Gutter Gospel By General Labor: Cait, Art-Ghetto 80s Goth, Gringo, Wah Wah Hut, Pyramid, Dive, Legere, Shooting Gallery, Pilger, Shipton, Whitney Webb, Wendy Wild, Antoinettes!

“Folks, if you were not diverted by Russiagate BS you might have noticed the scandal of FBI infiltration of Trump campaign & coordination of intelligence agencies to undermine his presidency under guise of protecting the nation. This is nothing new.” (-Ajamu Baraka)

“”The persecution of Julian normalizes going after journalists and putting them in prison.” (—Stella Assange)

“The fact Dick fucking Cheney gets over 80k likes means that there are 80k people who are either brain dead or don’t know who Dick Cheney is” (-Whitney Webb)

“In the days when you were hopelessly poor, I just liked you more…” (-Morrissey)

“The FBI murdered Fred Hampton. It infiltrated the Black Panthers and Civil Rights movement. It smeared Malcolm X and told MLK to kill himself. It backed CIA cocaine trafficking into Black communities. It just raided the Uhuru Movement. Jimmy Dore is not your enemy. The FBI is. The FBI and the rest of the trillion dollar military industrial security state has nothing to do with protecting Black leftists or any working class American. It exists to suppress dissent and ruthlessly maintain the empire. It exists to protect the government from its people.” (-The People’s Party)

“Good to see Cleveland Police Foundation board member Nina Turner push back on calls to defund the FBI. If she ever wins an election, she’ll be able to join the rest of the Squad in voting to increase the Bureau’s budget!” (-Max Blumenthal)

“You might be a conservative if…you haven’t been calling to abolish the FBI after what they’ve done to the Panthers, MLK, and Malcolm X.” (-Kim Iverson)

“”Knowledge has always flowed upwards to bishops and kings, not down to serfs and slaves.” (-Julian Assange)

“Every country our Gov’t helps winds up destroyed and in a state of chaos, and our weapons manufacturers always wind up billions richer.” (-Black In The Empire)

“Are you a pretend socialist or do you support the dismantling of the western empire?” (-Caitlin Johnstone)

Twitter outlines its plot to “protect” the US midterm elections from “misinformation” (reclaimthenet.org)

“Incredible. I’ve reported from conflict zones and dictatorships around the world for 18 years and I’ve never been arrested for journalism. And yet it happened to me here in Britain. They confiscated all my devices.” (-Saeed Taj Farouky) Palestine Action on Twitter: “BREAKING: British police arrest an Arab photographer for no reason, outside the occupied ‘Good Packing Company’ who package and transport Israel’s military hardware #ACAB #ShutElbitDown https://t.co/JhIQel2CEB” / Twitter

“I’m out now but they still have my phone and laptop.” (-Saeed Taji Farouky on twitter)

Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder′s case endangers press freedom, his wife tells DW | News | DW | 11.08.2022

THE GUTTER GOSPEL OUT CROWD DROPOUTS AND DISGUSTEENS WILL ALWAYS LOVE AND REMEMBER GORD LEWIS AND THE FANTASTIC PUNK OF TEENAGE HEAD (RIP)

Gord Lewis dead: Son arrested for murder of Teenage Head guitarist (usatoday.com)

Teenage Head guitarist Gord Lewis found dead; Jonathan Lewis charged with second-degree murder | TheSpec.com

https://nypost.com/2022/08/10/son-of-teenage-head-guitarist-gord-lewis-alerted-media-about-dads-decaying-body-report/

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/he-epitomized-cool-gord-lewis-brother-speaks-on-the-teenage-head-guitarist-s-murder-1.6022348

THE FABULOUS CAIT JOHNSTONE ROGUE JOURNALIST TRUTH TELLER EXTRAORDINAIRE!

Following objections from the Ukrainian government, CBS News has removed a short documentary which had reported concerns from numerous sources that a large amount of the supplies being sent to Ukraine aren’t making it to the front lines.

The Ukrainian government has listed its objections to the report on a government website, naming Ukrainian officials who objected to it and explaining why each of the CBS news sources it dislikes should be discounted. After the report was taken down and the Twitter post about it removed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said this was a good start but still not enough.

“Welcome first step, but it is not enough,” Kuleba tweeted. “You have misled a huge audience by sharing unsubstantiated claims and damaging trust in supplies of vital military aid to a nation resisting aggression and genocide. There should be an internal investigation into who enabled this and why.”

CBS Removes Documentary on Ukraine Military Aid After Pressure from Ukrainian Government#Ukraine‘s FM called for investigation into the documentary, which found that most military aid wasn’t making it to the frontlines
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #cbsnews https://t.co/SZWXdeNyRf pic.twitter.com/zE3fdNDNLA

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) August 8, 2022

The CBS News article about the documentary was renamed, from “Why military aid to Ukraine doesn’t always get to the front lines: ‘Like 30% of it reaches its final destination’” to the far milder “Why military aid in Ukraine may not always get to the front lines.” An editor’s note on the new version of the article explicitly admits to taking advisement on its changes from the Ukrainian government, reading as follows:

This article has been updated to reflect changes since the CBS Reports documentary ‘Arming Ukraine’ was filmed, and the documentary is also being updated. Jonas Ohman says the delivery has significantly improved since filming with CBS in late April. The government of Ukraine notes that U.S. defense attaché Brigadier General Garrick M. Harmon arrived in Kyiv in August 2022 for arms control and monitoring.”

CBS News does not say why it has taken so long for this report to come out, why it didn’t check to see if anything had changed in the last few months during a rapidly unfolding war before releasing its report, or why it felt its claims were good enough to air before Kyiv raised its objections but not after.

Someone uploaded the old version of the documentary on YouTube here, or you can watch it on Bitchute here if that one gets taken down. It was supportive of Ukraine and very oppositional to Russia, and simply featured a number of sources saying they had reason to believe a lot of the military supplies being sent to Ukraine aren’t getting where they’re supposed to go.

The original article quotes the aforementioned Jonas Ohman as follows:

“All of this stuff goes across the border, and then something happens, kind of like 30% of it reaches its final destination,” said Jonas Ohman, founder and CEO of Blue-Yellow, a Lithuania-based organization that has been meeting with and supplying frontline units with military aid in Ukraine since the start of the conflict with Russia-backed separatists in 2014.

“30-40%, that’s my estimation,” he said in April of this year.

“The US has sent tens of thousands of anti-aircraft and anti-armor systems, artillery rounds, hundreds of artillery systems, Switchblade armored drones, and tens of millions of rounds of small arms ammunition,” CBS’s Adam Yamaguchi tells us at 14:15 of the documentary. “But in a conflict where frontlines are scattered and conditions change without warning, not all of those supplies reach their destination. Some also reported weapons are being hoarded, or worse fear that they are disappearing into the black market, an industry that has thrived under corruption in post-Soviet Ukraine.”

“I can tell you unarguably that on the frontline units these things are not getting there,” the Mozart Group‘s Andy Milburn tells Yamaguchi at 17:40. “Drones, Switchblades, IFAKs. They’re not, alright. Body armor, helmets, you name it.”

“Is it safe to characterize this as a little bit of a black hole?” Yamaguchi asked him, perhaps in reference to an April report from CNN whose source said the equipment that’s being sent “drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”

“I suppose if you don’t have visibility of where this stuff is going, and if you’re asking that question, then it would appear that it’s a black hole, yeah,” Milburn replied.

“We don’t know,” Amnesty International’s Donatella Rovera tells Yamaguchi at 18:45 when asked if it’s known where the weapons being sent to Ukraine are going.

“There is really no information as to where they’re going at all,” Rovera says. “What is more worrying is that at least some of the countries that are sending weapons do not seem to think that it is their responsibility to put in place a very robust oversight mechanism to ensure that they know how they’re being used today, but also how they might and will be used tomorrow.”

Don’t worry, @CBSNews, I saved it for you. https://t.co/XIUkXjqMSw pic.twitter.com/wbe0fdngJH

— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) August 8, 2022

A news outlet pulling a report because their own government didn’t like it would be a scandalous breach of journalistic ethics. A news outlet pulling a report because a foreign government didn’t like it is even more so.

We’ve already seen that the western media will uncritically report literally any claim made by the government of Ukraine in bizarre instances like the recent report that Russia was firing rockets at a nuclear power plant it had already captured, or its regurgitation of claims that Russians are raping babies to death from a Ukrainian official who ended up getting fired for promoting unevidenced claims about rape. Now not only will western media outlets uncritically report any claim the Ukrainian government makes, they will also retract claims of their own when the Ukrainian government tells them to.

It’s not just commentators like me who see the western press as propagandists: that’s how they see themselves. If you think it’s your job to always report information that helps one side of a war and always omit any information which might hinder it, then you have given yourself the role of propagandist. You might not call yourself that, but that’s what you are by any reasonable definition of that word.

And a great many western Zelenskyites honestly see this as the media’s role as well. They’ll angrily condemn anyone who inserts skepticism of the US empire’s narratives about Ukraine into mainstream consciousness, but then they’ll also yell at you if you say we’re not being told the truth about Ukraine. They demand to be lied to, and call you a liar if you say that means we’re being lied to.

“Russian Propaganda” Just Means Disobedience

Empire apologists are raging at @amnesty for pausing its aggressive facilitation of western imperialism to issue one brief criticism of the way Ukrainian forces have been endangering civilian lives.https://t.co/puddbmoiu5

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 6, 2022

You can’t have it both ways. Either you want the mass media to serve as war propagandists or you want them to tell the truth. You cannot hold both of those positions simultaneously. They are mutually exclusive. And many actually want the former.

This can’t lead anywhere good.FREE JULIAN!

Not all of us are gentrified or assimilated cogs of the Bad Machine. I do not have to agree with you about your preferred oligarch candidate to support your right to ask questions, contest election results, protest media lies and the growing tech surveillance dystopian police state, and/or demonstrate against these fuckedup forever wars based on fabrications and provocations. If the whole thing was not a secret society and deep state rigged sham, don’t you think even one politician would be loudly advocating for our right to privacy as promised in the Fourth Amendment, freedom of assembly, free speech, and freedom of the press? Why does every mass media warpig platform keep bleating on and on about torture lobbyist Lyn Cheney (D), or her waterboarding war criminal father who killed millions of innocent Iraqis for Halliburton and Carlyle Group profits, and their obscenely crooked opinions? Most Murkkkans believe that first Bush selection was a deep state fix is in operation. Many recognize the matter of fact irrefutable, proven in court, on the record, hard awful truth that Clinton and Wassermans Scholtz, Podesta, and company rigged primaries against Bernie and then, did it again when they ran 22 establishment candidates against his tax the rich platform and spent a Billion Bloomberg Bucks running against him, but then, mysteriously, Sanders and Turner and Gabbard all GOT IN LINE endorsing longtime conservative bureaucrat Gropey Joe and expanding the domestic police state and funding needless wars. It was never just Republikkkans suspicious of the election count. Now, every three days media tells us what failed comic actor Zelensky is demanding-more weapons, more billions, no reporting about what’s happening on the ground. I do not remember voting for Zelensky-do you? Why does he get 8 billion every five days, but we no ones get ripped off at the gas pump and grocery store, jackedup rents, kkkops shooting black folks in the back, and super inflation all blamed on Trump or Putin. If this country’s real rulers gave a fuck about human rights, they would not be bombing all these human beings, mass incarcertaing black people, overthrowing our neighbors, or paying proxy armies to do their dirty work, or enabling, hell, super funding (!!!) Israel and the KSA to commit atrocities. No wonder these imperialist liars and think tanks and weapons companies and their compromised phonies like AOC and Sanders won’t FIGHT TO FREE ASSANGE! Dick Cheney’s mercenary Blackwater contractors may have started the fires in Cuba for all we know. They’ve tried to kill the Cuban revolution for what, sixty years? Paid a nazi to track down Che, cut off his hands, call that freedom. They keep trying to overthrow Venezuela, also. They want to replace their sovereign leaders with Klaus Schwab future leaders cult puppets. That’s not democracy, children.

Opinion | While Cuba Deals with Blazing Fire, the U.S. Heartlessly Watches and Waits | Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan (commondreams.org)

Medea Benjamin on Twitter: ““What is wrong with the f#cking Israelis?” Good question @rogerwaters asks as he breaks down and cries, reading a quote from a Palestinian boy afraid of being blown to pieces by an Israeli bomb. @codepink” / Twitter

Long USA wars channel cash to transnational security elites – (fpmag.net)

New footage of a US military convoy smuggling stolen oil out of Raqqah, Syria. The US army has been consistently looting the country’s oil and smuggling it into their Iraq bases. Washington steals over 80 percent of Syria’s oil output per day MORE http://thecradle.co/Article/News/1

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is a fascist white supremacist who ran with a campaign ad shooting the word socialism. No one on the left should ever praise this fascist. When she criticizes the FBI, it’s for opportunistic partisan reasons. She would love to use the FBI to crush the left.” (-Benjamin Norton)

https://www.youtube.com/richardmedhurst

SISTERS OF MERCY

The only drummers in our town were deep suburbia rich people in bed with musclebound jock abusers, playing Zeppelin and Priest covers, so my misfit cretin friends and I started out making really crap cassette tape demos with garbage drum machines from Sears and me singing through a bass amplifier. We were not Suicide or the Mary Chain, but we were learning how to write real songs. It was a big break through, when we started adding in a break, or middle eight, “third part”. My heavy metal guy who now lives uptown on Central Park West was good at that. I eventually, determinedly, stole my other, older guitar player from a smalltime D.I.Y. goth trio after the Pet Shop Boys keyboardist in the long trench coat went away to sportsfan college and the brooding and depressed Skinny Puppy influenced lead singer became a gravedigger in Indiana for awhile before resettling into real estate in Arizona. They were a good little band, creative, completely D.I.Y. and doing it with the most primitive of instruments. You don’t see that enough, anymore. I think he was hesitant to join forces with me at first, because I was not a conventionally good looking guy, like all his other collaborators, I lived in the bushes and an unheated attic and still had these ridiculous bug scientist glasses. I was a controversial, supposedly disruptive, smalltown hated Frankenstein’s monster into Duran Duran and Prince and Van Halen. We were anti-social, unaffiliated, unassimilated, free thinking outcasts. We did some Gun Club covers, me and that character, with our amateur hour early garage bands, but never graduated into the kind of darkly polished goth grandiosity I always aspired to, best personified by Bauhaus and Sisters Of Mercy. It’s said that Jeffrey Lee Pierce hated Andrew, and I get why, he had secured the big Jim Steinman production budget and got to make big epic Blade Runner videos and Patricia joined ’em. Me, I could only ever dream of receiving a Gun Club production budget. Heh! Most of my music is only on cassettes-recorded badly in echo-y kitchens, bathrooms, and dark basements on broken boom boxes. I could write a whole book about my many goth girlfriends and our struggles and adventures and fleeting moments of ecstatic bliss in the eighties, and in fact I did. Probably about three of ’em, but so many of my other friends have slick professional careers, family, mental illness issues, so it’s still too soon to publish that stuff, discretion being the better part of valor and all, but yeah, I love Sisters Of Mercy, never stopped listening to them, really. We would have liked to have gone to the Batcave with Flesh For Lulu, or been New Romantics at the Blitz, but we were born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the closest we could come to having any fun was by wearing bad makeup and convening in a poorly heated basement apartment in a stinky building full of crazy poor people-hookers and pimpswho eventually burned the place down, and making tapes for girls of Arcadia, Joy Division, The Cure, and Mary Chain songs. We were poor white trash in a really repressive tank plant town. Targeted ceaselessly by juvie authorities, overzealous dress code enforcers, ignorant conformists and savagely homophobic rightwing brutes. The biggest sport in the Midwest is not college football or professional wrestling, it’s always been, yelling abuse at goth kids. Even when those atrocious nu metal idiots who love Korn and Hot Topic Marilyn Manson emo kids started kindof ruining the romantic subculture with their cheap and tawdry affectations, the stupid as fuck fratboys and Nascar idiots and Slim Shady honky drug dealer wannabes never stopped enjoying Middle Murkkka’s Favorite Pastime, Yelling Dumb Insults At Smaller Strangers Who Look Different, and now, it’s all been ransacked by manufactured Lady Gaga illuminati horror story slut puppets. I wanted to become a suave crooner ala Nick Cave or Andrew Eldritch, but at that time I was still more like a kooky Alien Sex Fiend/Specimen weirdo-reject. My girlfriend back when I was I dunno 17-ish really was like a the character Wynona Ryder played in Beetlejuice, she was a real highbrow intellectual bookreader who eschewed the daylight and only came out at night and had all the usual gothic obsessions. From Diamanda Galas and Psychic Tv, to Skinny Puppy and Roman Polanski movies. We mighta stayed together had I not been such a buckwild, hard partying, hedonist hellraiser back then. She was real cool. She had a black bedroom, not just dark but actually painted black, her mom and I became close for many years even after her daughter had moved on beyond me, she and I stayed in touch and I still have love for the both of them. I’m not one who really believes in past lives or anything but I always felt an abiding connection to them. I took it as a HIGH COMPLIMENT when idiot assholes my former friends now associate with would yell, “Look! It’s Sisters Of Mercy!” at me and my super cool deathrock girlfriend when we tried to go the record store in the mall together. What morons they were, and probably still are. No one ever changes from back there, they just jump on this week’s fad train-is it video game, Spice Girls, “Friends”, white rappers, commercial country, Skrillex, The(fraud) Squad TM, “Jersey Shore”, Spencer and Heidi from the Hills, the Tide pod deaths or fucking evil coven cultist Kardashians, Lil Nas X, Foo Fighters, Lyn Cheney (D), Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Kanye West, Dr. Fauchi, Nikki Minaj, Russiagate, whatever this week’s fad or media prescribed celebrity is. All those loathsome gamer dorks worshipping Elon Musk. All those sad girls slavishly emulating Miley Cyrus or Bella Hadid. They mainly chase fads and worship celebrities. Right now, it’s all “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”. I’m not that into the glamourization or glorification of violent drug dealers, OR the DEA, I’ve just seen the corrupt and racist drug wars destroy so many people’s families. In this country, rich people with access to drugs are edgy hipster celebrities. poor people with access to drugs are scary bad criminals who should be killed by men in uniform or go to jail. It’s all fuckedup. Remember when Peter Murphy got busted in Potlandia and all the squares acted so SHOCKED and AGHAST that a famous post punk performer would ever dare to alter his consciousness recreationally with officially prohibited substances?? I detest yuppies who make believe they’re all Lou Reed hipster beat cool, but character assassinate people for doing drugs. This whole society runs on drugs. Look at your own medicine cabinet, motherfucker. Handsome Dick thinks booze aint a drug. Ha. How come boomers never hear anything about gigantic class action settlements awarded to people all the time when Johnson & Johnson or Bayer/Monsatan poisons folk,s or big pharma gives illegal kickbacks to doctors to overprescribe for Sackler profits and shit? Then they use that as justification for UNDER prescribing medications to people with legit pain and suffering, it’s all fucked, all corrupt, all upside down and all for profit and or black ops, and no I’m not really taking any advice from Dr. Phil or Dr. Drew or Dr. Oz or Dr. Jill Biden. I do like “Doctor Doctor” by the Thompson Twins. Doktor Jeep Plays On…I don’t know if anybody will create a monumental masterpiece as perfect as “Vision Thing” co starring Tony James the Space Boss ever again, but I still listen to Sisters Of Mercy, for medicinal purposes mostly. And flagrantly without a prescription.

The Sisters Of Mercy Homepage (the-sisters-of-mercy.com)

EPSTEIN DID NOT KILL HIMSELF!

“More proof that “globalist” doesn’t mean anything and is just a right-wing buzzword Viktor Orbán, the far-right leader of Hungary (member of imperialist NATO/EU) gave a speech in the imperialist US condemning “globalists,” while surrounded by warmongering neocon US imperialists” (-Benjamin Norton)4108

“What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations to you for free, and I’m a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.” (-Julian Assange)

What Does Ghislaine Maxwell Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s John Does? (lamag.com)

https://rokfin.com/post/95602/One-Nation-Under-Blackmail

THE BIG 5 PROPAGANDA PULPITS PAY MILLIONS TO KNOWN LIARS, DEMONIZE REAL ON THE GROUND INDIE JOURNALISTS.

“The government giving handouts to for-profit real estate developers to build so-called “affordable housing” [that’s not actually affordable at all] is NEVER going to end homelessness. We need a housing first solution, which means providing unconditional public housing.” (-Ryan Knight)

“I don’t want self-driving cars and trips to Mars, I want a planet where we don’t get headlines like “all the rain is now toxic” (-Joshua Potash Read Wobblies and Zapatistas)

“The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.” (-Julian Assange)

“REMINDER: The FBI murdered Fred Hampton. They are not our friends.” (-BlackBernieBabe on twitter)

“Democrats somehow still being shocked to find Roger Waters is to their left is always every bit as funny as Republicans doing it with Rage Against The Machine…” (-Weston Pagano)

VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO SHITLIBS GO FUCK YOURSELF!

“We’re being taken for a ride. We’re being totally looted by a bunch of people who fuck kids”. (- Whitney Webb discussing the manufactured economic crises that enrich the oligarchs.)

“BREAKING: A federal judge just ordered the NC State Board of Elections to place the Green Party and our campaign on the ballot. We won against the Democratic Party establishment’s scheme to sabotage our campaign for working people. Now let’s win this race and make history!” (-Matthew Hoh For Senate)

“The last thing the rulers want is a united country, because we might all unite against them” (-Black In The Empire)

Shared post – Why Kim Iversen Is No Longer On The Hill’s Rising (locals.com)

Stella Assange on life with and without Julian: ‘I thought, this guy needs all the help he can get’ (telegraph.co.uk)

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/08/08/sinema-received-over-500k-private-equity-shielding-industry-tax-hikes

Pentagon Contractors in Afghanistan Pocketed $108 Billion Over 20 Years (commondreams.org)

70+ Economists Say US Must Return $7 Billion Stolen From Afghan People (commondreams.org)

Ickonic on Twitter: “In episode 4 of InnerViews, Sean Stone sits down with Whitney Webb to discuss a range of topics from the 2008 financial crisis to her take on Epstein. Stream the full episode now exclusively at https://t.co/cvvIalKbTp #Ickonic #InnerViews #SeanStone #News #WhitneyWebb https://t.co/SnTiWTr3A1” / Twitter

Live w/ Whitney Webb Talking Maxwell Epstein & More! 8/10/22 | Rokfin

WENDY WILD, THE DIVE, KING TUT’S, ANTOINETTES, JICKETS, FLESHTONES

I was always into rocknroll-The Monkees, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Jim Morrison, Iggy, Bowie, Alice, Pistols, Go- Go’s, Pretenders…from a young age. My early role models were the Fonz, Dr. Johnny Fever, Stiv Bators, and Peter Zaremba. Then, I saw the Surfers at Dancetera while tripping-Gibby blew my mind. I tried to bring that libertine bohemian spirit with me back to the football hellhole of the Midwest where they manufacture the fuckedup fratboys, but needless to say, they are still not ready to let their hair down and dance around the fire-they are idiots. Every generation says it– that the Golden Days have already been and gone, but yeah, by the time D-Generation were doing their big Coney Island High nightclub, I was sortof over it, the trust funders and deep pocketed millionaire kid forces of gentrification moving in and ruining my East Village, as McDonna once sang, “This Used To Be My Playground”. I used to drink underage in every bar in NYC, only started getting I.D.’d everywhere I went in like, grunge/alternative sucksass 1995. My exultant merriment was happening in bars like King Tut’s, Danceteria, Robots, Downtown Beirut and the Pyramid Club way back in 1984-1986. Wendy fucking Wild ruled my world. I saw The Antoinettes while tripping on acid! If you wanna know about what The Scene was like back then, read that book about The Fleshtones, “SWEAT”! That Love Delegation LP was a real driving force in my life. I was good friends with Larry Lame’ and Chet Grant from the Jickets as a 14 and 15 year old runaway living on Rivington Street. I did not like the nerdy keyboardist, Sid, because my beautiful older girlfriend started dating him at some point and I kinda distanced myself from Petey also just outta guilt by association. We used to see ’em play at the after hours bar Neither/Nor. We hungout at the Dive alot. It’s crazee to me how those wild, wild days and nights are gone forever. So many people I knew and loved are already long gone.

https://youtu.be/82OUkQcrYnI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6UPKnPg3Bg

https://youtu.be/VezFhcdAAo0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22GXqWQ84oo

https://youtu.be/6jvAbLkEc0M

The Fleshtones – Live 1983 Glasgow, Scotland (Full show) – YouTube

I was friends with Phoebe in my long lost youth and interviewed her in her hotel room bed for my old cable access tv show. She’s one of our greatest geniuses. Always encouraged me and made me feel good about myself, I will always love her.

Things were a lot more fun back then. I used to run around with Spacely as a kid. He dated a chick named Lily and I dated her friend. He taught me how to shoplift.

I never saw Thunders with Billy Rath-only with Tony Coiro Heartbreakers reunions and the Oddballs. Red Spot was a real cool one, me n Thunders had a moment. I did not feel like he liked me, but I’d stolen his hairdo off the cover of “Night Of The Living Dolls”!

When Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party Brought Klaus Nomi, Blondie & Basquiat to Public Access TV (1978-82) | Open Culture

THE RAT

Boys from Nowhere: The Story of Boston’s Garage Punk Uprising | Film Threat

I never saw this dude’s movie but I lived it and sortof knew Mitch and Mr. Butch from the Rat, and Monoman and Willie Loco and Minehan and Whitfield and Dando a little from my record store jobs. Parcellin memorably compared my singing to John Felice, and Tom Shannon has said his song, “My Friends” was about me and Alpo from Real Kids.

Cheater Slicks – Don’t Like You (Full Album) – YouTube

The Corner Man (Lyrics) Barrence Whitfield & The Savages – YouTube

WAR ON JOURNALISTS AND WHISTLE BLOWERS WHILE PIG-MEDIA MANUFACTURES CONSENT FOR WAR & FASCISM

Kim Iversen (@KimIversenShow) / Twitter

Millionaire media whores paid to pen excited headlines about the latest Jeff Bezos mega yacht or Elon Musk space ship to Mars fantasies or Bill Gates opinions. Orange Man Bad tweeting AOC’s many millions of fawning wish they were her boyfriends. Middle class gender fixaters actually spending money on Hillary Clinton’s boastful merchandise bragging proudly about how she got away with all that murder of Libya, while they try to bust Trump for a protest at the Capital…and gender worshippers reveling in her secondhand glorying. Horrific.

 We live in a country that’s so media ruled, they get people crying and fretting, and shitting themselves over bawdy talk, blue language, black comedians who are never supposedly P.C. woke enough, or even about actual real doctors, or members of our permanent ruling class, saying the latest advertising slogans are phony, but mass murder? Totally okeydokey with the haves on the hill, and the got mines, and Amazon shoppers, s’long as the correct party, They/Them, Blue No Matter Who, is in office; or the hasbeen wish they were still relevant, desperate for some airtime celebrities are rolled out, to promote a certain flag. That’s some insane shit. 

   I guess I first saw the tendency of people to wanna go along to get along, or go with the flow, or say anything to fit in with the mad herd and powers that be, by pretending to believe the dummy bully culture, all the way back in middle school, when I contradicted the wrestling coach and his nakedly racist version of Murkkkan history and he grabbed me by my little bony arm, repeatedly-probably at least three different times, dragging me to the back of the classroom and put me in the closet as a “let that be a lesson to the rest of you” example to my classmates. Of course, those rich jock preppie motherfuckers were thrilled to see a “wimp” and “fag” and bigmouthed “nerd” like me being shutdown and silenced by the musclebound rightwing wrestling coach. They loved that shit. The sports moms on the corner, too. They’d see me bleeding from my palms, elbows and knees, after getting knocked off my girl’s bicycle by their son’s basketball playing friends and yell at me to go home, as if my blood was soiling their precious end of the street. When I foolishly revisited a bigger city of that state after spending considerable time on both coasts, I did not expect to be hassled again in the godawful grunge/alternative era by some locals-only, uncool jock, music scene infiltrating social hierarchy, but that’s exactly what happened. I was tight friends with a famous local promotor-singer-disc jockey, who put a scuzzy bar on the map by booking cool underground and indie bands from bigger cities, but when he left town to take a bigger job, the local gentry who took over his former duties were an uptight dick clique, a real bitchy, territorial pissing, private school circle of rich kids, and man, they were some ruthless bullying fratboy fascists, fatcats, wannabe drug dealer, or mobster types. You can see ’em all on social media podcasting about their three years of being grunge famous, back in the nineties-they were mostly all rich fucking kids and have since gone to business school and shit, residing in their family mansions, all of ’em wearing these ridiculous capitalist outfits. Navy blue country club blazers and khaki pants, glasses and dumb haircuts. Talking all corporate lawyerly. And just like in eighties honky-suburbia, they had these overindulgent mothers helping them crowd out undesirables, and groom any temporary potential targets that appealed to the fortunate sons. I was shocked by all that, but then, one day, I saw the nice guy bartender drummer get in line, then, the seemingly benevolent Cheap Trick record store nerd, and just like that, one by one, all the once friendly followers, who wanted to climb some perpetual middle school social pyramid, they all started adopting a bullshit, transparent, mostly fabricated, good guys/bad guys narrative. Good guys, in their version, were the rich drug dealers and popular abusers who ran the scene, the bad guys, according to them, were of course, the misfits and dropouts with face tattoos who hung out at the dirty divebar down the street. It was quite the opposite really, but I was watching people fall for it, fall in line. 

   Then, 9/11 went down-a goofy dude I worked in a hot kitchen with was a jam band pothead, you know a Midwest Bob Marley “Legend” boxset, freshman college kid, faux hippie, after seeing the footage of the towers collapsing in NYC one million times on tv, and listening to all the rah-rah Rush Limbaugh and Bill Cunningham pro war talk radio bullshit, this dumb kid in the tie-dye with the longhair enlisted to go kill “those Muslims” who he believed were to blame for the asbestos towers crashing to the ground, he never heard nothing about Cheney and Norad, Israeli art students, Marvin Bush, Lucky Silverstein’s insurance policy, Prince Bandar Bush, the missing trillions Rumsfeld speech the day before, or Building #7 being “pulled” cause no plane ever hit it. I started to observe humans getting in line with whoever they thought could provide them with some kinda easy job, or party invitations, overnight ticket to local stardom, name on the guest-list, whatever. No matter how evil, no matter how corrupt. Nobody read books, nobody hung around together listening to records anymore, they all got the cellphones and started watching the lifestyle programming and boyband/lapdancer videos that replaced real music in the Carson Dailey era. I could not be party to any of that bullshit, so I had to withdraw into my private world seclusion of old cassettes and stacks of books. Then after losing a shitty restaurant job, I was forced to sell most of my books and records to the smirking inheritance gloater at the hipster record store for pennies, but it was not enough to keep the lights on for very long. I was forced out. I kinda became a migrant worker, had to go where there was work. They piss tested me at the hometown bowling alley for a pizzamaker job and I commenced a very long and grueling career as a dishwasher and pizzamaker for a town full of redneck Republikkans and crazy predator crackheads, and knew I would have to leave that part of the country. I would never fit in with the frat boys, nor did I crave their acceptance like so many of my groveling former peers who would do stupid human tricks for permission to drink Jager bombs with the assholes at the sports bar. They really seemed like cattle, cows for the slaughter. Just sadly oblivious. I did not want to become them. I wanted to flee back to the eighties Pyramid Club, all day-glo garage rock, paisley underground pop songs, Blue Whales and jangly jewelry with Wendy Wild, the Antoninette’s, or the Fleshtones….but all that was being erased by the billionaires and social engineers, too-or hijacked and co-opted for their bizarre Gates Reset agendas, where it was a lot less fun, cause I always kinda rejected all dresscodes and B-52’s wigs were becoming like, Netflix mandatory in certain zipcodes. Huh? What? Confusion was the new weapon of the ruling elite-anything that sparkled spontaneously, or united people from various tribes, or represented any kinda traditional subculture rebellion, was being mass-marketed and weaponized against us. Instead of do your own thing, it was all about conform and obey and change your way of talking, alter your way of living, you were supposed to only “identify” as this or that, or with that or this corporate vetted preassigned celebrity, and stay home and watch tv, and live vicariously, second hand ,through the ludicrous notion of these supposedly “self-made” (har har har) idle heiress, rich people getting plastic surgeries and buying things, being so bitchen and admiration worthy, that was supposed to be one’s self-empowering “identity”. Tik Tok’ing. And that was all coming from the media programmed faux left. Gentrification, they called it. Be rich, or get out. I got out. As a wiseman named Useless Bastard used to say, “Fuck Those People. Nobody Cares. Nobody Remembers”. He was so right-on. People I thought I knew, were suddenly all thumbs up, A-okay with drones, torture, mass murder, so called pre-emptive wars, mercenary armies, mass warrantless wiretaps, and TSA granny gropers in our airports fondling their loved one’s body parts. AND SCARED TO SAY OTHERWISE! Just worry about enforcing preferred pro nouns on the Twitters, getting your stickers for getting your third boosters, single mindedly gender-identifying, and waving flags for Ukraine, because nothing else matters. They never stopped thanking Obama. I think of them as “Thank-Obamas”, that seems to be all they are capable of doing now-that is their college graduated critical thinking: “Orange Man Bad”. Yes, yes, we know that…you said that, already…and of course finding extra additional new ways of punishing that scary and dastardly and unforgivable ULTRA SUPER VILLAIN the Q-Shaman! “Thanks Obama! FOR KEEPIN’ IT CLASSY! He ALWAYS walks behind CHELLE! BRING BACK OUR GIRLS! LADIES FIRST!” CLASSY! CLASSY! CLASSY. “Keepin’ it classy!” Ya know that’s the real issue here, people been media conditioned to uncritically worship rich people. Class.

Even droners and torturers, people who spy on their phonecalls, fondle their family, rig primaries, outlaw protest, censor the internet, laugh about toppling Libya and assassinating their leader, or who continue to unapologetically lie them into ever more endless wars. As long as they say they like Beyonce. Ellen “being nice” to George Bush. Vanity Fair photographers taking glamour shots of W at a make believe ranch in a cos-play cowboy hat, like he is anything more than a deep state fratboy fortunate son. Condoleeza on 30 Rock. Dick Cheney on commercials. Nobody Cares, Nobody Remembers.

CBS deletes documentary promo on corrupt Ukraine military aid after US gov’t pressure – The Grayzone

John Shipton’s desperate bid to bring Julian Assange home (smh.com.au)

“You can either be informed and your own rulers, or you can be ignorant and have someone else, who is not ignorant, rule over you.” (-Julian Assange)

ESSAY: Women in Prison: How We Are, Assata Shakur, 1978 | Black Agenda Report

Establishment smear merchants The Daily Beast, Rolling Stone and their perceptible intelligence ties – The Grayzone

Dozens Of Whole Foods Stores Allow Customers To Pay With Palm Print Biometric Data | ZeroHedge

“Reality is an aspect of property. It must be seized. And investigative journalism is the noble art of seizing reality back from the powerful.” (-Julian Assange)

Nancy Pelosi, White Supremacy, and China | Black Agenda Report

For the American Empire, Hypocrisy and War Go Hand in Hand | Black Agenda Report

Crazy Like a Woodfox | Black Agenda Report

Hamilton murder victim believed to be Teenage Head guitarist Gord Lewis – YouTube

“Our Gov’t lied about and hid what was really happening on the ground in Afghanistan for 20 years The lies they are telling us now about what’s really happening on the ground in Ukraine are already falling apart now.” 

(-Black In The Empire)

“There is something surreal, or perhaps psychotic about this position coming from a U.S. official from what is clearly a failed democracy controlled by capitalist oligarchs. Hey Blinken, here is a tip. Build a democracy in the U.S. before commenting democracy anywhere.” (-Ajamu Baraka)

“The FBI terrorized striking workers throughout the early 20th century. The FBI waged war on the Black Panther Party, killing and imprisoning its leaders. Why would I trust the FBI to bring justice to anyone, let alone Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump? (-Danny Haiphong)

“Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth. They simply cipher and transmit lies. It really grieves me that so many of my fellow journalists can be so manipulated that they become really what the French describe as functionaires, functionaries, not journalists.” (-John Pilger)

“A bunch of neoconservative hawks at right-wing Washington, DC-based think tank CSIS (which is funded by the US, more Western governments and the weapons industry) are sitting around drinking coffee and playing board games to plan how they can wage war on China and colonize Taiwan”. (-Benjamin Norton)

“CBS: Here’s an investigative report on how only 30% of the weapons we’re sending to Ukraine are getting to the frontline! Ukrainian government: No. Take it down. CBS: Okay sorry. If you think it’s your job to always report information that helps one side of a war and omit information which hinders it, then you have given yourself the role of propagandist. You might not call yourself that, but that’s what you are by any reasonable definition of that word. And western Zelenskyites see this as the media’s role as well. They’ll angrily decry anyone who inserts skepticism of the US empire’s narratives about Ukraine into mainstream consciousness, but then they’ll also yell at you if you say we’re not being told the truth about Ukraine.You can’t have it both ways. Either you want the mass media to serve as war propagandists or you want them to tell the truth. You cannot hold both of those positions simultaneously. They are mutually exclusive. And many actually want the former.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)

“Russia and China to the United States: We want peace and cooperation. The United States: No thanks. We want to make billions in profits on war with each of you. Mainstream media: Russia and China are being aggressive!” (-Danny Haiphong)

Bloodthirsty neoconservative Republican US Senator Ted Cruz threatens democratically elected left-wing leaders in Latin America and elsewhere: “Any leftist leader who chooses socialism will be held accountable by the United States” A mafia-style threat from the global dictator. (-Benjamin Norton)

“Roger Waters was right. Joe Biden is a war criminal.” (-Danny Haiphong)

“Conspiracy theorists” and “anti vaxxers” have been howling about inflated Covid death tolls for two years. Now that massive capital has been extracted and unprecedented control has been exerted, corporate media can acknowledge the facts too. (-Max Blumenthal)

9News Perth on Twitter: “We have a Covid bombshell tonight with figures revealing the true number of deaths is much lower than feared. Just 10 per cent of WA lives claimed have been from the virus alone. @lourennie9 #9News”We have a Covid bombshell tonight with figures revealing the true number of deaths is much lower than feared. Just 10 per cent of WA lives claimed have been from the virus alone. @lourennie9 #9Newstwitter.com

Gates calls social credit scores an ‘asset’ — are they coming to the US? – Rebel News

CBS Wanted To Do Critical Reporting On Ukraine’s Government But Ukraine’s Government Said No (substack.com)

“1. Zelensky closes all opposition media in Ukraine.  2. Biden Institutes massive media censorship in US 3. Zelensky arrests leading political opposition leader 4. Biden FBI attacks leading political opposition leader in US. Like Puppet, Like Puppet master.” (-Garland Nixon)

Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: “Here’s last night’s Fox segment I did on the repulsive but revealing embrace by liberals of both Dick and Liz Cheney (beyond the above examples, Pelosi heralded Liz as a “leader of great courage, patriotism and integrity”), despite crimes far worse than what they accuse Trump of: https://t.co/QWxLd6zgUH” / Twitter

Revolutionary Blackout Network🥋 on Twitter: “Jim Crow Joe and Kamala Harris pretending to care about Brittney Griner while they are actively waging a drug war is insane. They literally have no shame https://t.co/ECH11kdlnw” / Twitter

“It’s only when journalists understand the role they play in this propaganda, it’s only when they realize they can’t be both independent, honest journalists and agents of power, that things will begin to change.” (-John Pilger)

DARKEST DAZE

Three monopolies most tv watchers have never heard of are buying up everything. BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard are like the Borg from Star Trek, or Bill Gates. While their monopoly media keeps you brainwashed with partisan pingpong pass the buck politics, they are actively purchasing all the property and so-called “homeland” farmland, they already own all the weapons manufacturing companies and big pharma and big 5 mockingbird media, which has obviously merged with deep state intelligence agencies. Gullible Lyn Cheney shitlibs keep squawking on about how Q Shaman shirtlessly bellowing in Capital hill was the darkest day in “the history of democracy”. HUH? WHAT? “This is what democracy looks like”-people convening on the steps of washington and in the rotunda to address their grievances. Over on the Qanon Maga quacky right, the Breitbart Bannon bunch are moaning about how the FBI raiding Trump’s Mar A Lago compound is the “darkest day in Murkkkan history”. I saw evil Dick Cheney trotted out to call Trump a coward-the guy who brought you torture gulags, the war on terror, 9/11 tyranny, and shot his lawyer in the face. I also saw Trump’s new commercial with all the rumbling thunder where he says Biden has made the USA into a joke to the rest of the world. Then, he goes on to say that he wants to perpetuate or start wars with Russia, China, and Iran…for patriotism…JUST LIKE BIDEN, and all the pig-media brainwashed shitlibs and Hillary Hawk democrats. What a fuckedup shitshow, but pig-media keeps Murkka in their rock ’em sock ’em robots blue versus red hypnospell, so we, the people, never unite beyond our preferred tie color to defy the ruling class mega donors and corrupt Davos billionaires and their lobbyists. All the BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard operatives and Klaus Schwab secret society agents are working together, so the job of all pig media is to keep you and me divided, and boy, have they gotten good at it. Aint that hard though, is it? Like with self- checkout counters-me, first ratracing middle classers are happy to do the work themselves if it means paying faster. All the consumerist shitlib people can’t wait to be Bill Gates microchipped if it means a shorter line at the airport private parts groping terminal for woke science and feminist diversity. The shitlibs will believe ANYTHING s’long as there is an attractively darker hued female AOC presented to them as an object of blind worship and second hand “identification”. It’s really gotten weird with the faux wokes. They keep Tik Tok and Netflix programming them with this whole new age obedience-cult,  transhumanist cyborg techlord lexicon. I would not be that surprised if the fake liberals of the corrupt DNC and crazy gun nut racist rightwingers of the Republikkkans eventually succeed at baiting the people into civil wars so they can declare martial law and put people in camps and execute them for wrongthink and chip everybody into a Davos obedience cashless society hustle where you can’t get food if you disobey Kalus Schwab and Pill Gates. People like me will get the Victor Jara treatments. My ex associates will still be Thanking Obama. Drinking mimosas, praising Gayle King. Talking’ about some big money, whore of babylon manufactured puppet celebrity.

Lee Camp [Redacted] on Twitter: “Who REALLY owns the world? This is who. https://t.co/2TOmOclNuq” / Twitter

“Jim Crow Joe Biden is to the right of Republican voters. He’s to the right of red states that have decriminalized, legalized medical marijuana.” (Rey Da Pollinator @ Atlas Rey)

Boys From Nowhere – 66-5-4-3-2-1 (Troggs cover) – YouTube

BILLY GOES BANG!

Man, when I was a teenager and in my early twenties, I so wanted to be like Billy G. Bang in the pink leather pants-when I read in Kerrang! how he had suddenly quit the Dragons, I wrote to ex Lord Danny Fury in the UK, who read my fanzines, and offered my services as a heavily Stiv influenced replacement frontman. I did my best to dress all my friends up like the Dragons and Shooting Gallery but it was real hard to assemble a glam gang in my unfortunate part of the country back then, everybody was going grunge or doing a really lame buzzsaw generic New Bomb Turks imitation in the shorts and baseball caps and I could not relate to any of that. Gentrified was just another word for generic. I’d grown up on Alice and Bowie and The Stones and Lords so I wanted my bands to look as cool as we sounded. I had great faith in our songs that were kinda like The Hangmen or Black Halos. Sleazy, hard hitting, firebrand politico-punk. The Wanderers minus the prog production. I knew I did not have Billy’s higher end range, and was nowhere near as pretty, but I did have a lotta bottle back then and a gutter punk quality that would have complemented what all those big hatted gutter glam Dragons guys did. On the night when Bush first started bombing Iraq, I went to meet with Steve Von Saint in NYC at some big dark nightclub, might been Webster Hall, or the Ritz, I’d been a fan since I was a 15 year old runaway of fancy pants ex Angels In Vain guitslinger Steve Von Saint who Danny told me to chase down and we just sadly very simply did not hit it off, he kinda was half lidded under those bangs and distracted and blase and real deadpan seemingly way more enamored with a pink paisley umbrella twirling dandy named Nick who worked at a store called Mudhoney downtown and was bedecked in more lace and frills than Prince and the whole Revolution. I told Steve Von I wrote better songs than “Devil Calling” which was by Hanoi Rocker Nasty Suicide I think, and that’s just the kinda obnoxiously belligerent and socially abrasive thing I was known to blurt at that age. I think I was about 22. Purple plastic pants from Lip Service. Leopardskin newsboy cap and pink creepers, big mouth, garishly applied makeup all black eyes and red lipstick ridiculously and clowninshly emphasizing my yellow teeth, heavy drinking, sleazy, over confident, overtly cocksure brat. I got to know BGB a little on social media years ago and sent him some interview questions he never responded to, but then I saw how he had already done this interview covering alot of the same history I’d been inquiring about. I was looking forward to reading his autobio, as he is a fantastic storyteller as you will see upon reading the int I will link to. Shooting Gallery were the most talented band to ever fail so grandly, so splendidly, so completely! God bless ’em! Andy should reunite that lineup.

Is the music loud enough ?: Billy G.Bang! (aka Billy Douglas) – part 1

SO BADASS! CHECK IT OUT!

Danny Garcia “Looking For Johnny” Book

‘Cause I wanna be there wit cha and I know what to bring …
Ya don’t get no respect until ya die, if you’re a friend of mine…

ALONE IN A CROWD (-by Daddy Rollin’ Stone and the Endless Party)

It ain’t no fun being a symbol. Once you come to represent something powerful in other people’s imaginations or various tribal mythologies, you are reduced to a flat concept, a logo, a Hello Kitty or Nike swoosh, a one dimensional cartoon, a Ramones logo-it is dehumanizing whenever people objectify you, even if it is as a symbol of blind devotion or grandiose religious adoration, in your own time. If people can only love you as a character, and from afar, is that even real love? Or kinda like empty idolatry? It is said that Jim Morrison only looked like the Dionysus in the American Poet poster for five minutes. If you do a photos session with a syringe in your hat brim, that image might stick, a fixed image. Most people are capable of being a heartbreaker, a hero, a demon, a doll, or a junkie at different stages of their lives, ya know? Sometimes, all at once. I had a friend who was all those things, I’m writing a song about him: “most talented dude I’ve ever known/was hated and fated to die alone”. There are no flawless saints, or perennial all purpose villains. Nobody’s an album cover. That’s why it was so poignant when Bermondsey Joyriders put out a single called “Johnny Thunders Was A Human Being”. He’s probably sold more t shirts than New Kids On The Block, but his own short life did not seem to be that joyful, or romantic, in spite of his many remarkable contributions to the rock culture. Immortal rags like, “Only Wrote This Song”, “Lonely Planet Boy”, “Short Lives”, “Blame It On Mom”, “Some Hearts”, “It’s Not Enough”, “In God’s Name”, and “Subway Train”.

Back in my day, Sonny, they could hound you out of public schools for wearing makeup, or dressing like Johnny Thunders. I still remember how excited we were to lay our black fingernail polished little claws on the first edition of that extremely coveted book by Nina Antonia. Johnny ain’t home, but everybody protectively owns their own sainted and martyred idea of him, because he resides in each of us. The fans don’t always wanna know how their idols are capable of unkind, or less than chivalrous behaviors, but the angst, the yearning, the regrets, the mistakes and fuckups, that’s the stuff that fuels the music. The truth is harder to ingest than the t shirt. But what a story, I got lots of compassion for that whole crazy cast of characters-I can see why Jerry Nolan might yell, “Fuck The NY Dolls“, in Florida, after David informs Sylvain, Jerry, and Johnny how they are all replaceable. I can understand how David might be tired of the boys being drunk, or not showing up, or being in the hospital, all the time. Few of us can see our own thirsty nature….glug, glug, glug. Sylvain really was the real die hard torch keeper, always trying to protect their legacy, and who always wanted to put the band back together, he really did seem to love what they were together. I thought that “I Only Wrote This Song For You” tribute cd they put out in the nineties was, by far, the classisest tribute cd, EVER. So good. Willie Deville, Jayne County, Los Lobos. Fantastic stuff.

You can see the Thunders bloodline in the primitive gothic Americana of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Bryan Gregory, Rowland S. Howard and Spencer P. Jones. In the entire mythology of Amy Winehouse-it can easily be argued that her whole career trajectory was based loosely on Patti Palladin and Johnny Thunders punk rock girl group reinventions. You can even see Thunders long shadow on corporate rock bands, like Nirvana and Guns N Roses. The NY Junk kinda carry a torch representing the more Dylanesque singer/songwriter folk storyteller side of Thunders‘ volatile gutter punk. Joey Pinter from the Waldos finally put out a solo CD last year and it totally has that trashy, gritty, Bowery blues, punk feel. Greg Allen who played with JT collaborators, Two Saints, and Jerry Nolan in the Profilers, has a band called Fringe Religion that will appeal to all you mystery girls and pirate lovers. My favorite modern bands, Dr. Boogie (RIP) and the Sweet Things both had the right kinda storm and drag. Ask Steve Jones or Mick Jones what Thunders meant to them. His deathless influence is everywhere: from the cheesy eighties hairband people to the thoughtful and bruised songwriters. If you go to a show, you might see whole legions of JT wannabes walkin’ around with the stack heels and holsters and umbrellas, but almost no one writes those kind of heartfelt songs, anymore. At the end of the day, nobody can ever be the NY Dolls, except the NY Dolls.

I never understood anyone fretting over achieving or mastering the perfect Thunders sound because his sound was imperfect and belonged to Thunders. A sacred cow in death, the multiple weekly tribute events in his name are always packed around the block, but in life, he made some errors, and also got punked around, a lot. It was a hard knock life. I connected to the sad kid in Thunders probably even more than the platform shoes or cowboy shirts. “So Alone”, the big all star Steve Lillywhite produced affair, remains a standout masterpiece, but “Hurt Me” and “Que Sera Sera” are somewhat overlooked, for some reason. Everybody sees their own stained glass reflection in the elevated arches at the Thunders cathedral. The clowns see someone who was not afraid to laugh. The Tragediennes’s see someone who was not afraid to die. To some, it’s strictly geographical and/or generational, he is the first person, old pal, patron saint of certain local bars that they were old enough to have frequented, in the early seventies, so they are the official guardians of “been there” baby boomer Thunderism. To many others, he is the butch struttin’, high heeled, emo haircut prophetic, confrontational, sneering, glam rock prototype, who had the perfect pre Nikki Sixx/Mike Monroe/Steve Stevens done up hair all the way back in 1973 and those of us who know someone competent with a razor who is qualified to successfully give us that elusive black raven’s nest as Nina calls it, without fucking it up and giving us a humiliatingly awful Joe Dirt/Joe Elliot custodian’s mullet instead, can sashay around in the Oscar Wilde Room of our mind, and feel somehow vicariously validated by his angelic DTK presence, like we carry forth a swaggering piece of shaggy Thunders wildness. Some people mainly worship him as the holy rollin’, illuminated, golden prophet, gringo on a wooden cross, immortal drug taker, put some pills in the collection plate, forever justifying their own get high preferences, like Ringling Sisters sang in “53 Reasons To Go Downtown”, or like his former Gang War band mate, Wayne Kramer sang in, “Junkie Romance”. You got people who resonate with his lonely, wounded songs about not fitting in, or never feeling a lasting sense of family, so he is their orphan deity. I’ve had friends who resonated primarily with his “I’m A Boy, I’m A Girl” androgyny. I got friends who think the Heartbreakers are the best rocknroll band of all time. People can argue all day about the memories and their personal preferences, but the point is we’re all still talking about that courageous cat, ’cause we rarely see artists even half as gutsy and desperately sincere as Johnny was, anymore. Memories can become like a cross to bear, if that’s all we got to put our arms around, ya know, unless we have another forty bucks for another lousy t shirt.

Johnny’s old pal, Uncle Walter, has been faithfully keepin’ the old Heartbreakers/Waldos songs alive, he’s got a new platter out that is really good-particularly his charming rendition of “You Talk Too Much”, check out the hot new video for “Damn Your Soul”. I remember him, always so fondly, as being one of the best frontmen/singer/guitarist/rabble rousers I ever saw play live. His “Rent Party” crew were my favorite 90’s band, besides the Humpers and Pillbox. I miss the old NYC when all the legends were still alive and you could see all those guys walking around and playing small clubs. Death is pitiless, though, it just keeps coming for all of us. One by one, relentlessly. I don’t know about you, but my life is like a ghost town. The esteemed Walter points out that Thunders lived a long time, like, fifteen precarious years, on the ledge. I found the Peter Perrett anecdotes particularly revealing, because it was always pretty clear to me, however adept those guys were at the piercing stares and Sha Na Na, chain wielding, hot rod gang reputations, we’re talking about the dude who wrote the most naked and brave and unflinchingly honest songs in the world:”and then, I’m goin’ to sleep…” They may have been delinquents, but they were very loving and passionate and probably good hearted delinquents. They came from a 50’s NY macho working class culture, they probably never had access to the proper skill-sets, or role models to learn how to be nurturing parents, or romantic partners, by today’s standards.

When I was around him, he never struck me as dangerous or indestructible, more like a frightened, little boy blue, whom I wanted to make a grilled cheese and bowl of tomato soup for, and I was still a bit of a lost teenager, myself, back then! Concerned adults advised me to give a wide berth to all the scuzzy 70’s punk guys, which naturally made me more determined to follow them around Alphabet City like a happy puppy. I saw some good shows, and some not quite so good shows, and always admired and appreciated how Thunders‘ exceptionally loyal friends and Oddballs band-mates always stood-by and protected him, like a tight-knit gang. They carried him when he was not in top form and really brought some light and life to his ever more observant and socially conscious songs. He dropped some of the self destruction blues tunes from his set.”Critic’s Choice” is still one of my very favorite Johnny tunes. This book of insightful Garcia interviews with people like Andy Shernoff, Bob Gruen, Phyllis Stein, Night Bob, Cynthia B-Girl, Chris Musto, and Alison Gordy features sacred texts and candid testimony from some of JT’s closest intimates and allies, and a is roll call of the best musicians left alive-Syl and Sami, Walter Lure, Stevie Klasson, Timo Kaltio, Neil X, John Perry, as well as words once spoken by insiders who are no longer with us, like Leee Black Childers and Marty Thau, and Billy Rath. It is heavy duty stuff. Essential reading for the faithful and even the more casual Thunders acolytes. Be forewarned, once you crack open the pages, you will start hearing his old songs in your head, all day. Jamie Heath’s stirring saxophone on “Society Makes Me Sad” is playing in mine, as I type. A lot of love went into this book project. I never knew that just Johnny and Billy Rogers did some of those recordings, or that Thunders played bass. Simon Ritt from the Daughters, Darlings and Unattached adds some interesting tidbits to the tumultuous tale of woe and glory. Parts of it are harrowing and hard to get through, he was undoubtedly a lonely and helplessly tormented character at certain points of his life, especially when he became estranged from his family and Jerry Nolan. It’s hard to cope with being separated from your beloved children. It is a very humanizing book, that kind of shows how even people who loved him were unable to really change his fate, it’ll make you start wondering about your own life, your own twists and turns and what might have been different, if only this or that had happened. It’s powerful reading. It made me start wanting to listen to his music again, after many years of being kinda burntout on the same five albums I listened to everyday, in my teens and twenties. He’s got a lot of great content buried among the glut of exploitative product. I forget, sometimes, how good he really was, I probably just got somewhat turned off by all the copycat imitators and forever titillated, second hand, sensationalists. Sometimes, it has felt like there were way more plunderers, than actual thunderers.

I kinda hate those tribute-night cattle-call concerts, now. Too much half hardhearted kareoke from people unconnected to the emotional aspect of the material, though Liza Colby really impressed me by belting out such an emotional, hellaciously full hearted burst of sincere passion when covering, “Baby I Love You”, I mean, she really tore it up. That’s how you do it. You have to pour real feelings into the music. She’s a big blast of white lightning, we don’t see enough of that, from our performers, anymore. She don’t even play guitar, but you can see clearly, how she carries on the tradition of Johnny Thunders, in her own way. She is courageous. Soulful. Badass. A firestorm of feelings. I don’t even go see shows much anymore, or care to watch that awful garbage pop they play on tv. It’s just wretched, dreadful, empty. Everybody’s sleep walking, just phoning it in, expecting the paid-for threads, robot-beats, and pay-to-play platforms to be the same as throwing down intimate pieces of one’s heart. Everybody wants to buy a piece of the long gone legend. So many want to steal his face and be him, without the unique, original, singular innovations, or his totally authentic (“more reverb!”) voice, and without ever enduring that depth of sorrow and despair. You got fans of every Thunders era, who still believe David Jo was a better singer than either Thunders or Walter, and a far better lyric writer, who hold firm to the belief that the original NY Dolls with both Murcia and Nolan were a magical elixir-the perfect mixture of volatile elements. You got your pre-Billy Rath, dedicated, Richard Hell Heartbreakers partisans. You got your “David Jo-hasbeen” people, who hate the camp, show-bizzy aspects of the Dolls, and strictly worship at the Heartbreakers 50’s greasy hoodlum-punk alter. Your Two York Dolls enthusiasts, who like Steve Conte best, maybe because he is more accessible than all these other elusive apostles. What a hard job he got himself tangled up in, ya Know? TWICE! Some people argue that Joey Pinter was approximately as good of a guitar player, but received little to no fanfare because he did not wear makeup and feather boas, satin or frills, in the Max’s days. His fire fingered set with the Heartbreakers at that Thunders Memorial show was a fiercely devotional performance. I thought pretty much everybody shined brightly that night, even through the grief and tears. Patti Palladin. Cheetah with Spacely on harmonica.

In the past 30 years, we’ve just seen so many assembly line clones doing the lackluster impersonations of the holy trinity of Deadboys/Dolls/Ramones, that it’s hard to reach back and remember what that music really meant to us, when it still had all that first-cut, revolutionary fury, and soul power and original impact. I tend to only like the artists who develop voices of their own, who may be informed or influenced, by those who came before us, but I wanna hear people who bring their own thing, their own statement, their own fresh set of ideas, to the table. Otherwise, what’s the point? Nick Kent brought a real snarly, upfront, Thunders like energy to writing, back in the seventies and eighties. There were people who only came on the scene when these pioneers were helplessly spiraling ,and enabled some unhealthy habits for five minutes, who think that makes them their personal stand-in spokes models, henceforth. I personally appreciate artists, like Morrissey, for instance, who maybe don’t slavishly ape his guitar style and call it original, or steal his look precisely, and we all know dozens of those who do, but who heard something anarchic and soulful and streetwise and reckless in his runaway train solos; or something truthful and heroic, in his calls for social justice and delicate little boy confessions, that made them want to express their own vulnerable truths, courageously. For example, if you listen to my early mentor, Ratboy play guitar, it actually sounds very little like Our Holy Jetboy Of Perpetual Grace, but you can see how he was inspired by Johnny’s adventuresome, anything goes, boundary bending spirit and dynamic, intuitive, first or second take, hell for leather attitude. By my way of thinkin’, Dave Kusworth and Kevin Junior, are two more distinctive artists with an unmistakable Johnny Thunders influence, who took it in a totally different and unexpected direction, and cultivated their own, equally as valid, and unique personal voices, and that’s what I’m interested in, it’s cool to play covers when you’re young and learning how to play, but at some point, we’re supposed to say our own thing. I don’t usually go for too many of the greasy kid bands, because it’s just always the same old going through the motions, without the soul. Just feels like somebody’s bankrollin’ their wardrobe. I wanna hear somebody who makes me care, who makes me believe, ‘has some real skin in the game, who makes me feel something, besides sheer boredom or mild resentment.

I never understood falling in love with just one Doll. I loved each and everyone of ’em. Syl says he’s the biggest Dolls fan and who am I to argue? I met Jerry Nolan once and he was just the picture of patient, dapper, paternal generosity and sincere appreciation for his clingy young fans. All the Oddballs and Waldos seemed like wonderful people. How can anyone not love Sylvain Sylvain or Arthur Killer Kane? I was never into “Hot, Hot, Hot”, but I can hear “Frenchette”, “Donna”, and “Funky But Chic” all day, and I’ll get down in any neighborhood I swear that my friends’ll take me. I remember seein’ both the Waldos and Heartbreakers shows around the same time when Big Tony C and Uncle Walter played in both bands and some nights, the Waldos were the best band in town. “Maimed Happiness” was a really deep song from the Sami Yaffa/Steve Conte era rebooted Dolls Gang, but there was only one Johnny Thunders.

Everybody loved Johnny Silvers, ’cause we all got a part of him deep inside, sang Tyla and the Dogs D’Amour. I only brushed with the guy briefly in real life, but yeah, he’s been a constant presence in my sad journeys since I was oh, probably, a fourteen or fifteen year old kid. I was surprised when I moved to the big city to see all the proudly obsessive Thunders collectors with their overflowing and colorful shrines, who had purchased all the artifacts and bootlegs and yellow guitars and shit, cause meanwhile back in the states, Thunders was no status symbol, most people had honestly never heard of them, but you were probably still gonna get approached, physically, by less conscious aggressors, for even wearing a Dolls t shirt, or for wearing some hairspray or red patent leather, but yeah, it was always interesting to visit all these different churches of Thunders. The consumerist aspect of the gotta own it all Thunders devotees still startles me. Probably as many varying denominations by now, as in any big organized religion. I even knew a cab driver once who hung around with a hillbilly El Duce and GG Allin fan, who both seemed to mostly revel in his pre P.C. profanity and onstage hecklings. When I think of JT’s multi-faceted legacy, his “bad words” aren’t what comes to my mind, but there really are those who have even celebrated him as mostly being an outrageous wiseguy obscenity spewer-a Dice Clay, or Mentors, or Geto Boys, which was not how I predominantly choose to remember him. The bullshit drug laws that mainly serve the interests of the CIA and prison shareholders, still have a loudly broadcast, ugly stereotyping, demonizing presence, in corporate media, and I blame them for vilifying people who have addictions. Peter Perrett refers to it as a con. The prison profiteering bipartisan drug war zealots. If Thunders or Coltrane took drugs, or struggled with addictions that adversely impacted their private lives, I don’t see how that makes them criminals. Once you get branded as an outlaw by society, even if you were a sensitive loverboy who spent his last years soulfully singing about feeding the homeless, and advocating for children’s rights, some people are only ever gonna remember you as that cocksure Jesse James gunslinger and the media will not even bother retracting lies about your cause of death, cops won’t even investigate all the shady circumstances, they just dismiss you as a bad boy punk rocker.

I love this book and film because they feature the memories of those who knew and loved the wounded and funny and sometimes sick or troubled human being(!) behind the red rodeo chaps and big hair. It ain’t all P.C., p.r. photo shopping, or image makeover white washings, which I appreciate. For me, it kind of only affirms that which I felt about him, already-like all of us. How he self medicated to cope with his inner conflict relating to both his family of origin, and also, while struggling to provide for his own, and to be a positive parental presence in his kids’ lives. It’s a lotta pressure to face rooms full of people every night and to have to gig to make any money. He might have even felt like his kids were being held for ransom, if he did not earn enough to ever satisfy the various in laws. He was a product of another time, he made mistakes. Maybe he was a fuck up, but he sure seemed to have a whole lot of help when it came to fuckin’ up, which is what Westerberg was probably trying to point out in his eighties Replacements song, “Johnny’s Gonna Die”. In the book, Gail Higgins talks about how much it really hurt him to not see his kids. Nina Antonia remembers how he always took a picture of his sons with him everywhere he went. Robbing someone of their children, particularly, if it is not a genuine safety issue is an incredibly damaging and destructive move. All these years later, Johnny is still everywhere. There’s a little bit o’ Thunder in Joan Jett and Chrissie Hynde, surely in Andy McCoy, Izzy Stradlin, and Brian “Damage” Forsythe. Tyla, Nikki Sudden and Mike Scott all borrowed a trick or two from the gypsy troubadour. Power pop stars, the Beat Angels, looked like a whole flock of Johnny Thunders‘. So did the Alarm. Bluesy country honk cowboys, Rock City Angels, had a risky sense of spontaneity and raw, unvarnished feelings. In the sleaze punk underground, you can feel Johnny in the guitar playing of the Hangmen/Junkyard‘s Jimmy James and the Humpers Billy Burkes. Band like Black Veil Brides have mainstreamed his original image a mere fifty years later, made it a common Hot Topic/Target look you see in every food court in every mall. Steve Conte from Michael Monroe and the latter day Dolls reformation has played some really haunting, emotion charged licks, like on “Temptation To Exist”. As Iggy Pop sang, “they called him Thunders ’cause he had the spark.” To celebrate the publication of “LOOKING FOR JOHNNY” on Punk Hostage Press, the essential companion to Nina Antonia’s books and Danny Garcia’s heartfelt film, I hassled some of my fellow banditos and rocknroll amigos, favorite creators and former collaborators, to talk about what Johnny Thunders means to them. If anyone wants to let Santa know I am hoping for a copy of Sylvain’s “Ain’t No Bones In Ice Cream” for Christmas, I’d appreciate it. If you wanna make some stray rocknroller happy, wrap this book, “Looking For Johnny” up in some pretty paper, and place it under the tree. “Looking For Johnny”. By Danny Garcia, on Punk Hostage Press. Garcia is a very astute and caring historian and I can not wait to see his movie about Stiv Bators. What was it about Johnny Thunders that was so profoundly pure and resilient, eternal and unalterable, that makes his legacy clang so loudly through the decades? What about him most impacted you?

The World Famous Mister Ratboy of Motorcycle Boy, Pillbox NYC, Sour Jazz, Ace Killers Union, and the Golden Rat recalls: “In 1978, there were not many rock musicians as authentic as Johnny Thunders. Having perfectly digested the roots of American music, he was spitting them back out with an attitude similar to the popular UK bands of the period, but not as commercial. His acute fashion sense, eternally wasted looks, and reckless bohemian lifestyle, along with the constant rumors of his impending death created an appealing element of danger nowhere to be found in today’s rock scene. His behavior made millionaire ‘rebels’ like Keith Richards look like choirboys and the sheer volume of his truly unique playing injected white blues into punk rock. His guitar dominated every single song he ever played on, and his electric sound was unmistakable. Along with Ron Asheton, he taught me that intensity and emotion matter more than technical ability.”

Brian Morgan from the Saviors, Disruptors, and Carvels NYC says: “Johnny Thunders appealed to me before I even heard him. Photos of the New York Dolls in ’72 or ’73 showed an over exaggerated Keith Richards in white platform boots. I was an 11 year old Alice Cooper fiend so, y’know, cool, tell me more! I had to have the album, and it was everything I wanted. A band who clearly gave zero fucks. And Johnny Thunders embodied this better than anyone else. His guitar actually sneered. No, really, it did, go listen. Everything since has carried at least a trace of that attitude.”

Deanne Clapper from The Sacred: “I first discovered Thunders after buying the NY Dolls double LP put out by Mercury in 1977 with all 5 faces on the sleeve.
The buzzsaw rhythms and tilting pinball machine leads, turning the fader on the stereo to one side to just hear Johnny’s guitar. I’d never heard anything like that before.That was truly what made me want to play guitar.”

Hiroshi The Golden Arm from the Remains, Golden Arms, Ace Killers Union and Golden Rat: “Yes , I’m very influenced from Thunders and Dolls.

Four about how I were most personally affected by Thunders

1. Guitar Riffs & Licks by Gibson Les Paul Jr. (with Deep-Reverb)

2. Attitude – “Fuck’em If they can’t take a Joke”
“Hey, What is this shit? “

3. The Letters D. L. A. M. F. (Down Like A Mother Fucker )and D. T. K. (Down To Kill )

4. R&R Image of “Black & Magenta

Jeff Ward from Gunfire Dance, Electrajets, and NY Junk: “When I read the message asking me to contribute to this article I was on a New York subway with a Les Paul at my side, heading to a rehearsal. Right then and there the question of Johnny Thunders‘ influence on me was answered. My old band Gunfire Dance viewed New York and CBGB’s as our Mecca, so we made our way there in 1993 and went onstage after Walter Lure. Many years later, the Gunfire‘s drummer and bassist, Ozzie and Ray arranged an English tour for Walter, with them and Jez Miller as his backing band. It was at their 100 Club gig that I played some ElectraJets songs and met Cynthia Ross and Joe Sztabnik of New York Junk. Every word I’ve written so far could have been interspersed with the words ‘Johnny’ and ‘Thunders’, such is his interconnecting influence on me andd my friends. Nikki Sudden said something like, ‘Johnny Thunders will be remembered the same way as Robert Johnson‘. I’ve always thought this was a perfect description of him. Now that we’re all ‘old’ white bluesmen and women, Sudden‘s words seem to ring more perfectly than ever. But not just for the old’ens, Thunders influence is seemingly timeless, his songs and clothes, and guitar playing cross-pollinate with a new crop of musicians endlessly…Hail Hail Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Jim Jones from Thee Hypnotics, Black Moses, the Jim Jones Revue, and Jim Jones And The Righteous Mind testifies:

As a youngster, I first awoke to Rock n Roll via the original 50s stuff; Elvis, Little Richard, Eddie Cochrane, Chuck Berry etc.

This early Rock n Roll has swing, it has charisma, it has urgency, it has spirit and style and class. A lot of music that followed the original explosion has nothing .. it became watered down, it became a business, and in many cases it just became shit.

When I first became aware of Johnny Thunders music, all I knew was I liked it, mostly because it sounded tough and dangerous, and it went against a lot of stuff I thought was stupid ..

I went to see him play on several occasions, and I loved him, I felt a spiritual significance, he had the charisma of the explosion; I couldn’t fully articulate that stuff at the time, I just knew: He wasn’t rock .. he was Rock n Roll – there’s a big difference .. and you either get it, or (sadly) you don’t. ”

I heard about Johnny Thunders before I actually heard him. He died the year after I started playing guitar. When I started playing, I devoured all I could about guitar through reading the monthlies. At the time, from cover to cover, this magazine content was like 1980s metal and roots music. I was hungering for something different. On a whim, I bought the Replacements’ Don’t Tell A Soul. Whatever I could learn about the Mats’, I did, and they spoke of Thunders so I eventually checked him out.

I bought a Dolls Best Of first and then So Alone. With the Dolls, what struck me as how he took familiar rock n’ roll lead guitar vocabulary and made little genius twists that made his runs instantly memorable and instantly timeless. Also, there was a raw-nerve emotionality to his phrasing and a cocksure attitude to his solos. He seemed like one of those guys whose full and pure being came out when he picked up a guitar. It didn’t seem like anything was put on—it was all attitude and fearlessness. So Alone showed a vulnerable side that touched me. It was a deep level of artistry beyond so many musicians—he was the guitar hero and the wounded romantic balladeer. Another thing that resonated with me is that Johnny’s warped sense of humor came through in both these polarities—it didn’t matter whether he was making you cry or making you dance, he could always make you laugh. ”

Lorne Behrman, guitarist (The Sweet Things, L.E.S. Stitches, Dimestore Haloes, The Dead Tricks)

Jonny Kaplan from the Gutter Cats and Jonny Kaplan And The Lazy Stars: “Johnny, man…where to begin…My first vision of that perfect rocknroll hair was the cover of the Dolls 2nd album, ‘Too Much, too Soon’. Johnny with his Yellow TV Special and what appears to be him holding a doll in his right hand. I must’ve started with side A, because my memory of my first listen to ‘Puss N Boots’ was that the record must be skipping! Next up, ‘Chatterbox’. Razor sharp guitars and a razor sharp, nasally squeal was my introduction to this ultimate amalgamation of the Sex Pistols and Keith Richards, by way of Chuck Berry. Fast forward to 1988 or so, and this kid is living in New York city in the bathroom of a club called Nirvana at Number 1, Times Square. I was there to see Sylvain Sylvain play, and while having a pee, in walks J.T. himself to use the urinal next to me. He shot out, ‘What’s up, kid?’ I was starstruck. He made my night. I saw him play many times over the years, and even played a show with him, in Hollywood, once. Sometimes great, sometimes, terrible, he was always THE Johnny Thunders. about a year before his death, we had a few drinks together in New York City’s Scrap Bar. I was stoked that he remembered me. He is a legend, albeit, a sad one.”

Darren Birch from the Godfathers, Black Bombers, and Gunfire Dance:
Thunders….!! The hair….!! The clothes..!! The nose…!!
Like Chuck & Bo before he created his own voice within those 3 chords……
When struggling for sartorial inspiration you could always don that black suit…mess up the hair….And you were transported to the cover of ‘So Alone’…..But..You could never REALLY be Johnny….??? R.I.P. X (A great big one)…!!”

http://www.punkhostagepress.com

No Tomorrow Boys “Who Killed Johnny?” 7″

The NO TOMORROW BOYS, from Portland, Oregon are back with two new songs on this cool looking clear vinyl (also available in black) released by Hound Gawd! Records: “Who Killed Johnny?”, a tribute to JOHNNY THUNDERS that will please all of you LAMF rock’n’roll addicts, and “Get Out Of Denver”, a CHUCK BERRY meets LITTLE RICHARD on speed kind of song! Short indeed, but this is rock’n’roll, there’s no time to waste!
Dirty NEW YORK DOLLS guitars, 50s looks and 70s punk snotty vocals, it’s hard to resist The NO TOMORROW BOYS. I already enjoyed their album “Bad Luck Baby Put The Jinx On me”, and hope these guys will get to play in Europe soon. Go, boys, go!/Laurent C.

Buy from Hound Gawd! Records

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Mental Beat #1 Fanzine (Spring 2014)

f61791aec7d711e3915c0002c99ab36e_8Issue 0 was cool, Issue 1 is even cooler! Printed in black and blue on white paper, Mental Beat offers us an interesting mix of old and new rock’n’roll in both English and Italian: Interview with The FLESHTONES, Zig Zag Magazine ( the first rock magazine in the UK), and Mike Hudson (about Johnny Thunders’ death), articles about The NEW YORK DOLLS by Morrissey (from Scottish fanzine The Next Big Thing), ANTI-PASTI and Krishnacore band SHELTER (wish I could read Italian foir this one!), a few record reviews and old RAMONES posters, plus a Johnny Thunders crossword puzzle that taken from Sonic Iguana magazine. A quick read when you can’t read the parts in Italian, but an excellent, and great looking fanzine!/Laurent C.

miguelbasetta@tiscali.it

Down To Rock #11 (April 2014)

polaroid_teddy_dtrMy name is Teddy Heavens and I’m bringing you the latest Sleaze/Glam/Punk/Metal and Trash rock and roll news from the Golden State and the streets (and gutters) of Hollywood, California! From the Valleys to the alleys, I’ll find the coolest bands to report on and let you know what’s up from the Rock and Roll capital of the world!
Check out my Glam Punk website at www.ftwrecords.com

Bands I’ve been digging the last few months:

The Strypes– A young band from Ireland looking like Oasis and keeping the New Wave of Blues alive, and ready to overtake Vintage Trouble. They just finished up a run of live dates all through the United States along with some major TV appearances, and they are everywhere with the social media and advertising. Keep an eye at www.thestrypes.com

Diamond Lane– Good Los Angeles based cock rock band in the tradition of G N R and Skid Row. Cool sound and look and I plan on catching a live show when they play out. Looks like they have done some regional touring. Check em out at http://www.diamondlanerocks.com

Like An Army-This group features ex King Of The Hill singer Frankie, and members of the ultra cover band Dr. Zivegas. Their video for “Taste Of It” is the bomb, and my personal favorite. Good, catchy hard rock and the video features naked tattooed honeys. Can’t wait to hear the rest of the music. Look up the video on YouTube.

Crashdiet– New release of old demos featuring the original line up. People go crazy for this band and you can check out the humble beginnings. Very nice package with bonus tracks, much better than what the current band is putting out. Good sounding and sleazy enough to seek out. I still wonder why they cite GG Allin in their press materials as an influence. Get it all at www.crashdiet.com

I Love Rich– Rich sent me the new CD from his band and I love the tunes. These guys sound like a cross of KISS/AC-DC and Black and Blue, with catchy and dirty heavy tunes. Hit em up at www.iloverich.net

Youth Code– A 2 piece industrial/noise band from East Hollywood that is the West coast answer to Atari Teenage Riot. They have a couple of indie releases out and most recently toured with AFI. Get all the scoop on them if you dig ATR or Suicide! www.facebook.com/youthcodeforever

The Drama– Straight up cool rock and roll band from L.A. making noise with a Thursday night residency at Loaded on Hollywood Blvd. Glitz/glam/sweat, check em out if in Hollywood on vacation. Featuring my bro Conrado P. from the Hedwig and The Angry Inch band that we played in together. www.facebook.comthedramalosangeles

What’s been up in Los Angeles:

Upcoming: Rainbow Bar and Grill 42nd anniversary party featuring Great White, Bullet Boys, Traci Gunns and Bitch. Always a good party in the parking lot, a who’s who of Hollywood rock and roll shows up for this annual party! I’ll have a Long Island Ice Tea for you all and give a report in the next DTR!!!

Winter NAMM recap: I usually stay away from crowded industry events, but got talked into going to the NAMM show this year. This show is where all musicians and fans collide in one big party. Highlights included seeing Doyle from the Misfits, the Twisted Sister guys, Slayer and my bro Shawn Smash from Total Chaos. Also hanging out with my bros Roger Romeo and Mike Prince from Legs Diamond and meeting Derek St. Holmes from the classic Ted Nugent band and Earl Slick from David Bowie’s band and the New York Dolls. There was a jam at our hotel pool and court yard that featured a bunch of classic rock guys playing all their hits and of course all the free booze you could handle. NAMM is the only place where you can see old friends, rock stars and other fuckers you don’t want to see, all in one loud and hot and sweaty place!

The Funkin Maniacs-I have to mention my bros band, Roger Romeo, as he’s playing in a trio with the drummer and bass player from the classic Swan Song records band Detective, and these guys have chops for days, also worth looking up if you are vacationing in Los Angeles, as they are playing around town most weekends.

Upcoming: The 4th Annual Johnny Thunders Memorial Show: Headlining this year’s show will be the one and only Walter Lure with The Waldos. Walter will have “rent party” guitar slinger Joey Pinter. Bands confirmed are THE ZEROS all original members in a rare appearance, plus local stars, Crazy Squeeze,Prima Donna, Telephone Lovers, Dirty Eyes, Black Mambas,The Neurotics, Devil Dogs West, and Electric Children. There will also be special guests playing with Walter Throughout his set. Gonna be a good time, I’ll give the 411 in the next DTR.

If you want me to review your music or write about your event, send it all to:

Teddy Heavens
27750 Firebrand Dr.
Castaic, Ca. 91384

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“Catch ‘Em While They’re Still Alive!” Roy J. Morgan’s Fifth Annual Johnny Thunders Memorial Concert Saturday, April 26th!!!!

The rocknroll underground was recently shook by the tragic death of Alistarr from the Ultras, Hollywood’s coolest glam band; as well, as the sad departure of Detroit Rock City’s Pusherman Of Love, Bootsey X. Lots of us rebel rockers, jetboys and mystery girls are still reeling from the loss of such important and much beloved rocknroll luminaries. Legendary photographer, Leee Black Childers is in the intensive care unit, so be sending some smoke signals and rocknroll prayers up for him.

Stardusted rocknroll motherfuckers who need a lift, after all this sad news, are looking forward to attending this year’s Johnny Thunders Memorial Concert in L.A. Always a glittery spectacle, this years line-up may be the most exciting display of unbridled hedonism, low budget theatrics, hot girls attired as if they’re on their way to Rodney‘s English Disco, and a decked out for decadence, diverse brigade of peacock plumed, glam shagged, fedora’d and top hatted, feathered and fringed, platform shoes and gold lame’ garbed lonely planet people, congregating again, to celebrate the defiant spirit and bruised gutter soul of Johnny Thunders.

!AAAAAABELJT

Heartbreakers survivors, Walter Lure and Billy Rath, are both doing their own sets, accompanied by the dynamite, original, one and only, Classic Waldos line-up guitar hero, Mr. Joey Pinter! So you’re guaranteed to hear a mixture of old Thunders/Heartbreakers classics, like “Chinese Rocks” and “Too Much Junkie Business”, as well as some of your favorite hits from the classic platter, “Rent Party”, such as “Seven Day Weekend” and “Love That Kills” and “Party Lights” that venerated critics like Kris Needs are still talking about, all these years later.

If you’re not hip to the Waldos “Rent Party”, do yourself a favor, and buy a copy of it on-line, pronto, Tonto. It’s like the perfect sequel to your fave Heartbreakers landmark lp’s. This will be Joey Pinter‘s Farewell performance to L.A. before he moves to Chicago, so don’t fuck around and miss your opportunity to see old-school NYC punk living legends—Uncle Walter, Billy Rath, and Joey Pinter, live and in-person! Javier Escovedo, from the legendary Zeros will be performing. Johnny Witmer from the catchy, singalong, power-pop kings, the Crazy Squeeze, will be performing. Not to mention…those reckless, Sunset Strip scorning, lovable punknroll underdogs-Motorcycle Boy! Francois and his gang of stylish rogues will be showing the kids what rocknroll sounds like, and who knows? He might even bring his accordion! Hell, Hollywood lore has it that they used to show up on motorcycles and play one song and leave, you never know what kind of debaucherous hijinks and topless mayhem might ensue when you invite this many tightwire treading, mercurial, glitter punk dynamos to gather in one dark bar! Also on the bill are local faves, The Neurotics, Paper Hearts, Telephone Lovers, Electric Children, Vampyre Bunnies, Bite from San Fran and more! Last time Billy Rath was in town, he was joined onstage by Billy Burks from the Humpers! You never know who might show up at these things. Members of Blondie, the Moonchasers, Joneses, Shiteland Ponies, Dogs D’Amour, Dirty Eyes, and Hangmen have all been seen in the crowd or participating in all star jams! Stargazers will see the coolest faces in Hollyweird, as everybody comes out for these special occasions.

All this happens on Saturday, April 26th, at LOS GLOBOS 3040 West Sunset Blvd. Silver Lake California! That’s Saturday, April 26th, at LOS GLOBOS- 3040 West Sunset Blvd. Silver Lake California! Over 200 people were turned away by fire marshals at the door of last year’s packed event, as punks and hoodlums from all over the world descend upon Tinseltown for this annual extravaganza, so you’ll want to buy your tickets in advance. This is a lot of entertainment value for twelve bucks! Make your plane reservations and book your hotels now. This is gonna be the party of the year. (-Pepsi Sheen)

The Bermondsey Joyriders “Brian Jones (The Real True Leader of The Rolling Stones) / Johnny Thunders Was A Human Being” (7″)

Gary Lammin’s BERMONDSEY JOYRIDERS are back with a double a-side 7″ paying tribute to two of their favourite artists/guitarists, Brian Jones and Johnny Thunders without chosing the easy cover song way: “‘Brian Jones (The Real True Leader of The Rolling Stones)” and “Johnny Thunders Was A Human Being”… The band now have Chris Musto (Johnny Thunders’ Oddballs) on drums, so a tribute to Johnny Thunders can’t be more appropriate.
The music style and spirit of both Brian Jones and Johnny Thunders can be found in the songs, but at the same time, these 2 songs full of references could have been part of the same album.
The BERMONDSEY JOYRIDERS had a great idea to pay tribute to two of the coolest cats in rock’n’roll, and they do it well! They will release their second album “Flamboyant Thugs” on May 26th./Laurent C.

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Looking For Johnny – The Legend Of Johnny Thunders. Interview with Danny Garcia

“In 90 minutes, this film covers Johnny Thunders career from his beginning in the early 70’s as a founding member of the highly influential New York Dolls to his demise in New Orleans, where he died under mysterious circumstances in 1991.”

We interviewed director Danny Garcia about his upcoming documentary Looking For Johnny. Most Johnny Thunders fans have been waiting for a long time to see such a movie, so without spoiling the fun, Danny tells us a bit more about it…

LJF1

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your previous work?

I’m an independent filmmaker from Barcelona, I directed and produced The Rise and Fall of The Clash.

How and when did you get the idea of making a documentary about Johnny Thunders?

I’ve always been a Thunders fan so it was a natural choice for me.
I came up with the idea in 2010, got in touch with a few people related to JT and their response was positive so I carried on.

Can you remember when you heard about Johnny Thunders for the very first time?

LFJ4When I was in my late teens I bought a New York Dolls album without knowing what was in store for me. I immediately loved their music and Johnny‘s guitar sound.

You interviewed many people for the movie, how did you choose them? Was it easy to find them? Did everyone you get in touch with agreed to be part of the movie? Anybody you would have liked to interview but didn’t manage to?

In 88 I nicked Nina Antonia’s book In Cold Blood from a big store in London and I kinda grew up with it… So choosing the people I wanted to interview was easy but it wasn’t so easy to track everybody and have them agree to be interviewed, but I’m really happy with the cast and the overall result.
It would have been nice to have Johansen and Hell in the film as well but you can’t win ’em all.

Your project was mainly financed by donations. Have you been positively surprised or disappointed with the feedback?

I was really surprised and grateful to all the fans, friends and family of Johnny Thunders , he is the real recipient of the donations I’m just the messenger.

 Hardcore Johnny Thunders fans are definitely waiting for the movie, some people even sent us emails to ask us about Looking For Johnny!… Are you aware of this impatience from Thunders fans? Do you feel a kind of pressure/stress because of that?

Yes but we have all been waiting forever for a film like this so a few more days of waiting won’t kill us.

LFJ3
Is there any never-seen-before footage in the movie?

Yes, there is unseen NY Dolls and Heartbreakers footage and also photography.

 What’s your favourite Johnny Thunders era? How do you explain his”rock icon” status (especially since these last 10 years)?

The Heartbreakers period. To me “L.A.M.F”. Is one of the best albums ever, period. Johnny was a great songwriter and a very charismatic artist so all the interest in his music doesn’t surprise me one bit.

LFJ5The Heartbreakers – Le Bataclan, Paris 1977.

What’s your opinion on “Born To Lose: The Last Rock”‘n’ Roll Movie”? What about “Mona Et Moi”?

Kowalski’s film is very crude, not my style but I respect his work.
Patrick’s film is very interesting, nice photography, definitely worth a watch. I’m glad she had all those cameos in it.

LFJ8
I’ve heard that somebody is working on a biopic about Johnny Thunders. Have you heard about that?

Yes, I spoke to one of the scriptwriters, they bought the rights for Nina’s book.
I hope they find a good actor to play JT‘s part, best of luck to them.

LFJ2Danny in front of the infamous St. Peter House, New Orleans.

 Is Johnny Thunders’ spirit/legacy still alive in the 2014 rock scene?

Of course, it’s stronger than ever!

 Is there any release date for Looking For Johnny yet?

May 2014.

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