EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEBODY TO HATE

EVERYBODY NEEDS SOMEBODY TO HATE

A HISTORY OF L.A. PUNK ROCK

Gene Sculatti

“For God’s sake, is that all you people in L.A. want to hear: aggressive lyrics and a raging guitar?!”

—Chris Stein

“Thriving on self-pity, racism, hippie-baiting, and abhorrence of sex and the cheesiest sort of nihilism, L.A. punk is the Scene That Will Not Die. ”

— Village Voice

“...A shallow imitation of British punk, a cheap fake.”

—New Musical Express

“We don’t need the English/tellin’ us what should be/We don’t need the English/their boring songs of anarchy/Say in’ our scene’s a fake/Their brains are all half baked”

—The Bags, “We Don’t Need The English”

But of course! Alice Bag doesn’t need the Brits. Nor does she or any of the tens of thousands of punkin’ Angelenos need the French, the Dutch, the plot-hatching Corsicans or teenage millionaires from New York like Mr. Blondie to tell them how to behave. Los Angeles doesn’t need approval or advice, whether it’s coming from a record biz on its bleeding knees or from rock crits coaxing their Selectrics into unspeakable acts in praise of Johnny Rotten’s latest hippie music.

But L.A. punk keeps getting this abuse. How would one, er, go about dealing with this abuse on a, um, regular basis?

L.A. punk’s answer to its detractors is exactly what it should be: a rigid little digit aimed face ward. After all, the burg has been undisputed Boss City of screaming white r ’n’ r for what? Three or four years. It proclaimed itself capital the night thq Weirdos first sang “I’m a mole/I diq your hole,” the day the Alleycats cut “Nothing Means Nothing Anymore,” when a hundred punks got their heads vibed by the LAPD at the Elks Lodge. And the town is likely to stay busy, until Keith Morris disbands the Circle Jerks to go study animal husbandry or Black Flag go down in flames over Omaha.

All of which may account for the bad opinion of L.A. held by the noisemakers of the former music capitals. El Lay merely accepted the challenge: to deliver on the promises New York and England wouldn’t keep.

In 1976, after parenting the Ramones, New York quickly washed its hands of pogo and moved on to more serious concerns: art-rock, revivalism and fusing together the split ends of fagdom (what city invented “rock disco”?).

And the English? They birthed the Pistols-Damned litter, then marched right off to power pop, ska, neo-R&B, all the way to gutless, guitar-less New Romanticism.

“Punk rock” was left up to Southern California (and Frisco with its Avengers, and Vancouver with DOA and the Young Canadians). L.A. accepted the challenge. It wasn’t easy.

L. A. punk resembles a bad B-flick, portrait of Youth Gone Stark Raving Psycho.

Aug. 24, 1976: 150 curious spectators and pre-trendies flock to the Radio Free Hollywood dance at Trouper’s Hall, to catch what smells like the arrival of the new underground (Motels, Pop, Dogs). It isn’t.

March 25, 1977: 100 people drift into the subterranean “Hollywood Punk Palace” to hear the just formed Nerves, Dils and a handful of teen metal combos. Only the metal combos can play their instruments.

June 20, 1977. The Whiskey inaugurates “New Wave Weekends.” “DJ” Rodney Bingenheimer, a close personal friend of Chris Stein and rumored to be Truman Capote’s illegit son, hosts an uneasy mix of old guard and punk acts. A big drag.

Then it happens! Overnight, Hollywood punk arrives in one roaring Big Blast that threatens to wipe thexmellow smile off L. A.’s public face like an airgun stuffed with hydrochloric. Friday, Aug. 12, 1977. Myron’s, a hoary old downtown ballroom. Packed with punks: pink-haired, dog-collared, in homemade “Pretty Vacant” and “Please Kill Me” t-shirts.

It resembles a bad B-flick, a portrait of Youth Gone Stark Raving Psycho. Who let these crazies out? More importantly, why have they come here?!

They came to look at one another. And to see Devo, a concept band that looks like it hung too long in Bowie’s closet, and the Weirdos. The Weirdos! L.A.’s “answer” to the Sex Pistols, firing rounds of rage and silliness with the fury of a caged Bengal: bug-eyed John Denney prowling the stage, chainsawing the pogo struck dancefloor with “Destroy All Music” and “Why Do You Exist.” The Weirdos! Op art and Saran wrap, leopardskin and paisley, fad glasses and decibels. The crowd goes berserk.

At 4 a.m. eyeryone drives home. In the morning, Hollywood has a punk-rock scene. History starts falling into place with the precision of dominos.

Punks start growing like wild vetch—college kids, precocious high school brats, dropouts from the whole Eagles-Hawaiian shirtworld of SoCal 77. And bands, delirious, anarchic, each putting its own spit and spin on this bad new international lick: Deadbeats, Skulls, Eyes, Plugz, Controllers, Dickies, Bags, Spastics, Alleycats, F-Word, the infamous Germs and the underground’s deepest dig, the Screamers..

Fueled by appearances by the Ramones and the Damned, its first gobbing glimpse of the real thing, Hollywood goes gloriously batshit, breaking into new venues weekly

that elusive home base, some low rent nest that’ll cohabit with the new r ’n’ r on a regular basis.

“A cabaret of the macabre...a spectacle of simulated London street desperation in the promised land filtered through a rock ’n’roll sensibility of carbonated freeway fury and terminal swimming pool despair”

—ad for Brendan Mullan’s Masque, 12/77

Lodged in the basement of a Hollywood porn theatre, the Masque is just what L.A. punkdom is looking for: a sleazy subterranean headquarters. It’s also what LAPD, the health dept, and an unsympathetic landlord are looking for: a walking bust. The Masque hosts Hollywood punk’s wildest nights, then closes in January ’78, forever seeking a new location.

But nothing can stop p-rock now. It’s growing. Everywhere there are Mau Maus, Metrosquads, Flesheaters, Wildcats. There are hot one-off singles, a Slash label and Dangerhouse is readying its Yes L.A. sampler LP. But there’s this nagging question.

It doesn’t really bother anyone, you know, but people are starting to ask it and back East they’re already bad-rapping this loony beaut of a scene that Geza X and Craig Lee and Trudie and Kid Spike have mothered here. It’s that old question: just how Serious is this thing you’re doing anyway?

Well...The Weirdos had publicly admitted “We’re very g-o-d-d-a-m-n serious,” and the L.A. Times poured out tons of supportive print and in Slash Kickboy Face was making the scene out to be at least the equal of the Renaissance or the Russian revolution. But that question nagged. You’ve got lotsa speed & crazy revved up here with your wacky Dickies and double strength wailing Bags, guys, but, um, what about... Art?

Enter X.

Legend has it John Doe and Exene met at a poetry reading and decided to from a band. Why not? Guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer Don Bonebrake joined and X put CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

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out a Dangerhouse 45, “We’re Desperate” /“Adult Books” (’77). In a year they were L. A.’s hottest band. Why?

Good riffs, melody, a hard attack. But where X really connected with crowds was lyrics. X turned the standard progressive rock trick, just like the Doors, like Procol Harum or Yes: they attempted the marriage of r ’n’ r and “poetry.”

It’s a coupling that won’t work. Nature won’t allow it. But rock audiences often will, and X’s brand of pretentious nonsense (“Friends warehouse pain/Attack their own kind/A thousand kids bury their parents”) is what sold them to the world.

X brought L.A. punk “serious” attention from the outside world. What X does is perceived as more than mere “punk rock.” Their first LP (Los Angeles, 1980) transcends genre. Like maybe Sgt. Pepper, it proved—along with the arrival of such Hollywood art packs as Human Hands, Wall Of Voodoo, Nervous Gender—that Something Serious was shaking out there under the sun. And who’s to argue?

Enter Black Flag and Fear.

Boy! Hollywood’s punk establishment wanted nothing to so with these two bands. I mean, here we are in ’78/’79 and we’ve become legit and our little scene here is clearly maturing and here come these two aggro squads—screaming slabs of primitive pogo/slam, kicking crowds’ chops in with songs like “(I Was So) Wasted,” “Let’s Have A War (So You Can All Die)”, “Waiting For The Gas” (lines and ovens). I mean, really retro. What’s going on here now?!

Slash couldn’t bring itself to cover Lee Ving and his gross Fear crew. The paper would, you know, attend a gig and review all the other, in-crowd acts on the bill but somehow, well, miss Lee railing (tongue deep in cheek) about homos, whores and sluts. And Slash only brought up the subject of Black Flag after the Redondo batch got busted for inciting a rock riot at Polliwog Park. Somehow, the Flag qualified as victims of political discrimination. Hollywood punk establishment to punk audience: listen, kids, we know what’s best for you. You won’t like these bands, honest.

1980 punk audience to Hollywood punk establishment: up yours, Gramps! Not only did the new kids dig the hardcore Fear ’n’ Flag style, their appetite created a whole whomping second wave of blistering, rage-fueled crude that has yet to subside. The past year and a half has seen an eruption of first-class punk bands, (many from the South Bay and Orange County): Circle Jerks, Crowd, Adolescents, Agent Orange, China White, the late great Klan and Red Cross. Even Hollywood itself is rejuvinated; with the Cheifs (sic) and Mad Society (fronted by 12-year-old Stevie Metz).

“Our message is mental psychosis, basic hatred.” So say the Angry Samoans, tireless campaigners for restoring contempt and abuse to the vocabulary of L.A. p-rock.

In 1981, things are going swimmingly: bigger audiences than ever, the music being exported out of state. There are, however, shortcomings. Maybe they come with success. Like the dwindling of good venues, and the intrusion of a few freshminted mohawk clods with no grasp of ironic distance.

And there are the usual roadblocks; lack of airplay, except Rodney’s pathetic continuing saga on KROQ-FM, and the unwillingness of mainstream music consumers to try anything new. It can wear on you; Darby Crash did the wild brave Germs thing for four years without breaking beyond L.A. If he were here now, would he be playing Antmusic?

And where’s Rik L. Rik and whatever happened to the last’s noble experiment? And scene genius Geza X? At the very least, he’s the new Todd Rundgren (i.e., he could write and produce hits for anybody), but his Mommymen LP languishes, uncompleted, for lack of rec co. interest. And the Gears, once sure bets for pro stardom. After overtures from Rolling Stone Records, they talk permanent splitsville. And the woefully underappreciated: Greg Burk’s incredible, ignored Dred Scott or ex-Controller Stingray’s KAOS...

But now there’s a new tumult in East L.A. (the Brat, a feisty, gal-led quartet; the Undertakers, Los Illegals). There’s talk of a Fear album, a second rockabilly set by the Blasters; a post-humous Germs live LP. The Go Gos and Holly & The Italians seem set with what look like solid major label deals, and you can go see yourself in the 90-minute movie Decline Of Western Civilization and have you seen TSOL/the Minutemen/the Rim Pests/Saccharine Trust? Now what was it Chris Stein was saying anyway...

A SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY, L. A. PUNK

Adolescents LP (Frontier Records; P.O.

Box, 22Sun Valley, CA 91352).

Angry Samoans, Inside My Brain EP (Bad Trip Records; write 11020 Ventura Bl., Suite 218, Studio City, CA 91604)

Black Flag, Jealous Again EP (SST Records; P.O. Box 1, Lawndale, CA 90042)

Black Randy & The Mctrosquad, Pass The Dust, I Think I’m Bowie LP (Dangerhouse Records; P.O. Box °*394, L. A., CA 90026)

The Brat, Attitudes EP (Fatima Records; 5605V2 N. Figuerroa St., Los Angeles,

C A 90042)

Circle Jerks, Group Sex LP (Frontier Records)

Dickies, Dawn Of The Dickies LP (A&M) Flesh eaters, A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die LP (Ruby Records; P.O. Box 48888, L. A., CA 90048)

The Gears, Rockin’ At Ground Zero LP (Playgems Records; 7188 Sunset Bl., P.O. Box 204, Hollywood, CA 90046) Germs LP (Slash Records; P.O. Box4888, L.A..CA 90048)

The Last, L.A. Explosion!LP (Bomp Records; 2702 San FernandoRd., L.A., CA 90065)

T.S.O.L. EP (Posh Boy Records; P.O.

Box 38861, L. A., CA 90065)

UJCA., Illusions Of Grandeur LP (Posh Boy Records)

X, Los Angeles LP; Wild Gift LP (Slash Records)

ANTHOLOGIES

The Decline Of Western Civilization soundtrack (featuring Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, X) (Slash)

Rodney On The Roq (Adolescent, Agent Orange, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Crowd, Fender Buddies, Klan, Simpletones, Rik L. Rik) (Posh Boy)

Yes L.A. (Bags, Germs, Alley Cats, Black Randy, EyesvX) (Dangerhouse)

Tooth And Nail (Controllers, Flesheaters. Negative Trend, U.X.A., Middle Class, Germs) (UpsetterRecords; Box 2511, L.A. CA 90028)

Beach Blvd. (Simpletones, Crowd, Rik L. Rik) (Posh Boy)