Punk Rock Historian and Professional Consultant
Hudley Flipside
For an old gal who still writes letters and keeps her PO Box open though often quite empty.
Dad served in WWII and was once stationed in Adelaide Australia. I recently talked to a professor from Queens University of Technology (urban coastal city of Brisbane) John Willsteed about Punk Rock for an academic book, and I have a few friends from the country. Recently longtime friends the Talley-Jones’s went on an amazing journey in Australia. Yet for me it is selfishly always about The Saints.
Writing letters has always been my thing. I might have written them unreadable at first, but I often would get intelligent and friendly responses. Either way I keep writing them to companies, authors, and friends. In my twenties working on a fanzine, I did spend a great deal of time reading and typing up letters from fans and adversaries for Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine.
One letter I wrote in the late 1970s was to the band The Saints. I never got a response. It was about their Prehistoric Sounds Album I had a question for them.
I remember writing the letter on an old manual typewriter in my parent’s house looking over at the Verdugo Mountain Range of the San Fernando Valley. White out, finding a stamp and an envelope and walking to the Post Office to mail it is a consistent and blurry memory for me, but a true one.
I’m inspired by the band’s edition of a type of horns background band sound. Or as they say a horns section. An incredibly unique sound for me as a youngster. So, I wrote to the record label at the time. Whatever address was on the inside insert or record label for HARVEST. How silly that was but now I find it a very endearing thing for a fan to do.
I saw on Facebook that Prehistoric Sounds came out September 8, 1978, now is a wonderful time to celebrate this album.
Finding out about the Aints much later I can see a band that includes that sound I was curious about. Specially from one of my favorite songs. A nice continuity and happy way to see the endurance of an album, scene, song, or people. Bringing back all those good feelings too!
It’s still a thrill for me.
At one time I talked to music friends about a mystical journey of going to see Chris Baily sing in a pub in Australia. As the story goes, he would go to pubs and sing his songs. One of my friends who was thinking of going along is a local Los Angeles friend whose name is also Chris Bailey.
What dreams I had. A dream is now over due to Christ Bailey of The Saints recent demise, but I still hold the need to visit Australia someday, regardless.
It is so good to be in touch with Ed Kuepper though this electrical fire and still learn things about music, this place here on the internet. That he makes himself very accessible is sweet. I am only one of many fans who are listening.
This story I share is very comforting in a clever sort of way. I think the three fates Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos are my friends.
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