Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale

Saturday 2pm 11-3-07
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Roz Rezabek, Debi Sou and Buddy drop by. They’ve been in town for some underpublicized shows organized by “Ted” of Mabuhay Records who said he was a soundman at the Mabuhay – he was 19, a doorman there, getting bored, and another older soundman suggested he learn, and he did. (Alledgedly he tried to set up a last minute table at the DirkFest but Kathy Peck got mad at him and made him stop.) He put a big show together for Halloween at the Mab (Oct 31), another show the next night at Annie’s Social Club, and tonight (Sun. Nov4) – a benefit for Johnny Genocide who has cancer, at Lennon Studios on Dore Alley (3-10pm). However, nobody came to the shows – mainly just the people who came with the bands who played. Supposedly it was all publicized on MySpace, but …

Roz said he has an 11-year-old son (born Nov 23, 1995) and is so glad – he has a new “meaning for life” now. The son (Matt?) plays videogames and … wouldn’t have been right to bring him on the trip to San Francisco. Roz is trying to be a writer and had a contact at Overlook Press in New York who told him he had to include a lot of “stuff” about Courtney Love, and is turning the book down. However, Roz’s book covers 1975-1981 and the Courtney “stuff” happened later. Roz wants to be a real “writer” and thought his first book should be published, and he should save the Courtney Love stuff for his second book, or later. He wanted to preserve the chronological unity – his first book covers 1975-1981, period.

Roz told of when Michael Kowalsky “beat up” Sid Vicious at the very crowded party at Lemar and Vicky’s house in the Haight after the Sex Pistols’ last show at Winterland. Sid was taking too long in the bathroom (shooting up?) and Kowalsky kicked the door down and …

Roz said that Negative Trend was not a good band – Will couldn’t play his bass. Sometimes in the middle of a set Craig Gray would have to show him which string to play. He said the Negative Trend material on the Miners’ Benefit CD was really bad – there was no good music, whereas the Dils and Avengers could really play.

Roz and Debi Sou talked about Dede from UXA – she looks great, pale, thin. Well, maybe she’s sleeping in her car, but it looks like “she eats fruits and vegetables” – she looks really healthy, like she takes care of herself. But she kept telling the audience about “Jesus” – she became a born-again Christian (Debi Sou: “Just sh-ut up and play the song!”) . Small discussion about how this is extreme, just like Punk was, and if she didn’t have that religion she’d go back to heroin. But there was something strange about her. On the first night, Roz helped carry her equipment in, but she didn’t recognize him. But she recognized Debi Sou, and they talked – long ago, they all used to hang out. The next night, however, she recognized Roz enthusiastically, but just walked by Debi Sou as though she didn’t recognize her. Roz wondered what was filtering her vision those two nights – Bud said: “Yeah, she was looking at you, but was in a different world.”

Debi Sou said that Roz has 450 blogs on his MySpace page. Roz said that 125-200 people check his blog every day. He’s written a lot of stories about the “old days,” some new ones (about music?), and some just about raising his son. She said it was Roz’s writing that compelled her to come out for this weekend of Roz shows.

Debi Sou is a good example of a 70s punk who hasn’t lost her edge. She moved down from Portland before Roz and Insane Jane Weems (drummer for Vs, the Maggots, etc) in the summer of ’77. Roz came down in September.

Roz said that when he crossed the border (was this Canada?), he was wearing eye makeup and crazy hair – he was going to the land of fruits and nuts – he thought he was going to get stopped and harassed – and the border patrol just gave him a California guide.

Debi Sou, Craig, Will Shatter et al lived at Pine and Hyde. Then they moved to the ___ at Folsom /6th where they lived with Brian and Suzy Skates.

Roz is playing with Keith (who put out a few punk CDs including the one of the Miners’ Benefit titled “Coal Miners Benefit”) who learned all the Negative Trend songs on guitar, plus another bassist and drummer – they sent him a CD of them playing, apparently, to prove to him they knew the songs.

Roz said how much Bruce Conner had helped his career and Roz had helped Bruce as well, by being the subject of Bruce’s photos. Bruce had a photo show at ___ gallery in New York a couple years ago, and 15 of the photos were of Roz, 10 of Penelope, etc. There was a well-publicized opening and he asked the gallerist if he could buy one of the photos of himself, or maybe get given one, and was told that none of the photos were for sale separately – there were only two complete sets of prints, and each set was selling for $75,000, and that both had already been sold! Roz said that Bruce had kept his career alive with iconic photos of him – Bruce’s portrait of Roz was on the front cover of the Village Voice the week that photo show opened.

Roz said he was so lucky to be in San Francisco in the 70s – it was a magic time. He said that Dirk was really nice to his band – “Well, tonight you destroyed $235 worth of furniture, and the door just took in $100, so you owe me – well, you’ll just have to work off that debt by playing more shows in the future.” Of course, the debt kept getting bigger and bigger. But then Dirk would give them money for food, just to keep going, so…

Debi Sou moved to Europe in 1980 and now lives in Amsterdam. For 20 years she’s had a shop – it’s really a little kiosk. She complained about the bureaucracy there – she’s tried 3 times to get a remodeling permit to enlarge the space, which is on the edge of the big “marketplace.” Her rent is low, something like 100 (?) euros but everyone else’s is 2000 for the same size space. She started out selling illegally, setting up a little space here and there, and got busted a few times (“But, I’m just an American girl – I don’t speak the language!” etc), but now has been going for 20 years – Diane, Bruce Loose’s ex-girlfriend, came over and worked for her for awhile. The location is great, near the major Rijksmuseum (Rembrandt paintings), another famous museum, and a chi-chi tourist restaurant area. She sells tourist postcards, t-shirts, she makes paintings and sells them – does what it takes to survive. But, being an ex-punk rocker, couldn’t resist making a t-shirt that made fun of the queen (“Royal Pus-sy” was written underneath a picture of their Queen. Diane was working there when police came in and said, “We’re busting you for selling offensive material.” Diane was puzzzled, pointing to all the “normal” t-shirts and postcards (“What? What are you talking about?”), but the police pointed up on the wall and started confiscating all the Royal Pus-sy t-shirts. It turned out to be a 50,000 euro fine based on some old law about threatening the monarchy, but she got a lawyer — since it was put in criminal court, it’s been dragging through the court system for two years, but she hasn’t had to pay that 50,000 euros yet…

I made Debi Sou and Buddy scrambled eggs and toast… Roz had to leave, because he was worried about getting rent-a-car keys from “Jimmy” – one of the musicians who was about to fly back on an airplane. Debi Sou gave us a small artwork artist’s proof portrait titled “Spanish Fly” and a green t-shirt that said “Am(star)dam.” We gave everybody comp copies of Punk 77… Roz promised to come down and be on our Counter Culture Hour show …

7:00pm
We rented a ZipCar and went to Steve Parr’s Oddball Cinema warehouse at 275 Capp St (17-18th) to see rare Andy Warhol films. The first was filmed at RSDI and featured a straight” reporter interviewing Warhol… but Andy got him to lay on the floor and look up at the ceiling, where a revolving “disco ball” was projecting stars all around. The usual great Andy Warhol deadplan witty answers.

Second we watched “Andy Warhols’ 15 minutes” which apparently showed in New York locally but never made it to the West Coast. Featured were Debbie Harry and Ric Ocasek, plus a number of very young girl and boy models who looked very beautiful up close, but now, 20 years later, have all been forgotten – maybe they’re making catsup commercials now, but… We saw some beautiful outfits, saw some young blonde unknown actress tell about how she flubbed the auditions for Miami Vice but got the part anyway. Ric Ocasek is filmed visiting Warhol’s “new” space which is all just wreckage and lumber and Warhol tells him this is how his new space is going to be (just kidding).

Third was the major feature on Andy Warhol made in 1972 by a woman, ___, and it was chockfull of Andy Warhol talking, sometimes directly to the camera. It was so good that we want to own our own copy and play it over and over. It featured Clement Greenberg, Emile de Antonio, Henry Geldzahler, another art critic with a big mustache and glasses ____. The architect Philip Johnson and an art critic named Barbara Rose (?) with a big poufy blonde hairdo ask Warhol one question after another, and he gives very inventive, thoughtful answers…none of which I can remember. Andy takes Polaroids of everyone and asks them to take a Polaroid of him. I needed one of those pens with a built-in light so I can write down ALL of Andy’s quotes. We hear ___ say that Andy changed after he was shot; he had a lot less energy (and he also started just hanging out with rich people). We see him with some rich women – Andy is holding a tape recorder exactly like one I used to own, way back when. I’m surprised
at how harsh Paul Morrissey’s voice sounds.

Guess all the Andy Warhol cassettes, photos, and time capsule boxes of everything sent to him, will one day be unearthed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh – Steve Parr on the museum: “it’s a sterile box. I don’t like it.” Steve shows us a monograph on Emile de Antonio (I know one of the writers) published by Univ. of Minnesota. Steve talks about a friend in new York City who has all these 8mm films he made of Paul Morrissey.

Steve tells us that books are cheap in India – apparently he’s been there more than once – they’re about 1/3 the price they are here. He had an event with a Hanuman Press person who gave him a big stack of Hanuman Press books (which were printed in India) but they’ve disappeared – they’ve mostly been pilfered.

We take some Halloween chocolate in a bowl, and then leave. We were the ONLY people who showed up for the show! This is bad. This is truly a great show, content-wise, and I doubt it’s all easily found on YouTube… At the door we talk about all the great shows we saw back in the Punk Days and sometimes there were only 10 people in the audience. Some of the greatest shows ever – just a handful of people saw ‘em…
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