Punk Culchah Clash! (Los Angeles: home, neighborhood, gated)

[fastfilm]

No, not the Indian bread, but the punk rock asthetic native to Los Angeles. Today's (5/24/08) Los Angeles Times spotlights a feud betwixt Willie Herron (current proprietor of East L.A.'s Vex Club and valid neighborhood consortium) and Brendan Mullen, initial spearheader of all things punk rock in L.A. in the 1970's and club-owner of fabled The Masque, venue of choice [and necessity] to burgeoning L.A. and non-domestic punkers.)

Herron claims, rather revisionistically, that East L.A. and latino punk was excluded the first time 'round: Mullen protests this is balderdash from someone who wasn't there and is externalizing his own subsequent band's failure.

I was there (I wrote the first book published in the U.S. on the subject of punk rock in 1977, and am quoted in Mullen's punk histoire "We Got The Neutron Bomb") and know that East L.A. and latino punkers were indeed major players: they just weren't segregated into solely latino bands for solely latino audiences as they are now. The Plugz, (who became the mighty Los Lobos) Alice Armendariz of the Bags, the Zeros (original Zeros, not the purple glam Zeroes), and The Nuns (who were the initial source of the equally mighty singer/songwriter Alexandro Escovedo, a legend to this day) were universally admired and popular, frequently booked punk bands. They just weren't exclusively latino and weren't geared to none but spanish-speakers.

I'm with Teresa Covarrubias of The Brat (1978 to 1984,) a staunch supporter of Herron who nonetheless retorted, "There were barriers (to punk rock) but nobody ever said it was racism. It surprises me, for him (Herron) to take such offense and be so angry about this. What's the Shakespeare line? 'Methinks he doth protest too much.' "

Herron says exclusionism was the word of the punk day, a very wrong assessment of a then very integrated music scene. Punk rock was once a healthy expression of all things/all cultural backgrounds Los Angeles. The later factionalisms and problems accompanying hardcore coincided with later cultural factionism in general, and the birth of the cultural divisiveness industries.

I'll admit that I continually yearn for greatness in the popular arts, and one in most likely to encounter it in artists who strive for universal truths as much as they define themselves with personal introversions. That asthetic balance to me foments greatness in their appeal. And I say exclusionism is alive today in those who chose to ignore the rest of their potential audience, by refusal to record in the language of the U.S, or what have you. Fads and cliques remain part and parcel of popular music: great musics, even punk rock, freed it from same through its glorious alchemy of timely styles and letloose expression. What do you all think of today's segrated music?

[Charles]

Not sure if I understood all of that post but I too was into the punk scene in the early 1980s. Frequented Florentine Gardens, Perkins Palace, Godzillas, The Whiskey and numerous little clubs around Hollywood. Saw many bands at Devonshire Downs. I remember my mom thinking I had cancer when I came home one day with all my long hair shaved off.

http://garotasquedizemni.ig.com.br/archives/Mosh.jpg (broken link)

[fastfilm]

Here's one of mine, at the Roxy. I stood on a chair to avoid mosh pit hitting my cameras.

photo (C) 1987 fastfilm (yes, me.)