyal over the years.  The Oblivians also felt more love across the pond (where I saw them in 1997) than back home, although I think they benefitted from a sort of Gories halo-effect, since they filled the void left by the Detroit crew and were able to make headway on the primal road Mick Collins, Dan Kroha and Peggy O'Neill started to pave.


Mr Quintron & Greg Oblivian... my fave Oblivians album is Play 9 Songs with Mr Quintron

Maybe its because the music lovers in Europe appreciate the American music that both these garage/punk bands grew up in -- blues, soul and bonafide American roots rock n roll. After all, it was Detroit and Memphis that birthed soul and rock as we know them today. I can't help but reiterate that which we all know... the phenomenon that made the British Invasion possible... American audiences somehow need the pre-approval of European fans before they embrace their home-grown musicians.

If the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had not covered songs by the likes of Carl Perkins and the inventor of rock n roll itself, Chuck Berry, these legends would have remained critic's faves while white-washed pop singers like Pat Boone made money off the songs of Little Richard. I mean... where would Paul McCartney be without Little Richard? And by extension, where would The White Stripes or Black Keys be without the Gories and Oblivians throwing out the first primitive punches of their generation in the New Wave 80s (with all due respect to the Cramps of course) and of the 90s.

Recently, someone sent me a comment here (that I didn't publish) calling me a moron for referring to the Gories and Oblivians as punk. That reader/writer called them garage, of course and also indie. The label "grunge" was in there too. Well, like I care about marketing labels? And further like I care what any one thinks of my opinion? But for those of you who come here to look at the pictures (and let's face it... that's what this blog is about... 30+ years of pictures of the punk and punk-influenced bands I've photographed)... let me tell you what I think is punk about the Gories and the Oblivians.



It is the primitivism, the exalted amateurism that eventually becomes expert and it is definitely the DIY spirit: Its the "let's start a label since no one will release our stuff" attitude...

But all of that goes back to Francois Rabelais, the French Renaissance overachiever who wrote clever, ribald tales about two giants, a father and son - Gargantua and Pantagruel, in a series of five books. Maybe you've not heard of him but a few folks more well-read than you have - such as Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels), Aleister Crowley and James Joyce, and have been influenced by his works. In the dead center of the first book, which explains how Gargantua built an Abbey at Thelema, Rabelais writes that the rule the Thelemites were to live by was simply: Do What Thou Wilt. Rabelais espoused utopianism but Aleister Crowley took this ball and ran with it, scoring a kind of black magic touchdown, as many modern day people believe that the Abbey at Thelema and "do what thou wilt" are Crowely-isms and instead of a utopia, they've followed a chaos (one needs only to look at the tragic side of Led Zeppelin).


Voodoo is cool when its a prop and it informs your music... 

and what better model for primitive voodoo psychobilly 

than the seminal no-bass band: The Cramps!

So let's fast forward to the 70s musical movement in England that immediately precedes punk rock: pub rock (some of its main players are important figures in punk - Stiff Records, Jake Riviera, Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello to name a few). Eddie & the Hot Rods, a pub rock band embraced by punks released a single entitled, Do Anything You Wanna Do, which was a pub/pop anthem and harbinger of punk and other 70s independent-minded musical subcultures and their ethos. All my punk rock anti-heroes lived that sentiment.

And one more thing... No Reason to Live, the furious punk rock song by Greg Oblivian is in my personal pantheon of punk rock anthems, tied neck and neck with the Dead Boys and Sonic Reducer.


Stiv Bators, Dead Boys front man.
Sonic Reducer = one of the greatest punk songs.
EVER


Now - as for the Gories and Oblivians. They've left this continent and gone to another. Let's wish them well and safe travels. I've no doubt that many of the following shows have been sold out for months.

Here are the tour dates:

*July, 3 2009
@ Sala El Sol (Oblivians / Gories) Madrid, Spain

*July, 4 2009
@ Kafe Antzokia (Oblivians / Gories) Bilbao, Spain

*July, 5 2009
@ Sala BeCool (Oblivians / Gories) Barcelona, Spain

*July, 6 2009
@ BT59 (Oblivians / Gories) Bordeaux, France

*Jul 7 2009 8:00P
@ Maroquineri (Oblivians / Gories) Paris, France

*July, 8 2009
@ Vera (Oblivians / Gories) Groningen, Netherlands

*July, 10 2009
@ Blast Off Festival! Nottingham, United Kingdom (Oblivians / Gories)
http://www.blastoff-festival.co.uk/

*July, 11 2009
@ Paradiso (Oblivians / Gories) Amsterdam, Netherlands

*July, 12 2009
@ Sjock Fest (Oblivians / Gories) Gierle, Belgium

*July, 13 2009
@ t.b.a. in Belgium (Oblivians / Gories)

*July, 14 2009
@ Gleis 22 (Oblivians / Gories) Munster, Germany

*July, 15 2009
@ Festsaal Kreuzberg (Oblivians / Gories) Berlijn, Germany

*July, 16 2009
@ 59:1 (Oblivians / Gories) Munchen, Germany

*Jul 17 2009 8:00P
@ Hana-Bi (Oblivians / Gories) Ravenna, Itlay

*July, 18 2009
@ Spaziale Festival (Oblivians / Gories) Torino, Itlay

In the photos above, from the top - Mick Collins - co-founder of the Gories, photographed in 2005 with the Dirtbombs; Quintron and Greg Oblivian, photographed in 2005; Eric Oblivian, photographed in 2005; Jack Oblivian, photographed in 2006; The Cramps, photographed in 1978; Stiv Bators, photographed in 1979

Happy Birthday Spock

That photo above was taken a year ago today on my roommate's birthday... that woman standing next to Alejandro Escovedo is my roommate - Joanna Spock Dean, known to those of us in the music biz, and the LA punk rock scene simply as Spock.

So, that makes today her birthday again, and here's a shout out to a person who had more to do with furthering the efforts of so many punk rock bands, indie bands and worthy artists in general than anyone I know or know of. The funny thing is, Spock doesn't remember all that she's done... she's done so much and takes it all in stride just like taking a breath. Some highlights -- together with her all girl glam band from the 70s, Backstage Pass, Spock facilitated the Stiff Records crew in establishing a foothold in LA and became one of the go-to people for the likes of Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe back in those days. In fact, Backstage Pass opened for Elvis Costello at the Whisky a Go Go on his first ever US tour. Then there was providing lodging for the suddenly kicked off a tour in the middle of the USA Damned in 1977. Oh, and the ladies secured the Damned some gigs, too. That punk rock mecca, The Masque operated by Brendan Mullen was a room that members of Backstage Pass helped find and lease with Brendan. They were one of the bands who rehearsed there as well.

Like I did, Spock moved to NY and continued her record label work (in A&R and later, video promotion) and we both worked at VH1 at the same time. While I was the first person in the LA punk scene to announce it was time to move to NY following the very quiet exits from the Big Orange by Lorna Doom and Phast Phreddie, Spock was among the first of the big city people to move to Nashville and after seeing her Nashville (as opposed to the one I grew to know in the 80s... Nashvegas anyone?), I moved here as well.

These are but a few tip of the iceberg things that Spock has done... It'll be her birthday all day long, so drink a toast to the Glue of the punk rock paperback book.... Joanna Spock Dean. Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Lance Loud

Click on "Happy Birthday" above for the story....