no es justo

This didn’t happen either. It was intended to be a...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:03:57 -0500

This didn’t happen either. It was intended to be a benefit for the Committee Opposed to Militarism and the Draft. Simon and I tried to rent out hall which was in a bowling alley in Oceanside, California, not far from the I-5 on the east side. After making the preliminary arrangements, we met with the owner who let us know that he would have armed guards with dogs there. We hadn’t even mentioned punk rock, let alone COMD (Oceanside abuts Camp Pendelton). We just got the impression that this was normal procedure, and if this was normal we’d probably get something special. So, we didn’t have the show there. Or anywhere else. Simon made the flier. The Blood Lake was his band, and as everybody in a band knows, if you make the flier first, everything else will fall into place.

A Mess

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:41:00 -0500

Been out on business for a bit. I typically don’t touch a computer when I’m gone. When I got back, I discovered my hard drive had died taking all of my digitized art with it. It was one of these.

So I’ve decide to put a few fliers up. Mainly because of this. Take a look. On the page linked you’ll find graphic artist Mike Joyce’s treatment of fliers from actual punk shows that have already happened, some as far back as 40 years ago. I did, and I thought about how utterly unrelated his treatment was to the real article, ie: the fliers, the people involved, and the shows themselves.

Not that that’s a bad thing. Who am I to say?

Still, Punk, or whatever you want to call it, at least where I come from, was a mess. A series of embarrassments, failures, and the rare small success. The shows ended in disaster, the music was a tantrum. You were surrounded by idiots who were off the leash, some for the first time, and you were one of them or at least you were with one of them. Nobody knew what they were doing, they just did things. It was the only way to express yourself that was worthwhile at all.

I was inspired to post a few of the fliers I had in my plastic storage box. For balance. A few of the fliers pictured below were done by myself, others by my friends, some by people I know of, and some by people I don’t know anything about. Regardless, they are probably all crap as far as anybody with any real graphic arts training is concerned. I can’t disagree, I have none. These are not the classic images you think of when you think about Punk fliers - they’re local shit, but they are not without merit. After taking them out, holding them, looking at them, I was struck by how beautiful and personal they were. I thought about the humanity wrapped up in them. They’re loaded with the crummy sarcasm of a stupid kid who has seen nothing of the world, but who is right nonetheless. Because we were right. We just didn’t have any taste.

This is a flier for the band Slüg, not to be be confused with...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:40:00 -0500

This is a flier for the band Slüg, not to be be confused with the band Slug from Los Angeles. The umlauts came first, then the band decided to spell it Sluug. It was less confusing for everybody, including Slug who actually shared a bill or two with Slüg. I was a member at one point. I couldn’t play and was therefore qualified. The singer, Justin, is probably responsible for this. When performing, Justin would wear the bottom half of a leg cut from a pair of sweatpants. The upper half, toward the end where the foot would normally protrude when used correctly, would be stuffed with cotton or an old t shirt. He would pull the perforated lower half over his head after having cut out generous holes for his eyes. The effect was pretty strange - even alarming. Now, nobody would blink. He’d stab the audience with carrots he had taken from his heath food store job while the incompetent band rumbled behind him.

This one is probably the work of Simon Cheffins. He was...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:40:00 -0500

This one is probably the work of Simon Cheffins. He was Wormdrive’s drummer at one point. Don’t know if I saw this one. It was at the short-lived 2581. Ryk, the singer, wore a skirt around town regularly, possibly because it was provocative, possibly because he found it comfortable. Once, when he was accosted and challenged by local jocks, he removed all of his clothes and went at them stark naked. They fled.

This took place in Davis, California. In a house I think. ...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:39:00 -0500

This took place in Davis, California. In a house I think. Makes quite a statement for a house party, right?

‘Bag’ did this, so that probably makes Matt Anderson...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:39:00 -0500

‘Bag’ did this, so that probably makes Matt Anderson of Gravity records infamy responsible. S.A.I.D., and I don’t know the meaning of the acronym, were a band of younger guys who made horrible noise. Not unlike the sort of thing that the band Black Dice did early on. They wore suits - that was the conceptual part. At the predetermined climax, their drummer, Chris, would run through the crowd with his drums head high in front of him bonking, annoying and thinning the audience. Drive Like Jehu was me, John Reis, Mark Trombino and Mike Kennedy, and we were glad S.A.I.D played last. Plasticman was Chris Squire’s band I think. The Ché Café was and is a small hippie run “restaurant” (For the love of God don’t eat there) on the University of California’s San Diego campus. Every three years or so the University tries to shut it down, citing illegal alcohol consumption, loitering non-students, etc. Still there.

I did this one. Whew, what a turd, but I’ve done much...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:38:00 -0500

I did this one. Whew, what a turd, but I’ve done much worse. The Lazy Cowgirls were GREAT that night. This may or may not have been the night that Joey, the drummer for our band, Pitchfork, vacated his stool during the last song, “Drop Dead”, so that he could jump into the crowd while his drummer buddy (Chris again) took over and raved up. John had already bailed and had left his guitar propped up against his amp feeding back for dramatic effect. Joey got caught up in the cables and pulled the head off the cab, snapping the headstock off of the guitar in the process. Thing is, it was my guitar, and it was a 50 something Les Paul Gold Top that I had gotten for dirt cheap because the previous owner had painted the gold blue, making it worth considerably less. Now, it would be worth several thousand dollars as opposed to the $300 I had paid for it. John, thinking it was totaled, took it home, pounded nails into it and hung it on his wall. It became his art. Turns out gluing the headstock would have been an easy fix. I gotta be honest, at the time I shit. But, in hindsight, fuck it. I have come to hate the Les Paul. They ruin your posture. They belong in a humidor.

MDC AND Naked Raygun! Wow, what a show! Look at the fucking...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:38:00 -0500

MDC AND Naked Raygun! Wow, what a show! Look at the fucking mushroom cloud. This shit was gonna go the fuck off! I believe that this was one of many shows that Len Paul, owner of the all ages venue, SOMA, managed to have shut down. He did this easily. He simply called the police, told them that they had permits out of order, or some other story, and the cops shut it down. A few years later, he attended a PTA meeting posing as a concerned parent to get an upstart club - a potentially dangerous rival - shut down. I think he even wore a false moustache. I believe he was spotted by representatives from the club in question who were in attendance. Not the first show he wrecked for me personally. Pitchfork was my band and I wanted to at least see Naked Raygun. Never did.

Early Rocket From the Crypt house party. John probably did...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:38:00 -0500

Early Rocket From the Crypt house party. John probably did this, but it’s a real departure from his normal thing. First time I’ve known him to actually bother with rub down letters. A lot of burnishing for him. Note the hotline. And no alcohol! Imagine that! Slüg again. Rocket From the Crypt were a house party band and they played often. At one, Mike Lupro from Trumans Water made pot brownies that sent at least 3 people to the ER and ruined everybody else’s night good. The Rocket guys also ate them, but, they were obliged to play:

ND (to John): I’m suuuper fucked up. You gotta cover for me.
John: …
ND: Hey…
John: …I can’t. (Starts song)
Song starts, ND blacks out, wakes up 3/4 of the way through, his instrument feeding back.
ND: RRRRRRRRRRRR

Another John Joint. Note his name at the top left. Don’t...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:37:00 -0500

Another John Joint. Note his name at the top left. Don’t remember “Toddzmania” well enough to comment. Note the recycled Brian Walsby drawing at bottom. John knew his market. Also notice that there are at least four Mystic bands billed here. At the always unpredictable Jackie Robinson YMCA. John’s band, Conservative Itch, barely rehearsed ever and the entire band fell apart onstage, the bassist and drummer eventually walking off in frustration or disgust, leaving John alone onstage playing Government Issue’s “Blending In” all by himself. That’s when I first realized that he was a star. I believe Mark Trombino’s band First Offense also played. They had a record on Mystic, too. DON’T ask him about his tattoo.

This was either in North Carolina or Richmond. I wasn’t...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:37:00 -0500

This was either in North Carolina or Richmond. I wasn’t there, almost nobody I know was. Mac, now of Supechunk, was there. Waxx was his band. And we know Pen, Honor Role’s guitar player a bit. Great band. Saw them at Fender’s in Long Beach taking slot one before Blast!, Ugly Americans, SNFU, and COC. The audience was 70% skinheads. We were among the other 30%. I couldn’t understand this - where did these people come from? Weren’t they supposed to be on the margins, out in the hills in someplace like Fallbrook digging latrines and pledging allegiance to Adolf Hitler? Did they come to see SNFU? Anyway, Honor Roll didn’t get fucked with even though Bob Schick, the singer, wore skin tight pants with the baggiest white shirt he could find, all while having the the steel nerve to stand there smoking and spewing out Sprechgesang. Meanwhile Pen was using one of the Security Skin’s head as a slide and just wailing.

Maybe you had to be there. Glad I was. Artist: Dobey - gotta be.

This is John Reis’s work. Classic. If you’ll look...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:37:00 -0500

This is John Reis’s work. Classic. If you’ll look closer you’ll see that it’s a flier for a house party to benefit, yes, the bands. This seems incongruous now, but at the time it did not. The work speaks for itself. Note the green stamp at bottom right. This is because it’s not only a flier it’s an invite. To keep the rabble out. The stamp was, obviously, an attempt to make sure nobody would duplicate the flier without the proper authorization and crash the party. There was noooo way there could have been two of those stamps out there.

Markus Wolff is responsible for this. He was always a cool...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:36:00 -0500

Markus Wolff is responsible for this. He was always a cool artist. He was off-the-boat-German and therefore exotic to me. He played this up. He wore my mother’s pants around. I asked first and she said yes. He kept them. Blue Puss was another of Ryk’s bands (see Wormdrive above). I know very little about them, other than that they were arty. What is arty? Apart from knowing it when you see it (never saw them…), it’s hard to say. That is a penis, is it not? It is not being mutilated or shoved up a business man’s ass. Ronald Reagan is not holding it like a telephone receiver. Therefore it is arty. There are few choices with penises.

I made this flier. There are two reasons I’m including...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:36:00 -0500

I made this flier. There are two reasons I’m including this. 1, because it is orange, and 2, because I had nothing to do with this show. I didn’t go, I had no intention of going - it was two hours away, none of my friends were going, etc. Thing is, I used to make fliers for ANY show in the Southern California - lots. I’d even pay to have them printed. Offset even. I might have left a few a Lou’s, the local record store, but the rest would stay undisseminated. There was nothing noble about it, I honestly don’t know why I bothered. This is what punk means to me.

And finally, we have the obligatory Black Flag flier. A...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:35:00 -0500

And finally, we have the obligatory Black Flag flier. A variation on Black Flag’s oft used theme. Recycled Raymond Pettibone drawings, the logo, the bars, etc. I believe Off! is currently using the one at mid left. And why not? It’s a great drawing. Look at this flier and try to Imagine having to sit through D.C.3, Painted Wille, and Gone to get to Black Flag. But, the show never happened. Why? Read the text in the center of the flier. They are describing to you in technical detail just how loud and fucked this whole thing is going to be. 11,000 watts! How loud is that? Fuck if I know - Fuuuuckin loud. Consider this also: Painted Wille, D.C.3, and Gone will presumably all be using this same soundsystem. Well, I’m guessing the people at the La Paloma read the flier and pulled the show. You can’t fault them. It’s a nice place with seats and everything. Dudes waiting four plus hours for “Thirsty and Miserable” would’ve razed the place well before Black Flag even went on. These things happen. No es Justo.

A. Huxley. Gouache/brush. For S. Gursky. Did alot of these...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:38:14 -0500

A. Huxley. Gouache/brush. For S. Gursky. Did alot of these really fast, with varied results. I really enjoy this sort of thing.

P. D. Ouspensky. Hi. Been awhile.

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:10:58 -0500

P. D. Ouspensky. Hi. Been awhile.

Illustration for Japanese noise grinders Discotortion. This is...

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:04:00 -0400

Illustration for Japanese noise grinders Discotortion. This is an alternate. They didn’t like my using the font at right, which they provided for me as reference. I thought, “This looks so severe and cool”, so I just went ahead and put it in as it came. Thing is, if you are actually Japanese, this font is utterly generic and uninteresting. How many times have you seen English mangled, visually and otherwise? The vice versa never occurs to you until somebody points it out.

Hey Zoe.

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:34:00 -0400

Hey Zoe.

Amelia. Happy Anniversary.

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:08:00 -0400

Amelia. Happy Anniversary.