A Ballad to the Good ‘ole Song by Hudley
Life is a song; having a beginning, middle and end. A song has a soul each time you hear it. A song shares feelings and memories which awaken the life lived. A song holds on to experiences of good and the bad times! A song has a spirit which is eternally youthful, middle-aged and old. A song ends as all living things. A song has all the qualities of life. A song amplifies us, the human being, who create the songs and those that resurrect listening to the songs … time and time again.
Da Capo Press is under a big black sky. Yes, it is good that we all have the freedom to share our stories. In the supermarket I seem to get some deep emotions pulled up. We are all visually abused at the checkout stand. As usual I had to turn the ugly Trump man image around. Was it Time, Time/Life, Rolling Stone, People are another big media cutaneous pig where I viewed his image, and by chance the inside front page had a book review. My brain sucked it in so fast and I did not want to read it… but it came at me like a kamikaze knife. “The real punk rock …,” “X and the Go-Go’s, “the beloved untouchable Minutemen.” Then there was the one image of Henry Rollins …. His bald head.
“It is a curse…”
I put my blueberries and tortillas on the checkout stand. I know how big media gets a review in such magazines. Is it an honest interview or is it a promotional piece, or, a big advertisement? It all reeks and my heart breaks a bit to think about how the ‘young punk dead’ would rebel against this… as they did 30 years ago.
At Flipside Fanzine we had an endless supply of photos of all the punk bands. It was common underground weed photographs. Not for sale, or for a museum or for any uptown media DICKS. That was not our agenda.
Henry Rollins’s shaved head,
“Twenty something years ago; what issue was my review of Black Flag live in? A show where I called him a penis head?”
I think it was because he was one big muscle of sweat. It was meant to be a humorous blow from an underground nobody punker chick reviewing just another show. Henry took it like an evangelical’s literal agenda when reading the bible. He was not hip to Los Angeles yet.
By the time the punk scene hit the ‘80s there was a continuous explosion of riptide underground movements happening at the same time. Bands like X and the Go-Go’s went with the big labels. They left the underground punk scene and faded. A mirage in the desert of big media. We did not focus on them anymore.
Was it 12 years ago when the “Old-School” nostalgia punk thing started to happen? It has passed its peak baby. I was a silly doe when I approached Santa Monica Press and Feral House Publishing 12 years ago with my memoirs about the punk scene. No one was interested. I even shared my ideas with punk Icon Keith Morris? No dice…that is how vinyl melts… old school wise.
I am not bitter just sad. I find that some people are too eager to tell their story in a big way. Big promotional campaigns and all the media hype is a downer man. I wanted to write my memoir because I was concerned that the punk scene, as Flipside Fanzine, might be forgotten? Why am I so loyal … I am still trying to figure it out!
What I have learned is this, I am more determined to do it myself now. DO It Myself BABY… locally and with my own media machine; a computer, scanner and little art closet. I have my heavenly share of nasty sharpie pens, erasers and pencils too. I’ll hang with a community of peasants that don’t really want to break the membrane into the realm of fame and stars on Hollywood. I’ll stay a bard of the earth and sky, in the alley … to the ‘young punk dead.’
