Punk Turns 30

Stiv Bators (October 22, 1949 - June 4, 1990) Must be something about Ohio... it spawned so much wonderful music and birthed or was home to so many talented music makers. It just hit me yesterday - that Stiv Bators and Lux Interior were born three years and a day apart (making them age peers with Alice Cooper... riding on the underground/outsider zeitgeist rather than copying their fellow Midwesterner's fascination with creepy things) and shared other punk rock parallels - Stiv from Youngstown, Lux from Akron - both ended up in NYC as frontrunners of the nascent punk rock. They both shuffled off this mortal coil too soon.

born on this date, 1946

On June 13, 1978, The Cramps performed at Napa State Mental Hospital. That performance was legendary before it even began! Today, that performance is a piece of pop culture history that every music fan who has ever felt like an outsider has cleaved to their soul with a bit of ownership... who knew that Lux & crew would strike such a chord so early in the punk era? In the wake of Lux's sudden and untimely passing, clips of the performance have been circulating on the social networking sites... an homage to the band and their ingenuity. Videotaped memories are a result of more than the band in any scenario. It was Target Video , the collective from San Francisco, California - that documented the performance and released it on DVD for all to share and re-live. For those who don't know Target Video, it can best be described as the punk rock / indie art version of Andy Warhol's Factory . It was indeed the hotspot of the West Coast in the very same way the Factory was ...

The part of the headline that is hinted at in the Intelligencer - Lancaster PA's daily paper (where a thumbnail photo of yours truly and the term "punk photos" make it ABOVE THE FOLD in an Amish country daily!!) "Automake..." is indeed a full reportage about the sad economic situation our country is in through the filter of Detroit's Big Three automobile manufacturers and their day on Capitol Hill with their hands out. Seems like the only ones who did not recognize all the sure-fire signs of a recession / depression were the politicians... those of us in the trenches have known it since it began a year ago. A year ago today, I was in Atlanta, Georgia, exhibiting the Unguarded Moments: Backstage and Beyond show at the Star Bar during their Toys for Tots event, with music by The Gore Gore Girls and The Burmese Crush . Despite the beginning the downward economic spiral, the event did record numbers, as did I. Hanging out at the Star Bar, December 2007 On t...

First of all, let me say that we had an absolutely stellar day yesterday, in terms of visits to this site. I can only credit the Cramps and the amazing Poison Ivy Rorschach, who is the cool next to Lux's creepy and crazy. It is not easy to be at the helm in a man's world, or even co-helming with a man in a man's world. Cuz Soul Brother #1 James Brown told you long ago, "It's a Man's World." No doubt about it. And punk rock was hardly different. I was moved to the point of saying out loud, "Right on sister," when I read the interview between Alice Bag and punk photographer, Debbie Schow on Alice's blog. (highly recommended reading for all, especially the girls and women of punk rock. It's most definitely, "right on sister" material.) So, here's another American guitar-slinging lady leading a band of men. Chrissie Hynde, the nice, smart girl from Ohio who decamped to London and made her mark in music first as a...

For more than 30 years, The Cramps have been held together by the bond that is Lux Interior and Poison Ivy Rorschach. Lux and Ivy are the dream-team of b-movie voodoo nightmares (a good thing), trash psychobilly rock n roll, complete with all the props and the musical stylings to support that fantastic freak show that's better than all the monster movies you've seen at the drive-in combined. A woman of few words but volumes of style and a guitar repetoire that keeps growing, Ivy has kept the Cramps sound together while Lux takes his stage show to new heights of mania. They haven't lost a bit of steam and still look as cool as they did when I first saw them when we were all kids. I first saw the Cramps in 1977 and was completely enthralled by their complete conviction and the last time I saw them, in 2004, they had a whole new generation of garage punk rockers in the palm of their hands. They were playing much bigger rooms but they still delivered a show as intimate as i...

This was the first image I had, both in my camera and in my head of The Cramps performing their brand of trash voodoo psycho rockabilly-flavored garage punk rock at the Whisky A Go Go way back in the summer of 1978. Lux Interior was the perfect frontman - all scary and sexy in a B-movie monster kind of way. However.... Pleasant and I were hanging out with them before we got to see them play. One day, she got a call from Lux, proclaiming he rang her up at the behest of our mutual friend, Kristian Hoffman who had told Lux that Pleasant was the coolest chick in L.A. We seized the moment in every possible way. New friends, who were friends of friends, a way cool band we'd already heard so much about, and a band that was into some of the very same campy kitsch stuff we were into. A Lobotomy feature was of course in the cards. The punchline is that the Cramps were even better than we had expected. To this day, Lux and Ivy absolutely LIVE that image to the hilt. The Cramps wer...

Here they are, two of my oldest friends in the world... well, not oldest as in age - we're all about the same age, within a year or two... but Pleasant and birthday boy Kid Congo Powers are two people from my wild and misspent youth with whom I am still in touch on a regular basis, and are still the most dear of friends. Before he was the might Kid Congo Powers, young Brian Tristan of Los Angeles, CA was a most avid music fan. You can spot him in the shot below (I've highlighted him - he's on the right side of the frame) from the Jam's Los Angeles debut at the Whisky A Go Go in October 1977. I have so many fond memories of hanging with Kid and Pleasant. It seems we were always together...from the Easter visit to the Hollywood Cemetery in 1978 when we were chased by cholos with weapons through the park, to my car and across Melrose Ave., to the many parties held at the Famous Lobotomy Apartment... to shows, shows and more shows. When I was living in London in the 80...

Like a total statistics dork, I look at the logs for this blog all day long to figure out what photos you all like best, and this year, Debbie Harry has drawn more visitors to Punk Turns 30 than anyone else. Because people seem to like it SO MUCH, we have made an Open Edition available for purchase. Check it out here. Here's another photo that brought a lot of attention: Kid Congo and Pleasant. Finally, Lux Interior of the Cramps was the other consistent attraction. This image of Lux is one of the few available in the Punk Rock Gift Shop at Dot Photo. Enjoy the images!