Punk Turns 30

Kid Congo Powers DJs in NYC on Friday (tonight) May 30! Boldly lifting from Kid's own blog: Shakin’ All Over Under Sideways Down! Friday in NYC Shakin' All Over Under Sideways Down!: Maximum Rock'n'Soul Dancing, Home Sweet Home (131 Christy), 10pm, free w/ guest DJ KID CONGO POWERS New York Night Train Soul Proprietor Mr. Jonathan Toubin has settled down the mobile Ants In Yr Pants Dance Party in a fixed spot - Lower East Side hot spot Home Sweet Home - and the party's been pumpin'. Friday's DJ is none other than the legendary Mssr.Kid Congo Powers, he of Cramps, Gun Club, Bad Seeds , etc - Kid's been spinning for some time now, accumulating an amazing collection, and rapidly establishing himself into one of the east coast's finest rock and soul party DJ's. He and Mr. Toubin have DJ-ed together at least half-a-dozen time and make quite the buddy movie. Expect to get down to raw party favors - obscurities, novelties, and classics at this Lower Ea...

Hives bassist Matt Destruction with Tearjerkers drummer John Bubba Bonds Last week, I saw Sweden's garage rock sensations, The Hives, courtesy of one of my favorite bands, my friends, Jack Oblivian and the Tennessee Tearjerkers. Hanging out with Tearjerkers drummer, John Bubba Bonds I had a chance to talk music with his pal, Hives bassist, Matt Destruction. When I gave Matt my business card - which bears my portrait of Stiv Bators that was on the back cover of Disconnected, Matt waxed philosophically about punk rock and how much the Dead Boys album, Young Loud and Snotty affected him. Granted, the Dead Boys punk'd a lot of people. They were one of the pioneers of punk rock, morphing into the Dead Boys from the already-notorious Frankenstein while still living in their native Northeastern Ohio. Guys like Cheetah Chrome (who together with Frankenstein bandmate, the future frontman of Pere Ubu, David Thomas , Cheetah wrote Sonic Reducer ) and Jimmy Zero (pictured) on ...

Flipper headlines this amazing bill of San Francisco punk rock pioneers - July 26 at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Tickets go on sale on June 1 - don't miss out on what looks to be the greatest line up of the punk rock from the Western Front. Penelope Houston and the Avengers will perform as will Negative Trend and The Mutants, representing the best of classic 77 punk rock and pure San Francisco art punk. Backstage back in the day - Avengers and Mutants hang out This show isn't until July - but tickets will be scarce if you wait that long. June 1 - that's when tickets go on sale. Don't forget... and just a week later, if you are in Los Angeles, find your way to the Museum of Contemporary Art to witness what we enjoyed back in the 70s and 80s - Target Video. Target Video at MOCA, Los Angeles on Saturday June 7, 2008 7-11pm, the cost is $8 for the general public, free to MOCA members and those going to the museum. It's going to be a great show. Henry Rollin...

my crystal ball tells me that visual artists are set to be screwed big time. please please please, take the time to visit these links: New York Times Op-Ed contribution from Lawrence Lessig dated May 20, 2008 (see below for highlights) http://drawn.ca/2008/05/13/oppose-the-orphan-works-act-of-2008/ and http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s2913/show The first link will direct you to a template that will make it easy for you to write your Congress people and demand that they oppose this bill. As Joe Strummer sang: KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. protect your copyright! as for this blog - because of proposed atrocities relating to copyright and copyright registration, i am going to be updating the photos you see on here and adding watermarks on them; i am also marking as "private" the photos that appear on this site that are hosted from Flickr.com - so...if you see an error - some kind of blank spot where there was a photo - let me know by email so I can replace the missing space with ...

The late lanky lead singer of The Ramones - our beloved Joey Ramone was born on May 19, 1951. He would have been 57 years old. Still, we celebrate him - with annual Joey Ramone Birthday bashes around the world, with a street corner named after him next to the site of the erstwhile club NY Punk made famous, CBGB, and the music of the Ramones lives on forever. Joey loved his rock n roll and I was never surprised when I saw him out at shows. He was also my favorite late night conversationalist - you could always see him having a snack at the counter at Veselka in the East Village on the way home from a show. Inevitably, you had been at the same show and compared notes. He'd always have time to talk to fans and sign autographs too. Joey Ramone backstage at Irving Plaza with Georgia Satellite Rich Richards. Joey sang "I Wanna Be Sedated" with the Satellites at their December 1988 gig These are some of the musicians who will be rocking the Joey Ramone Birthday Bash in ...

Tonight in Claremont, California - a suburb of Los Angeles, there's an opening reception for an exhibit called VEXING: Female Voices from East LA Punk. The exhibit continues from May 18 - August 31 of this year, so there is absolutely no way you can or should miss this if you are in the greater Los Angeles area. Here's what the Museum's website is saying about the exhibit - and please note that my pal, fellow punk rock photographer Dawn Wirth has some photos in this! Dawn is probably the best chronicler of The Bags. The Claremont Museum of Art is pleased to present Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk from May 18 to August 31, 2008. The Museum will host an opening reception at 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 17th, with live performances by Vexing artists Teresa Covarrubias, Angela Vogel, Lysa Flores and Alice Bag (Museum Member’s reception begins at 6 p.m.). The burgeoning punk rock music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s in East Los Angeles provided an electrically cha...

Back in 2004, The Hives, Sweden's garage rock sensations invited The Reigning Sound to open their US tour. Also on the bill were Sweden's all girl group, Sahara Hot Nights. Above, pictured backstage at NYC's Irving Plaza are the Hives frontman, Howlin' Pelle Almqvist and the Reigning Sound's frontman, Greg Cartwright comparing their day's record collecting finds. 4 out of 5 Hives Earlier that evening, I was dining on Irving Place (a street upon which I used to live, in fact) at the historic Pete's Tavern (where the writer known for his irony, O. Henry, used to hang out and presumably eat, drink, write and was merry) with the Reigning Sound's publicist, Betsy Palmer and Reigning Sound bassist, Jeremy Scott and his brother Jon. Jeremy had to leave the burger-fest early to prepare for the show, but Betsy, Jon and I finished our meal and leisurely strolled the three blocks back to Irving Plaza and sure enough, ran into The Hives (well, 4 out of 5 of ...

This is where the Punk Turns 30 never ending tour started for real... the Horizontal Action Blackout in Chicago, May 2005. I am still bummed that I had to leave after the second night because I was promoting a show in New York at the Ding Dong Lounge with The Saints and they insisted I be there... not that The Saints weren't great and fun to see after so many years... but it was simply a matter of wanting and needing to be in two places at once. No can do unless you're a character in the Harry Potter books. The Blackout was the first of three shows/festivals where I showed pictures and the Reigning Sound performed (that's Greg Cartwright pictured above). It was exciting to be able to see them so many times and show off these photos in the same room! June 24, 2005 - Opening at Grimeys in Nashville, with a rock n roll party later that night with The Reigning Sound and The Clutters in The Basement. There is still a poster print from that exhibit hanging in the Basement...

Hard to believe, but it was 30 years ago, almost to the date, that Pleasant and I, under the guise of our Lobotomy fanzine, served as Billy Idol 's hostesses on his first Generation X promotional trip to Los Angeles. This image of Billy Idol at Joan Jett 's apartment may be the most well-known image and story of his first Los Angeles trip - but I think the most fun pictures were taken while we were shopping in Hollywood. Pleasant had been waiting a long time for this chance to hang out with Billy Idol. We had been talking with him on the phone when he called in to Rodney Bingenheimer 's Sunday night radio show, Rodney on the ROQ. We felt like we knew him well already, so once he arrived on our sunny shores, our shopping hit list was all ready to go. Melrose Avenue was the hipster shopping street back then, and little has changed, consumer-wise, in 30 years. Melrose is still happening, but at about 1000% more cost. Over on Cahuenga Blvd. at the international news st...