( Sorry to say Covid-19 hit and this event was canceled. 2020 )
Amazingly we are still alive. Punk Rock Bowling with the celebration of 40 Years of the Circle Jerks and Charged GBH this spring. I am besides myself with joy to be attending. Yes, all the bands seem interesting, yet my history also includes Madness.
Madness:
When I was a 19-year-old punk I was looking for a 45 by Prince Buster entitled Madness. This stirred me on a strange journey to a Los Angeles record store. They never could locate that 45 for me. Then the band came touring. At least the name of the band was right. Playing the Whisky A Go Go.
I remember dancing to the band with Kick Boy Face from SLASH MAGAZINE (my first Punk Rock correspondence.) (Slosh and Flopside) It was grand beyond grand. Imagine it all coming together again.
Punk Rock Bowling 2020
Some of my best punk memories.
Ross’s bass guitar case. GBH 1980s
GBH:
I am standing in this image next to Ross’s first bass guitar case. He gave it to me. He bought a new one. I lost it. Yet, my mom had put it in a special place.
After her death we cleaned out the basement and their it was. How happy that mom preserved some wonderful punk history.
I still have it and will give it “will it” to my sons. I love it like punk rock. I hope I am not sucking on Ross’s “tits” when I say I love him too.
Thanks for thinking of me back then. All the best and looking forward to Las Vegas for a week of punk and beyond bliss.
This is an older Flopisde Comic… when life was a lot faster and the night was “always young!” The “Dancing One” was initiated by the ancient worm at the bottom of a bottle. More than that he could not stop dancing. Even Mr. Fuck had a difficult time keeping up with “twinkle toes.” The “Wild Card” was the man about town. Time to get him dancing again.
A point: So we at Flipside Comics need a kick in the butt too…. the song below is a very silly one and we don’t take it seriously… it is a ridiculous song. If Mr. Fuck was to take it seriously he would be on the side of the pagans… a crusade of pagans against the Christians. An over all perspective might be the good FLOPSIDE people on a crusade against the Trumpians !!! RAMBO says just dance…
It seems strange now but at 21 I thought life would not go on much longer. We were wild nonconformists ready to take on the status quo. Here we are years later. Some of us are still creatively pulling strong and talking about our wilder days.
Na, Na, Na, Na, Nooooooo ! !
August 1981: In this interview it was very exciting to talk to a co rebel, music wise. When we did this interview the Flipside crew included Pooch, Al, and myself. Mr. Lydon would see only one for the interview. Al got it. The interview went on for some time. Pooch and I got tiered of waiting in the car. It was a hot summer day in Hollywood. I went in the hotel lobby and walked into the pool area where the interview was taking place They were sitting under a large pool side umbrella. Mr. Lydon saw me. He frowned. I told Al I was sick of waiting! Pooch and I were thirsty and hungry. Mr. Lydon said,
“Oh, that is just an excuse to see me!”
The interview ended. He walked away. I guess he was 50 percent correct. Jerk!
This post is in celebration of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine’s 10-year Anniversary Issue 1977 to 1987. which I will be presenting at Curating Resistance: Punk as Archival Method February 9 – 10, 2018 University of California, Los Angeles.
(I presented this at Pat Fear and Other Stories~ December 3, 2017)
My talk today is a comparison essay about three characters from the early punk rock scene. A Punk Comrade GHOST Special.
Dennis Danell original bass player for the punk rock band Social Distortion, Pat Fear singer and guitar player extraordinaire of the mockery punk band White Flag, and Mike Conley singer of the popular punk band MIA.
I call them the PUNK HUB MASTERS
To move my essay into the realm of where I am looking from, I will be using a concept from my favorite psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Now for a short Jungian psychology concept…
“The specific role of the archetype in synchronistic-phenomena seems to be to serve as orconstellation hub of a situation across time, and to be the factor of [inner order] that gives this distinctive set to the situation.”
Punk rock is a phenomenon which created a situation of order as a constellation or hub. A hub is a focal point a center around which other things revolve from which things radiate. I am applying this concept to the origin of punks and to punk rock…
We were nobodies of the underground, sitting on a youthful explosion, that was a riptide of good-fella punk friends. The early individual punks found each other through the hubs we created. Back in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, as you know the punk scene created a network of hubs that worked independently from each other yet depended on each other to sustain the punk scene. Examples of hubs were Fanzines such as We Got Power or Flipside Fanzine.
Also, every punk band had its own hub. Record labels, music recording studios and record store hubs. The major places to make the scene!
Such as Licorice pizza, ZEDS, Tower Records and Moby Disk Records and our own Whittier Record hub Lovells Records. Without forgetting the college and underground radio program hubs where the innovative music played. These were the greatest of supportive hubs such as Pat Hoed’s Adam Bomb (KXLU), Stella Stray POP and Rodney on KROQ.
The major hub that brought us all together was an amazing force known as gigs. The garage to Club 88, the Masque to the Whisky A go go and beyond. Where the fans, bands and promoters met! The focal point here was the paper flyer. These papers were handed out at gigs. Unique band flyers with local and logo band art. Mostly Xerox copies. Xerox machines a revolutionary major hub for the punk scene. The US Mail and the ring ring telephone press buttons or circular dial extenuated the positive communication hub…remember? Punks spent a great deal of time alone…creating, practicing, and thinking in our own hubs! Coming together via shows, the phone, and the mail.
This is where the hub masters such as Denis, Pat, and Mike were found. They shined there. They masterly brought all the HUBS together. These three punks were genius hub masters. Networking was their punk underground gift, and they are authentic examples of the early punk rock phenomenon. Dennis, Pat, and Mike are a part of the Southern California punk scene. They influenced a generation of fans and often are not known or acknowledged for their influence. They infected my little hub of a bedroom converted into a fanzine office. I often felt overwhelmed working on Flipside and under a big wave of stuff always about ready to crash. These guys showed me the skills of synchronizing things together. Making it seem easy.
Punk Hub Master: Dennis Danell
I first saw Denis when I was living with my sister in Fullerton Orange County. It was 1978. I was working at a local Dry-Cleaning Business as a cashier. Staffing on Flipside Fanzine on the side. He was riding a sting-ray bike sporting a spike haircut. At that time, he was unique. We were speaking the same language. I looked similar with my partial shaved hairdo with orange hair color. A year later we met at the scene and became friends. Dennis taught me loyalty of friendship. I witnessed his expansive heart that made his band stay tight. This is the work of the hub master. Denis still visits me in my dreams. Always polite, honest, and his happy Dizzy self. He had the ability of synchronizing punks together in a charming way. He will not ever be taken for granted. He was at the right place at the right time.
I will read some quotes from Flipside 20 A Social Distortion interview. I feel these short quotes embrace his character.
“Denis: We wanna sound like no one else, We wanna sound like us!!”
“Denis: Tommie’s chilly burgers. I ate one of those and didn’t have to eat for 2 days and I was shitting for 3 weeks!”
Hub Master: Pat Fear.
As you know Pat was a force to deal with. He lived in Riverside which was not far from Whittier Ca where Flipside Fanzine was based. Flipside put out a few music vinyl fanzines on Flipside / Gasatanka Records. Pat was the hub master and helped bring it all together. Was it only a few years ago I argued on Facebook about his hate for Sahara Palin? I would ask him to slow down and redirect his energy. White Flag played a show with the Simpletons around 2008. They played a Saints Song, Demolition Girl. A nice dedication to me. Yet that was Pat… he always tried to make his friends happy. He was humorous in an irritating and funny way. He had the gift of inclusion. He is a constellating hub across time which brings us all here together today.
I will read some quotes by White Flag Tape 6 Flipside Music Fanzine. I will try to read them the way White Flag said them. Pat Fear’s high degree of sarcasm.
This is a White Flag moment.
“What is the purpose of White Flag?”
“To create an illusion of creativity. Because we are too good to be believed.”
“White Flag is a band that’s done everything done before… but better.” “There are two kinds of people in the world, people who are in White Flag and all those who wish they were.”
“White Flag is more than just a band it is a concept of how to live your life.”
“We look like women, talk like men, and play like mother fuckers. (Twisted sister quote.)”
Pat wrote a theme song for our video fanzines. I would like to share a short description from our catalog describing the beginning of Flipside Video Number Two,
“Now if you want to see the good old video monster in action you just got to catch this video. So, if you get it, and put it in your VCR, you might just die. Because the opening Flipside Video Number Two is the band White Flag. Gutsy and pure, Pat Fear will knock your block off while he plays guitar for the opening theme song called “Flipside” with backup singers including some Redd Kross members and one Bangle member …”
Hub Master: Mike Conley
Mike originally came from Las Vegas and then stationed his band MIA in the Orange County beach area. He brought punks tighter together. He did this at parties, gigs or at the Flipside House. He could wheel and deal the punk zone. Back stage Mike would make me laugh. He would follow me around saying,
“Want a cocktail, Hudley,” while rolling his eyes round and around. Just like Groucho Marx.
In 2008 when editing my memoirs about the punk scene I came across some Mike comments in a Flipside Fanzine Interview with his band. Unbelievably I received a call at that moment from Nick Adams, a member of MIA, telling me of Mike’s demise. A week later at his funeral his oldest daughter told us a short story.
She said that when they were traveling in his car her dad always had the music on too loud. She told him he could use headphones like everyone else. He never did. That is punk.
An excerpt from My Punkalullby.
Recently, at a benefit show for the passing of Mike Conley of M.I.A., a slam pit broke out at the Detroit bar in Costa Mesa. After about 19 years my natural feelings of irritation and perspiration filled with moisture above my brow. In the past, the slam pit became a testosterone-filled ring of jock bodies circling round and round before the stage. Bouncers and bands tried to control it. They could not stop this wildfire. I grew to hate it. Yet, the recent show again proved me wrong. There were some women but mostly men dancing around having a great time. Yes, their firm bodies now had become a little soft around the edges, as one middle-aged guy stopped and said to me, as if Mike Conley for one moment materialized,
“…enjoy this moment, it is the best time of your life!”
This guy was beaming with youthful glee.
From the Pogo to the Slam Pit, My Punkalullaby by Hudley Flipside
Flipside produced one of MIA’s albums entitled After the Fact. I will read lyrics from a song that Mike wrote. A Quote from the Song, Whisper in the Wind,
“In my eyes you’ll see a thousand memories, He said stare into my soul, All of me you shall know, Live your life full, live your life free, Tomorrow’s but a vision, Yesterday is a dream…”
Mike had the quality of inner order. A quality of depth and control that was not always easy to access.
This concludes my essay on three punk rockers of the early Southern California Punk Scene. Denis, Pat, and Mike were extraordinary. They were our friends! SCREAMING,
There are lots of pros and cons about the past solar eclipse. I think it is cool. I did not go to see it. There are plenty of beautiful images online to see. I can think of eclipses in my life though. One of them was Joe Strummer. His voice had an eclipse on my feelings as a youngster. As for many others, he changed our lives! Their first 1977 LP The Clash pushed all the right bottoms and was special for many underground characters. His voice woke me from my slumber. I experienced them at the Santa Monica Civic on their first US tour, Wow!
It has been forty years and he still moves through my heart. All those feelings; to be authentic, real, and alive. To create things uniquely and roughly with your own hands. Forty years of punk rock and I completed my four Punk@lullabys ! My Big celebration! I reached my goal and it worked out as I planned.
It feels good to know that my celebration is more an inward accomplishment for a punk ideology that still pulls through my heart as Joe still does.
I hope you enjoy the coming eclipse. If you are already there or travel the journey to get there…If you need some reading material while waiting or after it is over and back to normal life… here is my stuff for your reading pleasure….
“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…
I have never been a record collector. I did have a little cheap tape recorder. I would record the music I liked, taken from a radio program, and play it over and over again. I duct-taped that little recorder on my bike and would play it while riding around the neighborhood. The Sex Pistols were my favorite. Everything I recorded was from KROQ when it was still free radio. It was current and on the cutting edge. The music opened some doors for me. Yet, I can list the records I purchased myself from 1978 to 1989 and beyond…
The Saints, “I’m Stranded,” “Eternally Yours,” “Prehistoric Sounds”
Vibrators, “Pure Mania”
Stray Cats, “Stray Cats”
Ramones, “Rocket to Russia,” “Road to Ruin”
Charged GBH, “Leather, Bristles, Studs, And Acne,” “City Baby Attacked by Rats,” “City Baby’s Revenge,” ” Midnight Madness and Beyond,” “Punk Junkies, “ “Ha Ha,” “Perfume and Piss.”
The Adicts, “Life Goes On”
Avengers, Album
From 1979 to 1989 we at Flipside Fanzine received all our records free. Like many fanzines we performed a service to its readers and to the bands. (of course I will not list the endless supply of thrift store records that came and went for pennies…)
“Any review is a good review,” was my motto. Now I am comfortable with listening to YouTube freely. Any song I want is there for me. I can do what I have always done.
Don’t get me wrong, I spent a good 10 years addicted to the smell of fresh vinyl, but now I am amused by collectors and enjoy their company now and then. Before all this I listened to hand me down records via my siblings. When I left Flipside I also left all the records, I did love, to the Flipside Record collective.
Records are a small slice of the pie for me and punk rock. Then, I preferred live shows, reading letters from punk fans and making friends.
Another two bits about the BIG PUNK ROCK… there are many stories from the BIG PUNK ROCK, this is just one story.
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 break a bit to think about how the ‘young punk dead’ would rebel against this… as they did 30 years ago.
At Los Angeles 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 Los Angeles 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 .
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