All Please Kill Me Posts

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

SHOPPING WITH A PURPOSE: PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR HEART IS

Amy HabenSeptember 9, 2020

The pandemic and the killing of George Floyd have unleashed a global wave of dissent unprecedented in our lifetimes. But these events only brought to the surface pent-up frustrations and anger that simmered while the planet warmed, corporations conso...

ActivismAll Please Kill Me PostsAmy Haben0 Comments 1

BEN REY: A NEW YORK PUNK INSTITUTION

Larry BaumhorSeptember 8, 2020

Inspired by his visits to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s Let It Rock shop in London, Ben Rey began wearing his own self-made punk fashions in the 1970s and just never stopped once he relocated to New York City. He has since become a familiar...

All Please Kill Me PostsFashionInterviewsLarry Baumhor0 Comments 3

ROLLING STONE: LIFE AND DEATH OF BRIAN JONES

Gary LucasSeptember 7, 2020

The acclaimed guitarist Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley, Gods and Monsters, Lou Reed, et al.) has long held a special flame for Brian Jones, the co-founder of the Rolling Stones whose deep love of American blues gave the band a gritty edg...

All Please Kill Me PostsDocumentary FilmFilmMusicians4 Comments 2

TINA BELL’S HIDDEN LEGACY: THE BLACK WOMAN WHO CREATED THE SOUND OF GRUNGE

Jen B. LarsonSeptember 3, 2020

In 1983, the Seattle band Bam Bam, fronted by a talented, elegant Black woman named Tina Bell, created a sound and lyrical foundation for a genre that white men with knit hats and plaid shirts would later make famous as "grunge." Bell was backed by h...

All Please Kill Me PostsCool PeopleHistoryJen B. LarsonMusicians9 Comments 6

REMEMBERING CAMERON AND THE LATE BOHEMIAN WORLD OF L.A.

Tosh BermanSeptember 2, 2020

Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995)—better known as ‘Cameron’—was a renegade even by the standards of L.A.’s various bohemian subcultures. An artist and occultist, she possessed a magnetic presence that drew people like Kenneth Anger, Anais Nin and Samson d...

All Please Kill Me PostsArtCool PeopleR.I.P.Tosh Berman1 Comment 1

STEVE EARLE: GHOSTS OF WEST VIRGINIA AND THE JOB OF EMPATHY

Noah LekasSeptember 1, 2020

Steve Earle has charted his own path, musical and otherwise, since he arrived in Nashville at age 19. Guitar Town, his 1986 album, was his breakthrough, melding folk, country and rock 'n' roll into a fully original new sound and vision. He has since ...

All Please Kill Me PostsInterviewsMusicians0 Comments 2

GEORGE BARRIS & ED “BIG DADDY” ROTH: THE STONES VS. BEATLES OF ‘60s L.A. KAR KULTURE

Tony MostromAugust 31, 2020

Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and George Barris created a new visual language that captured the unbridled spirit of Southern California starting in the late 1950s. In print, on cars and on screens big (film) and small (TV), their artistry spoke to youth cultur...

All Please Kill Me PostsAnthony MostromCool PeopleHistory0 Comments 2

WALTER LURE: LAST MAN ROCKIN’

James MarshallAugust 27, 2020

The death earlier this week of Walter Lure, one of the original Heartbreakers, was yet another tough blow laid on us by the year 2020. James Marshall offers a tribute to the guitarist and songwriter who served as both a front man and perfect match fo...

All Please Kill Me PostsCool PeopleJames MarshallR.I.P.3 Comments 3

JESSIE MAE HEMPHILL: HANGIN’ WITH ‘THE SHE-WOLF OF COMO’

Cree McCreeAugust 26, 2020

A five-time W.C. Handy award-winner and the fourth generation of a venerable musical family, Jessie Mae Hemphill (1923-2006), from the North Mississippi Hill Country, sang songs wrenched from her own life experience, celebrating the transformative p...

All Please Kill Me PostsInterviewsMusiciansR.I.P.2 Comments 1

GOING FOR BAROQUE: THE LEFT BANKE STORY

Scott SchinderAugust 25, 2020

With the death of Tom Finn last month, all four original members (Finn, Michael Brown, George Cameron, Steve Martin Caro) of The Left Banke are gone. Baroque pop pioneers whose influence is still felt today, The Left Banke were an oddity at a time of...

All Please Kill Me PostsHistoryMusiciansScott Schinder1 Comment 1

REMINDER RECORDS: JEREMY THOMPSON’S LOVE OF LOST RECORDS

Eric DavidsonAugust 24, 2020

After his first vinyl reissues label, Sing Sing Records, was laid to rest in 2014, Jeremy Thompson couldn't get the jones for lost rock rarities out of his system. He has jumped back into the reissues market with his new label, Reminder Records, whic...

All Please Kill Me PostsCool PeopleEric DavidsonRecord Labels0 Comments 3

GAIL ANN DORSEY: LIFE BEFORE AND AFTER BOWIE

Robert GourleyAugust 20, 2020

After two decades as a member of David Bowie’s band, Gail Ann Dorsey never put her bass guitar down, becoming an indispensable part of Lenny Kravitz’s band and pursuing other solo and collaborative projects, including recent work with The National. B...

All Please Kill Me PostsCool PeopleInterviewsMusiciansRobert Gourley0 Comments 4

SAN FRANCISCO PUNK PRANKSTERS: PINK SECTION, INFLATABLE BOY CLAMS

Richie UnterbergerAugust 19, 2020

Influenced by the punk scene centered at Mabuhay Gardens, and the fun, bohemian spirit of a city that was, back then, an affordable place to live, Judy Gittelsohn and Carol McClellan formed two different, musical contingents. One was Pink Section, us...

All Please Kill Me PostsHistoryInterviewsMusiciansRichie Unterberger3 Comments 3

CASSIE RAMONE: RETURN OF A VIVIAN GIRL

Austin BrooknerAugust 18, 2020

Taking their name from a profoundly strange book by outsider artist Henry Darger, the Brooklyn-based trio Vivian Girls developed an avid local following which expanded exponentially once they hit the road. The solid core from the start has been Cassi...

All Please Kill Me PostsGirl PowerInterviewsMusicians0 Comments 4

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

All Posts

BADFINGER: THE TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY OF ‘THE NEXT BEATLES’

HARLEM OF THE WEST: SAN FRANCISCO’S FILLMORE DISTRICT

CARLA BLEY: LIFE GOES ON, SO DOES MUSIC

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)