Never leaving Las Vegas

Anecdotes and observations from Punk Rock Bowling

The punks are all gone, but I’m still here at the Golden Nugget. I filed my story for the LA Times earlier this morning and will be taking a detour through the desert this afternoon, but I’ll tell you about that adventure down the road...

I wrote about the truly epic FLAG show on Monday for the LA Times and I’m working on a piece about going to Punk Rock Bowling with my daughter for a magazine I’ve never written for before. I still haven’t figured out the topic for my next column in Razorcake and I have a ton of other deadlines looming. So here are some quick anecdotes and observations from the festival.

I went to see Channel 3 play a kick-off show at the Downtown Grand Pool Deck. Shortly before the set I met Mike Magrann. We’ve been chatting for months about his new book Miles Per Gallon, which I loved. Those conversations have ramped up and I’ll be running an interview with Magrann here next week.

Whenever I go to a large conference or festival there’s always people I know who are there but I never bump into. Then there are those I seemingly see every time I turn around. One of those people was Rob Holzman, drummer for Saccharine Trust and all around good person. Rob had a kidney transplant last year and has been off dialysis ever since. It’s one of the brightest spots in what will undoubtedly go down as a very dark year.

The Punk Rock Museum continues to blow my mind. Every time I go I learn something new or make a new connection.

Mike Magrann, the Venetian, Bill Stevenson & Fat Mike, father daughter day at the Punk Rock Museum, Spidey and the Strat, Civic

I attended Fat Mike’s conversation with Keith, Chuck, Dez, Bill and Stephen at the museum. It was less a conversation about the history of blah blah blah then five old friends cracking jokes and giving each other a hard time. What do old friends do when they get together? They talk about whoever isn’t there. In this case, they shared fond (and frequently disgusting) memories of Roberto Valverde aka Robo.

The great thing about surviving your youth is eventually you become mature enough to tell your friends you love them.

Civic has a new album out later this week called Chrome Dipped and I love it. I think they’re better suited for a late night show at a club than an early set under the Las Vegas sun (I think that’s probably true for most bands to be honest) but they sounded great. I didn’t love CIVIC’s last record, Taken By Force, nearly as much as the previous one, Future Forecast, but this new one isn’t a return to form but something entirely new. I’m hearing a little bit of death rock, a little bit of Gun Club, and a whole lot of kick-ass rock and roll.

Really glad to have seen Cocksparrer one last time before they hang them up. Amazing that most of the members have known each other since they were 11. Simple songs written to be shouted across a football pitch. You may not know the song at the start, but you will at the end.

Peter Finestone, former drummer of Bad Religion and friend of MFTU (Hi Peter!) told me to go see Bad Nerves and he was right. I happened to bump into one of the guitar players the next day and told him how much I liked the set. We ended up chatting for a bit and he was interesting and pleasant to talk to. That in and of itself isn’t all that remarkable but it doesn’t always work out that way. Moral of the story: always listen to Peter when he’s giving you punk rock recommendations or boxing advice.

Does anyone know why Gen Z men tuck their T-shirts into their pants?

There were two bands that got on my nerves and both of them do that thing where they tell the crowd what to do like they’re the caller in a square dance. My response to this is always the same: fuck all the way off.

At the end of the second night a man named Bill asked if he could sit down next to me. We got to talking about our sore feet and aching backs. Then I made an ass out of myself.

Me: Are you a musician?
Bill: Yes, I’m in the Angry Samoans.
Me: How long have you been in the band?
Bill: Since 1978.

Yep, it was Bill Vockeroth one of two founding members still playing with the band. The Angry Samoans weren’t playing the festival. Bill just wanted to check it out and he came for all three days, which I thought was rad.

Modern Action, HST cosplay fail with virgin piña colada, the calm before the storm with the Wongs, Keith and Chuck, carpet vomit, happy Annie

I enjoyed watching people dance to Joy Division songs performed by Peter Hook and the Light more than I enjoyed watching Peter Hook and the Light.

One of the strangest moments of the festival was Leftover Crack’s cover of Michael Jackson “Man in the Mirror.”

I don’t miss alcohol. I’m grateful for the life I have today. Before I got sober my life was ruled by shame and fear, which is just a shitty way to be. I have fun at punk rock shows without drugs and alcohol, but there’s a place you can go during a punk rock show that is hard to reach without them. You know what I’m talking about: the wild abandon, lost in the music with a swirl of bodies around you, that feet-barely- touching-the-ground feeling. I went there for a few moments during the Briefs set at the Monday morning pool party. What a great fucking band.

The riskiest thing I did all weekend? I wore a tank top to a pool party at high noon in the 95 degree heat.

The highlight of Punk Rock Bowling was FLAG but a close second was fans running a Nazi out of the festival. They delivered the message with their words and their fists, which is the correct way to deal with Nazis, and I love that it happened during FLAG’s set.

See you next Wednesday! If you’re a new subscriber, thanks for being here. If you liked this newsletter you might also like my latest novel about healthcare vigilantes Make It Stop, or the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, or my book with Bad Religion, or my book with Keith Morris. I have more books and zines for sale here. And if you’ve read all of those, consider checking out my latest collaboration The Witch’s Door and the anthology Eight Very Bad Nights.

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