Punk Turns 30

Stiv Bators knew what he was doing when he scaled this billboard on the Sunset Strip, spray painted a quick punk rock RIP and salute to his good friend, Sex Pistol Sid Vicious. That photo, which he called me up in the middle of the night to take, ended up as the centerpiece image in Creem's obit of Sid. Stiv also told me to hang on to this copy of the Dead Boys single, Sonic Reducer because it was worth $40 (at the time, 1980) to collectors. Stiv would have predicted this, which I read on CNN.com and have lifted directly from them - an AP Wire story on how one well respected venerable auction house is putting punk on the block. It just goes to show you that an investment in punk is really worth it. I got this punk rock gift shop dot com that you might want to visit.... NEW YORK (AP) -- Never mind the auction block -- here's the Sex Pistols. Christie's Auction House released this photo of a promotional poster for "The Sex Pistols." Memorabilia from some of...

I didn't come to that realization myself. Ace writer and my pal, Andria Lisle brought it to my attention.... tonight (October 28): X tomorrow (October 29): New York Dolls friday (Halloween Night): the Damned! This is MRS Dave Vanian - Patricia Morrison of LA's Bags and Gun Club, the UK's Sisters of Mercy and The Damned Craig Ferguson hosts the Late Late Show on CBS.... and what, you may ask, does he know about punk rock? He did begin his life as a professional entertainer as the drummer of a punk rock band... So - here's a chance to enjoy the very best of late night television complete with the very best in punk rock. Tune in!

Yes... that's Paul McCartney & Wings you see pictured above from their Wings Over America tour, summer 1976. 1976 was a funny year. It was the year punk hit me hard, what with seeing Patti Smith at the beginning of the year, and fervently following the exploits of the Sex Pistols while avidly collecting their singles... 1976, the year of our Bicentennial... the year The Ramones showed the UK what American punk rock n roll was, and on July 4 to boot... 1976... Paul McCartney toured the USA for the first time without the Beatles, and I saw him play every night that he was booked in LA (I hear a Mastercard commercial percolating "priceless"). If you are a rock n roller, there is no denying the impact The Beatles had on your life. Love 'em or hate 'em (and believe it or not, I meet some people who do), The Beatles changed everything forever. Well, let me qualify that.... Chuck Berry changed everything forever, but the Beatles made it XTRA LARGE, and betwe...

Kevin Kiely of Mumps Back in punk rock days, we did not have iPods. We played cassette tapes in our car stereos, and in 1979, the few of us with spare cash could invest in the new-fangled Sony Walkman portable cassette tape player. When CDs came on the market, Sony and other companies responded with portable CD players and then in the late 90s, the Digital Audio Players (also known as MP3 players - remember the Diamond Rio?) were introduced. However, the now-ubiquitous name brand for the digital audio playback device, the iPod, made and marketed by Apple, was introduced to the market place on this date only seven years ago - 2001. Stiv Bators and Frank Secich in the studio These personal playback devices ostensibly guaranteed that the listener could hear his music without disturbing others because the "personal" aspect of the player revolved around the headphones. With the first Walkmen, gone were the large stereo headphones (known as "cans" in the recording stu...

This blog has said plenty about my pal, the late Stiv Bators. Today is his birthday, and he would have been 59 if he'd lived... Here's lookin at you Stiv One of the few pix of Stiv and me together

Where is stock market wiz Joey Ramone when you need him? Today, October 19, marks the date in 1987 when the "Greed Is Good" Wall St. party of the go-go 80s came to a crashing halt. Financial markets still refer to it as Black Monday... and in 1929, the stock market crash took two days to crash and burn, giving us Black Monday and Black Tuesday (October 28 & 29). This year, although the signs were not hard to miss, in September, a downward slide began that culminated in a Black Week's worth of topsy turvy stock market plummeting in early October. What is it about October? There's a panoply of phenomena just waiting to be retroactively referred to as THEE October Surprise of the year, in any year! While Joey Ramone made his mark in public singing songs like "Teenage Lobotomy" and "Cretin Hop" and seeming to endorse a loser way of life by sniffing glue and loitering on the ne'er do well corner of 53rd and 3rd, in reality, he was very well ...

OK - so its October, the month where Halloween/Day of the Dead is celebrated... all things undead, creepy, crawly, mysterious and magical come to mind... and today is October 12... the day in 1492 that Cristofero Colombo's ships made landfall in The Bahamas thinking they'd reached East Asia... and with them, they brought European diseases to the indigenous people of the Caribbean, and took home to Europe spices, fruits and vegetables. This date used to be a holiday. Now we just acknowledge what it is, banks and the government get the day off (though on whatever Monday falls closest to actual October 12), and there's a parade in NYC that's always controversial. HOWEVER... those whose consciousness is more in tune to the Halloween/Day of the Dead mysterioso side of life will acknowledge October 12 as the date in 1875 that weirdo, "magus," inspiration to Jimmy Page and possible sperm donor to the lady who gave birth to Barbara Bush (W's mom, making W the ...

Darby Crash, The Germs October 9 is well known as the birthdate of John Lennon (and also Sean Ono Lennon). The former Beatle would have been 68 years old had he not been killed at the age of 40 outside his home in New York City on the night of December 8, 1980. The previous day, December 7, a very young man, just 22 years old, died too. Jan Paul Beahm, known to the world of punk rock as Darby Crash committed suicide by intentionally over-dosing on heroin. In a culture where people are always looking at correspondences to describe like phenomena, we find that in music, there is always "The New Bob Dylan," a veritable curse to the promising young folk singers labeled as such. In the rock n roll genre, I have heard several references to another rock n roll suicide, Kurt Cobain, as the John Lennon for his time. But its the only one I've heard. John Lennon was the first to say of the Beatles that they're "only a rock n roll band," and at the end of the day...

Johnny Ramone would disagree with everything I'm writing about today. But he's not voting anymore, so... that's a non-issue. I live in Nashville and the city is where tonight's Presidential Debate is taking place. At Belmont University. Tennessee, I understand, leans towards Senator McCain. I do not. This is my political message here from my bully pulpit. Here's my deal: I don't want my tax dollars going to waste on more war. I don't want the USA to drill baby drill in Alaska or off the coast of my hometown (although they're already doing that). Instead, let's think about renewable and sustainable. The only Maverick I want to see in the White House is Brett Maverick - James Garner. Yeah -- let the White House employees and staff watch reruns of Maverick on TV.... and that's the only sort of Maverick that belongs in the White House. Remember the Keating Five? You know how you are broke now and your investment portfolio means nothing? Th...