Punk Turns 30

If you click the link that is the title of this post, you will be taken to one of my favorite daily papers - The Guardian UK. The article is from over the past weekend, and lists the 50 Greatest Arts Videos on YouTube. I am proud to say that my friend, B Girl Cynthia Ross appears in the video clip that tops the list in the pop & rock section. It is sad, however, that out of the four people who appear in that Top Video Clip, Cynthia is the sole survivor. Punk Rock's famous ill-fated first couple, Sid and Nancy lived, as everyone knows, in the Chelsea Hotel. Their next door neighbors there were Cynthia and her then-boyfriend, Stiv Bators. The Guardian has this to say about the clip: Sid and Nancy on New York cable TV, 1978 Morose, foul-mouthed and dismissive, a shirtless Sid Vicious is joined by a very vocal Nancy Spungen (with co-guests Stiv Bators and Cynthia of the B Girls) on a live New York cable TV show recorded shortly after the break-up of the Sex Pistols. When a drip...

My friend Timothy James in tourist mode at the Chelsea Hotel If you are a fan or follower of the heyday of punk rock, New York City and the Chelsea Hotel and are in or around the San Francisco area later this month - HEADS UP! Ed Hamilton , author of Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Authors and Outlaws of New York's Rebel Mecca, will have a reading and signing on April 24, 2008 at 7:30 p.m at The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, SF CA. Dee Dee Ramone, Hotel Chelsea habituee Ed Hamilton is the man behind the Living With Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog in which he has and continues to chronicle the events of the hotel and the neighborhood in NYC. It is both current and reflective and thoroughly comprehensive. A great read for a few minutes or a few hours. Here are some images of people who hung out at, stayed at or lived at the Chelsea. Lance Loud - Lance and his mother Patricia Loud were seen in his room at the Chelsea Hotel in the PBS television series, An American Family Pa...

On this date in 1978, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols was arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Sid himself died a few months later, in February 1979, just 21 years old, of a heroin overdose. Urban legend that surrounds both deaths - of Sid and of Nancy postulates that the late Rockets Redglare was a person of interest. Regardless of what we think happened on the night of October 11 and morning of October 12, the only people who really know can't tell us because they are dead. I don't judge these poor dead junkies on their addiction. This post just reflects some great punk rock musicians who shuffled off this mortal coil at a very young age... and whose music will be celebrated in the Punk Rock Day of the Dead special exhibit during Punk Turns 30's Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond Tour. The Punk Rock Day of the Dead show is a party at Goner Records on November 1, complete with photo exhibit, live music and tamales! Tamales are a tradit...

On February 2, 1979, Sex Pistol, Sid Vicious, aged just 21, died from a heroin overdose right after his release from New York City's notorious Rikers Island lock-up. It was the end of the line for the guy who had been charged with killing his junkie girlfriend in a junkie stupor. Who knows (or cares) if he did it or if it was the work of drug dealers who intended to rob them after selling them the smack. This really wasn't the Sid that Stiv Bators and I knew. The Sid Vicious that we knew was a huge music fan. He was a big fan of the Sex Pistols before he joined them, and still their biggest fan when he was in the band. He was also a big fan of the Dead Boys, showing an almost puppy like adoration of Stiv. He liked to hang around Stiv, and Stiv loved having Sid around. Maybe that's why I always suspected that it was Stiv who painted the "Sid Vicious R.I.P." legend on the billboard for the movie, "Heaven Can Wait." I was sitting around at home wh...