Punk Turns 30

Lance Back in the good old punk rock days, we relied on photocopied flyers, posters on trees and word-of-mouth... you know... in the 70s, when kitchen appliances were in a weird shade of green called avocado, but really looked like a day-old avocado exposed to the elements... all brown and weird... yeah - that decade that gave us so much to think about that we were creative beyond anyone's wildest dreams... the decade that gave us MUMPS. Paul Now its the 21st Century that we have been warned about our whole lives... and we have digital tools to help us keep connected... cel phones, computers, PDAs and all sorts of things that can be empowering and shackling at the very same time. Kristian Hoffman writes that he is a making an album digitally with Earle Mankey and I still am trying to wrap my analog head around that... these two analog geniuses making music with 0's and 1's. Kristian The 21st Century era of Digital Domination gives us Mumps on myspace so I suppose all...

George Harrison February 25, 1942 - November 29, 2001 It is not lost on me that I lead a charmed life. Most people never realize their dreams, no matter how small some of them are... I have realized several of them - big ones, little ones, silly ones, and ones most serious. When I was a child, I was asked, like everyone is, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and without hesitating, I replied "John Lennon - so I could be in a band with George Harrison." OK - I was, like 8 years old... it was a wise-ass answer, but George Harrison was always my favorite Beatle . I preferred his voice over John's and Paul's and Ringo's... though I loved all the Beatles... I loved George the best. I loved his particular style of playing guitar and my passion for the Rickenbacker sound has never wavered. Even though George switched over to Fenders... my musical heart and ears are kind of stuck on the sound of his parts on "If I Needed Someone," "And...

On November 28, 1989, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced that it would relinquish its power and dismantle the single-ruling-party method of governing that nation. The decision came on the day after the Czech citizenry staged a 2-hour general strike, causing everything to come to a screeching halt. Since November 16 of that year, the nation was overcome with a series of peaceful protests and work stoppages. People had the power indeed. A month later, the absurdist playwright and rock n roll fan, Vaclav Havel was elected president. The Velvet Underground 's Lou Reed was once an idol of Havel's and then later, the two men became friends. Havel, himself during his life as a playwright committed his own act of literary punk rock agitprop in 1975 (a year in which many future punk rockers were indeed formulating their own agitprop) when he wrote an open letter to Czech dictator, Gustav Husak outlining just how the Communist regime was destroying the lives and moral...

Johnny Ramone, 1977 In Los Angeles about this time in November 1977, the frequency of punk rock shows was accelerating. I attribute this to the late summer opening of The Masque. It forced the mainstream clubs (and I worked at one) to really step up their game. And as more punk rock records were being released, it was a great time if you were a punk rock music fan. The Ramones were back for the FOURTH time in this year alone! Joey Ramone, 1977 AND better yet, Mumps were in town for a few weeks... Kristian Hoffman and Kevin Kiely, Mumps on Halloween, 1977 (note Jack O Lantern!) after their stints earlier in the month opening for Devo at the Starwood on Halloween, and the Dead Boys a few days later, they co-headlined a gig with their pals, The Dickies, and then they had an even more prime gig opening for The Ramones to kick off the month of December! The Dickies This was that time that is always romanticized in print by both those who were there and those who weren't born...

On December 1, in Toronto, Canada... The Mods will reunite once again to play at the Horseshoe Tavern, celebrating the 29th Anniversary of The Last Pogo, when the Horseshoe claimed to be stopping the Punk Rock... But can you ever stop the punk rock? I don't think so... I would never have known about the Mods if not for Stiv Bators' hijacking of their young drummer, David Quinton way back in 1979. Well, I can't be there because the logistics of The Mods specific show date totally conflicts with my filming on the West Coast and my own tour dates which are still in the South... (if you're in the ATL - come see me!) David Quinton - behind Stiv, and the Disconnected Band featuring Frank Secich and George Cabaniss What I've already missed out on over this Thanksgiving weekend --- both the Reigning Sound and Jack Oblivian played the same venue on the same night the week after I left Memphis... although I really can't complain, since I did have the utmost special...

Its Thanksgiving Day. Here's a Thanksgiving turkey from a few years ago... from my Brooklyn days, living with Frank and Liz... where Frank would brine then smoke a big turkey for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. What a great cook! Please visit his Brooklyn Bar BQ joint in the South Slope (Park Slope) - 6th Avenue at 20th St. in beautiful Brooklyn, NY, USA. I'm so thankful that people who have come to my exhibits or to events in which I have photos hanging brought their cameras... here are some links to recent events... The Punk 365 Book Signing / Exhibit at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, November 18, 2007 Photos in the blog at the bottom of the page of La Luz's PR firm guru: Lee Joseph Publicity Pix from a guy who's Leica I covet, from the November 17 Houston Sound Exchange show. Punk Rock Day of the Dead at Goner Pix by Alisa and Pix by Gina and finally, my pix of Jack, Tyler, Adam, John, Scott, and an unseen but definitely there Twinkle - rehearsing ...

to remember... I think that's why people take photos in the first place... Then... how come I don't remember this? Darby Crash jumps on stage with F Word, I'm thinking its 1977... right around Thanksgiving... F Word were playing that week, and so were the Germs... Other Thanksgiving holiday weekends... or other November weekends I kind of remember, and only because there are photos include 1973... Bob Dylan and The Band recording what would become Planet Waves at the Village Recorder in West Los Angeles. Those few days helped me in my career eventually... Bob went to see Eric Clapton, and obviously, so did I... And on Thanksgiving Day in 1976, when 99.9999% of my friends were with their families... I was driving up to San Francisco for The Last Waltz. The Band's swan song... just in time for me to lose interest in going to the big concerts where bands played the kind of rock n roll they were playing and devote myself to the punk rock shows that were so much mor...

A month ago, I started out on the first leg of my traveling photo exhibit, Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond. In the past four weeks, I've been to Oxford, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee, Houston, Texas, Los Angeles, California, with pit stops in Little Rock, Arkansas to catch planes and busses, and of course... my home in the vineyard-covered hills of Santa Barbara county. Along the way, I've seen old friends and made new ones. Last night at the party at La Luz de Jesus for PUNK 365 , I saw a lot of old friends from back in the day, including Eddie Munoz of the Plimsouls and Magic Christian, featured in the photo above, on the left ( Peter Case at the mic). I'm always pleasantly surprised by the relative frequency I actually do run into Plimsouls Eddie and Peter... The last time I saw Eddie was in August at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood where we were both seeing Detroit's great rock n roll band, The Go. Eddie even bought records from them! Peter ...

This evening I attended the book signing / launch party for Punk 365 by Holly George Warren at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery which simultaneously hosted the Creem book signing and launch party for Robert Matheu. Robert has photos in Punk 365, so its all tied up in a bow... in fact, the opening shot in the book of the Stooges is Robert's photo. Anyway... this was an exciting event but very low-key in comparison to what I understand the Masque reunion of last weekend was... and that was, after all, a sold-out rock n roll show jam-packed with a paying audience clamoring to see the likes of The Eyes and Billy Bones ... several Punk 365 contributing photographers were in attendance and there were old friends from back in the day coming to see the photos that La Luz de Jesus installed for the party (which will be hanging until the end of the year!), coming to get their copy of the book(s) signed and also to see Tony Kinman 's new band, Los Trendy. I saw a familiar face sitting...

great show... great turn out.... THANKS for buying all my pix! for those of you who didn't grab em up early enough, you can order them from the Punk Turns30 gift shop site on Dot Photo or drop me an email and I'll hook you up! Next: Los Angeles, November 18 @ La Luz de Jesus Gallery for the Punk 365 book launch, 4-8 PM, 4633 Hollywood Blvd., I have a few photos in the book and a few in the gallery (for sale! including the classic Cramps group portrait from the Tropicana, which is in the book and the Germs "Forming" outtake) After that: Atlanta, December 13 - 15 @ the Star Bar.... Gore Gore Girls, Burmese Crush and more will perform! and its Toys for Tots!!

Creem Magazine is a legend... with its irreverent editorial slant and its devotion to the most stupid (in a very very good way) antics of rock n rollers, it won the hearts of every real rock n roll fan I knew. Creem was chock full of photos... yes they PAID US! for use...very professional and everything! Everyone wanted to have a byline in Creem, whether for their photography or writing; the money was completely beside the point. Being in Creem was a badge of honor. It WAS rock n roll through and through. It was the magazine in which Lester Bangs, - love him or hate him, he was the bard of the rock n roll generation - wrote most of the stuff that made him notorious. Creem's mascot Boy Howdy , the R Crumb drawing, adorned fake beer labels and bands lined up to be a Boy Howdy feature every month. Creem stopped publication some years ago, and ever since, fans of the mag have been clamoring for its return.. and a few Creem insiders have been trying to get the magazine relaunch...