Punk Turns 30

King Louie and Loose Diamonds are playing tonight, New Years Eve, at the Hi Tone in Memphis with the Joint Chiefs and Preachers Kids. Its no secret that I am a huge fan of Jack Yarber who's seen here in the center of the photo between Harlan T. Bobo and the inimitable and indomitable King Louie. Jack made my favorite album of 2005 - Don't Throw Your Love Away - with his band, The Tearjerkers. In Loose Diamonds, Jack plays drums, Harlan is on bass, and Louie is on guitar and vocals. Forgot to ask the guys if Chad is on board for this gig. He missed the photo session that yielded this shot (it was raining with residue of Hurricane Rita) because he'd already left Memphis. Anyway, if you're in Memphis or in driving distance, for my money, this is the show of the night. I'm also a big fan of Tyler Keith and Preachers Kids. If you don't already have their single "French Blues (and Spanish Boots)" you really need to get it. I put it on a mix C...

The handsome young man on the left is one David "Quinton" Steinberg, the drummer on Stiv Bators "Disconnected" album, former drummer for Toronto's Mods, and the replacement for Johnny Blitz during the period the Dead Boys were dissolving from attrition, firings and the normal falling apart that happens to volatile units. I've known this lad since he was 18 years old. And this weekend, as the world celebrates the passing of 2005 and the birth of 2006, some of us are celebrating the birth of David Steinberg, hot shot punk drummer turned hot shot entertainment lawyer. Happy Birthday little brother.... much love to you. How many of your kids friends dads get such a public felicitation? Just tell the boys that their old dad is way cool. Try as hard as some of us did to corrupt him (and that would be Stiv, not me, ) David turned out to be the rational one of the whole extended Dead Boys/Stiv family. He has helped all of us extended Dead Boys/Stiv family memb...

I've said it a lot this year: I am a statistics dork. But I am happy to report that I just looked at my counter and it tells me that 5,000 people have visited Punk Turns 30 so far this month! Well, THANK YOU, dear readers. My statistics also tell me which photos you like best, or want to see most often, so in lieu of a scintillating story, I'm going to give you the Top Ten most popular vintage punk photos, according to you! Number 1 Joan Jett & Billy Idol Taken in May 1978 at Joan's apartment on San Vincente Blvd. Thanks to Pleasant for insisting I undertake this adventure, thanks to Brendan Bourke for letting it happen and facilitating it, thereby launching my career, and thanks ever so to Joan Jett herself for many years worth of great parties at her place. Number 2 Dee Dee Ramone & Stiv Bators Taken in 1979 at the Whisky A Go Go during a Stiv/Disconnected solo show Did I mention that Stiv was staying with me at the time? Thanks for all the good times, Stiv...

Here they are, singing in the studio, Mumps. When they spent an extended time in Los Angeles, Mumps recorded at the Beach Boys studio in Santa Monica - Brother Studio. I have chosen the photo below of Kristian Hoffman and Michelle Loud, from Mumps Music website to show you the place out of respect to two Beach Boys who are no longer with us, Carl and Dennis Wilson. On this date in 1983, Dennis Wilson drowned in the Pacific Ocean...ironic that a man whose musical legacy was all about the beach should lose his life there. ANYWAY...the photos I took at Brother involve Lance, Kristian and Kevin pretending to steal all those gold records...you'll see them soon enough. Just not today. So, here is Kristian with Michelle, the youngest member of the Loud family, the younger daughter; Michelle and I are the same age. Lance and Michelle were rather close. Michelle lived in Los Angeles, which was great for Lance, who needed to be surrounded by those who loved him for who he really...

The Tropicana Motor Hotel (it was really JUST "The Trop") in Los Angeles, and the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City were two mainstays of my life with Stiv and his various bands. While bands did frequent other hotels when they could afford it (in LA, those would be the Sunset Marquis, or the Continental Hyatt House - or Riot House as it came to be known during the 70s, thanks to the likes of the antics of Keith Moon and Led Zeppelin ), the most fun, danger and chaos was to be had at the Trop and its adjoinding diner, Duke's. The Trop was the West Coast base of many musicians and bands. It was the first hotel sort of place many of them stayed on their first trips to Los Angeles - Patti Smith, The Dead Boys, Blondie, The Ramones, Teardrop Explodes, Cramps, and of course, Mumps. There are a load of others. Tom Waits lived there, in the back in a bungalow across the way from the bungalow that served as home and office to Sparks and Mumps managers John Hewlett an...

I can't remember how many bands I escorted through airports, helping them get on their planes, and taking pictures of the whole thing. You just can't do that these days - you can't really get beyond the first phalanx of ticketing counters unless you have a ticket and boarding pass for a flight. Of course, it is for security, but it wasn't always that way. This photo was taken at Los Angeles International Airport in May, 1978. Billy Idol had just completed a brief promotional tour in the United States for Chrysalis, who had released the Generation X record. Pleasant and I spent quite a lot of time with Billy on this trip and I documented just about everything we did with him - including delivering him to the airport for his return trip home to London. Looking at the negatives from Billy's last day in L.A., I am suprised at the number of photos I was able to take inside the airport. I know I felt like it was an event of Beatle-mania proportions and I would be stu...

The punk aesthetic relied heavily upon trash... trash bags, trash culture and trashy music. Well, its Christmas and here's a Christmas tree in a dumpster. Mind you, that's not how I'm feeling about this holiday... I just thought it was a relevant image. As the year draws to a close, here are some people who have been helpful and inspirational in ways known only to me. I thank them publically: Gary Stewart, Betsy Palmer, Scott Kempner, Kristian Hoffman, Kid Congo Powers, Ed Sotelo, Jason Conrad Shafer, Mark Leddy & Cindy Barber, Lisa and Jimmy Zero, David Steinberg, Frank Secich, George Cabaniss, Dave Swanson, John Paytosh & Megan Fitch, Mishka Shubaly, Cheetah Chrome, James Sliman, Andy McLenon, Steve Forbert, Dub Cornet, Robert Matheu, Eric Friedl and Jeanine, Zac Ives, Bryan Swirksy, Bill Nolan, Steve Naidich, Hugh Haggerty, The Ding Dong Lounge, Greg Cartwright, Tara McManus & Justin Hubbard, Long Gone John, Larry Hardy, Mike Grimes, Doyle Davis, Lee Wolfson,...

My favorite records of 2005 were not all punk records. In fact, I don't think there really is a true punk rock record on my list, although each and every one of these records possesses true punk, DIY, iconoclast spirit... and they're all just damn good. In the Number One position - my favorite record of 2005, Jack Oblivian and the Tennessee Tearjerkers, "Don't Throw Your Love Away." Sublime, earnest, rockin and from the heart. Right behind Jack Oblivian is Greg Cartwright, another Oblivian... one of the two live Reigning Sound records released this year. I much prefer the Live at Goner to the Live at Maxwell's, although I attended that show at Maxwell's and the memories alone make that record worth much more in terms of sentimentality. However, Live at Goner is recorded better, mixed better and boasts a line-up that put a lot of road miles under their belts and were that much more together at the time of recording. Live At Maxwell's unfortunately ...

Here it is, in its full frame, uncropped glory - Joan Jett at home with her pals, Billy Idol, Pleasant Gehman and Brad Dunning. Yes - Brad Dunning, who designed the logo for Lobotomy, the brainless magazine, and who had his own zine called Contempo Trends. Brad Dunning who is now an interior designer to the stars! Brad Dunning is the man on the far left side of the frame, next to Joan. The man looking down at his shoes. Of course, there's Joan, Billy, and Pleasant. The young girl next to Pleasant is the little sister of my roommate at the time. Joan lived in the mint-green painted stucco two-story apartment building on San Vicente Blvd. right behind the Arco gas station on Sunset. A year after this photo was taken, I would move into the other famous West Hollywood apartment I inhabited: 1140 North Clark St. (Motley Crue would eventually move in downstairs; Lita Ford would be a frequent visitor). But before there were two party palaces on either side of the Whisky, Joan prett...

Lance Loud, June 26, 1951 - December 22, 2001 If you want to see the obituary that ran in the Los Angeles Times, you can click here. Lance Loud was many things to me. I always referred to him as the Mercutio of Rock n Roll. He jests at scars that never felt a wound... and then! "I'm hurt... Call for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man." That's the beginning part of Mercutio's famous monologue that ends with him admonishing both Capulets and Montagues with "a plague on both your houses!" (HEY - I was going to be an English teacher til I started working at the Whisky... you can't really lose this Shakespeare thing; I find him everywhere.) Ironic that Lance as Mercutio was felled by the plague of the late 20th century: AIDS. Lance and his family were famously from Santa Barbara, CA, as am I. They were local icons, especially after the film crew for "An American Family" followed everyone around town and put our lovely little seasi...

If you are a guy in a punk band that hopes to ascend, no trip to Hollywood is complete without a visit to Rodney. Bingenheimer, though really "Rodney" is enough. He's a single-named personality (you know: Cher, Madonna, Prince, Sting... Rodney). Rodney's show on KROQ, Rodney on the ROQ was a haven for guys like Stiv, and for any up and coming indie artist. Rodney and Stiv always had a good time together, and Rodney loved the in-home photo opportunities as much as Stiv loved creating them. Look at Rodney's wall of fame. I've never seen more memorabilia anywhere. B Girl Cynthia Ross is pictured here as well. Stiv introduced Rodney and Cynthia and soon The B Girls were being played on KROQ, and their Whisky A Go Go show was well-attended, and with celebrity audience members too! Debbie Harry and Nigel Harrison of Blondie were there, and so was a not-yet-in-a-band Jeffrey Lee Pierce. That baby-faced portrait I took of Jeffrey was taken at that show. Rodn...

By 1979, Dead Boy Stiv Bators was doing solo stuff. By 1981, he had released a solo album, moved to England and formed a whole new band out of the ashes of Sham 69, called The Wanderers. The Wanderers album was a concept record based on the writing of Peter Beder, "Only Lovers Left Alive," which suited Stiv's conspiracy theory heart. Of course, current events prove that conspiracy theorists are not all full of it. The Wanderers were Stiv, ex-Shams Dave Parsons and Dave "Kermit" Tregunna on guitar and bass respectively. On drums was Ringo from the Bootleg Beatles, Rick "Rock" Goldstein, and on keyboards, Dean Klevatt, an American (like Rick) who Stiv recruited from Joan Armatrading's band. This photo was taken during their only tour of America, in 1981, at their gig in Cleveland. Todd Rundgren was at the after-show party that night, and one of my more famous regrets is not having my camera with me then (I left it in the hotel room). I reg...