Blog: 10 Things Zine

Great, almost Gibson's-worthy lineup (I think I saw The Barfeeders and Lopez actually play together at Gibson's) at Funhouse!

Saturday we had a big party for my birthday... the yard and half the house is still trashed, covered with beer cans and garbage. Ugh, that will be fun to clean up tonight, but I just couldn't face it yesterday. Fun night over all, although I got way too drunk by the end of the night and was pretty hungover all yesterday. I find when I have parties and play host, I do a decent job at talking with everyone a little bit, but no one a lot. I have to keep walking around fixing problems with arcade games, trying [...]

When I walked into Trader Joe's yesterday and heard them playing The Pogues for St. Patrick's Day, it made me think I really ought to do a post about Irish punk. I love The Pogues, I grew up in a big Irish-American Catholic family with my dad playing Irish drinking records by people like The Clancy Brothers. The Pogues always seemed like the perfect blend of that music and punk rock to me. But there is a lot more out there. Most notably Stiff Little Fingers, who's first two albums are in my top 20 favorite records of all time. [...]

The first time I went to The Ave (also known as Seattle's University Way) was around 1984 on a road trip from suburbia in search of the famed record store Cellophane Square. I parked my parent's big ass Ford Country Squire green station wagon with some difficulty blocks away and headed over to do some record shopping. This was when I first laid eyes on a guy I'd later find out was named Slats. He was possibly the skinniest guy I've ever seen, in super pegged black pants, with '80s metal hair leaping out from under a big black hate [...]

• The Bronx - $ Knifeman

I'm in the minority in that I both liked "Sid and Nancy" and "What We Do is Secret," I have no problem with Hollywood taking some liberties with a true punk story to make a film more entertaining. So I'm kinda excited about "The Runaways," and here's the first peek. It's a full length video to a re-done "Cherry Bomb." I have to say I like the original's energy better and hope the video doesn't give too much of the movie away... but this is still pretty awesome: Dakota Fanning featuring Kristen Stewart [...]

"I Am Secretly An Important Man" is a new documentary film, currently in post-production, about the life of Steven J. Bernstein (AKA Jesse Bernstein). During the '80s and early '90s Bernstein wrote the kind of poetry I don't hate, which is rare. It was angry, dirty, cynical, funny, and often filled with themes about the underbelly of society. I first heard him in 1988 reading his poem "Come Out Tonight" on The Sub Pop 200 compilation and was immediately transfixed, I think I put it on every mixed tape I made that year. Sub Pop went on to [...]

This album cover is of a pretty rare bootleg recording of pyschobilly/rockabilly/dirty punks The Cramps playing live in Seattle at Astor Park May 2nd, 1982. Astor Park was Seattle's early '80s rock club where bands that could draw a good-sized crowd, but not quite enough to play The Paramount would play. U2 played their first Seattle show here in 1980. Astor Park pre-dated me going to shows, but everyone from that era seems to recall it was a bar/club with crappy bathrooms, overpriced drinks, and often great shows. Local bands like The Cowboys, The Heats, Hi-Fi, The Allies and The [...]

The autopsy report for Jay Reatard has been released, he died of a coke overdose and the alcohol in his system probably helped it along: Spin Article While I'm sure this won't change anything in the local rock scene, it would be nice if people clued into the fact that doing a bunch of coke can kill you. Maybe it's not such a cool drug after all.

Mea Culpa was a fun, political punk band from Seattle that played around town quite a bit in the first half of the last decade. The band formed in June of 2000 and played it's first show the following November. In the years after they played throughout the Northwest and had one larger US tour, which was plagued with problems and I think essentially broke up the band. I remember we were in Vegas when they were supposed to play the Double-Down Saloon, so Amy, Carl and I went over to support a hometown band. They didn't show, then called [...]

• Mea Culpa - Corporate Nation
• Mea Culpa - Good Cop/Bad Cop
• Mea Culpa - Waiting For America

My friend Carol used to front an pretty awesome punk band back in the '90s called Not My Son. Here's a video of them that someone posted to YouTube (something I need to do with a bunch of band footage I still have on 8mm):

This is a photo of photo of Anti-Flag playing their first show in Seattle at the old Lake Union Pub from around 1995, just before their first album "Die For the Government" was released. 10 Things tie-in, drummer Pat Thetic's longtime girlfriend Wandi wrote for 10 Things for most of it's existence. Over the years Anti-Flag has toured here a ton of times, released 9 full-length albums, signed with a major (RCA) then left it for an indie label again, and toured the world. They've also remained politically active their entire career. Their music has always blended politics, pop [...]

I think it's safe to say it's a pretty rare when El Corazon hosts an all local punk show and the one tonight looks pretty damn awesome. Headliners Success! play a catchy anthemy type of melodic punk with gruff vocals that invokes the sound of bands like Rancid, Swingin' Utters and Strawman (and actually a lot of old Allied Records bands), but with their own twist. Check out Succcess! here . Random Orbits play fast, catchy songs, halfway between '90s East Bay melodic punk and Fat Wreck Chords pop punk, with a little hardcore speed thrown in, [...]

How sad, Pitchfork, and I'm sure tons of other websites, are reporting Jay Reatard is dead: Very, very sad news: It has been confirmed that Jay Reatard has died. He was 29 years old. More details are forthcoming. Goner Records writes, "It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our good friend Jay Reatard. Jay died in his sleep last night. We will pass along information about funeral arrangements when they are made public." The Memphis Commerical Appeal reports that Reatard was found in his home at 3:30 am this morning. [...]

The new Jellow Biafra album is available free to download from Amazon. And it's surprisingly heavy/crunchy punk with the same pissed off vocals and lyrics you'd expect from Biafra, that guy hasn't slowed down at all in his 40s: Download from Amazon for free here .

Fucked Up reworked "Do The Know It's Christmas?" and recorded it as a benefit, along with Andrew W.K., Bob Mould, David Cross, Ezra Koenig, GZA, Kevin Drew, Kyp Malone, Tegan and Sara, and Yo La Tengo. It's so much better not having Bono wailing on it...

"Who are these guys? They're awesome!" a friend recently said during a Dragstrip Riot set. And he was totally right, they are indeed an awesome band. Dragstrip Riot have been around since 2001 blasting out a mix of punk, rockabilly and hard driven rock'n'roll with songs about drivin', drinkin', fightin' and fuckin'. You can almost smell the cigarettes, gasoline and cheap beer as these boys step on stage. Dragstrip Riot will be playing the 5th Annual Punk Kristmas this Saturday night (December 19th) at [...]

This is easily the best show going on tonight in Seattle:

James Burdyshaw was already an established band guy by the time I got into the music scene in Seattle. He fronted 64 Spiders , who had one 7" out on Daniel House's C/Z Records, as well as two cuts on the legendary late '80s Seattle underground rock compilation "Another Phyrric Victory." He also was in somewhat legendary (in the late '80s Seattle scene) Catt Butt , Yummy, awesome garage punk band The Sinister Six , and he most recently fronted The Bug Nasties . James also has done time on my side of the music community, [...]

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Sadly another great uber-fan and local music supporter died recently before Bob Kondrak. Ben Russell was a kid I was just getting to know, having just hung out talking and drinking with him at a few shows, house parties and Shorty's during this past year. I call Ben and uber-fan because he went out to shows and events almost every night of the week, his support for local music was practically unparalleled. His main haunt was Funhouse, if you've been to a show there in the past month you may have seen the memorial pictorial on one of the tables [...]