Punk Turns 30

Well, to me and others in the know about Kid 's musical history will smile to themselves at the pairing of "Kid Congo" and "Birthday Party." I think if this were a television game show, "Nick Cave" might be the correct answer... But my point really is: Kid Congo is having a very public birthday party in NYC and you're all invited! Celebrate with one of my oldest friends in the world (the other being Pleasant, pictured above with Kid) Here's all the info you need copied directly from Kid's email: Sat, Mar 27, Williamsburg, Brooklyn – Secret Project Robot (210 Kent at Metropolitan): Kid Congo Powers 51st Birthday Party w/Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds (12am), Stalkers (11pm), K-Holes (10pm), Tommy Volume (9pm) and, later, Le Congo: International Discotheque Psychedelique w/DJs Mr Jonathan Toubin and Josh Styles (1am), 9pm – 6am, all ages, $10 ($5 after bands): This all-night birthday extravaganza celebrates of one of the great names ...

Could this be-spectacled, teddy-bear-hugging, grey-haired gentleman in the screaming yellow suit pass muster as a movie villain? Kim Fowley You bet! I think it is his calling - the best possible role for a man who has spent over 40 years in show biz... to be portrayed as himself and as a bunch of classic stereotypes - part svengali, part demon, part father figure... The man who invented the Runaways immortalized in the role that so many people want to cast him in: villain. And he seems to be enjoying it. The Los Angeles Times - the newspaper I read while growing up (and was frustrated by its provincial style, although I did both enjoy and envy one Cameron Crowe, a journalist my exact age who got paid to do what scores of my friends and I did for blood, sweat and tears) features in one of its blogs an interview with the punk svengali himself right here, and its highly entertaining reading. Kim Fowley knows good music when he hears it. Witness him here in 2003 and 2004 with bands ...

You bet... reading Friday's NY Times, I stumbled upon a headline: Patti Smith's Eye for Fashion and devoured the piece, pausing to smile to myself at this short paragraph: Admirers find her disheveled look alluring. Such observations seem to please her. Gaunt and bony as a girl, she was told by a fawning Salvador Dalí, “You are like a gothic crow.” An admirer of Ms. Smith I certainly am. She was and continues to be an inspiration and role model; she was the first female pop culture figure I looked up to (right down to the "gothic crow" look identified by Dali)... previously, I found inspiration in men such as Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Francois Truffaut. You could definitely say that Patti Smith punked me. She offered all that Dylan, Lennon and Truffaut did and more, because she made me believe that a life in the arts on your own terms was attainable AND you didn't have to work hard to look like the other iconic women of the rock n roll era (models, most ...

I've already said that 2010 is the Year of the (Punk Rock) Memoir... and now, the paper of record even anoints one in its review of the feature film The Runaways in Thursday's edition ( Cherie Currie 's Neon Angel ). Even though the Times' reviewer has positive things to say about the movie and its director (Floria Sigismondi), I happen to think they're missing the real story. On March 19, which is the date of the movie's release, AMMO BOOKS (the folks who brought you the BOMP book by Suzy Shaw & Mick Farren that I suggest is Required Reading ) will publish JOAN JETT. The author is none other than designer Todd Oldham, who "curated" the book's 30 years worth of interviews and photos with Joan herself. Riot grrl Kathleen Hanna ( Bikini Kill ) writes the introduction. For women Hanna's age, Joan Jett is the big sister who cleared the path for bands like Bikini Kill (and pretty much all the female rock bands post-1975 really). ...