HERE'S YOUR L.A. PUNK STARTER KIT

The bulk of what is below was posted seven years ago. I was reminded of it after seeing a thing about a new photo book by Melanie Nissen, a photographer that took a shitload of iconic photos in the early days of the L.A. punk scene, many appearing in Slash magazine. So, yeah, I remembered that I'd linked to a pdf with all of the issues of Slash so that's down there with links to some records from that period and that scene. One last thing, if you were around that scene back then and wondered where Claude Bessy picked his pen name of Kickboy Face from, there's a link to Prince Jazzbo's "Kickboy Face". So here's the old blab.:

Every scene has it's own bands, and back in the days of fanzines, every scene usually had it's own fanzine that everybody read. In the pre-internet days, that's how groups of miscreants coalesced. Old school social media. Some scenes had several fanzines, all with different attitudes, writing styles and levels of slickness. Los Angeles had a bunch and the two biggees were Flipside and Slash. In the early days, the most popular was definitely Slash, a tabloid edited by the late Claude "Kickboy Face" Bessy, a transplanted Frenchman with penchant for spot on shit stirring rants. He was the heart and soul of Slash and his editorials alone were worth picking up the zine.

Claude Bessy aka Kickboy Face, rants,.

Other writers included Chris Desjardins (lead singer of the Flesheaters) and a pre-Gun Club Jeffery Lee Pierce (writing largely reggae reviews under the name Chatty Chatty Mouth). Among contributing artists were Gary Panter (who would end up designing the set for Pee Wee's Playhouse and still paints today) and brilliant collage artist Lou Beach. The magazine was (I think) designed by co-publisher Steve Samiof, and defined the L.A. brand of cut and paste. The other co-publisher, Melanie Nissen, one of several photographers, went beyond typical fan type band shots. There were so many other contributors that the magazine, taken as a whole, seemed at times like a collaborative effort by the entire scene.

If any of you aging Southern California punkers lost track of your tattered old copies of Slash, help is here. Circulation Zero just posted the complete 29 issue run, in pdf format. It's 600 mb, but a quick five minute download. This is as close to a complete overview of the Los Angeles punk scene from 1977-1980 as you're likely to find. The music below, hosted at Killed By Death, is by no means all of the L.A. bands of that era, and three weren't actually L.A. bands (but scene favorites regardless), but it's a damn good cross section. The copies of Slash, particularly the first dozen or so, along with the music below is about as close to being there, without the fog of time, as there is.

Read:
Slash magazine - 29 issues (in pdf format) at Circulation Zero 600mb, five minute download

~ NOTE: ALL MUSIC BELOW IS HOSTED BY KILLED BY DEATH ~ 

Listen:

The Dils - I Hate the Rich Two songs
The Zeros - Don't Push Me Around Two Songs 
The Weirdos – Destroy All Music E.P Three songs
The Avengers – We Are The One E.P. Three songs
The Bags – Survive Two songs
The Dils – 198 Seconds Of…  Two songs
X – Adult Books Two songs
Black Randy and The Metro Squad – Trouble at the Cup E.P. Three songs
Randoms – ABCD/Let’s Get Rid Of New York Two songs
The Weirdos – We Got The Neutron Bomb Two songs
What Records Comp. E.P. Three songs, Contollers, Eyes and Skulls
The Deadbeats – Kill The Hippies E.P. Four songs
The Germs – Lexicon Devil E.P. Three songs
Black Randy and the Metrosquad – I Slept In An Arcade Two songs
Bonus:
Prince Jazzbo - Kickboy Face (streaming) at YouTube
Visit:
Unseen Images of L.A. Punk's Riotous Beginnings at Rolling Stone

OUR MOTOWN

Driving today with a compilation of Dangerhouse singles blasting away, I was reminded what a great fucking label it was. They only released about thirteen or fourteen seven inchers, one compilation (that was on one side of a picture disc twelve inch) and one proper LP, Black Randy and the Metro Squad's Pass the Angel Dust, I Think I'm Bowie. What's so special about the label is that they put out seminal records by seminal bands. All but a couple of the discs are the best that any of the bands ever recorded, and just about all of them were released early, 1977 - 1979. In their discography, the first Avengers 45, the first X, second Dils, first Bags, first Alleycats, second Weirdos,...you get the picture: seminal. And it was a strictly DIY label. Some of the recordings were done in hotel rooms, the sleeves were folded paper, their distribution through mostly independent record stores. It is the label that best represents the early L.A. punk scene (though the Avengers were from San Francisco and Howard Werth, the odd non-punk release, was from the UK). The only questionable release, aside from Werth's, was from 2013 (!) an LP by a someone named Sienna Nanini, a release that someone in the comments on YouTube referred to as ABDL, which a search revealed means "Adult Baby/Diaper Lover". Yikes! Not my bag at all, and that's all I have to say about that.

So here's a mess of Dangerhouse stuff. The two mp3s down there are my two favorite, but there are others at Killed By Death (linked below). Another link with the story behind the label, and a complete discography, including the few reissues there have been, at Discogs. If you want to read up, I suggest We Got the Neutron Bomb by Brendan Mullen (owner of the Masque, an underground club active back then) and Marc Spitz. It's an oral history in chronological snippets by many of the main players.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
The Weirdos - Solitary Confinement mp3 at Killed By Death
The Dils - Class War mp3 at Killed By Death
More Dangerhouse releases at Killed By Death
Still more Dangerhouse releases at Killed By Death  Click on "Older posts" if you really want Rhino 36
Visit:
Dangerhouse discography at Discogs
The Dangerhouse story, part 1 at Break My Face
The Dangerhouse story, part 2 at Break My Face
Frontier Records at Bandcamp Releases by Black Randy, Red Cross, Weirdos and Middle Class and Dangerhouse compilations

GENRE ISSUE

In looking for an image for this post, I thought I'd do an image search for "punk women," just for the hell of it, fully expecting to be disappointed. I was, more than I expected. I'm here to tell you, "punk women" doesn't mean what it used to. Neither does "punk men" for that matter. Slap me silly, there's some godawful missuses of the term, especially online where everything is packaged and marketed to death; be it gender, genre, or attitude. It's clueless, it's a haircut, a pair of shoes, a fashion spread, and uninformed editorial self indulgence.

Anyway, Network Awesome recently posted a five part video compilation series called "The Women of Punk." Band wise, there's a whole lot of favorites, most I never really identified as one gender or the other. Some I wouldn't even think of as punk. Regardless, if they're going to take the time to round up (or curate as they put it) that comprehensive of a playlist, they can call it "Pea Soup" for all I care.

If you haven't been on Network Awesome, there's a couple things to note. One is that in each series of videos, they have interspersed short promos for other stuff on their site, along with old commercials, primarily from the 70s and 80s. You can bypass any of these, or any of the music videos, by pulling the slider all the way to the end. It'll automatically go to the next clip or video.

At the very bottom below is a link to a really good recent video of Vivienne Westwood (wife of Malcolm McLaren, and co-clothier to the Sex Pistols) speaking her mind about art, punk, education, status and other related subjects.

Watch:
The Women of Punk, Part 1 at Network Awesome: Suzi Quatro, The Runaways, Joan Jett, X Ray Spex, Bush Tetras, B-Girls, The Cranos, Shonen Knife, Pink Section, The Au Pairs, Bikini Kill
The Women of Punk, Part 2 at Network Awesome: Souixie & the Banshees, The Slits, Penetration, Sexsick, Kleenex, Kas Product, Suburban Reptiles, Kleenex, Neo Boys, Castration Squad
The Women of Punk, Part 3 at Network Awesome: Mo-Dettes, Model Citizens, Blondie, Delta 5, Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill, Pandoras, Knetics, Patti Smith Group, Nina Hagen, X
The Women of Punk, Part 4 at Network Awesome: Plasmatics, The Rezillos, 45 Grave, Vice Squad, Auróra Cirkáló, The Bags, UXA, The Raincoats, Avengers, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Spitboy, The Gossip
The Women of Punk, Part 5 at Network Awesome: Slant 6, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Chalk Circle, Huggy Bear, Tiger Trap, The Gits, Bratmobile, Heavens To Betsy, Excuse 17, Babes In Toyland, L7
Definitely watch this:
Vivienne Westwood interview at the Guardian UK