In the movie "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" the film ends with a highly glamorized movie about Pee Wee's exploits starring a heavily-coiffed and dashing James Brolin with his tomboy girlfriend Dottie played by TV soap ubervixen Morgan Fairchild. While it was one of the many funny moments in the film, life, as they say, imitates art.
Just like the Pee Wee movie the roles of the anatomically incorrect Germs have been cast with actors a little too anatomically correct. While Darby Crash hasn't been cas…
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Added by Andy Seven on November 6, 2009 at 10:58pm —
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Once upon a time, many great new bands would forego playing auditoriums and instead do three night engagements at The Whiskey A Go-Go, The Roxy Theatre or The Starwood. These engagements would of course be over the weekend, and right around the time Patti Smith’s groundbreaking debut album “Horses” was released she booked a weekend engagement at The Roxy Theatre.
When buying tickets for a weekend engagement this was the rule of thumb: Friday, opening night, was always sold out and so packed tha…
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Added by Andy Seven on September 19, 2009 at 10:18am —
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One of the great turning points in my life was when I spent the summer of 1974 going to University High School (Westwood, California) by day and going to Rodney's English Disco at night. I was surrounding by trashy teenage kids morning, noon and night. It was teenage heaven! The big sound at the time wasn't that mopey punk rock shit, it was glitter (retroactively labeled “glam”) rock. Short, compact pop numbers with heavy metal guitar and drum mixes and blindingly metallic clothes and make-up wi…
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Added by Andy Seven on August 18, 2009 at 8:08pm —
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When Bicentennial Summer (July 4, 1976) was just around the corner everybody was unfurling their flags and fireworks, but I was reading about fireworks far, far away. A band in England called The Sex Pistols who looked like four Richard Hells were screaming at apathetic rock fans al…
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Added by Andy Seven on July 5, 2009 at 10:00am —
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When I was a little boy I didn't know much about sex but the minute I heard "Boom Boom" by The Animals I thought it was the sexiest song I'd ever heard. I didn't know it was a heavily tarted up version of a John Lee Hooker song, all I know was that I felt the vibe the band projected,…
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Added by Andy Seven on June 10, 2009 at 7:17am —
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Two struggling rockers lived together in Hollywood until they heard about this new hipster hot spot called Silver Lake, which they promptly moved to lickety split. They rented a house up the hill from Spaceland, and shit doggy, they had it made, well almost. They were in their late thirties going on forty and knew they were going to catch on like wildfire in the local music scene. They knew nothing of the new bands that were popular, but as long as they pulled out their old Neil Young and Velvet…
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Added by Andy Seven on April 18, 2009 at 11:08am —
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It was a damp, gloomy September weekend when Hollywood Park, the racetrack of legend, hosted the Celebrity Pinball Tournament, playoffs between pinball champions of all ages and both genders. I’ve always been more of a pinball wizard than a video game gremlin so I was pretty damn p…
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Added by Andy Seven on March 16, 2009 at 7:00am —
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Sometimes the show at the theater is more interesting than the movies themselves, and that’s the thing that makes going to the movies so memorable.
I could mention the time people walked out on
Boogie Nights in droves, including an old woman…
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Added by Andy Seven on February 16, 2009 at 9:35pm —
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If rock ‘n roll wants to enter the mainstream and be taken seriously as an art form, then fine, but you have to bear in mind that once that happens things like awards, tuxedos and banquets arise from that serious mess. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a fine example of what happens t…
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Added by Andy Seven on November 16, 2008 at 9:50am —
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When I was eighteen years old I frequented a club called Rodney’s English Disco, which was on the Sunset Strip. It was hosted by a man named Rodney Bingenheimer, who was apparently the world’s biggest rock fanboy and official welcome wagon to visiting bands in L.A. I went there on weeknights because the admission was free, on a dead night the drinks were sometimes free as well, and things were low-key enough to catch people at their least pretentious, posey and unguarded selves. And some nights…
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Added by Andy Seven on October 14, 2008 at 9:56pm —
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Punk rock couldn't compete with the explosion in my teenage life of seeing Rahsaan Roland Kirk on stage at Carnegie Hall kicking beer cans off the stage, blind at birth, blowing three saxophones at once, and me young terrified young kid thinking, "This is what life is all about, a cool shit blind motherfucker blowing three horns at once!" Even real-time sex or superhype cocaine couldn't compete with this rush, baby.
One year later I saw Sun Ra, grizzled old spaceman drag genius with his big ban…
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Added by Andy Seven on September 11, 2008 at 10:30pm —
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The hottest punk band from Germany in the early Eighties was called MDK (Mechanik Destruktiv Komma…
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Added by Andy Seven on August 13, 2008 at 10:12pm —
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Well, it seems like 100 years ago, but I’ll try to remember. I was putting together a show at Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco and I needed to talk to the Berlin Brats. I didn’t have anyone’s number but they were playing the Whisky A Go-Go on a Tuesday night. As I walked into the c…
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Added by Andy Seven on July 16, 2008 at 10:04pm —
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Played the Second Coming club with the stage festooned in flower petals. The petals on the floor made us slip and slide all over the stage. I had to keep the guitarists from falling on their faces and guitar necks. Later on the Lovedolls’ lead singer tried her cooch dancing routine and almo…
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Added by Andy Seven on June 13, 2008 at 11:00pm —
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Parties always sound more exciting than they really are. You go there with high expectations and don't worry, you'll always be let down. There was the party where the TV played a DVD of "Wizard of Oz" with some lousy Pink Floyd album droning in the background LOUDER than it had to be.…
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Added by Andy Seven on May 19, 2008 at 8:00pm —
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Nobody hits the streets of San Francisco expecting to knock 'em dead. If anything, if you go there it's to run away from somewhere else, and she was taking flight from French Canada, a chilly graveyard of smug and prim "rebels". She had dark skin of indeterminate race and platin…
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Added by Andy Seven on April 13, 2008 at 11:10am —
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It ain't easy being green and it's harder being Ringo Starr. The only Beatle that never got the respect he deserved, in a way it's easy to see why. Flashing a peace sign every three seconds like a trained chimp at Knotts Berry Farm, it's a meaningless gesture when you have a…
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Added by Andy Seven on March 11, 2008 at 8:24pm —
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Rather than a-boo-hoo-hoo about the old rock glory days I much prefer remembering all the reasons why I slayed the old showbiz bitch in the first place. Case in point, the most dreaded rock god task of all: auditioning musicians. I'd rather have
…
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Added by Andy Seven on February 10, 2008 at 7:31pm —
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The CD had finally come out, and the NME called it one of the three best albums of the year, so it was time to hit the road. The prospect of playing some run-down coffeehouse to a bunch of jealous scenesters with their mean, pinched, bitter evil faces lost its appeal to us, so we packed up our two rented Ford Aerostar XL vans…
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Added by Andy Seven on January 16, 2008 at 12:30am —
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This coming Sunday, November 11th will be the Masque Reunion Party at the Echo in Echo Park, California. The Masque was one of the first places anyone in Southern California could experience punk rock. For $3 you could see The Germs, X, The Weirdos, The Dickies and a fat Belinda Carlisle, all on the same night. In 1997 I attended the 20th anniversary party held at the original Masque, and quite frankly that was enough for me.
Why? Well, for one thing this reunion will cost **$25**, whic…
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Added by Andy Seven on November 4, 2007 at 12:49am —
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