As of this Wednesday, I have officially rejoined the ranks of Maximum RockNRoll‘s crew of shitworkers. Yes, that is the official job title. I was a zine reviewer, shitworker and occasional illustrator for MRR in the middle 1990’s. I earned some notoriety for the occasional death-threat for my more scathing zine reviews and also re-introduced mention of John Crawford’s comics, which earned me a place as a character in the Queen of the Scene comic strip (More rambling about that episode here.). My first post is on the pretty seriously neglected exhibit of original art by Love & Rockets’ Jaime Hernandez in San Jose at MACLA. For reasons unknown, the gallery failed to promote the show much to the comic book or punk rock worlds.
Anyway… San Jose is the 10th largest city in the US of A, and despite the sad fact that you are never far from some warped American version of Ska here, the place is still pretty damned punk (as in rock). I’m going to attempt to pry open that neglected world with my camera and typewriter (oh, sorry, computer). You got something punk-ass awesome going on in the south bay? Please let me know. I will also be getting in some bits on DIY punk music practical goodness (like, is it really worth it to boil your bass strings?), real-life urban homesteading experiences, and maybe some digging into punk/hardcore history that I’ve been fortunate to have been a part of in various parts of the country over the last quarter century.
Previously I’d been filing these sort of posts under the category “Andy’s Chair” on this blog. A sort of continuation of my 1990s print and video zine of the same name.
Above all, I want to try to (re-?)discover what the hell is punk all these years on.
Party with me punker?
