November 28, 2012
MY BEDROOM WALLS  TACOMA 1982 I don’t know why but I remember that at the moment this photo was snapped I was play-menacing our house cat, a cat whose name escapes me now.  I mention this because that same cat would later take a voluminous piss in the middle of a huge stack of my Punk flyers when I was in the process of rearranging my walls one weekend in 1982. This incident ruined half of them, sending them to the trash heap of history. I am glad I have this photo so that the image of some of those dead flyers can live on. After I discovered the pool in the middle of my precious paper I wanted to drop kick that cat but it was probably curled up on my lap the next day. What are ya gonna do, ya know? As this photo suggests, I was a voracious collector of flyers in my Punk Rock youth. After moving to San Diego in 83 I also gained something of a reputation as a flyer artist myself. You can search the archives of this blog for evidence of my artistic contributions to the So Cal Punk aesthetic of the 80’s if you’d like to take a look. When I was a kid I combed the streets and studied every telephone pole of Seattle for any Punk or Punk-like flyer I could find. I was also very forward about ingratiating myself with the jaded record store employees of University Ave. in an effort to get a hold of any posters like the ones I’d see hanging on the walls of the shops I visited every weekend. I still have that Dead Kennedys In God We Trust, Inc. poster you see behind me rolled up in a tube somewhere. The other major source for amassing wall art was my compulsive pen pal and mailorder activities in that era. Half the time I received a letter from a kid in Detroit, LA, Texas or wherever there were flyers stuffed in the envelope too. The backs of show flyers were often themselves used as stationary. The people who ran my favorite record labels like Touch and Go, Dischord, and many, many more were also really just a little older than kids themselves and they were almost always responsive when I asked if they could throw in some local flyers with my record order. I remember being particularly jazzed when Jeff Nelson from Minor Threat sent me that beautiful three color mini poster from the band’s Wilson Center show with Government Issue. That’s another one I still have around somewhere. It’s down in the left hand corner of the photo. One other thing I want to mention is my Motorhead shirt. I loved that shirt. It’s funny to think back now from the vantage point of our hyper merchandised, consumer minded era but back in the early 80’s most Hardcore and Punk bands didn’t even sell t-shirts or anything at shows as far as I remember. Bands like Black Flag just set up, played, packed up and left. It wasn’t until around 84 that bands really got into the apparel business. Back in 81/82 you kinda had to look to the metal side of things to hit screen print gold.  How times change. (Photo of me in my room in Tacoma, WA. 1982 from my personal archives)

MY BEDROOM WALLS  TACOMA 1982

I don’t know why but I remember that at the moment this photo was snapped I was play-menacing our house cat, a cat whose name escapes me now. 

I mention this because that same cat would later take a voluminous piss in the middle of a huge stack of my Punk flyers when I was in the process of rearranging my walls one weekend in 1982. This incident ruined half of them, sending them to the trash heap of history. I am glad I have this photo so that the image of some of those dead flyers can live on. After I discovered the pool in the middle of my precious paper I wanted to drop kick that cat but it was probably curled up on my lap the next day. What are ya gonna do, ya know?

As this photo suggests, I was a voracious collector of flyers in my Punk Rock youth. After moving to San Diego in 83 I also gained something of a reputation as a flyer artist myself. You can search the archives of this blog for evidence of my artistic contributions to the So Cal Punk aesthetic of the 80’s if you’d like to take a look.

When I was a kid I combed the streets and studied every telephone pole of Seattle for any Punk or Punk-like flyer I could find. I was also very forward about ingratiating myself with the jaded record store employees of University Ave. in an effort to get a hold of any posters like the ones I’d see hanging on the walls of the shops I visited every weekend. I still have that Dead Kennedys In God We Trust, Inc. poster you see behind me rolled up in a tube somewhere.

The other major source for amassing wall art was my compulsive pen pal and mailorder activities in that era. Half the time I received a letter from a kid in Detroit, LA, Texas or wherever there were flyers stuffed in the envelope too. The backs of show flyers were often themselves used as stationary. The people who ran my favorite record labels like Touch and Go, Dischord, and many, many more were also really just a little older than kids themselves and they were almost always responsive when I asked if they could throw in some local flyers with my record order.

I remember being particularly jazzed when Jeff Nelson from Minor Threat sent me that beautiful three color mini poster from the band’s Wilson Center show with Government Issue. That’s another one I still have around somewhere. It’s down in the left hand corner of the photo.

One other thing I want to mention is my Motorhead shirt. I loved that shirt. It’s funny to think back now from the vantage point of our hyper merchandised, consumer minded era but back in the early 80’s most Hardcore and Punk bands didn’t even sell t-shirts or anything at shows as far as I remember. Bands like Black Flag just set up, played, packed up and left. It wasn’t until around 84 that bands really got into the apparel business. Back in 81/82 you kinda had to look to the metal side of things to hit screen print gold. 

How times change.

(Photo of me in my room in Tacoma, WA. 1982 from my personal archives)

8:28am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvYE2QPO
(Notes: 35)
  
Filed under: 1982 Minor Threat appendix black flag circle jerks crucifix dead kennedys descendents dischord doa hardcore metal motorhead punk rock n roll san diego seattle shawn kerri tacoma tsol vandals wasted youth misfits 
October 21, 2012

LETTER ART FROM TOM NIEMEYER OF THE ACCUSED  TACOMA/SAN DIEGO 1982/83

Once upon a time, in a far away land before Googles started Googling and no Tumblrs had ever Tumbld there was only one way for young Punked Rawkers to share their thoughts and images with other such youths in far away corners of the Kingdom. It wasn’t done with a click, it wasn’t done with a mouse, back in this time they had to leave the house…and go to the Post Office.

 In some previous blogs I’ve written about the crucial role the Postal Service played in allowing the Punk Rock virus to spread, morph into a social network, and infiltrate all corners of the globe back in the 80’s. I’ve written about the pleasure of waiting for a package to arrive and of the delayed gratification inherent in these exchanges. Another viscerally delightful aspect of the written communications of this time that I can’t emphasize enough was the physicality of the exchanges. 

When you read a letter a kid sent you from another town, state or continent you weren’t looking at a computer screen. You were looking at their handwriting written on a piece of paper that their hand had pressed on, that paper was from somewhere else and it was carried to your door from another city by people. The envelopes had weight, and texture, and they were often covered in and filled with drawings, band logos, and stickers. This handmade, tactile reality was a big part of the experience that was the Punk Rock social network of the early 80’s.

Looking through the shoe boxes of correspondence from my prime Punk Rock pen pal years of 1981-84 reminds me in a visceral way that Punk Rock/Hardcore was a user-generated folk movement. It was a mostly handmade, totally non-corporate, non-commercial, spontaneous burst of art and attitude made almost exclusively by kids for kids. After looking through a bunch of my letters from that era I realized that many of the heavily adorned envelopes were themselves a form of folk art.

One of the best envelope folk artists I corresponded with in the early 80’s was my pen-friend Tom Niemeyer of the now-legendary Splatter Rock, Grind, Thrash, Punk/Metal pioneers The Accused. I think I first met Tom at a Black Flag show in Seattle in 1982 though after 30 years I’m a little foggy on the what, where’s and when’s. All I know is he and I continued to correspond for  few years after I moved from the Northwest to San Diego in 1983. He was and still is a super cool dude, whose music and artwork defined a whole wing of the Seattle hard and heavy music scene from the Hardcore days through the Grunge period all the way to today. Martha Splatterhead Lives!

Tom Niemeyer envelope art from my personal archives.

9:17am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvViaQhG
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: the accused martha splatterhead crossover thrash metal thrash metal seattle fartz black flag punk hardcore 
April 29, 2012
FEAR, CODE OF HONOR, THE FARTZ  FLYER SEATTLE 1982 No big story about this one. It’s just a flyer I’ve carried around with me for exactly 30 years. It was one of the first few Punk shows I ever saw. I loved every minute of it.  Fear, Code of Honor, The Fartz flyer from my personal archives.

FEAR, CODE OF HONOR, THE FARTZ  FLYER SEATTLE 1982

No big story about this one. It’s just a flyer I’ve carried around with me for exactly 30 years. It was one of the first few Punk shows I ever saw. I loved every minute of it. 

Fear, Code of Honor, The Fartz flyer from my personal archives.

7:01pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvKb35WY
(Notes: 27)
  
Filed under: FEAR code of honor the fartz seattle the showbox 
April 5, 2012
CIRCLE JERKS THE FARTZ @ THE SHOWBOX FLYER  SEATTLE 1982 This post isn’t gonna do anything to improve my standing as a cool guy but it’s guaranteed to send my mom’s coolness portfolio through the roof. I pulled this flyer off the side of a derelict building in Seattle in 1982. I’d seen it there from the window of a bus I was riding on. Upon catching a glimpse of it I immediately rang the bell, got off the bus and doubled back to grab it. This wasn’t because I wanted to learn about an upcoming show but rather because I wanted a memento of a show I’d already seen. A show that changed my life because (I think) it was the first Punk show I went to. I’d been a teenager a for all of a couple months when I saw this show listed in the calendar section of The Rocket, Seattle’s hip, free, bi-weekly paper at the time. I’d missed a couple Punk shows that I’d been aware of in the preceding months but this was the one I knew I had to get to come hell or high water. The Circle Jerks Group Sex  LP was in constant and very heavy rotation at my house and I couldn’t bear the thought of missing this chance to see them live. There were a few little problems standing between me and my dream however…I didn’t have a cent, I was living in Tacoma, and the show was on 1st Ave in Seattle! If you’re familiar with Seattle I should probably explain that this was not the 1st Ave of today, teeming with families and tourists. This was also not the Showbox at the Market as the theater is known today (a legit venue that features top-tier acts and sometimes plays host to corporate events). Back in ‘82 The Showbox was a bare-bones, dilapidated old ballroom that looked and smelled like its best days had been located somewhere in the Jazz age. 1st Avenue was a very sketchy stretch of downtown that at the time was ruled by a gang of tough street kids who hung around the center of vice in the area, a place with a name  that suggests it was a heart of darkness, a place called: The Donut Hole. The “Donut Holer’s” as the gang was known, were notorious among the Punks I knew in Seattle for terrorizing everyone, but especially Punks. These ne’er-do-wells were just one color in the palette of menace that I understood 1st Ave to be.  All that would’ve been okay with me if my mom hadn’t also known about the reputation of the place just as well as I did. When I told her I needed a ride to the show when we visited my grandparents that weekend she told me there was no way on Earth she was going to drop her kid off on 1st Ave. on a Saturday night to go to see a “Punk Rock” band. This was simply out of the question. Being the very cool, very supportive, woman she was then and still is now, upon seeing the utter dejection and desperation written in every inch of my small frame she said she’d let me and my brother go to the show on one condition: she’d have to come along with us. I was completely aware of how utterly uncool and at odds with my Punk Rock fantasies this idea was. I was also a realist and I knew that my show-going fantasies were going to stay fantasies if I didn’t take her up on her (looking back now, wildly selfless and very generous) offer. I accepted her offer on the spot. So did my brother. In the interest of giving my mom her full, undiluted due and maybe even as a way of etching her name in the temple of all-time Punk heroes, I should make a couple things clear. This wasn’t a time when well-to-do Yuppies had neck tattoos, the songs of The Stooges weren’t used to sell Volkswagens, and only women and guys in The Castro district of San Francisco had pierced ears. What I’m saying is: Punk Rock was not a well-known, culturally accepted thing at this time. Most parents if they knew anything about it were terrified and or disgusted by the idea of it.  This wasn’t Warped Tour U.S.A. and Punk Rock was to say the least, very edgy.  It should also be said that my mom wasn’t a counter-culture maven, biker mama, barfly, or burnout. She worked almost all her life as a librarian, educator, and library administrator. She was and still is a voracious reader, a kind soul, and is a fine upstanding citizen. She listens to Classical music. However this night  in 1982 she put on a pair of engineer boots, a Motorhead t-shirt, tucked in her jeans, and listened to and watched The Fartz bash out their brand of political thrash before the Circle Jerks came out a blew everyone away with their super-charged kinetic insanity. She got the fact that most of the violence we saw was ritualistic, she could appreciate the creativity of people’s attire, and she was impressed with the energy and abandon displayed by both the bands and the crowd. In short, she wasn’t freaked out and she understood why I was into what I was into.  I’d be lying if I told you that after seeing what Punk was all about that night she let me go to the next show by myself. She didn’t. That’s why I can say today that my mom has more old school Punk Rock cred than most of you: she saw T.S.O.L., FEAR, X, The U-Men, and Code of Honor in 1982 ferchrissakes! I was there too and I’m still jealous of her! So next time you see a librarian “shush” a table of Punks in the library, it might not be because they’re being too loud for her, it might just be because she thinks they’re talking out their a—es about some sh-t they don’t know about! Circle Jerks flyer from my personal archives.

CIRCLE JERKS THE FARTZ @ THE SHOWBOX FLYER  SEATTLE 1982

This post isn’t gonna do anything to improve my standing as a cool guy but it’s guaranteed to send my mom’s coolness portfolio through the roof.

I pulled this flyer off the side of a derelict building in Seattle in 1982. I’d seen it there from the window of a bus I was riding on. Upon catching a glimpse of it I immediately rang the bell, got off the bus and doubled back to grab it. This wasn’t because I wanted to learn about an upcoming show but rather because I wanted a memento of a show I’d already seen. A show that changed my life because (I think) it was the first Punk show I went to.

I’d been a teenager a for all of a couple months when I saw this show listed in the calendar section of The Rocket, Seattle’s hip, free, bi-weekly paper at the time. I’d missed a couple Punk shows that I’d been aware of in the preceding months but this was the one I knew I had to get to come hell or high water.

The Circle Jerks Group Sex  LP was in constant and very heavy rotation at my house and I couldn’t bear the thought of missing this chance to see them live. There were a few little problems standing between me and my dream however…I didn’t have a cent, I was living in Tacoma, and the show was on 1st Ave in Seattle!

If you’re familiar with Seattle I should probably explain that this was not the 1st Ave of today, teeming with families and tourists. This was also not the Showbox at the Market as the theater is known today (a legit venue that features top-tier acts and sometimes plays host to corporate events). Back in ‘82 The Showbox was a bare-bones, dilapidated old ballroom that looked and smelled like its best days had been located somewhere in the Jazz age.

1st Avenue was a very sketchy stretch of downtown that at the time was ruled by a gang of tough street kids who hung around the center of vice in the area, a place with a name  that suggests it was a heart of darkness, a place called: The Donut Hole. The “Donut Holer’s” as the gang was known, were notorious among the Punks I knew in Seattle for terrorizing everyone, but especially Punks. These ne’er-do-wells were just one color in the palette of menace that I understood 1st Ave to be. 

All that would’ve been okay with me if my mom hadn’t also known about the reputation of the place just as well as I did. When I told her I needed a ride to the show when we visited my grandparents that weekend she told me there was no way on Earth she was going to drop her kid off on 1st Ave. on a Saturday night to go to see a “Punk Rock” band. This was simply out of the question.

Being the very cool, very supportive, woman she was then and still is now, upon seeing the utter dejection and desperation written in every inch of my small frame she said she’d let me and my brother go to the show on one condition: she’d have to come along with us.

I was completely aware of how utterly uncool and at odds with my Punk Rock fantasies this idea was. I was also a realist and I knew that my show-going fantasies were going to stay fantasies if I didn’t take her up on her (looking back now, wildly selfless and very generous) offer. I accepted her offer on the spot. So did my brother.

In the interest of giving my mom her full, undiluted due and maybe even as a way of etching her name in the temple of all-time Punk heroes, I should make a couple things clear.

This wasn’t a time when well-to-do Yuppies had neck tattoos, the songs of The Stooges weren’t used to sell Volkswagens, and only women and guys in The Castro district of San Francisco had pierced ears. What I’m saying is: Punk Rock was not a well-known, culturally accepted thing at this time. Most parents if they knew anything about it were terrified and or disgusted by the idea of it.  This wasn’t Warped Tour U.S.A. and Punk Rock was to say the least, very edgy. 

It should also be said that my mom wasn’t a counter-culture maven, biker mama, barfly, or burnout. She worked almost all her life as a librarian, educator, and library administrator. She was and still is a voracious reader, a kind soul, and is a fine upstanding citizen.

She listens to Classical music.

However this night  in 1982 she put on a pair of engineer boots, a Motorhead t-shirt, tucked in her jeans, and listened to and watched The Fartz bash out their brand of political thrash before the Circle Jerks came out a blew everyone away with their super-charged kinetic insanity.

She got the fact that most of the violence we saw was ritualistic, she could appreciate the creativity of people’s attire, and she was impressed with the energy and abandon displayed by both the bands and the crowd. In short, she wasn’t freaked out and she understood why I was into what I was into. 

I’d be lying if I told you that after seeing what Punk was all about that night she let me go to the next show by myself. She didn’t. That’s why I can say today that my mom has more old school Punk Rock cred than most of you: she saw T.S.O.L., FEAR, X, The U-Men, and Code of Honor in 1982 ferchrissakes! I was there too and I’m still jealous of her!

So next time you see a librarian “shush” a table of Punks in the library, it might not be because they’re being too loud for her, it might just be because she thinks they’re talking out their a—es about some sh-t they don’t know about!

Circle Jerks flyer from my personal archives.


8:00am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvJ7aBwr
(Notes: 20)
  
Filed under: circle jerks the fartz the showbox seattle punk mom the rocket showbox at the market donut hole t.s.o.l. x fear code of honor u-men 
March 26, 2012

SEATTLE PUNK: DUFF McKAGAN 1982


I date this clip 1982 because that was the year I first encountered Duff McKagan in Seattle and that’s the general era he’s talking about in the clip.

Duff is four years older than I am so when he talks about there being “no scene in Seattle or Portland” he’s talking roughly about the years 78-81 when he was,as he says in the clip, “14,15,16”. This is a time I had little to no experience with by accident of birth.

His range in that era extended further than mine did. Going to Vancouver to see D.O.A. was an impossibly exotic idea for me when I was his age. I certainly would’ve lied, cheated, and stolen to have done so if the option had ever seemed remotely possible for me. After all, like he says Vancouver B.C. was legendary to all West Coast punks at the time. The bands that came down to Seattle from up there like D.O.A. and the Subhumans changed my life.

I used to stare at and study every inch of the sleeves of Something Better Change by D.O.A. and Incorrect Thoughts by The Subhumans for hours. I imagined Vancouver was like London or something, far away (130 miles!) and in another country (British Columbia). I also fantasized about having Joey Shithead and Whimpy Roy as friends who could show up in Tacoma and beat up all the high school rocker a—holes who made our lives so dangerous down there. I mean just look at those guys! Do you think they’d be freaked out by a carload of dickhead Foghat fans? 

I remember Duff from The Fastbacks and 10 Minute Warning but mostly I remember him as the coolest looking dude I’d ever seen walking up The Ave. He personified the Seattle punk look of the time: a pasty, scrappy, style somewhere between glam, gutter punk and hard rocker. He was super tall, very thin and he oozed nonchalant rockstar cool from every pore.

I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see him in  G n R’s “Welcome to the Jungle” video everyday after school on MTV a few years later when I lived in Encinitas, Ca.

It made perfect sense.

Video found on Youtube

12:23am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIasXS8
(Notes: 7)
  
Filed under: Duff McKagan Guns n Roses fastbacks seattle d.o.a. punk glam rock hard rock cool vancouver seattle mtv welcome to the jungle encinitas 
March 25, 2012

JOHN LENNON MURDERED  SEATTLE 1980


John Lennon’s murder in 1980 meant a lot of things to a lot of different people. For me it was a crushingly sad event that in some way signalled the end of the complicated world of my childhood and the beginning of the complicated world of my adolescence.

The link between my childhood (when I was most interested in imagining, watching and reading tales of elves, faeries, ghosts, and worlds of sci-fi and fantasy) and my teen years as a punk-obsessed urban explorer was an extended liminal tween state that could be called my “BMX and Beatles” phase.

I’ll talk about my experience in the regional BMX world of the late 70’s some other time because in this post I’d like to focus on the role The Beatles and Lennon in particular had in setting the stage for my punk teen awakening.

My Mom and Dad, who divorced when I was around four years old, weren’t ex-hippies nor were they particularly big rock/pop fans. They both loved music though. Mom listened a lot to Carole King’s Tapestry album and other music of the era but mostly played Classical music around the house. Dad’s taste veered more toward 50’s rock like Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis, Country music like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich and Country folk like John Denver and Gordon Lightfoot.

Most everybody my parents age at least liked The Beatles and my folks were no exception. I don’t recall exactly when or how I came to love the Beatles so much, sure they were hard to miss, they were all over the radio and still very present in pop culture. After all, Beatlemania had only subsided maybe 8 years before I got into them and they’d only been broken up for maybe five years at that point. Still I didn’t know any other kids who loved them and certainly not the way I did. 

I liked other music too. When my Dad started dating my future step-mom Bobbi, I missed no opportunity to flip through her good-sized record collection where I found treasures like the Beach Boys early records and most notably Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced” a record that I’m still trying to recover from.

Most of music of the 70’s as I knew it was pretty weak and crappy sounding to me. As a little kid I was a scared off from really digging hard “older brother” stoner-rock like Aerosmith and Black Sabbath.  Even the best radio pop like Fleetwood Mac and The Carpenters seemed very adult and not just a little bit sad and depressing to me. I wasn’t feeling disco very much either probably because that’s all any one at my school seemed to care about, beside KISW rock that is.

So I got lost in The Beatles and the 1960’s.

Sgt. Pepper’s was a world I could visit any time I wanted to with my big clunky grey headphones. The White Album had everything I wanted from music on four LP sides: straight ahead pop, touching ballads, inscrutable experimental excursions, and full-blown proto-punk shreds like Helter Skelter. Hendrix’s ghost loomed large over Seattle in that era too. Even though his jams could be as hard as anything else (also presaging my punk years, I used to listen to his song Fire over and over) there was a flair, a depth and a genius color palette in his music that was much more inviting to my ears than stuff like Led Zeppelin, who for some reason I despised back then.

My devotion to The Beatles also extended to their post-Beatles output too. I LOVED Wings and All Things Must Pass very much but it was Lennon’s stark Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums with their strange, plain production and their serious personal, political, and philosophical themes that touched my soul most profoundly. Even though, and maybe especially because I was a kid, I desperately wanted to hear that kind of plain talk from a grown up. I wanted to hear about love and god and pain and all the stuff he talked about on those albums.

When Lennon was murdered so brutally and senselessly I really felt like I’d lost one of my best friends and that the dream was over.

I’d have to find a new one for myself.

R.I.P. Jimi, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Charlie Rich, Bonzo, John Denver, Bill Haley, Karen Carpenter and my childhood friend John Lennon.

Clip from Komo 4 Seattle.

2:21pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIZ2SRz
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: Beatles john lennon BMX tween seattle punk hardcore charlie rich johnny cash willie nelson jimi hendrix are you experienced tapestry carol carole king john denver gordon lightfoot led zeppelin black sabbath imagine the dream is over fire 
March 24, 2012
KRIST NOVOSELIC, CASEY McKEE, SOME DUDE and ME  SEATTLE  2000 This is a story I LOVE. It’s like something out of a movie. In 2000 I was up in Seattle with my then girlfriend, now great friend, Casey. We were ordering coffee at the Bauhaus coffee shop on Pine St. when she noticed that a guy she had gone to high school with in Spokane had just walked into the place. She said hello and the dude looked at her kinda distractedly and said, “oh…hi.” She asked him what he was doing in Seattle, what he was up to etc. and he responded nonchalantly with hooded eyes that he lived in Seattle now and was doing this and that as he cast his glance over her shoulder around the room. She introduced me to him, he nodded and feigned a smile…then suddenly his heretofore dull eyes began to widen with new energy. I instinctively turned to see what it was that might’ve put a bee in his otherwise bored bonnet. It turned out that all 8’ 10” of Krist Novoselic had just walked in the door and the Spokane guy was feeling the magic pre-tty hard. It also just so happend that Casey had kinda recently participated in a dead-end recording session with Krist down in Olympia at the invitation of my old housemate, dear friend, and one-of-a-kind American Master Calvin Johnson.  Without missing a beat, in her naturally totally unaffected style Casey greeted Krist as if he were just like anybody else (which strangely enough he is). She greeted him the same friendly way she had greeted her old classmate minutes before, the classmate who’s posture was now greatly improved and who, judging by his suddenly bright expression looked like he might not be needing that triple macchiato after all. Casey and Krist chatted for a second, I said hi to Krist (who I’d met once before but wouldn’t even call an acquaintance) and when she finished she went back to talking to her fellow Spokanite as if nothing had happend. The guy swallowed hard and with a renewed vigor began asking Casey how she knew Krist and what her life is like in Olympia… and suggested they should keep in touch and he’s coming to Olympia soon and it be cool to catch up and…and…and… I was in stitches. I thought that kind of scene could only happen in movies. Nirvana photo by Charles Peterson (?)

KRIST NOVOSELIC, CASEY McKEE, SOME DUDE and ME  SEATTLE  2000

This is a story I LOVE. It’s like something out of a movie.

In 2000 I was up in Seattle with my then girlfriend, now great friend, Casey. We were ordering coffee at the Bauhaus coffee shop on Pine St. when she noticed that a guy she had gone to high school with in Spokane had just walked into the place. She said hello and the dude looked at her kinda distractedly and said, “oh…hi.” She asked him what he was doing in Seattle, what he was up to etc. and he responded nonchalantly with hooded eyes that he lived in Seattle now and was doing this and that as he cast his glance over her shoulder around the room. She introduced me to him, he nodded and feigned a smile…then suddenly his heretofore dull eyes began to widen with new energy.

I instinctively turned to see what it was that might’ve put a bee in his otherwise bored bonnet. It turned out that all 8’ 10” of Krist Novoselic had just walked in the door and the Spokane guy was feeling the magic pre-tty hard.

It also just so happend that Casey had kinda recently participated in a dead-end recording session with Krist down in Olympia at the invitation of my old housemate, dear friend, and one-of-a-kind American Master Calvin Johnson. 

Without missing a beat, in her naturally totally unaffected style Casey greeted Krist as if he were just like anybody else (which strangely enough he is). She greeted him the same friendly way she had greeted her old classmate minutes before, the classmate who’s posture was now greatly improved and who, judging by his suddenly bright expression looked like he might not be needing that triple macchiato after all.

Casey and Krist chatted for a second, I said hi to Krist (who I’d met once before but wouldn’t even call an acquaintance) and when she finished she went back to talking to her fellow Spokanite as if nothing had happend. The guy swallowed hard and with a renewed vigor began asking Casey how she knew Krist and what her life is like in Olympia… and suggested they should keep in touch and he’s coming to Olympia soon and it be cool to catch up and…and…and…

I was in stitches. I thought that kind of scene could only happen in movies.

Nirvana photo by Charles Peterson (?)

3:12pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIVa4bP
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: Krist Novoselic Charles Peterson Bauhaus coffee Seattle Olympia Nirvana Dave Grohl Kurt Cobain Casey McKee Casey herlocker Movies Classic 
March 23, 2012

PUNK ON THE LOCAL STATION  SEATTLE 1981

In my previous post I mentioned “getting wind” of punk when I was 11-12 years old. This news story was the kind of thing you’d see in the mass media in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The rare story you’d see about punk on TV or in the newspaper was usually half-accurate (at best) or totally wrong (most of the time). The media tended to play up the negatives and miss the positives…go figure. These kind of media stories made most parents (and most kids for that matter!) shudder in horror and disgust. To a kid like me they evoked equal measures fear and excitement. The one thing I knew is it looked rough and real and unlike everything else I saw around me in youth/pop culture. This was the start of the Reagan era which was America’s moment to turn away from the turmoil of the sixties and the resulting malaise of the 70’s to the whitewashed dream of a new 1950’s. Most important of all to me, more than just about anything else, punk wasn’t old prepackaged entertainment product and it didn’t look even remotely boring.  That was all I needed to know.

7:40pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIT1kxL
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: punk evening magazine seattle 1981 media 
March 23, 2012
SEATTLE PUNK: ASHBY 1982 I got wind of punk rock when I was 11 or 12 in 1980-81. I saw my first handful of shows when I was 13 in 1982. I split my time between my dad’s house in the suburbs north of Seattle and my mom’s house in Tacoma. Whenever I could I would make my way to University Avenue to hang out, go to record stores and meet other punks/freaks.  Since I was very young and the world of punk was so mysterious, totally underground, and more than a little bit edgy, even dangerous, pretty much everybody I met was older, more experienced. and wiser about the streets and world than me. This dynamic between myself and my new acquaintances made them all seem impossibly sophisticated, interesting and cool. Most of them smoked, drank, and did drugs. Some of them were homeless street kids and even hustlers. Some were kids more like me from homes of various levels of disintegration and harmony who were into aggressive, intense music, had a personal style with some flair, were looking for something exciting to call their own. and had found it in punk rock. Ashby, pictured here about to stage dive at the Eagles Hippodrome was one of the kids I thought was especially cool. He probably barely noticed me hanging around. He was at every show I went to, was always on The Ave. too. He wore a trench coat, army surplus spats over his combat boots, had a shaved head, wore a beret sometimes and seemed to know everyone in the scene. He was probably only three or four years older than I was but that made a lot of difference at the time.  The guy over Ashby’s shoulder is Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys who, it just so happens, would be my employer in S.F. about five years after this shot was taken. Small world huh? I’ll write about more of these “older, wiser” characters in future posts. Photo by Mike Leach

SEATTLE PUNK: ASHBY 1982

I got wind of punk rock when I was 11 or 12 in 1980-81. I saw my first handful of shows when I was 13 in 1982. I split my time between my dad’s house in the suburbs north of Seattle and my mom’s house in Tacoma. Whenever I could I would make my way to University Avenue to hang out, go to record stores and meet other punks/freaks. 

Since I was very young and the world of punk was so mysterious, totally underground, and more than a little bit edgy, even dangerous, pretty much everybody I met was older, more experienced. and wiser about the streets and world than me. This dynamic between myself and my new acquaintances made them all seem impossibly sophisticated, interesting and cool. Most of them smoked, drank, and did drugs. Some of them were homeless street kids and even hustlers. Some were kids more like me from homes of various levels of disintegration and harmony who were into aggressive, intense music, had a personal style with some flair, were looking for something exciting to call their own. and had found it in punk rock.

Ashby, pictured here about to stage dive at the Eagles Hippodrome was one of the kids I thought was especially cool. He probably barely noticed me hanging around. He was at every show I went to, was always on The Ave. too. He wore a trench coat, army surplus spats over his combat boots, had a shaved head, wore a beret sometimes and seemed to know everyone in the scene. He was probably only three or four years older than I was but that made a lot of difference at the time. 

The guy over Ashby’s shoulder is Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys who, it just so happens, would be my employer in S.F. about five years after this shot was taken. Small world huh?

I’ll write about more of these “older, wiser” characters in future posts. Photo by Mike Leach

6:44pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvISs5z4
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: Ashby eagles hippodrome hardcore punk seattle university avenue jello biafra dead kennedys 
March 23, 2012
BAD BRAINS at THE METROPOLIS  SEATTLE 1983/4 To say I was excited to see Bad Brains live for the first time would be like saying…well I don’t have a clever metaphor on deck to express how excited I was so let’s just say I was VERY excited. Bad Brains and Black Flag were my two favorite bands at this time, in fact they are still two of my faves to this day.  I got to the show early, maybe with my brother Gavin (?), and when I saw the BB’s setting up it was almost surreal. Keep in mind this was pre-Grunge Seattle, a time when Starbucks was a coffee shop at the Pike Street Market, and Bill Gates was upper middle class. Very few hardcore bands bothered coming to our corner of the country aside from L.A. bands and ones from Vancouver B.C. like D.O.A. and The Subhumans. The East Coast and Midwestern bands that I loved were only known to me through 7”eps that I’d mailorder from labels like Dischord and Touch and Go and through black and white photocopied zines that arrived in the mailbox from punk rock pen pals. So a chance to see the best East Coast band of all had me really wound up for weeks with anticipation. When Bad Brains took the stage and played a reggae song I was cool with it. I actually liked their reggae tunes and I was happy to hear it. When the second song was also a reggae number I was thinking that maybe the set would start off reggae then lead into their mind-blowing, prophetic sounding, swingy, technically jaw-dropping hardcore stuff. Then came the third reggae tune, and the fourth, then the fifth…until the whole crowd of punks was getting restless, bummed and pissed. I just got worried and almost sick to my stomach. Then H.R. said something sh—ty to the crowd and the band launched into their classic song “Destroy Babylon” in all its brilliance and fury! It was 1.5 minutes of cathartic exuberance. I was going to hear the songs I loved so much played by the masters at the height of their powers! Then…reggae song number 6, 7, 8…show over. Sigh,sigh…whimper, whimper. Before leaving I told Earl Hudson that I liked the show. I lied to Earl Hudson. It wouldn’t be until a year or so later after moving to So. Cal. that I’d get to see Bad Brains in their full power. I wasn’t disappointed again. They were as great a live band as I’ve ever seen.

BAD BRAINS at THE METROPOLIS  SEATTLE 1983/4

To say I was excited to see Bad Brains live for the first time would be like saying…well I don’t have a clever metaphor on deck to express how excited I was so let’s just say I was VERY excited. Bad Brains and Black Flag were my two favorite bands at this time, in fact they are still two of my faves to this day. 

I got to the show early, maybe with my brother Gavin (?), and when I saw the BB’s setting up it was almost surreal. Keep in mind this was pre-Grunge Seattle, a time when Starbucks was a coffee shop at the Pike Street Market, and Bill Gates was upper middle class. Very few hardcore bands bothered coming to our corner of the country aside from L.A. bands and ones from Vancouver B.C. like D.O.A. and The Subhumans. The East Coast and Midwestern bands that I loved were only known to me through 7”eps that I’d mailorder from labels like Dischord and Touch and Go and through black and white photocopied zines that arrived in the mailbox from punk rock pen pals. So a chance to see the best East Coast band of all had me really wound up for weeks with anticipation.

When Bad Brains took the stage and played a reggae song I was cool with it. I actually liked their reggae tunes and I was happy to hear it. When the second song was also a reggae number I was thinking that maybe the set would start off reggae then lead into their mind-blowing, prophetic sounding, swingy, technically jaw-dropping hardcore stuff. Then came the third reggae tune, and the fourth, then the fifth…until the whole crowd of punks was getting restless, bummed and pissed. I just got worried and almost sick to my stomach. Then H.R. said something sh—ty to the crowd and the band launched into their classic song “Destroy Babylon” in all its brilliance and fury! It was 1.5 minutes of cathartic exuberance. I was going to hear the songs I loved so much played by the masters at the height of their powers!

Then…reggae song number 6, 7, 8…show over. Sigh,sigh…whimper, whimper.

Before leaving I told Earl Hudson that I liked the show. I lied to Earl Hudson.

It wouldn’t be until a year or so later after moving to So. Cal. that I’d get to see Bad Brains in their full power. I wasn’t disappointed again. They were as great a live band as I’ve ever seen.

5:53pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIShnau
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: bad brains metropolis reggae hardcore seattle destroy babylon dischord pike street market starbucjs microsoft grunge black flag 
March 22, 2012

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD. at THE SHOWBOX (First Stage Dive)  1982 

This show was a big deal for me…actually now that I think about it EVERY show in this era was a huge deal because I was 13 years old and I had a 13 year old’s ultra un-jaded view of everything new and exciting. Seeing punk rock legend John Lydon in the flesh on stage was enough to make me lose my mind. It’s weird to think the Pistols had only broken up four years prior to this show, it seemed like a lifetime ago to me at the time of course.

I had a couple PiL 45’s but I honestly didn’t really get it. I was definitely into the “SeX PiStolS” factor however. I think the U-Men opened, but I’m not sure if it was this show or another at the Showbox. I do remember that once PiL kicked off I was blown away by the super heavy low end bass and the cutting metallic guitar shards over the top. The bass seemed to suck the air out of the already stuffy room. The plodding dub rhythm PiL unleashed turned the packed dance floor into a slowmotion churning claustrophobic mass.

I was really freaked out when my feet would leave the ground and I’d float for a minute or two suspended between the sweaty grown-up shoulders closed in all around me. It got so bad that I was convinced I was gonna die so rather than going under I half way wormed , half way was pushed like the contents of a popping zit to the top of the crowd. Within seconds I found myself standing on stage with Johnny Lydon/Rotten, Keith Levine, and Jah Wobble. I didn’t know how to dance to dub music so instead I did my best “pop and lock” style dance. (I was in Jr. High in Tacoma at the time and a lot of kids at my school were doing the robot and popping so I’d picked up some moves) I saw people in the crowd laughing and smiling and I felt cool.  Johnny acted like I wasn’t there at all. No bouncers came out, no hassles, so I jumped off the stage as far as I could into the crowd. I was passed hand over hand to the side of the dance floor and I landed on my feet unharmed and totally amazed. My first stage dive.

Photos by Mike Leach

9:23am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIOIZtW
(Notes: 11)
  
Filed under: PIL jah wobble john lydon johnny rotten keith levine mike leach public image limited showbox stage dive seattle 
March 21, 2012
THE METROPOLIS SEATTLE 1983 This is a photo I just found online of a show at The Metropolis in Seattle, most likely was 1983. The band playing was Spluii Numa. I believe Scream from Washington D.C. were headlining this show. I can be seen toward the left hand bottom of the frame making a “slam dance” face. I’m wearing a sweater, a bandana and a Stihl chainsaw baseball hat with the brim turned up. I hadn’t moved to Southern California yet but I was already sporting the “Suicidal Cyco” headgear. I used to really love that sweater. Photo by Mike Leach

THE METROPOLIS SEATTLE 1983

This is a photo I just found online of a show at The Metropolis in Seattle, most likely was 1983. The band playing was Spluii Numa. I believe Scream from Washington D.C. were headlining this show. I can be seen toward the left hand bottom of the frame making a “slam dance” face. I’m wearing a sweater, a bandana and a Stihl chainsaw baseball hat with the brim turned up. I hadn’t moved to Southern California yet but I was already sporting the “Suicidal Cyco” headgear. I used to really love that sweater. Photo by Mike Leach

5:23pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIMZsOw
(Notes: 9)
  
Filed under: metropolis seattle spluii numa suicidal tendencies suicidal cyco 
March 21, 2012
BLACK FLAG SUBHUMANS SACCHARINE TRUST NORWAY CENTER SEATTLE 1982 Thisis a flyer for the Black Flag show I was talking about in my post about Alex from Green River. I remember this show for a few reasons: 1) I was a 14 year old kid seeing five-piece Black Flag in 1982 for christ’s sake! 2) Ron Reyes (BF’s old singer) did a song with them. I had recently watched The Decline and was way stoked about this. 3) Nig Heist nearly started a riot. I’d never seen that kind of mayhem. 4) Vancouver Subhumans were also one of my fave regional bands and were awesome. 5) I met Henry, Dez and Ron Reyes at the show. They were actually nice to me. I’ve since heard that also attending this particular show were: Buzz Osbourne, Dale Crover, Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, Bessie Oakley, Jone Stebbins, Calvin Johnson, Mark Arm, Lois Maffeo, Bruce Pavitt, Tom Niemeyer, Duff MacKagan and as I mentioned Alex Shumway and many more. There were probably only a couple hundred kids there. I hope I still have a copy of this flyer somewhere. I got the image seen here off the web.

BLACK FLAG SUBHUMANS SACCHARINE TRUST NORWAY CENTER SEATTLE 1982

Thisis a flyer for the Black Flag show I was talking about in my post about Alex from Green River. I remember this show for a few reasons:

1) I was a 14 year old kid seeing five-piece Black Flag in 1982 for christ’s sake!

2) Ron Reyes (BF’s old singer) did a song with them. I had recently watched The Decline and was way stoked about this.

3) Nig Heist nearly started a riot. I’d never seen that kind of mayhem.

4) Vancouver Subhumans were also one of my fave regional bands and were awesome.

5) I met Henry, Dez and Ron Reyes at the show. They were actually nice to me.

I’ve since heard that also attending this particular show were: Buzz Osbourne, Dale Crover, Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, Bessie Oakley, Jone Stebbins, Calvin Johnson, Mark Arm, Lois Maffeo, Bruce Pavitt, Tom Niemeyer, Duff MacKagan and as I mentioned Alex Shumway and many more. There were probably only a couple hundred kids there. I hope I still have a copy of this flyer somewhere. I got the image seen here off the web.

4:29pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvIMMulS
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: black flag melvins nirvana saccharine trust sllly killers subhumans seattle kurt cobain duff macKagan Calvin Johnson Imperial teen mudhoney grunge lois maffeo accused 
March 21, 2012
GREEN RIVER/ALEX SHUMWAY SEATTLE 1982-84 I met Alex Shumway/Vincent (far right in photo) on University Ave. (“The Ave.” to all us punk kids who hung out there in the early 80’s) in 1982. I remember he had on a green army jacket (that he’d magically turned into a vest) with a Square Cools  logo drawn on the back of it. I’d heard SQ’s on the recently released MRR “Not so Quiet on the Western Front” comp.. (Alex explained to me that he was in the band and that their name was a play on the name of the much more well known Circle Jerks…get it?). This obscure logo piqued my curiosity enough to approach him. I probably would’ve talked to him if he’d had a Siouxsie t shirt on, after all this was the era when I would’ve talked to anyone I met who was even vaguely punk looking. Alex told me he’d just moved up from Sacramento and asked if there was anything happening in Seattle. I told him Black Flag was playing that night and he should go. He was super stoked of course. More about that Black Flag show  to come… Alex would go on to drum for Green River and Spluii Numa.  One other thing about Alex, when we went to a record store later that day he recommended I buy Motorhead’s “Iron Fist” LP. I was hesitant because I wanted to buy punk records and this looked like shitty KISW rock, albeit the very gnarly edge of it. He swore to me that it was awesome. I bought it, I loved it and that was the beginning of my acceptance of “crossover” in my life. Maybe it was even a small drop of the water bursting during birth pangs of Grunge? Could that be? 

GREEN RIVER/ALEX SHUMWAY SEATTLE 1982-84

I met Alex Shumway/Vincent (far right in photo) on University Ave. (“The Ave.” to all us punk kids who hung out there in the early 80’s) in 1982. I remember he had on a green army jacket (that he’d magically turned into a vest) with a Square Cools  logo drawn on the back of it. I’d heard SQ’s on the recently released MRR “Not so Quiet on the Western Front” comp.. (Alex explained to me that he was in the band and that their name was a play on the name of the much more well known Circle Jerks…get it?). This obscure logo piqued my curiosity enough to approach him. I probably would’ve talked to him if he’d had a Siouxsie t shirt on, after all this was the era when I would’ve talked to anyone I met who was even vaguely punk looking. Alex told me he’d just moved up from Sacramento and asked if there was anything happening in Seattle. I told him Black Flag was playing that night and he should go. He was super stoked of course. More about that Black Flag show  to come…

Alex would go on to drum for Green River and Spluii Numa. 

One other thing about Alex, when we went to a record store later that day he recommended I buy Motorhead’s “Iron Fist” LP. I was hesitant because I wanted to buy punk records and this looked like shitty KISW rock, albeit the very gnarly edge of it. He swore to me that it was awesome. I bought it, I loved it and that was the beginning of my acceptance of “crossover” in my life. Maybe it was even a small drop of the water bursting during birth pangs of Grunge? Could that be? 

1:10pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/Zl8DhvILhwLN
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: Green River alex shumway jeff ament mark arm pearl jam square cools seattle university avenue