Best Of

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

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.5 Comments 24

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.1 Comment 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

NICO: THERE SHE GOES AGAIN, A MEDITATION ON DEATH, BEAUTY AND ARTISTRY

Billy HoughOctober 24, 2019

Nico (Christa Paffgen) was many things to many different people, including Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Bob Dylan, Alain Delon and numerous other collaborators. But to performance artist Billy Hough, Nico was “the most underrated/overexposed ...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfBilly HoughCool PeopleHistory4 Comments 4

THE JOY OF DESOLATION: TAKING PUNK ROCK TO THE DESERT

Richie UnterbergerOctober 16, 2019

Putting on punk shows in Los Angeles in the early 1980s became near to impossible with the lack of venues and police harassment of those events that did manage to find one. So a young promoter, Stuart Swezey, took bands like Redd Kross, the Minutemen...

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WHEN JACK KEROUAC HAD HIS CRACK-UP

Paul Maher, JrOctober 8, 2019

Spiraling down a silo of despair and drunkenness in the wake of his On The Road/Dharma Bums celebrity as ‘king of the Beats’, Jack Kerouac longed for a safe haven. Poet/publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti heeded the call, loaning Kerouac his cabin at Big...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfBooksHistoryPaul Maher4 Comments 4

JABBERJAW: WHEN AN L.A. CLUB CREATED ITS OWN SCENE

Lucretia Tye JasmineOctober 1, 2019

What started as an all-ages coffee bar and acoustic venue in 1989 turned into a must-play showcase for local and out of town bands. Jabberjaw’s roster included L7, Bikini Kill, Iggy Pop, Elliott Smith, Hole, Beck, and many others. In its nine-year ru...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfHistoryLucretia Tye Jasmine0 Comments 2

ROGER MCGUINN: A NOTORIOUS BYRD BROTHER FINDS PEACE

Larry Ratso SlomanSeptember 16, 2019

Roger McGuinn, as a founding member and guiding force of The Byrds, had a huge impact on rock 'n' roll of the 1960s, before embarking on a long and distinguished solo career that continues today. His fellow member of the Rolling Thunder Revue, Larry ...

All Please Kill Me PostsBest OfHistoryInterviewsLarry “Ratso” SlomanMusicians5 Comments 4

THE MURDER OF ALFALFA

Burt KearnsAugust 27, 2019

Carl ‘Alfalfa’ Switzer was the most popular star of the classic Our Gang comedies. But the facts of the Little Rascal’s untimely death have been clouded in Hollywood Babylon myth... until Burt Kearns & Jeff Abraham started digging. by Burt Kearn...

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GARY PANTER: LIFE AFTER PUNK & PEE WEE

Eric DavidsonAugust 19, 2019

Raised in Texas, artist Gary Panter moved to L.A. in the late 1970s and made an immediate mark on the L.A. punk scene with his now iconic poster for the Screamers, among many other fliers, posters and comic strips in Slash. But his amazingly varied a...

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BE KIND TO ME: THE MUSIC AND ART OF MICHAEL HURLEY

Gregory DaurerAugust 7, 2019

Michael Hurley could be called the godfather, or grandfather, of ‘freak-folk” but the Oregon-based singer, songwriter, artist and storyteller’s roots go back to his childhood in rural Pennsylvania and early forays into New York City, where he found k...

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kanassatego on MEEKSVILLE UK: JOE MEEK, ARCHITECT OF STARDOMFor me, the largely ignored Meek masterpiece is "The Husky Team." The Outlaws' version is so fabulous I cannot imagine how it could possibly be improved on. Among many masterpieces of instrumental rock music of the 1960s, "The Husky Team" can possibly be equalled by "Apache" (the Shadows' version). Equalled
damoneramone on EWOLF: LIVING IN A BLACK AND WHITE WORLDGreat piece.
Jamie on WALTER LURE: LAST MAN ROCKIN’The last paragraph is incorrect; Walter Lure is the last man standing. After all, Paul Cook, Steve Jones, countless substitute drummers for Jerry, saxophone players, and others played with the Heartbreakers, a few for extended periods of time. After Jerry first left heartbreakers attempted to continue for a time with

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HARLEM OF THE WEST: SAN FRANCISCO’S FILLMORE DISTRICT

CARLA BLEY: LIFE GOES ON, SO DOES MUSIC

INSIDE FINGERED: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH FILMMAKER RICHARD KERN

Best Of

FRED WILLARD WAS FOREVER YOUNG: AND REALLY REALLY OLD

SHOOTING STIV BATORS AND LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH

DENNIS HOPPER’S BLUE PERIOD: THE MAKING OF OUT OF THE BLUE (1980)

Best Of

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

NICO: THERE SHE GOES AGAIN, A MEDITATION ON DEATH, BEAUTY AND ARTISTRY

THE JOY OF DESOLATION: TAKING PUNK ROCK TO THE DESERT

WHEN JACK KEROUAC HAD HIS CRACK-UP

JABBERJAW: WHEN AN L.A. CLUB CREATED ITS OWN SCENE

ROGER MCGUINN: A NOTORIOUS BYRD BROTHER FINDS PEACE

THE MURDER OF ALFALFA

GARY PANTER: LIFE AFTER PUNK & PEE WEE

BE KIND TO ME: THE MUSIC AND ART OF MICHAEL HURLEY

HARLEM OF THE WEST: SAN FRANCISCO’S FILLMORE DISTRICT

CARLA BLEY: LIFE GOES ON, SO DOES MUSIC

INSIDE FINGERED: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH FILMMAKER RICHARD KERN

10 ROCK BANDS YOU’VE PROBABLY NEVER HEARD OF BUT SHOULD DEFINITELY CHECK OUT

AND IN THE END: A LOOK AT THE LAST DAYS OF THE BEATLES