Best Of

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

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

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...

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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

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...

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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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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 ...

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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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Wee Flowers on HEDI SLIMANE: THE DESIGNER WHO HAS RESURRECTED ROCK ‘N’ ROLL GLAMOURDear Ingrid Jensen - loved your post about Hedi Slimane. I discovered his menswear for Dior and managed to get a pair of skinny black stretch jeans (sale). Still wear it. Then I watched Hedi's SL shows with a growing 'must have' feeling until SS2015 when I finally gave up
Tom Pain on TINA BELL’S HIDDEN LEGACY: THE BLACK WOMAN WHO CREATED THE SOUND OF GRUNGEI lived in Seattle before and through the whole "gunge" thing, which was largely a media and ms industry concoction. in the interest of accuracy, the term "grunge", as related to any music, first appeared in Aug 1988. David Duet and James Burdyshaw used it on their Seattle band Cat
Scott Ledgerwood on PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF 2020, PART IFantastic seeing Tina Bell & Bam Bam on your list!!

All Posts

IT DON’T BOTHER ME: THE LEGACY OF BERT JANSCH

GUITARIST DEREK BAILEY: FREE FOR ALL IMPROVISOR

CARTOONIST PETER BAGGE: BEYOND PUNK, GRUNGE AND HATE

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PLEASE READ ME: THE BEST OF 2020, PART I

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Best Of

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

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

THE JOY OF DESOLATION: TAKING PUNK ROCK TO THE DESERT

IT DON’T BOTHER ME: THE LEGACY OF BERT JANSCH

GUITARIST DEREK BAILEY: FREE FOR ALL IMPROVISOR

CARTOONIST PETER BAGGE: BEYOND PUNK, GRUNGE AND HATE

ELDRIDGE CLEAVER: A SOUL FOREVER ON ICE

COOL TOWN: HOW ATHENS, GEORGIA CHANGED AMERICAN CULTURE