Showing posts with label x. Show all posts
Showing posts with label x. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

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

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

POST-LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 5


It was to be just a couple from X. The first one "Hungry Wolf" is my jam. I remember when I first moved to NYC, I was staying with friends on Sullivan St. They said it was okay if I smoked if I blew the smoke out the window, which overlooked the street. I remember one of the few times I was alone in the apartment, putting on the second X LP, the one with "Hungry Wold", and cranking it. Right as I lit up, the opening chords blasted forth. I sat there, surveying the street and having my smoke and thinking, "What now?" That was a thousand years ago and the song still takes me to that exact moment.

Then, not even looking for it, I ran into The Unheard Music, a 1986 documentary about the band, The full movie is at YouTube and it's on X's page there, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon. If you haven't seen it and have any interest in the early-ish L.A. punk scene, you should check it out.


~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
X - Hungry Wolf mp3
at Internet Archive
X - Blue Spark mp3
at Internet Archive
Visit:
X - The Band - X's channel
at YouTube

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

WHEN 1980 WAS "LATE"

Bob Biggs, the guy behind Slash Records, died a few days ago. He came aboard in the waning days of Slash, the magazine, and funded Slash Records, taking over that avenue when the magazine folded. I hadn't reviewed the Slash discography in a while and was surprised when I took a look. Everybody into punk rock will remember Slash as the label that put out the seminal first LPs by the Germs and X. I had forgotten that the Slash discography also included the first Dream Syndicate LP, the first Gun Club LP, Rank and File, the Blasters and Los Lobos. Each of those bands was significant, in a big way. The label also had the Violent Femmes, L7, and Faith No More. Reading further I realized that I had probably never read through the entire discography. If I had I would have definitely remembered that Slash put out two Burning Spear LPs. That I did not know.

Here's just three songs. There are more by the other bands mentioned above elsewhere on other posts here. Just use the search box (at the top left above the mast head) or the tags to the right. I'm not going to cut and paste links all night.

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

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING.

Wow, out of nowhere, a new X album. Maybe I just haven't been following things. It's been decades since their last and I gotta tell you, the old fart wing over there at Facebook is rejoicing. Hey, there are worse diversions. Fuck yeah, I guess.

Here's a video and a link to the LP at Bandcamp page where you can preview it or buy it in various unnecessary formats.



~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
X - Alphabetland at Bandcamp Entire album. Preview it or buy it.
Visit:
The world’s a mess, and X is back
at the L.A.Times

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

LOCK DOWN THEATER NIGHT 5

It's getting boring. Staying at home doesn't have to mean sitting in front of a screen. Read a book. Listen to music. Read liner notes. Make art. Do a fanzine about being bored at home (actually, that's a good idea). I'll try to give it a rest after this one. The Decline of Western Civilization is an early documentary of the L.A. punk scene, late 1979 - 1980, when the scene was pretty much past it it's anything goes peak. Patterns, copy cats and stereotypes abound. The most clichéd part of it is the spitting at Lee Ving during the segment on Fear. And then a leather clad chick with spiky hair jumps on stage and starts a fracas with him. (at around 1:29:01) Microscopic factoid: I knew that women, me and my roommates were watching her kid back in San Diego when she was at that show. Her name was Tracy and her boyfriend was a guy named John Vomit. Also in the crowd in that scene is Lou Skum, singer of the Injections and another roommate at the time. And there's a couple sightings of Chico Tony a super nice guy. Back in San Diego he got kicked in the Adam's apple in a pit and had to have a tracheotomy. Oh, and another factoid: Billy Zoom, the guitarist in X (the band appears in "Decline"), was a rockabilly guy just a few years earlier and recorded for Ronny Weiser's Rollin' Rock record label (see song on yesterday's post). Anywho, here's the flick. Another one you would rarely see online just a few years ago.


~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Germs - Richie Dagger's Crime mp3 at The Adios Lounge
Germs - Communist Eyes mp3
at Modpoppunk Archive

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

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

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

ALL TOGETHER NOW

I just read a really good couple of lines in a book. "Everyone talked loud, smoked and drank, and made outrageous claims about what might happen and what they might do. And somehow, through shitty jobs and asshole bosses, we found time to rehearse and places to perform those half baked songs." That's John Doe of X, talking about the late seventies punk scene in L.A. circa '77-'79, It sounds like the beginning of every scene ever, but there is a difference. The beginning of most early punk scenes were considerably more DIY than other scenes, both before and after. In an era when word of mouth literally meant word of mouth. Shows, parties, records stores, and fanzines. That was the internet.

Doe just put out a book, Under the Big Black Sun, written partly by him, with chapters by others who were around at that time, including Exene Cervenka, Chris D, Pleasant Gehman, Mike Watt, Dave Alvin, a couple Go-Gos, and others, It's a good read. Some of them can write, some can't, and a couple seem a little self-absorbed, but it's all held together in purpose. Thirty some odd years ago the purpose was getting heard, now it's making sure everyone knows how it happened. Two miles uphill in the snow, bitches.

Here's a link to the first X 45, an appearance on Letterman a couple years later, and a link to the page for the book. You can even get an audio book version, voiced by the contributors themselves. That'd be kind of novel. I don't know. It might be kind of wrong.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
X - We're Desperate mp3 at Killed By Death Go there to get it.
X - Adult Books mp3
at Killed By Death Ditto.
Video:
X - Breathless
at YouTube Song starts at 2:33. David Letterman 1983
The book:
Under the Big Black Sun

Monday, July 4, 2016

I KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS, AND I'M STILL PISSED

Hell, I told myself I wouldn't post this, but for for aging West Coast elder punks, X's "Fourth of July" might as well be John Phillips Sousa for how often it gets dragged out on Independence Day. Still, I resisted. Then a friend posted the video on Facebook with the comment "It's not the 4th of July until I hear this", and I gotta say, having not heard it for at least a year, it sounded fine. Written by ex-Blaster Dave Alvin, when he replaced Billy Zoom as guitarist for X. He was only in the band for a short while, and has recorded the song himself, but I've always categorized it as an X song, because once you have the endearingly awkward harmonies of John Doe and Exene Cervenka on a song, it's an X song. Not to downplay Zoom's or Alvin's contributions to the band, or drummer D.J. Bonebrake's for that matter. John and Exene, as us aging West Coast elder punks like to refer to them, singing any song together makes it an X song in my book.

It's not even really about the Fourth of July. It's a guy lamenting the dissipating relationship with his squeeze, trying to re-woo her by reminding her that it's the Fourth, "Hey baby, it's the Fourth of July" is his plea. It really is a great song, I have to say. 

Dig the original X version, and a demo of it. If you're well familiar with X's version, check the live version by Alvin. He gets all Springsteen up in there, sans horns, the pianist doing the heavy lifting to great effect. Good shit Maynard.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
X - 4th of July mp3
at Bruised Fruit CDs
X - 4th of July
(demo, streaming) at YouTube
Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men - 4th of July (live) mp3
at Archive.org
Video:
X - Fourth of July at YouTube After Alvin's departure, Tony Gilkyson on guitar

Sunday, July 3, 2016

HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT

Cleaning out the old links, I ran into this page with radio spots and jingles for all sorts of things, some with celebrities, and a few with musicians. I gravitated toward the beer spots, nostalgic for the days when beer was beer, not some eight dollar a bottle scam. I don't drink beer anymore, so who am I to whine? Because it's the whole concept, fancy anything is a scam.

After listening to a few of the old school beer spots, I went against my better judgement and revisited some by rock bands. The Troggs for Miller, not all that surprising. But Cream? For Falstaff?  The Ramones for Miller Steel Reserve? X, for Budweiser? Yeesh! I needed a chaser. Neil Young's "This Note's for You" did the trick.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Budweiser mp3 at Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Schlitz mp3
at Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Ballantine Premium mp3
at Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Lowenbrau mp3
at Motor City Radio Flashbacks
The Troggs - Miller Beer mp3
at Motor City Radio Flashbacks
Cream - Falstaff mp3
at Rock Town Hall
The Ramones - Gimmie My Steel Reserve mp3
at Beware of the Blog
X - Bud Thing mp3
at Billy Zoom
Video:
Neil Young - This Note's For You
at YouTube Counterpoint
Visit:
More commercials
at Motor City Radio Flashbacks
More commercials by rock artists
Os Mutantes for Shell Oil. Lou Reed for Honda. Believe it.

Friday, September 19, 2014

MOVIE NIGHT, OR NOT

A quick one here for that small group of people who dig X, but have never seen the movie The Unheard Music. It's worth seeing, and even though it's been tucked away on YouTube for a while, I guarantee it won't be online for long, So make hay while the sun shines sucka. If the video's gone by the time you read this, wallow in audio.


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

Friday, July 4, 2014

THIS ISN'T FLAG WAVING

Here's X's "Fourth of July", an obvious choice for the day, or so it would appear. But song titles can be deceiving, and in this case the title is. It's actually about a guy on the outs with his girlfriend, trying to get her to soften up. Regardless, every fourth of July it runs through my head, so I'll just exorcise the sucker.

The song was written by Dave Alvin, the ex-Blaster, when he was in X. The released version is a little glossy for my tastes, but there's a streaming version of the demo down there. There's also a live version by Alvin and the Guilty Men, recorded some time after his departure from X.  The other version is by Early Winters, a band with a novel approach to recording. All the members live in different countries (or did at the time it was recorded) and they swap tracks via the internet. The last cut down there is just for kicks. It's X's Budweiser commercial, a token out of character WTF oddball.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
X - 4th of July mp3 at Bruised Fruit CDs
X - 4th of July (demo, streaming audio only) at YouTube
Early Winters - 4th of July mp3 at Scrink
Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men - 4th of July (live) mp3 at Archive.org

Oddball:
X - Bud Thing mp3 at BillyZoom.com

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

START OF SOMETHING BIGGER

You might think that any old fart that listens to punk rock from thirty odd years ago is stuck in the past, or trying to bring about a feeling of deja cool. But when I revisited the stuff below, the first thing that I flashed on was what the feeling was like, not the feeling of the music, or the feeling of what it felt like to be in with the out crowd. When I heard these, it reminded me of the the excitement of the open ended possibilities that these records represented. These tiny upstart record companies that seemed to pop up over night were not lapping up the condensation as it dripped off of the major labels tall cool one. They stepped in the puddle and went another day without water.

With the possible exception of the odd private pressing, or token 45 by a local bar band, these were the first independently released records that most of my friends had ever heard. They most definitely were for me. Just as in that old punk rock cliche "they can't play and they're in a band, and I can play three chords...", these records proved "I can put out a record". And many did. The links below lead to a good size chunk of ground zero for the L.A. punk scene and the surge of independent West Coast labels. These records and others released about that same time did no less than change the game.

These links lead to separate posts at Killed By Death, each with two to four songs, with the original sleeves . All of these records were released within a span of about two years on L.A. based labels, and all of the bands were from L.A., with the exception of the Dils and the Avengers, who from San Francisco.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY KILLED BY DEATH ~ 
Listen:
The Dils - I Hate the Rich 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

Monday, July 4, 2011

WE'RE AN AMERICAN BAND


It may be a rather obvious choice, today's featured selection. To anyone older than 40, into first generation U.S. punk, X's "4th of July" might as well be John Phillips Sousa. Never mind the fact that the lyrics to the song have little to do with patriotism. It's actually about a guy who's on the outs with his woman, moping and smoking cigarettes. He's trying to get her to lighten up, using the holiday as a feeble pass key. (But, you know what? That sounds exactly like something I'd do.) The song was written by Blasters guitarist Dave Alvin, during the short period that he was in X (what hardliners may refer to as X's shark jump). The early X were something special. No band sounded quite the same. Exene Cervenka and John Doe both had rather limited vocal talents, but interplay of the two together was pretty unique. And, jeez, with Billy Zoom (the first guitarist) and D.J. Bonebrake, they were a well soiled machine.

Check out the video below. Get your "(sigh) so young..." thing out of the way early, because it's a ride. It's from Letterman, in '83. Two songs and an interview. During the first song, they seem a little self conscious (though, I gotta say, it's the first time I've ever thought of Exene as cute). They all seem to be so happy, and with John Doe rocking the Porter Wagner do, it's easy to see Exene as some sort of raggedy ass Loretta Lynn. They seem to lighten up during the second segment, while being interviewed (it's a crack up). Then, antsy as all get out, they jump into the next song before Letterman even leaves the frame (at 6:30); a hot ass version of the Otis Blackwell's "Breathless" (made famous, of course, by the Killer). They're in their element, and what really gets me, remembering that this was a typical X performance. They really were that good, just about every night.



Here's X's version of "4th of July", and a couple others down there. One by Dave Alvin, recorded live in 2006 (the Belly Up Tavern, Solana Beach, CA). The other version, by Early Winters, is pretty damn good. I wanted to hate it, but I listened to it a couple times to clear out the old school ear wax. And the side story there is that the members of Early Winters all live in different countries, recording tracks and transferring files via the internet. (So, theirs has even less to do with patriotism.) There's a few other early X cuts (with Zoom), and two covers, and a bona fide oddball. Said oddball is X doing a Budweiser beer jingle, to the tune of "Wild Thing" ("Bud Thing"). The first cover is Elastica with Stephen Malkmus, doing "The Unheard Music" (which smokes), and the other is young'ins Yacht, doing a cover of "Nausea," that sounds Romeo Void-ish, if you can get your teeth into that.

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

4th of July:

X - 4th of July mp3 at Bruised Fruit CDs
X - 4th of July (demo, streaming audio only) at YouTube
Early Winters - 4th of July mp3 at Scrink
Dave Alvin & the Guilty Men - 4th of July (live) mp3 at Archive.org
X:
X - We're Desperate mp3 at Pop Dose
X - Nausea mp3 at The Bomarr Blog
X- We're Desperate mp3 & Adult Books (Dangerhouse) mp3s at 7 Inch Punk Note: This blog has MP3 linking disabled, so just go there, it's one more click. It is the Dangerhouse versions, so you may want them.
Oddball:
X - Bud Thing mp3 at BillyZoom.com
Covers:
Yacht - Nausea mp3 at Boom Boom Chik
Video:
X - We're Desperate (live, from The Decline of Western Civilization) at YouTube
X - The World's a Mess, It's in My kiss (live, from The Unheard Music) at YouTube
Related post:
Billy Zoom: Beyond X and Back

Sunday, November 9, 2008

ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES


"This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you."
~ Barack Obama, November 4, 2008..
.
During the last days of the presidential campaign, I was on the way home from my nightly swim when I ran into my neighbor Patty, a semi-retired oceanographer, on her way home from her nightly run feeding the stray cats up the block. After commenting on her Obama badge, we began talking about the election and our hopes that things would change, that the pendulum would swing towards making things better for all Americans, with an eye on global repercussions of our foreign policy..

After a couple minutes, another neighbor walked up. Matt is a Marine and member of a bomb disposal unit with two tours of Iraq under his belt. During the course of the campaign he had switched his allegiance and was to vote for a Democratic president for the first time. He opined that, with where the country had gone in the past eight years and where he saw it headed if McCain would be elected, he could not vote along party lines with so much at stake.
.
At this point in our street corner conversation, the sun was down, I'm still dripping wet and getting butt-ass cold. Right when we were getting ready to part ways, Willie, another neighbor from across the alley walked up. He was on his way home from work, as a cobbler & shoe shine man. He's a fixture in Ocean Beach, and has been here since I was a little kid. A few years ago, some racists burned his shoe shine stand to the ground (he's African-American) and some locals rebuilt a better one for him the very next day. His take was that it was much more than the last eight years. He had been waiting a long time for this, and while not going into detail, I knew from past conversations with him, that stealth racism was something that troubled him deeply. He doesn't bring it up much now that he's given up drinking (under doctor's orders), but when I used to run into him on his way home from the VFW bar, he'd let it spill.
.
After a few more minutes, the four of us went our separate ways. The three of them had each made two new friends, we all felt a sense of community and hope, and I went home shivering, feeling warmer then I had in quite a while.
.
Though more detached, I've experienced that same sense of community the last few days while visiting mp3 blogs. t's been really interesting to see the comments and song selections posted in reaction to election. Rather than just download songs, you really ought to check out the hosting blogs and take in what they're saying; from "Dream Come True", on Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop, a blog from a Brit expatriot, to the succinct "Fuck Yes!!", posted on the largely punk rock blog, Last Days of Man on Earth.
.
Bob & Marcia - Young Gifted and Black mp3
The Impressions - We're a Winner mp3 at Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop