Punk Turns 30

The Punk Turns 30 tour of the South continues in Atlanta on December 13, 14 & 15 at the Star Bar in Little 5 Points. The images from the Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond exhibit will be hanging in the downstairs lounge. Meanwhile, in the music room and bar upstairs, each night a different set of bands will rock you. Detroit's Gore Gore Girls headline the first night - December 13, with their brand of contemporary garage girl group punk rock and sex appeal. That's Amy Gore above with New Orleans' own DJ Matty Pendleton of the Royal Pendletons, in a shot taken in the spring of 2006 in Memphis when the River City hosted the Ponderosa Stomp. Punk Turns 30 will bring the vintage images to New Orleans in February 2008 for King Louie Fest. The Burmese Crush, is also on the bill, along with Cat Fight. Pictured above is Bryan Malone, who you may know from the Forty-Fives. No, the Forty-Fives have not split up! They're just spread out all over the count...

We will be rocking an after hours party at Sound Exchange on November 17 starting at 7 PM. There will be live music from L.A.W.S., The Sporatics and The Welfare Mothers. Sound Exchange is located at 1864 Richmond in Houston, TX, telephone: 713.666.5555 They're open 7 days, 11:00 to 7:00 and I guarantee you that they stock the records that feature my photos on the covers and inner sleeves!

It seems to me that the stars have aligned to bring you the Autumn Almanac's worth of reading safe for punk rockers and book people alike... not that they're mutually exclusive. In fact, some of the most literate people I know are rock n rollers. I chalk it up to years of being an outcast, diving into the literature homework and fast forwarding to spending hours on buses, planes, trains and vans with lots of time to pass.. so why not read? Handsome Dick Manitoba and Denise Lento The Official Punk Rock Book of Lists - by Amy Wallace, who is the lady who created the Book of Lists genre and punk rock's own King of all Men, Handsome Dick Manitoba. I've seen some of these lists and they are worth their weight in gold records. And many of the punk rockers can turn a phrase with the best of the literary rest. Here are some of the name-checked and contributing punk rock people: Debbie Harry 's List of "People I'd Like to Fuck" Patton Oswalt 's List...

I am proud to announce the publication of this book because there are 3 Punk Turns 30 photos inside! The folks at Harry N. Abrams did a beautiful job of putting the hard work of all the photographers and of the author, Holly George Warren together in a compact, substantial piece of coffee-table quality art book. A must! Makes a great gift! Here's the blurb from Amazon.com (who I am sure would want you to buy it from them, so let me leave you with this link to its page on Amazon ) Book Description Thirty-plus years ago a dark rumble of noise gurgled up from the Lower East Side of New York City, made its way across the Atlantic to Great Britain, zigzagged back over the pond to the West Coast, and exploded. Its name — Punk. In Punk 365, the most provocative photography documenting the performances, the looks, and the attitude has been gathered together, revealing reverberations that continue to shake up the status quo. Here we see it all: Pre-punk pioneers, the Stooges, the New Y...

Los Angeles punks The Lamps in the burned out rubble of the south end, Memphis, TN - 2005 I am reminded of this Jimi Hendrix song title because on this date, September 14 in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. Because its the National Anthem of the USA, I think people mistakenly believe that its a Revolutionary War song. But it isn't. It is the song Hendrix played at Woodstock that put another notch in his gimmick belt (after the flaming guitar at Monterey Pop Festival, 1967), and that became the ironic yet defining symbol of protest against the war...making youth culture seem unpatriotic, or at best, irreverent (well, we were and still are). Like most wars, the War of 1812 was complicated and although the US was the nation that declared the war (on Great Britain), I have to say, there were some British acts that I'd have to side with...specifically...

Every time I get ready to take Punk Turns 30 on the road, I go through this process of trying to figure out what images people want to see in person. This shot of the Cramps has been a favorite of both friends and strangers for almost 30 years, and those of you in cities where we will be showing for the first time (Oxford, MS, for instance) will get your chance to see this up close and personal. Its definitely one of my 'Greatest Hits.' Punk Turns 30's first tour date is October 25 in Oxford, MS at the One Night Stand at the Ole Miss Motel event, organized by the artist, Erin Abbott, who created this cool parking lot party/one-night art show and is taking that phenomenon on the road herself! This is a link to the story of the first One Night Stand. To take advantage of the motel setting, Punk Turns 30 will be showing a collection of photos taken in the World Famous Tropicana Motel, the favorite of all the indie and punk rock bands that came through Los Angeles while t...

SO, I am trying to decide which photos I'm going to take on the road with me this Fall. I have decided against live, in concert photos, concentrating instead, on behind-the-scenes images... let me hear from you! What faces do you want to see? What cities want to see some vintage punk rock photos up close and personal? This time around, there will be some BIG prints for show and sale! The suggestion box is open!

It was in the middle of the summer that Stiv Bators and I took these photos in Malibu. Why is it that only rock n roll guys can wear full cold-weather gear in summer and not break a sweat? I need to go jump in a pool right now...

F-Word's Rik L. Rik and Germ Darby Crash on stage at the Whisky a Go Go What does "Summer of Hate" mean to you? Its punk rock's answer to the "Summer of Love," which 1967 was referred to by its own hippie generation. In response to the chart-busting Summer of Love anthem, "San Francisco (Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)" punk rock had its own Summer of Hate anthems. They didn't actually coincide with the season, but they captured the essence of all the elements that made the phrase "Summer of Hate" somewhat accurate. F Word was the first of the 1977 punk rockers in California to release a full length album (1978's Like it Or Not ). Two original songs, "Do the Nihil" and "Hillside Strangler" were ferocious and punishing examples of this new music, each of them, summing up the disparate elements of brutality that was free-floating in this generation that succeeded the Summer of Love. "We we can can do do ...

The long awaited narrative feature about The Germs, entitled What We Do Is Secret had its premier at the Los Angeles Film Festival and the reviews are rolling in! Here are a couple, Sound the Sirens and Film Threat, though I'm sure many more will be popping up... so if this is your thing, keep your eyes on the papers. Me - I'm just going to share with you photos I took of the Germs in 1977 when we were all a bunch of regular people hanging out together. Perhaps only Paul Beahm aka Bobby Pyn aka Darby Crash had an idea of what would emerge from these times... I had no idea when I took all these photos in Pat Smear's mom's garage in West LA that this murky reproduction of one of the images would become synonymous with LA Punk. Thanks Germs! I like so many other frames from that late afternoon in the garage - they show sides of Darby that you didn't get to see when you ran into him in public, or saw him onstage. The nice folks at Get Hip have a swell t...