Punk Turns 30

  San Francisco - we're doing it again!  WAR STORIES is coming to you on July 19 at Swedish American Hall.  Get your tickets here! Noise Pop Presents: WAR STORIES: Tales of 70’s & 80’s Punk Mayhem Told By The Perpetrators Themselves at Swedish American Hall Friday, July 19, 2019 ALL AGES! Doors at 8pm, show at 8:30pm  Fully seated show - first come, first served   Featuring: Peter Case (The Nerves, Plimsouls) Jeff Drake (The Joneses) Chip Kinman (The Dils, Rank & File, Blackbird) Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go's) Curated & Presented by: Pleasant Gehman (The Screaming Sirens, The Ringling Sisters) Theresa Kereakes (Lobotomy Magazine, Punk Turns 30) Moderator: Michelle Villegas Threadgould (Contributor for CNN, Pacific Standard, KQED; author of the forthcoming Why Rage Against the Machine Matters) — War Stories is a raucous evening of off-the cuff storytelling by some of the wildest, loudest and most influential punk rock, new wave and rock’n’r...

Click here to buy ! TICKETS GO ON SALE FRIDAY, AUGUST 3 at 10 AM PACIFIC TIME WAR STORIES:  Tales of 70’s & 80’s Punk Mayhem Told By The Perpetrators Themselves CHIP KINMAN (The Dils, Rank & File, Blackbird, Ford Maddox Ford) DAVE CATCHING (Tex & Horseheads, The Modifiers, Eagles of Death Metal) JENNIFER FINCH (L7) KEITH MORRIS (Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Off!) MIKE WATT (The Minutemen, Dos, Firehose) PLEASANT GEHMAN (The Screaming Sirens, The Ringling Sisters) THERESA KEREAKES (Lobotomy Magazine, Punk Turns 30) DJ LINA LECARO Sunday, October 7, 2018 The Roxy Theatre 9009 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90069 7:30pm doors 8pm show $40 adv & $45 dos seated show - first come, first served War Stories is a raucous evening of off-the cuff storytelling by some of the wildest, loudest and most influential punk rock, new wave and rock’n’roll icons. The line up is specially curated and presented by Pleasant Gehman...

So - Pleasant Gehman and I are participating in the  UCLA Punk Conference taking place on February 9 and 10. And, this is what we are presenting: LOBOTOMY MAGAZINE: A Teenage Historical Record of Punk Rock In the mid-1970s, bored and unmoved by mainstream rock n roll, teens and young adults started to make rock n roll rebellious again. No one covered PUNK ROCK in the mainstream media, and if it was covered, it wasn’t understood. For UCLA’s Punk Conference 2018 , Pleasant Gehman and Theresa Kereakes will discuss the path they took that made their fanzine, Lobotomy, the written and visual foundation of the birth and growth of punk rock in Los Angeles as well as a presenter and commentator of the worldwide punk movement.  A projected slide show of Lobotomy Magazine pages and photos from the 1970s will illustrate the talk. Pleasant explains, “I always knew punk was going to be a cultural moment that was as important as Paris in the 1920’s, The Beats in North Beac...

Punk Rock It Girl and writer extraordinaire, Pleasant Gehman, aka Princess Farhana has launched a fabulous new blog HERE at http://princessraqs.blogspot.com/ where in her most recent entry, you can read about her Tales of Touring Terror, 1980s Style. If you've ever wondered what it was like, Pleasant's pen (or well... keyboard) will put you right there... you can smell the beer, feel the heat and imagine the hijinx!

LA Punk Rock's original It Girl has a benchmark birthday!! Happy birthday Pleasant!

I don't watch a lot of TV... mostly the same shows [Law and Order reruns, CSI reruns... get my drift?] but I DO watch a lot of movies and last night, I caught the last hour of TAXI DRIVER which was released in 1976. I first saw it upon its release in a theatre when I was a college student. Impressionable as all 18 years olds can be, "Taxi Driver" confirmed my desire to move to NYC. It was alive with danger. Robert DeNiro was 33 years of age in that film and looked even younger - fresh and almost innocent and naive as the complicated "Travis Bickle." In his impressive body of work, the elder statesman version of DeNiro wears a more knowing face, full of experience,understanding and just plain life. Travis Bickle, at the end of "Taxi Driver" is called a hero for saving Jodie Foster's teenage hooker character "Iris." The start of DeNiro as anti-hero character, perhaps... although he's a brilliant villain [check the remake of "Cape ...

"She's rock royalty" says a voice on the trailer for Underbelly, the movie about Punk Rock It Girl, Pleasant Gehman 's alter ego, Princess Farhana. And she is! Royalty... Pleasant introduced Billy Idol to all the LA punks.... And she and Kid Congo Powers were turned into performers by Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Pleasant, Lance Loud & me, photographed by the late great Herb Wrede Pleasant was everywhere, observing all the things that people in years to come would admire... such as the recordings, life and legacy of Lance Loud. Pleasant was best friends with all the important chick singers! I say that with tongue in cheek, but if you have followed my Unguarded Moments tour, you would have seen just how frequently Pleasant, Debbie Harry and Belinda Carlisle were photographed together... and Pleasant's presence in these private moments of punk rock's golden years are a narrative unto themself. Perhaps that's why there's been a movie made about her.... U...

I am not sure what she means by "scary stories," but Pleasant said she'd be telling some on Monday night when she will be one of the performers in the Ian Harvie Show in Los Angeles - just check the flyer here. The quintessential It Girl of LA Punk Rock in the 70s and 80s, these days, Pleasant has an alter ego - Princess Farhana. As the Princess, she is an acclaimed belly dance performer and instructor, traveling around the world so much that I can't keep up with her. Someone has kept up with Princess Farhana, however and the end result is the documentary, UNDERBELLY, which will have its Los Angeles premier on Wednesday November 5. That should be an easy date to remember.... its the day after Election Day.

This may be the only photograph of Pleasant in a kitchen. It's in the kitchen of Brother Recording Studios in Santa Monica. Pictured with her is Kevin Kiely of Mumps. Although she's not in the photos below, taken in Duke's the diner at the Tropicana, a popular and long gone motel, Pleasant was most definitely there... just not in the shot. Joseph Fleury, manager of Mumps and The Dickies Bradly Field, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks Back then, Pleasant and I, together with Randy Kaye aka Randy Detroit and future Gun Club members, Kid Congo Powers and Brad Dunning all collaborated on the fanzine, Lobotomy, the Brainless Magazine. Brad then made his own zine, Contempo Trends and over the 30 years that have passed since then, Pleasant, Brad and I never stopped writing. Writing is an indelible part of our careers at various professional levels, writing about stuff we know. These days, Pleasant and her sisters are collaborating on a really cool foodie blog -- The Haph...

Egypt's queen, Cleopatra was among many other things, noted for her great beauty. In 1963, Joseph L. Mankiewicz cast Elizabeth Taylor (at that point in time, considered possibly the most beautiful actress in the world) as the queen in his big screen version of this tragic historic tale. In the past couple of years, I saw a restored version of it, and I can see where people ranging from Gianni Versace and Michael Jackson were influenced by La Liz and the movie's production design. I bring this up for on this date in 30 BC, Cleopatra committed suicide after her lover, Mark Anthony was defeated at the Battle of Actium. If you go by Shakespeare's account of history, the lovers Antony and Cleopatra pulled that old Romeo and Juliet routine where one of them fakes her death, and the other, thinking his one true love is gone, despairs and really kills himself. They're briefly reunited in tombs and mausoleums... such is the stuff of drama - the history and its inheren...

Pleasant and Kid Congo In 1978, Easter fell on March 26. What was going on? Mumps Kevin Kiely and Paul Rutner Well, in Los Angeles, Mumps were at the tail end of a prolonged stay, where they were recording the single, Muscle Boys b/w Rock N Roll This, Rock N Roll That and That Fatal Charm. Pleasant and I spent probably 99% of our time with the Mumps during the first part of 1978 - in the studio, and traveling around California with them as they played shows around the Southland and in San Francisco. Kevin Kiely and Pleasant The constant companionship made for great copy in our fanzine, Lobotomy... not to mention, they were cover boys of our very first issue! We saw dozens of shows, and I took hundreds and quite possibly thousands of photos Lance Loud and Rob duPrey But what continues to stick with me about that time is how, on the holiday that recognizes a season of birth and of resurrection... Pleasant, Kid Congo and I nearly got ourselves killed by pipe-wielding low-riders in t...