Crotch Rot at the Ritz, Austin Tx circa 1984
Showing posts with label punk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label punk. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Ninja Mag
Ninja Mag is a very cool French magazine that just published a small set of my old Crotch Rot shots. For those of you who are not in the know about such things, Crotch Rot were Austin hardcore teen sensations circa 1984. Drummer Felix, (who was about 14 in this shot) went on to play with DRI. You can check out Ninja Magazine (and download copies in pdf form) at www.ninja-mag.com
Crotch Rot at the Ritz, Austin Tx circa 1984
Crotch Rot at the Ritz, Austin Tx circa 1984
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Ugly
To master this vision of ugliness, people acted it out. Today, after more than [three decades] of punk style, when a purple and green Mohawk on the head of a suburban American teenager only begs the question of how early he or she has to get up to fix his or her hair in time for school, it’s hard to remember just how ugly the first punks were.
They were ugly. There were no mediations. A ten-inch safety pink cutting through a lower lip into a swastika tattooed onto a cheek was not a fashion statement; a fan forcing a finger down his throat, vomiting into his hands, then hurling the spew at the people on stage was spreading disease. An inch-thick nimbus of black mascara suggested death before it suggested anything else. The punks were not just pretty people, like the Slits or bassist Gaye of the Adverts, who made themselves ugly. They were fat, anorexic, pockmarked, acned, stuttering, crippled, scarred, and damaged, and what their new decorations underlined was the failure already engraved in their faces.
(Greil Marcus, Lipstick Taces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, 1989, pp 73 - 74)
They were ugly. There were no mediations. A ten-inch safety pink cutting through a lower lip into a swastika tattooed onto a cheek was not a fashion statement; a fan forcing a finger down his throat, vomiting into his hands, then hurling the spew at the people on stage was spreading disease. An inch-thick nimbus of black mascara suggested death before it suggested anything else. The punks were not just pretty people, like the Slits or bassist Gaye of the Adverts, who made themselves ugly. They were fat, anorexic, pockmarked, acned, stuttering, crippled, scarred, and damaged, and what their new decorations underlined was the failure already engraved in their faces.
(Greil Marcus, Lipstick Taces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, 1989, pp 73 - 74)
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Texas punk 1983: postcard collection
Austin Texas, 1983. I was just a kid armed with an Olympus OM-10, taking shots of my friends and my life, which mostly consisted of hanging out, getting drunk and going shows. It was the birth of DIY, a brief explosion that really changed everything and made possible almost all youth culture that was to follow, even though the American punk scene was tiny and deeply underground.
I took some amazing shots back then, and who knew that any of 'em would ever have any legitimate cultural and historical value?
I've printed up a limited edition set of 10 black and white postcards on 4"x6" 14pt UV-coated super-glossy stock, beautifully presented in vellum packaging. Included are shots of Black Flag, the Meat Puppets, the legendary Big Boys, the Offenders (rest in peace Mikey), hardcore teen sensations Crotch Rot (whose 14-yr-old drummer Felix went on to play in DRI)... You can see some of 'em below and buy the set on my site. Click here. The perfect Christmas gift for all you crusty punkers.
I took some amazing shots back then, and who knew that any of 'em would ever have any legitimate cultural and historical value?
I've printed up a limited edition set of 10 black and white postcards on 4"x6" 14pt UV-coated super-glossy stock, beautifully presented in vellum packaging. Included are shots of Black Flag, the Meat Puppets, the legendary Big Boys, the Offenders (rest in peace Mikey), hardcore teen sensations Crotch Rot (whose 14-yr-old drummer Felix went on to play in DRI)... You can see some of 'em below and buy the set on my site. Click here. The perfect Christmas gift for all you crusty punkers.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Mikey Offender, RIP
I just learned my old buddy Mikey Donaldson (aka Mikey Offender) died in his sleep in Barcelona on the 22nd.
Back in my Austin days in the early 80s, Mikey was the bass player for the Offenders, a brilliant and very loud hardcore band w/ a serious metal edge (although we didn't realize it at the time 'cause nobody was listing to metal back then). He also played in MDC (and continued playing for them for the past 20+ years) as well as Sister Double Happiness (Gary Floyd from the Dicks' early 90s SF band).
I attribute much of my hearing loss to those Offenders shows.
I remember hanging with Mikey at his place in Austin guzzling beer while we watched MTV. MTV was just a year or two old back then and they still played nothing but music videos; Michael Jackson's epic monster video had just come out to much fanfare and we were blown away by it. Those were the Toni Basil "Mickey-you're-so-fine-you-blow-my-mind" cheerleader video days & nobody had seen anything like this Michael Jackson stuff -- it even managed to get us punk kids off. They played it over and over and we watched it over and over.
Mikey and I had been in touch sporadically over the years. He contacted me when the Offenders did their reunion back in Austin around 2000 or so, a reunion that was short lived 'cause singer JJ couldn't manage to stay out of trouble and ended up getting thrown in prison the day of their second show. He got in touch again a while later -- I think he was back in SF -- and then a year or so after that -- he was living in Amsterdam. I sent a bunch of old photos to be used on a Dutch or German vinyl (!) reissue of We Must Rebel, the original album cover of which was designed by my girlfriend at the time and I had something to do with putting the record out or getting it distributed. The record label was MDC's R-Radical, which was being handled by a guy named Tabb Rex, a shady record broker here in Hollywood w/ an office he lived out of on Santa Monica & El Centro, right next to the pressing plant. I ended starting my own record label and doing a bunch of stuff with Tabb until his publicist warned me I was getting ripped off big time, which prompted my move out to LA. The publicist who warned me was Johnette Napolitano, later of Concrete Blonde. Tabb went out of business. The pressing plant became Macola Records, a shady record label that specialized in dance like Egyptian Lover and Stacy Q & put out the first west coast rap stuff. Macola was ripping off all their artists and I remember helping a little black guy steal a bunch of his own albums from the back of the plant to sell down at the Gardena Swap Meet. I didn't realize until 15 years later that this was Eazy E and that was the first NWA stuff.
This might sound like a lot of name dropping. It's not. None of those people were names back then. It's indicative of what a heady, intense time it was -- an explosion of what would become major youth/pop culture but was still deeply, deeply underground. The corner of Santa Monica & El Centro was a pretty seedy corner, and none of us there would've ever imagined that any of us or the people we were rubbing shoulders or sharing smokes with were ever gonna become anything more than angry upstarts.
It's all wound up together in a tight but tangled mess, and Mikey was a major part of it all.
These photos are from around 1982/1983, in Austin.
Rest in peace, Mikey.
I was talking to a buddy. We both lived and live these lives that seem full of folks who don't make it. It feels odd to us that the attrition rate amongst us is so high when we basically regard ourselves as really regular Joes.
We agreed it always hits us the hardest when it's someone from the old gang, like Mikey is to me -- guys you were tight with way back when, and while you've kept up with each other, you don't see one another often if at all, and so they remain fixed in our hearts, our minds and our memories the age they were back then, and maybe we remain fixed at that age too in those memories. As the youth and youth's optimism and possibility associated with them goes, a chunk of our own youth and all its promise officially moves into the history drawer. There's the sense, too, that in a finite life, as the past gets bigger, the future necessarily gets smaller and the possibilities narrow, if only due to the growing constraints of lessening time.
A bunch of us used to joke that we'd survived the punk days. Now that bunch is a lot smaller, and having survived is no longer a joke.
Anyhow, Mikey, hold down the fort up there. I imagine all of us will be joining you soon enough.
From Offender's drummer Pat Doyle:
Mikey "Offender" Donaldson passed away in his sleep on September 22 in Barcelona Spain where he had recently relocated from Amsterdam. The cause is unknown at the moment. He was 46. He is survived by his brother Joe Donaldson, sister Marie Donaldson Ward, and sister Sumiko Hakari, all of Killeen, Texas.
Mikey was the bass player for Austin punk band the Offenders from 1978-86. He also recorded bass tracks on MDC's groundbreaker "Millions of Dead Cops" and DRI's "Dealing With It." Mikey also performed regularly with MDC in the early 1980s. He moved to San Francisco in 1986 and went on to play and record with Gary Floyd (Dicks) and Lynn Perko (Imperial Teen) in Sister Double Happiness. After leaving the music scene for ten years or so, Mikey returned to Austin and reunited with the original Offenders line-up for a gig at Emos in March 2002. In 2003 MDC recruited Mikey and their original line-up, recorded a new album, and have been touring all over the world ever since.
Mikey is universally regarded as one of the most innovative and inimitable masters of the bass guitar. He played his Rickenbacker like it was a out-sized rhythm guitar. Taking cues from Jack Bruce and Lemmy, Mikey pioneered an agressive speed-picking style and liberal employment of bass chords that few have been able to emulate in the past 20 years. He will be sorely missed, certainly in Austin and his hometown of Killeen, but also across the globe. A memorial celebration in Austin is pending and the date will be announced soon.
Back in my Austin days in the early 80s, Mikey was the bass player for the Offenders, a brilliant and very loud hardcore band w/ a serious metal edge (although we didn't realize it at the time 'cause nobody was listing to metal back then). He also played in MDC (and continued playing for them for the past 20+ years) as well as Sister Double Happiness (Gary Floyd from the Dicks' early 90s SF band).
I attribute much of my hearing loss to those Offenders shows.
I remember hanging with Mikey at his place in Austin guzzling beer while we watched MTV. MTV was just a year or two old back then and they still played nothing but music videos; Michael Jackson's epic monster video had just come out to much fanfare and we were blown away by it. Those were the Toni Basil "Mickey-you're-so-fine-you-blow-my-mind" cheerleader video days & nobody had seen anything like this Michael Jackson stuff -- it even managed to get us punk kids off. They played it over and over and we watched it over and over.
Mikey and I had been in touch sporadically over the years. He contacted me when the Offenders did their reunion back in Austin around 2000 or so, a reunion that was short lived 'cause singer JJ couldn't manage to stay out of trouble and ended up getting thrown in prison the day of their second show. He got in touch again a while later -- I think he was back in SF -- and then a year or so after that -- he was living in Amsterdam. I sent a bunch of old photos to be used on a Dutch or German vinyl (!) reissue of We Must Rebel, the original album cover of which was designed by my girlfriend at the time and I had something to do with putting the record out or getting it distributed. The record label was MDC's R-Radical, which was being handled by a guy named Tabb Rex, a shady record broker here in Hollywood w/ an office he lived out of on Santa Monica & El Centro, right next to the pressing plant. I ended starting my own record label and doing a bunch of stuff with Tabb until his publicist warned me I was getting ripped off big time, which prompted my move out to LA. The publicist who warned me was Johnette Napolitano, later of Concrete Blonde. Tabb went out of business. The pressing plant became Macola Records, a shady record label that specialized in dance like Egyptian Lover and Stacy Q & put out the first west coast rap stuff. Macola was ripping off all their artists and I remember helping a little black guy steal a bunch of his own albums from the back of the plant to sell down at the Gardena Swap Meet. I didn't realize until 15 years later that this was Eazy E and that was the first NWA stuff.
This might sound like a lot of name dropping. It's not. None of those people were names back then. It's indicative of what a heady, intense time it was -- an explosion of what would become major youth/pop culture but was still deeply, deeply underground. The corner of Santa Monica & El Centro was a pretty seedy corner, and none of us there would've ever imagined that any of us or the people we were rubbing shoulders or sharing smokes with were ever gonna become anything more than angry upstarts.
It's all wound up together in a tight but tangled mess, and Mikey was a major part of it all.
These photos are from around 1982/1983, in Austin.
Rest in peace, Mikey.
I was talking to a buddy. We both lived and live these lives that seem full of folks who don't make it. It feels odd to us that the attrition rate amongst us is so high when we basically regard ourselves as really regular Joes.
We agreed it always hits us the hardest when it's someone from the old gang, like Mikey is to me -- guys you were tight with way back when, and while you've kept up with each other, you don't see one another often if at all, and so they remain fixed in our hearts, our minds and our memories the age they were back then, and maybe we remain fixed at that age too in those memories. As the youth and youth's optimism and possibility associated with them goes, a chunk of our own youth and all its promise officially moves into the history drawer. There's the sense, too, that in a finite life, as the past gets bigger, the future necessarily gets smaller and the possibilities narrow, if only due to the growing constraints of lessening time.
A bunch of us used to joke that we'd survived the punk days. Now that bunch is a lot smaller, and having survived is no longer a joke.
Anyhow, Mikey, hold down the fort up there. I imagine all of us will be joining you soon enough.
From Offender's drummer Pat Doyle:
Mikey "Offender" Donaldson passed away in his sleep on September 22 in Barcelona Spain where he had recently relocated from Amsterdam. The cause is unknown at the moment. He was 46. He is survived by his brother Joe Donaldson, sister Marie Donaldson Ward, and sister Sumiko Hakari, all of Killeen, Texas.
Mikey was the bass player for Austin punk band the Offenders from 1978-86. He also recorded bass tracks on MDC's groundbreaker "Millions of Dead Cops" and DRI's "Dealing With It." Mikey also performed regularly with MDC in the early 1980s. He moved to San Francisco in 1986 and went on to play and record with Gary Floyd (Dicks) and Lynn Perko (Imperial Teen) in Sister Double Happiness. After leaving the music scene for ten years or so, Mikey returned to Austin and reunited with the original Offenders line-up for a gig at Emos in March 2002. In 2003 MDC recruited Mikey and their original line-up, recorded a new album, and have been touring all over the world ever since.
Mikey is universally regarded as one of the most innovative and inimitable masters of the bass guitar. He played his Rickenbacker like it was a out-sized rhythm guitar. Taking cues from Jack Bruce and Lemmy, Mikey pioneered an agressive speed-picking style and liberal employment of bass chords that few have been able to emulate in the past 20 years. He will be sorely missed, certainly in Austin and his hometown of Killeen, but also across the globe. A memorial celebration in Austin is pending and the date will be announced soon.
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