Sweet Maid

“Most people were in bands, if not they did magazines, records, owned stores did artwork etc… it was a scene that begged to be contributed to, and ripe with contributors… X-8 and Tory were in Low Budget, who made their Hollywood debut playing over the Dils at the Whisky, Larry Lash was in a weird Quick sort of band, Pooch was in a progressive (!) band, and I was their friend, couldn’t play anything, but still wanted to be involved [Al Flipside].”
Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Issue #1 August 28, 1977.

I am not a musician. Sure, as a kid I played my parents old player piano. I could hear a song and I then played it on that old lovely musical hardwood black upright piano. My mom got me an acoustic guitar when I turned 16. Along with it was a record to learn chords. I did not follow it through.

I appreciate the lyrics and the sound. I have a knack for listening to the song in a way that is so satisfying to me and as my life went on, I found others like myself. Journalists, fanzine writers and ‘scenesters’ who supported a growing musical world. I will leave the real musicians and their creative genius to themselves. I sure love to hear and feel their songs though.

My dream last night took me to a multilevel club. It had a front door and back door; it had a bar and an outdoor patio. It was very easy to access. I had booked a one-day event to perform. I had my old guitar with me at all times. A guitar a band member gave me, and we had cut out the “Quaker Maid” milk symbol from a large ‘sheet metal sign’ to place on the front of my guitar.

Why I pulled that old guitar I had from the 80s into my dream seems strange to me. I also had my old fender amp.

There was a small stage in the bar where I practiced. Realizing I did not have a clue what I was doing. Yet when I touched my sweet maid, it made a loud punk sound. I thought this to myself while dreaming,

“I am going to go on stage here and play for my friends. Not having a clue what I am doing, I will just improvise … like I always do,”

The first person who greeted me at the door was Shawn Stern. He was drinking a beer and seemed very happy. Then as I walked through the club. The club was peppered with many characters, and I thought to myself,

“I will play a chord from my sweet maid and then read something from an editorial from an old issue of Flipside. Maybe this can be a spoken word event with improvised guitar sounds?”

Hudley, Glen E. Friedman, Shawn Stern, Lee Ving. Taken from Let Them Know 2008; The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records. /Stern Brothers.

Outside on the patio I sat with a couple of gals who were talking about another show. I was cool with that and then walked in Cliff Roman.

“The guys at that show were wearing TUXEDOS.”

He had a upside down smile on his face when I smiled at him as I was holding my sweet maid. Cliff was wearing all black with a big oomphy black sweater.

I realized I was at a club without my mask on. It felt so good to be out and about again. No fear and happy to be hanging out at a club again with others.

Then I awoke. I don’t go out to events now. It seems like I still do in my dreams…

The Avengers, the Dils and the Alley Cats.

Sunday May 26, 2019

Before the show I went to an Italian Restaurant nearby. I sat at the bar and had a Guinness and a plate of pasta. Before the Avengers came on the DJ put on The Saints (I’M) Stranded… it came at me like a loud wave which devoured me… transforming the event into an excellent experience I never will forget.

Part of my DNA

I 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

Once someone dies, their life becomes a story, infinite, Like a song forever more.

Back then it was a tight underground, alternative punk. rock scene. Bands were unclassified and their songs unique. I found myself melting into a wild alchemy of youths that. had something new to say.

We were finding our voice. All the unknown characters were there. Nobodies create a scene together. Seeing punk bands during the early Los Angeles punk scene, I was not always aware of all the members in the band. Instead, the feel of drums, bass and guitar grabbed me. into a wild joyful submission. After a few times seeing a band, the lyrics and the vocals brought depth and understanding to any band’s song.

I was shaking to the sounds. wanting to go to all the shows. After getting involved with Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine All the players in the bands became focused and clear. I listened to their voices. I got to know them on a personal level. I went from being a face in the crowd. to writing about punk bands and getting to know band members as friends.

The sound of the Avengers was my grounding or anchoring into that early punk? scene. Those first days I awoke……

It was fantastic! The Dils I learned about indirectly through another Flipside staff writers. The Alley Cats was the band, they were the heart of the early punk scene which I got to know the best at that time. Jimmy was a part of that scene.

I did not know him personally but indirectly, Yet his sound moved me often into states of wild frenzy. I am grateful for all the vinyl records that contain that. story, song, or sound of our youthful rebellion. Of Jimmy’s youthful rebellion.

Yet a “live” band is always best. It is great to still be here, currently, part of our punk rock. history. Thanks to Randy and Penelope for letting me speak today. to show my love and respect.

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.

***Images from Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine***

The Avengers, The Dils and The Alley Cats + many special guests (A Celebration of the Life of Jimmy Wilsey) at Echoplex

https://www.facebook.com/events/623081094804740/

Got to sing along, scream along…. the opening song played before The Avengers went on was The Saints winning song… a great DJ and event of good memories.

This song went on and I swear the earth moved as the song grabbed my spine… it was a Saints’ Hallelujah moment.

Candy Hearts of PuNk lOvE

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! 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.

Promotional Post for the last My Punk@lullaby, Journal Four

Journal number Four not for sale anymore.

Now merged into a memoir My Punkalullaby

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.

Journal One – Four

also out now…

Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Number 54~10 Year Anniversary Issue Paperback Documentary (replica) Punk Rock 1977 – 1987.

Just click on image to purchase.

Irrelativity

“…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

009 — 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!

All About A Song III big gorilla

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 Dickies a San Fernando Valley Punk band adored by a San Fernando Valley gal,,,you big gorilla!!

Helen Wrote…about Dead Clubs!!

Punk Rock Historian and Professional Consultant

~ Hudley Flipside

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!)

Coyote Green Stone Story

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!!

Round-Up 30 minute Maniac

Cause no one needs a fanzine anymore…

Originally a 2014 post I was 56 and youngest son was 14. Now I am 64 and he is going to college at 22. The bands are still playing around the massive kaleidoscope exposition of festivals. I watch them explode and march on from town to town, city to city and country to country. The punk festivals are grandiose to see happening. Fun for the bands yet this little fanzine gal can’t go back to being a face in the crowd during a time of a terrible pandemic with an ‘ebb and flow’ which is rather unpredictable. I am glad I got to see them before festivals became a phenomenon of big and bigger shows with long and longer lists of bands. Or even the weird funky boat cruises. It leaves me a bit perplexed yet I can listen to the music anytime and my “amber moments” are still in my brain as fresh and palpable moments of a once punk scene.

Mockingly and nasty, as we stood in line in front of the Fonda Theater marquee, an older man on a bike wheeled by yelling,

“Ha ha maybe forty years ago!”

Saturday Night 2014 Hollywood,California

My son and I were standing in line. In front of us was a twenty-year-old and in back a couple about my age. These punk shows bring out the underground punk community. The good and disgusting levels. I love it so much my head almost burst.

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

Last night I could hardly make it through Lycanthropy while fighting off some guy who wanted to continually throw my son up on stage. Even though son seemed to like it. He said,

“I saw Colin’s face flash by me.“

Up front the 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. 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! As Steve Soto was there still playing his original sound.

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!!

“…and those of you in the balcony can just rattle your jewelry.” ~John Lennon

A safety pin from the Punk Rock God !!

(New edit 3/17/2023)

Dix Denney

The Weirdos at Cobalt Café (rip) Canoga Park, CA. Aug. 2014

“Such knowledge is too wonderful  For me,  

To wonderful for me to attain.  

Where can I go from your Spirit?  

Where can I flee from your  Presence?  

I go up to the heavens, you are  There;

  If I make my bed in the depths,  You are there;   

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

  If I settle on the far side of the sea,  

Even there your hand will guide me  Fast”

  ~Psalm 138:2 New International Version

My heart aches and I feel guilty. I think upon what Ross Lomas bass player for the punk band GBH said to me once,

“That is no excuse… I have seen punks on their deathbeds at shows. If you are sick, we can put you in a wheelchair and roll you backstage!!”

Ironically, this quote from Psalms is how I feel about Punk Rock. Exactly! How can this be? Is Punk Rock God to me? Yes, it is, in a sense it is to me. Where can I go from the punk rock spirit? It is true it will not let me forget it! If I make my bed in the depths, punk rock is there.

As many others who were taken up by it, punk rock gave me a voice and said.

“do it.”

If Punk Rock is dying to popular culture, this has no bearing on me. Punk Rock is an accountable community.

Punk Rock is a cultural underground musical phenomenon of holy sound. A spirit that rock & rolls around this planet. It is a rogue wave that generates change. However, you plug into it, Punk Rock is a continuity that identifies a generation and so moves on in different ways.

I may not always be true to it; I often hide from it…but when I try to… it finds me again. I rise on the wings of dawn. Inspired and filled with that spirit of Punk Rock again.

I was enlightened in an alley, where beer, anarchy and music became my God.

To those that are vastly superior …those in bands, fans and, that strange brew called record collectors, I salute you.

AMEN!!

So, what is all this Mambo Jumbo about? One of the original Los Angeles Punk Rock bands is playing around. I have been avoiding them.

“That club is too far to drive to”

“I have to get up early the next day and take my kids to school!”

My heart aches and I feel guilty. I think upon what Ross Lomas, bass player of the punk band GBH, said to me once,

“That is no excuse… I have seen punks on their deathbed at shows. If you are sick, we can put you in a wheelchair and roll you backstage!!”

This is the punk rock accountability I was talking about. I have been but no can no longer avoid The Weirdos because they are going to play a few blocks from my house.

“If I settle on the far side of the sea,    Even there your hand will guide me.”    

This is a punk rock confessional!!

Now for some oysters before the big meal…. enthusiasm!!!

Weirdos Enjoy the BIG PUNK ROCK 1984 the real deal

Flipside Radio Tape Number Nine.

https://hudleyflipside.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/o.jpg?w=186

This tape was released around 38 years ago. Where a process of recording, organizing, mailing, and airing tapes live turned out to be an extraordinarily successful project indeed !!… Wow!! Projects took some time back in the 1980s. All sent through our post office box. The Flipside post office was a busy place in Whittier California.

One little, tiny post office box oversaw vast number of gifts. Which consisted of records, mail, ads, and money. It was like Christmas every day. Then there was the Post Office Master. A lady that I hated at first but who turned out to leave little gifts for us in our P.O. Box each Christmas season. She thought we were weird at first with our wild ways… but later she became a part of our unofficial crew in her own dependable way. Enjoy a cameo appearance by Henry Rollins.