London's Calling... it's The Clash!

I love, love, love this photo of The Clash that Bob Kondrak gave me permission to put up. He snapped it at the band's first Seattle gig, October 15th, 1979, at the Paramount Theater. It was $6 to see the show.

It had been two years since The Clash released their debut album. Like The Sex Pistols, the band instantly found fans in America, but whereas The Pistols seemed like nihilistic malcontents, The Clash gave a feeling of perseverance, and indeed hope, through their working class anthems and leftist ideals. Plus they'd already began to incorporate a lot more into their music beyond the blistering catchy punk tunes on their first album, including elements of reggae and rockabilly. They were the total package, the real deal. I would have loved to have seen them in this era, but sadly I was too young. I didn't discover The Clash until many kids my age did, via the more commercial "Combat Rock" album, when "Rock the Casbah" ended up all over MTV and radio. Thankfully I went back and found their older material when I was still in highschool and played the shit out of it. Their debut album to this day remains in my top ten albums of all time and I play it a couple times a month.

The Pulses

Seattle-based band The Pulses have often flown pretty low under the radar in the local music scene. In part because they've pretty much bucked every trend and charted their own path, which has weaved through art punk, garage rock and post-punk. They actually have quite a few releases and live shows under their belt, but they've never seemed to actually play out regularly. I think it gives some extra mysterious flare to the band.

The Pulses began in New York in 1995 as a four-piece who all attended the same college, but it wasn't until 1999 when the band moved to Seattle, added ex-Fallouts Shannon Mcconnell, and stuck with a line-up as a three piece that things really clicked for them. This photo is from one of their early Seattle shows at Gibsons, taken by Bob Kondrak. The band has recorded with the likes of Jack Endino, Zack Static and Johnny Sangster, all big names in the garage and independent music world, and they have a couple of great CDs out on Dirtnap you should seek out.

Discography:

• 2002, "The Pulses" LP/CD (Dirtnap Records)
• 2003, "Little Brothers" 10"/CDEP (Dirtnap Records)
• 2003, song "Stuck" on "Dirtnap Across The Northwest" CD (Dirtnap Records)
• 2005, "Gather Round and Destroy All Our Records" LP/CD (Dirtnap Records)
• 2006, song "The Kinks Say Fuck You" on "The Funhouse Comp Thing" CD (My Fat Ass Productions)

Zero Down's metal challenge for Judas Priest!

Local Seattle metal band Zero Down have thrown down the gauntlet at Judas Priest in their pretty damn funny new YouTube video:

The Cute Lepers new video!

The Cute Lepers have a great new video for their song "Terminal Boredom", check it out:

In The Pit

I want to go where the action is,
I want to fly through the urban blight.
I want to live like a shadow in the dark
and only move at night...

I get asked fairly often what kind of photography I shoot. The funny thing is I've never considered myself much of either a photographer or a writer, but more a documenter. I try to capture a moment, a feeling, what's going on, generally in punk and underground music, although the scope of stuff I obsessively document has definitely expanded far beyond punk music over the years to cover zines, pinball, classic arcade games, and other types of music and events. So when people ask that question about my photos, I usually say "In the pit photography." And really, that's what it is. I'm down there front and center as a music fan, not to take pictures, my camera just comes along for the ride. And I've broken quite a few cameras at shows, had them doused with beer, seen them go flying out of my hands from a fist or elbow of someone dancing by and probably have taken more than my share of bruises getting up to where I wanna be, where the action is...

A couple of these shots I think I've run before (maybe the 2nd and 4th ones), I just found the first one today, it's from a show in the early '90s at Rkcndy. I love the chaos and energy of the circle or slam pit, old school style, with people laughing, raging, and yet all rocking out together.

ps- Check out the dude's Joy Division tat in the first picture, that's awesome!

Punk Scene Photo: Larry, Jay, Nils

This is a photo of Larry Rickets, Jay Ford and Nils at some party, probably in the mid-'90s judging on how young Nils looks. Larry has been in a string of bands and currently lives in Oakland and plays in the awesome Jesus Fucking Christ. Jay did Point of Interest punk fanzine for quite a long time. Nils was also in a string of bands and now both plays in The Shy Ones fronts The Greatest Hits.

The King of Kong: Steve Wiebe

Steve Wiebe was the star of last year’s hit documentary film “The King of Kong.” In the movie Wiebe challenges the long standing Donkey Kong high score record held by Billy Mitchell. He finds himself up against Billy’s friends, Twin Galaxies (who maintains and regulates arcade game high scores), and some dubious videoed high scores from his competition, but throughout the movie he perseveres and fights on. His humble and humorous attitude really comes through in the film. And the somewhat epic battle that pits Billy against Steve makes the movie enjoyable to almost anyone, you don't have to be a classic game geek like me to enjoy it. It was a big hit at the Seattle International Film Festival, then played theaters, and is now available to buy or rent on DVD.

Being a classic arcade game collector, someone that has their own Donkey Kong game in their basement, Wiebe is a bit of a hero to me. So I was more than stoked when we were able to get him to come talk at the Northwest Pinball and Gameroom Show last weekend at the Seattle Center (I helped with the planning, hence the plugs for it on the blog). Wiebe was even more funny and humble in person. He seemed unable to talk shit about Billy "Hot Sauce and Mullet" Mitchell or Twin Galaxies, even though they fucked him over a bunch in the move and the crowd was on his side and practically begged him to during the Q&A session. He regaled us with the back story of his fight for the high score, his history playing Donkey Kong (it's been an obsession for him since high school), things that we didn’t see in the movie, and what’s happened since the movie was released. Wiebe even played Donkey Kong on a projection screen and showed the crowd tips and hints. Great and gracious guy, he hung out afterwards to sign autographs (he signed the marquee to my DK machine), pose for photos, and do an interview with The Stranger. If you haven't seen the movie yet, you've got to check it out. Hollywood has bought the rights and will do a fictional version... I only hope it won't be horrible.