My Punkalullaby tells a genuine account regarding the exploding punk culture during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. This is a story about the essence of a young woman living the life of a radical punk rocker. Most importantly it outlines the evolution of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine. Flipside gave a voice to the punks when no one else would. Flipside supported and documented all the players. The fans, bands, promoters and artists all respected Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine.
Let me introduce myself. I co published and edited Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine from 1979 to 1989. Flipside Fanzine documented the Los Angeles underground music scene and the punk rock scene for 20 years. This was locally in Los Angeles and internationally. When I owned the publication, from 1979 to 1989, we published an issue every two months. We also sold Flipside Fanzine Vinyl Records and Live Flipside Video Tapes of current bands at the time.
I am introducing My Punkalullaby: The Seminary of Praying Mantis (Punk Fanzine Memoir Book 1) Kindle Edition. I am asking that you consider including My Punkalullaby in your reading list for your students as an insightful historic memoir addition to your curriculum.
~ Hudley Flipside
I want to recommend this product at Amazon.com
My Punkalullaby: The Seminary Of Praying Mantis (Punk Fanzine Memoir Book 1)by Amazon Digital Services LLC
Charged GBH early 1980 Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Picture… at hotel near the pool.
This post has to do with Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine. Yawn, it has been a long time since I was co-owner and editor of this fanzine, RIP. Yet I also worked with a crew of supporters and contributors then. The last thirty years people have come out with books and documentaries about the early punk scene. That is great. They ask me if they can use stuff from Flipside. Images, videos, music and my KFJC DJ tapes. I usually say OK. Just say courtesy of Hudley Flipside. Only twice have I signed something to be used. Once in a picture, and once in documentary. The times I signed legal papers is when I had a personal connection with the creation of an item. For example, a picture I took. I did risk one or two items due to the direct connection as part of a KFJC Tape that I recorded. My creation. Otherwise I do not have the authority to sign for random things from Flipside for creative projects. I speak only for the 1980s. Maybe if Al Flipside and I and all contributors got together and had a pow-wow and decided to sign some sort of legal documents for people to use Flipside stuff that would be a very happy moment. This is not the case. The truth be told, there is a lot of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine stuff on-line for the taking. Ripped up good. So, stop the gossiping and false assumptions out there. If you use Flipside stuff proceed at your own risk. Don’t ask little old me to sign anything… my loyalty lies with those I worked with.
My 4th favorite song is Vandals – I Want To Be A Cowboy .
As a young punk all the words were being thrown around. Anarchy, chaos, discord and mayhem. It rang around me via songs, voices and written lyrics and published fanzines. and punk friends. I never thought the ideals I supported would manifest via a gangster presidency? These words were used as ways to inspire creative freedom. This words for me meant the ability to do things on your own terms to help others not to tear them apart. To confront cruel authority, not to create a foundation for dictatorship or fascist tendencies. So much for deconstructivism if born again AA punks’ side with the enemy. It is a wake up call for us all. How to keep a conversation going is not always possible. Humor as, it was only for a fun experience, can be thrown in there. Yet I am keeping my integrity at my hip. My mind set to do it myself. As always, it may not be popular.
Today I got a nice note from Shredder who wrote for the ‘zine… so I am adding him to this ongoing article….. Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Staph: Those who worked on Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine 1979 to 1989.
Thankx for the nice words to me… we had fun!!
Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine # 31 top jimmy & rhythm pigs interviewed by SHREDDER… just a sample…
Sig Stench The Hell Doc has been raising the punk dead for 8 years. What a strange necromancy it has been. He really did catch the nostalgia of the original punk scene. It started for me around 2004. I felt it in my bones and punk rock soul. Many clubs and people felt it too I assume. This a major span of about ten years. That did get the punk dead up and moving. The first show that got it going for me was the Mau Maus playing the Redwood with opening band A Pretty Mess. All ages of punks came together 70s, 80s, 90s punks. It was a tight bunch. I was hanging with Joe singer of Jughead’s Revenge that night. Tequila Mockingbird was there before her Punk Museum started up. Bob Canto 90s Flipside shit worker was there. In time we went to the Redwood I saw Diana Cancer before the reforming of 45 Grave, I saw Steve Human hanging outside staying away from the alcohol and Cake Flipside 90s staff too. It was the first time I felt the punk revival happen.
Mike Atta (RIP) Middle Class
Before this was Mr. T’s in Highland Park. (Now a hip bowling, food bar) So many bands came through the club. We started seeing bands there around 2006 to 2008 more or less. Seedy and a fun place to be. I hugged the toilet there. Our 16-year-old was old enough to babysit our little one. So, mama and papa had some fun on the weekends. It saved our marriage in many ways. Infusing our life with old and new friends. We saw the Urinals and Mike Watt play there. Master Cylinder and Carnage Asada too.
We were tight with the band The Million Kids and I went on to do Flipside Fanzine 2010 with Billy and Joe for a few issues before they moved onto Spark Plug fanzine. Yet it really hit me hard when I was at Kaiser Permeate in the San Fernando Valley. Walking by me I saw a mid-aged guy with a GBH shirt. I said to him, “I know those guys, Jock. Colin and Ross.” (at the time I had not met the new drummer Scott)
Bass player of Love Canal, Bob Gnarly punk rock history galore..
He said, “Great they are playing Ventura Theater this month.” A spark of tenacity filled me. I looked up GBH and found Colin Abrahll’s email. Their second tour in some time. My oldest son and I saw them. That was another turning point for me. My spine found joy and friendship in that old sound of bass and guitar and beyond.
Then there was locally in the San Fernando Valley, where I live. Cobalt Cafe, The Scotland Yard and Weber’s had all sort of bands come through in 10-year time. The Krum Bums, The Weirdos, Symbol Six. Also, at Weber’s I got to see a sacred evening with the Adolescents and the Middle Class. My old-time punk buds from the original Los Angeles punk scene.
Martin Atkins Punk Museum Event
While all this was happening around 2010 I met Stig Stench of Stench Radio . He interviewed me on his show and I did and an interview with him for the 2010 Flipside. It was fun. All those good old feeling game back of belonging to the punk scene. I think we all jumped into it all too fast and all at once. Some got splashed on and others got quick sand. It was a bit of a nightmare at times.
The Weirdos at the Cobalt Cafe… the mighty Dix Denney
At around this time, I lost both of my parents and went through menopause. I would ride around in my dark blue Chrysler M playing my car radio “Mike Conley” loud, smoking too many cigarettes and acting like a spoiled teenage child. Yes, my kids would hide my cigarettes from me. I got some stupid tattoos as well.
Since then the festivals have taken over and the local clubs closed or are further away. I don’t like driving or do not feel the need to make the long drives. The Cobalt closed, The Scotland Yard has a new owner (I am grieving the loss right now) and Weber’s was demolished due to asshole mosh punk pricks. (Like the Canoga Park Punk Rock Swap Meet Scene. They say it’s for charity. . what a line of bull)
The ascending bell curve of punk nostalgia was a fun ride and celebrating that is Hell Doc, my pet name for Stig! Never jumping off the nostalgia ride means a hell of a lot to me. He has tenacity and my friendship. We wrestled a few times too.
Lots of original punk bands have been playing the last ten years. Decry, Love Canal, Doggy Style, and many to the 10th degree more. Old friends that I still chat with now and then. Some of us are are not talking.
Opening night at The Punk Museum…
I guess over the last ten years there is a singular motif that many new and old friends tell me. Guys that are anywhere from 30 to 50 years old. They say this…
“When I was a young kid, I was all alone and the only thing I had was Flipside. I made connections with other punks and bands.” Or “You published my first record review, or I wrote my first this or that in Flipside!”
DJ Joe D at the ‘Yard
I am happy because that is what the scene was all about then. We got to face it now that the punk scene has made changes with modern times like technology. . What matters most to me is the 10 % punk rock experience. Also the friends made in the scene. One of my long-time friends Steve Hart from the (Order of the) White Rose punk band said he met band members though the classified section of Flipside. He invited me to write some stuff for his current publication New Wave Chicken. A long time friendship and it has only been through correspondence.
Jordan Schwartz having Fun at the Punk Museum
Any way a lot of good things happened along the path of the last ten years. Stig Stench is one of them. He can tell you all the punkers he has interviewed on his radio show and all the bands he does support and helped out. And that is what punk is all about also. Making friends, listening to music, and giving a voice to the voiceless. And to all the new punk bands … it is so groovy.
Fun times at the Scotland Yard with Dancing John and the Tender of the Brew.. Mr Funk
Hey, the punk scene gave me a voice and something I bet you wished I would shut the funk up about. I love you all.
– fin-
Us Against the World
If you’re hungry for nostalgia
Make sure it’s your own
Seeking inspiration
origin unknown
You’re happy stealing thunder
When metal starts to rust
Memories still linger
Monochrome and dust.
Year zero has returned last
Respect is to be earned / The lesion
To be learned
It’s us against the world.
The years are mounting up now
For them plagiarists
It’s really makes you wonder
Why they still exist
Not sold like a good thing
We were built to last
Take the easy option
Reinvent your past.
Just a bad facsimile
Without the vital spark
Running with the big dogs
But you ain't got the bark
Far beyond a tribute
You wanna take the credit
If I got to explain it
You ain’t never gonna get it.
It was the year 2038, The old purple haired broad walked slowly down the street. On a big monitor above her she saw that old Flipside Logo. Now part of an advertisement campaign for public office. Those people running for office with pig hearts. And she thought it was weirder when she heard the Ramones’ song as part of a bike exercise commercial back in 2018.
After about 14 years over reflecting, reliving, and watching all the Flipside stuff I help produce become dissected, rearranged bought and sold and resold I can now let it all go. T-shirt logos and documentaries too. I came out with my own D.I.Y. publications to tell my story. It has been out for over a year or two.
Yes, I have been asked to tell my story in other people’s books. Some I did because I felt the need to save the memory of Flipside. Not anymore. I let it go. This is a reality that I had to face and it was not easy letting go of the need to protect Los AngelesFlipside Fanzine.
“It may be bad, but it feels good”
I hope others that were part of Flipside tell their own stories in their own way. Who knows we could put together a blog or book that includes our individual stories as writers, shit workers, photographers, people who caused considerable trouble etc. That would be fun.
One thing that shines through as a truth that Al and I believed in…. “You don’t have to ask permission.” If you want to do it just do it. “
So, letting it go means just that. You don’t have to ask me if you want to use this or that from Flipside’s vast products in anything you are doing. Just do it. I will not be part of that anymore. It is not my responsibility.
Yet, I do have my projects if you need to see what it was like for me as a Flipside punk person. A simple story that I did in my little bedroom converted into an office. Where I do my art, poetry and writing of all kinds, so be it. It took me 2004 to 2017 to finish the Punk@lullaby project. Just like condensed soup but a condensed punk rock story.
To all my old & new friends of the Big Punk Rock @ beyond.
Rockin’ in my rockin’ chair
Rockin’ in my rockin’ dreams
We all are elder punks now
The first of the punk rockers
A youthful explosion…
March 28, 2018
Last night’s dream
The dream was long but what I remember is we had a big back yard. In the back yard were big beautiful old trees. So big that artists would come to visit so they could sit under the trees. They’d sit under the shade of the old trees and make art. They enjoyed the big trees. Two people I knew came to visit us. Two old friends I knew in my rebellious youth when I had a punk fanzine. Band members I championed as we grew from youth to adulthood. First was Mike Palm. He was sleeping under one of the trees. I saw him there. Next son said that another one came to the door. He went back to the big trees. He told son he knew me. Son let him in and he went to the trees. He had his painting art supplies and a sleeping bad rolled up behind him. I went back and saw that it was Mike Ness . He smiled warmly at me. I felt all those friendship, close, intimate feelings come back to my heart. The feelings of loyalty and belonging to something bigger than ourselves. He was fine. So, I left him alone under one of the old trees. In the house I made him a sandwich. We always made sandwiches for our art guests.
Dreams like this hurt me. I still somehow feel connected to these punk charmers of my youth. They made a big impression on me. I still love them both so much. Though our lives are not intermingled as they once were. They are still beholding to me. They hold value in myself, my psyche. It is nice when they come to visit, even if only in my dreams.
I wonder if they ever find my face smiling up at them in their elder punk dreams. I hope so… somehow there is still a heartfelt remembrance and shared values from our youthful rebellious days. Long gone by days…that we all share together.
Director: Nicole Wegner Year: 2017 Duration: 100 Language: English
“This film pays homage to the American DIY spirit and the diversity of the US musical landscape outside the commercial music industry. While many other music films never make it beyond hero worship, director Nicole Wegner consistently maintains eye level with her twelve interview partners,…”
I did not know that this two-day event was the first of it’s kind at UCLA. Yet I naturally follow Joe Strummer’s advice, which is to move naively into things. I think of this as letting the essence or spirit of an event unfold as it may. This is how I fell into punk rock. The right place at the right time. It was synchronicity and all that unconscious revealing by focus and experience. For me, as others, it was the first note of a song. The guitar riff or bass depth and drums ripping though my spine. It made me wake up!
I wanted to attend the full event but didn’t because of my bad back and family responsibilities. I attended the full event on Saturday. I made as many of the sessions as I was able to. Each session inspired me to see from a different perspective. Some of the panelists are very academic. Their blending punk with thesis was a challenging reality for most of them. Also, the need to archive punk, in general, was something that challenged all of them. I have questioned this one myself. I was hoping that by being here that some of my questions might be answered. Their augments are satisfactory. Over time, I will consider all of them.
Session 2B ”Punk Epistemologies, 9:30 to 10:30 AM was my first session to focus my mind on. I listened actively to Sarah Gelbard speak about punk as being “neutralized,” or “ask a punk,” and “ask a punk academia.” She is a PhD candidate. She defines herself as a punk planner and architect. A punkarchitect! She said the Academy, conformity to institutions or university, does reject her feminist and or punk attitude. The title of her presentation, “Ask a punk: from informality to anti-formality and anti-authority and when to say fuck.” I felt an irritatingly shy stirring in her that filled the room. I have not felt that feeling for some time. Her integrity and honesty moved me. She mentioned story telling may be a type of approach to her chosen field of study.
Robert Haworth was next, and his theme was on” radical learning spaces.” As an educator and practicing anarchist he shared some biographical stories about his punk rock experience. A theme that ran throughout his talk seemed to focus on building character. How society and educational (Academy) focuses a type of expendable economic character that forms our children. He mentioned a good book to study by Emma Goldman, “The Child and its Enemies.”
Session 5B: Punk Political Economies presented three panelists. What came forth here is that “We should consider continuing to support the cracks.” I enjoyed Kathryn Heffner speaking about women fanzine publishers of science fiction writing. Briefly I can say that I learned about the history of fanzines. She talked about the community formed by fanzines and how they communicated. It is about women and resistance. My heart about jumped out of my chest. She defined so many elements of what a fanzine is all about. It is about community, friends, and a subject. The punk scene is about friends and the continuity of friendships over time. I did not hear much about this at this conference! Kathryn did tell a short story about a sister zinester who misspelled a word and made a whole movement out of it. I about jumped up and screamed hallelujah. The point being that with fanzines the information is current and was often printed up quickly to spread like a good wild-fire of communication. I knew this to be true. Her talk gave meaning to my community. We need to keep writing and self-publishing.
The final Session 21B. Decay, Ruins, Dystopias was very enjoyable and academic. S. Mark Gubb: “God So Loves Decay,” is an unusual perspective on achieving punk material. He is a PhD candidate. Simply put he had a friend read lyrics as punk poetry, UK Decay, in front of beautiful architecture in London (England… there abouts?). This is presented as performance art. My insight into what he said is that the archiving of punk repertories can inspire others to be creative. Taking archived material and recycling its essence to a new generation to use creatively.
The Lyrics of UK Decay, Performed by Russ Crimewave
Michelle Gonzales presentation made a strong comparison between George Orwell and Joe Strummer. Her brief history of punk, music and films as influencing a generation of punks is a bit superficial to me. Yet her argument was sound and interesting. I noticed how she compared their lives and their life long intentions. As she suggested, I am going to Goggle the best of Utopian literature and do some reading. An honest look and what can move someone! A book and or a song.
Overall, I did not include everything from this punk academy conference. Yet in general I had a great time. My impression is that archiving punk is a very sound perspective and a reality for some such as Slash Magazine and Maximum Rocknroll. I am not sure If I am ready yet to turn over my stuff. (as a friend said to me, “Take it out of the dusty garage” or something like that ) Time will tell.
Mixing the Academy and lived PUNK culture is a concept like a giant punk rocket filled bulging with repertories of sight and sound. A giant punk rocket to the future that explodes into the sky like a fucking loud scream to a new world of fireballs and resistance…. women indulgently included!
In moonlight
Danced through the night
Dancing in the white light
Freedom from conditioned trance
So stand so grand in decadence
And the white light
Danced through your stomach
Pulls tight
Tight pulls the chords of your empty heart
In decadence
The dance of decadence
Defiant stance - a new decade
Of decadence
Realise your personal destiny
Fighting the fat and prosperous
Brood of mediocrity
Once safe in its prosperity
Now burns
In decadence
The dance of decadence
The cry of truth - a state of mind -
Call it youth
Take up your part in the play
Decapitate the day
White eyed - hatchets high - luddite like
In decadence
Decadancing - you can be your own king
You can be your own king
In the dance of decadence
Deca-deca-deca-decadance
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 am a crone peppered with punk and seasoned with many other flavors. Humor, sometimes nasty, lets off a lot of steam. Or descending or ascending into the extramundane!
Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences. (Roy Ascott’s phrase.) That solves a lot of problems: we don’t have to argue whether photographs are art, or whether performances are art, or whether Carl Andre’s bricks or Andrew Serranos’s piss or Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ are art, because we say, ‘Art is something that happens, a process, not a quality, and all sorts of things can make it happen.’ … [W]hat makes a work of art ‘good’ for you is not something that is already ‘inside’ it, but something that happens inside you — so the value of the work lies in the degree to which it can help you have the kind of experience that you call art.
~ Brian Eno
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Agathos Daimon, the Good or Rich Spirit”.[7][8] His numinous presence could be represented in art as a serpent or more concretely as a young man bearing a cornucopia and a bowl in one hand, and a poppy and an ear of grain in the other.[7] The agathodaemon was later adapted into a general daemon of fortuna, particularly of the continued abundance of a family’s good food and drink.[citation needed]
“Scientists know that electromagnetic waves carry information. Radio waves are a common example of how information is sent out via electromagnetic waves. The waves that your heart and brain generate carry information that is sent through your body and out into the space around you, just like a radio transmitter. Yet the heart’s signals have much more power.” – The HeartMath Story, as Told by Founder Doc Childre
I’ve heard it said that the soul doesn’t live inside our body but that it is more like a womb in which we are contained.
Turner, Toko-pa. Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home (Kindle Locations 2739-2740). Her Own Room Press. Kindle Edition.
“This disco guy wanted funk in our sound with 10,000 backing vocals, the guy laughed at Tony when he tried to sing, they treated us like shit. Casey wanted to hit that engineer dick…Posh Boy told us not to play games with him, he’d play games with us. That engineer was a real dick.”
~ Steve Soto ADOLESCENTS
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In our over psychological culture, psychological testing substitutes for this seasoned eye and prevents its development. Instead of looking, we test; instead of imaginative insight, we read write-ups; instead of interviews, inventories; instead of stories, scores. Psychology assumes it can get at character by probing motivations, reaction responses, choices, and projections. It uses concepts and numbers to access the soul, rather than relying on the anomalous eye of a practiced observer.
Hillman, James. The Force of Character: And the Lasting Life (Kindle Locations 844-847). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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It is the prime task of a truly modern mind to endure both the spiritual and the practical as the framework for her life.
Mysterious in day’s broad light,
Nature retains her veil, despite our imprecations,
and what she won’t reveal to human mind or sight
levers, screws or hammers
cannot wrench from her. ~ Goethe
Faust part 1
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Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
~Truman Capote
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“And just as the soul that is inside your dust.”
~ Pg 8 The Divine Comedy ~ Dante
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“I always liked the intensity of the recording.”
~ Chris Bailey from the band The Saints
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“Sometimes people try and tell me what is and isn’t punk, or that GBH do or don’t fit in, but they’re generally no older than my socks, and they know about as much. I’ve lived my life doing what I want the way I want to ever since I got expelled from school. Ever since 1977….That’s punk rock”
~ Ross Lomas: From his Book City Baby.
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“As I was walking among the fires of Hell,
delighted with the enjoyments of Genius;
which to Angels look like torment and insanity.
I collected some of their Proverbs. ”
~ William Blake, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, 1790
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Please if you take anything from this site please tag hudleyflipside.com as the source of this material. NOTICE this is all copyright material Hudley Flipside (aka Hud) and Hudley Mantis…. most importantly ‘Hudley’ is the pen name and pseudonym created by (me) Holly Duval Cornell.
