Boing Boing » punk

Supplies for all your punk and punk-related needs

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:05:23 +0000

An undated ad for a punk store in Newcastle offers batty punk tees for a mere £4.50 -- mid-1980s punk revival?

MY GEAR FIXATION IS BACK IN FULL EFFECT. I’M LOSIN’ IT. (via Goths and Punks)

Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School Of Medicine's "White People and the Damage Done"

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:17:19 +0000

Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School Of Medicine's new album, White People and the Damage Done, is an artifact from an alternate reality in which the Dead Kennedys never dissolved in acrimony, and instead kept on gigging and recording, getting tighter and tighter, angrier and angrier, and yet, somehow, never aging. Jello Biafra's lyrics are unmistakably his, but moreso -- more sarcastic, more trenchant, more unapologetically political than ever. His delivery is even more caustic than in the Kennedys' heyday, and the backing band (which is something of an all-star punk act, with alumni from the Rollins band, Digital Underground, Butthole Surfers and more) is hard-driving and heavy and relentless.

There's not a bad track on this one, but the real standout is Shock-U-Py!, an anthem about the Occupy movement, which you can hear after the jump. Don't miss the spoken word break in the middle.

White People and the Damage Done [Amazon MP3]

White People and the Damage Done [Amazon UK MP3]

White People and the Damage Done [Alternative Tentacles -- LP, CD, MP3]

Jello Biafra talks Occupy, music, and Obama

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:27:02 +0000

In a great interview with the Guardian, former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra talks about Occupy, Obama, his break with the rest of the Kennedys, and his current band, Jello Biafra And The Guantanamo School Of Medicine (whose existence I'd somehow missed!).

It's depressing how conservative people can be despite supposedly belonging to a supposedly alternative subculture.
Any alternative culture that inspires a lot of passion and inspiration is also in danger of being set in its ways, almost from the moment it's born. That even included the Occupy movement in some ways. It was discussed whether or not to participate in the electoral side of the system at all, which I thought was a good idea. Why not run people for offices and knock off some of the tired old corporate puppets in the primaries, like those lovely people in the Tea Party have done with the Republicans? But other people chose not to do that.
You've been involved with the Occupy movement. (2) The initial media storm around it seems to have died down …
I think that anyone who declared that Occupy was a failure was very much mistaken. I knew it would have a ripple effect, like throwing a big piece of concrete into a lake and just watching the waves ripple. In a way, Obama owes Occupy big time for saving his ass in the 2012 election. Occupy brought the issue of inequality and Grand Theft Austerity, as I call it, right to the forefront.

Jello Biafra: 'Obama owes Occupy big time' (via MeFi)

Punk Rock Jesus: media-savvy second coming/reality TV comic

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:53:37 +0000

Sean Murphy's Punk Rock Jesus is a rockin' comic about the Second Coming. It opens with a psychotically ruthless show-runner arranging to clone Jesus from DNA salvaged from the Shroud of Turin, implanting a foetus in the womb of a teenaged virgin, all for a reality TV show that starts with auditions for the part of Christ's mother. Gwen, the desperate teen who gets the part, is only one of the many memorable characters who make up the resulting set piece: there's Dr Sarah Epstein, a brilliant geneticist who's been promised funding for a carbon-fixing superalgae if she helps create the clonal Christ; there's Thomas McKael, an IRA soldier turned supergrass turned super-security director, and several others who come to prominence as the story unfolds (including Cola, a genetically engineered tame polar bear).

The story perks along for the first third, as the dismal life of Chris -- as the clone is called -- is run out on the screens of America, and in the high-security compound on an offshore island under constant siege from militant Christian fundamentalists who are torn on the question of whether Chris is the second coming or a mocker. Then there's a turning point where Chris becomes and adolescent and discovers some of the seedier truths about his life and the miserable existence his mother has been forced into all through it.

That's when Punk Rock Jesus is born. To a thudding soundtrack of vintage punk smuggled in on vinyl (CDs would set off the metal detector) Chris gives himself a mohawk, tears his clothes to rags, and surprises his minders by stepping out on stage and declaring himself to be an atheist. In the ensuing chaos, Chris escapes from the network and its evil representatives and makes his way to the drowned TAZ of lower Manhattan where he becomes the front-man for a "the last punk band in the world," the Flak Jackets.

And that's when the story really roars to life, becoming at once sillier and more serious, but avoiding some of the ponderousness of the setup. Serious questions of religion's role in society are raised; rock is bepunkéd; dressing rooms are trashed; the media is expertly dissected. It's a near-perfect rocket-ship ride through some of the best material from comics like DMZ and Transmetropolitan, with a healthy dose of radical atheism and geopolitics thrown in.

It's got pathos, laughs, rage and comeuppances, and awesome punk rock not-giving-a-fuck. What more could you ask for?

Punk Rock Jesus

Some Rollins

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 14:08:01 +0000

JWZ, who has seen Henry Rollins "do his spoken word thing once a year since around 1912," has rounded up about an hour's worth of YouTube clips of some truly great Rollins rants for your Sunday viewing pleasure.

MONITOR: Los Angeles art punks, 1980

David Pescovitz — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:53:12 +0000

MONITOR was a short-lived Los Angeles art punk band that first performed on Halloween 1978. The group was part the experimental transmedia micro-scene of "Associated Skull Bands" like Nervous Gender, Human Hands, BPeople, and Boyd Rice's NON. Through the mail art network, MONITOR connected with DEVO pal Ed Barger who recorded MONITOR's self-titled LP in 1980. Writing for the Los Angeles Reader, Matt Groening (yes, that Matt Groening) said in 1981 that "MONITOR's debut album, a compendium of mutant amplified folk tunes is the best local release I've heard all year." Now, Superior Viaduct records has reissued that LP on CD with additional bonus tracks. Special note: the track "Hair" on the album was actually performed by The Meat Puppets at MONITOR's invitation. MONITOR: s/t CD

Kepler Aria: Belgrade punks rocking out with lyrics by Bruce Sterling

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 03:21:27 +0000

Here's Boing Boing pal Jasmina Tesanovic performing "Kepler Aria," with lyrics by Bruce Sterling:

"Kepler Aria," the Belgrade punk rock version, from "Ground Control: An Opera in Space
Mylutin and Bag of Dicks:
vocals: Jasmina Tesanovic
guitar: Milutin Petrovic
bass: Filip Cetkovic
drums: Vladimir Markoski
mixed by Vlatko Dragovic
Kepler Aria lyrics by Bruce Sterling

Kepler Aria:Punk Rock Star

History of punk podcast

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:57:27 +0000

The nice folks at the Tank Riot podcast did a great job with their new punk episode, reviewing the early history of punk and some of its later mutations (MP3, subscribe)

Confessions of a fifth grade punk

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 22:58:34 +0000

From Taylor-Ruth's Tumblr, a page from her fifth grade diary. She was unquestionably the most punk fifth grader she knew, and possibly the most punk fifth grader in history. If you're trying to place the chronology here, note that Taylor-Ruth identifies as an Indiana high-school senior (she's also a great cartoonist!).

actual diary entry from when i was in 5th grade oh my god (via Wil Wheaton)

Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order) interview streaming live tomorrow

David Pescovitz — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:50:35 +0000

Tomorrow night, I'll be interviewing Peter Hook, the legendary bassist for Joy Division and New Order, live on stage at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. Peter has a fascinating new memoir out titled Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division. As I previously posted, it's a well-written, deeply personal, informative, and quite witty story of four young men in Manchester who played their first gig in 1977 and went on to transform post-punk, dance music, and the aesthetics of alternative culture. The free event is fully-reserved, but I'm delighted that the JCCSF will be streaming it live online beginning at 7pm PST. You can watch it here at the JCCSF Arts & Ideas site.

UPDATE: I'm told there will be an overflow room at the event to watch the program via CCTV. It will not be streaming online.

San Francisco: Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order) to be interviewed by Pesco

Punk Voyager: when the punks launched their own space-probe

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 20:00:42 +0000

"Punk Voyager" is this week's story on the Escape Pod podcast, and it is fucking amazing. It's Shaenon Garrity story about punks at the twilight of the 1970s who are drunkenly outraged to discover that the Voyager probe has been launched with classical music records for aliens. They build their own Voyager probe out of garbage, razor-blades, beer cans and a surfboard some douchebag left on the beach, filled with all the most important human artifacts that they can find in their van. They forget about it as the 80s roar in, and then the aliens come to Earth and cockpunch Ronald Reagan.

Fuck yeah.

Punk Voyager was built by punks. They made it from beer cans, razors, safety pins, and a surfboard some D-bag had left on the beach. Also plutonium. Where did they get plutonium? Around. Fuck you.
The punks who built Punk Voyager were Johnny Bonesaw, Johnny Razor, Mexican Johnny D-bag, Red Viscera, and some other guys. No, asshole, nobody remembers what other guys. They were Fucking wasted, these punks. They’d been drinking on the San Diego beach all day and night, talking about making a run to Tijuana and then forgetting and punching each other. They’d built a fire on the beach, and all night the fire went up and went down while the punks threw beer cans at the seagulls.
Forget the shit I just said, it wasn’t the punks who did it. They were Fucking punks. The hell they know about astro-engineering? Truth is that Punk Voyager was the strung-out masterpiece of Mexican Johnny D-bag’s girlfriend, Lacuna, who had a doctorate in structural engineering. Before she burned out and ran for the coast, Lacuna was named Alice McGuire and built secret nuclear submarines for a government contractor in Ohio. It sucked. But that was where she got the skills to construct an unmanned deep-space probe. Same principle, right? Keep the radiation in and the water out. Or the vacuum of space, whatever, it’s all the same shit to an engineer.
Fuck that, it wasn’t really Lacuna’s baby. It wasn’t her idea. The idea was Red’s.
“Fucking space,” he said that fateful night. He was lying on his back looking up at space, is why he said it.
“Hell yeah,” said Johnny Bonesaw.

Punk Voyager

The Go-Go's, Pere Ubu, The Police, and dozens more live, c. 1982

David Pescovitz — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:49:29 +0000

Here are The Go-Go's performing "We Got The Beat" from the legendary 1982 film "Urgh! A Music War." If you're not familiar with "Urgh!," it's a UK performance film featuring dozens of excellent New Wave and post-punk acts like Devo, Dead Kennedys, Pere Ubu, Echo & The Bunnymen, Klaus Nomi, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, The Police, Gary Numan, Gang of Four, The Cramps, X, and many more. Please enjoy the entire film, viewable below, or purchase your own DVD-R here.

Punk playing cards

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:47:49 +0000

The "Urban Punk" card-deck's up on Kickstarter, starting at $10. I especially like the face-cards -- the gas-mask kills me.

We viewed both the physical cards and traditional designs as a “washed out” concrete wall where the bits of stencil-style graffiti imagery are the energizing and vibrant pop. This imagery also alters the traditional court designs into the punk subcultures. The motto is to break out from the norm, be different, be unique.

New Release : Urban Punk Bicycle Playing Cards (Thanks, Scott!)

Purple and blue natural wigs

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 21:38:56 +0000

Old wig ads have some inherent comedy, sitting at the intersection of fashion, human tissue trafficking, and so forth. But when you throw in enthusiastic descriptions of the "head turning, naturally beautiful" wigs alongside elaborate purple and blue hairstyles, the internal contradictions really start to throw off sparks.

Revenge of the blue (and purple??) hair

Fugazi, the edits: an entire discography remixed down to one album-length study of rhythm and tension

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:29:48 +0000

Fugazi in action. Photograph by Glen E. Friedman.

Marc Weidenbaum at Disquiet writes about a new project of interests to all fans of Fugazi, DC hardcore, and cultural mashups:

"This guy named Chris Lawhorn has, with Fugazi's permission, made a full album in which every track combines four or more Fugazi songs into a new song, says Marc.

"Lawhorn focused almost entirely on the instrumental materials," he adds. "I think it's tensile and wonderful, and I interviewed him."

Check out both at disquiet.com.

Dee Dee Ramone gets a posthumous art show at Shepard Fairey's Subliminal Projects

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:54:12 +0000

The Los Angeles Times reports that "The late Dee Dee Ramone will receive a posthumous gallery exhibition of his artwork thanks to street artist Shepard Fairey," at the Subliminal Projects gallery in Echo Park (Oct. 26 through Nov. 17).

Ronald Reagan collage art show by Winston Smith and friends

David Pescovitz — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:12:40 +0000

This Friday at Grant's Tomb in San Francisco, "The Beginning of the End: Ronald Reagan's Legacy," a show of new and classic collage art by Winston Smith, Fast, Cheap & Easy Graphics, Ron Donovan, and Jon-Paul Bail. The event is one-night-only, tomorrow (10/5) from 6pm to 11pm at 50-A Bannam Place (tiny alley off Union Street at Grant in North Beach.) Below, two more of Winston's Reagan pieces from those oh-so-fun 1980s.

World's tallest mohawk

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:21:09 +0000

A Tokyo fashion designer did a public appearance in New York's Washington Square Park in order to show off his 3' 8.6" mohawk, which has held the Guinness World Record for world's tallest mohawk since 2011. More from the Houston Chronicle

Forty-year-old Kazuhiro Watanabe (kah-zoo-HEE'-roh wah-tah-NAH'-bee) says he's been growing the hair for 15 years. He says to make it stand upright it takes stylists two hours, one can of gel and three cans of hairspray. He says he wanted to grow the mohawk to rebel against the conformity of Japanese society.

Man shows off Guinness' tallest mohawk in NYC park (via Neatorama)

(Image: downsized, cropped thumbnail from a picture by Guinness World Records)

We Got Power!: Hardcore Punk Scenes from 1980s Southern California - exclusive photo gallery excerpt

Mark Frauenfelder — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 17:59:54 +0000

Jello Biafra as the president of the United States in Lovedolls Superstar, occupying an empty office adjacent to SST/Global, 1985. JORDAN SCHWARTZ

We Got Power! is a book of nearly 400 photographs taken for an early-1980s LA hardcore punk zine of the same name. The book includes new essays by Keith Morris of the Circle Jerks, Louiche Mayorga of Suicidal Tendencies, Steve Human of The Vandals, Tony Reflex of The Adolescents, and Henry Rollins, Chuck Dukowski, and Dez Cadena of Black Flag, and more. It also includes the complete color reprints of the We Got Power fanzine from 1981–1983 and beyond.

After the jump, a gallery of photographs from the book (posted with the kind permission of the publisher, Bazillion Points Books).

There's also an exhibit in Santa Monica that will open September 8 at Track 16 gallery.

Buy We Got Power!: Hardcore Punk Scenes from 1980s Southern California on Amazon

As teenagers in 1981, David Markey and his best friend Jordan Schwartz founded We Got Power, a fanzine dedicated to the first-generation hardcore punk music community in their native Los Angeles. Their text and cameras captured the early punk spirit of The Minutemen, Saccharine Trust, Black Flag, Circle One, White Flag, Sin 34, The Gun Club, Overkill, Circle Jerks, The Descendents, Red Cross/Redd Kross, Firehose, Jello Biafra, Youth Brigade, Suicidal Tendencies, JFA, Big Boys, Nip Drivers, Butthole Surfers, D.R.I., Government Issue, Social Distortion, Red Scare, Gone, M.D.C., Vox Pop, Symbol Six, Wasted Youth, RF7, the Go-Go's, and many others at the height of their precocious punk powers.

In the process, the duo's amazing photographs also captured the dilapidated suburbs, abandoned storefronts, and dereliction of the early Reagan era-a rubble-strewn social apocalypse that demanded a youth uprising! Never before seen except in crude fanzine form, these detailed and richly narrative photos are now collected to present an intimate portrayal of a uniquely fertile creative moment.

Mike Roth at We Got Power headquarters—Dave Markey’s bedroom—1982. Mike became a Calvin Klein model after being stolen from We Got Power by fashion photographer Bruce Weber. DAVID MARKEY

Onetime Sin 34 guitarist Bob Bitchen, sporting a clean punk haircut, shows off a photo of himself in longer-locked days. DAVID MARKEY

The Go-Go’s, the Whisky A Go Go, January 1, 1981. This was one of my first times going out in Hollywood, as a 17-year-old kid. They didn’t let cameras into the Whisky, and I had to sneak in my Pentax K1000 35mm. DAVID MARKEY

Mike Muir of Suicidal Tendencies with skanker on his shoulders. The youngest kid behind him is Junior. JORDAN SCHWARTZ

The black-light posters identify this space immediately as Bob’s Place in Watts. You risked your life by going there, but that was where the gigs were happening in 1982 and 1983. The last show there was raided by some locals who were clearly miffed that suburban white punks had taken over their dance hall. They raided the gig, mugging punks for their cameras. A girl was raped in the bathroom. That was the end of Bob’s Place. JORDAN SCHWARTZ

Dez Cadena checking out the Minutemen at the Grandia Room, 1982. Oftentimes, nobody was going to see these bands except their friends in other bands. The Minutemen didn’t really have a crowd until Double Nickels on the Dime in 1984. JORDAN SCHWARTZ

Milo Aukerman and the Descendents, Glen E. Friedman with his camera visible in audience. 1982

Marlon Whitfield in leather cap and Joe Baiza in fedora, Mari Castelli caught somewhere in the middle, Santa Barbara. JORDAN SCHWARTZ

Left to Right, Greg Ginn, Henry Rollins, and Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag, SST Phelan office, on Phelan St. in Redondo Beach. DAVID MARKEY

Fresh ink on Henry Rollins, the birth of an icon, 1984. DAVID MARKEY

Youth of America Unite! The rear of the Punk Shack during demolition. Local anti-punk surfers crossed out our Black Flag graffiti as part of an ongoing war. A year or two later, these same culprits would cut their long surfer hair and don Suicidal Tendencies shirts. DAVID MARKEY

Pussy Riot's closing statement

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 17:59:21 +0000

Argument in the show-trial of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot -- who gave an unlicensed anti-Putin performance in a cathedral and now face harsh, Stalinist justice for daring to point out the spy-emperor's nudity -- has concluded. Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich has given a tremendous closing statement, which is a masterful summary of Russian oligarchy:

The fact that Christ the Savior Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of our powers that be was already clear to many thinking people when Vladimir Putin’s former [KGB] colleague Kirill Gundyaev took over as head of the Russian Orthodox Church. After this happened, Christ the Savior Cathedral began to be used openly as a flashy setting for the politics of the security services, which are the main source of power [in Russia].
Why did Putin feel the need to exploit the Orthodox religion and its aesthetics? After all, he could have employed his own, far more secular tools of power—for example, national corporations, or his menacing police system, or his own obedient judiciary system. It may be that the tough, failed policies of Putin’s government, the incident with the submarine Kursk, the bombings of civilians in broad daylight, and other unpleasant moments in his political career forced him to ponder the fact that it was high time to resign; otherwise, the citizens of Russia would help him do this. Apparently, it was then that he felt the need for more convincing, transcendental guarantees of his long tenure at the helm. It was here that the need arose to make use of the aesthetics of the Orthodox religion, historically associated with the heyday of Imperial Russia, where power came not from earthly manifestations such as democratic elections and civil society, but from God Himself.
How did he succeed in doing this? After all, we still have a secular state, and shouldn’t any intersection of the religious and political spheres be dealt with severely by our vigilant and critically minded society? Here, apparently, the authorities took advantage of a certain deficit of Orthodox aesthetics in Soviet times, when the Orthodox religion had the aura of a lost history, of something crushed and damaged by the Soviet totalitarian regime, and was thus an opposition culture. The authorities decided to appropriate this historical effect of loss and present their new political project to restore Russia’s lost spiritual values, a project which has little to do with a genuine concern for preservation of Russian Orthodoxy’s history and culture.
It was also fairly logical that the Russian Orthodox Church, which has long had a mystical connection with power, emerged as this project’s principal executor in the media. Moreover, it was also agreed that the Russian Orthodox Church, unlike the Soviet era, when the church opposed, above all, the crudeness of the authorities towards history itself, should also confront all baleful manifestations of contemporary mass culture, with its concept of diversity and tolerance.

Olenska | Yekaterina Samutsevich closing statement at the Pussy Riot Trial

Disinfo Podcast interview with Henry Rollins

Mark Frauenfelder — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 18:07:48 +0000

Matt Staggs, the host of the Disinfo podcast, says

I interviewed legendary punk icon, world traveler, and lecturer Henry Rollins, Rollins. He is intensely focused on creating a better world and a better America, and much of the conversation is devoted to that, but we also get into the overlap between his music career and his work as a humanitarian, his acting career and a few hilarious stories from the Black Flag days.

The DisinfoCast with Matt Staggs: Episode 18: Henry Rollins

How Henry Rollins gave up scooping ice-cream to be a full-time punk

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 22:13:35 +0000

Henry Rollins makes an appearance in the Big Think video series, explaining how he came to quit his job at the Haagen Dazs to sing for Black Flag. Jason Gots writes on Big Think:

That was 30 years ago. The years Rollins spent in Black Flag launched his career as a musician, writer, and performer. He seized the opportunity, ran with it, and numerous albums, books, films and tv shows later, he's still running. Rollins says of the Black Flag audition that he "won the lottery." Ok, the timing was lucky. But it was Rollins' energy as part of the DC punk scene (while working those day jobs) that earned him Black Flag's friendship, which got him the guest-spot, which got him the audition. And a less humble, hardworking guy might very well have burned out after a year on tour and ended up at rehab, then back at Haagen Dazs.
Instead, Rollins took calculated risk and decisive action at the right moment, then committed fully to making the most of the life he'd chosen for himself. And instead of resting on his laurels, he's continued to learn, grow, and reinvent himself. That's what makes him heroic. What Kahneman's studies don't tell us is which of those once-aspiring actors worked tirelessly to create, then seize opportunity, nor how many of those failed entrepreneurs picked themselves up and went on to succeed in other bold ventures.

Henry Rollins: The One Decision That Changed My Life Forever

HOWTO make cheap Louboutin knockoffs

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:36:25 +0000

British women are painting their shoe soles bright red to replicate that expensive Louboutin look. For your own Beckhampunk effort, use Duracoat 'Flame' or 'Show Stopper' and a size 4 brush. [Telegraph]

PUNKS NOT DAD pays tribute to Monkey Boots

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 05:27:59 +0000

Dan writes, "Monkey Boots: The latest hilarious DIY video from the middle aged British punk band, Punks Not dad. This time dealing with retro footwear and a west side story rumble between punks and fans of Adam and the Ants in 1981. This video is introduced by sitcom legend Peter Bowles From to the manor born, who also provides a Vincent-Price-in-Thriller style voice-over."

'MONKEY BOOTS' by PUNKS NOT DAD featuring PETER BOWLES - NEW SINGLE OUT NOW (Thanks, Dan!)

Richard Kadrey and John Shirley at SF in SF this Saturday

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:40:51 +0000

The next SF in SF reading series on July 7 is a punk-rock extravaganza: John Shirley and Richard Kadrey, the guys who put the "punk" in cyberpunk, reading together. Kadrey, of course, has reinvented himself as a totally hard-boiled, awesome horror writer with his triumphant Sandman Slim series (I've just read a proof of the next one, and it's killer). Shirley's short story collection was one of the most excitingly mutated books of 2011.

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM
Event begins at 7:00PM
Suggested $5 - $10 donation at the door helps support Variety Childrens' Charity of Northern California
Seating is first come, first seated
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor -- entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery

July Reading – John Shirley & Richard Kadrey (Thanks, Rina!)

“Freeware” compilation of LA Post-Punk and Indie-Wave music, 1977-1987

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:49:30 +0000

My friend Sean Bonner just pointed me to a wonderful music history project, put together by Brian Stefans: at lapostpunk.blogspot.com, an MP3 compilation of post-punk and experimental pop music in the Los Angeles area from the mid-seventies through the mid-eighties.

I kind of think of this as a portrait of the city at the time more than a collection of tracks that will change the world (though more than a handful I think are unfairly neglected). I’m wondering if someone like Rhino Records would want to do a Nuggets-type collection from the period? They already have one of Los Angeles from 1965-1968 called Where The Action Is.

Incredibly comprehensive. What a labor of love. There's a Volume one, and a Volume two.

Huge, dumb booze producer Diageo orders industry association to give them the prize that had been awarded to small, spunky competitor

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 10 May 2012 11:00:40 +0000

BrewDog is a spunky craft brewer in Scotland. Diageo is a titanic owner of booze brands, a kind of Wal*Mart of booze. The British Institute of Innkeeping is their mutual trade association.

Last Sunday, the BII's independent judges awarded BrewDog a prize for Bar Operator of the Year. When Diageo found out -- just ahead of the ceremony -- that a company affiliated with them hadn't won the prize, they threw a tantrum and said that they would cease all sponsorship of BII events unless the prize was given to them.

So BrewDog -- who'd been told in advance that they'd won -- sat at their table at the banquet with jaws on their chests as their competitor's name was read out by the announcer, and representatives from Diageo's chosen bar got up on stage to accept an award whose plaque clearly said "BREWDOG: BAR OPERATOR OF THE YEAR." The farce has turned into a scandal, and Diageo has issued a non-apology of the "mistakes were made" sort.

BrewDog is pissed:

As for Diageo, once you cut through the glam veneer of pseudo corporate responsibility this incident shows them to be a band of dishonest hammerheads and dumb ass corporate freaks. No soul and no morals, with the integrity of a rabid dog and the style of a wart hog.
Perhaps more tellingly it is an unwitting microcosm for just how the beer industry is changing and just how scared and jealous the gimp-like establishment are of the craft beer revolutionaries.
We would advise them to drink some craft beer. To taste the hops and live the dream. It is hard to be a judas goat when you are drinking a Punk IPA.
Walk tall, kick ass and learn to speak craft beer.

Diageo Screw BrewDog (Thanks, Chris!)

Adam "MCA" Yauch of the Beastie Boys, by photographer Glen E. Friedman: "why A you see H"

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 05 May 2012 20:45:08 +0000

Photographer Glen E. Friedman, widely known for his work chronicling the intersection between punk rock and hiphop in the 1980s, has posted some beautiful shots of MCA, Ad-Rock, and Mike D from that era: "why A you see H".

Jonathan Lethem discusses his tribute to Talking Heads' Fear of Music

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 05 May 2012 05:14:42 +0000

Jonathan Lethem's latest is a book in the 33 1/3 series, Talking Heads' Fear of Music, a tribute to Talking Heads brilliant, seminal album, one of the greatest records of all time. In Wired, Geeta Dayal interviews Lethem about his book and the approach he took, and leaves me drooling for the chance to read it myself:

Lethem chose not to take a journalistic approach with Fear of Music; there are no interviews with the band members, Eno or anyone else involved in the album’s creation. “I didn’t want this to be a kind of post-mortem reconstruction,” Lethem said. “I wanted the entire record to spring from my encounter with it — the tangle of ideas that continued to stick from that experience.”
The core characters in Lethem’s book are the band’s four members. “What I was arguing for was the sanctity of the foursome,” Lethem said. “The collaborative unit of more or less equal parts.”
Fear of Music, Lethem said, turned out to be “really slippery” as a subject. The album seemed to raise more questions than it answered.
“Is it the band? Is it Eno? Is it David Byrne? Is it 1979? Is it punk?” Lethem said. “I’m still really interested in unearthing, excavating in that book the feeling of that band, and what they signified. Even the dress and the haircuts and the weird clarity of the song titles, and the arty minimalism of their album designs — all of this seemed to be saying something.”
Lethem’s passion for the group comes through forcefully in his writing. “Talking Heads were the definitive New York rock band,” Lethem declares in the book. “Manhattan band, if you want to give the outer boroughs to the Ramones.” Later, he writes, “The violence of my identification with Fear of Music remains durably interesting to me even after I debunk it by shifting into this bland generational perspective, even after I admit it really isn’t violence, except in a there’s a war in my mind kind of way.”

Jonathan Lethem Riffs on Talking Heads in Fear of Music

Remembering Adam Yauch: Polly Wog Stew

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:57:34 +0000

Earlier this morning, Pesco posted the awful news that Adam "MCA" Yauch died this morning at age 47. Words here can't express how sad I am, reading that news. Hits home in part because I'm fighting the same disease, and in part because the Beasties were such a formative part of my subcultural education as I grew into my teen years.

The first time I heard them, and Adam Yauch, was when a friend from middle school handed me a home-copied dupe of this cassette tape EP [YouTube, and you can still buy copies on Amazon]. I played it over and over until that little black ribbon wore right out. Some of you may not know that the Beasties were a hardcore band before they became a hiphop band. Now you do.

I've embedded some Beastie videos from that era below. Fuck you, cancer.

(HT @theory)