Best Of

A selection of our top stories, for your reading pleasure…

TAQUILA MOCKINGBIRD: KEEPING PUNK HISTORY ALIVE IN L.A.

Lucretia Tye JasmineMarch 3, 2020

Taquila Mockingbird developed a following in LA with her various bands (punk and jazz) beginning in 1977, and she became a fixture on the LA punk scene when, from 1980-1984, she booked acts as Do Monkey Productions with Richard Skidmore for New Wave ...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfInterviewsLucretia Tye JasmineMusicians2 Comments 1

CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITAR

Michael ShelleyFebruary 12, 2020

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfCool PeopleInterviewsMichael ShelleyMusicians11 Comments 9

MARSHALL CRENSHAW IS HAVING ANOTHER FIELD DAY

Eric DavidsonFebruary 11, 2020

The master of power pop burst on the scene in 1982 with a debut album that turned heads and ears, spawning rave reviews and respectable enough sales to suggest a star was born. But then, in the post-punk shuffle, Crenshaw’s fresh face and fresh sound...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfEric DavidsonInterviewsMusicians1 Comment 2

PENELOPE SPHEERIS: FILMING ROCK & ROLL

Nora NovakFebruary 5, 2020

Penelope Spheeris jolted the cinema world with her debut feature The Decline of Western Civilization in 1981, a blistering look at the LA punk scene, and then continued that theme in Suburbia (1983), about abandoned kids living in abandoned houses in...

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LISA FANCHER: STEERING PUNK’S FINAL FRONTIER IN LA

Tony MostromFebruary 3, 2020

Often overlooked by punk history’s gatekeepers, Lisa Fancher’s venerable Frontier Records label is celebrating 40 years of important punk rock releases. Without her there to release some of the first music by the Adolescents, Circle Jerks, Black Rand...

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MISS PAMELA’S FAMILY SECRETS

Pamela Des BarresJanuary 30, 2020

Every family has its secrets and closeted skeletons, which remain locked up unless one of its members spills the beans. Pamela Des Barres’ mother, a down-to-earth beauty from Georgia, did just that to her daughter late in life—and long after Pamela’s...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfPamela Des Barres9 Comments 13

JOHN PEEL: HIS LIFE AND MUSICAL LEGACY

Richie UnterbergerJanuary 16, 2020

So revered in the UK that he made the top 50 in a BBC poll of ‘Greatest Britons of all time,’ John Peel (1939-2004) shaped popular culture in ways that Americans may never know or understand. As a pirate radio deejay, a band manager, promoter and che...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfHistoryRichie Unterberger1 Comment 2

ARTIST RALPH STEADMAN CELEBRATES HUNTER S. THOMPSON AND THE BIRTH OF GONZO

Gregory DaurerJanuary 13, 2020

Without the visuals by longtime collaborator Ralph Steadman, Hunter S. Thompson may have never gone full ‘gonzo.’ It is hard, in fact, to think about Thompson without recalling Steadman's extraordinary, warped, nightmarish and beautiful renderings. S...

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Charley Plymell eating with William Burroughs. Lawrence, Kansas. Photo by Allen Ginsberg. Courtesy: Allen Ginsberg Estate/Stanford University Libraries.

CHARLEY PLYMELL: OUTLAW POET & ORIGINAL PUNK

Benito VilaJanuary 6, 2020

Poet, publisher, provocateur and people-connector, Charley Plymell is, like fellow Midwesterner Ed Sanders, a floater among contingents of kindred spirits, from the Beats to the hippies to the punks and back again. Publisher of William S. Burroughs a...

All Please Kill Me PostsBenito VilaBest OfInterviewsPoetry4 Comments 2

WELCOME TO THE TRIDENT: WHERE YOU COULD GET ANYTHING YOU WANT

Benito VilaNovember 25, 2019

From its waterfront perch in Sausalito, the Trident’s clientele could see the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge. The club/restaurant was “a trippy space ship” whose passengers just happened to be a Who’s Who of rock & roll (the Sto...

All Please Kill Me PostsBenito VilaBest OfHistory3 Comments 7

THEE BIRD MAN: RIC OCASEK

Bebe BuellNovember 14, 2019

Ever since Ric Ocasek died two months ago (on Sept. 15), Bebe Buell has been trying to process the loss of one of her dearest friends and the guiding force of her own musical career. Even while Ocasek was steering The Cars to success (and into the Ro...

All Please Kill Me PostsBebe BuellBest OfCool PeopleMusiciansR.I.P.4 Comments 5

THE DEATH OF COUNTRY DICK MONTANA & THE BALLAD OF DAN MCLAIN

Burt KearnsNovember 12, 2019

Once described as ‘half Waylon and half Johnny Rotten,’ Dan McLain was a mortal drummer from San Diego who transformed himself into Country Dick Montana, driving force for the Beat Farmers and Pleasure Barons. It was while performing with the Beat Fa...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfBurt KearnsCool PeopleHistoryR.I.P.0 Comments 8

BJ PAPAS: FROM NY HARDCORE TO LA PUNK – SHE’S SHOT THEM ALL

Sharon M. HannonNovember 6, 2019

Photographer BJ Papas started out shooting the New York hardcore scene—bands like Agnostic Front, the Bad Brains and their audiences. A fan and friend of the bands, she started going to hardcore Sunday matinees at CBGB when she was in college, then h...

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David Johansen / Shawn Cassidy image by Bob Gruen

PANYC ATTACK: CAMILLA SALY’S LIVING HISTORY OF NYC PUNK

Eric DavidsonOctober 30, 2019

Camilla Saly turned her wild stories of a misspent youth in punk bars, and their eventual boxes of ephemeral proof, into the Punk Archives NYC, a developing online database for collectors of punk artifacts related to the city. Camilla talked with Eri...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfCool PeopleEric DavidsonHistoryInterviews4 Comments 2

Carol Kaye started as a jazz solo guitarist, working the club scene of 1950s LA, when she was asked to work on some studio tracks for Sam Cooke. Though she loved the bebop jazz scene, Carol was a single mother with three kids and so to the studios she went, eventually switching to bass. She ultimately changed the very sound and role of that instrument in pop music as a member of what drummer Hal Blaine dubbed The Wrecking Crew (but which Carol has called The Clique). By any name, these were the session musicians who shaped some of the biggest hits of the 1960s, after which she went back to playing live gigs and working in movies and television, writing and teaching, which she is still doing in her 80s. Michael Shelley talks with the amazing Carol Kaye for PKM. Read more!

John Battles on PRIVATE SORROW: REMEMBERING PHIL MAY OF THE PRETTY THINGSA fitting tribute to an uncompromising Artist. Simadis summed up The Pretty Things' importance very well. I had the good fortune to see Phil May perform three times , and he never faltered as a charismatic frontman with remarkable conviction.The man kicked serious ass , in other words.
Maryjane Calyx on FRED WILLARD WAS FOREVER YOUNG: AND REALLY REALLY OLDThis is news to me, and very sad news; a real loss certainly. But wow! I sure as heck am thankful that Fred Willard was here and gave me so many reasons to laugh heartily over and again. My faves: Fernwood, Tap, History of White People... Thank you Fred! Love,
todd on JOHN DOE: X MARKS THE SPOTwhy are there never mentions of the Dickies when the subject of early SoCal punk arises?

All Posts

FATHER’S DAY GIFT GUIDE

PRIVATE SORROW: REMEMBERING PHIL MAY OF THE PRETTY THINGS

FRED WILLARD WAS FOREVER YOUNG: AND REALLY REALLY OLD

Best Of

TAQUILA MOCKINGBIRD: KEEPING PUNK HISTORY ALIVE IN L.A.

CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITAR

MARSHALL CRENSHAW IS HAVING ANOTHER FIELD DAY

Best Of

TAQUILA MOCKINGBIRD: KEEPING PUNK HISTORY ALIVE IN L.A.

CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITAR

MARSHALL CRENSHAW IS HAVING ANOTHER FIELD DAY

PENELOPE SPHEERIS: FILMING ROCK & ROLL

LISA FANCHER: STEERING PUNK’S FINAL FRONTIER IN LA

MISS PAMELA’S FAMILY SECRETS

JOHN PEEL: HIS LIFE AND MUSICAL LEGACY

ARTIST RALPH STEADMAN CELEBRATES HUNTER S. THOMPSON AND THE BIRTH OF GONZO

CHARLEY PLYMELL: OUTLAW POET & ORIGINAL PUNK

WELCOME TO THE TRIDENT: WHERE YOU COULD GET ANYTHING YOU WANT

THEE BIRD MAN: RIC OCASEK

THE DEATH OF COUNTRY DICK MONTANA & THE BALLAD OF DAN MCLAIN

BJ PAPAS: FROM NY HARDCORE TO LA PUNK – SHE’S SHOT THEM ALL

PANYC ATTACK: CAMILLA SALY’S LIVING HISTORY OF NYC PUNK

FATHER’S DAY GIFT GUIDE

PRIVATE SORROW: REMEMBERING PHIL MAY OF THE PRETTY THINGS

FRED WILLARD WAS FOREVER YOUNG: AND REALLY REALLY OLD