Friday, May 25, 2007

Henry Rollins: The Wayback Machine

Seeing as fashion these days seems to be a tad lullish, I figured I'd dredge up some pictures from my past. Back in the 80s, I was in an all-girl punk bad, plus I self-published a fanzine called "No Worries." Because of that, I have a fair amout of pictures from those days. I thought it would be fun if scanned some of those images and detailed some of what was happening fashion-wise in those nascent days of the U.S. punk movement.

But before I get around to that, here, as a little intro, are some images of Henry Rollins from when he was the lead singer for Black Flag. They were taken by Frank Mullin, who contributed quite a bit of (amazing) photography work to my fanzine and is still a photographer today.


^^This one is from a concert Black Flack did in Tampa circa 1984/1985. Kira was the bass player at the time and I interviewed her after the concert for the fanzine. I remember being tipsy (lol, actually I was probably flat-out drunk) at the time and feeling like the interview just didn't go well. I sort of got stuck on the theme of how it might be challenging for her to be the only female in such a macho band, but she wasn't having it. So whether I put her on the defensive or we just didn't click as people, the exchange never flowed, which, as any writer knows, will happen from time to time.

The following three images were taken by Frank at a concert I organized for Black Flag in Gainesville, Fla. I'm close to positive that this show took place just before the one in Tampa. Punk concerts were so far and few between in those days that we would often follow the band to Tampa or Miami to see them and whatever local bands were opening for them. At this show, which was at a local community center, my total cut was something like $663, by far the most I ever made putting on a show. Because the band manager and I were punk like that (he was actually very straight-laced and super-organized, the perfect persona for any club owners that might be put off by either the name of the band or the reputation that preceded it), he added on $3 so that I was paid a total of $666.







After the show, a bunch of us locals plus members of the band had a late-night breakfast at a Gainesville restaurant. Henry and I sat at the same table and--ever the writer even then--he mentioned having a bunch of letters to mail. I told him that I would be happy to do that favor for him and he thanked me and called me "the bee's knees." To this day, that's one of my all-time favorite compliments.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

wow how amazing... I'm so joules!!

Anonymous said...

I love Black Flag. Drinking and driving lol...