We spent hours last night battling through our secret archive—one a storage unit, now something between a firetrap and a choking hazard—to fish out whatever relics we could from six years of publishing this crazy thing. And we actually found … a lot? But not a lot of a lot. L.A. RECORD flies by night always, and our archives have gone through several apartments, Volvo trunks, storage units, floods and spasms of unavoidable but hilarious catastrophe, so sadly they aren’t complete. But they’re more complete than we thought!

So—in honor of the amazing L.A. ZINE FEST, we’ll be bringing out some L.A. RECORD-type things that haven’t seen the light of day for years. If you ever missed an issue—or a pint glass—this may be your only chance! We’ve done 105 issues so far, and we have most of them, but there are barely any copies of some of them. And we have no plans (or fantasies) of reprinting, so much like actual records, you probably want to get them while they can still be got. And so at our little table at zine fest we will have …

ASSORTED COPIES OF VOLUME 1 ISSUES!
The giant poster that started it all! Hand-delivered up and down Sunset Blvd. by people who were very tired the next day. We have more of these than we thought, but not enough for complete runs. Some are unfolded posters, some are only the folded hand-out issues … you’ll just have to see. Some of these are disgustingly rare, too. (You’ll be seeing the last few copies of certain ones.) Included are … Lavender Diamond, Peanut Butter Wolf, Daddy Kev (naked), Daddy Kev’s dogs (naked), Josh Homme and Chris Goss, Busdriver, David Scott Stone and more!

ASSORTED COPIES OF VOLUME 2 ISSUES!
Still as the one-pager! Strangely, we have big gaps in this volume. Must be a box lost somewhere? We’ll have posters and foldouts of many but not all volume 2 issues including Big Business, the rare Texas-only Andrew W.K. and David Cross issue, Entrance Band, the amazing Mika Miko as the Dickies, Abe Vigoda, Jail Weddings, Daedelus, the Henry Clay People and more!

COMPLETE RUNS OF VOLUME 3 and VOLUME 4!
Surprisingly, we have COMPLETE runs of each 12-issue volume of our monthly—every 16-page fold-out issue (pictured above) from 2008 to 2010. (Pocahunted to Soft Pack.) The rarest are the Henry Rollins / Crystal Antlers and Happy Hollows issues, but we’ve got them! And we’ve also got Gaslamp Killer, RZA, RTX, Blu and Ta’Raach, Luis and the Wildfires, Dam-Funk, Pearl Harbor and more!

COMPLETE RUNS OF VOLUME 5 and VOLUME 6 (SO FAR!)
These are the quarterlies, starting with Flying Lotus and going through Nite Jewel, Hanni El Khatib, Daedelus, King Tuff and Ras G. We’ll have a stack of each, although Tuff and Ras are down to the last copies. And we’ll bring a VERY FEW of the Ras G’s with the flexi record inside!

WHAT ELSE?
Lot of weird stuff. Pint glasses, random posters—our detritus is your curiosity! Come visit and say hi, and then join us for the L.A. ZINE FEST afterparty with Allah Las, Cold Showers and Neverever at 7 pm—free!

L.A. RECORD AT L.A. ZINE FEST ON SUN., FEB. 19, AT THE LAST BOOKSTORE, 453 S. SPRING ST., DOWNTOWN. 11 AM / FREE / ALL AGES. AFTERPARTY WITH ALLAH LAS, COLD SHOWERS AND NEVEREVER AT 7 PM / FREE / ALL AGES. LAZINEFEST.COM.

V. Vale is a founding father of West Coast independent publishing—his Search and Destroy zine is one of the four secret parents of L.A. RECORD, and his Re/Search books are a decontamination manual for the human mind. He’s so erudite and hilarious he should host a talk show with Van Dyke Parks and he will be speaking with L.A. RECORD alum Henry Rollins at the L.A. Zine Fest on Sunday, which will be followed by a free afterparty with the Allah Las, Cold Showers and Neverever! He speaks now before retiring to a delicious meal. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

What happened the day William Burroughs taught you to throw knives? And is that the most practical lesson you’ve ever taken from one of your interview subjects?
I was sort of given the job of being Burroughs’ handler for nine or ten days while his real handler decided to take his first time ever totally away from William in 1988. We’re talking like a constant 17 years or something. Quite a period of time. He was with William every day and finally said, ‘I’m gonna take the first vacation I’ve ever had! I need someone to look after him!’ ‘I’m THERE.’ This was in Lawrence, Kansas. I’d go over every morning and look after him—keep him company, help feed the cats, drive him to the grocery store or the methadone clinic in Kansas City. Everything he needed. We were outside one day and this wasn’t my idea—he decided to give me knife-throwing lessons! He was quite a knife aficionado but I’m not—I was kind of afraid. You don’t throw by the handle. You grip right behind the blade and then do a little flick of the wrist. This was against the side of a shed, and I was just worried. A successful throw sticks in wood, but an unsuccessful throw bounces off.
Back at you?
No, you’re not that close—it bounces off and falls to the ground. All I can say is … I did my best! I must’ve been nervous in the presence of the great master. I’m not sure if I improved or not. I was not in favor of pursuing the art of knife throwing any further.
What other vital life lessons did Williams Burroughs pass on to you?
He said something I had to put into use—never interfere in a boy-girl fight.
Did he have the scars to prove it?
I should have asked that!
Who were you before you started Search and Destroy? What was V. Vale before self-publishing?
Nothing! You only become yourself by doing! Sure, I was what they used to call a ‘culture vulture.’ I read fanatically! I was a massive reader and movie goer, and then I started to be perverted by going to flea markets. Particularly flea markets more than garage sales and thrift stores, in that order. Thrift stores are already kind of censored and sanitized. But you’d find out there stuff in the flea markets and secondarily garage sales. I found a whole box of slides of the worst dental emergencies you could ever imagine. A dentist must’ve died. I gave some away as presents to people. I knew no one else would give them presents like this!
When we started L.A. RECORD, we took a lot of inspiration from Search and Destroy—especially the way you’d just push information out full-force and never stop to explain or simplify things. So who did you take from when you started Search and Destroy?
Every century it seems there’s only a few people who are the true originals, and for the 20th century I picked Duchamp for the first half and Warhol for second. Warhol, I found out later, stole a bunch of his ideas from Duchamp, but that’s OK. He extended them—he did what’s called a brand extension! I had the very earliest first crude issues of Andy Warhol’s Interview, typed on an IBM Selectric 2 typewriter, and they were so crude … it was like every word got transcribed, including going to the bathroom and leaving the waiter a tip and all this stuff! You just reminded me of something I thought was going too far—I had a dinner with someone I won’t mention … a former rock star, I guess, and I had a little tape recorder with me I put in front of him, and I stuck it in my pocket as we were leaving and I forgot to turn it off. So whoever was trying to transcribe this … oh shit! I kept the tape on while I raced to the bathroom and took a leak! I was kind of appalled later.
Where does ‘Don’t tape yourself going to the bathroom!’ rank on the list of Immutable Rules of Independent Publishing?
I love that! Rules of independent publishing! If you take someone to the bathroom and go somewhere with that, it could be in the enhanced audio version of the e-book! ‘There’s that guy taking a leak!’ I once went to an all day conference with Derrida at Stanford and I had to go to the bathroom and by God … next to me Derrida came in and took a leak! I so wanted to take a picture of him at the urinal and I wish I had! But I was too chicken. He was French! He had this $500 haircut and this expensive probably hand-tailored camel hair sportcoat—these French people, they know how to dress! We Americans are in kindergarten next to them. Everything’s bespoke. I’ve never had anything bespoke in my life, although I’d like to. If someone sends me a bunch of money, yeah—sure!
Which of your body parts most deserves bespoke accoutrements?
C’mon! Your feet! Oh my God! Your feet are so important! A lot of people get bunions—these horrible little things! These horrible maladies!
Were you hand-delivering Search and Destroys then?
Hell yeah! We’re talking 1977 when nobody in punk rock—this was not a car culture as compared to L.A.! If you had a car, some band would con you into being their right-hand man because they were so rare! Negative Trend, they were always desperate—they were all desperate! The Dils, Negative Trend, UXA—Linwood in UXA was a cabdriver and would somehow commandeer his cab to take equipment back and forth when he was supposed to be earning a living! I think he just kissed the living goodbye and rehearsed for an hour or two. And rehearsal spaces were so expensive! Everyone makes money off the artist except the artist—while the artist is alive. Maybe that will never end. The exceptions get all the publicity, but they’re the 1%—Damien Hurst, like, ‘I think I’ll make a skull out of diamonds!’ And someone buys it!
What were the ‘rules’ of D-I-Y publishing in 1977?
Real simple—life was simpler back then! I always say I only like a few people at any given time. I cannot like everyone! I have to focus. I was this huge Warhol fan and I even almost hitchhiked to New York to see his first big show. I was too chickenshit to hitchhike, actually. What they had back then were ads like DRIVERS WANTED! TAKE MY CAR CROSS COUNTRY! These crazy agencies would trust you to drive someone’s car and give you enough money for gas, and you’d get a free there. They just trusted you! Which is stupid now that I think of it! I could have stolen the darn car and gone to Mexico, but it never even occurred to me! Maybe it’s function of less population and less criminality—criminality is tied directly to population increase. Because if there’s not enough jobs, how you gonna eat? The only way is crime! So Warhol—I knew he’d just started publishing, and I was like, ‘W-T-F? Warhol became a publisher?’ But sure! He’s gonna document all these artists before anyone’s heard of them. Like talking! I read one of the first Ramones interviews in Warhol’s Interview—in 1975! Lemme tell you, that’s EARLY! When punk started, I said, ‘No one’s gonna document it right, and that’s my job.’ I was gonna imitate Warhol, but unlike Warhol, I had a bachelor’s in English from UC Berkeley then, and I’d been accepted to Harvard but I didn’t go. You’re talking about a Japanese kid on welfare with an insane mother and no father ever—I went to Harvard to visit the campus and I was scared! They really do have hallowed halls covered with ivy there. It was just too intense. I felt much better at UC Berkeley. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t go. I’m also a huge fan of Claude Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, and I knew about these terms like ‘primary source’ and ‘secondary source,’ and I wanted to just interview the movers and shakers of punk before they got famous. You can tell how smart someone is when you meet ‘em! I was after—more frankly—the verbally proficient ones. Sadly, I interviewed the Germs who were true teenagers in L.A. back then, but I couldn’t get what I wanted from them so I didn’t publish the interview. It was nothing! Now I realize part of it was my problem as the interviewer. I was older and actually kind of worldly educated in an international sense, and they were just kids from the suburbs! They were literally 18 or so! I realized now that I should have just asked them to tell me everything that sucked about growing up in the suburbs. I wish I’d thought of it! You make mistakes in life—it’s very sad.
Is there one perfect question that will unlock each interview?
Yeah! At least one! Maybe many more! Definitely! With very few exceptions, the worst thing you can do is prepare for an interview with a rigid set of questions you’re not going to deviate from. I was a bookworm. That was my company growing up—books. I was in libraries 24/7—not only was there air conditioning, but there were all these books and everybody left me alone. I had a snobbish self-imposed high standard of literacy and grammar and all that—I actually read books on improving your vocabulary and I wanted to know grammar really strictly well! It’s not like on the Internet now where nobody’s literate. I wanted to produce edited interviews—edited from a standpoint of dark humor. The darkest humor possible! But I was also going for, ‘How the heck do you think of these song lyrics? What if it’s four in the morning and you wake up … how do you capture that?’ I did wanna know all the secrets of creativity and inspiration because that’s what I wanted to give people to pass on. This is just bullshit! If you read my publication, you’ve got to write songs! Or start your own band or your own publication or make a poster—you gotta do something! You can’t just be passive after you read this!
Us too—we want to give people tools or instructions or options or … something!
Right on! Amen! Primary source! Like the Germs—I didn’t include them because I kind of felt sorry for them and I thought they were earnest. This was kinda before the drug thing. Another thing people don’t know about me is how anti-drug I always was! People I think hid their drug use from me. They knew better to let me know because they were afraid I wouldn’t include them in Search and Destroy, and they were right!
It’s kind of touching they loved you enough to lie.
Well, whatever—it’s not like I like being bamboozled! I actually felt drugs destroy countercultures and rebellions. People dying way sooner than they should have! I’m so glad Iggy Pop’s still alive. I don’t know what he’s done with his personal life—I don’t even know! He’s amazing! I just saw him—he’s like 63 or 64 or some age? Holy shit, I wish I were that buff! My God! I’m sorry, I’m a couch potato. Always have been! Not gonna have those steel-like stomach muscles! He’s amazing!
Why did you change to Re/Search and not keep making Search and Destroy forever?
Search and Destroy had kind of a mission statement—no one can even find it, but it was always on page two. MISSION AND ACTION: RROSE SELAVY, the punk pseudoym of Marcel Duchamp! It was for when he’d like take some painting from a commercial hardware store and do little touches here and there and retitle it, and it’s suddenly a Marcel Duchamp worth … well, not millions when he was alive, but millions now! I’m a huge Duchamp fan. I thought he had to be the first revolution in aesthetics when he just took that urinal and submitted it as sculpture in 1913. I thought, ‘Wow, you can do this to ANYTHING!’ Appropriate, change it a little and sign it! Collage it! That’s subversive! And making fun of the preciousity that’s dominant in the Sotheby’s auctions of the art world.
What’s different between publishing a zine and making a magazine? Is there the same distinction in publishing books?
That’s been my fight my whole life! My fight is in favor of the best possible quality of content. Not only accuracy to what the interviewer says … but I guess I edit for maximum inspiration to the reader! So the reader will get off their butt and imitate me as publisher or start a band or something! That’s my uppermost editorial concern—not any other! Having said this, I’ve always kind of been in a war … not as reductionist as form vs. content, but I’d rather read something intense and truthful by some kid in grade school scrawled on a handmade zine in handwriting I can barely read … but it’s uncensored! Than read what I do! I don’t know where I got this idea but it was, ‘You know, I’m gonna do something underground publishers have never done. I’m gonna make my books look as slick as Random House or some other corporate publisher, but I’m not going to compromise on content!’
What was the effect of everything you published? You said you wanted to chart a different history to produce a different future.
That’s exactly it! I already knew that! History is so important, and life changes constantly, and I felt that super-powerful principle of Do-It-Yourself and anyone can do it—and anti-authoritarian in your life and thinking as much as possible, and be black humor as much as possible … those are the DNA principles of punk rock that still live! Young kids still go to Hot Topic and buy punk-looking stuff … notice I didn’t say punk stuff! The dog collars, the black this-and-that? Maybe Doc Marten shoes for all I know? But I don’t care if the punk rock virus survives in an attenuated weakened form! I just want that punk virus to survive because I saw it happen and it’s powerful. Anything’s better than just being passive and doing nothing! Any crummy song you write … and you might write a great one! Or just one great song out of 500, but you did it! A lot of people might not have a million great songs in them. The Beatles … I never liked the Beatles! I thought they were too cute! I only started liking them a year ago—and it’s not the music. I read a 600-page book on someone I didn’t like at all named Paul McCartney. I kept him out of my life, but I read this biography by this great writer Barry Miles who really digs deep and researches. He interviews everybody who’s ever known the person! This book not only made me a Paul McCartney fan, it made me a Beatles fan!
Behold the power of the written word.
It is! When it’s truthfully presented and not dumbed down! I really think it’s the ‘third mind principle!’ Two different people get together, and if they’re the right two people, they produce stuff that’s way better than either one on their own. Paul McCartney and John Lennon had something so special, and almost nobody gets it ever! We’re lucky those collaborations got put on vinyl. This book is so wonderful because it really explains it and documents it and you see it happening and you go wow-wow-wow-WOW-WOW as you read.
Why is it important to you to put these ideas out there and to give people the tools to change their lives? What do you want to happen? You’ve said you wanted to connect punk to earlier movements, to show how society is trying to improve itself.
I don’t know if it’s so lofty as helping society. Let’s face it—I just do things for a small audience. I don’t claim to reach the entire world. But … wouldn’t it be fun if there were more creative people? Early on I thought, ‘I’m never gonna have a mass audience because I won’t compromise. So … my audience should only be rebel artists!’ Artists are the ones who change the world anyway.
So it ripples out from you to them to the wider world?
When I say artists, I also mean rebel subversive writers, theory generators, people who aren’t doing what they do for the profit motive—they’re just kind of a little crazy! Since we live in a capitalist society. I wanted people to investigate people they’d never heard of and ideas they weren’t spoon-fed in school because they’re too subversive. That’s why I had articles on ‘WHAT DOES ANARCHY REALLY MEAN?’ and ‘WHAT IS SITUATIONISM?’ and ‘WHAT IS SURREALISM AND DADA?’ and those articles are in those Search and Destroys.
Those things were so unknown when I was growing up—you wouldn’t even know you didn’t know.
We’re all trying to individually create our own unified field theories of knowledge. ‘I know the best of all culture that’s ever been created since the dawn of time! And I’m gonna tell it to you all … in a few books!’
What happens when you concentrate and release all that information?
For punk D-I-Y, it kinda came true! There is no way one human can track all the D-I-Y creativity happening made possible by laptops and GarageBand—the wonderful program Steve Jobs gave us, which of course I don’t know how to do but I know people who’ve demoed it for me, and it’s amazing! You go on YouTube and there’s a zillion versions of a simple Lou Reed song—done by two girls in Japan or some guy in the Ukraine or wherever. I love it all! But there’s no way I can track.
What interviews in Search and Destroy truly predicted the future? Who was right all along?
Devo! Devo were ahead of their time from the get-go. I’ve always been paranoid about subliminals—people put little phrases in their music or concerts and they make you go buy a product, or a candy bar at the movie theatre. I’m sure that’s happened! I’ve read about it, I know it probably works. And de-evolution! I think two of the most powerful interviews I ever printed in my whole time were in Search and Destroy #2 and #3—the Devo interviews! Two of the greatest in terms of more ideas per square linear inch! I liked the Suicide interview, too, but I think Devo is maybe the greatest.
I love that interview—it’s so early. It’s before they got tired of people asking if de-evolution was a joke.
If not the first, we were one of the first to take them seriously and actually print what they said!
Why is that so strangely rare?
I’m with you! We honor you enough and are glad that you talked to us, and we’re gonna try and do our part to be actually accurate!
How important is it for publishers to be independent?
Completely! And I’m not even as independent as I once was! I reached a sad point where I could actually pay the rent, and it was really bad! It really made me censor myself. ‘Uh oh, I’m gonna sell less copies if I include this stuff!’ I never gave a damn before! I wasn’t making a living off it—I worked at City Lights, and I got loaned enough money to make a typesetting business by this old friend and I paid it off in two years. The damn equipment was so expensive—$30,000 or something to start a business! That was the good old days when I could make a living on typesetting, and a very GOOD living, so I didn’t care WHAT I put in my early Re/Searches. Then in ’91 I sold the typesetting business and everything went downhill from there, frankly. In keeping with the truth of de-evolution … I think you can be smarter and do better work younger! You keep thinking, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get smarter and do better work!’ I don’t think this always happens, and it’s just not me! Life gets in the way. You make compromises, and you don’t wanna make compromises—you look back and say, ‘Shit, I wish I’d included that hardcore section of that interview that I cut out to try and sell more copies. That sucks!’
Do compromises even work? They seem to backfire anyway.
That’s another thing! They don’t even work! It pisses me off! Enlightenment, which we’re all striving for—which is bullshit cuz we’ll never get it—it’s not a linear ascending plane concept! I hate these metaphors like the bell curve or something, but … I don’t know! You know ethics are so important to me, and I wish I could go back and redo some of my projects but it’s too late.
Are you ever going to collect all the banned material and put out the TOO HOT FOR Re/Search book?
I wonder. But I don’t even know if I can find that damn Germs interview from 1977. I just remember them all being very taciturn and cynical—perfect! But not much got cut out. I was pretty good back in the early days of psyching out who was gonna be good and by God printing what they said and not wasting any of our time!
You said that what you do is a struggle against mind control, against conditioning, against banal information—
And inhibition, self-censorship … all these things! I’m only human, and you’ve heard that before as an excuse, but it’s all I can offer for explaining why some work is just better than others! It’s not like you wanna do worse work. Just sometimes you look back and say … shit! I gotta try harder!
So is self-publishing a form of self-defense?
Well, it’s different—I solve the problem of self-defense by never going out! I did an interview I wasn’t able to have the discipline to transcribe—probably two years old, with someone that frankly a lot of my peers don’t seem to have as high regard for as I do. I’ve always liked Henry Rollins! The individual! I don’t understand why people turn up their nose at him? He’s doing what he wants to do, he gives talks for three hours, he really gives you your money’s worth if you paid the ticket—and you learn a lot from him every single time! I don’t understand this semi backlash from hipper-than-thou types. I’m in favor of being more humble, for chrissake! All you can do is the best you can do. You’re just not fucking perfect! Or I’m not, at least. Iggy Pop is—ha ha! I’m just kidding. But I did this Henry Rollins interview and it just now got transcribed by this 18-year-old intern I have here from a local college … and it changed her life! I think she’s too young to be a Rollins ‘fan,’ quote-unquote. Granted, these 18-year-olds know everything thanks to the Internet, but it changed her life—I can tell—and I’ll tell you how. She says, ‘God, I never thought about traveling all around the world before but now I wanna do it.’ I can’t wait to get it in print! You know what’s wrong with me? I’m still stuck to the old model of I wanna get paid for putting this out and putting this book out! Here it is in a word—free and discounting is killing everything.
There’s a study that shows how people who want to be interns end up paying like $50,000 to work for free at big New York magazines. Paying to work for free!
If you’re gonna do it, do it for me! My interns have lunch with me, they talk to me me, they can ask me any damn question they want. Whatever you use, these people help you and try to give whatever payback you can. I give them my publications and whatever I can—both tangible and verbal, I guess? It’s a crusade to do independent publishing where you try not to censor yourself. In my book Real Conversations 1 which came out in 2001 with Henry Rollins on the cover … for the first time in my life, if anyone said the f-word or the s-word or any of the four-letter words, I did ‘F—.’ Or ‘S—.’ I decided I wanted to make sure kids could have accessto my books—14-year-olds, 12-year-olds. Anyone who’s alert can translate that into you know what! I haven’t really censored the work, but I made it so that a younger demographic could definitely read it without someone looking at the book and saying, ‘Ah, it’s full of FUCK and SHIT and PISS!’ and all that. To me, it was a compromise worth making. That I still don’t mind!
Almost twenty years ago, you were monitoring media and information control—and using those terms. And now—
It’s worse!
What can be done? As publishers and as humans?
What I wanted to do … I’m a huge fan of quotations I could memorize and whip out whenever needed, and I thought, ‘Well, what will people buy? Maybe a tiny shirt-pocket size book in the future that’ll just have quotes in them?’ Like the best quotes I ever heard as long as I lived. I’d meet them halfway: ‘OK, they’re not gonna read a huge book anymore like I used to do, and they like things short … ‘ In a way, I thought of going back to the Search and Destroy format and I can put in anything I want in just like two newsprint pages. I loved the newsprint format—the huge centerfolds I could put in, and the fact you could put that on your wall.
What do you think is happening with the … streamlining of publishing? It went from zines in the ‘90s to blogs to social media now. In some ways, those are all just one person using words and images to say what they want. But what’s different?
What’s bad is there’s less of your physicality and body being involved. I liked zines because everyone is forced to become a layout artist and a drawer and a painter and a photographer and a typist and all this manual physical stuff—you had to use glue to put them together and walk to the Xerox shop and all this crap. And then it switched to blogs online and it was like, ‘Well, hey, I can do this for free!’ But you did everything sitting on your butt in front of your laptop. You didn’t even have to go to the Xerox store! You got no exercise! You didn’t even have to be a photographer—you search the net and steal photos and copy ‘em and tweak ‘em a little and put ‘em into your blog. The zine went to the blog, and then the blog went to social media, and every time it gets worse. Social media places a premium on instantanaeity. The state of the art seems to be Tumblr—beyond Facebook even. A big picture of a sunset with a small paragraph underneath, if that. And then everybody copies it and forwards it and … see, I’m a huge fan of fiction, actually! I like to read a book that’s long and somehow really get inside the main character’s who’s telling the story. To me, that’s the closest way to both time travel and be in someone else’s head—a real novel, with a real narrator I can identify with.
What happens when we don’t get to read things like that?
It’s totally ADD—we’re an ADD civilization. No one can concentrate. It’s also bad for relationships because no one can commit to one person, and why should they? There’s a million others out there. It makes for what you call ‘weak bonds’ of every kind, instead of strong bonds. Everything’s so will-o-the-wisp and everyone’s a social butterfly—and how long does a butterfly live? Two days? Flit to a few hundred flowers in those few days?
How beautiful but also depressing.
It’s true! When you meet someone who can really stand still and not be checking their iPhone under the table every five minutes, it’s a treat! If you wanted to get more fascist, whenever any human comes to visit you, you could say, ‘OK, you’re coming over for dinner but you’ve got to put your iPhone by the door and turn it off! With your shoes—in your shoes!’ That’s the new rule for future civilizations!
So are self-publishing and D-I-Y quests for a ‘strong bond’?
I don’t know. Individual acts of creation are for you. You should not be doing them for someone else—you should be doing them because you have some incredible inner imperative or obsession, and that’s why you do it. Keep doing whatever but do something tangible! Everything’s become so transient and ephemeral and disposable and ADD. I think about limits a lot. ‘OK—after I’ve seen one billion images on the Internet, is my brain suddenly gonna rebel and fry out on me?’ What is the limit of my capacity to be exposed to images?
Robert Duncan wrote a book throughout the 70s that argued that the 70s were exactly what people in the 60s wanted—a drugged-up society of personal freedom. A ‘careful what you wish for’ situation, basically. Are we dealing with the same thing with punk now? Where everything is fast, cheap, disposable and conscious of its artificiality?
There’s a few questions you have to ask of anything. Does it make me think? Really think? How much does it make you think? That’s a key question after I’m exposed to any work of art in any media. I like to think I can hear something utterly clichéd done by kids who are nine years old, but if there’s a spark of originality, I’ll notice it. That’s what I’m always trying to find. Don’t be fooled by technology or technique or form—they’re all words for the same thing. Something can be punk rock that’s just a guy alone croaking his own stuff into a tape recorder without any music whatsoever—which I’ve heard! Those are my standards. It’s gotta be anti-authoritarian, gotta be black humor, gotta be DIY—but there’s more involved. I’m not against talent. This is the thing! I heard someone just sing on the street with a guitar and she could really sing! Some people have this gift—I could practice 20,000 hours and never be as good, so I’m gonna stand here and watch her and appreciate her as a gift! Don’t be fooled by form. It’s not the uniform you wear or the haircut or the style or any of this crap. It’s some spirit that’s kind of deeper, but it’s not easy to codify or formalize.
Why is it important for people to keep self-publishing? What do we lose every time something like this goes under?
Our job is to fight! I got a lot of ideas from Burroughs, and he said, ‘You have to fight the control process!’ I shoulda really grilled him on this. He seemed to communicate that there was almost a massive unconscious if not conscious conspiracy to keep people stupid and easily controlled. He called it ‘the control process,’ and there are so many ways this is done. It’s kind of done a lot through aesthetics, oddly enough! You think, ‘I’m educating myself! I’m becoming very sophisticated! I’m taking Art 101! I know the entire history of painting from Giotto on!’ But you don’t really—because the subversive artists are not in the Art 101 class. Like Hieronymous Bosch! The ones who show you the glimpses of hell—the hell in your own subconscious, sprung from and inspired by fear! Bosch became my favorite painter of all time long ago. When people ask simplistic questions like what I’d take to a desert island … if there was one painter, it’d be the complete works of Bosch.
That seems like it could bum you out.
He’s not all hell! He painted heaven too!
So how do we resist the control process?
We’re in a capitalist society, and the control process wants us to toe the line and not make waves. They mainly want us to be consumers. ‘We will make the movies and you watch them. We write the books and you read them. We make the frozen foods and you microwave them.’ They don’t want us to know anything creative! Because if you’re really creative, you don’t need their products!

V. VALE IN CONVERSATION WITH HENRY ROLLINS ON SUN., FEB. 19, AT THE L.A. ZINE FEST AT THE LAST BOOKSTORE, 453 S. SPRING ST., DOWNTOWN. 11 AM / FREE / ALL AGES. L.A. RECORD / BLUNDERTOWN AFTERPARTY WITH THE ALLAH-LAS, COLD SHOWERS AND NEVEREVER AT 7 PM / FREE / ALL AGES. LAZINEFEST.COM.

Well, save whatever eyes you have left, because one month from now, you’ll need those peepers to enjoy the live Bug experience, comin’ at ya in both DVD and BluRay formats February 21 and entitled In the Hands of the Fans. Why the name? Well, the six cinematographer types behind the camera were all rabid Dino J fans who won a fucking contest (awwww!) granting them the privilege of  filming Bug, performed live by the original Dinosaur Jr. trio.

Mike Watt, Henry Rollins, Keith Morris, and of course Murph, Lou, and J. Mascis all make appearances, and I just bet there are cameos of their children doing something cute before the show (“Dinosaur Jr. Juniors!” as Allison Anders calls them). If all that, plus the excitement of seeing Dinosaur Jr. reformed, rehearsed, and rapacious isn’t enough to sell you on the project, get this: all the footage was directed and patched together by none other than Dave Markey, director of such amazing films as The Year Punk Broke, The Reinactors, and my perennial favorite, Rap Damage (In Seearch of the Hip Hop Rabbit). If any man knows how to make cinematic magic out of guitars feeding back, it’s Markey, who also does a little interviewing: check out the back of his head in this here trailer!

So, get enthused! And look here very soon for information on how to buy your copy.

-Dan Collins

P.S. Though I’m looking forward to seeing this footage from a venue in D.C. (I’ve heard the set there was one of the best all tour), when will bands start to shoot more live concert footage in one of L.A.’s many beautiful historic venues, e.g. the Palace, the Orpheum, or the Wiltern? Do these buildings have greedy lawyers or something? I love seeing my favorite bands on film, but I would enjoy it even more lit by the romantic flicker of a familiar Art Deco sconce. Sigh…

We have been lucky enough to both see and interview Dinosaur Jr in the past, so consider this night verified for excellence! And as it happens, two of you have won tickets to go to the show! To win tickets, we asked us to send your CUTEST VIDEO OF A BABY ANIMAL—an “Animal Jr”–and send you did! So many adorable animals to choose from and so little time. After much deliberation, we finally got it down to two winners! Behold the winners! And if you didn’t win, you can get tickets here!

First, however, (and we don’t mean to be a joykill) let us all come together in agreement that giving a pet for a holiday present is most likely a super not good idea, and that if you absolutely MUST give someone a pet, may we suggest you select a dog or a cat from a local shelter? A rescued animal is an adorable animal! Finally, animal shelters are overcrowded and underfunded these days, so if you are looking volunteer for or donate money to a good cause this holiday, why not see if your neighborhood animal shelter or wildlife sanctuary could use an extra pair of hands?

Now, on to the cute baby animals!

WINNER 1: CINDY C AND AN ADORABLE BABY TORTOISE!

So ugly, it’s cute!

WINNER 2: KATHLEEN S AND THE CUTEST MOST SLEEPIEST BABY BUNNY!

A baby bunny that fits in the palm of your hand!

And there were so many amazing videos that we just had to make some honorable mentions!

KYLE DILL WITH A TROUBLESOME CAT

He plays the tambourine and sticks his head into places it doesn’t probably belong. We’re not normally cat people but…this is pretty damn cute!

CAROLINE H WITH A BABY OWL

A baby owl that is taking a bath in a bowl! So. Cute.

MATT W WITH A PANDA

Show me a person who does not like baby pandas and I will be impressed because who doesn’t like a baby panda? Mewing as he tries to crawl up a step??

LANE G WITH A GOAT BEING BORN

Are you a parent? Been putting off that talk about where babies come from? Show the kids this video and it will probably help out as a visual aid. Also, this is as baby as an animal can get.

TOM H WITH A BABY DOG

A baby doberman, to be exact, making his first tiny little bark!!

Rollins is a funny guy, but it’ll be hard to top Allison Anders calling J and Lou’s kids “Dinosaur Jr. juniors!”

-Dan Collins

Well, under normal circumstances, you can’t!  Unavailable in any distributed format for years, according to director David Markey, the film finally found a home on Vimeo not too long ago where slam-dancers of all ages could see it.  And then this happened:

Sorry! “”Reality 86′d” A film by David Markey” was deleted at 1:49:29 Mon May 23, 2011. Vimeo has removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Greg Ginn claiming that this material is infringing: “Reality 86′d” A film by David Markey. We have no more information about it on our mainframe or elsewhere.

We caught up with David Markey on Facebook this week and got his take on why he believes Ginn had the film “paralyzed”:

So… what did Greg Ginn do to your film, Reality 86’d?
He first refused to release the film when I offered it to him. He then refused to let me release the film. He then refused to let Henry release the film. 20 years pass. I post it to Vimeo for viewing purposes only and Ginn has it removed. Like clockwork.
Do you make him look bad in the movie?  Why would he do this?
The film was done with love and respect for Ginn and Black Flag, one of the world’s most important bands, still… even after all of this.  There is nothing in the film to make him look bad that we didn’t already see in Woodstock.
Isn’t this an important portrait-of-a-time film that everyone should see?
This particular era is not very under-represented, although oddly enough Greg did allow footage from this movie to be seen in American Hardcore.  I thought that was weird.
This is one of the few films with footage of Joe Cole, the famed Black Flag roadie whose death inspired songs by Sonic Youth, an album by Hole, and even two books by Henry Rollins.  Why would anyone want to diminish his legacy?
Beats me.  Joe saw the film before he was killed.  At least he got to see it.
Henry Rollins is in the film too.  Does he know what Greg’s done to the film?
Yes.  Very much so.  Henry wants it released. Dukowski wants it released. 5 other people in the film want it released. The fans want it released.
Now that I can’t see the film, it only makes me want to view it more.  What are my options?
I hear it’s all over the net already so perhaps the 20th century way of doing things is already irrelevant.
So, how are you going to make this right?  Will you shoot a third Lovedolls movie and cast Bob Moss as a villainous “Gagg Thin, head of STD Records?”
Probably not, not that it’s not a great idea…

-Dan Collins

The Horribly Wrong take the cartoonish violence from the childish id and cram it all into a gleeful, in-the-red punk rock rant. I’m talking axes and killing children and burning down the house with your whole family in it. It makes me want to drink Pabst from the can and slam into a wall. My main tocallo and fellow reviewer Daniel Clodfelter, who’s way more into lo-fi DIY punk than I will ever be, heard this record and said “eh,” but that’s what punkers said in the early ’80s about Glen Danzig, and look who wound up being BFF with Henry Rollins! The Horribly Wrong share a love of all things bloody and killer robot with the Misfits, though not their sound—here you’ll find more than a little Dwarves, with a fast-fast-fast riffing that brings to mind late-’90s/early-’00s bands like the Seculars, or any backyard band that loved the Dead Boys but played twice as fast and did shitty coke all night in their aunt’s rec room. The lyrics stretch into the absurd, but why not? Novelist Tim O’Brien stresses the value of “story truth” or “happening truth” when writing about the Vietnam War, and being young and punk rock is its own casualty-filled jungle. I’m sure neither I nor The Horribly Wrong has truthfully woken up with “blood all over my body” and no memory of how it happened, but boy, can I relate!
—Dan Collins

Guitarist Andy Coronado (Wrangler Brutes, Monorchid, Skull Kontrol) presents here his list of “Beltway Outsiders”—DC-area bands that were never a part of the famous Dischord-and-friends hardcore punk world. He will be DJ-ing tonight at Big Freak.

Pentagram Relentless LP (Pentagram, 1984)

“Probably the 3rd or 4th lineup of this (now) highly revered Virginia band, this record was their first official album more than 13 years after the band had begun. Victor Griffin lays it down thick here. The songs are simple and superb. Pentagram always claimed to be disciples of Blue Cheer, but revisionist history has placed them alongside the likes of Saint Vitus, Trouble, Witchfinder General, etc., as part of some budding doom metal movement that doesn’t seem like it was really happening at all. Each band was an anomaly in its own area. Modern day metal archaeologists have connected the dots and cherry-picked certain aspects and bits of imagery to create a picture of an imaginary seminal scene that seems far fetched and less ridiculous than it actually was. Remember Wino’s leather top-hat on the back of Mournful Cries? Ouch! What about all those titties on the Witchfinder General records? Titfinder General is more like it. The one thing that I can see these bands all had in common is they were making amazing music and no one gave a shit. Until 25 years later. But you get the feeling that, unlike their hardcore peers at the time, they WANTED to be loved. Pentagram woulda sold their souls to be Priest. Today you feel smug satisfaction when you put on a Pentagram record knowing that they were underdogs and that if you’d been there then, you would surely have had the good taste you have today and you’d be on the inside to partake in the “Doom Genesis.” In reality you’d have just been some pesky fan at the show who was getting in the way of Bobby Liebling’s hand on its journey to rummage around your girlfriend’s ass crack as you’re all waiting in line to piss in the one working toilet at the Bailey’s Crossroads version of the Boar’s Nest.”

Nuclear Crayons Bad Pieces … LP (Outside, 1984)

“This is the band from your high school where the only freaks in the entire school formed a band because there was no one else to play with. It’s like, “OK, the “Duckie” guy from Pretty in Pink will play guitar, piano tie guy will play drums, hippie “Neil from The Young Ones” guy will play bass, and goth girl from drama class, you sing.” Nuclear Crayons are that band that make you feel awkward and embarrassed at first but then you quickly realize that you are the asshole and they are all that is beautiful, honest, and devoid of ego. Remember Nightmare of the Elf? “Overpopulation” is the jam, but every song here grows on you. Looking at the pics of them in Banned in DC when I was a teenager, I really just wanted this band to go away. Laura Lynch “Lavoison” was a total boner killer and the rest of the band just stood there yawning. I wanted the Faith to just jump over from the other page and beat the stuffing out of these charlatans. Anyway, they managed to put out a single, an LP and a comp all on their own Outside Records without help from the eye-rolling rein-holders of the DC scene at the time. Bernie Wandel went on to play bass in the first incarnation of the Henry Rollins Band, only to be unceremoniously dumped when Henry poached Andrew Weiss from Gone. A few years later Bernie made an appearance in Henry’s dream journal “Black Coffee Blues,” where he was unceremoniously punched in the fucking face when he came knocking at Henry’s front door.”

United Mutation Rainbow Person EP (DSI, 1985)

“Name: A+….. Art: A++….. Music: ehhh……. When I first heard about UM as a teen, I expected them to fully live up to their name and blow my balls apart. United Mutation? The most bad ass name ever. How could it not be good? I picked up a copy of the Fugitive Family EP and was expecting Void’s little brother. I mean, the record scraped in to becoming a part of history with it’s catalog number: Dischord 10 7/8. The “7/8” is kinda telling … it’s like, “We really don’t wanna besmirch the family name, but you guys are our friends and all—how ‘bout this?” I’ve listened to Fugitive Family 70 times and I couldn’t hum one song to you. Mike Brown’s vocals are distinctly original for the time, somewhere between Pushead’s Septic Death screech and Cannibal Corpse’s cookie monster ridiculousness, but predating both. The art on the record is top notch—I made a shirt I still wear to this day that is graced with the cover image. They made great strides by 1985’s Rainbow Person EP. The music is way better … more complicated and memorable, and Mike Brown’s singing bears a strange resemblance to HR’s at this point. They petered around for a couple more years and then faded away …”

White Boy “Sagittarius Bumpersticker” 7” (Doodley Squat, 1977)

“One of the area’s first “punk” acts, White Boy were the father/son team of James and Glen Kowalski taking the stage names Mr. Ott and Jake Whipp. A notoriously aggressive live act, the band released this record themselves and were cited by many of the DC laureates as an early life-changing experience. The record came out when punk was less defined by a certain sound—it sounds like a bar boogie blues band with a dude singing about how wants to puke all over things. Shock value was trading at an all time high, it seems. The behind the scenes exploits of White Boy proved to be more scandalous than anything Mr. Ott ever sang about when he ended up being thrown in prison for a string of child molestation and child pornography charges. Baaarrrrffffff …”

The Hated No More We Cry EP (Vermin Scum,1985)

“The title of this record couldn’t be worse suited for this particular bunch of Maryland crybabies. Apparently they actually did CRY while they performed live. Guh. These guys fall perfectly betweenZen Arcade-era Husker Du and Rites of Spring, with the whining notched up a bit and the lyrics a bit more hippie-drippie. If you’re a sixteen year old boy, everything they ever did will sound amazing to you, even when they kinda started sounding like Rush at the very end. I’ve never met a woman that could stand this band. What does that say?”

Death Piggy War EP (DSI, 1984)

“Hailing from Richmond Virginia, Dave Brockie’s pre-Gwar outfit Death Piggy surely suffered from the fact that they were trying to be funny guys in a climate that was distinctly humor-unfriendly. Songs with titles like “Ceramic Butt” and “Bathtub in Space” make me chuckle as I type. Brockie’s vocals here are a dead ringer for Gibby Haynes, and the music is less psychedelic than the Buttholes but comes from the same “making fun of punks” school which is always a good thing.”

No Trend When Death Won’t Solve Your Problem LP (Widowspeak, 1985)

“The ultimate DC outsiders, No Trend were notoriously hostile towards the entrenched DC hardcore/Revolution Summer establishment and took their anger nationwide. Lydia Lunch“>Lydia Lunch saw they weren’t just another band and put together this collection of tracks from several records. Singer Jeff Mentges belts out the most believable, thoroughly disgusted first line you’ve ever heard on a record; “QUICK!! TWO SECONDS TIL NONEXISTENCE! SO WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WAAAAAANT!!!!” It still gives me chills every time I hear it. I love No Trend as much as they hated all of us. Their ultimate “Fuck You” was their terrible final album they shit out for Touch and Go, which was intended to fuck with their audience’s expectations and managed to do so quite effectively.”

9353 To Whom It May Consume LP (R&B, 1984)

“Where do you begin with these guys? They shoulda been bigger than Jesus Jones but have completely been excluded from the history books. Total weirdo goth pop with lyrics that are so dark and funny and are delivered between Bruce Merkle’s bizarre alternating falsettos and baritones. Former Double-0 axeman Jason Carmer’s brilliant guitar playing is stripped away of it’s hardcore roots and delivers wonderful delay pedal psychedelia. Like No Trend, these guys were antagonizers and you got the impression that something just wasn’t quite right with the singer. I found that out firsthand when I met him at my friend Chris’s place in DC. He had been living in a wooded area by the freeway in Arlington with four dogs. He told us he had just been evicted from his camp by the cops and he’d had to shoot two of his dogs in the head because he couldn’t care for them. He had the other two dogs with him and after he told the story he split and left the dogs with us. Right after he left both dogs started violently vomiting and they collapsed. He’d poisoned them. Sick motherfucker. Great band though!”

Wicked Witch “Fancy Dancer” 7” (Infinity, 1985)

“When I lived in DC you could find this record anywhere for 50 cents. They even had it at Safeway. Everyone I knew had it. You had to buy it because it looked awesome. And everyone displayed it, too. If you went to a party it was always deliberately placed in the front of the host’s pile of 7”s. But did we listen to it? Hell no! Richard Simms was a one-man band who apparently pressed a shitload of these things. The A-side’s “Fancy Dancer” is a freaky funk number that is almost uncategorizeable. The B-side’s “Y Wood U Call It Rock?” is a heavy metal rock jam from another planet that sounds like it was recorded at the wrong speed. Awesome!”

Fury Resurrection EP (THD, 1989)

“These guys were in Swiz and Ignition, who weren’t beltway outsiders in the least, but this side project deserves special attention. It was 1989 and Fugazi were king—skillfully played post hardcore was the sound du jour. This record came out of nowhere—pure shambolic hardcore bombast that barely stays in time and then completely falls apart at the end. They never played a show and never practiced. Chris Thomson’s first attempt at singing in a band and his finest moment, he sounds like he’s ad-libbing the whole thing. Shawn Brown’s bass playing sounds like someone handed him the instrument and a giant question mark appeared above his head like if you had handed a caveman a cell phone. I was living in San Diego at the time and amongst my friends this record became everyone’s “I’m a fucking lunatic, this is what I listen to!” badge of pride. Everyone wanted their band to sound like this band but they couldn’t cuz they PRACTICED.”

ANDY CORONADO DJs WITH ADAM WADE, ADAM NAUSEUM, SHORT SHORTS AND CHRIS ZIEGLER AT BIG FREAK ON MON., APR. 4, AT THE BLACK BOAR, 1630 COLORADO BLVD., EAGLE ROCK. 10 PM / FREE / 21+. TWITTER.COM/HEWASABIGFREAK.

A living room vibe with Henry Rollins is what KCRW promises to deliver on Thursday, Dec 9, 8pm, at the Echoplex. “Henry Rollins – Rare Cuts and Conversation” is a benefit for the radio station. Tickets on sale Wednesday, November 17. They call it a listening party:

“Rollins has been searching his musical vaults and will come armed with top selections from his personal music collection – some of which have never been heard before — to share with fans. In a living room-style setting, anecdotes in tow, he’ll share a night of unforgettable tunes and stories.
“I will play stuff that I am unable to on my regular show, due to the rare nature of the material. I have been planning the set for weeks and am so excited to be able to get some truly unique tracks to your ears,” said Rollins. “Basically, the Echoplex will be my living room, you are the guests and I am playing some of my coolest cuts from decades of gathering, complete with the story around the track and its acquisition.”

They are adamant that the event will not be documented in any way so it’s a one-time thing. Be wary of breaking that rule. Henry Rollins might get mad.

HENRY ROLLINS FREQUENT FLYER TOUR TAKES OFF FEBRURARY 17

TICKETS ON SALE DECEMBER 4 (PRE-SALES STARTING DECEMBER 1)

Henry Rollins trades in his airline miles for a tour bus with the launch of his Frequent Flyer Tour in early 2010. Henry’s latest talking tour kicks off January 12 in Dublin, with the 45-date first North American leg departing from San Diego on February 17. Following stops in Australia and South Africa, Henry returns for a second North American leg in mid-May.

NORTH AMERICAN DATES:

February 17 Solana Beach, CA, CA, Belly Up Tavern

February 18 Phoenix, AZ, Marquee

February 19 Albuquerque, NM, Kimo Theater

February 20 El Paso, TX, El Paso High School

February 21 Oklahoma City, OK, Diamond Ballroom

February 23 Houston, TX, House of Blues

February 24 Dallas, TX, Lakewood Theater

February 25 Little Rock, AR, Juanitias

February 26 New Orleans, LA, House of Blues

February 27 Birmingham, AL, Workplay Theater

February 28 Atlanta, GA, Variety Playhouse

March 2 Clearwater, FL, Capitol

March 3 Fort Lauderdale, FL, Revolution

March 4 Orlando, Fl, House of Blues

March 5 Charleston, SC, Music Farm

March 6 Asheville, NC, Orange Peel

March 7 Richmond, VA, The National

March 9 Washington, DC, Birchmer

March 10 Washington, DC, Birchmer

March 11 Philadelphia, PA, First Unitarian Church

March 12 New York, NY, Irving Plaza

March 13 New York, NY, Irving Plaza

March 16 Bayshore, NY, Boulton Center

March 17 Sommerville, MA, Sommerville Theater

March 18 Portland, ME, Space 538

March 19 Halifax, NS, Rebecca Cohn Auditorium

March 20 Moncton, NB, Capitol Theatre

March 22 Montreal, QC, Le National

March 23 Ottawa, ON, Bronson Centre

March 24 Kingston, ON, Sydenham St United Church

March 25 Kitchener, ON, Conrad Centre

March 26 Toronto, ON, Queen Elizabeth Theatre

March 27 Syracuse, NY, Westcott Theater

March 28 Ithaca, NY, Castaways

March 30 State College, PA, State Theater

March 31 Pittsburgh, PA, Hazlett Theate

April 1 Kent, OH, Kent Stage

April 2 Columbus, OH, LC Pavillon

April 3 Newport, KY, Historic Southgate House

April 4 Lexington, KY, Buster

April 5 Bloomington, IN, Buskirk-Chumley Theater

April 7 Chicago, IL, Vic Theater

April 8 Milwaukee, WI , Turner Hall Ballroom

April 9 Madison, WI, Barrymore Theater

HENRYROLLINS.COM