I Thought It I Said It I Did It So There

As a general rule I don't make a habit of attending punk rock reunion shows. So many of them have the air of a high school reunion, people checking out each other to see who's still carrying off their punk rock moxie and who isn't; Who's held up through the years and who hasn't, and even worse, people who were never friends in the past blowing kisses to each other like phonies. But all those anti-reunion sentiments were blown out of the water when I heard about the Dangerhouse Records Show at The Echoplex on November 9, 2014.

The lineup, which featured The Alleycats, Rhino 39, The Deadbeats, The Avengers and The Weirdos, couldn't be beat. The show was amazing on several levels. Not only were all the performances top-notch but the bands stuck pretty close to the script: each set was a brilliant approximation of what it was like seeing any of those bands at the peak of their musical power in 1978. Every set was a perfect replication of what each band sounded and looked like back in the day.

The Alleycats played a locomotively charged set that was high on energy and low on frills, just like the old days. Randy Stodola was reliable as usual, although I thought his guitar could have used better grounding and a reunion with his signature Big Muff from the past. A lot of people were asking about former bassist Diane Chai, but like all punk legends she's just a ghost in the ethereal ozone.

Rhino 39 were pretty clever by doing a batch of Dangerhouse covers, like The Randoms' classic "Let's Get Rid Of New York" and Black Randy & The Metro Squad's "I Slept In An Arcade", so even if you weren't a fan of the band they still had your attention with their cool choice of covers.

The Deadbeats mixed their weird theater with atonal jazzisms and it was great to hear "Muggsy" and "I Just Shot A Girl Called Maria" again after all these years. Scott Guerin's voice is still pretty dynamic and it was great to see Geza X playing his awesomely warped guitar. I wish I caught their previous reunion show with my pal Pat Delaney on sax but there's always You Tube to catch some of that wildness.

The Avengers came on and played everything I remembered from the shows we used to play with them at The Whiskey in 1978. It was so close to the old days I was stricken with an overwhelming case of melancholy, and I don't even drink anymore. One great song followed another: covers of Paint It Black, Money, and the classics: Car Crash, The American In Me and White Nigger. The only blemish was Greg's overly chorus-laden guitar, a little too BritGoth for my taste, but there was no question that Penelope Houston is the queen of West Coast Punk and one of the first (I did a show with her at Mabuhay Gardens in the summer of 1977).

The nostalgia flashback got to be too much and we decided to leave The Echoplex - no Weirdos tonight but I'm sure they were great. Watching Dix Denney walk around the club in septuagenarian Keith Richards drag was disturbing enough! The show was sold out even at a ticket price of $22 - I remember when these shows were a quarter of that price, but nevertheless it was a priceless night watching old friends play and simply enjoying the fact that you can't go home again but every once in a while it doesn't hurt to pretend.

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If there's anything I like it's a band that doesn't take themselves too seriously and Status Quo are all that. I discovered a terrific collection by them of their songs played "unplugged" (they call aQUOstic) including their cover of The Everly Brothers' "Price of Love" as well as their classic "Paper Plane", sounding surprisingly less like the metal heads they once were and more like Nick Lowe's Rockpile. There's some great stuff going on here!

By no stretch of the imagination am I a big Everly Brothers fan but I'm loving this strange album they recorded around 1967 time called "The Everly Brothers Sing". Their arrangements take a more psych-pop approach to the great Everly's vocals, and there are several cool drug songs on here, too, like Talking To The Flowers, Mary Jane (MURRRRAAAY JANE!!!!!) and A Voice Within, which was the B-side to the equally great Love Of The Common People. Also check out their awesome cover of the Buffalo Springfield classic "Mr. Soul", which features slide guitar and mandolin from Ry Cooder, the premier session demon at Warner Bros. during the psych era. You can find Mr. Soul on You Tube - you won't believe your ears.

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Rebecca recently played at the Steve Allen Theater in Los Feliz on November 5, 2014 with her pop-up band Cat Sabbath. In addition to Rebecca from Frightwig, Cat Sabbath included the great Sara Landeau from Julie Ruin,

Marissa DeMeglio from Wolf Prize and a mystery singer. Rebecca's growling and crackling guitar was as menacing sounding as ever! It was quite a spectacle: four witches dressed like cats playing Black Sabbath songs like "The Wizard" and "N.I.B.", 21st Century variations on the "Double Bubble Toil and Trouble" incantation from Macbeth. Yeth!

By the way, if you're really into wimmyn rockers or Riot Grrl music you might want to check out my latest eBay auction: The Courtney Love & Hole cover issue of Flipside Magazine, which also includes Bulimia Banquet and Mudhoney. Here's the link, folks:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171562661930?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

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Lately I've been feeling pretty nostalgic for the good old days of rock brought to you by Circus Magazine, the gnarliest and ugliest rock magazine of all time. Although Circus was big in the late Sixties they really hit their stride in the mid-Seventies when they ran some of the most unflattering photos of rock stars performing. We're talking about live photos of Freddie Mercury coated in sweat with his hair getting nappy, Bryan Ferry singing with boogers hanging out of his nose or Ian Hunter from Mott The Hoople emoting with spinach leaves or stale pussy hair sticking in his teeth. You couldn't beat Circus Magazine in the disgusting factor.

Yes, hard-working musicians were shot at angles aimed right under their nostrils or luckily capturing their double chins, and there was always plenty of angles getting all those hairy chests just holding up all that valuable rock star sweat. Yum! Who couldn't resist dynamic snapshots of Ian Gillian's sweaty armpits with arms raised in the air? It's like that Junior High School newspaper covering the latest sports event.

The very pages of Circus just dripped ooze no matter how you sliced it and it was two steps away from being Scratch & Sniff. Why, Hit Parader Magazine almost turned green with envy. They tried to compete with their own brand of sweaty, smelly looking rock stars but they were no match for the true herpes festival that was Circus Magazine! Excelsior!

You Goddamn Subversive Kids!

Let’s be honest, people are peculiar about getting married. Forget about the baseball game proposals, is there anything scarier than some douche in a chick flick asking his girl, “Honey I think we should grow old together”.
Holy shit, is there anything scarier than a bickering old couple? That’s romantic? You really want to picture yourself fifty years from now, spaced out and smelly, arguing with some old cunt you’ve been stitched to for fifty years?
The worst part to getting married, ironically enough, is the engagement. Before we got married, people were so dramatically opposed to our wedding we actually had to be sneaky about it.

The Engagement: Rebecca’s parents essentially hated any guy that dated her, and she had an ex-boyfriend that threatened to call Immigration on her and have her deported. I, on the other hand, did not have my father’s blessing. When I leaked, no oozed out the information to my older brother I was getting married, I added, “By the way, before you meet her, I ought to let you know, she’s black”.
My older brother passed on the news to my father, who bristled, “She’s black? What??? It won’t last! Typical Hollywood marriage, it will fall apart”.
On the other hand, her family was less than thrilled to hear Rebecca was marrying a Jew.
When she oozed out the information to her Hollywood scenester friends she was getting married her phone rang off the hook. Late at night. From her ex-boyfriends. She let the answering machine take the calls, and we’d listen to their whiny voices, “Heyyyy, Rebecca”, “Rebecca, I saw this foxy girl the other day, she was hawtttttt, when she turned around it was yooouuuuu”…we lay in bed and laughed like devils at these dorks.
Rebecca played in a band for something like 5 minutes with a girl I used to date, and she said, “Ugh, Andy Seven, he’s totally in love with me, what a freak!”
“Really? We’re getting married in a few months”.
“Oh! Well!” she flustered, “Uh, harrumph, he’s very special, you know. He has a private side to him, that you know, uh, nobody else knows about that makes him so special”.
Yeah, bullshit.
The rest of Rebecca’s friends were Echo Park gays that thought I knew nothing about homosexuality and would be shocked by their behavior. I don’t know where they got that impression but they kept camping it up like a drag queen’s convention every time they’d see me.
“Girl, my ovary is killing me!”
“Honey, my titty rings are so on fire!!!”
Even that idiot Eric Erlandson from flop group Hole weighed in by saying, “Andy Seven??? What’s Rebecca doing with Andy Seven??”
“Why? What’s wrong with Andy Seven?”
“Don’t you know???” Articulate bastard, isn’t he? That must explain why Drew Barrymore dumped him in less than four months. He must know his women!

The Welding, uh Wedding: We got married at L.A. County Superior Court, leaving religion out of the marriage process. With two witnesses present, it was a long, slow process because we got married on Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12). Since Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday we decided Honest Abe’s Birthday would be the next best thing (Friday). Everybody had the same idea, so we sat on the waiting room floor with 100 other couples. Some of them wore bridal dresses with cute little mija flower girls standing by.
What slowed everything down was a gay couple (who protested the gay marriage ban) at the front door of the office and held up proceedings for everybody.
When we finally made our vows Rebecca laughed through the whole thing with tears in her eyes. I guess she was happy.
Just so we wouldn’t leave anybody out of our wedding ceremony we had a wedding party the next night in Culver City (Palms, actually). All of our friends were there, and Flipside Magazine took pictures for publication in their next issue. The next day Courtney Love phoned Rebecca, “Are you really married to Andy? How ‘good’ is he?”
I never did like Hole.
Fifteen years later we’re still married, lasting longer than most marriages and with the enmity of our families. It’s ironic to think that the most subversive thing I ever did in my life was get married. One thing's for certain: if we grow old together we’ll never look it, because when you’re happy you always feel young.

Cocktail Napkins

Played the Second Coming club with the stage festooned in flower petals. The petals on the floor made us slip and slide all over the stage. I had to keep the guitarists from falling on their faces and guitar necks. Later on the Lovedolls’ lead singer tried her cooch dancing routine and almost slipped and broke her neck. That’s entertainment!

The "Horses/Phantasm III" single got played in heavy rotation on KXLU. They had to pull the record off their playlist for awhile because it was getting too many requests. Cool.

Showed up at Jennifer Anus’ going away party at Al’s Bar but the fascist assholes shut the power off before we could play. The loser cunt who books the place wouldn’t let us play because she thinks I’m psychotic. Manny broke into a rad drum solo in protest. Bravo, dude.

Sold Rajis out at 10 PM. We were on the bill with V8 and Killdozer. A slam pit crammed up the floor and fist fights broke out while we were playing. When we played our encore of "One Eyed Car", Fugly the bass player in V8 tried hoisting Jack up on her skinny shoulders and he ended up crashing backwards into his amp. Fugly!

Midway through our set at the Gaslight the full-time loser/part-time sound man shut off the PA. Some bum who claimed to be part-owner of the club pulled a knife on me and told me I would never play the Gaslight again. The lads dispatched him, and we’ve played there ever since.

Lucas left the band so he could go to school in New York and live there rent free, so now Paul’s in. Paul doesn’t like anything so he’ll work out fine.

Recorded “Silver Surfer” for the Flipside compilation (the one that Offspring and Green Day also played on). When I was in mixdown with Joy Aoki and Donnell Cameron the VU needle shot into the red and sat there. Donnell fell off the stool laughing. “This is a very HOT recording!” Yeah.