The Case of David Blevins aka Dave Damage

Flipside Fanzine # 27

Cover 45 Grave Image by ROBERT HILL

Dave Damage & Pete and a couple of gals…1980s..Ironic you think?

He had the bluest eyes of a borderline serial killer,

He could memorize lyrics live,

Reciting them back after the show,

He also told me,

“Did you ever notice that you could carry a woman with your fingers like a six-pack of beer?”

David wrote reviews for Flipside Fanzine in the early 80s,

He followed Helen Jewel to us,

We had fun…

Beers, jokes and solving puzzles from beer caps.

He then called us and came by excessively,

Becoming critical and argumentative,

While insulting our friends.

Once he called at 8 pm,

I pulled the phone plug,

We got back at 2 am,

I put the phone plug back in,

He was still calling us,

ring ring, ring ring….

Then there was the dog we buried near

the Whittier dam on the Rio Honda River,

Helen, Al, and me…

Dave hung the long white hair mutt on our front porch,

A poor dog he just got from the animal shelter.

A few years raced by…

We never saw him.

The only person to see him was a friend Mr. Joe Hudson,

He saw him downtown at a horror film festival…

One day our friends Paul and Kori

Found an article in their local paper

Dave was a serial killer…

Caught in a love triangle,

He killed two women,

With a gun,

And rolled their bodies in two separate carpets,

And left them at the Beach,

He is serving two life sentences…

Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Staph 1977 to 1989 Those Who Caused Considerable Trouble

Tape recorder #1 shit worker at Flipside Fanzine

Shit worker, staph or staff… what the fuck?

Al Flipside was like a high school principal when it came to us showing our mugs in Flipside fanzine—seriously, he took it as life and death! I mean, who knew a cover could be my personal “let’s defy authority” moment? Here I am, striking a pose with my mug for the cover, but let’s be honest, my main squeeze is what I’m clutching: the holy grail of nostalgia, my trusty #1 staff… a tape recorder! The original handheld device.

On Cover Subhumans and Samoans: Greg Turner, Metal Mike, Wimpy, Hud, Garry and Jim.

Photograph by Al Flipside

This is one of my favorite pictures taken by Al Flipside. Why it is so interesting to me, because I am holding the tape recorder that was responsible for recording all the interviews we did at Flipside, at least when I was there. Also, I am wearing my PIL pants.

I loved those pants… DIY silk screening days… and then there is Wimpy’s face… brings chills to my spine! I reprinted this special Flipside issue because it is a history of Punk Voices.

An oral history, with pictures too.

Now available again in a sweet paperback book. 1977 to 1987.

The new cover of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine # 54 Ten Year Anniversary Issue Paperback (replica) 2019.

Click to purchase this paperback edition 2019 …

Happy Birthday Mr. Crash

I am not the faithful fan as many seem to be of the Germs or Darby. There are many that knew him better than I did. I rolled in the same wave that moved that early Los Angeles punk scene. He was one of the unique originals, the few Los Angeles punks.

“In the vacuum of outer space particles tend to clump together. We clustered together as young punks and we created a scene that is still amounting to something? We were a forgotten stagnation of youths that yearned for change. We were unhappy with our world and ourselves.”

~ Excerpt from My Punkalullaby by Hudley Flipside

Click on image below to order.

“You’re not the first you’re not the last, another day another crash.”

I am not going to do a critical documentary and linear history of Darby Crash. My time in the early punk scene is based on blurred colors and images as a Claude Monet painting. My feelings and emotions linger and still wake me up late at night.

I found him shy, troubled, and out of control. The beat of underground music brought us together. I was unaware of any agenda he had, or anyone had for that matter because the lines were fuzzy.

Darby was a baby when he died. My son is his age now. I often think about how young and inexperienced Darby was.

The below image is a shirt that was given to me by my longtime friend Edward Colver the punk rock photographer extraordinaire.

I love the shirt. When I investigate Darby’s face that Ed captured, I see a small degree of the man he was becoming.

It was not the young face that I knew. A face that I took for granted. I thought Darby, the early punk scene, and my youth would last forever but nothing does.

2012: Edward Colver, Thanks for the t-shirt, buddy!

My only regrets are.

I wish I would have given him a little more of my time,

I wish I would have given him more of my clothing when he asked,

I regret laughing when he was drunk, high, and rolling in glass,

I regret this the most.

What a kid,

What a character…

Happy Birthday Darby, RIP.

Approved by the Ghost of Pat Fear…RIP

I told X-8

Punk Rock Colleague & Historian and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

Note 2/20/24.

Below are two posts about a leather jacket.

I sold it to a collector. I got a postcard a few years later asking if I wanted it back for a trade. The address was not clear.

I would like it back. I was foolish to sell it. But I was going through a rebellions time against things but now older and wiser I realize I was being foolish.

So, wherever my punk rock jacket is I sure would like to see it again or have it back.

Until we meet again…

The black leather jacket was left behind after one of X-8’s female conquests, left behind in his car. He gave it to me and it fit. As a vegetarian and beertarian my frame was petite. Now the jacket is dry and shrunk and I’m round and plump. I had my son model it.

It was a simple complete-black leather jacket. The Charged GBH logo went on top first thing in the early 1980s. I love this jacket. We were inseparable.

My friendship with X-8 faded and he never knew what became of the jacket. A few years ago X-8 and I rekindled our friendship for a brief time on MySpace.

I told him about the leather jacket and what became of it. He was surprised and seemed interested.

This leather jacket is special to me because X-8 thought of giving it to me, and the girl who left it behind…not a clue?

Leather Jacket bye bye !!

Discord Punk History…

Every time I get an itching to look at what I have saved from years gone by I am amazed at what I find… funny, I go looking for something and find something else just as rich.

Minor Threat,The Beatles & Straight Edge~Twinkies or potato chips.

Punk Rock Colleague & Historian

Hudley Flipside

This is an embellished non-fiction memory. I am always open to comments that differ from my memories. The eighties went by fast and so much happened; besides there were countless bands we dealt with on a constant basis… my mind does play tricks on me.

(Based on my memory…some of it may be embellished by events that are merged together… Fugazi guys…. like Twinkies or potato chips).

“Black, white, green, red, Can I take my friend to bed? Pink, brown, yellow, orange, and blue, I love you.”

Humongous as it was on the wall and in my life.

All this is my way of indirectly sharing currently in this strange Beatles narrative. At the time in the 1980s the Beatles seemed so far away from my lived experience.

Now both Ian and the Beatles seem so far away from my lived experience. I can patronize them both now and so be it. I am older, wiser, and forward moving now… yet I still enjoy their eternally youthful songs, every now and then, and all together now!

When I think about the few times the Minor Threat/ Dischord boys came to visit the Flipside house, I think about how they were, such as the color of Ian’s eyes while waiting in their traveling Van. The waves crashed as we sat there not speaking. Everyone else was surfing and yes, they are a beautiful blue.

The boys wanted to go surfing with Al. I smile at the debates we had over being Straight Edge. Yes, they were Straight Edge, but the van was filled with wrappers from terrible sweets like Twinkies and cans from drinking soda. Salty potato chips too. I was not Straight Edge because I like to drink beer.

I stressed that this did not stop me from my goals or my path but eating sweets and drinking soda would kill me. We debated about crazy stuff like that.

So much time has passed, and memories come and go but what I am sharing today is a funny piece of punk rock history.

I knew that Ian MacKaye liked the Beatles. I sent him some stationery that I made up just for him. I forgot about it. A year or so later he sent me this letter with this check. I kept it all these years in a journal.

I wonder if Dischord Records or Al would mind if I cashed it now?

I wish all of us old punks stood by each other.. sadly this is not always the case..

A note on Helen Jewel and The Misfits.

PUNK ROCK COLLEAGUE & HISTORIAN AND PROFESSIONAL CONSULTANT

HUDLEY FLIPSIDE

Hudley An Original Fiend Club Member

I wrote this post a few years ago about my youthful rebellion. With much insight and pain, I wrestle with my past now as a senior citizen crone who is also a punk rocker, a curse, I’m sure.

If the Misfits put me on their guest list today, like they once did in the past, I would go no matter where they play. It would be grand. Yet I know this will not happen and I hope the best for all bands that are doing well. So be it.

We went out of control!

Helen Jewel roving reporter for Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine.

Helen Jewel was a consistent staph worker on Flipside Fanzine during the 1980s. We met her through another friend through Pete Landswick. She lived near uptown Whittier in a second story funky apartment. She drove around in an old primer grey Porsche. She had a distinct style about her that was a bit on the Femme fatale side.

At the time she worked at a local ceramic business and painted ceramic pieces. She was well-educated in the arts and literature and had a wild side. This is why, I guess, she hung out with us.

I remember when I turned her on to The Misfits. We just saw them live and interviewed them for an issue of Flipside to be published. She did not seem impressed at first, even when I told her all about the band. She was not easily impressed by others at all and told me once,

“If someone has the guts to insult me, I know they are my friend!”

The Misfits were going to play the Whisky A Go Go. I almost begged her to go. I told her,

“You just have to see them to believe them.”

She went. I will never forget the Misfits when they hit the stage.

Glen Danzig was between two out-of-sight monsters of testosterone Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein and Jerry Only.

Both with their Devilocks hanging down as far as Helen’s mouth.

There just are no words to describe how much fun these guys are to see live, so I won’t, but we went out of control!

~Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine # 31 Included in the paperback reprint of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine # 54 Ten Year Anniversary Issue…

A feeling

For me Punk Rock is and was and will always be about how it makes me feel. For me it is not about how you look, not what you collect or who you know. It is about friends that are committed to a way of seeing and feeling life… it will endure as long as it is felt… that wild, focused, rebellious, somethings confrontational and unclassified and as different as the individual.

I just had to say this today…