Original Article Published on:
May 11, 2013. (edited 1/7/2023)
Do not take anything here without my permission … we can talk. I am sharing my lived story. Some of the images are incredibly special to me. Yet I want others to see a rich history of friends and the beginning of a punk scene. Images have a story a continuity that have value and meaning to me. So do not be a jerk and just take stuff. My goal is to bring back meaning to often dissected images and things found on the internet pertaining to Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine. The heart mind and lived experience. It is heartbreaking for me to find it dissected all over the place. Treat this article and all in it with the moral excellence I know you have. Thanks
Hudley Flipside
I’ve heard some lies about what the name Flipside means. For those who created it and worked on it, it means one thing. The Flipside of a record or the B-Side. That simple.
Creators:
Pooch (Patrick DiPuccio)
Larry Lash (Steven Shoemaker)
Tory (Jorge Torres)
X-8 (Sam Diaz)
Al Flipside (Al Kowalewski)
We spelled the word staph for staff and often referred to them as shit workers, but now they are called zinsters or as I think fondly of them now as my comrades or friends “who caused considerable trouble!”
Al Flipside and I co-owned and published Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine from 1979 to 1989. I include here a general timeline of early staff members, shit workers on the zine. These are the major players or crew that came to the Flipside house and put their time in. We did not pay them. They got lots of free records galore and got into shows for free. Al and I took them out to lunch and took them to shows. In some cases, they lived with us for a short time. The punk rock scene was very generous to those that helped promote it. I say again and again at that time we all shared in a symbiotic relationship with the bands, record labels, radio programs, public access programs, fanzines and most importantly the fans. We were the behind-the-scenes punks. Before 1979 and after 1989 is for some other Flipside staph to document or move forward with … good luck.
There were many contributors to Flipside Fanzine over the years. Some more than others, I want to thank all of you because we had a lot of fun. I do not wish to exclude anyone. The characters outlined here are friends that Al and I worked very closely with at that time.
This is from my personal perspective so anyone who desires to be added here or has something to share about their work on Flipside please contact me and I will continue to add staph people; anyone who worked on the issues who desires to be part of my project here…if you are nasty, I will ignore you.
[Johnny] Angola becomes more than a regular contributor and coins our motto “Be More Than A Witness” ~ Staff person Issue #10 – 15.
List of Staph Members:
Al Flipside
A friend and mate
We had some great times documenting the punk scene as it grew. It all went by so fast. There were so many things to do and we learned as we went. We were all kids really but Al was full of all the energy and intelligence to do it. He would not make anyone do anything. He would ask once and if you didn’t do it there was always someone else to do the work, or he would silently do it himself. He taught me how to make surf boards and we learned as we ran and published a fanzine together. We came up with a good solid format and tradition that documented the core 1980s punk rock scene, locally and then internationally, which included bulk mail and major distribution of the fanzine. Hard work! We had fun and met some amazing characters along the way!!
Pooch aka Patrick DiPuccio
Always around causing a scene ! During the last few years while getting the word out about the history of Flipside Fanzine, Pat has supported me all the way… just like he did back in the good old days with the fanzine…
Gus Hudson
Gary Indianan
“Not Pairs, France or Rome…”
Gerber
Jill Masters
I want to thank Jill for taking in wild things. Like me. As a young punk on the streets she let me stay in her apartment. I was so alone, and the world was wild, and I was swallowed up in it. Thank you, Jill!!
Dee (RIP) and Hilda
That was then !!
While going through some pictures on a Photo Bucket account I found a picture that I thought was lost. It is of Flipside Fanzine staph writers Dee (RIP) and Hilda. These punk chicks were the heart of the scene. They loved it, loved the music, and knew all the key players. They were not rude or nasty like some of the other punk women; they were friendly and part of my female initiation into an underground music scene. If I never said thank you, I’m saying it now, thank you!! We had a great time!!This song is for you!! Remember The Buzzcocks late 1970s in Los Angeles? I do too!!
Paul Problem (RIP)
Nate Flipside
https://www.facebook.com/nate.flipside?fref=ts
the Masque at night
This 1978 photo is of the alley behind the Masque at night. Sitting on left is X-8, Paul is in the middle and Nate Flipside on the right. The guy standing was a bass player friend of X-8. We were trying to form a band to be called the Jetters. Photo by Al Flipside. ~ Nate Flipside.
https://www.facebook.com/nate.flipside
Gerald and Shelia
X-8
A key player in the early Los Angeles Punk Scene and mastermind of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine.
Peter Landswick
Photographer Galore !!
ROBERT HILL
Exclusive and private staph, photographer and more…
Edward Colver
SHREDDER
Michele Flipside
Our SPECIAL Orange County PUNK Scenster galore !!
There has been some controversy about this gal. I guess when I saw her website I was a bit taken back because it excluded a few staph members. I being one. So that was quite a few years ago. I hold no grudges now. I think she was an amazing and bright aspect to waking us all up to the attack of the early 1980s Orange County punk scene. Her scene reports splash the pages of Flipside Fanzine so the proof is in the pudding. We had some great times together hanging… she was tall, wild and in your face. What more could we ask for !!
Helen Jewel
Helen Jewel roving reporter for Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine
Him all wait for, him all yield up to, his word is decisive and final, him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves as amid light, Him they immerse and he immerses them.
Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals, The profound earth and its attributes and unquiet ocean, ( so tell I my morning’s romanza.) All enjoyments and properties and money, and whatever money will buy, The best farms, others toiling and planting and he unavoidably reaps, The noblest and costliest cities, others grading and building and he domiciles there…”
~ Song of the Answerer by Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass
Helen was our roving reporter for Flipside Fanzine. She has an amazing character that challenges me to this day! She grew up in Fullerton California and later ended up living in Whittier. She came from the kind of family that sat around the dinner table and talked. Her mother and father expected the children to give a speech about their day. Helen’s father might ask her sternly,
“What did you learn today?”
Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac inspired her life as a teenager. Helen was a few years older than the average punk during the 1980s punk scene. When she asked us to include this interview with Allen Ginsberg we teased her. It is a good thing she persisted. Helen weaved together important elements in her short interview with Allen Ginsberg with what was happening at that time in punk rock history. It is an excellent read.
One can study the history and literary accomplishments of Whitman, Ginsberg and Kerouac but it is the link, the alignment, the spiritual rebellious thread that pulls me always!
Thank you Helen !!
“Tell your friends everything. Give away your secrets. “Be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.” “
Allen Ginsberg
Flipside Fanzine 36 Allen Ginsberg
“Punk shows suffering, so it acknowledges the real”
“A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Flipside Fanzine # 41 John Doe, X.
1983 with Helen Jewel roving reporter for Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine.
Paul Hessing & Kori Capaldi
Paul, Kori and Mike Ness and his girl.
Dave Damage
The Case of David Blevins aka Dave Damage
Dave Damage & Pete Landswick and a couple of gals…1980s..Ironic ya think?
He had the bluest eyes of a borderline serial killer,
He could memorize lyrics live,
Reciting them back after the show,
He also told me,
“Did you ever notice that you could carry a woman with your fingers like a six-pack of beer?”
David wrote reviews for Flipside Fanzine in the early 80s,
He followed Helen Jewel to us,
We had fun…
Beers, jokes and solving puzzles from beer caps.
He then called us and came by excessively,
Becoming critical and argumentative,
While insulting our friends.
Once he called at 8 pm,
I pulled the phone plug,
We got back at 2 am,
I put the phone plug back in,
He was still calling us,
ring ring, ring ring….
Then there was the dog we buried near the Whittier dam on the Rio Honda River,
Helen, Al and me…
Dave hung the white long hair mutt on our front porch,
A poor dog he just got from the animal shelter.
A few years raced by…
we never saw him.
The only person to see him was a friend Mr Joe Hudson,
He saw him down town at a horror film festival…
One day our friends Paul and Kori
Found an article in their local paper
Dave was a serial killer…
Caught in a love triangle,
He killed two women,
With a gun,
And rolled their bodies in two separate carpets,
And left them at the Beach,
He is serving two life sentences…
Wendy McConnell
Big Frank
Shane Williams (RIP)
“O” Otis Barthoulameu (RIP)
Joy Aoki
She was known to dance with us round the wild circle in our living room at Halloween parties, and we did the same at her Otis College dorm.
I think it was 1985 when I first met Joy. She was at a rather small punk gathering. She had a camera and very long hair. Hanging at the punk scene is always a great way to meet other punkers. We talked and grew to enjoy her company. I remember the gifts she gave me. One was a blue masque she made in art class with blue feathers. Very Maude Gra !
“I made this for you Hud!
“Oh, OK!?”
I really did not know what to do with it. I was embarrassed. I took it and kept it for many years. Another gift she gave me a few years later, that I still have, is an image of a flying Ostrich with an Asian/ Indian woman riding it. It is a large art piece that I have framed. It now hangs in my bedroom. I enjoy it immensely. It is an encaustic painting on a silk material. I guess these gifts were her way of wooing our friendship into existence. It seemed to work. Joy worked her way into the Flipside house and became a punk woman of integrity. Her art, shit work and journeys with us to gigs amplified the Flipside crew experience and we all enjoyed her presence.
We met her while she was attending High-School, and then she went onto Otis College of Art and Design of Los Angeles, and then to the prestigious Art Center College of Design of Pasadena. Yes, she grew up right in front of us developing skills I can’t even imagine.
I did not ask her about her family but she told us stories. She volunteered her time with us so I figured as long as she attended college her expenses were all paid for. She was not the struggling artist and she was not guilty or shy. One story she shared with us is about the relationship between her parents and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her parents received yearly health-screenings because they moved to California after the war. My dad is a purple-heart veteran that served in WWII. He bombed Japan. Forty years of time and once known enemies are now friends. Amazing!!
It was not easy making it into the ranks of the Flipside house. We had our tests. Joy passed them all and I am proud to call her my friend.
Reflection: When I left Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine, I don’t think Joy ever realized I prepared her to take my place after I left… maybe not as a woman married to Al Flipside, but as a woman in the punk scene who could handle the multitasking that I created to run Flipside Fanzine. It was a lot of work.
Gorgonized Katz RIP
Joe Henderson
Joe and Ink Disease Fanzine with HUDley tagging along in Washington DC mid ’80s
Steve Alper from Ink Disease Fanzine getting tied-up with tape for being bad in the Flipside Office… (Rosey the cat and a barefoot Joy and the guy with the colorful shirt I don’t remember his name but he collected sea-horses)
Tar
There was suspicion but not tell years passed and a clear affiliations of facts, narratives and friends that I have to state that Tar is a convicted sex offender of young boys. His story is very offensive to me at the time when he worked on Flipside Fanzine it was only by way of the post office. A written correspondence. I distanced myself from him years ago !
Ink Disease Fanzine
https://www.facebook.com/inkdiseasefanzine
Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine 1-16 1977 to 1979
Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine 1979 to 1989
THE Flipside RECORDS STORY
As many of the upcoming bands, Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine collaborated with Bill Bartell of Gasatanka Records and Chaz of Casbah Recording Studio. I have included a bit of history and information below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casbah_Recording_Studio
“Chaz”, as he was known to most, was guitarist for Eddie and the Subtitles, a local punk band that was influential on younger Fullerton punks as the Adolescents and Social Distortion, both of which recorded their early demos and singles at Casbah and continued recording albums there as their popularity grew. “I don’t think they shared musical tastes” stated Michael Hutchinson, producer for Billy Idol and Berlin, observing “I don’t know how excited Chaz was about Berlin – he was more excited about punk stuff.” Yet there was an excitement that came from the blending of the two distinct cultures: one typified by Chaz and his cronies’ slacker ethos, the other by St. James and his commercial sensibilities and keen awareness of musical trends. After the success of Stacey Q’s Better Than Heaven, St. James deferred ownership of The Casbah to Ramirez.
https://web.archive.org/web/20101020144212/http://www.casbahrecording.com/history.html
New Casbah Recording Studio
https://hudleyflipside.com/category/flipside-recordz/
I
The Seminary of Praying Mantis Publishing 
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