Punk Turns 30

Lest We Turn Into The Wall of Death...Bryan Gregory Remembered

2012-01-10T12:30:00.001-06:00

On this day in 2001, Bryan Gregory passed away from multiple systems failure.

Jennifer Miro of The Nuns - RIP

2012-01-05T14:54:00.004-06:00

Always an iconoclast, the beautiful, talented pioneering artist, Jennifer Miro of San Francisco punk rockers, The Nuns passed away in December. The news just started circulating yesterday as a result of the obituary/post in SF Weekly. SF Weekly's blog post tells most of Jennifer's story.

For Punk Turns 30's memories of Jennifer and The Nuns, visit these posts:

January 2009 Punk Turns 30

Search Punk Turns 30 for The Nuns

What Does Stevie Nicks Have to Do With Punk Rock?

2011-11-29T19:25:00.007-06:00

What does Stevie Nicks have to do with punk rock? Well, nothing, really. But she's totally gonna help me raise money to put together my coffee table book of images from my traveling photo exhibit, Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond.

Stevie and the rest of the Rumours line up of Fleetwood Mac (I was rather fond of the original Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer line-up myself), aside from being world renown hitmakers, are among the musicians I have photographed in my lifetime and the photos of the first Buckingham-Nicks performances with Fleetwood Mac are an intrinsic part of my life in the Central Coast beach suburb that informed my perspective.

You will see these photos of Fleetwood Mac in my book's intro.

So, I have decided to offer select images from the 1976 line-up of Fleetwood Mac, featuring the earliest appearances of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. They'll make a great Christmas Gift for the classic rock fan on your gift list.

These photos were taken at the UCSB stadium where Fleetwood Mac performed on May 2, 1976 - or that's the date on my envelope that contained these negatives. I also saw them open for the Faces in August of 1975 and was a bit confused by the presence of new members, Buckingham and Nicks. Confusion was negated by a decent version of "Oh Well," and once the Faces hit the stage, nothing that preceded them mattered.

As time passed, however, in the very few months between the Faces last gig as The Faces until their 21st Century reunion (without Rod the Mod), all that classic rock seemed to matter less and less for my closest friends and me.

We were rocking something new that resonated for us in a way that The Beatles resonated for kids like us back in the earliest days of the 60s. Girls screamed for the Fab Four; we had our own Fab Four, too... The Ramones. Not that the rock n roll that went before was all for naught; we took lots from the Beatles and the Stones. But we took from their periods of urgent relevance, and from there, we launched our own period of urgent relevance, and kept it more urgent and quite simply kept it urgent all the time.

In 2011, every single one of these bands mentioned on this page and most of them visually referenced, are in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

It is enduring. And a picture is worth a thousand words.

Stay tuned for more info on the Vintage Classic Rock Photos by me, Theresa K. They won't be available for very long, and buying them means you get a fairly limited edition piece of art and you're helping me create the coffee table book for Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond. Help punk rock endure! Spread the word!

Target Video's Solo Gallery Exhibit in Los Angeles - NOW!

2011-11-16T06:46:00.003-06:00

The Cramps, Whisky A Go Go, 1978
The Cramps are one of the highlights of the Target Video body of work - their performance at the Napa State Hospital is infamous and fortunately, because of Target, the (moving) pictures can prove it.

I've often said it (and the Target principals think I exaggerate BUT, I think its true): San Francisco's Target Video was the punk rock version of Andy Warhol's Factory. Their solo gallery exhibit opens in Los Angeles tomorrow, November 17. The text below is directly from the press release for the over-arching project Pacific Standard Time, a collaboration of art/culture centers celebrating Art in Los Angeles, 1945-1980 (or as I call it from Post War to the beginning of Post Punk):

targetvideo77: Cal Punk & Performance

As a participant in Pacific Standard Time, Annie Wharton Los Angeles is pleased to present “Cal Punk & Performance,” the first solo gallery exhibition in Los Angeles by targetvideo77. In 1977, artist Joe Rees started targetvideo77, capturing some of the edgiest performances of the era. Rees (in collaboration with Jackie Sharp, Jill Hoffman, Sam Edwards and others) archived early performance art, punk, and hardcore bands on video and film, with the artists sometimes risking their own safety by shooting from precariously tall places, inside of an insane asylum, or within the confines of a prison.

“Cal Punk & Performance” will feature original works of music and performance art from targetvideo77’s rich archive, many of which have never been seen in a fine art context. A single channel installation of Black Flag videos will also be on view, featuring epic concert footage and their first video for MTV, “TV Party.” Included in the raw and compelling videos to be shown at AWLA is one of music's most infamous performances at Napa State Mental Hospital in 1978. The show was headlined by the Mutants and opening on the bill were the Cramps. This, along with performances and artists as diverse the Crime, Dead Kennedys, The Dils, Flipper, Mutants, and Noh Mercy that were recorded by targetvideo77 in California in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Photographic stills from the videos will also be shown in the exhibition, along with ephemera and posters from the original shows.

The Dils, San Francisco, 1978
The Dils were and are a perennial fave band of mine and one close to the true meaning of the punk rock movement - their music is a hybrid of the emotional launch pad for British punk, combined with the furious and frenetic pace of The Ramones

targetvideo77’s punk rock videos were featured in The Getty’s “California Video” exhibition in 2008, and has been exhibited in the Coliseum (Rome), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Steven Wolf Fine Arts (San Francisco and Chicago), The Fillmore (San Francisco), The Pacific Film Archive (San Francisco), Cinefamily Theater (Los Angeles), the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco), and the San Francisco Public Library. Their work is currently featured in the MOCA/Pacific Standard Time exhibition curated by Paul Schimmel entitled “Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974-1981.”

The exhibitions open in conjunction with Pacific Design Center’s Design Loves Art programming from 5:30-8:30pm on November 17 and runs through January 4, 2012. AWLA gallery hours are from 12-5pm, Monday – Friday. Please call for holiday hours.

More on Pacific Standard Time can be found here:

www.pacificstandardtime.org/galleries.

Darby Crash, Whisky A Go Go, 1977
Target Video captured some of the best and earliest performances of The Germs ever, full stop.

Kid Congo 2011 European Tour

2011-11-02T14:35:00.002-05:00

Pleasant Gehman and Kid Congo Powers, above, in the days before they were punk icons. Well - they were icons in our scene... each of them drafted by our mutual friend, Jeffrey Lee Pierce to make music (with him and on their own), and as they saying goes... the rest is history.

Kid and Jeffrey were in the earliest version of Jeffrey's vision of The Gun Club and before he could play on a Gun Club record, Kid was drafted into The Cramps where he transformed from Brian into the Kid we know today.

That primitive music has never left Kid and on his recent records, it has come back to the forefront... and for more info on that...I lift directly from the Kid Congo and Pink Monkey Birds own notice for their upcoming tour....

Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds hit round 2 of another European tour in support of their critically acclaimed LP "Gorilla Rose" on IN THE RED Records.

The much acclaimed 2009 LP "Dracula Boots" was heralded by many as a "return to form." Co-Produced by Jason Ward and recorded in a High School gymnasium in Harveyville, Kansas, now an artists retreat known as The Harveyville Project, Dracula Boots uses southern soul, 60's Chicano rock, and psychedelic imagery. British magazine N.M.E. said " In short, on ‘Dracula Boots’ Kid Congo Powers has once again found the juicy jugular of soul-fired, funked-up rock’n’roll. You’d be foolish not to take a bite."

In 2011 Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds released their follow up album, "Gorilla Rose" also on In The Red Records. Eamon Carr of The Dublin Evening Herald said of "Gorilla Rose" "Having a working band is paying off. Gorilla Rose elevates seedy go-go weirdness to the level of high art."

November 16 France Bourg en Bresse La Tannerie
November 17 Holland Eindhoven Cafe Altstadt
November 19 Norway Oslo Le Revolver
November 20 Denmark Copenhagen Huset
November 21 Travel
November 22 BBC6 session with Marc Riley
November 23 London Corsica Studios
November 26 Holland Amsterdam Paradiso
November 27 Holland Groningen Vera Club basement
November 28 Travel
November 29 Germany TBD
November 30 Belgium Brusselles Les Ateliers Claus
December 1 Germany Berlin Festaal Kreuzberg
December 2 Germany Frankfurt Pony Hoff
December 3 Switzerland Zurich Stall 6
December 4 OFF
December 5 Austria Vienna Chelsea
December 7 France Roubaix La Caves aux Poétes
December 8 Belgium Charleroi Le Vecteur
December 9 France Paris La Boule Noire
December 10 France La Roche/Yon Fuzz Yon
December 11 France Lorient Le Galion
December 13 France Bordeaux L'Heretic
December 14 France Nimes Industrie
December 15 Spain Madrid TBA
December 16 Portugal Porto Armazem Do Cha
December 17 Spain Vitoria Helldorado

Stiv Bators

2011-10-22T14:08:00.004-05:00

Stiv Bators (October 22, 1949 - June 4, 1990)

Must be something about Ohio... it spawned so much wonderful music and birthed or was home to so many talented music makers.

It just hit me yesterday - that Stiv Bators and Lux Interior were born three years and a day apart (making them age peers with Alice Cooper... riding on the underground/outsider zeitgeist rather than copying their fellow Midwesterner's fascination with creepy things) and shared other punk rock parallels - Stiv from Youngstown, Lux from Akron - both ended up in NYC as frontrunners of the nascent punk rock. They both shuffled off this mortal coil too soon.

Lux Interior

2011-10-21T12:10:00.003-05:00

born on this date, 1946

East Tennessee Punk Rock Double Header - October 6 and 7

2011-10-05T14:12:00.003-05:00

We have always had TONS of fun doing these shows. I forget sometimes, since this was my daily life during the 70s, that these sneak peeks at the secret life of rock stars is fascinating to look at in grainy black & white photographs... when I knew these folks and hung out with them, they weren't quite the rock stars they are today.

Sure - they were performing and had audiences, but they were earning their stripes. My friends and I believed that Blondie and the Runaways were superstars. The Ramones were like the Beatles to us (face it, they ARE punk's Beatles... just accept it: yeah yeah yeah).

Friend and neighbor, Joan Jett has made all us punk rock girls proud with a lifelong career of loving and playing rock n roll. I'm proud to have been asked to contribute photos to the two books about her that have recently been published. On October 1, Backbeat Books published Bad Reputation by Dave Thompson. Here's what they want you to know about it: Bad Reputation is the unexpurgated story of Joan Jett, the single most exciting rocker of the American 1980s, one of the biggest-selling acts of the age, and one of punk rock's most valued elder statespeeps.

I have to agree with the praise for Joan! I read the book in one fell swoop and was almost late to work this morning because of it! So many memories... On Thursday October 6, I celebrate the publication and my former neighbor, Joan Jett by showcasing the images Backbeat included plus many other behind the scenes photos from her Sunset Strip abode. The celebratory exhibit takes place at Southland Books, 801 E. Broadway in Maryville, TN.

I'm actually quoted in Bad Reputation, talking about Joan's "do drop in" apartment across the street from me and from the Whisky A Go Go... Dave was writing about the birth of the Los Angeles punk scene, referencing The Germs (who Joan would produce).

The Germs' front man Darby Crash is an anchor of the Punk Rock Day of the Dead show taking place on Friday, October 7 at Disc Exchange in Knoxville, TN. The punk rock mariachi party that we started in Memphis at Goner Records is an annual thing for me and sad to say, each year, I add more pictures and names to the poster. But this is what Mexico's Halloween - Dia De Los Muertos is all about - remembering and honoring those who have passed... as Jim Carroll put it: "they were my friends, and they died." Jim's face is included in this year's collection, alongside Stiv Bators. The Slits Ari Up is also in the line up. Celebrate them at the record store by buying their music!

Come see me in East Tennessee this week. Take a look at the grainy black & white punk life style in living color. It's all for sale too!

Joan Jett - Bad Reputation? Happy Birthday Anyway!

2011-09-22T17:32:00.006-05:00

San Vicente's most popular party girl has a birthday today. Happy Birthday Joan Jett. She loves rock n roll, and rock n rollers love her. Goodwill ambassador for LA punk rock... Joan united the UK and NYC punks with Los Angeles via Cleveland through her personal and professional friendships with musicians like Sid Vicious, Billy Idol, Stiv Bators and the Dead Boys, the Ramones and each and every member of Blondie, past and present.

Joan Jett - what's not to love?
Hey Joan from San Vicente - many happy returns!

Joan's life has been celebrated extra large these past couple years, decades after she founded The Runaways. There was that movie The Runaways, that beautiful coffee table book with Todd Oldham, Joan Jett, and this month, Bad Reputation by Dave Thompson.

She don't give a damn about her bad reputation. You shouldn't either.

In a couple weeks, I will be extending the shelf life on Joan's birthday celebration by featuring big beautiful prints of her from the various books they've been in -- the books about her and the books about punk.

Yes - the Unguarded Moments tour continues! Our show at Maryville, TN's Southland Books includes a celebration of the publication of Bad Reputation, so come join us if you're in the area. More info here.

With Billy Idol and Pleasant

In bed with Stiv and Cynthia... you saw this in Creem

Happy Birthday Dee Dee Ramone!

2011-09-18T13:12:00.002-05:00

Douglas Colvin, you know him as Dee Dee Ramone - the poet laureate of punk rock brevity... yeah - Verlaine's a poet, Hell's a poet - but Dee Dee cut to the chase and with a few precisely chosen words defined what it meant to be a punk rocker ONE TWO THREE FOUR... and flurry of furious, glorious noise.

If he were alive, Dee Dee would have turned 60 today. At least he entertained us one last time by his ever-punk acceptance into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

Each of the Ramones did so much for the Dead Boys - but Dee Dee and Joey will always have a place in my heart for all the good times, and importantly for the advice they gave me and Stiv on the road... and those hotel hijinx too! Best pranks EVER

Happy Birthday Dee Dee... long may you reign.

Notes From A Punk Crashpad

2011-09-13T10:11:00.005-05:00

Its not Dostoevsky (Notes From the Underground), its better!

Because its live, its now, its history YOU remember! Taking nothing away from the Russian great, but at the same time putting Pleasant Gehman and Iris Berry into a pantheon of memoirists... I urge any and all of my Los Angeles area readers to check out this most fabulous punk rock literary event on Saturday, September 17 at Stories Books & Cafe, 1716 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park; 7:30-10:30 p.m.; its free. (213) 413-3733.

Its the memories of living at Disgraceland, THEE ultimate punk rock crash pad. In retrospect, it seems like the petri dish that changed pop culture, but back then, it was just friends relying on each other for camaraderie, crash pads, rides, meals, and creating bands, art and that which now looks like what it was (but we didn't call it that) - the infrastructure of an amazing counter-culture.

There are so many pictures of Pleasant and Kid and Pleasant and Belinda together because they personify exactly what I mean by "just friends relying on each other." Every epoch has a group of friends that inadvertently make a lasting mark. For LA in the 70s, its these punk rockers.

Belinda and Pleasant - LA's It Girls

Some of Disgraceland's residents and visitors over the years...

Jeffrey Lee Pierce, before he imagined The Gun Club

Kid Congo Powers and Pleasant

Pleasant, Belinda Carlisle, Dave Alvin, Connie Clarksville

Dave Alvin

I close with saying IRIS BERRY - IF YOU'RE READING THIS, WE NEED TO DO PHOTOS!!!

911 - Where Were You?

2011-09-11T17:46:00.000-05:00

999

In the UK, one dials "999" for Emergency - here in the USA, we dial "911."

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you know I lived in NYC for about 20 years. Even though the events of September 11, 2001 have international ramifications, and even though there were planes that crashed in Pennsylvania and in D.C., NYC suffered the greatest loss, in sheer numbers, of lives and property lost, damaged, forever changed.

With each anniversary of the event, media coverage never fails to ask "Where were you?" This year marks the tenth anniversary. A decade. The first decade of a new century, a new millennium. What conspiracy theory do you subscribe to?

I was late for a client visit, so I decided to stop into Tower Records and pick up Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft," which was released that day. I still have the receipt, tucked inside the CD... it's somewhere in LA with the rest of my physical copies of the Dylan oeuvre.

Tower opened at 9 AM, and I was there a couple minutes early, having walked from my sublet on East 4th/2nd Ave to East 4th/Broadway to the store.

I had a CD walkman, and after spending a good half hour in Tower, from 9 AM til about 9:30, watching the second crash and the aftermath, I left the store and listened to "Love and Theft" all day long until I joined a friend and watched the replay of the morning's attacks over and over again.

A lot has changed since 9/11, and far be it from me to speak for anyone but myself. One thing I can say as a truism, you can't take photos in airports anymore, the way you could back in the 70s...

Pleasant, Billy Idol, Brendan Bourke and Leslie at LAX

The past few days, every newspaper, periodical, blog, website, etc. I've seen carries some kind of story asking the same question: 9/11 - Where Were You? Everyone has a memory of this... do you really want to re-live it?

When I think of 9/11, I hear this.

Happy Birthday to Chrissie Hynde, Buddy Holly and....

2011-09-07T10:03:00.003-05:00

Chrissie Hynde was born on this date in Akron, Ohio

Buddy Holly was born on this date in 1936 and Elizabeth I, Queen of England, contemporary of Shakespeare, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn was born on this date in 1533... OK, Elizabeth I was probably not musical, but the island nation and its greater commonwealth have given us centuries of great music, so she's worth mentioning... at least to me.

Bangles Releasing New Record in September 2011

2011-09-03T15:55:00.007-05:00

Prior to forming the group that would become The Bangles with Susanna Hoffs and Annette Zilinskas, Vicki and Debbi Peterson were part of a band called Those Girls aka Hollywood Girls (Vicki and Debbi on the left) - I feel a little brain-dead that I don't remember the guitarist or bass player in this group, Those Girls... for it was the guitarist with whom I was in contact to do this photo session. I also can't remember if it was a journalist or if it was Kim Fowley who put me and the guitarist in touch with each other... anyway - this photo was taking in 1979 or 1980... we did a shoot in and around Century City - including the escalator that Mary Tyler Moore rode up in the opening sequence of her popular 70s sitcom... no - not ALL the scenes were filmed in Minneapolis! This shot, above, is in a parking garage below LA's Twin Towers - 2029 and 2049 Century Park East. I knew my way around that complex, as I had a part time job in one of the towers.

A couple years later, my friend, Gary Stewart, who worked at the Rhino Records store in Westwood put me in touch with Annette Zilinskas when I was booking an early show of up and coming local bands at the Whisky A Go Go for an otherwise empty Monday night on their stage. It was a Paisley Underground extravaganza with appearances by The Three O'Clock and The Last, and introducing The Bangs. (Read more about it here)

The Bangles were the one band associated with the Paisley Underground that made it into the mainstream pop charts, and garnered all the media attention, although the scene was rich with talent that continues to make music today.

At the end of this month, (September 27, to be exact) The Bangles will release Sweetheart of the Sun, a 12-song album recorded by pop meister, Matthew Sweet. Read more about it at thebangles.com

Thirty Years Ago Today

2011-08-31T18:09:00.005-05:00

FIRE OF LOVE, the album by Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his band, The Gun Club was released 30 years ago today on Ruby Records, a division of Slash.

Within a couple of years, Jeffrey had catapulted from the dedicated local punk music fan and president of the Blondie Fan Club to a bona fide artist worthy of his own following.

FIRE OF LOVE was an auspicious recorded debut - likely the first record from Los Angeles punk rock that would incorporate blues in a distinctive way that would distance the band from punk without distancing the players from the scene. The Gun Club, alongside X and the Blasters would carve a unique place in the genre game with their mix of traditional American roots music with a psychedelic and punk rock interpretation. Indeed many years after paving the way for hybrid genres, X musicians, John Doe, Exene Cervenka and dual Blaster/X guitarist, Dave Alvin all have a firm and respected place in the world of Americana (as does Plimsouls founder/front man, Peter Case) as well as punk.

The popular music of the 21st Century is all the richer for Jeffrey Lee Pierce's contributions of genre mashing, and his explorations, a la Arthur Rimbaud of a "long, intimidating, immense and rational derangement of all the senses."

I dare to think there'd be no White Stripes as we know them without The Gun Club's primitive blues. Kid Congo Powers, who started in the Gun Club and was snatched up by the Cramps before the Gun Club even recorded, still carries the torch that his "let's play in a band" mentor lit.

I also daresay that FIRE OF LOVE ranks among one of the best records ever made in the 20th Century.

You can commune with other Gun Club and Jeffrey Lee Pierce fans on the Yahoo Group called WILDWEED.

Go Gos Have a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!

2011-08-11T15:33:00.003-05:00

Today, August 11, 2011, less than a week before Belinda Carlisle's birthday, The Go Go's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled. Here, for your convenience, I've copied and pasted the text from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's website:

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Go-Go’s 1981 landmark debut album “Beauty and the Beat” and their current “Ladies Gone Wild” summer tour (including a headlining concert at the Greek Theater on August 17), the Go-Go’s will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the former nightclub, *The Masque, where they played their first show.

Charlotte Caffey

From their halcyon days as America's sweethearts to their current status as superstars who pioneered a genre, The Go-Go’s preside over an amazing three-decade reign as high pop priestesses. The internationally-loved pop hit makers helped cement the foundation of the early ‘80s pop-rock sound without the aid of outside composers, session players or, most importantly, creative compromise. From their very first show, the Go-Go's sang and played their own songs, offering five feisty role models for a generation of ready-to-rock girls and good, hooky fun for pop-loving guys.

Their story truly is a punk version of the American Dream. They came, they saw and they conquered the charts, the airwaves and, with their kicky kitsch appeal, pop culture in general.

For a while, the band was virtually inescapable: TV guest shots, magazine covers, high-profile concert tours and movie offers turned Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock, Kathy Valentine and Jane Wiedlin into certified rock stars. Their sparking California pop appealed to an astonishingly wide cross section of music fans internationally.
Because of -- or maybe in spite of -- all this attention, they soared to become a pop phenomenon while having a lot of fun and blazing a brand-new trail -- for the DIY ethic in general, and women in music in particular. Their self-contained battle cry was a string of irresistibly catchy, self-penned pop singles featuring Carlisle's infectious vocals, with Caffey and Wiedlin's loud, punk rock guitars and sweet backing vocals, all slammed home with Valentine's throbbing bass and Schock's big ‘60s beat.

Sure, before the Go-Go's debuted in May of '78, there were other all-female bands, but to a man (ahem, or in this case, woman) there was usually a seedy, cigar-chompin' guy lurking just behind the curtain, pulling strings, writing songs and shaping the image as his gals danced on his string. But the Go-Go's didn't need a doctor in their house. It was their baby right from the start and they nursed the bouncing infant on a diet of non-stop nocturnal nourishment in dank clubs all across the city.

They danced to their own joyous beat from the very beginning. The Go-Go's banded together in the truest of punk ethics: there was no master plan to get signed or in any way conquer the world. In fact, when Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin met, they weren't even musicians. But since nearly everyone else in their vicious circle of friends was forming bands, they said why not? and jumped right in that darn fountain, fully clothed.

The band was conceived in the very same gritty glitter of the rough Los Angeles scene that also birthed X, The Germs, and The Weirdos. By all accounts, their first show was short, sweet -- and very, very raw. They didn't care, they were just having fun. But, just as lust can turn to love, their newfound hobby turned to dedication.

Two months later, real musician Charlotte Caffey joined and their sound quickly improved. The unique mix of snotty punk discord blended with sweet pop melodies was presented with a freewheeling let's have a party thrift-store chic attitude. The ensemble quickly cultivated a dedicated clique of fans and collected glowing notices in the notoriously fickle LA press.
By '79, with the addition of Gina Schock on drums, the Go-Go's were beating their path to stardom on their own terms. They played every cool club and party in L.A. and, naturally, record companies were starting to sniff around. Still, the band remained true to their punk leanings, releasing an early version of “We Got The Beat” through the quirky Stiff Records in the UK.

As '80 turned into '81, Kathy Valentine joined and by April, the band was signed to upstart new wave haven I.R.S. Records. As summer arrived, so did Beauty and the Beat, hot on the heels of their debut U.S. single “Our Lips Are Sealed.” Summer turned to fall, and the world fell in love with the cute, bubbly and effervescent (and yes, they hate that description) Go-Go's.

Belinda at the Whisky, The Joneses look on

The double platinum-certified Beauty and the Beat reached number one and begat Vacation in ‘82 and Talk Show in ‘84 during the ladies' charming reign of chart and radio smashes. And, like any truly classic rock band, their enduring hits including “Vacation,” “Head Over Heels” and “Turn To You” live on in countless compilations, movie soundtracks, remakes and, yes, even a string of very successful television commercials.

In 2000, their raucous and rocky off-stage history, often re-told and colorfully embellished, was unflinchingly presented in a very popular episode of VH1s “Behind The Music” series with an accompanying greatest hits collection. Behind The Music: The Go-Go's Collection continues to be a strong-selling catalog item.

On the strength of the VH1 special, God Bless The Go-Go's, an all-new collection of songs was released in 2001. A stack of glowing reviews soon followed backed by a triumphant tour, later immortalized in the exciting DVD, Live In Central Park.

The Go-Go’s recently released an expanded 30th Anniversary edition of their double platinum debut album, Beauty and the Beat, and are on the road this summer for their "Ladies Gone Wild" tour, including a stop at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre on Wednesday, August 17.
The whole world may have lost its head, but in a world gone crazy, the Go-Go's still have the beat. And now, three decades after the release of their first album, go-go music still makes us dance!

Rodney Bingenheimer and Charlotte

...and now Post Punk is 30Psychedelic Furs

2011-07-12T15:21:00.010-05:00

It has been 30 years since the release of this album, TALK TALK TALK. It was released in June, 1981 - the sophomore effort by England's Psychedelic Furs, whose eponymous debut was nothing short of breath-taking.

For those of us who were already won over by the Furs debut, TALK TALK TALK heralded the big time. With its "Sweet Jane" like opening riff filtered through a dirty amp, the runaway hit song (for which there was a nifty music video invoking an almost "Through the Looking Glass" vibe, postmodern though it may be) "Pretty in Pink" was a valentine to all the misunderstood (punk rock) girls of any era (it always made me think of Marie Antoinette, who was sold out by everyone who denied doing so. But history knows better). The song meant so much in terms of relevance and resonance that the late director John Hughes, whose trademark was movies that understood teenagers and their angst, immediately created a(nother) Molly Ringwald vehicle called.... "Pretty in Pink." The movie came out about 5 years after TALK TALK TALK. The Furs recorded another version of the song, with more POP, less Lou Reed-sounding guitars. Frontman Richard Butler appeared in a music video with highly stylized 80's hair and clothes, but lost none of his credibility or reptilian appeal.

With his lyrics' erudite poetic references, Butler became and remains a certain kind of rare darling, beloved and respected by fans and critics alike, for all the same, and right reasons.

For punk rockers of a certain age - which would be me, The Psychedelic Furs were exactly right for their moment; they were the right band with the right influences, the right interpretation, the right songs and the most perfect singer.

Their debut album started quiet, slow and dark... building up with atmosphere before the bass, drums, and eventually guitar kicked in - loudly - and Richard Butler's distinctive raspy voice called out, "India." It was so literate and literary and set upon musical tropes quite sophisticated in their primitive presentation. Butler seemed like a literature professor trying out the rock n roll. As a singer and performer, he was part Johnny Rotten mixed with equal parts of David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Charles Aznavour. Lyrically, he was part Jacques Brel and part Bob Dylan with a healthy dose of ts eliot.

Yes, the 80s were definitely off to a good start. In 1981, MTV was born and it permanently changed how we were exposed to music old and new. The Furs were one of the good things about visual music. In between concert tours, you could see them being precisely them in their clips.

Thirty years later... MTV doesn't play music any more! I get to say so moreso than others, as I worked for an MTV brand (VH1) during its heyday... I'm disappointed and I do in fact often long for the halcyon days when I would get excited about the latest 3-minute movie set to one of my favorite songs. (To see music on MTV, you have to tune in to their digital channels, or see it online)

Thirty years later, TALK TALK TALK is celebrated by the Psychedelic Furs in concert. They've been on and will continue touring this year, playing the album in its entirety. Opening for themselves, they come back after a short break and play their greatest hits.

Thirty years later, the way we do everything is different. Everything is different than it was or than we imagined it could possibly be.

When I started this blog (six and a half years ago), the phenomenon of social networking as we know it was nascent. Facebook was for college students only, and Myspace had pushed Friendster to the kerb. Prior to that, online communities were limited to bulletin and message boards, both independent or part of larger portals (such as AOL and Yahoo). I belonged to one back in the Nineties.

But if it weren't for the Facebook, its likely I wouldn't have learned about the Psychedelic Furs tour until it was too late to organize myself (ie: getting off work the day of and day after) to even see the show.

Also, when I started this blog six and a half years ago, it was partly to celebrate a significant "birthday" (if you will) of punk rock, and at the same time, share my memories by showcasing my photos... photos taken with my second SLR, a Nikon FM (1973 vintage - first year it was made).

Since I started taking pictures (in the 1960s - using parents' Leica, then a collection of Polaroids, some school-issued twin lens things until I got my very own SLR, a Pentax, then later, two Nikons), camera makers have been making it easier for anyone to take a picture. Forget smart phones for a second - there were smart cameras with autofocus before the full-on DSLRs that most of my photography colleagues now use (and that I will REFUSE to even consider; kill me if I get one). Now, go a step further. We do everything with our smart phones. And the camera phone has advanced enormously in ten years' time.

I'm more than a bit flabbergasted when I see the quality of cel phone cameras - especially the iPhone (but then again, Apple tech - how can you beat it? And Apple tech does actually have Zero degrees of separation from the Psychedelic Furs; more on that later).

It's already come to the Baroque point, though, with cel phone cameras. On the one hand, I feel that people have grown not only to accept, but to embrace low-tech/low-fi media - which started back in what seems like ancient times with America's Funniest Home Videos. That viewer-supplied content, with its varying quality lowered the bar on resolution and cranked the reaction factor up high. So a few steps later, small, low resolution cel phone camera pictures become perfectly acceptable souvenirs. It didn't take more than the blink of an eye for those cel phone camera pictures to then become perfectly acceptable photos online, in the likes of Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and blogs of all sorts. For me, the tipping point is that news outlets more than ever, rely on viewer/reader contributions, with cel phone pictures and video.

So - when I went to see the Furs play TALK TALK TALK in Nashville at the Cannery Ballroom, I didn't take my camera. I wanted to simply enjoy the concert and not experience it mediated by one eye squinting through my viewfinder. And of course, I do have my Blackberry... and it takes really mediocre pictures.

But I did not intend to take pictures. And enjoy the show, I did. It was nostalgic, of course, but the music holds up. The Butler brothers are in fine form, and their band, most of them, while not the original line-up, have been on tour as the Furs for years and years, so they are most definitely a well-oiled machine. It was just like 1981 all over again (except I'm 30 years older, so standing in one place all night long made my feet hurt whereas in 1981, I wouldn't have felt a thing). Everything that made the Psychedelic Furs stand out in 1980 was alive and 10-fold in 2011. TALK TALK TALK - a sentimental favorite of mine (and of many) sits in a place - to quote Butler, "In the side of our lives where nothing is ever put straight" - it was the record (and that song, "Pretty In Pink" that I'm quoting) that took the Furs out of the underground and into the pop stratosphere. It took them away from our intimate scene, but at the same time, allowed them to have a career that surpasses 30 years, chock full of hits and seemingly un-compromised throughout that career. One can't help but be overjoyed for them and about them.

So - now... my Blackberry. It takes crappy pictures. I have always relied on the cel phone camera to send images to someone for whom I'm shopping, or whatever - as a reference. It has never been intended to be THEE photo. Still, when my roommate (Joanna Spock Dean of glam punk band Backstage Pass) gets to catch up with her former roommate (Furs drummer, Paul Garisto), it doesn't matter how crappy one's camera, one must capture for posterity.

Also, the cel phone camera is handy for those with Twitter accounts (or for Facebook as well) to immediately share those in-concert moments.

Here are a couple of blurry Blackberry moments.

Since you've lasted this far (and I thank you), a final note on Apple tech:
There's a device for iPhones that will enable the user to attach it to their Nikon or Canon DSLRs and take real photos. Blows my mind. This Analog punk chick here would rather you save yourself some money and hie thee hence to a pawn shop and get yourself a mechanical camera in the 35mm mode. But that's just me. The zero degree of separation between Apple tech and the Psychedelic Furs is that the other Butler brother works at Apple, developing something hi tech and fabulous for the iPhone camera, reports Tim Butler.

So there you have it. Legends performing legendarily, not disappointing. Thank you Howard Thompson for finding this band for us more than 30 years ago. Long may you reign.

Trey Tidwell, RIP

2011-05-21T19:01:00.001-05:00

May 17, 19?? - May 20, 2011

Joey Ramone Would Have Been 60 Today

2011-05-19T14:35:00.001-05:00

Punk Turns Almost SeptegenarianHappy Birthday Lou Reed

2011-03-02T10:14:00.002-06:00

Lou Reed, born today, has reached the age of 69.

Yeah. Nearly seven decades on this planet, the survivor, and one of the inadvertent inventors of punk rock has influenced thousands and made it into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame with lo-fi songs about drugs and sex and obsession.

This shouldn't freak me out, as John Cale, another founding Velvet Underground member, has a birthday exactly a week from today, and he too, will turn 69.

We all get old. That's reason enough to celebrate.

Fave Records of 2010 - it goes to 11

2010-12-31T18:32:00.000-06:00

In no particular order...

Mountain Jack - Hans Rotenberry & Brad Jones

Grinderman 2 - Grinderman

Band of Joy - Robert Plant, Buddy Miller, et al

Halcyon Times - Jason & The Scorchers

**** (four stars) - The Greenhornes

Brothers - The Black Keys

Strychnine Dandelion - The Parting Gifts

Wake Up The Nation - Paul Weller

National Ransom - Elvis Costello

Wig! - Peter Case

The Batusis (ep) - The Batusis

Dia De Los Muertos 2010

2010-10-30T21:53:00.002-05:00

This year we also remember and celebrate the brief but brilliant lives of Ari Up (of The Slits, pictured below, center) and Derf Scratch (Fear).

Ask The Angels

2010-08-11T21:49:00.007-05:00

Patti Smith - behind the scenes at her open air poetry reading at the erstwhile Licorice Pizza, Los Angeles, 1978

I've said it many times: Patti Smith is the one who punk'd me. Maybe it was that I discovered her while I was in college studying literature - French Imagist poetry, at that... and she too revered Arthur Rimbaud so much that she name-checked him in her own poetry and in her music... maybe it was Jay Dee Daugherty, the drummer in her band, a home-boy who left the warm California sun to be a pioneering NYC punk... whatever it was, Patti Smith touched a great many people around the world, and she left quite a mark on Los Angeles.

Back in the mid-70s when Patti Smith and her band started playing regularly, there was a close-knit group of us who flocked to see her over and over again. We all became friends through our common bond of punk rock, which for Los Angeles began right along with the early Patti Smith shows.

My friend, another photographer, Donna Santisi was another who was deeply influenced and inspired by Patti. Of all us photographers in LA taking pictures of our friends and new anti-heroes, Donna was the first to put out a monograph.

Donna called her collection ASK THE ANGELS, after the Patti Smith song, and the volume is dedicated to Patti for "inspiration, motivation and communication."

The cover girls are Hellin Killer and Trudie. Marcy Blaustein compiled and edited the book. These people were our friends, but Hellin and Trudie have become living legends and icons of LA punk rock, alongside musicians like John Doe and Exene, Dave Alvin, Darby Crash, Joan Jett and so many others.

Donna's book was published in 1978.

Now, there's an updated edition, with images going all the up til 1980. The original book was spiral-bound across the top and measured about 5x7 inches. The new edition is perfect-bound and measures 8.5 x 11 - in short, a trade paperback sorta coffee-table sized book!

Congratulations Donna!

Donna will be at Book Soup on the Sunset Strip on Thursday, August 12 at 7 PM to talk about the book and the stories behind the photos and sign it. If you are in the LA area, check it out. If you're not in LA, check out Donna's work online at santisiphotography.com

Batusis US Tour - 1 Week Left!

2010-07-24T13:02:00.005-05:00

There is NOTHING like seeing a living rock legend up close and personal. NOTHING!

Living in Nashville, where so many records are made and where so many musicians live, we almost take it for granted, just like when I grew up in LA and when I lived in NYC for 20 years... you can't spit without hitting a famous person, so you take them in stride, and soon they become "that guy in the Porsche at the red light by the Beverly Hills Hotel" (although for me, that guy was mostly always Paul Newman.)

Right now, a small faction of the USA is enjoying what the UK just did -- Cheetah Chrome and Syl Sylvain on tour with their Batusis.

These guys are living legends of rock n roll. They're the pioneers of both glam and punk rock and they are touring together in support of their EP.

As such, you get to hear the entire EP in their set and you get to hear the Dead Boys and New York Dolls songs they wrote and made infamous.

Best of all, on this tour, Batusis are doing quite a few in-store appearances - totally free, and they'll autograph your record and other memorabilia... you can tell them how much you love them and all that.

Catch up with Batusis schedule on the usual social networking sites to note when they're in your neck of the woods:
Facebook
Myspace

Slake Your Cultural Thirst

2010-07-22T02:24:00.005-05:00

There's a new read in town that will, pardon the pun, which is intended - SLAKE your cultural thirst. It's called SLAKE.

From their website, here's a little bit about them:

This summer, a fresh voice takes root in Los Angeles with the debut of SLAKE, a new quarterly journal co-founded by former L.A. Weekly editors Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly. SLAKE is devoted to the endangered art of deeply reported narrative journalism and the kind of polished essay, memoir, fiction, poetry and portrait writing that is disappearing in a world of instant takes and unfiltered opinion. SLAKE marks a return to storytelling.

Designed with an artist’s eye and published in a full-color, perfect-bound format, SLAKE sets a new template for the next generation of print publications — collectible, not disposable; destined for the bedside table instead of the recycling bin; and so seductive in its looks and content that readers will find it irresistible. Online, SLAKE stories will be easy to navigate on any platform, and will be one of the first websites designed from scratch to take advantage of the display capabilities of the iPad.

Most important are the voices of SLAKE, some of the nation’s finest writers, photographers and artists who live in Southern California and bring to SLAKE their own individual visions of Los Angeles and the world beyond. Contributors to SLAKE‘s debut issue include Luke Davies, Mark Z. Danielewski, Jonathan Gold, Geoff Nicholson, Jerry Stahl, Sandow Birk, Michelle Huneven, John Albert, John Powers, Judith Lewis, Iris Berry, Steven Kotler, Daniel Hernandez, C.R. Stecyk, Pleasant Gehman, Arty Nelson and many more.

I am pleased and honored to have contributed several photos to illustrate Iris Berry's piece about the erstwhile Tropicana Motel - one of punk rock's most important hang-outs.

Look for readings, gallery shows and other events with SLAKE writers and artists throughout the summer in Los Angeles.... such as the ones listed below!

Slake: Los Angeles Launch Party! Join us Thursday, July 22 at Track 16 in Bergamot Station for an evening of readings, music, art, food and drink. Art from Slake‘s first issue will be displayed and available for purchase. There will be pie. 7 p.m. 2525 Michigan Ave., Bergamot Station, Santa Monica 90404. (310) 264-4678. www.track16.com.

Stories Books, Thursday, August 5. Readings from some of Slake‘s greatest Eastside contributors. 7 p.m. 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park 90026. (213) 413-3733. www.storiesla.com.

Vroman’s Bookstore, Friday, August 13. Readings from several Slake contributors, including correspondents from Slake‘s Pasadena/Altadena bureau: John Powers, Jervey Tervalon, Michelle Huneven, Jonathan Gold and Erica Zora Wrightson. 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena 91101. (626) 449-5320. www.vromansbookstore.com.

Bootleg Theater, Tuesday, August 24. An evening of music and readings. Still developing, but save the date. 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles 90057. (213) 389-3856. www.bootlegtheater.org.

Book Soup, September 8. A night of Slake readings. 7 p.m. 1818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood 90069. (310) 659-3110. www.booksoup.com.

Check back at slakemedia.org for more events as they develop.

Johnny ThundersJuly 15, 1952 - April 23, 1991Armed Memories

2010-07-15T02:58:00.009-05:00

Hard to believe that it's been 19 years without Johnny Thunders.

I remember spending his 30th birthday with him and Stiv Bators on my very first visit to NYC's Lower East Side. I remember bumping into him in Paris on a cold grey morning, where he was the most brilliant sight for any eyes, in his fuchsia coat. That was in the 80s.

In the 70s, Johnny and his band mates in the New York Dolls were the faces that launched thousands of ships. In the odyssey that is rock n roll, The Dolls combined their love of girl groups, glam, roots rock and blues and came up with the music that paved the way for punk.

Last night, when I saw the opening night of the Batusis tour, Cheetah Chrome and Syl Sylvain tore through a couple Dolls songs: Jet Boy and Trash as well as Cheetah's great contribution to the punk rock songbook: Sonic Reducer. Afterward, when chatting with Cheetah about the set, he said that he had always been a fan of the Dolls... their music informed the songs he wrote for Rocket From the Tombs, Frankenstein and the Dead Boys.

The life of Johnny Thunders may have been cut short - his and Arthur Kane, and Stiv Bators and others in the immediate circle who shared a certain life and time in NYC - but he does live on...we are armed with his memory and influenced by what he left behind.

Batusis Tour Begins Tonight!

2010-07-14T17:34:00.004-05:00

Not so long ago, a handful of punk rock legends convened in Nashville, TN to make an EP.

Cheetah Chrome (Rocket From the Tombs, Dead Boys) and Syl Sylvain (New York Dolls) collaborated on songs, and their pals, The Black Hearts rhythm section of Thommy Price and Enzo Penizzotto provided some rock n roll anchorage. The result? The Batusis rock so hard they will hurt you and you will love it.

Now, Cheetah and Syl are taking the show on the road. It kicks off tonight, in Cheetah's current home town of Nashville, TN.

Tour dates are below - and note, these fellas are doing some indie record shop in-stores, which are free - so don't miss those either!

Last night, Cheetah and Syl performed a few songs at Grimey's, much to the delight of local punk rock fans. We also got a taste of a tribute to Syl's former band mate in the New York Dolls, the late Johnny Thunders in the form of the Batusis acoustic performance of "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory," Johnny's signature song.

WED 7/14: Nashville, The Rutledge

THUR 7/15: Memphis, The Hi Tone

FRI 7/16: St. Louis, Off Broadway

SAT 7/17: Chicago, Reggie's

SUN 7/18: Detroit, Small's

TUE 7/20: Pittsburgh, 31st Street Pub

WED 7/21: Cleveland, Blue Arrow Records (FREE in-store meet Syl and Cheetah, 7 PM)

WED 7/21: Cleveland, Beachland Ballroom

FRI 7/23: NYC, Generation Records (FREE in-store meet Syl and Cheetah, time TBA)

FRI 7/23: Brooklyn, Europa (http://www.europalive.net/) (NOTE: early gig!)

SAT 7/24: Long Branch, NJ, Brighton Bar

SUN 7/25: Philadelphia, AKA Music (FREE in-store meet Syl and Cheetah, 4 PM)

SUN 7/25: Philadelphia, M Room

TUE 7/27: Erie, The Crooked I (w/Pistol Whip)

WED 7/28: Baltimore, The Quarter at Bourbon Street

THUR 7/29: Washington DC, Crooked Beat Records (FREE in-store performance, 5 PM)

THUR 7/29: Washington DC, Black Cat

FRI 7/30: Charlotte, Tremont Music Hall

SAT 7/31: Atlanta, Criminal Records (FREE in-store performance, 5 PM)

SAT 7/31: Atlanta, The Earl

The Batusis is available from Smog Veil Records

Circus Town - it's on the airwaves Sunday night

2010-07-08T09:44:00.007-05:00

Frank Secich

I first met Frank Secich in 1979 when he was working with Stiv Bators. Frank was a member of what I call The Latter Day Dead Boys. That band morphed into the group some people call The Stiv Bators Band, and that I refer to as the Disconnected Band, as they were the group that recorded Stiv's solo album of the same name. They also all contributed to the songwriting.

It would be Stiv's third (mostly) Ohio super-group. Come to think of it, Stiv only ever was in Super Groups (Frankenstein, now legendary, became the Dead Boys. Stiv then joined Sham 69 when Jimmy Pursey went AWOL, forming The Wanderers, and took a Wanderer with him, together with The Damned's Brian James and The Barracudas Nicky Turner to form Lords of the New Church. In between, there was work with Dee Dee Ramone and with Michael Monroe of Hanoi Rocks.) But the Stiv Bators / Disconnected Band was the one that laid the groundwork for a lasting pop contribution from one of punk rock's loudest and snottiest voices.

Frank's wearing the shades.

Its almost unfair to talk about Frank Secich's contributions to the musical world solely in connection with his high school friend, Steven John Bator. Back in the early 70s, Frank was a member of the seminal power pop band, Blue Ash. If you were an Ohioan, your power pop thirst was slaked by some excellent local bands, including The Choir (who, when Eric Carmen joined, eventually morphed into The Raspberries) and Blue Ash.

Blue Ash was signed to Mercury Records and recorded the highly regarded cult classic album called No More No Less. Though Mercury dropped them in 1973, Frank and co continued playing and recording together until 1979. When Frank joined the Bators circus, Stiv told me it was a real coup that Frank now had the time to work with him in transforming his Dead Boys success into one that would allow him to make a pop record. While "Disconnected" is the brilliant sum total of their collaboration, in 1979, with an ad-hoc group of players, Stiv and Frank recorded a brilliant and faithful cover of The Choir's hit single, "It's Cold Outside" for Bomp Records, beginning a relationship for the musicians that lasts to this day.

In 2005, The Disconnected Band had a reunion with some other Ohio players to record a tribute to Bomp! Records founder, Greg Shaw, who had passed away the previous October.

Disconnected Band - connected in 2005, Youngstown, Ohio

At the time, Frank was hinting at the reunion of Blue Ash for some gigs, which did happen - and their album was reissued in a collector's edition. And he was inspired by the sum total of all to write new songs and start playing music live.

Armed with a lifelong fascination with Buddy Holly, Frank started writing, and The Deadbeat Poets were born. Their debut album, Notes From the Underground was a critical fave. They did some gigs, got more rave reviews, and Frank kept writing.

Circus Town was 14 months in the making. Circus Town is a real and a figurative place. Frank drew inspiration from an abandoned amusement park, and like one of his musical heroes, Ray Davies, Frank constructed an imaginary narrative that he and bandmate/co-songwriter Terry Hartman used as a launch pad for the album... like any Kinks record - full of colorful characters, too weird not to be real scenarios and simply magnificent music.

When Frank and I chatted recently about the songs on Circus Town, I had to ask him the obvious: dude, this is a tip of the hat to the Kinks, right? and in many ways, it is. Frank told me that in 1969, the first time Blue Ash ever rehearsed together, the first song they played was, in fact, a Kinks song! And like our mutual fave songwriter, Ray Davies, Frank sings a tale about a local character, Elvin Dabney, Professional Thief, a real life person whose cousin was a school mate of Frank's who would regale him with tall tales of the bona fide professional thief... the kind of guy that other guys want to be, probably for the chicks that dig them.

Another real life personality whose larger than life tale is memorialized in song is Joe Meek. In The Staircase Stomp, the bizarre murder/suicide by the hand of Meek is described in a kind of Ray Davies meets Bob Dylan lyric. Frank told me that he has become friendly with Patrick Pink, who was there at the scene of the crime, its only witness and held Meek's dying landlady in his arms, that fateful day, February 3, 1967 (the anniversary of Buddy Holly's death, and coincidentally, the same day - in 2010 - that the album Circus Town was finished... rising like a phoenix out the ashes of much mutual Buddy Holly appreciation from the living and the dead musicians name-checked here).

I think this story could possibly be better told by another raconteur... this coming Sunday, in fact - July 11, 2010... on the radio... Little Steven's Underground garage will pay tribute to Joe Meek, the legendary producer... the man who brought you the garage rock classic, "Telstar," and you can hear The Deadbeat Poets tune The Staircase Stomp in context with the very strange tale of the life and death of Joe Meek.

Frank in the studio, 1980

I had to ask Frank why so many of my musician friends were fascinated with Joe Meek. Sure, what a bizarre character; you couldn't dream up such a man. Frank confirmed that it was "Telstar" but went on to explain why... that in the world of the music producer, the innovative techniques that Meek used - the overdubbing on now-primitive one and two track machines, the direct input of the bass, use of compression and also of effects like echo and reverb - would foreshadow tricks of the trade we now can't live without.

I love the punk rock DIY attitude. I love the way The Deadbeat Poets took something dark and set it to pretty music in Circus Town and I think you'll like it too.

Pride

2010-06-19T00:05:00.000-05:00

Lance Loud, the late, great Mumps front man, writer, raconteur, iconoclast and icon in one... (pictured in the halcyon days of punk rock, 1977).

Lance Loud was proud to be Loud, to be gay, to be fabulous and was famous for being simply himself: loud, proud, gay and fabulous.

On this Gay Pride 2010, I salute my friend, the late Lance Loud, and all my fabulous loud proud friends. When the phrase "let your freak flag fly" was coined, it certainly included Lance! Keep your eyes on the HBO for an upcoming documentary about the PBS series that starred the man who inadvertently mid-wifed reality TV...in 1972! More on that later...

Now, celebrate Pride, in the name of love! and I don't mean the song by U2, but best wishes to Bono for a speedy recovery, just the same, and thanks ever so for a quotable turn of phrase!

More Things That Aren't Here Anymore in Los Angeles

2010-06-11T18:14:00.004-05:00

England's 999 arrive at Tower Records

Tower Records on the Sunset Strip. Prime location. Gone. The chain went out of business and the lot itself looks attractive to developers who want to rob the Strip of yet another iconic landmark.

Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders signing albums in Tower Records

Tune in to LA's PBS station, KCET on Sunday, June 13 for a repeat of the fabulous series, Things That Aren't Here Anymore and pay attention to the most recent installment, Number 3. Yes, this missive is on my part, somewhat a bit of the shameless self-promotion and partly Proustian... Things That Aren't Here Anymore, 3 focuses on the LA that I knew - the LA of my college and misspent young adult years... of punk rock, record collecting and concert-going (that I still do that is irrelevant!) at some places that aren't here anymore.

Join me and the likes of Rodney Bingenheimer and Cherie Currie of the Runaways for a madeleine!

Rodney with Penelope Houston of the Avengers

Things That Aren't Here Anymore: Los Angeles!

2010-06-09T00:08:00.006-05:00

Sure, you've seen this photo a few times on this blog... you know the story about The Jam show at the Starwood on April 14, 1978 (my birthday!)... if you read this blog regularly, you also know how Leonard Graves Phillips of The Dickies once famously leaped from the VIP balcony at the Starwood on to the stage, and in so doing, broke his ankle, but continued performing and returned the second night of their stint to perform from a wheel chair and on his crutches.

The Starwood is one of a few "Things That Aren't Here Anymore" being featured on the television special of the same name.

The special is airing on Los Angeles PBS station KCET this Thursday, June 10.

Last month, I flew to Los Angeles for a hit n run on-camera visit with the show's producers, Saul Gonzalez and Isaac Mizrahi. We talked about The Starwood, Rodney's English Disco, Tiny Naylor's, Flipper's, Japanese Deer Park and a handful of other places that aren't part of LA's physical landscape anymore ( I have shared many photos with them, so at least you'll get to see what I saw!).

If you are reading this, you're already gonna be interested in watching this show! You like 70s pop culture and are interested in what was going on in Los Angeles during that phenomenal era. SO.... if you're in Southern California... from the desert to the sea, you've GOT TO WATCH this program. Rodney Bingenheimer (pictured above) and Cherie Currie of the Runaways, plus a host of other native Angelenos reminisce and share their photo albums.

As a former PBS producer, I have high expectations for shows like this, and I'm sure you do too. Its a winner! Follow the show's pre-broadcast parade of hints and info on their
Facebook page, which is here

And while you're at it... make a pledge to PBS... keep shows like this alive and in production!

Quickly - The Quick

2010-05-31T01:58:00.003-05:00

That's Steve Hufstetter, the musical brains behind LA power pop icons, The Quick.

This was a brilliant discovery of negatives that I thought might have been lost forever... anyway, I wanted to give you something new to look at. More about The Quick later... like I said, "quickly - The Quick."

Enjoy

RHINO RECORDS IS BACK... for a limited time

2010-05-28T01:07:00.003-05:00

Rhino Records, the famed Westwood hole-in-the-wall storefront that begat the iconic catalog record label of the same name and defined the independent music store paradigm -- just celebrated on "Record Store Day"-- will be back for a very limited run from May 17 - 30. It's the pop-up store to end all pop-up stores, a reprise of a golden era when idiosyncratic customers and clerks sparked a musical revolution and catalyzed real-life debates that were more passionate than anything seen in High Fidelity.

I bought my first Jam album - In the City - at Rhino at the urgent suggestion of the man who would become a lifelong friend, Gary Stewart.

The Rhinos also fed my particular obsession with Eno, finding me obscura in addition to always having the latest imported releases. Thanks to Rhino, I am the proud owner of a limited edition lithograph of the cover art for Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy.

I can't say enough great things about Rhino... from the records I was turned on to by Gary, by Richard Foos, by Harold Bronson and all the others who worked there... to the life long friendships that resulted from our love of music... yeah - its exactly like Nick Hornby's High Fidelity. Only better.

If you are in Los Angeles, you can't miss this final 48 hours of pop-up Rhino!

Rhino is, for a fortnight, back from the grave bringing its legacy of eccentric, eclectic and unabashed fun with incredulous deals, in-store performances , the irreverent attitude typified by the "worst customers" chart for one last spin on the merry-go-round in the name of Hope in Action. All proceeds will go to Chrysalis Enterprises, an LA nonprofit that transitions the unfortunate and hopeless into employment.

The impetus for this riotous resurrection is that Richard Foos, Rhino founder and éminence grise, is bidding farewell to Los Angeles after 40 plus years to move to New York. Foos, who strongly believes in merging one's social values with business has installed a strong sense of purpose and giving back in all his business concerns. He loath to move the thousands upon thousands of albums and DVDs to New York so decided, in a flash epiphany, that if you can’t take it all with you, why not blow it out with purpose? The store, located at 1740 Westwood Blvd. (Map: tinyurl.com/Rhino1740) will be selling not only his stuff but also thousands more that Foos and his accomplices have cajoled out of his many media industry friends. It is expected that over 100,000 individual "pieces of product" will be sold over the course of Rhino's reanimation with a goal of raising $100,000 for Chrysalis Enterprises, a non-profit organization that has helped address the problems of the economically disadvantaged of Los Angeles county for more than 25 years. Foos, it should be noted, serves on the board of Chrysalis as well as other organizations that have a strong commitment to social progress.

As the Rhino pop-up store is on the cusp of launching a two week run just 50 feet and a few doors down Westwood Blvd. from its original location, a schedule of rhinoesque -- there's no other way to put it -- events is shaping up:

Friday, May 28: Peter Case and guests perform selections from Wig! to be released June 29 on Yep Rock.

Peter Case is not just a lifelong friend, but a fave artist. He's been a folkie / troubadour street bard for much longer than he ever was a member of the Nerves or the Plimsouls, but his punk/power pop mantle accompanies him. I think he's been on to something for decades. I'm bummed I can't see Peter in LA at the pop up Rhino store... but this fall, he's one of the highlights of the Americana Music Association's Festival in Nashville. Like fellow musicians Dave Alvin and John Doe, rising out of the LA punk scene, and like Tommy Ramone, Peter's a man who has been able to gracefully combine his love for and talent in genres other than the punk rock that elevated his visibility. Peter's last album was nominated for a Grammy in the contemporary folk category! He's got just as much in common with Buddy Miller as he does with his punk / pop brethren.

As the holiday called Memorial Day approaches...memorialize the Rhino and celebrate the good music !

Celebrate Photography - Buy It!

2010-05-07T00:47:00.000-05:00

Stiv Bators, Amsterdam, Summer 1985

On May 5, 1984, the year that many people, for a variety of reasons, anticipated, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed something that I actually do not disagree with. Take note folks, this is a FIRST, and mostly likely the ONLY thing this particular dead president said or did that doesn't offend me.

His proclamation reads:

Photography, the prime visual recorder of human events, preserves memories, emotion, and sentiment for virtually all Americans. It is an established and growing art form which communicates the beauty and diversity of America as well as the vitality of its culture and its people.

Iggy Pop, 1977

Photography has played an important role in our commercial and artistic lives and in the process of government through motion pictures, video cameras, and still shots.

My camera "watching the detectives," as it were

Photographs preserve the history of the Nation and the changing panorama of American landscape and culture. Visual records also contribute to the advancement of many fields of science, technology, and inquiry, including communications, meteorology, geography, medicine, justice, astronomy and agriculture.

..."I am an American artist and I feel no guilt" - Patti Smith

To honor the invaluable contribution that photography has made to the quality of our life, the Congress has, by Senate Joint Resolution 250, designated the week of May 7 through May 13, 1984, as "National Photo Week" and has authorized the President to issue a proclamation in honor of that occasion.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 7 through May 13, 1984, as National Photo Week, and I call upon the American people to engage in appropriate observances to reflect our appreciation and understanding of the value of photography to the Nation.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eightyfour, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and eighth.

RONALD REAGAN

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 12:51 p.m., May 7, 1984]

Like I said above... this proclamation praising photography is the only thing that Ronald Reagan said that I can stand behind. And I've got this to add: Celebrate Photography by collecting it! BUY IT

There's 4 Dead in Ohio

2010-05-04T12:00:00.005-05:00

It was 40 year ago today that four students at Ohio's Kent State University were gunned down by the National Guard who fired into a crowd of students who were merely exercising their First Amendment rights.

Chrissie Hynde was there, as were Devo founders Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerry Casale. All students at Kent State, Chrissie was participating in the protest and Casale was standing near slain student Allison Krause at the time of the massacre.

Chrissie talked about this incident at length in an interview that was part of a 5-hour documentary about the 1970s that I helped produce back in 1995 (and if it doesn't come up in your diligent youtube searches, I can at least recommend some reading about the historical tragedy here, at ohio.com. )

Kent State is but one of the several tragedies that have occurred throughout the course of human events when people seek to raise their voices in protest. Research these: Tlatelolco (La Plaza de las Tres Culturas at Tlatelolco, Mexico City, October 2, 1968), Tiananmen Square (China, June 1989) and you'll find that when you study one, others are referenced.

Perhaps this is a good segue to let you know about the new release by punk rock supergroup Batusis, featuring Dead Boy/Rocket From the Tombs (two of Ohio's finest bands) guitarist Cheetah Chrome and Syl Sylvain of New York Dolls fame with Blackhearts rhythm section Thommy Price and Enzo Penizzotto. If you appreciate the "question authority" position, then you'll love Cheetah's new song "Bury You Alive" that combines a scathing analysis of certain powers that be with some searing rock n roll by the genre's best players.

Find Batusis at Smog Veil Records.

Malcolm McLaren - RIPLegendary Manager Dead at 64

2010-04-08T14:30:00.003-05:00

From the New York Dolls to the Sex Pistols... Vivienne Westwood... Lauren Hutton... Malcolm McLaren mixed it up with the high and low ends of culture to help create an exciting world for pop culture and those of us who appreciate it.

Malcolm McLaren & Johnny Rotten on Sunset Blvd., 1978 - surreptitiously captured by night-vision

The cause of death was mesothelioma - a particularly debilitating form of cancer that also claimed Steve McQueen and Warren Zevon.

This is but a brief pictoral tribute to Malcolm, in the form of artists he worked with...

The late Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, 1978

Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols, Rory Johnston, Sex Pistols manager in America (hiding), and Viv Albertine of The Slits

The late Johnny Thunders, of the New York Dolls

David Johansen & Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls

There's so much more that Malcolm has done... in my mind, he took the DJ thing and hip hop to a new audience when he got in on it in the early 80s ("Do Ya Like Scratchin'") on a release he made on Island Records while I was working there... and then there's fashion... making bondage gear fashionable before Madonna thought of it... he was the last of the Renaissance men... yet most people may associate him only with the Sex Pistols....

The Queen is Dead...

God Save the Queen

Tower Records Sunset StripVERY IMPORTANT FOR L.A. READERS!!

2010-04-02T00:18:00.002-05:00

Chrissie Hynde in Tower Records, 1980

If the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde looks a bit perturbed here, at her 1980 Tower Records in-store, she might be a but more perturbed if she knew what was on the horizon for this musical landmark if a carpet bagging developer gets his way.

No - we punk rockers do not mince words.

I received a reminder email today from pop culture writer, Domenic Priore that warned of the erstwhile Tower Records building being razed for some ridiculous monstrosity of a complex that will surely fuck up that already traffic-jammed bend on Sunset Blvd.

Read it here and TAKE ACTION:

Out of Town Developer Plans to Demolish Tower Records on Sunset Strip

APRIL 5 - LAST DAY TO COMMENT ON ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif., March 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Chicago developer Sol Barket plans to raze the world famous "Tower Records store" and build a five-story office and retail space. The new project predominantly relies on massive electronic billboards that change images continually for its main source of revenue. Demolition is slated for January 2011.

Plans also include a David Barton gym to complement West Hollywood's four major gyms and numerous private training facilities. The project features traffic entrances and exits onto Sunset Boulevard, where the strip already experiences gridlock during morning and evening rush hours. Emergency vehicle access has been the main issue with residents and businesses. Presently, the "Tower Records store" is an adaptive re-use for the clothing store, Live On Sunset (www.liveonsunset.com)

The proposed development has riled preservationists' desire to preserve Tower Records' worldwide cultural, historic and social history that spans over three decades. The store was the epicenter for recording artists' record releases and live performances.

Before Tower Records, the location supported two earlier notable eras. In the 1960's, inventor Earl "Mad Man" Muntz, created his 4-track stereo cartridge music system for cars, which led to 8-track tapes and was "Jack's On The Strip," a diner where stars socialized during the 1940's through the 1950's.

999 in front of Tower Records, Sunset Blvd.

In January 2008, the Los Angeles Times featured a story regarding the preservation efforts led by culture historian Domenic Priore, author of "Riot on the Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood." Local resident Jerome Cleary hopes there is still time to save Tower Records and transform it into a Sunset Strip Museum honoring music talent. "Here we have a world famous record store that became an icon and so easily our community will allow it to disappear entirely," remarks Cleary.

Residents have focused their comments on the issues of gridlock, emergency vehicle assess, economic hardship on surrounding businesses, noise, pollution, loss of natural light for businesses and residents. Comments must be sent no later than April 5 responding only to issues pertaining to the draft-environmental impact report-8801 Sunset Boulevard, which can be viewed at www.weho.org

Comments can be emailed: Adrian Gallo, agallo@weho.org and John Keho, jkeho@weho.org or mailed to: Planning Dept., Adrian Gallo/John Keho, 8300 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood CA 90069

SOURCE Jerome Cleary

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/out-of-town-developer-plans-to-demolish-tower-records-on-sunset-strip-89387267.html

New York Dolls on Tour 2010!

2010-04-01T11:38:00.002-05:00

David Johansen & Syl Sylvain, 1978

What more is there to say? New York Dolls, fronted by the surviving founding members David Johansen and Syl Sylvain are touring Europe beginning in two weeks. That's no April Fools!

NEW YORK DOLLS -
2010 EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
Thu, April 15: France, Caen: Big Band Cafe
Fri, April 16: France, Paris: Trebendo
Sat, April 17: France, Le Mans: Le Mans Raceway
Mon, April 19: England, London: Koko
Tue, April 20: Ireland, Dublin: Academy
Thu, April 22: Holland, Den Haag: Paard Van Troje
Fri, April 23: Belgium, Leuven: HepDepot
Sun, April 25: Germany, Berlin: Columbia Club (TBA)
Tue, April 27: Denmark, Copenhagen: AmagerBio
Wed, April 28: Sweden, Goteborg: Sticky Fingers
Thu, April 29: Norway, Drammen: Union Scnene
Fri, April 30: Norway, Bergen: Bergenfest
nydolls.org

Kid Congo's Birthday Party on Saturday March 27

2010-03-26T00:45:00.004-05:00

Well, to me and others in the know about Kid's musical history will smile to themselves at the pairing of "Kid Congo" and "Birthday Party." I think if this were a television game show, "Nick Cave" might be the correct answer...

But my point really is: Kid Congo is having a very public birthday party in NYC and you're all invited! Celebrate with one of my oldest friends in the world (the other being Pleasant, pictured above with Kid)

Here's all the info you need copied directly from Kid's email:

Sat, Mar 27, Williamsburg, Brooklyn – Secret Project Robot (210 Kent at Metropolitan):

Kid Congo Powers 51st Birthday Party w/Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds (12am), Stalkers (11pm), K-Holes (10pm), Tommy Volume (9pm)

and, later, Le Congo: International Discotheque Psychedelique w/DJs Mr Jonathan Toubin and Josh Styles (1am), 9pm – 6am, all ages, $10 ($5 after bands): This all-night birthday extravaganza celebrates of one of the great names in underground rock music, Kid Congo Powers of the Cramps, Gun Club, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, etc. Kid’s band, the Pink Monkey Birds, who’s In The Red album Dracula Boots made critics’ top-ten lists worldwide last year, make their first NYC appearance in almost two years – and their first ever with the new hard-hitting Texas rhythm section.

Stalkers' Animal and Josh Styles

The Stalkers, return from recording a new LP in Portland to remind you that they are the Brooklyn punk scene’s #1 party band.

K-Holes, a bunch of Atlanta ex-Black Lips, Wet Dreams, and Golden Triangles, play an Alligator Winey steamy swamp stomp. And Star Spangles’ Tommy Volume makes his solo debut to kick off the night.

Tommy Volume

and, after the bands, hold tight… all night…

1-4AM: International Discotheque Psychedelique – the second installment of NYC uber-45 DJs Josh Styles (Smashed! Blocked!) and Jonathan Toubin’s (NY Night Train) latest party. Last months debut last month saw hundreds dancing to 60s discotheque classics, fuzzy movers, foreign language jams, and other global obscurities in an environment of go go dancers and Mighty Robot AV Squad’s tripped-out visuals.

http://kidcongopowers.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/kidcongoandthepinkmonkeybirds

Punk Rock Movie Villain

2010-03-23T00:28:00.004-05:00

Could this be-spectacled, teddy-bear-hugging, grey-haired gentleman in the screaming yellow suit pass muster as a movie villain?

Kim Fowley

You bet!

I think it is his calling - the best possible role for a man who has spent over 40 years in show biz... to be portrayed as himself and as a bunch of classic stereotypes - part svengali, part demon, part father figure... The man who invented the Runaways immortalized in the role that so many people want to cast him in: villain.

And he seems to be enjoying it. The Los Angeles Times - the newspaper I read while growing up (and was frustrated by its provincial style, although I did both enjoy and envy one Cameron Crowe, a journalist my exact age who got paid to do what scores of my friends and I did for blood, sweat and tears) features in one of its blogs an interview with the punk svengali himself right here, and its highly entertaining reading.

Kim Fowley knows good music when he hears it.

Witness him here in 2003 and 2004 with bands he deemed up and coming enough to share photo opportunities with...

At left, he's with Jeremy Asbrock and Hans Rotenberry of The Shazam at the Underground Garage Festival in NYC.

You see the photo opportunity is a two-way street. You allow your fans to memorialize the moment they met you, which is partly what's going on here, but at the same time... these images become part of your visual history piggy bank. During the few years I worked with Kim Fowley on his underground films, I picked up a lot of advice by osmosis as I captured him talking to bands... playing that role of Kim Fowley... giving advice in a manner most aggressive and authoritative yet sage and downright fatherly. He'd tell songwriters to collaborate with everyone because in addition to sharing the task and bouncing ideas off each other - you never know who or what is going to make a hit. And if you write with everyone... it will pay off. Fowley should know, he's got songwriting credits with KISS and Joan Jett... and in the Runaways movie, you'll witness Fowley dishing out advice as only he can... while Nick Lowe sang that you've got to be cruel to be kind... Kim Fowley lived that aphorism.

Fowley with Dirtbombs members Mick Collins, above, and Ben Blackwell, below.

(I swear there was NO dress code memo here. The primary colors were sported by these men of their own free will!)

A year or so ago, Fowley produced a record for Atlanta garage band The Howlies and dispatched me to videotape and photograph them. He directed me to get them to dress and act in a way that yielded this image:

This is a "movie still" (yes - a la Cindy Sherman!) of the demonic version of Kim Fowley, in his role as "Satan of Silverlake," one of the Ed Wood style films he has made (which I photographed, videotaped and filmed). yes... just as in the photo, Kim Fowley is indeed a weirdo... but unlike yourself, who may be just as weird... he's translated it into a career and you can't begrudge anyone who has become successful for simply being themself.

Patti Smith as Style Icon

2010-03-20T17:18:00.006-05:00

You bet... reading Friday's NY Times, I stumbled upon a headline: Patti Smith's Eye for Fashion and devoured the piece, pausing to smile to myself at this short paragraph: Admirers find her disheveled look alluring. Such observations seem to please her. Gaunt and bony as a girl, she was told by a fawning Salvador Dalí, “You are like a gothic crow.”

An admirer of Ms. Smith I certainly am. She was and continues to be an inspiration and role model; she was the first female pop culture figure I looked up to (right down to the "gothic crow" look identified by Dali)... previously, I found inspiration in men such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Francois Truffaut. You could definitely say that Patti Smith punked me. She offered all that Dylan, Lennon and Truffaut did and more, because she made me believe that a life in the arts on your own terms was attainable AND you didn't have to work hard to look like the other iconic women of the rock n roll era (models, most of them... Patty Boyd for example).

Now that her genius is indeed recognized by more than her die-hard fans and admirers (punctuated, consecrated and documented not just by the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame but by The City of New York as well), it seems that Patti Smith as subject matter in all aspects of pop culture is fair game. I've discussed within these cyber-pages what might be referred to as a punk fashion sensibility and I've also declared that we punk rockers put a permanent stamp on the face of high fashion as well as ready to wear. It should therefor come as no shock to me that the New York Times is taking my baton and sprinting to the next messenger on this course... but I am always surprised when I find any vehicle of the vox populi, especially one as noteworthy (ie: "the paper of record") as the Times, agrees with me or shares my taste.

The photo above was taken in May of 1978 in the parking lot behind the erstwhile Licorice Pizza record store (the building at 8878 Sunset Blvd. now houses an Aahs! gift store that stocks among other merchandise, punk rock branded memorabilia). Patti was doing a reading from her book, Babel while on tour supporting the album Easter and garnering some ink in more mainstream magazines and papers than before... though she was always a critic's darling.

Patti refers to some garments she wears on tours as emblematic of that tour. In 1978, that brown suede jacket and the hounds tooth vest you see on her in these off-stage pictures were part of her on-stage ensemble, together with leather pants (super rock n roll a la Keith Richards!)

The first time I saw Patti perform she wore an outfit similar to what she wore on the cover of Horses - somewhere between a 1950s/60s beatnik and Charles Baudelaire (19th century Paris).

Clothes do not make the man or woman, but Patti Smith featured in a New York Times story on fashion just vindicates what we punk rock chicks knew about her AND fashion some 30+ years ago.

Joan Jett: Required Reading

2010-03-14T22:40:00.006-05:00

I've already said that 2010 is the Year of the (Punk Rock) Memoir... and now, the paper of record even anoints one in its review of the feature film The Runaways in Thursday's edition (Cherie Currie's Neon Angel). Even though the Times' reviewer has positive things to say about the movie and its director (Floria Sigismondi), I happen to think they're missing the real story.

On March 19, which is the date of the movie's release, AMMO BOOKS (the folks who brought you the BOMP book by Suzy Shaw & Mick Farren that I suggest is Required Reading) will publish JOAN JETT. The author is none other than designer Todd Oldham, who "curated" the book's 30 years worth of interviews and photos with Joan herself. Riot grrl Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill) writes the introduction.

For women Hanna's age, Joan Jett is the big sister who cleared the path for bands like Bikini Kill (and pretty much all the female rock bands post-1975 really). For me and my LA punk rock friends, Joan Jett was just the girl next door... who happened to become a rock star.

When you grow up in LA, famous people are par for the course. And when you grow up in Modern/Postmodern times, "fame" seems almost a reasonable career goal. Playing in a rock n roll band was definitely far more attractive than being a grocery store cashier or bank teller even though all those job descriptions entail being on your feet for the entire duration of your "job" ... true artists can't do anything but their art... anything else would be demoralizing and a betrayal to the soul. There are indeed short cuts to the top of the charts, but the one-hit wonder phenomenon betrays them... endurance is what sets the artists apart from the entertainers. Joan Jett is that Artist... a true rock n roller in heart and soul.

Joan Jett, friend, neighbor and rock star blazed a trail and continues to do so. The Runaways were the first of the LA bands of my generation to get a major record deal, inspiring all their friends to follow their hearts into their own respective arts. After the Runaways, Joan started her own rock n roll record label - the first woman to do so. She's still rocking and the label, Blackheart Records is still rolling. She continues to mentor artists, just as she did back in the 70s when she lent her fame (such as it was in the early days), her experience and her love of music to The Germs, producing GI for them.

With the movie, The Runaways, audiences will see Floria Sigismondi's interpretation of Cherie Currie's memoirs. In JOAN JETT, audiences will get unmediated access to Joan's memoirs in the authorized collaboration with fellow trailblazer Todd Oldham... like being able to sit in on a conversation!

I for one, am looking forward to reading this book to learn how Joan remembers the nascent days of punk rock and all our notorious parties on San Vicente... and all our mutual friends....

The Germs at the Whisky in 1977 - Joan was at this show

Backstage with Nigel Harrison at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium... Blondie and the Runaways did a few gigs together in the 70s

Monkeying around for the camera with Stiv Bators (1979 - published in Creem with the caption: "Stiv and Joan iron things out")

A more cozy photo opp with Stiv and Cynthia Ross (B-Girls)

Joining the Dead Boys on stage at the Whisky A Go Go (January 1979)

And the faces that were at the party that launched a thousand (or more like 10) careers:

With Billy Idol and Pleasant Gehman (May 1978)

Happy Birthday Goner Records!

2010-02-27T12:25:00.002-06:00

It's Goner Records birthday Charlie Brown!

Scott Rogers and Shelby Todd enjoy each other's company over margaritas and chips and salsa...

The Memphis record shop loved by people (and their pets) is turning 6 !

Goner is the label (and later the shop) that launched or sustained some of the very best garage, punk and punk-informed rock n roll music of the 90s and 00's... as well as iconoclast (to garage/punk, that is) elegant pop...

John Hoppe shows off Goner's extensive selection of records

Here is a small photographic tribute.... YOU can wish them a happy one by visiting their website and buying some great music, made in Memphis and elsewhere.

Goner artists Harlan T. Bobo, King Louie and Jack Oblivian in Goner Alley, 2005

The King Khan and BBQ Show released their first collaboration through Goner

Inside Goner with Tom Shannon of the Cheater Slicks and Eric Friedl, co-owner

Zac Ives, Goner co-owner

What do you get when you cross Canadians, Brits and a Japanese fella? International garage! A Leather Upper, some Hipshakes and Rockin' Enocky at the Buccaneer

Year of the Memoir: Belinda Carlisle

2010-02-26T14:29:00.004-06:00

As I have said, and will keep saying -- 2010 is the Year of the Memoir... another punk rocker from the 70s, Belinda Carlisle has a book entitled: Lips Unsealed: A Memoir, due on June 1.

Back in the 70s, when this photo was taken, very much like Cindy Sherman was doing, I was creating a series of stills with a vehemently female pop culture focus.

While Sherman's renowned Untitled Film Stills (which were produced during the same period of time that Belinda Carlisle, Pleasant Gehman and I produced our series of campy female images) feature herself as the protagonist in a postmodern salute to female film star cliches, the series I created with LA Punk Rock It Girls, Belinda and Pleasant were postmodern salutes to fashion photography and pulp fiction book covers.

Only in retrospect is this girl power punk rock / art zeitgeist truly apparent. I'm not taking this opportunity to compare myself to Cindy Sherman (whose work I admire and collect), but to observe that our generation had a specific flavor of sui-generis that we spit out into our art...

Belinda and Pleasant
16x20 exhibition print available inquire here

Patti Smith: Required Reading

2010-02-25T00:55:00.001-06:00

2010 is the Year of the Memoir (although in the Lunar calendar - the Chinese New Year that we celebrated on February 14, it is the Year of The Tiger).

Patti Smith has a brilliant memoir entitled JUST KIDS and she is currently touring behind it.

If you are in England, you're in luck, for the tour brings Patti to you next month!

Click here for tour dates.

Photo above was taken at the California Theatre in San Diego, CA. May 1978.

From the dead of winter....

2010-02-24T18:28:00.005-06:00

I saw the Slits in Los Angeles on November 11, 1980 -- that's winter in most places. But as you know, the warm California sun and all... November and December in LA can be the most temperate months of all! Look at those gals! They're wearing summer clothes and enjoying the mild weather on a winter's evening on the Sunset Strip.

Its 28 degrees from where I write at this moment... and that's balmy for winter in many locales. But its bitter. The wind bites. Snow falls occasionally. I wear my socks to sleep because it's that cold to me! Winter is the time to hunker down and scan a whole bunch of old material for new viewers.

2010 brings the Punk Turns 30 Archive Restoration and Preservation Project forward. As many readers know, last fall, there was a flood in the warehouse where many of my pictures (as in negatives and slides) were stored. Thanks to good pals who were my proxies, nearly everything was rescued. Now I'm restoring it.

2010 brings more in the wave of punk rock coffee table reading with no less than Joan Jett and Cheetah Chrome (two of the best wielders of the Gibson Les Paul) bringing forth memoirs this year.

Here's another image of Joan Jett with Blondie's then-bassist, Nigel Harrison (fresh from Silverhead!), backstage at the show that Blondie opened for Iggy Pop when David Bowie and the Sales Brothers were in his band.

I've unearthed a lot of treasures that I just can't wait to scan.

Stay tuned...

Catching Up With Cheetah Chrome

2010-01-14T13:29:00.005-06:00

Its the dead of winter right now, but when those pictures, above, were taken, it was a hot July afternoon. Cheetah Chrome and family attended a backyard cook-out at my house in our shared current hometown of Nashville, TN. During the 3 1/2 years since these were snapped, Cheetah's had a lot of burners going (and his son Rogan has grown into a guitar-toting little boy), and if you want ALL the scoop, you only need visit his website to catch up on all of it from the cat's mouth.

If you're in the New York / New Jersey area this weekend, you can catch up with Cheetah in person.

Regardless of where you are, however, you can hear Cheetah interviewed by Matt Pinfield on "The Rock Show" on Friday January 15 2010. The show is on 101.9 RXP mornings from 6- 10 AM and can be heard live on the internet at: http://www.1019rxp.com/pinfield/

Cheetah's segment should be sometime around 8 - 8:30 AM

Then, on Sunday, NYC's Continental, the Third Avenue dive that carried on the punk rock torch initially lit by CBGB and Max's Kansas City is having a reunion. The Continental itself ain't what it used to be... from the looks of it on their website (www.continentalnyc.com), they've cleaned up the joint since I was last there ( in 2003, where I witnessed The Go's Bobby Harlow debut his David Bowie-styled shaved off eyebrows but still bring the house down with his Iggy Pop antics... where I saw the defunct funky Detroit City Council and where Lenny Kaye dropped by to catch a set by Outrageous Cherry). The Continental rock n roll dive club closed in 2006... now its that cleaned up bar where you can get 5 shots for $10 anytime of day... a never-ending happy hour, as it were.

During its heyday, the Continental was the anchor of St. Mark's Place in the East Village, and once was part of the Golden Triangle (my coinage - not a term used by anyone else that I know of) of rock dives before the new millennium gentrified the Bowery... CBGB's at Bowery and Bleecker, to the south east, Coney Island High in the middle of St. Mark's Place... Manitoba's Bar on Avenue B at 6th Street and the Lakeside Lounge up a few blocks on B at 10th St... all 1980/90/2000's beacons of punk in a NYC that has been turning into Disneyland ever since the Democrats left City Hall. But I digress.

Relive your misspent youth once more on Sunday night!

CHEETAH CHROME w/Very Special Guests The BLACKHEARTS
1/17/2010 8:00 PM at Continental
25 Third Ave., NYC, New York 10003
Door: $10

Continental Reunion nite! with: CJ RAMONE - LENNY KAYE - BEBE BUELL - SEA MONSTER - THE WALDOS - TRIGGER’S ALLSTARS - THE BULLYS-TWO MAN ADVANTAGE - DRAG CITIZEN - HEAP - CHARM SCHOOL

More about Cheetah Chrome and the Blackhearts soon. Watch this space

Punk History: Lobotomy's 15 Minutes of Bandwith...

2009-11-03T01:43:00.004-06:00

This is one of my favorite photos, and from the mail I get, its one of yours also... its The Avengers' Penelope Houston in her youthful prime together with Mayor of the Sunset Strip Rodney Bingenheimer in his prime as well. If you want to hear the interview that's being done while I snapped away, click on the title of this post. You'll be transported through the magic of http to Punk Not Profit, and while there, you can read about The Avengers and they offer a link to downloads of the actual broadcast of Rodney on the ROQ the very night the Avengers were there, and that Billy Idol did a phone interview! Oh - and Rodney interviews Pleasant and me as well... keep listening and you'll hear Penelope interview Billy Idol!

I recommend that you open another browser window, listen to the show and look at these pictures of that very night in Pasadena, California in 1978...

Avenger Jimmy Wilsey, Pleasant with Danny Furious and in the foreground, Rory Johnston

Avengers drummer Danny Furious

Avengers bassist Jimmy Wilsey

Avengers live

Pleasant on the phone

Pleasant and Billy Idol

RIP Brendan Mullen

2009-10-12T20:57:00.003-05:00

I have sad.... no... devastating news to report.

Brendan Mullen, one of the pillars of the LA punk rock community, its greatest fan and documentarian passed away today.

It was reported by Media Bistro today that he suffered a stroke that he did not survive.

The news came to me from my Trusted MOG friend, Brittany

Rest in Peace Brendan... say hello to our good friends.

All About Iggy

2009-10-12T12:01:00.005-05:00

Iggy Pop is enjoying a renaissance… and has been since the late 70s when David Bowie produced a couple albums for him in Berlin, which catapulted the inadvertent co-inventor of punk back into the stratospheric level of pop culture in which he belongs.

This last quarter of 2009 brings forth not one but two books where Iggy is a subject matter.

On November 1, Dave Thompson’s Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell, which examines the relationship between Bowie, Iggy and Lou Reed is published.

But right now, Detroit-born and bred photographer, and CREEM Magazine revitalizer and its current publisher, Robert Matheu’s book, The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story is on book shop shelves.

Robert Matheu is a fellow photographer whom I met when he came West to LA from Detroit in the late 70s. We had then, and still do, have pretty much an identical circle of friends, and common musical interests.

CREEM Magazine was something we had in common – both as readers/fans and contributing photographers. Robert has the great honor of being photographed by the late Lester Bangs - below, at the last Stooges show in 1974. Robert is in the middle, with his friends, the late Lenny Gupa and Mark McHenry (whom Robert says I actually met at the Starwood - so - Hey Mark! rock on, dude).

In the words of Robert Matheu

I started to take photos of The Stooges when I was 14 years old and didn't have a clue as to what I was doing with a 35mm camera, which was perfect since The Stooges didn't know how to play their instruments either. Not sure how it happened, but even after I found myself working professional, I had to go see Iggy every tour, I continued to go back to Detroit for almost every show he did there, not sure what or why. Even after The Stooges got back together in 2003, of course I saw the first show at Coachella and later when they announced a Detroit show in August of that year, there wasn't a question that I had to be there. I continued in the years since, the book grew out of that and my growing friendship with the band, what more could I add to it.

There’s a great feature in Detroit’s Metro Times about Iggy, the Stooges and this book. Read Bill Holdship’s Metro Times piece, which features an extensive, in-depth chat with Iggy here.

In New York City on Tuesday night (October 13), Robert will be signing his book at the Barnes & Noble store in Tribeca…. And with him, none other than Iggy Pop himself! Check the details at Barnes & Noble if you are in the area. It’s a not-to-be-missed event!

Thanks to Robert Matheu for letting me share his personal photos.

News, Tours and Music From Veteran Punks Letting Their Roots Show & Shine

2009-10-11T13:14:00.005-05:00

Good news for fans and followers of two of my favorite people to have made punk rock music, who are now playing the music of their (and our American) roots - Tommy Ramone and Peter Case. There are tour dates and new records to report!

Tommy Ramone, the first man to produce that band whose name he still proudly goes by, and Nerves/Plimsouls guitarist and singer/songwriter, Peter Case are just two veteran punk legends who have spent their "solo" careers playing in the genre some call Americana, some call alt.country, some call contemporary folk... just like some of other veteran punk legends with whom they've shared stages in the past - X / Knitters bassist and singer John Doe, and Blasters / Knitters guitarist and singer Dave Alvin.

This fall and winter, fans of Ramone's bluegrass outfit, Uncle Monk, the duo with Claudia Tienan will get to enjoy them live and in person --- here it is, lifted straight from Chuck Monk's informative email -- the tour dates for Uncle Monk's Fall Tour:

Uncle Monk Fall Tour --

Thursday, October 15th, 2009
8:00 PM
Rachael's Cafe

300 E 3rd St
Bloomington, IN 47401-3541

Saturday, October 17th, 2009
TBA
Knuckleheads Saloon

2715 Rochester
Kansas City, MO 64120

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
8:00 PM
Oskar Blues

303 Main Street
Lyons, CO 80540

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
7:00 PM
SALIDA CAFE

300 W. Sackett
Salida, CO 81201

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
8:30 PM
Steve's Guitars

19 N 4th St
Carbondale, CO 81623

Friday, October 23rd, 2009
9:00 PM
Bar SS

3311 W County Road 54G
Laporte, CO 80535

Saturday, October 24th, 2009
8:00 PM
Swallow Hill Music Association

71 E Yale Avenue
Denver, CO 80210

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
9:00 PM
Bottleneck

737 New Hampshire
Lawrence, KS 66044

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
8:00 PM
Off Broadway

3509 Lemp Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63118

Thursday, October 29th, 2009
TBA
Zanzabar

2100 South Preston St
Louisville, KY 40217-2118

Friday, October 30th, 2009
9:00 PM
Norm's River Road House

7695 River Road Pike
Nashville, TN 37209

Cheers,

Chuck Monk

http://www.unclemonk.com

http://www.myspace.com/unclemonk

Peter Case, who last year was nominated for a Grammy Award in the contemporary folk category has some news too.

Believe me, it would behoove you to read/subscribe to his blog at petercase.com! Here's the link to the PC blog where I go to keep up with what my life-long friend, Peter Case is up to.

Fans of the Nerves, Plimsouls and Breakways will delight in the upcoming releases of those bands' "Lost" and rare recordings, which will be available soon on Alive / Natural Sounds -- the label run by Patrick Boissel and Suzy Shaw (of Bomp!).

But some of the best Peter Case news I save for last! The Songwriters' Workshop that he conducts is set to start again, (after a forced year layoff) in early January, 2010, at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. Info is available at 310 828 4497, or check the McCabe's website.

Peter's return to McCabe's as a performer is set for December 4. This is the long postponed 'petercase 25th anniversary show.' Tickets are already on sale. 310 828 4497.

Happy Birthday North Fork Sound!

2009-09-27T13:17:00.027-05:00

North Fork Sound is 3 years old today.

The best way to wish them a Happy Birthday is to LISTEN! Easiest way to listen is to visit their site and click on the PLAY icon while you read the playlists and what not.

Where else can you hear Social Distortion and all things Lemmy on the same playlist?

This is free form radio the way it ought to be.

Happy Birthday North Fork Sound!

Punk Turns 30 Archive Restoration Fund

2009-09-22T21:16:00.008-05:00

On September 14, there was an URGENT message in my email from awesome rock chick, Jahna Rain, telling me of a flood in the basement storage area of a warehouse where a big chunk of the Punk Turns 30 photo archive has been stashed.

There was significant flooding and the landlord wanted all the stuff out immediately (ostensibly to clean, restore and repair his property), so I sent out a global 911 to everyone in my email address book. Maybe you received it. I have to say that I'm rather touched by the replies I received from folks on MOG who read my post there.

That's pretty gross looking stuff, isn't it?

David Landis, a graphic designer friend of a friend who happens to live in the general area where my archive was stored, was kind enough to drop what he was doing the following morning and schlep my waterlogged boxes of photos, slides and negatives to his house, where they were carefully transferred to new, clean, dry storage boxes and bins.

While some of my archive sustained that kind of damage, most of it merely got wet and I can fix it. I have the skill set but I need your help!

I've got two big things to do:

1) Get my stuff out of David's way and out of his house, and
2) Repair and restore everything.

Luckily, only about 20% of the loot seems to be damaged beyond repair. The rest can definitely be restored.

I need help now, in the form of any kind of contribution - via this nifty ChipIn widget below.

I live in Tennessee and my stuff is in New Jersey. I need help paying for packing and shipping between NJ and TN, and for purchasing the solvents and solutions I need to clean my films.

Every penny helps and counts.

Thanks for your help. And remember - if you don't have two cents, if you have two friends to whom you can send this post as a link (or send this: http://restorepunkturns30.chipin.com/archive-restoration-project), or if you have a website, myspace or facebook page - and can embed my widget (just click on it!) you have indeed helped!

Jim Carroll, RIP

2009-09-14T00:47:00.006-05:00

Dave Treganna, Dave Parsons, Jim Carroll and Stiv Bators, NYC, 1981

He whose most well-known song was "People Who Died" has died. Poet, singer/songwriter, spokesman for a generation, Jim Carroll passed away in his home while working (writing). A heart attack took him from us on Friday, September 11, 2009. He was 60 years old.

Just about a year ago, my good friend, Dave Parsons, of Sham 69 forwarded to me that photo above, of himself, former Sham bassist, Dave Treganna, and Stiv Bators with Jim Carroll, whom we all met in NYC when the Daves and Stiv toured as The Wanderers. I took at photo backstage at the Palladium, when the Wanderers opened for the Ramones there in 1981.

You can read more about our Wandering Into Jim Carroll here on punkturns30... the link is to last year's post and memories of how Jim Carroll taught Stiv and me how to maneuver the night life in Manhattan.

We all knew who Jim Carroll was back then... The Basketball Diaries, the til-then culmination of a young life's worth of living and writing about it landed his name and his works on the mind-sets of anyone with taste who paid attention to music and literature in 1978. I had the great opportunity to see him do his first rock n roll performance that same year at the California Theatre in San Diego, CA. He opened for Patti Smith and he read from The Basketball Diaries and Patti joined him on stage, guitar in hand. Afterwards, Patti introduced me and my friends to Jim and I have a a most cherished photo (unscanned, but hanging up safe and sound in my house in California) of Patti, Jim and me together from that night.

Since then, it seemed that I'd run into Jim every 3 years or so, and he was always working on something new. Most recently, it was a winter in New York City about five years ago, we met in a book shop in NYC's Chelsea neighborhood and talked about Jack Kerouac. We talked about the new music we were listening to, talked about the state of culture, and just plain gossiped about current times. Jim Carroll was a man whose opinion took no prisoners... he was direct and lyrical at once. Just a week before talking with Jim about Kerouac, I had tea with Patti Smith and we too talked about Kerouac (it was the occasion of his birth and the two poets contributed testimonials which I recorded for a radio program). Full circle.

It was Patti Smith whose work inspired me to stick to my guns, and it was Patti Smith who encouraged Jim Carroll in his poetry and music.

But it was always Jim Carroll who, for me, helped me understand the balance of dreams and reality... not just in his work - his words written for all to read, but in his words spoken directly to me.

The world has lost a unique voice - RIP, Jim Carroll.

NY Times Obit

NY Times Memoir

Les Paul and Punk Rock?

2009-08-14T23:26:00.008-05:00

Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones
Gibson Guitars liked this image so much they used on their site illustrating an interview with Jonesy!

Ninety-four year old musical technology innovator and guitar hero, Les Paul passed away this week. The guitars that bear his name link him to my favorite genre of music.

Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones played a Gibson Les Paul. Its an awesome solid-body guitar... heavy as can be... I should know. I've schlepped many a Gibson Les Paul in my day... once in the hot hot humid NYC summer of 1981, I carried Sham 69/Wanderers guitarist Dave Parsons's black Gibson Les Paul in its flight case through JFK airport.

The Wanderers rehearsing in LA - Stiv Bators, Dave Tregunna and Dave Parsons

Another guitarist who played in a Stiv Bators-led band wielded the Gibson Les Paul as well -- George Cabaniss originally of Akron, OH's Hammer Damage, pictured below. Oh - and today is his birthday! Happy Birthday George!

George Cabaniss during the recording of Disconnected, in LA

George also played a Les Paul Junior and so do or did the Waterboys Mike Scott (pictured) and Georgia Satellite Rick Richards.

My favorite pop punk glam new wave genre bending band of the 70s - Mumps featured the Gibson Les Paul stylings of Rob duPrey who went on to play in Iggy Pop's band for a few years.

One of punk rock's most enduring anthems is "Sonic Reducer" by the Dead Boys, who, next to the Ramones are my favorite American punk rockers. Cheetah Chrome, a dear friend, is also one of the best guitarists you could hope to hear. He does great things with noise, as a good punk should.

Cheetah Chrome and his son, future guitar hero Rogan O'Connor, in 2005

I am always impressed by the Cheetah Chrome guitar style and here's a video clip of him teaching you how to play "Sonic Reducer" courtesy of Gibson Guitar, who produced this piece I found on YouTube.

You could say that I like the Gibson Les Paul for the dirty growl it lends to punk rock - but its really what the guitar enables the player to do. I love the part in Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap where Christopher Guest's marvelous character, Nigel Tufnel describes the sustain. In a postmodern case of life imitating art, in character as "Nigel Tufnel," comedian Christopher Guest appeared on comedian-turned-pundit Dennis Miller's now defunct talk show with Les Paul and they jammed! Another YouTube clip - watch it now since I have no idea if this is a clip that's here to stay...

While I am attracted to the crunchy noise-making ability of this instrument, some players of the Les Paul utilize it to make some sophisticated and smooth sounds...slick sounds like Earl Slick pictured here in a 1979 photo from a teaching in-store he did with Vanilla Fudge/Rod Stewart drummer, Carmine Appice. Earl Slick gets to appear in this blog because of his association with David Bowie who single-handedly resurrected the careers of two punk godfathers, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, neither of whom plays a Les Paul...

But Earl Slick's journeyman style lets me segue to another musician who uses the Les Paul to its fullest extent, playing both the pretty and the gritty songs he's written.

Hans Rotenberry who formed and fronts The Shazam plays a gold top Les Paul that can be heard on all the pretty, gritty, powerpop and hard rock tracks on their new album, Meteor.

I must admit that upon hearing of Les Paul's passing, my true punk side emerged...

Why be sad for a man who spent 94 years on earth.... the man deserves a rest. He earned it! I personally think it would mighty creepy to live forever... I certainly don't want to. Les Paul's contributions aren't going to go away. The guitar players pictured here only scratch the surface of great musicians who choose the Gibson Les Paul... who have I omitted? The late Mick Ronson... Mick Taylor... Keith Richards... Mick Jones of the Clash... Slash... Jeff Beck... and those are only the guys whose pictures are hanging up on the wall in front of me right now!

Les Paul - you did good. Now get some rest.

More Than 15 Minutes of Fame

2009-08-05T13:37:00.004-05:00

Flyer by Dawn Wirth

Andy Warhol coined that term "15 minutes of fame" and whether he was a visionary about the way of the postmodern world or whether he merely picked up on and articulated a fledgling phenomena, he had his finger on THEE meme of the 20th and now 21st Century. Everyone who wants to make a splash in the public eye is looking for that 15 minutes...

On August 6, we celebrate what would have been Andy's 81st birthday. It difficult for me to wrap my around the fact that my late mother was born just two years before Andy. They're in and of the same generation - but one rarely thinks of their mom as "hip" and "trendsetting," although my mother was an artist and fashion designer... she was also my mom, the disciplinarian... but I digress.

Andy Warhol, in the 60s, mid-wifed the precursors of punk rock, The Velvet Underground.

John Cale

He was their patron and he designed that famous album cover with the banana - The Velvet Underground & Nico that many people refer to simply as the banana album!

Lou Reed

In 1989, both Cale and Reed performed a collection of songs called Songs for Drella at St Anne's Church in Brooklyn. The work was in memory of their mentor and patron, "Drella," or Andy Warhol. An album also entitled Songs for Drella was released in 1990 by Sire Records.

Each and every day, people pay homage to Andy Warhol, whether they know it or not.

David Bowie

Let's not forget that David Bowie has a song called "Andy Warhol"!

I too owe a lot to Andy Warhol. He's influenced me - and I'm proud of it.

This weekend in East Nashville, for the annual Tomato Art Festival, I'm exhibiting a Warhol-ized treatment of one of my well-known images:

If you are in Nashville, you can see it hanging up at The Groove in Five Points. Visit The Groove online or stop by the shop at 103 S. 11th Street in East Nashville (near Woodland).

Happy Birthday Andy Warhol!

Blondie on the Road!

2009-07-31T18:17:00.002-05:00

So - this weekend I'm going to see Blondie!! They're on tour right now with Pat Benatar, and I'm going to Memphis to see them... dragging one of my fave Memphis musicians along for the ride.

If you want to see if Blondie is coming through your town - check their website's tour schedule page!.

Pretty damn coll that The Donnas are opening this show. This is a girl power show, if ever!

2009-07-31T18:16:00.003-05:00

If you like this image, you can own it --- click here to buy it... time is tight... only a few of these prints left...

Princess Diana, Stiv Bators, Dave Parsons, Michael Monroe & Me

2009-07-29T01:21:00.005-05:00

Punk Rock Royalty: Dave Treganna, Dave Parsons, Jim Carroll and Stiv Bators, 1981, NYC

It was on this date in 1981, July 29 - that Lady Diana Spencer married the world's most eligible bachelor, Prince Charles, to become the Princess Diana. Their wedding was televised. This was a huge gigantic deal in the world theatre - not just for Royals watchers, but Anglophiles and people in general... after all, how often do fairy tales come true? This wedding was such a big deal that you could watch it on airplanes if you were flying at the time of the wedding, for back in 1981, there was that technology.

I know, because I watched the wedding on the television sets in JFK Airport in NY while I waited for a stand-by flight with Dave Parsons, of Sham 69 and The Wanderers. I don't believe Dave caught this wedding. He was snoozing.

Dave Parsons at the airport

July 29 was the day that we departed a sojourn in NYC after a brief US tour with The Wanderers that began in LA with the initial rehearsal session at my apartment at 1140 North Clark St. in West Hollywood. I'd just like to keep stressing that I lived there before Motley Crue moved in and made the address infamous before they themselves became bold face names... and yes, we lived there during the same period of time and YES... Stiv Bators and members of the Wanderers did indeed cross paths with the Crue...

The Wanderers - essentially Sham 69 - minus Jimmy Pursey, plus Stiv Bators

Wanderers rehearsals did move on to a proper rehearsal facility. And from there, we flew to San Francisco, arriving on the date in June of the Gay Pride Parade, where Stiv and I "inadvertently" led the Daves through the parade, making a short cut from where ever we were to our hotel in Union Square.

There was a stop in Cleveland, Ohio - Stiv's former Dead Boys stomping grounds and then on to New York City and gigs with The Ramones and socializing with the likes of Jim Carroll, Johnny Thunders and a hero of ours, Jan Berry of the 1960s surf-themed vocal duo, Jan & Dean

The gig opening for The Ramones at the Palladium was not the final show of the tour... there was one in Trenton, New Jersey a couple days later, but we stayed in the City and made ourselves at home.

After the final gig, most of the band went back home to the UK, but Dave Parsons and I stayed on longer. Checking out of the Gramercy Park Hotel, it was on to crashing at a friend's loft around the corner and when they returned from their honeymoon holiday, Dave decided he wanted a little California sun to see some of his LA friends once more before returning to London, hence the stand-by flight. I think we were probably awake for days on end, and once we knew our chances of getting on a plane were pretty secure, Dave finally rested. Not me...so I watched the wedding of Lady Diana to Prince Charles in the personal television monitors that were attached to chairs at JFK.. kind of a weird set up, but that was my personal royal wedding memory.

Stiv was living in London during the 1980s, and I spent a great deal of time in London as well, working for Island Records, and later reprising my role as Stiv's hall monitor/minder/gal Friday. He had started working with and eventually shared apartments with Hanoi Rocks singer, Michael Monroe.

Hanoi Rocks frontman, Michael Monroe in my room at the Portbello Hotel, London, 1985

We had a running joke, Stiv and I did -- about the Royal Family's love of his music. It was well known that Diana liked pop music, and Prince Charles had the Prince's Trust, which raised money by presenting major pop concerts. While riding home in taxis, we'd always ask to cut through the Park so as to pass by Buckingham Palace and we'd point at Diana's window and joke to one or the other that she was watching for Michael to pass by. On a middle 8 break before Michael's saxophone solo on a song Stiv was recording with him, Stiv interjected the line "Oh Diana" from the 1957 hit by Paul Anka. We took the joke that far! She was, after all, The People's Princess.

A few years later, on July 23, 1986 for Prince Andrew's wedding to Sarah Ferguson, I got to more properly enjoy a fairy tale wedding; my girlfriends and I threw a tea party bridal shower in Sarah's honor, so that we'd have an excuse to make tea sandwiches, cakes and scones and watch TV all day long...like princesses of the Sunset Strip, or something.

In 2007, also around this time of year, I caught up with Dave Parsons in LA. Sham 69 were playing a gig at the House of Blues, and we reminisced about all this silliness. Sad to think that since then, the young Princess died in Paris in the back of her crashed chauffeur-driven car, and Stiv, too died in Paris as the result of a run-in with a motor vehicle. Perhaps Stiv is entertaining Diana now... singing that Paul Anka song...

Dave Parsons, Los Angeles, 2007

DEVO.... and my lack thereof due to Dics...

2009-07-27T14:24:00.002-05:00

Yeah yeah yeah... just like all of the LA punk rockers back in the day... I did see Devo on Halloween at the Starwood. It was THE show to see that night. Word of mouth about Devo after their previous Starwood stand that year (July 25 and 26, 1977) brought the art schoolers from Ohio bigger crowds with each gig. And Halloween is always a punk rocker's dream night to play! So, yeah, I was there. I even took a bunch of photos that night, but 100% of them were of the band that opened: Mumps.

Lance Loud of Mumps, if you look closely, his shirt's got a jack-o-lantern design!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know just how much I loved and continue to love Mumps music.. the punk the pop the glam the cleverness factor...

All those factors were, whether or I knew it or not, the criteria I had for any band in any genre. One could argue that Devo had that criteria in spades but I didn't back then and still don't get it. Intellectually I do, but they never ever appealed to me. Good for a passing laugh. Too obvious for me, perhaps.

So where was I that mid-July Summer of '77 when Devo debuted? I was trying to understand The Dictators. It took me a long, long time to understand them.

Andy Shernoff is as clever and as rock n roll as they get. But in the 70s, I was a 20-something young woman and the whole dude-ness of their identity didn't resonate with my identity. But all my guy friends really dug the Dics and I kept going back to see what it was all about.

Dicators Top Ten/Scott Kempner and Ross the Boss

The twin guitar thing is something I really love. And in punk rock, most of the bands I was into had but one guitar player -- Ramones, Sex Pistols, Jam, Avengers, Dils, Damned ... the list goes on. Punk rock was just the basic elements, after all - nothing more and nothing less than you needed to make that noise. An additional guitar was ok though - all that much more noise to make - and a keyboard... all the more cool, crazy and creepy noises you could make... like Mumps did...

So - in the end...30+ years later - I still love Mumps, I still am indifferent leaning towards dismissive of Devo and I finally understand this comic book dude thing that is The Dictators. After all, Handsome Dick Manitoba is the King of All Men!

Birthday Greetings to the Survivor of the Sunset Strip

2009-07-21T13:57:00.003-05:00

Kim Fowley has seen it all - been there, done that - twice or maybe even nine times! He's been in the music biz longer than many of you dear readers have been alive. Today marks another anniversary of the occasion of his birth.

With a Dirtbombs drummer, Ben Blackwell, circa 2004

And as seen in the CD booklet for the Dirtbombs double CD set, If You Don't Already Have a Look, (my vote for best album title and concept EVER)

Mick Collins and Kim Fowley

Now Kim can add "filmmaker" to his many accomplishments.

As "Satan of Silverlake," in 2007

As "Dollboy" in bondage, in 2007

Man On The Moon

2009-07-20T00:01:00.002-05:00

40 years ago, two American men walked on the Moon. One small step for a man... opened the floodgates for pop culture references ad infinitum.

The New York Times has an overview of these flights of fancy that you can read here.

What else was happening on July 20?

1944 - before we thought of walking on the Moon - Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg.

1976 – The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars. How's that for an outer space follow up?

It must have been good vibes from Mars in 1976 – Hank Aaron hits his 755th home run, the final home run of his career.

1977 – The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments, vindicating conspiracy theorists the world over and likely inspiring that Julia Roberts/Mel Gibson movie entitled Conspiracy Theory

1969, Future Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook celebrates his 13th birthday.

If you believe they put a man on the Moon, you might enjoy watching indie-turned-superstar REM perform their song Man on the Moon with super duper star Bruce Springsteen

LA Explosion at 30

2009-07-19T14:30:00.003-05:00

I remember taking this picture of The Last in the little bedroom photo studio I had in my apartment at 1140 North Clark Street (Apartment 306) in West Hollywood. That apartment building was made infamous by one of Motley Crue's memoirs... but before those guys moved in, it was kind of like the after party / dorm complex of the Whisky A Go Go. North Clark Street is really San Vicente, or vice versa. Clark is what San Vicente is called north of Sunset Blvd., and the northwest corner of Sunset / San Vicente and/or Clark is 8901 Sunset - address of the Whisky A Go Go... where I worked, and one of the cocktail waitresses who worked at the Whisky also lived at 1140 and Joan Jett lived on San Vicente and more often than, after show parties went from Joan's place to mine and back again... but back to The Last.

I lived at Clark from 1979 through 1982, and that's the window during which this photo was taken, though I'm guessing its 79/80. This photo ran (as you can clearly see) in the erstwhile LA Reader when The Last had a gig deemed a Critic's Pick.

All their shows were critically great... if a columnist picked it or not. They were a power pop band that could play well with punk and hardcore bands... being from San Pedro helped I guess. They occupied that space that the Alley Cats also did. Nice people, great music, and could fit on any bill.

Last man, Joe Nolte announces in an email an LA gig to celebrate 30 years of LA Explosion... I lift boldy from said email:

Come join us to celebrate and/or throw things in Long Beach on July 20...

It has been 30 years since the "L.A. Explosion" album was released, so how about...

THE LAST, featuring

Joe Nolte
Vitus Matare
Mike Nolte
David Nolte
Bill Stevenson

Live at

Alex's Bar
2913 E. Anaheim St.
(Next to the Auto Zone, entrance in the back)
Long Beach, CA 90804
562-434-8292

Monday July 20th, with Scott Reynolds (All, Pavers) before us and Jr. Juggernaut after us...

Yep, it's the real LAX lineup, with Bill from the descendents providing drummage! (First time BIll and David will have shared a stage since, I think, that Pedro shwo with the Reactionaries)

I know that technically the actual anniversary isn't until August, but this is as close as we could cut it. We should go on around 10 pm.

If you check Alex's website (http://www.alexsbar.com/calendar.php) you will notice they still think it's just me and Mike.

Won't they be surprised - heh heh heh...

I can't be there, but all you LA people... you should try to make it.

To the MOON! Post #1000

2009-07-16T12:43:00.006-05:00

On July 16, 1969 - 40 years ago today, NASA launched Apollo 11, which would land on our Moon in 4 days' time. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first Americans - the first humans in fact, to walk on the Moon. Of the 7 Apollo missions (11 - 17), astronauts from 6 of them (remember the fate of Apollo 13? deemed a successful failure by NASA) involved Moon landings.

We learned the Moon is not made of green cheese; we took rocks and dirt from its surface and brought them back to Earth for analysis. We conspired that no one landed on the Moon at all and that it was all faked.

Some things hold true, regardless of what one believes about the Moon and whether we really walked on it... we gaze at the Moon... it illuminates the night when its full and it is the source of inspiration for songs, poetry, painting, photography and other acts of madness...(like say, sustaining a blog about punk rock for 1,000 posts?)

Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night... madness? the moon and stars...

I don't know how to begin to quantify how many songs about the Moon have been written; how many albums name-checked the Moon... The Killing Moon (Echo & the Bunnymen), Blue Moon of Kentucky (Bill Monroe's version is my fave, Patsy Cline a close second), Blue Moon, Dark Side of the Moon, MoonAge Daydream, Havana Moon, Mr Moonlight, Moonlight Sonata, and on and on and on...

Iggy Pop has a song called Moonlight Lady.
you can buy an 11x14 Metallic Paper print of this image! click here

also on sale:

and you can buy that here until July 31 only

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

2009-07-14T01:00:00.006-05:00

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

2009-07-11T02:45:00.004-05:00

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...

2009-07-09T16:22:00.005-05:00

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!

2009-07-02T01:05:00.008-05:00

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

2009-06-30T15:16:00.004-05:00

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

2009-06-26T00:11:00.001-05:00

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

Here's a good read...

2009-06-23T12:27:00.002-05:00

Yahoo's List of the Day by Rob O'Connor is pretty damn funny!

Of course, I am biased, but its still a good read....

This one's for you Rob:

It All Started at Grimeys

2009-06-22T14:17:00.005-05:00

On this date in 2005, I was putting the finishing touches on the first exhibit in what would turn into a 4-year journey across the USA by way of indie record stores and rock festivals, with some bonafide art venues in-between. On June 24, 2005, the first Punk Turns 30 exhibit opened at Grimey's New and Pre-Loved Music in Nashville, TN. Much to my surprise, the Nashville Scene named the exhibit their Pick of the Week!

To my delight, my favorite man from punk rock days, Dead Boys guitarist and Ohio punk rock legend and now Nashville resident, Cheetah Chrome and his family showed up!

It was a combination of the Dead Boys and Grimey's that got this Punk Turns 30 machine rolling...

In 2004, the surviving Dead Boys reunited at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland and in another surprising move, Stiv was represented on stage by 3 larger than life photos... of mine! Although I was completely involved in exhibiting photos of Stiv and the Dead Boys for the concert, and I knew the show flyer was one of my backstage shots of Stiv with Dee Dee Ramone... I honestly had no idea Stiv's image on stage would be courtesy of me.

Get Hip Records founder, Gregg Kostelich was another key player in this journey. That night, Gregg told me what those now-giant images of Stiv meant to him and similarly-minded musicians in the Midwest back in the day.

I felt bolstered to carry on something that I'd been wanting to do for years.

Everyone who does something a little bit off the beaten path has supporters who tell them that they should write a book, make a movie, or have a reality show based on whatever thing it is they do. I'm no different. For years... ever since the first time a magazine printed one of my punk photos (back in the 70s), or one of my photos ended up as a record sleeve (from back in the 70s), I've been urged to make a book and show in galleries.

Three of my Stiv images at the Beachland Ballroom, Dead Boys Reunion

All easier said than done! For years, every time punk rock or one of my subjects would celebrate some kind of anniversary, I would make the rounds and hear the rejections... the 10th Anniversary of Punk... the 20th... various calendar markers came and went with a punk rock retrospective deemed not worthy/interesting/whatever. And then there was the Dead Boys reunion... the 25th Anniversary edition of Stiv's solo record Disconnected... all served to help me connect my dots and Punk Turns 30 began a short gestation period and emerged in February of 2005, with the traveling photo exhibit getting its feet wet as a merch vendor at the 2005 Horizontal Action Blackout Festival, with the Grimey's exhibit following a month later.

These photos, all taken between 1976 - 1985, representing my college years and my post-college expatriate life (in London) and I have been on tour ever since. I've been able to reconnect with old friends and make many new ones along the way.

With Clem Burke at the Underground Garage Festival... friends since Blondie days... 1977!

In Memphis, I got to meet the awesome & legendary Jeff Evans who performed at my opening party at Goner Fest 2

Being able to exhibit at Goner Fest 2 was a big deal to me. The whole Goner ethos represents what kind of stamp my generation of punk (from the 70s) left to the next generation (90s punks). Also, as the calendar did march forward to a real generation and epoch defining kind of birthday for punk, more eyes looked our way.

The 30th Anniversary of Punk in 2006 opened doors for me and others from the 70s. Filmmaker Allison Anders organized a fantastic slide-show presentations of three LA Punk Photographers with the emphasis on the HERS, letting us tell our side of the punk rock story in an intimate panel during her Don't Knock the Rock Film Festival, which that year debuted the long-awaited documentary on Gun Club founder, the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce. For more on that, read this.

Jeffrey was one of my friends who was the most encouraging, not only to me, but to others, famously Pleasant and Kid Congo Powers, cheering us on and challenging us to make our dreams realities, and our fantasies goals.

Kid Congo and Pleasant - Jeffrey Lee Pierce turned them into performers

As I traveled and did more of these shows and worked with experienced and accomplished people such as Allison Anders, and authors such as Holly George Warren, in whose Punk 365 I have a few photos, I learned how to apply what I learned throughout my film and television career to my first love - the still image.

The Cramps - this shot is in Holly George Warren's book, Punk 365

So, four years later, on the anniversary of being chosen as the event of the week... some of those very same pictures I exhibited in public for the first time, at Grimey's, are going on the auction block at Christie's in their Pop Culture Auction which will be held on June 23. I think it is an auspicious coincidence.

Punk turned 30, and now punk images are collectible as Art. I found my way into that milieu thanks to the fans of this blog, to the writers who helped spread the word about my tour, to the writers who used my pictures to illustrate their books and articles, and thanks to Gregg Kostelich, who introduced me to the Metropolis Gallery's Angelo Madrigale who got Christie's to pay attention to me at the same time I was trying to track down my old friend Johan Kugelberg who was working on the punk rock auction...

It makes me genuinely happy that in (most of) our lifetimes, those of us who were ridiculed for the art we created are being celebrated. Seeing Dee Dee Ramone accept his Rock n Roll Hall of Fame introduction was one of the wildest, weirdest and gratifying moments I can think of. Ours is a generation that by and large rejects the Institutions, the hegemony and the mainstream... but at the same time, while making our mark as outsiders who knew we were outside, we like it that our work... our endeavors and efforts are recognized, and the fact that we could speak to our own generation effectively is recognized. None of us, I don't think, hates money, because things like money make it possible to continue to make art and of course, to live. What we hate is mediocrity and moreso, the rewarding of mediocrity!

Punk rockers... we are the kid who proclaimed "the emperor has no clothes!" I feel like that a lot... Hans Christian Andersen never told us in his tale what became of that truth-telling child. All we know is that the unclothed Emperor continued to hold his head high and walk about unclothed.

Some things never change.

Darby Crash... bid on him at Christie's

I Know You Fine - But How You Doin?Oblivians and Gories...Gories and Oblivians

2009-06-17T11:45:00.005-05:00

There will be some fine house-rockin' in Memphis, TN this weekend and two garage-rock-legends-in-their-own-time bands perform on the same bill in one of their hometowns. This garage rock n roll extravaganza takes place at the Hi Tone (which did you know is at the location of Elvis's former Dojo. True.)

The distinguished man pictured above is Mick Collins, a legend in his own time within garage rock circles. He is one-third of the Gories, a trio from Detroit that was instrumental in kick starting the garage rock renaissance of the 1990s. Dan Kroha, whose Demolition Doll Rods made a name for themselves in the later years of the garage rock renaissance, with their outrageous stage clothes (or lack thereof) and gospel-driven thrash, was the other guitarist in the Gories, and Peggy O'Neill their drummer.

Also in the 1990s in Memphis, the Southern alter-ego of the kind of music town Detroit is, the The Oblivians were garage rockin', and doing that Memphis thing of combining it with their own brand of rock n roll n soul n gospel to create a genre-defying music of their own.

Both the Gories and Oblivians set (or revived, as the case may be, depending upon your point of view of rock n roll chronology) a standard for all-guitars and NO BASS in this genre of relentless fast furious rock n roll that always sounded as if it could fall apart at any moment, but was played so in the moment that you, the listener, as well as the band, could make it hang together. (Other Detroit bands with no bass: Bantam Rooster, White Stripes.... 70s bands with no bass: The Cramps and sometimes Led Zeppelin, although John Paul Jones played the bass parts on his Hammond organ foot pedals...)

Greg Cartwright (pictured at the right), Jack Yarber and Eric Friedl, in Ramones fashion, adopted their group name as surnames and then proceeded to rock the world as Greg, Jack and Eric OBLIVIAN.

Also like their punk rock precursors, The Oblivians launched their recorded music career in true DIY fashion, forming their own label and self-releasing a split cassette with another local band, Impala. Thus was born Goner Records - which has turned into a sizeable culture and lifestyle.

I guess that's a condition of the epoch in which we live: The Postmodern.

Jack Yarber, Oblivian

As culture grows, it is both cumulative (and therefore derivative) and diminishing (thanks in large part to it being derivative)... there's nothing new under the sun.

However... if future generations can get turned on to Memphis or Detroit rock n soul or vintage garage rock or punk because of bands who were influenced by the Oblivians and Gories, then that's OK with me... as for how you come to appreciate the Ramones, however... there's a better backwards path than Green Day. I would suggest listening to Oxford, Mississippi's Black and Whites... like the Ramones meet the Real Kids in the South.

Eric Friedl, Oblivian

Detroiters can look forward to this awesome double bill on June 27 at the Majestic Theatre. Europeans can look forward to a 2-week Gor/Blivians tour starting July 3.

Considering the date... maybe 2009 with the Gories and Oblivians hitting Europe, there will be another surge of good new music from The Continent, reminiscent of recent history when the Ramones invaded London on July 4, 1976, showing UK punks how it was done (and don't you know that none other than Johnny Rotten and Joe Strummer were BOTH in that audience!), gabba gabba hey.

Now, that's postmodernism for ya!

Half a Million Punks Rule!

2009-06-10T00:52:00.002-05:00

Of all the lyrics Billy Idol was responsible for either writing or singing, the one that endeared him to many of my g-g-g-generation was "one hundred punks rule." Like Paul Weller, whose "In the City" hearkened back to Britain's first best musical invasion and teen sentiment, Generation X's "100 Punks Rule" also elevated youthful sentiment and turned it into an anthem.

I am saying 500,000 punks rule because today, this blog has reached the half-million views mark! Thank you fans and followers of punk rock!

Thirty years after the first sloppy power chord broke through the disco doldrums, punk rock has reached a respectable status as a musical genre and epochal movement - a generation's benchmark that sees its lasting contribution to pop culture on a daily basis. And speaking of Pop Culture.... the experts at Christie's Auction House have identified the phenomenon as collectible. Spurred by the critical and probably material success of its November 2008 Punk Rock auction, (which was covered HERE), Christie's is doing it again!

On June 23, Christie's will conduct its Pop Culture auction and some images from the Punk Turns 30 archive are included!

That's right! Lots #49 and #50 in Christie's Pop Culture auction are sets of photos by yours truly -- Belinda Carlisle and The Germs.

outtake from The Germs "Forming" picture sleeve photo session is part of the Christie's Pop Culture auction on June 23

I think its a wonderful combination -- considering that Belinda Carlisle and the Go Gos may be the biggest success out of LA's homegrown punk rock bands, and the Germs LA's most notorious... with Belinda being an original member of the Germs... those curators in Pop Culture certainly know their punk rock family tree and how to connect dots in a most sophisticated way.

Several of the images that are in the Christie's auction have not been published, exhibited or seen before! A few of the Germs images and a couple of the Belinda Carlisle images were included in the last stop on my Unguarded Moments tour at Metropolis in Lancaster, PA.

At this very moment, there are some photos of a young, pre-Go Gos Belinda Carlisle hanging up at The Groove record shop in Nashville, TN. The photos were installed to celebrate Record Store Day and will be hanging up for a little while longer as I introduce the next traveling exhibit I'll be doing: Locals & Legends.

Tell your rich, collector friends to check out Christie's!

Thirty Years Ago Today in LA: Hong Kong Cafe Opens

2009-06-07T13:41:00.002-05:00

Alley Cat Dianne Chai

On June 7, 1979, punk rock got a new venue in LA's Chinatown. Sure, Madame Wong's, the kitschy restaurant turned rock club was thee place to play in downtown LA by '79, but some of the harder, punker acts couldn't get booked there. Esther Wong, the Madame herself, was particular about who graced her stage, and more important, about how the audiences treated her real estate.

Enter the Hong Kong Cafe, across a courtyard from Wongs, they offered up another stage for local bands. The Plugz from LA and UXA from San Francisco initiated the club on this night, 30 years ago. On this same night, across town, on the west side (where Madame Wong also had a restaurant & club), The Go Gos were playing at Club 88.

Always this year's model, Belinda Carlisle, before she Go Go'd

The Alley Cats, featuring the sultry Dianne Chai (pictured above) played the Hong Kong Cafe's second night, and played again later in the month, lending the club some credibility early on, which was cemented by performances by local heroes, such as X before the month was out.

John Doe and Exene

In 1979, the cure for the Summertime Blues was a new club in town, for sure.

Stiv BatorsOctober 22, 1949 - June 4, 1990

2009-06-04T04:05:00.002-05:00

I read this on a fan blog - a clip from The Youngstown Vindicator - http://www.ohiosounds.com/ - an obit I've never seen before... thought you might like to see it too...

What the Mod Father Knows

2009-05-27T11:32:00.005-05:00

Paul Weller, the stylish and legendary singer/songwriter who founded both The Jam and Style Council famously worked through his milestone [50th] birthday last year. His life and career were chronicled over the course of his turning 50 by Britain's UNCUT magazine. So, it is actually no surprise to me, the calendar watcher, that Weller's 51st birthday on May 25, went unsung - even by me. Those aren't the kind of anniversaries acknowledged by the Mod Father.

On a more somber note, it is difficult to mark Paul Weller's recent entry into the 5-decade club with humor. Last month, the senior Weller, John, Paul's dad, who was very much a part of the Weller music machine since day one, passed away. They were best mates, father and son and manager and client... inseparable men who closed each hard day's night by sharing a pint.

I recall sharing an evening at the bar with the Wellers - John, Paul and Paul's wife. It was October 2003 and Paul performed at NYC's Town Hall. Afterwards, I headed back to their hotel bar with Yep Roc head honcho Glenn Dicker [who released Weller's records at the time] for the nightly wind-down.

When Paul and I began to regale Glenn with stories of early punk rock days including the 1976/77 Jam experiences in Los Angeles, John Weller joined in... the man remembered the events of his son's career with a combination of paternal pride and keen managerial attention to detail.

The Wellers combined their personal and professional lives side by side for more than 30 years. My heartfelt condolences go out to Paul.

Just last week, Paul was to receive the UK's Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement Award but declined to attend the ceremonies and accept the award as he was still mourning the loss of his beloved father, John.

"In the city, there's a thousand things I wanna say to you..."

So began Weller's anthem from his days fronting The Jam. it is a song that punk rockers and young people in general cleaved to for its proclamation that hearkened back to a Pete Townshend sentiment about the younger generation.

And I know what you're thinking
You still think I am crap
But you'd better listen man
Because the kids know where it's at

Nine years ago, Paul Weller was 42 and well established and respected as a legend even then. He's a man who uses his power for good and still understands that the kids know where its at. He invited a band that impressed him to open his show at Earl's Court... a venue that holds 20,000. That band - the particular kids who knew where its at was The Shazam, from Tennessee, USA.

Paul Weller learns the chords to The Move's "Beautiful Daughter" by watching Hans Rotenberry of the Shazam [photo by Tracey Maloney... I THINK]

On May 29, 2000 [I am a couple days ahead of this anniversary] at London's Abbey Road studios, The Shazam performed on the show Music Live joined by members of a band that influenced them greatly - The Move.

The Shazam's Mick Wilson, The Move's Carl Wayne, RIP; The Shazam's Hans Rotenberry, Bev Bevan of The Move and ELO, Jeremy Asbrock of The Shazam

Just as Paul Weller could in The Jam and Style Council combine his musical love of 60s British invasion pop and Motown R n B with his own punk rock-era sensibilities to create a distinctive voice and sound, so do The Shazam. Drinking in the cumulative music and cultural influences - some of the very same that touched Weller's craft - Hans Rotenberry and his band deliver a pop with a lot of power, a rock that rolls and the same non-stop energy that rock n roll had when it was new, that punk rock revitalized.

What does the Mod Father know? He knows plenty but most important, I've always believed that Paul Weller knew to trust his musical instincts and always play and write what felt good regardless of the genre. At the end of the day, its the ultimate punk rock statement and act - Do Anything You Wanna Do... thanks to Ed Hollis for taking a Rabelaisian dicta and making it punk for Eddie and the Hot Rods... the Mod Father knew in 2000 that The Shazam were a band to watch, and he's right.

Look for a new Shazam record later this year.

Miriam Linna's Cool Blog & Cramps Memoirs

2009-05-19T13:07:00.000-05:00

Original Cramps drummer and co-founder of Norton Records and The A Bones, rock n roll lady extraordinaire, Miriam Linna just launched a blog with her memories of the earliest days of the Cramps, when she was their drummer.

Miriam played in the line-up that included the late Bryan Gregory on guitar alongside Lux and Ivy.

Bryan Gregory in foreground

What strikes a chord in me, however, are the scans of letters Miriam has saved over the years. A couple years ago, Miriam showed me letters she received from our mutual friend, the late Stiv Bators.

Seeing Stiv's familiar, Catholic school boy penmanship and his particular signature just brought back a flood of memories, and seeing them again on Miriam's blog and being able to read and re-read his words help bring the Dead Boy back to life.

For anyone who knows only the Urban Legend of Stiv Bators, Miriam's blog will open your eyes. For those who knew Stiv, Miriam's blog may bring a bittersweet tear alongside the warm memories.

Stiv's Goth fashion statement

Miriam is the only person I know aside from Frank Secich who could get away with continuing to call Stiv by his given name, "Steve." Not that he liked being called "Steve," but he also wasn't going to throw a tantrum about it with Miriam. Whenever I tried to get control of an often out-of-control situation during the few period of time I was conned into "road managing" Stiv, I'd turn on the motherly tone and call him "Steven," which afforded me probably the very same experience certain Ohio nuns had when he was in their charge at school. Young, loud & snotty....

At the end of the day, Miriam Linna is one of the finest writers ever to pick up a pen or type at the keyboard. Even if you didn't know about rock n roll or care about the nascent punk rock years, her words are fine reading.

Catch up with Miriam Linna's blog at kicksville66.blogspot.com

You'll be glad you did!

On Saturday May 16 in NashvillePunk and then some...

2009-05-12T00:53:00.004-05:00

In 2005, I started the on-going photo tour in a Nashville record store -- Grimeys. From there, I showed these vintage punk rock photos in other fantastic indie record stores like Florida's Vinyl Fever, NYC's erstwhile NYCD, Memphis's Goner and Houston's Sound Exchange.

Four years, thousands of miles and lots of fun later, Nashville once again kicks off another record store photo exhibit theme for me: Locals and Legends...

Join me and some surprise musical guests on Saturday evening, May 16 at The Groove in East Nashville's 5 Points. The party starts at 7 PM...

There will be punk rock, PBR and pizza....

Jack Oblivian is The Disco Outlawand his album is out NOW!

2009-05-04T17:17:00.005-05:00

Jack Oblivian

About a year ago, Jack Oblivian and his Tennessee Tearjerkers did a few dates with the Hives, the young Swedish rockers whose biggest influence was Memphis' Oblivians, hence the invitation to share a few stages.

Howlin' Pelle Almqvist and Jack O

Around the same time, Jack was going in and out of Memphis recording studios putting together a new record. That record is now available for your listening and purchasing pleasure! Just click the title of this blog post and you'll be transported to the Goner Records online store. Goner is also the label that is releasing Jack's latest... Disco Outlaw.

Back in the 70s, "death to disco" was one of the many rallying cries of people who played or preferred punk rock to the other music that was born in that decade. I think it only fitting that the 90's best punk influenced rocker (just listen to any of the Jack O songs from the Oblivians repertoire....) takes the opportunity to poke some titular postmodern fun at the whole phenomenon.

Veteran readers of this blog already know that I find the Oblivians whole DIY method THEE purest punk attitude of the 90s... the Goner label was created by Eric Friedl Oblivian to release Oblivians music (on cassette for starters!), and taking a cue from the Ramones, each band member was (and still is) called Jack, Eric or Greg Oblivian. Most important however, is the attitude of doing anything (musically) you want to do and just doing it. While the Oblivians unleashed alot of fast, furious punk music, they also tipped their hat to the soul and gospel music of their home base of Memphis, TN, birthplace of rock n roll and soul music.

Jack O and John Paul Keith

This Saturday, May 9, Jack Oblivian and The TN Tearjerkers celebrate the release of Jack O is... The Disco Outlaw. John Paul Keith and The 1, 4, 5's open the show at the Hi Tone. Its just a $5 cover... a price that hasn't changed since punk rock days. If you're in driving distance of Memphis on Saturday night, this is what you must do. You won't regret it and these guys will rock you

Also, unless you've been under a rock this year, this is a reminder that the Oblivians will reunite and tour with the reunited Gories over the summer. They'll be playing their respective home towns of Memphis and Detroit, and several cities in Europe.

The Oblivians tour... Jack O has a new record.... its gonna be a great summer!