Train Keeps on Rolling
Corporate Rock Sucks Book Tour Part 3
Yesterday I took a stunning number of planes (1), trains (3), buses (1), and automobiles (2) to make my way from Bay Ridge to DTLA to see Slaughterhouse, C.O.F.F.I.N. and Amyl & the Sniffers at the Teragram Ballroom. I was slightly less excited when I learned that the Chisel was playing in Brooklyn the same night with my new friends from Anti-Machine, whom I met at the first of three events I had in NY, but a show is a show and this one was outstanding.
A night of punk rock was exactly what I needed: a raucous series of sets that got rowdier as the night progressed. This was my first time seeing Slaughterhouse close to the stage and I loved the intensity of the performance. C.O.F.F.I.N. was a revelation: Australian pub rock driven by a caveman rhythm section. Amyl & the Sniffers was fantastic. The guitar was a bit subdued but Amy Taylor was electric. The kind of show where I put my glasses in my pocket and tried not to get bowled over in the surging, swelling, beer-spilling, stage-diving crowd.
April 26 Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg
Several months ago hardcore chronicler and all-around righteous dude Tony Rettman reached out to me about doing an event at Nitehawk. He knows the manager, John Wood, and thought it would be fun to show an SST-related film and have a discussion afterward. Soon former SST-employee Brian Long and Das Damen drummer Lyle Hysen were added to make it a proper panel.
We wanted to screen Dave Markey’s Reality 86’d, but fearing legal repercussions from SST we opted for The Slog Movieinstead. Markey’s first film features incredible footage of Circle One, the Cheifs, Circle Jerks, Redd Kross, Sin 34, TSOL, Wasted Youth, and many others. Although Circle One’s lyrics are a bundle of contradictions (I hate the leftists! Highway Patrolman… fuck off!) I’ve always been fascinated by John Macias who cuts a menacing figure as he struts the stage in The Slog Movie.
Afterwards we had a brief conversation followed by questions from the audience. Throughout the tour and during conversations I’ve had with journalists and podcasters, I’ve gotten many variations of the question: “What happened to SST?” but leave it to Brooklyn to be brutally blunt: “Why did SST release so much crap?” Ah, New York, don’t ever change.
April 27 Sirius XM Volume
After a late night and very early morning as I took the train from Bay Ridge to Manhattan for an appearance on Sirius XM Volume with Lori Majewski and Nik Carter. Maybe I’m spoiled by podcasters patiently walking me through mic checks and pre-show prep, but shortly after I checked in at SiriusXM on the 36th floor of one of the massive skyscrapers on the Avenue of Americas, a producer brought me back to the studio. As soon as I shook hands with the show’s hosts the producer started counting down the seconds until we started. Live radio baby!
Typically, radio segments are quick, surface-level conversations that briefly touch on the who, what, where, when and why of the subject. The podcasts I’ve been on generally go into greater detail. This was not the case with Nik and Lori. They wanted to get into the story of Negativland’s imbroglio with U2, Island Records, Casey Kasem, and SST, and we took a deep dive into the series of lawsuits the conflict produced. It was so much fun. I’m grateful for all the attention the book is getting, but after being asked some of the same questions over and over again it was refreshing to go into one of the book’s stranger chapters in detail.
April 27 Unnameable Books
A weird thing happened last week. A bookstore canceled my event a week before it was scheduled. If it had been my only event in NY it would have been a disaster, but thankfully that wasn’t the case. Most writers from the West Coast only do one event and move on. Because I have family in Bay Ridge I wanted to stay a few days and make the most of the trip, which I did. So I didn’t have strong feelings about the event being canceled. I’ve been prepping for bad things since I started working on this book. Pushback from SST, crash and burn reviews, irate fans, cranky Gen Xers, you name it. It’s been an excellent ride so far and I wasn’t going to let a single setback bring me down when I’ve had so many positive experiences.
Enter Jason Diamond. Jason volunteered to do an event with me after reading an advanced copy of Corporate Rock Sucksand when the bookstore canceled he set up an alternative reading at Unnameable Books in Prospect Park at the eleventh hour. That’s some hero level activity right there.
Jason led a fabulous conversation and like, every other event so far, someone from the realm of SST turned up. This time it was Steve Baum, who was hired after Mugger left the label—an unenviable position to be sure. I also connected with an old friend from LA: Jolene Siana, who read at Vermin on the Mount in LA’s Chinatown the night Elon Musk was in attendance way back in 2005. This was something of a coincidence as I recently mentioned that event on Twitter, but I guess the whole world is thinking about Elon Musk these days. I had dinner with Jolene after the event and it was a great way to close out the New York leg of the tour.
After yet another late night I caught up on some sleep and on Saturday night Noreen and I went into the city to see Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen at the Golden Theatre. McDonagh is the author of the Tony Award-nominated Beauty Queen of Leenane and wrote one of my favorite films, In Bruges. So when a friend told me about the show (Hi Josh!) I immediately bought tickets.
I loved the whole experience. I’ve never been to a Broadway show and it was wild to think of the tens of thousands of plays that have been performed on the stage at this hundred-year-old theater. When the house lights went down I got swept up in the magic. I was a little worried because I’d forgotten to charge my hearing aids and went into the theater with a partial charge, but they lasted the entire performance. It’s an extremely well-written black comedy that crackles with menace and the performances were stellar, even though two of the roles were played by understudies due to COVID. I was never once taken out of the story and was buzzing when I left the theater.
Corporate Rock Sucks Link-O-Rama
The Washington Independent Review of Books published a nice review and another except, LAPD vs Black Flag, went live on Legsville, Legs McNeil’s new site. On the podcast front, check out Dan O Says So.
The New Republic published a fascinating review of Corporate Rock Sucks. Actually, it’s not about the book; rather, it engages the book’s content and makes some really compelling arguments about what the death of the counterculture. Still, I have to say it’s a deeply weird thing to scroll through The New Republic’s main page where its writers decry the decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade and reach a story about SST.
Lastly, “Let’s Give It to Them Right Now,” my essay about the history of “Louie Louie” and the influence of Black Flag’s version on one of the biggest hits of the 1990s is now up. Some readers will recall this essay from last year and it’s one of the most popular editions of Message from the Underworld so if you haven’t read it I think you’ll like it.
More Corporate Rock Sucks Events
While the tour is more or less over I’ve still got some exciting events planned for the months ahead, including a trio in Southern California in May:
The Faktory in Running Springs on Saturday May 14 at 7pm
Barnes & Noble Encinitas with Ray Farrell on Friday May 20 at 6pm
Beyond Baroque in Venice Beach with James Spooner on Saturday May 21 at 7pm.
I have additional events next month in Vancouver, BC and Madison, Wisconsin and I’ll have more details on those down the road.
Now that Corporate Rock Sucks is three weeks out from publication date, it’s going to get a lot less promotional around here. However, I’ll still have plenty of SST-related stuff to share with you, including the online catalog of my SST collection and the Raymond Pettibon zine-in-progress which I’m going to make available for free to all paying subscribers. So if you’ve been on the fence as to whether you should throw in a couple bucks a month to Message from the Underworld, now’s a good time.
Thanks to everyone who come to an event, purchased a book, wrote a review, had me on their podcast/radio show/website, or cheered me along on social media. It’s all made for a tremendous couple of weeks for which I’ll always be grateful.
