Brendan Mullen: Live at the Masque

I have a fast Q & A with my old pal Brendan Mullen, who'll be reading this Friday at Powell's Burnside, 7:30, from Live at the Masque, Nightmare in Punk Alley, the punk club he started in LA back in 1977. The book --his latest; others include  and We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs -- has hundreds of photos, including on the cover one of Trudie , who I, having arrived in LA in 1986, knew as a pal of my friend Jane's and also as a mom; we used to babysit each other's kids. But here she is in all her glory, the LA punk chick, so much so that songs were written for her and posters made of her and the intro says it was worth going to the Masque every night just to see what Trudie and Exene were wearing. My daughter also used to play with Exene's son, and there's Charlie from the Plugz; we were best friends when our kids were little, and Robert Newman, who I know from the parking lot at grade school but here with a glammy pink poodle 'do and a camel-toe, and there's my bro DH from the DK's, who lived in a school bus in my yard back in the day, and Nickey "Beat" Alexander, who I seem to have known since the dawn of man and who was just visiting with us a few months ago. Young punks do die; old ones have kids and carry on.

Speaking of kids, here's a snip from the interview:

My teenage daughter’s friends have a real veneration for original punk. Why so beloved? You don’t see kids forming the next Sha Na Na or Flock of Seagulls.

To steal a line from Layla Gibbon at Maximum R&R, “Live at the Masque is a great document of a period in music and cultural history that might not be possible in this post-message board-Myspace-overblogged world.”

Kids in newbie teen punk bands these days live at home while learning to play while they do the punk thing. Some have even remarked there’s an alarming amount of “punk stage parents” out there pushing their kids into it. Teen punk bands have great equipment, many play their asses off—technically; some have wonderful air-conditioned practice spaces (the family garage converted with all the best gear). You can have a whole successful career in punk rock these days without even having to be “anti-establishment” or authority. It’s a creative pastime for the very young. Recently at an all-ages kiddie-punk show [a mom] told me, “Thank God for punk rock. It’s creative, and at least we know where they are.” [She was] hiding in the family SUV in the parking lot, like the other moms pushed out of sight by kids who don’t wanna be seen anywhere near ’em.

Photo by Michael  Yampolsky

Comments

[Kevin]

That was a fun time to be in L.A. (OK, I missed the Masque by about a year, but well do I remember many of the wreck-clubs that followed in its wake). It's only in retrospect that I realize how interesting and creative many of those people really were...at the time, it was just something to do, because we were ALL bored: the musicians, the artists, the audiences.

Just this week, Kommunity FK and X are both playing in New Orleans; there was an interview with John Doe in the local alt-paper, and he's almost sixty. SIXTY.

Nancy, do you remember when the TV show "CHIPS" decided to a show about the evils of punk rock and sent Erik Estrada's character "underground" into the Starwood to get to the bottom of things?

The troublemakers were in a band called "Pain" (a ripoff of "Fear"), and Estrada eventually won over the punks by putting on a gold lamé shirt and performing "Celebrate" by Kool and the Gang. The audience was all real punk kids who were picking up some cash by playing extras, and in the crowd shots you could see them convulsed with laughter.

[nancy]

A pound of coffee to anyone who can find a link to that clip!

[Michelle]

This is the closest I can get. The clip of Celebration was taken down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3y4PFCpoOw

[Calvinist]

I haven't thought about that CHIPS episode in years. Of course everyone remembers the Dickies on Don Rickles' CPO Sharkey show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Xqx31g9Mes from @ '78

[Mps]

Please tell your friend Brendan that the unidentified drummer in Backstage Pass,on page 82/83 of his book is Rod Mitchell. In that era he was known as The Perve. I'm sure there was a reason for it.