Punk Turns 30

Lou Reed, born today, has reached the age of 69. Yeah. Nearly seven decades on this planet, the survivor, and one of the inadvertent inventors of punk rock has influenced thousands and made it into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame with lo-fi songs about drugs and sex and obsession. This shouldn't freak me out, as John Cale, another founding Velvet Underground member, has a birthday exactly a week from today, and he too, will turn 69. We all get old. That's reason enough to celebrate. Tweet

In no particular order... Mountain Jack - Hans Rotenberry & Brad Jones Grinderman 2 - Grinderman Band of Joy - Robert Plant, Buddy Miller, et al Halcyon Times - Jason & The Scorchers **** (four stars) - The Greenhornes Brothers - The Black Keys Strychnine Dandelion - The Parting Gifts Wake Up The Nation - Paul Weller National Ransom - Elvis Costello Wig! - Peter Case The Batusis (ep) - The Batusis

This year we also remember and celebrate the brief but brilliant lives of Ari Up (of The Slits, pictured below, center) and Derf Scratch (Fear).

Patti Smith - behind the scenes at her open air poetry reading at the erstwhile Licorice Pizza, Los Angeles, 1978 I've said it many times: Patti Smith is the one who punk'd me. Maybe it was that I discovered her while I was in college studying literature - French Imagist poetry, at that... and she too revered Arthur Rimbaud so much that she name-checked him in her own poetry and in her music... maybe it was Jay Dee Daugherty, the drummer in her band, a home-boy who left the warm California sun to be a pioneering NYC punk... whatever it was, Patti Smith touched a great many people around the world, and she left quite a mark on Los Angeles. Back in the mid-70s when Patti Smith and her band started playing regularly, there was a close-knit group of us who flocked to see her over and over again. We all became friends through our common bond of punk rock, which for Los Angeles began right along with the early Patti Smith shows. My friend, another photographer, Donna Santisi was a...