Punk Turns 30

I was hoping when I read that Montreal's premier purveyors of crazy trashy punk rock, Demons Claws were touring, that we would cross paths -- and we will! They'll be in Memphis on November 9 (a very busy night for good music. I need that Harry Potter two-places-at-once necklace stat!) But here for your calendar-planning are the Demons Claws tour dates from tomorrow onwards. 10/30 Boston, MA @ PAs Lounge: Demon's Claws, Coathangers, The Konks, Hospital Rats, Beat Beat Beat 10/31 New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge: Coathangers, Figurines, Dappled Cities 10/31 New York, NY @ Cake Shop: Demon's Claws, Goddamn Rattlesnake, Beat Beat Beat 11/01 New York, NY @ Death By Audio: Demon's Claws, Coathangers 11/01 New York, NY @ Knitting Factory: Beat Beat Beat, The Krays 11/03 Cleveland, OH @ Now That's Class: Demon's Claws, Coathangers, This Moment in Black History, Sonic Chicken 4 11/03 New York, NY @ LuLu's: Beat Beat Beat, The Weight, Electric Shadows 11/04 Detr...

This photo of the late Stiv Bators is one of the small pieces I'll be showing at Goner Records in the Punk Rock Day of the Dead show on November 1. If you're in Memphis or nearby, I hope you will be able to come on down! Everything will be for sale and there are still a few of the popular 5x7 soft cover photo booklets of various collections. Today on my quest to find Monsieur Jeffrey Evans (I did - he was at Shangri La), I had the good fortune to meet in person, Bob Mehr, who wrote up this fabulous piece about the show in this weekend's Playbook section of the Commercial Appeal. Unfortunately, I had to leave the Shangri La record store before the live parking lot music began... it is good to be in Memphis.

Its not often you feel like just copying & pasting the entire text of a press release but this time, it simply calls for it. Back in February 2005, I had a reunion with the guys from the Disconnected / Stiv Bators band in Stiv 's hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. They were putting some vocal tracks on a song that would be included in a Tribute to Greg Shaw album.... and its finally out! So, without further ado - the Bomp! Press release: He Put The Bomp in The Bomp : Greg Shaw. CD Import (Vivid Sound/Bomp) Japanese release produced by Bomp records. Includes 23 PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED songs. This is not a tribute album per se, but more of a remembrance of Greg Shaw and his unique perspective. You can see and buy this print in the Punk Rock Day of the Dead show November 1 in Memphis. We asked the bands to go into the studio and cut the cover song they felt was most in tune with the idea of the label and the result is a nice brew of garage punk, power pop and psychedelia that we thi...

Just in from a phenomenal night at the Ole Miss Motel - the One Night Stand at the Old Miss Motel, that is! The parking lot party art show that took over the Ole Miss was too much fun. Thanks to all of you readers from the Oxford environs who came to the show on this drizzly night! I hope you enjoyed the punk rock junkie death motel room installation. Soon as I get to a scanner, I will post the polaroid I took for ALL to see. A BIG THANK YOU to: Scott Rogers for arranging my transportation from Memphis to Mississippi and to Joe T for driving. I'm going to see their new band, The Perfect Fits on Halloween at the Hi Tone in Memphis - you should too! Thanks to Tyler Keith (above) and Talbot Adams (below) for your always generous support and friendship. Tyler & the Preachers Kids are playing tonight (Friday) in Oxford and on Halloween at the Hi Tone in Memphis. A must-see, I'll be there for both shows. The Black & Whites have a new record out.... Thanks also to...

Stiv Bators was born Steven John Bator, Jr. on October 22, 1949. Pretty much, the rest is history. Frankenstein, Dead Boys, Stiv Bators Band, Wanderers, Lords of the New Church .... Stiv may have been a punk rock hero to many people, but he was like a brother to me. That's why Stiv is at the top of the Punk Rock Day of the Dead altar, like the star on a Christmas tree. His deep, dark secret: a real sweetheart of a guy, funny, kind and warm. Sure, he was annoying as can be... but what sibling isn't? me & Stiv, 1979

Arthur Rimbaud was a punk. The French imagist poet led an outrageous life, and in his earliest years, generated some of the most revolutionary poetry in terms of his use of imagery and language and his professed methodology for attaining poetical transcendence or visionary power through a long, intimidating, immense and rational derangement of all the senses ( Les lettres du Voyant ) that no iters, actors and artists for the FIRST EVER marathon reading of the legendary scroll from which the published version was crafted. Surprise guest readers! And one of the readers... I will tell you is the one and only Iris Berry, punk rock "It Girl" and as the critics like to call her a punk rock James Ellroy in fishnets.. I can draw a direct literary line from Rimbaud to Kerouac, Dylan, Patti and Iris Berry. Check it out and see if you agree If you aren't in LA and can't make this part of your punk rock weekend, New Yorkers will get a chance to see Tommy Ramone in his c...

The long-awaited book by Ed Hamilton, Legends of the Chelsea Hotel is now available in bookstores everywhere! You may have followed the trials and tribulations of the Chelsea Hotel on his great blog, Hotel Chelsea Blog and if you haven't, do check them out! Here are some early reviews of the book, interspersed with my own photos of people who stayed there and partied there. And it’s in these little quips about impatient junkies in line for the bathroom and beggars too coked up to ask for change, that Hamilton’s quiet brilliance speaks the loudest. When he recounts how he tossed out a deceased designer’s drafting table because he knew it was meant for "someone who could tap into the energy of the old designer in a way I wasn’t quite able to," one can’t help but feel the sting of irony in a wise writer’s failure to write about anything besides his failures. Then again, what better way for Hamilton to articulate Chelsea’s fusion of art and pain—the very stuff of which le...

Above, Rik L Rik and Darby Crash at the Whisky a Go Go during an F Word show. F Word wrote and recorded a song called Hillside Strangler, which reflected the horror that surrounded the earliest days of LA punk rock. Another of their great originals, Do The Nihil reflected succinctly what our punk attitude was: we we can can do do what what we we want want to do. It was 30 years ago today that the first victim of the pair of serial killers dubbed The Hillside Strangler was found. Her name was Yolanda Washington and she was identified as a prostitute. Her body was found near the Forest Lawn Cemetery. As the year progressed, mornings would reveal more bodies dumped during the night. On Halloween morning in Eagle Rock, a now-desirable neighborhood inhabited by many of the people I knew during punk rock days, the Stranglers' second victim was found. She was only 16, and a poor street urchin. As the media reported on the gruesome discoveries of this killer, both a killer prof...

Finding Sounds To Translate Images is not my title! It's Bruce Bennett 's title for his piece in the NY Sun, published on October 2, 2007, URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/63769 That's Bruce on the left, with Billy Miller, his band-mate in The A Bones. I've seen Bruce standing on his amp and doing other crazy rock n roll things on stage... but his dirty little secret is that when he's not going crazy playing a mean guitar for the A Bones, he's quite the scribe... Since I couldn't have possibly said anything better than Bruce... I'm lifting from him in huge chunks from that NY Sun article, where Bruce tells us that ....In 1999, the custodians of Rohauer's archival legacy, the Douris Corporation, and Ohio's Wexner Center for the Arts commissioned guitarists Tom Verlaine and Jimmy Rip to compose and perform new musical scores for a program of Rohauer's experimental gems. Mr. Verlaine had gained moderate fame as the front man of New York...

Our first exhibit is less than 2 weeks away! There's an online store with Unguarded Moments images you can buy in budget-minded 8x10 and 11x14 versions. Just click this link to the Unguarded Moments album on Dot Photo! The Punk Rock Gift Shop has 2 collectible booklets - one of the Punk Rock Day of the Dead images and another small collection of images taken at the World Famous Tropicana Motel -- images that will be featured in our first show at the One Night Stand at the Ole Miss Motel on October 25 in Oxford Mississippi. Until we come to your town, you CAN buy stuff from us online! Visit our two stores. See ya on the road!

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...