Your’s truly, Howie Pyro, and Dan Kroha at Home Sweet Home last night (7/30/10), as Howie was spinnin’ wax post-Gories gig.

Me with me trusty editor and all-around soiree-seeker, Mike Edison, hanging out last night in Red Hook, Brooklyn, U.S.A! (7/30/10)

Thanks to all who came out to my book party last night at Freebird Books in Brooklyn. Now, do so again, if you please, this coming Tuesday when I DJ with Mr. Lee at Last Exit on Atlantic Ave.…OH, and how about that Gories show at Bowery Ballroom last night too?! Great show, great crowd…hopefully some pix to come…

This Tuesday, Aug. 3 — Kill tunes being loaded as we speak…Come on down to Brooklyn Heights, if’n’ you’re around!

Death of Samantha, some Cleveland flat, 1985. (Photo by Steve Wainstead)

The Motards, Seattle, early ’90s…

The Motards were exquisitly named nutjobs from Austin, TX, who released some gut-punching slabs in the early ’90s, and called it a day not long into the dot.com days. They had a mess of tales — literally messy — that got chopped from the book, and here are a few, coutesy of guitarist Paul Johnson:

    “One show in nearby San Marcos, kids were having fun, getting crazy, and the bar management was clueless, so they shut off all the power in the club, opened the doors, and announced that the police had been called and everyone had to leave. John had tried to smash a beer mug on stage, but it bounced up and hit him in the head. So when the cops started hassling us, John accused the club of being derelict in their duty to protect us from this ‘wild’ crowd, and they just told us to go home.
    “Somehow, we once got on a bill at the Jalapeno Eating Contest in the beer garden of this nice old school Austin dining establishment. Eventually, people were sliding around in jalapeno vomit while we played, and horrified families who’d come for the wholesome entertainment fled for the exits when we came on.
    “Then there was a show in San Antonio where a friend of ours was messed up on handfuls of pills he’d picked up in Mexico. He started tagging the floor of this brand new club with a big Sharpie pen. After he’d been doing that for a while, someone from the club noticed, put 2 and 2 together that he was our buddy, and decided to shut down the show. This big bull dyke bouncer started turning off our amps in the middle of a song, and we went around turning them back on behind her and kept playing. After a few rounds of this she got pretty frustrated and decided to mace us. She didn’t realize the spout wasn’t pointed straight, so she held the mace can to John’s face, pulled the trigger, and maced half the audience. Naturally, a riot ensued. We ended up in a standoff in the parking lot, still expecting to get paid, and then drove around San Antonio for hours looking for our hopped up buddy who’d fled the mayhem.”

but they are way cool!!

Mo’ pix from the July, 2010 book tour…these shots are from the eye/camera of my gal, Lesley Kunikis, all from the few days we spent bumming around San Francisco, CA — doing a reading at The Hemlock, DJ-ing with Erin (Top Ten) at Pop’s bar, hangin’ at Dirty Donny’s pad, and playin’ with Blag Jesus’ pussy at his place…and this and that…

Me hoping to find something, anything, at some record pile in San Fransisco, CA, July, 2010…

ALRIGHT, here’s more info about the WE NEVER LEARN festivities going down at Freebird Books in Brooklyn this Friday, July 30:

Friday, July 30, 7:30 pm

Freebird, in conjunction with Books Through Bars, sponsors an evening of punk reminiscences from author and New Bomb Turks frontman, Eric Davidson. Two tickets (valued at $40) will be raffled off to that evening’s Gories concert at the Bowery Ballroom. In addition, winners will receive a copy of Eric’s new history WE NEVER LEARN: The Gunkpunk Undergut, 1988-2001 and a cab ride to the concert following.  All proceeds go to Books Through Bars.

Freebird’s backyard will play host to Eric who will recount his experiences and those of his contemporaries (like The Dwarves, Gories, Supersuckers, Mummies, Oblivians, Cheater Slicks, and Teengenerate) who forged ahead making raw, lo-fi, and gunky music despite an almost complete lack of interest from the mainstream. Mike Edison (drummer for the Raunch Hands and GG Allin and the author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go) will be on hand to introduce Eric, and Eric will screen rare concert footage from many of the bands he writes about in We Never Learn.

A worthy successor to Our Band Could Be Your Life, WE NEVER LEARN is a celebration of the last great wave of down-and-dirty rock before the internet completely changed the game. 

Join us for beer, chips, outrageous stories, and digitized VHS tapes and you may win an opportunity to blow out your eardrums in the wee hours afterwards!

Freebird Books
123 Columbia Street (between Kane and Degraw streets)
Brooklyn, NY 11231
718-643-8484
http://www.freebirdbooks.com/directions.html

Friday, July 30, in Brooklyn, NY!!!

Yup, the Gories play that night at Bowery Ballroom, but that won’t get going until about 9:30. So start your liver racing at this bash where I’ll be reading from WE NEVER LEARN, telling other sordid stories, and with Mike Edison (Raunch Hands, Pleasure Fuckers, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go) telling a few tales himself. Then it’s a mess of rare garage punk vids from my own collection, beer, and it’s all outside in Freebird’s cool urbane backyard…and if you feel generous, bring some old books you don’t want anymore, as this event is co-sponsored by Book Through Bars, a great organization that donates books to prisons.

Then you can sleep in awhile Saturday until you head to Lincoln Center for another Gories show! With ? & the Mysterians no less!!!!!!!

Almost exactly a year after New Bomb Turks played Sjock festival in Belgium (and a week or so after pals the A-Bones played it this time), just thought I’d post some pix from the NBTurks set. Amazing time, played with the Oblivians and Gories. Yup! And added a couple B&W jobs from a club show in Paris we did a couple days before…

Some obviously well-bred fella did a whole blog podcast deal of mostly NBT tunes, and loads of other goddamn great drum music. So, like, dig!

Old azz Dog Meat Records ad, very early ’90s. Great Australian label, buy anything with their boss imprint slapped on it….

The lovely Lesley and I hanging outside the great Easy Street Records in Seattle, June, 2010.

Miss Alex White and I enjoying a cool summer beverage, Chicago, July something or other, 2010…

Hey, still recovering from the WE NEVER LEARN book tour (with more to come…). Spent last night, July 19th, sharing tales and tunes with the good ol’ goons over at Real Punk Radio. You can download, podcast, or whatever the kids are calling it right here. Or here, you iTuners!

Also did an hour of chattin’ and sixties peeler club instro spinnin’ with Howie Pyro whilst in L.A.-la-land; you can search around here and find it…

Finally, NEW BOMB TURKS are NOT playing the Las Vegas Shakedown in August. We’re sorry for the fans that were gearing up. But should those fans feel adventurous, NEW BOMB TURKS are FOR SURE playing the Gonerfest in Memphis, on Saturday September 25. So come on down for that!!!

Stay free, bozos!!!!!!!!!!!!!