Sunday May 26 will be the time to join with punk comrades and celebrate our originators and characters of the early California punk scene. The Avengers, the Dils and the Alley Cats.
In memory of Jimmy Wilsey
I stumbled into the early punk scene. The Australian Saints and the San Franciscan Avengers gave me the courage to go and see any other alternative underground bands on my own. I found myself melting into a wild alchemy of youths that had something to say. We were finding our voices. All the unknown characters were there, nobodies creating a scene together. We were wild and knew all the songs by heart by The Dils, The Alley Cats and the Avengers.
I will be there handing out some badges joining in the event in memory of our youthful rebellion that is still the heart beat of this crazy continuity of punk rock that still drives our DNA onward,,,
The Avengers, The Dils and The Alley Cats + many special guests (A Celebration of the Life of Jimmy Wilsey) at Echoplex
“It was bound to happen, with so much media coverage of ‘punk’ fashion’ Time, Newsweek, New West etc.… well the punk fashion show was held at the Palladium you all know the story…”
Flipside Issue 4 Nov. 1977, Press run 300, 25 Cents.
Terry was scary and hardcore, before the term “hardcore Punk” became a cliché.
Devo, Blondie, and my favorite The Avengers played this gig. 1976 to 1979. Those years flashed by, It was during this time, during my metamorphosis into becoming a punk; I remember a couple of times I met Terry. First time was at the Punk Fashion Show….
The good thing about self-publishing is that one can always add to or take away from their work. As any artist their work is never complete. There is always the critical eye. Nothing is ever perfect but just something that is in shape and communicable. To inspire by imagination or invitation to a story is my way of spreading my memories! A heart for PUnk RoCk
What is new to My PUNK@LULLABY` Journal one through four?
A beginning inserts. As I was organizing looking through stuff for certain items, I always find other things. I put together a few of the old backstage passes I still have! A college inserts! Some of the inserts will be green and some will be purple. For those that have gotten to know me these are the colors I work with. Green and purple or my Seminary of Praying Mantis complementary colors.
I will share a few candy punk love words and will also be selling my journals one through four this coming Sunday July 30 at Soap Plant Wacko from 2PM to 6PM. A book reading and celebration of Terry James Graham, Punk Like Me! I think it will be fun times cause there’s lots going on in Los Angeles on Hollywood Blvd. What a treat!
Update…. Journal One through Four are now published as a whole paperback book.
The Tape Recorder Issue. I dedicate this journal to the one and only tape recorder we used at Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine. 1979 – 1989.
On the cover is one of my favorite pics of the early punk scene with Subhumans (Canadian Band) and Samoans. Greg Turner, Metal Mike, Wimpy, Hud, Gary and Jim. I am holding Flipside’s tape recorder. Picture by Al Flipside.
“Hi, it’s another year and you asked for it, here it is, RODNEY ON THE ROQ VOLUME 2. ALL of the bands that you hear every weekend on my show as broadcast on KROQ FM in Pasadena California” ~ Rodney Bingenheimer
What a time we are living in. Forty years of Punk Rock now in museums, a political civil war in the United States and the need to find the meaning of life. Well, back in the day our youthful ways confronted many of these issues with foresight, intuition, rebellion, and music.
I want to share Flipside Fanzine Issue 28 for those that may not have viewed it. Maybe you have the vinyl but never got the insert that Flipside did for this compilation. Most of the insert information was taken from interviews and pictures from other Flipside Fanzines. It has the Flipside Fanzine look and is branded such.
You can do an, “I Spy.” You will notice persons that are still with us and others that are not. Yet, it is an amazing documentation of a growing punk rock scene. Flipside provided a service to that scene.
At that time working with Posh Boy Records and Rodney Bingenheimer was just another way to promote the punk scene that we loved. I am amazed by that time and place in our Los Angeles punk rock history.
“…Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
I find comment ’bout my looks irrelativity,
Think I’ll go and have some fun,
‘Cos it’s all for free.
I’m not searching for a reason to enjoy myself…,” – Yardbirds
How I looked in the dream last night !
Had one of those dreams of being back at the scene of the 1980s. A club morphed into a Golden Voice show! The tight feelings were there of knowing all the bands and the characters and players! Jim Kaa of the Crowd was talking in my ear when brother Gus showed up. We are not talking these days, but in this dream, we approached each other for a forgiving hug when I turned into myself. How I look now.
I asked myself if I had the password to get into the show? I said it does not matter because I am in and not going anywhere!
Lots of guys from bands were roaming around! I was consciously aware enough to dig being back in the middle of things. Running around and being part of what was happening…like everyone else there! My scene, my friends, something to offer and cover! Al approached me; we then were at an adjoining Chinese restaurant. We were shooting the breeze! I was wondering where the bar was ’cause a cold beer sounded good to ease my social tension!
Al Flipside had a new computerized contraption that took pictures, recorded bands, and interviewed bands; ready for documenting the whole scene. All from a large black computer book!
He was on the cutting edge and creative as usual. As we were eating our noodles a band came on! Al said he had to go see about a band. I told him go ahead I will watch over your noodles until you get back!!
I awoke from the dream with a missing feeling of belonging once to a music scene that was overwhelming wild and unpredictable. I was spoiled then! My heart will always mourn those days of youthful rebellion!
One band I have seen live more then 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 70s and early 80s 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 to. 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 probably 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 Dickiesa San Fernando Valley Punk band adored by a San Fernando Valley gal,,,you big gorilla!!
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 present. 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. Gamers and hand-held devices are changing the world. It is something we all have to work out, because It an’t what it use to be. No one can ever bring this particular youthful music scene back… no matter how any one tires 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 !)
Page One Flipside Fanzine # 37 Dead Clubs by Helen Jewel
Page Two Flipside Fanzine # 37 Dead Clubs by Helen Jewel
Page Three Flipside Fanzine # 37 Dead Clubs by Helen Jewel
Humid and hot is just boring to write about. A summer storm down south in Cabo San Lucas Mexico is a monster here in California. This story needs to be told about what my friend Coyote is doing this year. His story is hounding me to be told and so Coyote blows his ideas in the mist falling as humid drops on my eyelids.
“Coyote how are you and your children handling this hot weather? Are you going to come down and eat our cats and drink water from our drained sprinkler juice?”
“No, we have it good this year!”
“OH?”
“In the Santa Monica Mountains we have found a cave that goes down into the underground earth. We have a fresh running spring there. Sheltered and running clear, but darkly moving among green moss, black rocks and falling into indigo pools for drinking.”
“Sounds beautiful!”
“We stay down here during the day. It is cool. We have amethyst crystals, rubies and green stones growing in some of the caves down in the earth.”
“Rubies that seems a little credulous to take in Coyote? I know you are a trickster!!”
“Just tell my story and let others judge for themselves!”
“Did I hear a bit of a growl in your statement Coyote?”
“There are wild places still, is what I am yawning to you. We go out at night to play under the moon and scratch our backs on tree trunks!”
Hopefully Coyote is happy now!!
Spring is here and I say goodbye to the Buffalo of Winter and say hello to the Eagle of Spring. Based on the American Indian traditions of the Medicine Wheel that define the seasons.
Not to ignore Eagle, but I have witnessed Coyote sniffing around my neighborhood lately. If anyone is stepping on anyone’s feet, it is Coyote!! I am sharing this story to let Coyote know, if only indirectly, to back-off until summer, because three months of summer and Coyote is enough trickster for anyone!!
Mockingly nasty at us, as we stood up in front of the Fonda Theater: an older man on a bike yelled at us and the punk marquee;
“Ha ha maybe forty years ago.”
Saturday Night 2014
Hollywood, CAL
In line: In front of us were a twenty year old and in back a couple about my age. These types of punk shows bring out the underground punk community. The good and disgusting levels. I said it once and you will read it again. I love it so much my head almost burst last night.
01 – race against time 0:00
02 – knife edge 2:45
03 – lycanthropy 5:00
04 – necrophilia 7:34
05 – sick boy 9:33
06 – state executioner 12:06
07 – dead on arrival 14:39
08 – generals 12:18
09 – freak 19:37
10 – wardogs 22:06
11 – city baby attacked by rats 23:37
12 – City babys revenge 26:13
Smiling Punk woman and son!!
My goal is to dance like a maniac to GBH’s – Leather, Bristles, Studs and Acne (FULL ALBUM). in a years’ time. I use to back in the day some thirty years ago. A challenge to my high cholesterol, border line diabetes and high blood pressure.
Last night I could hardly make it through lycanthropy while fighting off some guy who wanted to continually thrown son up on stage. Even though son liked it. No means no. Up front stage was hot. All were intimated by the solar flares of sun burning in the Fonda Theater. A halo hot sauna of extreme is how it was there. My head almost exploded!! A full house.
The 5th Wave at the Fonda Theater pic by Hudley
The 5th Wave slashed the theater with some questionable lyrics, mixed with saxophone and trombone ska. Excellent! Their fans shining. I was very impressed by the courtesy of the young punk women this evening. A smile was easily shared and that communal feelings of a punk rock community ran in my heart. Strangely different from my generation. I was very impressed indeed. A lot of women in groups and alone gave me hugs for having a son with me. I hope son takes advantage of this when he gets beyond my reach, because now he has a silence about him that I respect.
The Ads were so satisfying I cried. I love them and again always superimposed images from over the years blended with the reality of now. Fast songs have matured nicely into longer ones. Remarkable! GBH were wild as they always are. Yet, they were a little rushed. I hear it is an intense tour. Colin’s voice was hoarse yet it was hard to tell over the audience singing their songs. Colin made a stab at the fans in the balcony who were not moving. Who were just sitting there as being lazy and with other critiques? I don’t know why so many young punks came up to me trying to exchange my receipt with theirs so they could sit in the balcony? It all was a bit confusing from my perspective.
Fun and eye-opening show with the usual subtle instilled words for those listening!!
We enjoy our punk rock community…so go screw Mr. Bike man over 50! This 50 something year old loves it still!! Even if you are in better shape… ya just wait until next year.
“…and those of you in the balcony can just rattle your jewelry.” John Lennon ?
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