Mike Watt, Houston, May 2017, by me
All you music lovers, punk-funk-avant legions, and followers of the bass, make sure to read my lively, keen, and curious interview in Houston Press with the Yoda-meets-Jack Kerouac of modern music, the indelible truth-spielin’ Mike Watt, who opened for the Meat Puppets locally at White Oak Music Hall in Houston! It can be found here!
How might I celebrate the birthday of Mia Simmans (d’Bruzzi), of Frightwig, Mutants, and Mudwimin (among others!), whose ceaseless intelligence, commitment to music journeying, mentorship to kids, and pure DIY rock’n’punk attitude are second to none! How about a … 6 page spread in Razorcake! I have 8 extra copies, so if people would contribute $10.00 to my fund to help John Reen Davis (Anarchitex and Happy Fingers Institute), a local Autistic punk veteran in financial duress, I will send you a copy. If you contribute $20.00, you can choose a book about Gary Floyd’s Dicks years too, or a new book covering the art and life of Biscuit of the Big Boys. For $25.00, you get all three items, plus a button and stickers! Punk to the people! Email me at : leftofthedialmag@hotmail.com for payment options. I thank Mia for making my mind expand over the years! She is seminal — a true taste of guts and vision, talent and craft.
Speaking of interviews, don’t forget to read my newest interview with John Doe of X (now celebrating 40 years of lit-punk mastery and ruckus!), which can also be found in the Houston Press here! This is my intro, just to tease you:
The Feral Poetics of X at 40
When punk burst through the nylon sheen of West Coast pop culture in the moribund mid-1970s, it flowed in multiple directions, from the turbocharged, thorny, brash masculinity of Black Flag and the contagious, chaotic philosophical musings of the Germs to the keen, incisive social political observations of the Avengers and Dils. X went even further, grafting a whole history of modern music into its resilient fabric and injecting a poetic despair and disruptive literary abandon into lowbrow rock’n’roll.
Doing so meant they created something as stylized and enduring as Patti Smith but even more syncretic: they revisited the tin-can A.M. dreaminess of 1950’s radio, borrowed a bit of dusty twang and chrome-lined rockabilly, vented anger like Vietnam era counterculture, embraced the moody, eruptive Doors, and shook with buzzsaw but hummable punk. In essence, they created a series of albums that feel like Heart of Darkness set in a lurid, crumbling Los Angeles strewn with fragments of Charles Bukowski, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Rimbaud, folk broadsides, teenage kicks, B-movies as well as salt of the earth, and sleazy tabloids.
The Rock For Light/Destroy Cancer Benefit for Christian Kidd of the Hates that I organized was a smashing success that raised thousands of dollars for his chemo/radiation/recovery! It featured Hallowbody (former Academy Black, Zipperneck), Mel Hell and the Texas Mod Crushers, No Love Less (half of Mydolls), U.Y.U.S., and the All-Star Punk Squad featuring Beau Beasley singing the Hates, Allison Gibson singing L7, Melissa Bransfield Waters singing Big Boys and Roky Erickson, Bill De Gidio (the Pagans, Guillotines) playing Dead Boys guitar, Lisa Fer (45 Grave, Lisafer, Snap-Her, Nina Hagen, DI) singing DI, Undertones, and the Ramones, Christi Workman (Stinkerbell) singing the Misfits and Dead Boys, J.R. Delgado singing Party Owls and more, as well as Gina Miller of the Magnetic 4 and Kimonos singing The Sonics and Berlin! An abundance of auctions and punk memorabilia helped make the night a blend of punk rock flea market and dirty barroom Sotheby’s!
Thank you to Henry Sloan for making this humorous, spot on, and wonky promo for Gary Floyd’s upcoming appearances in Houston, including Walters on June 25th, where Gary will be joined by my band the Biscuit Bombs as we cover tunes from Sister Double Happiness and the Dicks (all to raise funds for HATCH, which provides much-needed services to local LGBTQ youth in Houston) and at Cactus Music on June 23rd, where Gary will celebrating and highlighting his new book I Said That, a compendium of Dicks lyrics, flyers, and photos, that I edited and published (contact me for further info). Henry used several of my photos, and Gary is a genuine down home Buddha/folk hero and faux hayseed queer philosopher of punk, bar none! Watch it below!
The Center for Punk Arts 