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 ...

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CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITAR

Michael ShelleyFebruary 12, 2020

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 sh...

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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...

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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

Anthony 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...

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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...

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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...

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

Benito VilaNovember 25, 2019

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 Stones, Quicksilver, Crosby, Garcia, Lesh, Sam Andrew, Peter Stampfel) and Hollywood (Clint Eastwood, Warren Beatty, Sterling Hayden) and elsewhere (Alan Watts, Sonny Barger, Bill Cosby), not to mention Robin Williams was one of the busboys and the tequila sunrise was invented at the bar. The Fifties became the Sixties at the club, then the Sixties became the Seventies…Benito Vila takes us back, through the words of those who were there. Read more!

Quentin Chip on OUT TO SEA WITH THE OUTLAW COUNTRY CRUISEQuite a line-up I must admit. I've met Lee Perry , Kinky and Kris Kristofferson unfortunately not on the same boat but on separate occasions. All highly intelligent geezers who would be incongruous in the tawdry world of rock 'n' roll but have successfully carved a niche for themselves in
Jan Collins on CHIP TAYLOR: THE HAPPY GAMBLERInteresting he skipped over the Carrie portion of his return to music.....
Dave Brock on THE PUZZLING CASE OF PATTI SMITH: GROUNDBREAKER, ‘GODMOTHER OF PUNK’ AND YOUR MOM’S FAVORITE AUTHORNitpicky, I know, but "Kids Are People Too" was a Sunday morning show, not Saturday. My former uncle (aunt's ex-husband) worked on the show. I got to meet KISS and Patti (amongst many others) and even Gene Simmons was nicer than Patti. She was really nasty to me, my sister,

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OUT TO SEA WITH THE OUTLAW COUNTRY CRUISE

CHIP TAYLOR: THE HAPPY GAMBLER

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW #1: THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO

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

OUT TO SEA WITH THE OUTLAW COUNTRY CRUISE

CHIP TAYLOR: THE HAPPY GAMBLER

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW #1: THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO