I saw something unexpected today. Billy Idol got a star on Hollywood Blvd. and Mr. Henry Rollins was the presenter. I saw the photograph on a site. Now and then I do like to reflect on my punk rock glory days.
I think upon these two characters that influenced us by their music or words in a big way. I knew them, as many of us did, as youths with deep and high ideals that I once respected.
I met Billy after he left Generation X.
He visited Hollywood. A group of us youthful rebellious punks were talking about music. We were in the back of a liquor store waiting for some beer because we were not 21 yet. Someone was WHEELING AND DEALING with the booze scheme. Billy and I were talking about the Beatles and how much he loved them. He then cried on my shoulder stating to me that he missed his mates back home.
The beer arrived and a friend of mine whisked him away and that was the only time I met him. Over the years when I see him or hear his music, I often reflect back upon that sweet young kid who was kind of lost.
Henry was a wild youth too. He was kind of funny and thoughtful when I first met him. Yet as time went on our friendship soured. I think it was due to a subscription to Flipside Fanzine he never received because his letter fell behind my desk. Maybe the critical reviews I did of him in Black Flag were thought to be unfunny. His lack of humor made it easy to accelerate into doom.
Funny how a guy from England and a guy from DC can be standing on the grounds whereas young punks, who grew up here, used to run wild on those same streets. Then no need, or sense of fame or fortune.
Once equals as friends and fans of the punk scene, they got bigger, and we got smaller. Yet I think I am happy with my place in the world, and I hope they are too.
The sweet and bitter is what punk rock left me. As a punk rock fanatic,
The holidays and my dad’s birthday all bring up memories of my family that I grew up with. It has been about ten years since both of my parents died. They both lived a long, good life. I think it is good to think about loved ones and remember them. It is a seasonal thing too.
My dad was a WWII Vet. He discovered veteran benefits where he could travel really cheap anywhere around the world. So, Mom and dad did just that. They traveled everywhere.
All their five children grown up and independent, mostly. They took off.
As a teenager in High School, it was kind of strange not having mom and dad there. Yet, my older brother or sister reluctantly helped out.
In the late 1970s and through the 1980s mom and dad continued to travel.
I was running a punk rock fanzine at the time. I gave them some issues to give out to any punks they met up with. This image is from Germany. Mom with a local punk rocker. It must have been around 1984.
Tonight, while watching the news, I saw our secretary of state Antony J. Blinken rocking out at the white house. A flash of light brought three friends who told me “You belong here too.” It was Bill, Dennis and Mike who were hanging in an aura of wonder on me. I started to cry and thanked them for being my friends. And for the encouragement… the veil is so weak now, between the dead and living, this time of the year so keep yourself open… (9/28/23).
Punk Rock Historian, Colleague and professional Consultant
Hudley Flipside
THE PUNK HUB MASTERS
(I presented this at Pat Fear and Other Stories~ December 3, 2017)
My talk today is a comparison essay about three characters from the early punk rock scene. A Punk Comrade GHOST Special.
Dennis Danell original bass player for the punk rock band Social Distortion, Pat Fear singer and guitar player extraordinaire of the mockery punk band White Flag, and Mike Conley singer of the popular punk band MIA.
I call them the PUNK HUB MASTERS
To move my essay into the realm of where I am looking from, I will be using a concept from my favorite psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Now for a short Jungian psychology concept…
“The specific role of the archetype in synchronistic-phenomena seems to be to serve as orconstellation hub of a situation across time, and to be the factor of [inner order] that gives this distinctive set to the situation.”
Punk rock is a phenomenon which created a situation of order as a constellation or hub. A hub is a focal point a center around which other things revolve from which things radiate. I am applying this concept to the origin of punks and to punk rock…
We were nobodies of the underground, sitting on a youthful explosion, that was a riptide of good-fella punk friends. The early individual punks found each other through the hubs we created. Back in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, as you know the punk scene created a network of hubs that worked independently from each other yet depended on each other to sustain the punk scene. Examples of hubs were Fanzines such as We Got Power or Flipside Fanzine.
Also, every punk band had its own hub. Record labels, music recording studios and record store hubs. The major places to make the scene!
Such as Licorice pizza, ZEDS, Tower Records and Moby Disk Records and our own Whittier Record hub Lovells Records. Without forgetting the college and underground radio program hubs where the innovative music played. These were the greatest of supportive hubs such as Pat Hoed’s Adam Bomb (KXLU), Stella Stray POP and Rodney on KROQ.
The major hub that brought us all together was an amazing force known as gigs. The garage to Club 88, the Masque to the Whisky A go go and beyond. Where the fans, bands and promoters met! The focal point here was the paper flyer. These papers were handed out at gigs. Unique band flyers with local and logo band art. Mostly Xerox copies. Xerox machines a revolutionary major hub for the punk scene. The US Mail and the ring ring telephone press buttons or circular dial extenuated the positive communication hub…remember? Punks spent a great deal of time alone…creating, practicing, and thinking in our own hubs! Coming together via shows, the phone, and the mail.
This is where the hub masters such as Denis, Pat, and Mike were found. They shined there. They masterly brought all the HUBS together. These three punks were genius hub masters. Networking was their punk underground gift, and they are authentic examples of the early punk rock phenomenon. Dennis, Pat, and Mike are a part of the Southern California punk scene. They influenced a generation of fans and often are not known or acknowledged for their influence. They infected my little hub of a bedroom converted into a fanzine office. I often felt overwhelmed working on Flipside and under a big wave of stuff always about ready to crash. These guys showed me the skills of synchronizing things together. Making it seem easy.
Punk Hub Master: Dennis Danell
I first saw Denis when I was living with my sister in Fullerton Orange County. It was 1978. I was working at a local Dry-Cleaning Business as a cashier. Staffing on Flipside Fanzine on the side. He was riding a sting-ray bike sporting a spike haircut. At that time, he was unique. We were speaking the same language. I looked similar with my partial shaved hairdo with orange hair color. A year later we met at the scene and became friends. Dennis taught me loyalty of friendship. I witnessed his expansive heart that made his band stay tight. This is the work of the hub master. Denis still visits me in my dreams. Always polite, honest, and his happy Dizzy self. He had the ability of synchronizing punks together in a charming way. He will not ever be taken for granted. He was at the right place at the right time.
I will read some quotes from Flipside 20 A Social Distortion interview. I feel these short quotes embrace his character.
“Denis: We wanna sound like no one else, We wanna sound like us!!”
“Denis: Tommie’s chilly burgers. I ate one of those and didn’t have to eat for 2 days and I was shitting for 3 weeks!”
Hub Master: Pat Fear.
As you know Pat was a force to deal with. He lived in Riverside which was not far from Whittier Ca where Flipside Fanzine was based. Flipside put out a few music vinyl fanzines on Flipside / Gasatanka Records. Pat was the hub master and helped bring it all together. Was it only a few years ago I argued on Facebook about his hate for Sahara Palin? I would ask him to slow down and redirect his energy. White Flag played a show with the Simpletons around 2008. They played a Saints Song, Demolition Girl. A nice dedication to me. Yet that was Pat… he always tried to make his friends happy. He was humorous in an irritating and funny way. He had the gift of inclusion. He is a constellating hub across time which brings us all here together today.
I will read some quotes by White Flag Tape 6 Flipside Music Fanzine. I will try to read them the way White Flag said them. Pat Fear’s high degree of sarcasm.
This is a White Flag moment.
“What is the purpose of White Flag?”
“To create an illusion of creativity. Because we are too good to be believed.”
“White Flag is a band that’s done everything done before… but better.” “There are two kinds of people in the world, people who are in White Flag and all those who wish they were.”
“White Flag is more than just a band it is a concept of how to live your life.”
“We look like women, talk like men, and play like mother fuckers. (Twisted sister quote.)”
Pat wrote a theme song for our video fanzines. I would like to share a short description from our catalog describing the beginning of Flipside Video Number Two,
“Now if you want to see the good old video monster in action you just got to catch this video. So, if you get it, and put it in your VCR, you might just die. Because the opening Flipside Video Number Two is the band White Flag. Gutsy and pure, Pat Fear will knock your block off while he plays guitar for the opening theme song called “Flipside” with backup singers including some Redd Kross members and one Bangle member …”
Pat Fear all the way!
What song came up today in my heart was
“I’ll Blow You a Kiss in the Wind” by Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart … seeing Steven McDonald from Redd Kross, who does a brilliant cover, I imagined Pat Fear singing the song on top of the dinning table before us… giving a ghostly performance!
I enjoyed seeing many gathered thinking about a unique wild guy who brought friends and colleagues together today!
Also .. Pat Smear affirmed what I knew but don’t hear often enough that Becky Barton (Donna Rhia) was the first drummer of the Germs. “Where is she now?”
A very enjoyable afternoon/ evening! Thanks Tony!
The Old Spaghetti Factory, October 22/23
Tony. B, Cake ( Carlos Numez), Pat Smear, David Markey, Don Bolles.
Hub Master: Mike Conley
Mike originally came from Las Vegas and then stationed his band MIA in the Orange County beach area. He brought punks tighter together. He did this at parties, gigs or at the Flipside House. He could wheel and deal the punk zone. Back stage Mike would make me laugh. He would follow me around saying,
“Want a cocktail, Hudley,” while rolling his eyes round and around. Just like Groucho Marx.
In 2008 when editing my memoirs about the punk scene I came across some Mike comments in a Flipside Fanzine Interview with his band. Unbelievably I received a call at that moment from Nick Adams, a member of MIA, telling me of Mike’s demise. A week later at his funeral his oldest daughter told us a short story.
She said that when they were traveling in his car her dad always had the music on too loud. She told him he could use headphones like everyone else. He never did. That is punk.
An excerpt from My Punkalullby.
Recently, at a benefit show for the passing of Mike Conley of M.I.A., a slam pit broke out at the Detroit bar in Costa Mesa. After about 19 years my natural feelings of irritation and perspiration filled with moisture above my brow. In the past, the slam pit became a testosterone-filled ring of jock bodies circling round and round before the stage. Bouncers and bands tried to control it. They could not stop this wildfire. I grew to hate it. Yet, the recent show again proved me wrong. There were some women but mostly men dancing around having a great time. Yes, their firm bodies now had become a little soft around the edges, as one middle-aged guy stopped and said to me, as if Mike Conley for one moment materialized,
“…enjoy this moment, it is the best time of your life!”
This guy was beaming with youthful glee.
~ From the Pogo to the Slam Pit, by Hudley Flipside
Flipside produced one of MIA’s albums entitled After the Fact. I will read lyrics from a song that Mike wrote. A Quote from the Song, Whisper in the Wind,
“In my eyes you’ll see a thousand memories, He said stare into my soul, All of me you shall know, Live your life full, live your life free, Tomorrow’s but a vision, Yesterday is a dream…”
Mike had the quality of inner order. A quality of depth and control that was not always easy to access.
This concludes my essay on three punk rockers of the early Southern California Punk Scene. Denis, Pat, and Mike were extraordinary. They were our friends! SCREAMING,
At this time in punk rock history of the 1980s… life was moving fast. Projects at every corner. This kept us running before the wild-fire of punk rock, which was a passion that could not be controlled. So many individuals’ hands were in the multitude of projects that it was hard to know who to thank and whose’ hand you should slap. It felt like being under a wave. We were overwhelmed! SO many wants, needs and desires geometrically multiplied with each day. Flipside vinyl fanzine Vol. 2 is a motif of that era.
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..
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