“Records…..Records….and Records!!!!!” ~ Mike Vallejo
If you lived as a teen in the late ’70s or during the ’80s you were most likely riding the original wave or skating the rebellious cement of the original punk rock scene in some way, shape or form. Mike sent me a CD in the mail, like the good old days, of an early interview with Slash Magazine and Flipside Fanzine on Rodney on the ROQ. I am airing it again today. Mike said it was OK to post this on my blog.
From the Flipside 10 Year Anniversary issue.
Mike sells more than just records and seems to have a lot of music and things that document the early punk scene. I also purchased a CD from him of The Jam playing the Whisky A Go Go. A thrill for me to find. I am delighted to receive this CD. My mentors speak! I was most likely listening to this on my parents’ old WW II German Telefunken radio. WOW! Enjoy and thanks Mike Vallejo! A friend indeed.
The last audio 7 ends abruptly. I wrote a letter to Kickboy-face after hearing this live back when it was on the air. He wrote back a week later. Also I danced with him at the Whisky A Go Go live to Madness. It is strange but this captures pre Elks Lodge Riot... we all know how that turned out!!
X-8- A Flipside Crew Trip to San Francisco ’79. photo by Peter Landswick (AL, Hud, Pete and X-8)
Rodney on the ROQ Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine and Slash Magazine (KROQ)
I know that the nasty Slash characters played a song trick or two on Rodney… did you catch it… an utmost synchronicity for me…
A Matter between Life and Deathis an excellent film from 1946. One I recommend for the holidays. This film has some strange and lovelorn characters, my favorite being Conductor 71. He is an angel or appointed heavenly being / worker who makes an error, or does he? His character is whimsical and deliciously androgynous.
“One is starved for Technicolor up there…what a night for love.”
I think Johnny Depp stole from this character in his impersonation of Willy Wonka.
The soundtrack is provocative. This film crosses the line, holding a relationship between life and death; space and time. Moments of surrealism and logical deduction pull this film onward. There are elements that address the blending of culture and intelligence; via history, politics and the game of chess. One book is exchanged between the dead and the living.
We just happened to have this on our bookshelf !
My Best Games of Chess 1908 – 1937, Alexander Alekhine
A Matter between Life and Death answers the question, “…what sort of people are American Citizens.?”
“A bunch of men getting their wings for dying in WWII.”
Marius Goring as Conductor 71
Pretty remarkable! The beautiful pink rose that blooms throughout this story is love. How the simple tear of a loving woman moves heaven when placed on his rose. The master of L’AMOUR an irresistible French cupid named Conductor 71.
I am sick of superheroes… which is why I have moved back towards watching film Noir!! The men, like Richard Gere’s characters, are paradoxical, graceful if not down right ugly/ beautiful. They walk between light and shadow and are motivated by hate/love! Real men not fake ones.
A depth in character that slaps the face of my unconscious. I like it that way.
My three favorite Richard Gere films are American Gigolo, Mothman Prophecies and Unfaithful.
It is not just his good looks or notorious backlash of gossip that follows the real man.
As a alumnae of Los Angeles Valley College, Gere projects what it is to be a man in our modern age; so ruthlessly and graciously. As the young buck ready to fuck, to the reporter caught up in a mystery of life, or to the man betrayed by his wife; he is a portrayal of the modern man.
Alonzo D. Emmweich: “Oh, there’s nothing so different about them. After all, crime is only… a left-handed form of human endeavor.” ~Asphalt Jungle
This consciousness simply happens–as moments of synchronicity happen, as symbol happen…We know from both Plato and Jung thit its health is its psychological integrity and that eros is the integration factor which binds, holds together, and conjoins opposites” Pg. 87 The Myth of Analysis by James Hillman.
Sober and alert we went to the art event. The bases of two friends that have lingered if only indirectly over time, have come together. Alice Bag and Matt Coagula and a community of their fans and friends
I found out that it was an obligation not an inspiration. My heart and mind had a reflective discussion while driving on the 101 north towards home. I realize the pain and discontent I felt were mine alone.
“Mom how you doing back there?”
The crew consisted of oldest and youngest son in the front seats. One was driving. I was in the back of the car. Sons and I had bellies full of Chinese food from Foo Chow Restaurant, because they did not have the snail like nature to stand around and feel and observe like their mother. This I get from Dad.
“Are you finished time to go don’t you think?”
“I think I need to hang and observe the crowd and check out a few of the faces!”
“Mom, these people seem fake to me.”
“It is the art scene and socializing…it is never easy.”
I realize I cannot blame my kids because at their age I know an event like this…lets see, something would have been destroyed. Breaking wine bottles against the concrete walls the “guilty we” would have run into the night. That was a different crew at a different time. These angers of a past youthful generation have not passed on to my kids.
“Look there is Alice dressed in pink swaying to the lady singing!”
With close friends around her I did not want to go up to say hello because the picture was the perfect symbol for this event. Alice as a beautiful expression or mandala. Earlier Matt gave us a quick handshake with art talk smile.
Oldest son offered to drive me to the art event and China town’s twilight delighted their eyes into a realm of Dragon Ball Z.
I was disoriented by flashbacks of a punk rock fog.
As we mature finding a community to create with and grow with is important. Sharing who we are, as in art or music, at any particular time and place is essential to a worthy life.
This is what I feel Kelly, Alice and Matt have achieved this evening.
I am reading this book now! I found out about it through a WordPress site that I visit called Holes To Heavens by Adam Sommer. Adam has a great site to visit and is an astrologer. Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas is an amazing book about human consciousness. He takes us on a journey of the humanities and the mind, and patterns of being. Richard Tarnas is a cultural historian and professor of philosophy and depth psychology. The title of his book defines the contents of the chapters. The relationship of us with the cosmos is a fascinating subject to me.
As a Romantic, I recommend this as a must read book, and a book to have available on your favorite bookshelf. It is a delightfully wordy, intense and insightful book that incorporates history, culture and spirituality. I feel I have, so far, grasped the thesis of Richards’s book as:
Above all we must awaken to and overcome the great hidden anthropocentric projection that has virtually defined the modern mind: the pervasive projection of soullessness onto the cosmos by the modern self’s own will to power.( page 41 paragraph two)
Understanding what Richard is telling us is so very important to know. In our modern time of discord, and at times of hopelessness, we can develop a relationship with our inner world, our outer world and the cosmos in a new and creative way. In his book we find some old friends, the foresight of Blake, Jung and Goethe resonate in his book as affirmations of a new and hopeful world.
Synchronicity is like breathing…as above so below!!
If you have not viewed this film you must! It is directed by Stanley Kubrick which always guarantees and interesting experience. A film is always enhanced by a good musical score or soundtrack.
Spartacus is a master at this. The original score for Spartacus was composed and conducted by Alex North. The film is produced by Kirk Douglas.
Originally, Howard Fast was hired to adapt his own novel as a screenplay, but he had difficulty working in the format. He was replaced by Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten. Douglas insisted that Trumbo be given screen credit for his work, which helped to break the blacklist.
The focus here is on the Love Theme in this film announcing and following throughout the film about the love between Spartacus and Varinia. They are both slaves of the Roman Empire and so the history unfolds.
A remarkable love story and theme song that has haunted me my-whole life. Here posted is a Jazz interpretation of the Love Theme of Spartacus by
Sweet sixteen not my theme: Reflections on a 1920s serial killer.
Disillusionment started around this time in my life. 16!
What inspired me were the mysteries of life. The dark places of life. I kept it to myself. I was young and wordless, quiet, and impressionable. Times were dull and I was asleep in the world around me. I did not study or read much.
I innocently walked home on my own from school. I had close friends and life was easy. I had a boyfriend who watched over me. I thought he loved me. Well, he enjoyed my body. Last night I watched a documentary on Carl Panzram.
He is a serial killer. He wrote his memoir in prison and when I compare my life growing up to his, I become sick. He went to reform school and prison at an incredibly immature age. He was a cowboy-hobo. He did not live a glorious life.
His was not an easy life. Mine was. I am sure I went through the normal psychological changes of a youth becoming an adult. I was safe and made the transition through a few years, or a generation of the fifties through the eighties.
Carl Panzram was not so fortunate. He grew up in a different generation during the Great Depression. Yet his youthful rebellion as a boy pushed him into being brutalized by a system that creates killers.
I am not justifying the unspeakable acts he did as an adult; I am comparing my life to his. Maybe to my own two boys who I protect like a mama bear hawk. Some sort of paranoid mythological female mother figure. They are extremely fortunate indeed!
Serial killers, gangsters, and the cruelty they inflict on society is terrible. I am not afraid to look at them. I wish I could change how this shadowy part of our human nature manifests in our society. Sometimes at night I find it hard to breathe when I think of how many people are locked up, especially our youth.
One cannot fight the shadow with more shadow because it only makes a bigger shadow. If I could go back to being sixteen, I would inspire myself to wake up! I would study and apply myself to life. I would learn, learn, learn!
I would take back my body and go to college at a youthful age. I would study criminology, psychology and get my degrees. I have my regrets and so did Carl Panzram!!
Our penal system is wrong. I would try to change it from the inside out starting with our youth!! I know that Carl Panzram made the same analogy in his memoir.
Carl had a remarkable ability to reflect. A friendly prison guard inspired him to write his memoir. This guard was a rare bird because he treated criminals as human beings. Carl’s revealing memoir is one to ponder, a remarkable confession from a terrible and angry soul.
“I do not believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself. I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others: Might makes right.” ― Carl Panzram
Huntington Beach Scene Report by Michele Flipside , Jim Trash, Flipside 20, Circle Jerks Halloween Issue
Big Fish Stories by The Crowd. Came on the scene around the early 90s I believe.
When The Crowd hit the California punk scene it was something special and all the punk chicks had their eyes on Jim Trash [Jim Decker]. He was not the usual Hollyweird kind of guy. He was a surfer punk; Young, tan and entertaining. The Infamous Gerber may have had her ways with him too; believe me he crossed my eyes a few times as well. It was a time before slamming when the pit was filled with the Pogo, dancing, and having fun ruled the scene.
This is the record, vinyl, LP being pulled from the dark closet today. It is a Flipside Record that is not included in the current Crowd Discography. So for those of you stimulated by the phenomenon of the erecting punk rock nostalgia you might find this LP climatic and even orgasmic.
Big Fish Stories by The Crowd. Came on the scene around the early 90’s I believe.
Jim Decker- vocals, Jay Decker-Bass, Dennis “Bug” Walsh – Drums,
James Kaa- Guitar. Produced by The Crowd with Steve Kempster at Headwaay Studios
Limited Edition On Colored Vinyl… well it is limited on normal vinyl.
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