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The latest articles on PleaseKillMe.com – music, art, culture, fashion, poetry and movies from the 60s through today. This Is What’s Cool!

ORK RECORDS: STARTING AN INDIE-ROCK REVOLUTION ONE SINGLE AT A TIME

Alan BisbortFebruary 13, 2020

What do Richard Hell, Television, the dBs, Alex Chilton, the Feelies, Cheetah Chrome, Lester Bangs and Mick Farren all have in common? They released singles on a small, shoestring-run label owned by Terry Ork that, collectively, reshaped the musical ...

Alan BisbortAll Please Kill Me PostsArtHistoryInterviews0 Comments 1

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...

All Please Kill Me PostsCool PeopleInterviewsMichael ShelleyMusicians5 Comments 8

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 PostsEric DavidsonInterviewsMusicians0 Comments 2

SEARCH & DESTROY: UNDERGROUND ART AND PUNK IN SAN FRANCISCO

Zack KoppFebruary 10, 2020

Search & Destroy, a visually arresting San Francisco punk zine, began publishing in 1976, and quickly set a standard for D.I.Y. graphics and attitude. Taking its name from a Stooges song and documenting the fledgling West Coast punk scene, Search...

All Please Kill Me PostsInterviewsPhotographyPublishingZack Kopp2 Comments 1

THE LATE JOHNNY STRIKE: ONE FROM THE HEART

Anthony PetkovichFebruary 6, 2020

A close friend and cohort in chaos, Anthony Petkovich remembers Crime founding member Johnny Strike (Gary John Bassett). He describes his first Mabuhay Gardens Crime gig, his later working alongside Strike at a San Francisco methadone clinic and some...

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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...

All Please Kill Me PostsFilmInterviewsNora Novak1 Comment 2

DEMOLITION DOLL RODS: HIGH ENERGY DETROIT MUSCLE FOR HARD TIMES

Todd McGovernFebruary 4, 2020

The garage rock trio Demolition Doll Rods take their Detroit roots seriously. Citing the Stooges and MC5 as their touchstones, the band plays the kind of stripped-down (literally) rock & roll that would bring misfortune to the ears of Frank Sinat...

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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...

All Please Kill Me PostsAnthony MostromHistoryInterviews1 Comment 2

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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OUR FAVORITE PLAYGHOUL: VAMPIRA RISES AGAIN

Eric DavidsonJanuary 29, 2020

Maila Nurmi, come on down! Mike Decay has turned his deep and abiding love for the now-iconic actress into a one-off publication called Playghoul, which is a chronological collection of clippings, photos, writings and other ephemera of the actress’s ...

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CAN’T FIND MY WAY HOME: OUR DRUG APOCALYPSE

Benito VilaJanuary 28, 2020

Punk’s holy trinity, if it has one, would be sex, drugs and rock & roll. For the past 30 years, author and filmmaker Martin Torgoff has examined the middle pillar of that trinity: Drugs. Torgoff believes the fascination with, and profligate use o...

All Please Kill Me PostsBenito VilaCrimeHistoryInterviews1 Comment 1

JAYNE COUNTY: I DON’T FIT IN ANYWHERE

Jen B. LarsonJanuary 27, 2020

Jayne County set a pre-punk standard for outrageous rock & roll stage antics and regalia with her then bands Wayne County & the Electric Chairs and Queen Elizabeth. Her goal, she boasted, was to “make Alice Cooper look like a nun.” Now living...

All Please Kill Me PostsArtCool PeopleHistoryInterviewsJen B. Larson2 Comments 3

DAVE FAULKNER WAS A VICTIM BEFORE HE WAS A HOODOO GURU

Eric DavidsonJanuary 23, 2020

Punk from Down Under too often gets short shrift in chronicles from the 1970s. One of the punkest of the original Aussie garage bands was The Victims, comprised of three iconoclastic teens from the isolated city of Perth in western Australia who cure...

All Please Kill Me PostsEric DavidsonInterviewsMusicians0 Comments 0

THE QUEEN OF THE AIR MEETS THE HOMICIDAL YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE

Burt KearnsJanuary 22, 2020

Circus performers were, in some ways, the punk rockers of their day, and nobody was more punk than Lillian Leitzel. Feisty, fearless, tiny and yet unbelievably talented as an aerialist, Lillian performed amazing stunts like the One-Armed Plange that ...

All Please Kill Me PostsBurt KearnsCool PeopleCrimeHistory1 Comment 7

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!

Martin Hunter on CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITARCarol Kaye is The GOAT (Greatest Of All Time)!!
John Battles on DEMOLITION DOLL RODS: HIGH ENERGY DETROIT MUSCLE FOR HARD TIMESIT'S GREAT TO HAVE THE DEMOLITION DOLLRODS BACK , AND TO SEE THEIR BACK HISTORY , INCLUDING THEIR CHILDHOODS AND BREAKING OF MUSICAL CHERRIES , BOILED DOWN TO A SINGLE SHOT WITH CURRENT DOINGS AND FUTURE PLANS......NICELY DONE. AS ANDRE WILLIAMS ONCE TOLD ME , " DEM DEL - RODS
W on SEARCH & DESTROY: UNDERGROUND ART AND PUNK IN SAN FRANCISCORicky Williams did not die of AIDS. He did not have AIDS and was not an IV drug user. He died from an overdose, although the official cause of death given in his obituary was respiratory illness.

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ORK RECORDS: STARTING AN INDIE-ROCK REVOLUTION ONE SINGLE AT A TIME

CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITAR

MARSHALL CRENSHAW IS HAVING ANOTHER FIELD DAY

Best Of

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

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

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

All Please Kill Me Posts

ORK RECORDS: STARTING AN INDIE-ROCK REVOLUTION ONE SINGLE AT A TIME

CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITAR

MARSHALL CRENSHAW IS HAVING ANOTHER FIELD DAY

SEARCH & DESTROY: UNDERGROUND ART AND PUNK IN SAN FRANCISCO

THE LATE JOHNNY STRIKE: ONE FROM THE HEART

PENELOPE SPHEERIS: FILMING ROCK & ROLL

DEMOLITION DOLL RODS: HIGH ENERGY DETROIT MUSCLE FOR HARD TIMES

LISA FANCHER: STEERING PUNK’S FINAL FRONTIER IN LA

MISS PAMELA’S FAMILY SECRETS

OUR FAVORITE PLAYGHOUL: VAMPIRA RISES AGAIN

CAN’T FIND MY WAY HOME: OUR DRUG APOCALYPSE

JAYNE COUNTY: I DON’T FIT IN ANYWHERE

DAVE FAULKNER WAS A VICTIM BEFORE HE WAS A HOODOO GURU

THE QUEEN OF THE AIR MEETS THE HOMICIDAL YOUNG MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE

ORK RECORDS: STARTING AN INDIE-ROCK REVOLUTION ONE SINGLE AT A TIME

CAROL KAYE: THE BOSS OF THE BASS GUITAR

MARSHALL CRENSHAW IS HAVING ANOTHER FIELD DAY