To Eddie Egan (RIP) on his birthday so near to Valentines day ! All the best to you and your family!! Unless we get dementia… may we always remember our wild dayz!!
Mike Ness’s voice vibrates in that special part of my heart where youth affirms its hold on my yesterday. From punk on the street to a band of fame and glory.
Stinky barf alleys, clubs, radio to free download to my website.
Not just me but a handful, a scene, a generation. This song came to me at a time when I was reunited with the punk scene. Those times when time bends to grab you in its circular reflection of friends long gone by.
Today this song sings to my heart loudly. The contrary life I am living. I don’t believe in devils, yet I do know that psychopaths walk the earth.
I don’t believe in angels …yet I have met them.
It all comes down to the choices we make.
“Easy peasy lemon squeezy!” My red Militaria hat and I bow to this song…
One band I have seen live more than Charged GBH and The Adolescents are The Dickies; how many times,’ who knows but close to the stars in the Milky Way. An excellent band and even if Leonard Graves Phillips blocked me from his Facebook site, I will always love his band and one song in particular, You Drive Me Ape.
I remember in the late seventies and early eighties the Pogo, jumping up and down as on a Pogo stick, was still part of the punk rock experience. You Drive Me Ape was the perfect song to Pogo too. The audience, at a Dickie’s show, all jumped up at certain times in the song…it is enthusiastic musical ecstasy. A belly full of beer guaranteed to be sweat-off at the end of a Dickies set.
And even though I have arthritis in my lower spine due to Pogoing to songs like this one: I won’t harbor any ill feelings against this band or their songs!! It is just part of the old punk rocker battle cry…. of wild punks gone by. The Dickies a San Fernando Valley Punk band adored by a San Fernando Valley gala, you big gorilla!!
Hudley Flipside | Punk Rock Colleague • Historian • Archivist
Sue and Holly June 1976 Graduates
Putting this up because it fits with the theme of “All About A Song.”
They played this song at a punk rock night at the local pub! The bartender was a thorn in my side with his mockery! I was sporting my Target video shirt!
(Target Video (aka TargetVideo77) is a San Francisco-based studio, founded by artist Joe Rees, who collaborating with Jackie Sharp, Jill Hoffman, Sam Edwards and others, archived early art performance, punk and hardcore bands on video and film.)
I tend to be paranoid…I heard the talk in the dark corner above the turn tables! I am a wise gal! I have been around the block and letting guys think they are fooling me amuses me!
Happy that they even took the time ain’t bad news!!
When they were still in diapers…
Sue and I saw Queen live in 1977 at the Long Beach Arena! This song was our theme song! The song was fresh, ours and live!!
Sue and I …will keep on fighting tell the end…best friends!!
Sue and I were graduates of high school and known serial killer survivors!!
1977:
Sue had a job, a new brown Pinto automobile and money to spend! I was not as fortunate! She got me a black & white silky jersey jacket for the Queen show! She was sporting her 5-inch platform tennis shoes at the time! Her shoes were nothing compared to the glitter scene giants that we had to tunnel through at this event! What a massive horror show! The last and only horrendous giant rock show I ever went to besides those at the Olympic Auditorium Golden Voice punk shows of the 1980s!
Ancient Egyptian human-headed ba-bird, gessoed and painted wood, Ptolemaic period, 332-330 BC. H. 5 inches. (12.5cm)
“The wind is in truth the ALL-Devourer, for when the fire dies out it goes into the wind, when the sun sets, it goes into the wind, when the moon sets, it goes into the wind, when the waters dry up, they go into the wind, for the wind consumes them all. Thus it is with respect to the divinity. And now with respect to the self. The breath is truth the ALL-Devourer, for when a man sleeps, speech goes into breath, the eye goes into breath, the ear too, and the manas, for the breath consumes then all. These are the two ALL-Devourers; wind among the gods, and breath among living men.”
I resurrected this old post because it is a good story about the history of a song. As I am beholding to many.
Posh Boy, Mike (ZED) and Steve (ZED), KROQ, Rodney Bingenheimer and the early Flipside Fanzine Crew and all of those nobody punks on the streets who welcomed me in… us in, no questions asked.
Songs are so important and eternal!
2020: At one of the “Punk The Capital” film Premiers with Hud and James Dean
2015:
Jumping in the truck and taking the kid to school. Turning on the radio while a song is starting to play. So, we turn it up as loud as can be. The car radio vibrating as truck bounces its way down the road…breaking the mediocrity of routine by invoking my once “young woman” once more. Looking over at son, he is clearly into the drums because he is mocking the drumbeats.
“The Ballroom Blitz” is a song written by Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman and originally recorded by the British rock band The Sweet. Billboard ranked it as the No. 16 song for 1975.”
1976:
At the age of 18 the song Ballroom Blitz played on the Telefunken Radio. The radio vibrated on the wood shelve next to the fireplace. It was free FM KROQ.
“Poo Poo Pee DOO…KROQ”
October 1980
Rodney, Posh Boy, Mike (ZED) and Steve (ZED). GOLD Records for the success of Beach Blvd. From “Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Number 20,” The Circle Jerks Cover By Edward Colver
“The punk scene was like Halloween, Christmas, horror films, and freedom all at the same time. Overwhelmed, I felt as though I was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mimicking Puck— taking on the images that were around me without question. I was becoming one with my punkalullaby. I coined the word punkalullaby. It means that the whole time I was in the punk rock scene, from beginning to end, it was all about a song. One song to the next pulled me though the scene. Once that loud music got into my blood there was nothing like it.”
~ HUDLEY FLIPSIDE, THE SEMINARY OF PRAYING MANTIS, MY PUNK@LULLABY
Click on image to order.
Whenever Ballroom Blitz came on the radio, I bounced like a rubber ball around any room. A song that is responsible for pulling me into the world of KROQ, Rodney Bingenheimer (Rodney on The Rocks) and the Los Angeles punk rock scene.
(Ya there was a time before Henry… amen hallelujah!!)
“KROQ’s 1976 rebirth was perfectly timed with the emergence of punk rock and New Wave and KROQ quickly became the voice of the burgeoning Los Angeles scene, with disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer joining the station and introducing many new and local bands, including The Ramones, The Runaways, The Stray Cats and The Go-Go’s, on his massively influential shows.”
If a song can encapsulate youthful dreams and rebellion this is the one for me. Like many songs that we take for granted, this tune always seems as new as the day I first heard the song Ballroom Blitz. Fresh, stimulating, and as wild as the Los Angeles streets I soon joined.
It is a very wild song. The word very and wild are my favorite words and I use the words while describing this song…ya ya ya!!
“As punk expanded its hold on the music scene of the mid to late 1970s, KROQ steadily adding more of it to their freeform format, cementing their place in the Los Angeles market. The station’s proximity to Hollywood and the Los Angeles punk rock scene gave it a unique place in the development of this newer music and much later with the alternative rock genre. In the late 70s and early 80s KROQ was quickly becoming one of the most influential radio stations in broadcast history.”
Today I awoke with a lecture on my tongue. The kids are home on winter break. I am experiencing my normal winter blues. What came to mind was something a profession said to me years ago,
“Don’t take on someone else’s karma.”
He is a Jungian therapist and Buddhist priest. This is the basis of my lecture I gave to the kids today, including the cats. Normally stuff was happening in the house. Cats and fish were moving around in their environment; oldest son is making breakfast. The sounds of sneezing attack the air. An open door to the outside garden brings in the sounds of a chilly day. Even the squirrels perched on their branches outside are listening. They tease the cats. The light and the shadow move the trees as the breeze tickles mysteriously by.
We are all light and shadow.
Imagine all these qualities of life.
Apply them to everyone you know.
People cry. People smile.
We often must stand up for what we think is right.
alone.
We need to see the good things that are here.
Right now.
We all face love and death.
Pain and pleasure comes to visit often.
Most importantly I have learned, …
We need to step away and let others experience their own karma.
The kids are joking, musing, talking, and listening… I think?
My kids always to me…but to the world…are now young men.
Hudley Flipside | Punk Rock Colleague • Historian • Archivist
Recently, a few of our Los Angeles Clubs have closed or are in the process of transforming. All generations or music scenes go through these changes. Owners and promoters come and go. Yet what is happening now seems as revolutionary as when the underground scene claimed these clubs as their own. I speak from the late 70s to now because it is nothing new. I just hope that the youngsters will continue finding and creating a scene that comes from their rebellion. Technologies have changed everything!
We no longer go to shows to make friends and find support like we once did. We don’t need fanzines anymore or a band’s creative flyers. These are for the old-time collectors. Gamers and hand-held devices are changing the world.
It is something we all have to work out, because it can’t be what it used to be. Festivals are a nightmare from my perspective. No one can ever bring this particular youthful music scene back… no matter how anyone tries to ‘Viagra’ it. I find joy in reflecting back on this time.
I am presenting an extremely wonderful article by Flipside Fanzine’s Roving Reporter Helen Jewel. It is a good read. Ya might have to squint your eyes or zoom in a great deal to read it; I invite you to be amazed. Enjoy the patina of the original Flipside Fanzine. It has aged a lot. Again, Thank you Helen. I appreciate you much more now than I ever did then!!
From Issue Number 37 the mid-1980s. Dead Clubs by Helen Jewel
(With a little help from her friends!)
Click on image to share in the original punk rock narrative.
Recently in an interview. I was asked many questions about days long gone by. I found that one question, yes one, I responded to in a round about way. I found myself floating above my brain.
Releasing words which were coming out of my mouth. I looked at the interviewer and he had an in-depth look on his face. Fucking stupid words were trying to describe feelings. wonderful, explosive feelings from my youth. The enthusiasm was bouncing around the walls shaking off the dusty dust from my older mind and body.
I was in the corner of words pouring out as vast sentences forming from images and feelings. All which came to a separate conclusion. Of a time that was not linear but moved around as a record on a turn table or as fast live songs that grabbed me and knocked me to the ground.
“Is he understanding my words…. geez…ask another question please??!!”
Thank God he did…I really hate talking. My last interview is my solution. !!
The Mantis will sit in an attitude of extreme reverence and contemplation, his head turned sometimes slightly on side as if he were waiting…for the wind to come from far beyond the mountains on the other side of the desert to bring him a story of life before and beyond the moment.
~ Pg. 22. The Creative Pattern In Primitive Africa by Laurens van der Post
In Middle School, which we called Jr. High School in the 1970s, there was a teacher. The lights came on when I was in Jr. High School. Peer pressure was as two giant wedges clamping in on me.
This teacher woke me up from the dreadful shadow world of bell bottoms and grunge looking guys. The crush I had on Mark Baily was overwhelming and he had the original grunge look down.
Yet in all of this chaos, hormones, the smell of hate-and peer pressure… this mighty teacher woke me up.
“Excellent! I cried. “Elementary.” Said He.
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1893) Watson and Holmes in “The Crooked Man” (Doubleday p. 412)
In an English course as an elective by mistake Teacher had us read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I experienced feelings more powerful than crushes on boys and the hate of peer pressure. It all fell by the side.
The wit and intelligence of a detective moved me. My only regret is not taking it on as a profession myself.
Also never thanking her, the teacher that turned on the light; if only for a few months.
Mr Fuck and I are having a deep kind of day. Reflecting, farting and all. He asked me about a particular comic that we did a while back. We started to giggle and so today Tuesday the 17th of November… all care aside we thought it might be better then stepping on dog shirt…
Tripod: Ting were prehistoric and ancient Chinese cauldrons standing upon legs.
After 50 I feel you spend the rest of your life grieving! All those you’ve lost, betrayal and fuck-ups? Ya better know how to ride the wave cause it’s not going to go away if you ignore it!!
The key I wish for is for the door that awaits me…what awaits me is my own art loft. In it is a remarkable place of supplies.
Tables of wood and windows that slant where the sun comes in just right. Or the moon at night as I listen on the stereo with giant speakers. Paper, pencils and stencil paper. Small printing press and paper-cutter.
“Sultan: Have you any famous last words?
Baron Munchausen: Not yet.
Sultan: Not yet? Is that famous?”
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – 1988
If failure and success each have a flavor It would depend on the type of success and the type of failure. So many spices can be mixed together to develop a super successful and tasteful life. The taste of success and failure develops good character. The success as “in the world” tastes sweet, aromatic and uplifts the palate. This type of success can lead to savory but often lacks the depth of this type of flavor that builds good remarkable tasty character. Savory and deep flavor comes with the walking through failure.
Baking, broiling or boiling comes to mind. Then there is the long nights of enduring the smoke of a dark hellish BBQ. During these types of cooking-failures one forgets and often enters the underworld. One is lost in the labyrinth of horned nasty taste buds. Called back only to living a good life-by smelling the aroma of green herbs and colorful spices and tasting the aftermath of a cooking transformation of flavors. The success of this is the awakening of the multideminational flavored spicy soul. This is savory of the highest degree which melts on your tongue like the flavor of ecstasy. Having a good appetite for life, while living through the success and failure of life, is the soul of a savory life.
Also watching my friends who have such savory characters is a way to understand these highest degrees of lives flavors. The last few nights I have dreamed of such characters. A timeless place of my friends. I spend time with them. I greet them and hug them. I have arguments with them. Friendship is a type of spice in life that builds success in life. Here the unknowable spice of the soul finds a mixture that fills the taste buds with deep satisfaction!
Astrological Reading for October…via a Few quotes of “Abraxas”
Pluto is beyond any ego and does remarkable things and ‘not so good’ things…
“This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name Abraxas. It is more indefinite still than god and devil.”
“…we name god Helios or Sun…”
A cosmology of within and the cosmology without move contradictory to each other and to you. Slowly move with the first full moon of October and then skip happily along with the new moon. The focus is to remember to breathe as the underworld and the heavens meet.
Betrayal from family may not go away, but you can push it away with the stretch of Lilith as she moves with you as pounding waves on the shore of life. Hit the ball into the court. It is up to them to hit it back. They may not.
“…Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal reality. Has the Pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation…”
All the planets focus on change while staying the same. Eros and Psyche are swimming around the earth ascending and descending the whispers of love and creativity this month.
“… it is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness…”
The dead whisper secrets and wisdom from the past. Culture, history, and music define who you are. Listen and reflect on this month deeply. As well …go out and have a pint or two only. Transforming the grip of heaviness to joyousness. Don’t forget to spill some of the beer on the earth as homage for the sexuality of Phallus and the spirituality of Her who fertilizes our souls. All which is beyond us all!!
“…Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things which ye possess and contain. But they possess and contain you…”
All quotes taken from The Seven Sermons to the Dead by Carl Gustav Jung
I look back on this adventure and it was a time of remarkable change for many of us… as a woman it was for me.
“I am struck by the fact that more than 50 million women will have achieved menopause by 2013.”
~ Susun S. Weed
“Plan B” Haggus Society opening reception as artists mingle. October 11th, 2014.
Late Evening October 11, 2014.
“By giving death to yourself as Mother, you claimed all of yourself. It is time to share that vision, to name yourself publicly, Crone, woman of wholeness…”
~ Susun S. Weed
The car moved fast through the freeway traffic. My foot to the pedal, the car swiftly changed lanes. Rays of light ricocheted off my rear-view mirror like bullets. Alone on the freeway interchange, my mind focused on where I came from, and where I was going to. Alone in the dark night, walking dark streets and meeting new friends. Engaging in risk taking and it is known vulnerabilities often ignored by friends. Mom would have never done this!
Of all the times I have taken risks in the past, supporting, and promoting bands, tonight is one of the most fulfilling for me. These older women engaged in risk taking, promoting their art; these women who worked and helped others… now they stop…now they pivot and move into a new world of their own passions.
I tip-toed around The Haggus Society for a long time. Observing with a turned face, as most praying mantes do. As I listened intuitively to what images came forth, what inspirations spoke to me?
“We believe we have something unlike other art collectives-focusing our support on multifaceted older women who are activists, thinkers, and creative risk takers. Pushing the envelope is what we do for exercise.”
~ The Haggus Society
Yes! After tears and laughter, I realized…I know I must contribute. After breaking free, finally, from the repressive underworld of a shattered chrysalis, I reach my hands out from side to side. Wide, strong, and ready to embrace something new. I am reaching past the often-pretentious membranes of other art collectives.
Joy! I am participating in something meaningful and current. It is alive and growing!! Besides…
“Pushing the envelope is what we do for exercise.”
Someone who claims to be of higher intelligence than others, understands the finer thing in life, and generally deems themself a higher being than most others; they often refer to the ‘lesser beings’ as peasant or philistines. In simple terms, snobs are wankers.
Dick Powell has a nice turned up nose!
I saw a film Noir the other night. It was with Dick Powell. He was real mad. He picked a guy up and slapped his face, back and forth & back and forth. Then he put him down. The scene was perfect!!
“Ya know what I mean?”
When it comes to people driving their vehicles I would apply this perfection !! I would take it further. My madness after seeing bad driving and those that lack common car intelligence and after pulling the fool our of their car, picking them up, slapping them back and forth & back and forth; I would then take their car keys and toss the fucking keys. Somewhere where no one could find them. With my nose in the air!!
Enduring the riptide of unaware and inconsiderate assholes in their cars is my ambition for correctness. I bitch about it all the time on my blog too. I am considering taking a job as a Parking Enforcer. Using the law and my genius would make my manifesto complete. No more yelling and using my finger. My black sharpie pen in the air writing tickets is my call to greatness!!
I know the game and I am one of the best drivers !! Ever !!
Sham 69 are playing around. Shows with good and bad reviews. As though my heart does not sense the beating heart of another comrade, from my youthful rebellion, who touches the soil of the land.
Dancing around and around in my room like Rumpelstiltskin around a fire singing these simple words;
“They don’t understand no they don’t understand They don’t wanna understand…”
These are my first dancing memories of punk rock. As I spiraled into the heart of it… I also spiraled out. Seeing with peripheral vision the shadows of days gone by, I am often pulled again into this guilty, responsibility of a musical addition.
As a succubus that pulls at my firmer soul, I pull it off. I hold by conscience, my individual power and resist this. Jumping into the anger of youthful rebellion. I am not her anymore. Reflective and mature and proud… I can take it. Nothing to prove or take with me…but friendship.
No affirmation of great things to hold on to. As the rogue wave of darkness envelops those we love in death. So too the scene that once was is slowly taken away by this same darkness. Happy for the boys in the band that linger on…for now!!
“Everyone keeps telling me I’m gonna be free. We all know we’ll never be free.”
Every ritual comes forth out of the heat of inspiration! It echoes over the years and amplifies through nature and loved ones; some living and some dead! Does ritual get boring? Yes it can! Youngest son told me he had a surprise for me! I waited! He initiated an echo, a song again of memories, goals and skill!
He played the drumming sequence to Charged GBH’s Lycanthropy! He says he is still working on the base drum to the song!
It is a ritual of mine since the first time I first heard the song….about 34 years now!!
And so this little boring ritual of mine of playing the song Lycanthropy every Autumn amplifies with the full moon as a gift! To the she-wolf from her son!
