Punk Turns 30

While Blondie were paying their dues in small clubs almost every day of the year, and while Pleasant, Randy and I were making Lobotomy in her bedroom and in my apartment...somewhere back in 1978, we spent a lot of time together. The Lobotomy crew made road trips to see Blondie all over California from San Francisco to San Diego, mostly in my little Honda hatchback. In 1978, just a few months before they hit the pop charts with "Heart of Glass," a surprise to everyone, we spent just about the whole month of April seeing Blondie play all over California. Above is a series of shots from an April show in Berkeley, CA, and below are some shots from the trip and hanging out. This crazy action hair shot was on one of the covers of Lobotomy. Clem Burke during soundcheck. Clem and Chris Stein during soundcheck, in a room so dark and with such particular light that only Clem is in focus - the depth of field was that narrow in the darkness that I couldn't get both men standing ...

You may have seen this photo in 1978. It was in Lobotomy, The Brainless Magazine, created by Pleasant and Randy Detroit, and worked on by them plus Kid Congo, Brad Dunning, Anna Statman, and me. Randy and Pleasant in San Francisco We created our own opportunities in a time where a determined person actually could do so. These days, you HAVE TO create your own opportunities, as it once again seems like an "us versus them" thing going on in the media vis a vis bands we like getting ink, and writers, photographers, graphic artists and the like getting a break. So, the samizdat raises its head again. Back in the 70s and before, there were 'zines - photocopied, mimeographed, hand-collated & stapled, literally cut and pasted on bedroom floors around the world. Today, we've got computer aided desktop publishing and more importantly, the web. Please please look at the link on the right hand side of this page for "Cool blogs & sites" and actually go ...

Randy Kaye - aka Randy Detroit, and Pleasant on the street in San Francisco on one of the many Lobotomy road trips. This trip was made in April 1978 to see Blondie at the Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley. No one knew it at the time, but within six months, Blondie would become worldwide pop stars with their album Parallel Lines and its single, "Heart of Glass." That album has a long long shelf life --- I hear "One Way or Another" as a television commercial now --- and even back then, it was used in advertising. Well... catchy song and hook... Here's a strip from a contact sheet of photos taken on that trip... melancholy memories... Randy passed away in October and it is still devastating to think that he is gone... I'm so happy that I have these photos to remind us all of the good times we had. (Click on the image strip on the left to see a bigger version) Lobotomy, the Brainless Magazine was Pleasant's brainchild, and Randy was her right-hand man i...