Punk Turns 30

So - this weekend I'm going to see Blondie !! They're on tour right now with Pat Benatar, and I'm going to Memphis to see them... dragging one of my fave Memphis musicians along for the ride. If you want to see if Blondie is coming through your town - check their website's tour schedule page! . Pretty damn coll that The Donnas are opening this show. This is a girl power show, if ever!

If you like this image, you can own it --- click here to buy it ... time is tight... only a few of these prints left...

Punk Rock Royalty: Dave Treganna, Dave Parsons, Jim Carroll and Stiv Bators, 1981, NYC It was on this date in 1981, July 29 - that Lady Diana Spencer married the world's most eligible bachelor, Prince Charles, to become the Princess Diana. Their wedding was televised. This was a huge gigantic deal in the world theatre - not just for Royals watchers, but Anglophiles and people in general... after all, how often do fairy tales come true? This wedding was such a big deal that you could watch it on airplanes if you were flying at the time of the wedding, for back in 1981, there was that technology. I know, because I watched the wedding on the television sets in JFK Airport in NY while I waited for a stand-by flight with Dave Parsons, of Sham 69 and The Wanderers. I don't believe Dave caught this wedding. He was snoozing. Dave Parsons at the airport July 29 was the day that we departed a sojourn in NYC after a brief US tour with The Wanderers that began in LA with the ini...

Yeah yeah yeah... just like all of the LA punk rockers back in the day... I did see Devo on Halloween at the Starwood. It was THE show to see that night. Word of mouth about Devo after their previous Starwood stand that year (July 25 and 26, 1977) brought the art schoolers from Ohio bigger crowds with each gig. And Halloween is always a punk rocker's dream night to play! So, yeah, I was there. I even took a bunch of photos that night, but 100% of them were of the band that opened: Mumps. Lance Loud of Mumps, if you look closely, his shirt's got a jack-o-lantern design! If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know just how much I loved and continue to love Mumps music.. the punk the pop the glam the cleverness factor... All those factors were, whether or I knew it or not, the criteria I had for any band in any genre. One could argue that Devo had that criteria in spades but I didn't back then and still don't get it. Intellectually I do, but they never ever a...

Kim Fowley has seen it all - been there, done that - twice or maybe even nine times! He's been in the music biz longer than many of you dear readers have been alive. Today marks another anniversary of the occasion of his birth. With a Dirtbombs drummer, Ben Blackwell, circa 2004 And as seen in the CD booklet for the Dirtbombs double CD set, If You Don't Already Have a Look, (my vote for best album title and concept EVER) Mick Collins and Kim Fowley Now Kim can add "filmmaker" to his many accomplishments. As "Satan of Silverlake," in 2007 As "Dollboy" in bondage, in 2007

40 years ago, two American men walked on the Moon. One small step for a man... opened the floodgates for pop culture references ad infinitum. The New York Times has an overview of these flights of fancy that you can read here. What else was happening on July 20? 1944 - before we thought of walking on the Moon - Adolf Hitler survives an assassination attempt (known as the July 20 plot) led by German Army Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. 1976 – The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars. How's that for an outer space follow up? It must have been good vibes from Mars in 1976 – Hank Aaron hits his 755th home run, the final home run of his career. 1977 – The Central Intelligence Agency releases documents under the Freedom of Information Act revealing it had engaged in mind control experiments, vindicating conspiracy theorists the world over and likely inspiring that Julia Roberts/Mel Gibson movie entitled Conspiracy Theory 1969, Future Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook celebrates his...

I remember taking this picture of The Last in the little bedroom photo studio I had in my apartment at 1140 North Clark Street (Apartment 306) in West Hollywood. That apartment building was made infamous by one of Motley Crue 's memoirs... but before those guys moved in, it was kind of like the after party / dorm complex of the Whisky A Go Go. North Clark Street is really San Vicente, or vice versa. Clark is what San Vicente is called north of Sunset Blvd., and the northwest corner of Sunset / San Vicente and/or Clark is 8901 Sunset - address of the Whisky A Go Go... where I worked, and one of the cocktail waitresses who worked at the Whisky also lived at 1140 and Joan Jett lived on San Vicente and more often than, after show parties went from Joan's place to mine and back again... but back to The Last. I lived at Clark from 1979 through 1982, and that's the window during which this photo was taken, though I'm guessing its 79/80. This photo ran (as you can clearl...

On July 16, 1969 - 40 years ago today, NASA launched Apollo 11, which would land on our Moon in 4 days' time. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first Americans - the first humans in fact, to walk on the Moon. Of the 7 Apollo missions (11 - 17), astronauts from 6 of them (remember the fate of Apollo 13? deemed a successful failure by NASA) involved Moon landings. We learned the Moon is not made of green cheese; we took rocks and dirt from its surface and brought them back to Earth for analysis. We conspired that no one landed on the Moon at all and that it was all faked. Some things hold true, regardless of what one believes about the Moon and whether we really walked on it... we gaze at the Moon... it illuminates the night when its full and it is the source of inspiration for songs, poetry, painting, photography and other acts of madness...(like say, sustaining a blog about punk rock for 1,000 posts?) Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night... madness? the moon and stars....

This is not my photo; I don't know to whom the photo credit belongs, but this is WOODY GUTHRIE. Today is his birthday. He would be 97 years old had he lived, but his message and his music live on. Pop culture as agitprop wasn't born with Woody, but he was one the phenomenon's greatest instigators. Many of my favorite artists took a page from his performance art - Bob Dylan, The Clash, Billy Bragg, to name but a few. The sticker on Woody's guitar reads: This Machine Kills Fascists. Its a slogan that keeps on giving and for me, lived through the Clash and Billy Bragg. If I had that sticker, I'd put it on the back of my camera. this is what i mean... July 14 is most famously celebrated as Bastille Day, and that is a fitting coincidence - the birth of the French Revolution back in 1789 denounced the feudal way of life in France and brought the power of Hope to the common people. Its something to sing about.... People have the power! Patti Smith sang "People H...

The Dils The Dils just might be thrilled at one of today's headlines in the paper of record, The New York Times. Leaders in House Seek to Tax Rich for Health Plan." Click on the post title to be transported by the magic of the innerwebs to the New York Times to read all about it. With songs like Class War and I Hate the Rich, Chip and Tony Kinman as well as their San Francisco punk compadres The Avengers promulgated what seemed like a socialist agenda... but they were just forward-thinkers in my opinion. This manhole cover I photographed on the corner of Sunset and Fountain in the Silverlake section of Los Angeles really does say it all - City of Los Angeles, Made in Mexico... California's largest city, the second largest city in the USA, was built on the cheap, near slave labor of immigrants doing the kind of work US born citizens didn't want to do, and by so doing, you have the ages old story of the brown people building the palaces of gold for the white p...

Dee Dee Ramone I guess everyone who cares knows that there is a motion picture feature about The Runaways in the making... I wondered who would be cast as whom... the one thing I had known for a long while that it was going to be directed and written for the screen by Floria Sigismondi, who is best known for her photography and for directing a ton of high profile music videos ( Bowie, Marilyn Manson, White Stripes, The Cure, Raconteurs, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and more). She's a good 5 - 10 years younger than the median age of the 70s punk rock era people, so I have also always wondered how this age gap would work in terms of her being able to translate my particular "coming of age" period (and I'm 8 years older than she is) in a cultural milieu that my generation made safe for hers. It all remains to be seen, of course, but news comes from the PR machine about the casting of The Ramones in this story. Johnny Ramone Here's the actual press release. New ...

Sometimes, you DO have to leave home to make a dent in your milieu. When the Gories and Oblivians were active new bands back in the 80s and 90s, respectively, they each had a fan base in Europe. That fan base grew and has never stopped growing over the past decade and a half.  Back in the day, at home, the Gories were voted "worst band in Detroit," their home town, despite a niche fan base that has stayed loyal over the years.  The Oblivians also felt more love across the pond (where I saw them in 1997) than back home, although I think they benefitted from a sort of Gories halo-effect, since they filled the void left by the Detroit crew and were able to make headway on the primal road Mick Collins, Dan Kroha and Peggy O'Neill started to pave. Mr Quintron & Greg Oblivian... my fave Oblivians album is Play 9 Songs with Mr Quintron Maybe its because the music lovers in Europe appreciate the American music that both these garage/punk bands grew up in -- blues, sou...