Author: CH3

Rebellion Lit Fest: Blackpool

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Dave turns the van up Dickson road but it is no use.
Another roadblock ahead, another sea of yellow vested Police have blocked the side streets, surrounding us.
I watch as four cops gallop past on horseback, the clatter of hoof upon cobblestone conjuring up some bygone era of knights battling dragons or some such stuff of legend.

But it’s not knights or swordplay here today, brother, as those geniuses at The EDL (English Defence League, think of them as the UK version of the Proud Boys without the Fred Perry polos) have decided to throw a protest–yeah, you got it–on the very weekend fifteen thousand punk rockers gather in jolly Blackpool.
It would be like the Klan planning a rally outside the Kendrick Lamar Juneteenth pop out.


It’s been a leisurely Saturday drive up from Newport, just a stop to fuel and stock up on our beloved Cheese&Onion triangle sandwiches at the roadside WHSmith.
That old familiar exciitement grows as we near Blackpool, a palpable adrenaline rush akin to pulling off the 101 at Sunset or seeing the glow of marquee and sleaze as the 15 finally drops into Vegas.
We have a long van discussion of just how many Rebellion fests this makes. Maybe 7? 8?
(This is counting the Wasted festival when it was in Morecambe 2005, as well as that one wild offshoot fest in Amsterdam.)
Whatever, this is the big one, the jewel of the year.
Our very favorite international punk fest.

We return to Blackpool like birds pulled back to the nesting grounds by irresistible migratory pull.
We’ve hit the town a night early, and good thing as the B&B has emailed to cancel all the rooms.
Seems some naughty punker has left the tub running while he slept off his Buckfast breakfast, and now a whole floor is darkened by electrical short.
What’s he thinking anyway, bathing during a punk fest??

There are rumored rooms still vacant at the Best Western, but we remain at standstill between Police and protesters, punkers and the sea.
I slide open the door and jump out then, yell over my shoulder that I’ll check the situation and meet up with the lads at Wintergardens, and start running toward the hotel..

Now, I know riots, having seen my fair share of helmeted LAPD goons marching through the roller rinks of my youth, and I am frankly disappointed by this mild standoff on the streets.
I’m tempted to at least throw a bottle into the crowd of racist nutjobs, and get this pit going, but I realize I am just a guest in this country.
Best to keep moving. (Reports come in later that a group of punkers streamed out of the fest and confronted the EDL, effectively chasing the cowards out. And the heart just swells.)

The rooms are finally sorted, the band tucked into one of those corporate joints way South of the Tower.
Then we run into the Wintergardens like children let loose at recess, catching up with old pals, goofing off on this night off.


There’s just time to catch Lene Lovich with the family, and then some songs by the wonderful Bad Manners crew at the Casbah before hitting the chippy and then to bed.

It’s back to the Wintergardens early Sunday, as the Literary Fest has graciously invited me to chat about the book.
This is one of those things, along with the art gallery, acoustic hall and daily punk bingo (!!) that sets this festival apart.
I find the gentleman moderator Marc Jones backstage and we have a nice little pre-interview chat, and then it’s out to the darkened set.

We are seated comfortably (between two ferns!) for our chat, and I am relieved to find that quite a few folks have set aside a bit of time to come listen.
I am so grateful for everyone who came out and listen to the stories behind the story, and at the Crafts Hall afterwards we sell out every copy of the book that DiWulf had shipped over,

If this was it, if my short week of playing-literally playing-up the knobby spine of the United Kingdom was now over, I would be a happy man.
But we still have our set to play, so we say our goodbyes to the Literary crew and make our way down to the Empress back stage.

I take a quick duck out the doors to check on the village.
The clouds part, just for a moment, and the seagulls wheel about in the sunny skies.
The last of the misguided protesters pout along the seaside, licking their wounds as well as their rainbow candy floss.
The punk rockers mill about and take smiling selfies with the beautiful Police horses.

Order seems restored, and though there was always a real threat of violence on the streets of Blackpool, it is back to the holiday at hand.
And those cobblestones, they don’t run red with bloodshed, but are baptized only by the charming vomit and urine of the overserved revelers.
And all is right with the world.

Crime Through Time: Newport

~ CH3 ~ 1 Comment

You know us Yanks, we love to flaunt the old we’re number one! tag to the world with a giant foam finger aiming to the heavens, all the while shooting our precious revolvers into the sky.
(That we are the world leaders mainly in child illiteracy and used motor oil dumping be damned, we still are the best at something, motherfuckers!)

But surely, when it came to murderous creeps, I thought we had a lock.
I mean, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, old Chuckles Manson, the list goes on.
We could proudly point to those loons and say, hey at least those are our own goddamn homegrown psychos, world.
What you got?

The UK responds: Hold my beer mate.

Fred and Rose West, have you heard of these folk?
Those charming Brady/Hindley sweethearts? Yikes.
Seems the Brits prefer their murderous nuts as icky suburban couples, not content to feed their dark needs with the usual monthly swingers meet up at the local Embassy Suites.
No, with a body count of about twenty poor souls tortured and killed between them, they put our own murderers to shame, all the while knitting cat eared teapot cosies and professing their love of the Queen

You’ll find them and more—so much more!–in the wacky Crimes Through Time museum at the LittledDean jail, right there in the Forest of Dean, West Gloucestershire.

TourMan Davey has insisted on a 10:30 lobby call, no time to stop off at the steaming lobby breakfast spread.
We are up and out, and rolling through the emerald countryside once again.
I refer to the daysheet and see that it is a rather short ride from Cambridge to Newport today, no rush. I mean, it’s not like we’re gonna get there early enough to soundcheck or any of that real band nonsense, eh?
When I question Dave as to why the fuck we aren’t back there at the HI, sweating over a plate of beans and bacon, he only turns from his (right side) driver’s perch and gives me a leering wink.
Announces he has a special stop planned, then goes back to blasting his George Formby playlist of demented seaside carnival music.
Should’ve tipped me off right there.


At the end of a lovely country road looms an abandoned jail, its weathered stones mum to the past and present horrors held within.
Soon we wandering a dizzying labyrinth of mayhem, ranging from ghastly Nazi tableau to endless tabloid posters, highlighting the equally brutal regime of the British press.
The serial murdering couples, the dashing gangsters of the Krays era, the disgraced members of Parliament, they are all here. There is a tentative thematic sense to the place, although in the end it resembles nothing as much as an eccentric Aunt’s attic, the one who hoards specifically horrific artifact.

At one point Dave comes and finds us standing before an exhibit of sham mermaids and fur bearing trout, his face white and sheened with sweat.
He tells us he has just left a room featuring a video exhibit of beheadings and begs us not to go in there.
Of course, we demand he lead us back to the room immediately.
He was right; no one needs to see that shit.
Merch manager Briony becomes quiet and eventually leaves the exhibit, as we all do as well in turn.
It is all a bit much.

Out back, there is a baffling exhibit of Mod culture with some of the kitted out scooters used in the Quadraphenia movie.
What this has to do with the sickening display inside, I have no idea.
But the brief dive into the world of soul music and needless sideview mirrors is a welcome respite.

Back in the van, all us are silent, each of us considering the absolute horror of the human species.
Not even Dave’s loopy circus music can lift us out of our quiet reverie.
He switches playlists, and XTC’s Dear God comes on, a far more suitable soundtrack.

Though no one has much of an appetite, lunch is called at one of those Toby Carvery joints you see dotting the country, a perpetual Sunday Roast restaurant chain that would have Morrissey screaming into the night.

And soon we are each seated before smoking piles of gravy and bone, surely reminded of the dismemberment we have just witnessed.
But you know us, and we soon fall upon our platters of disjointed meats, suddenly crazed with the bloodlust it seems we all have the capacity for.

The Cab in Newport turns out to be a charming storefront space, with living quarters above and basement rumpus room below.
It is loud and cramped, sweaty and slippery, just the way we like it!

The whole thing seems another old school DIY affair, and we are pleased to see our stateside pals Potbelly on the bill as well as old friend Chris Redman’s band Bad Blood.

It’s another great gig, that’s 3 for 3 on the road to Rebellion so far.
The real highlight of the night is catching up with friends, and finally meeting more of those digital acquaintances finally rendered in flesh and blood.
I get a chance to finally meet up with the accomplished local writer Tim Cundle as well as @RusselTaysom, an artist who supplied San Francisco’s Thee Parkside club with those wicked psychedelic flyers all those years ago.

Local Welshman Dave can’t get 4 feet before greeting some old chum and introducing us all around.


We leave the gear in the club and have a late night wander around Newport after the gig, finally ducking out of the rain into a noisy pub.

Newport’s youngsters are here, are drinking their way into rightful oblivion while yelling along to their oldies, Blink 182 and Fallout Boy.
Who are we to judge? Put on some Prince or Cheap Trick, and we’d be singing along as well.

It is Friday night and the crew here is cutting loose.
And I remember those days.
Not a care beyond who pays for the next round.
What girl here has the worst taste in men and may take a chance on bringing home a stranger at the closing bell?

But out there, outside in the dark streets, we know what lurks, for we have seen Crimes Through Time.
And that shudder that shakes me involuntarily wards off not only the early morning chill, but a black cold that lurks within as well.

A Friend Request: Cambridge

~ CH3 ~ 2 Comments

An empty night on the itinerary is always tempting.
A night off to tour the sights and have dinner out perhaps, or just a quiet night to take mercy upon these croaky old vocal cords.
But inevitably, a night off for a traveling band is just a money soak, and a very real chance to get on each others’ nerves without that sweet release of stage time.
After London we have a couple of empty nights before we have to be in Blackpool, and the blank spaces on the calendar begin to haunt me as May turns to June, then July..

Then I remember my old pal DS used to do shows in Cambridge, so I take to Facebook messenger and put in a request….

Facebook? What’s that gramps?
I know, I know.
Remember when that goddamn website first came out?
Puzzling in its simplicity, it didn’t allow that goofy personalization of your old Myspace page, where you could decorate your profile with colors and widgets until it looked like the inside of a 13 year old girl’s middle school locker..

No, it was a utilitarian space that simply connected you to friends in no nonsense font, a useful tool that held a breathtaking possibility of connecting the world.
Suddenly, new and old acquaintances connected, regardless of border or timezone.
Recipes shared, family feuds resolved, high school sweethearts found.
Hell, student regimes coordinated their overthrows against totalitarian regimes using Fbook and Twitter, remember that?.

And now?
Has this app fulfilled the promise of a better world? Finally utilized the awesome power of the internet into a new age of understanding?
I’ll get right back to you on that, just as soon as I click on this Teemu offer for a free drone and watch a video of a cat pushing teacups off the counter.

Yeah, it’s pretty grim, logging on these days. Perhaps a few posts from the same twenty friends, the same gig flyers you’ve seen posted for six months.
And then the site dissolves into an ad scroll, targeted specifically to everything your Iphone overheard the day before.

But for a band, it is a necessary evil, for promotion and announcement.
And the friends? They are still out there. You just have to squint past the videos of Turkish ice cream vendors and your asshole Uncle’s daily rants defending the January 6 rioters.

Sure enough, DS comes through, venturing out of his promoter retirement to do us this favor.
The gig comes together in the best possible way, the digital community of bands and locals chiming in with offers of gear and promotion.

An event is created and a blank spot in the calendar filled.
And Social Media, it has fulfilled its promise for once.
Now back to the cat videos.

Our Tour Manager Dave pulls up to the Camden Holiday Inn promptly at 11:30, shocking us with his professional manner as we only know him as a proper nut.
But he takes this role seriously, and soon has us humming up the M11 toward that storied college town.

Dave’s better side

We load into the Portland Arms and hug it up with DS and his wife Georgie.
It is just lovely here, a fine summer evening with people there early to enjoy pizza and drinks on the patio.
I have to remind myself this a punk gig we are at, and not a garden wedding reception.

I sit down with Georgie and it occurs to me half way through our long relaxed chat that we’ve never actually met in person.
Perhaps it is the nature of this new world, our digital pen pals so rarely met, and it is a relief to confirm there is a real person on the other side of the wireless.


The bands on the bill are all tops notch, The Saffs simply killing it with a set of shockingly thoughtful song craft.

And though I eye the cutoff shirts and trucker caps of Roadkill Drive-Thru with a bit of apprehension (could this be cultural appropriation of the goofy rednecks only we get to make fun of??) they turn out to be a solid group of ace musicians who have brought it for the gig.

The Saffs

Roadkill Drive-Thru

We do a relaxed set of songs, throwing in a few extra tracks off Last Time I Drank, as I know DS is a sucker for those big haired anthems.
We even do the rarely played Mary, and he gives me a teary thumbs up.
As final treat, we drag Georgie up on stage with us for a fine rendition of Make Me Feel Cheap, and she shocks us by knowing the damn lyrics better than we do!


It is just one of those nights, smiles all during and after, and our only regret is in saying goodnight.

Even before Dave drives us back to the hotel (another Holiday Inn, naturally), the phone chimes in with notification.
DS posts up, and thanks us again for coming through, though truly, the pleasure was all ours.
A night off has turned into a night to remember, I thank him back and put a thumbs up like next to his comment.

And then, thinking better of it, I swipe my thumb over the screen again, and change Like to Love.

Sweating to the Oldies: London

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Ya know, after all these years, these travels entries should just write themselves, yeh?
Say I start typing the typical rant, mentioning the ungodly LAX traffic or the the indignities suffered at the grabby hands of the TSA.
And then I just sit back and let some algorithmized autofill gadget take over::
…and then the lady in front of me pushes her seat all the way back into my knees and then the airline lost my guitar and then we ate the awful local food and then we played to a half full club and then the promoter cried and then we went back to the hotel to eat more of the awful local food…

Say what you will about the threat of Artificial Intelligence brother, but I see plenty more of this grumpy old punker on the road clickbait crap coming your way, ya got me?

It’s our first ride on the new Elizabeth line that connects Heathrow with Tottenham, just a fraction of the cost of Heathrow Express and just trot away from our beloved Holiday Inn at Camden Lock.
Oh, don’t make that face.
UK Holiday Inns are a completely different animal than our inbred dumps in the states.
Serviceable and clean places, perhaps a bit on the antiseptic side, but that’s just fine in this post pandemic world.
Besides, the Inns usually have a bar that stays open way past the local closing time and a breakfast buffet in the morning with all those puzzling UK brekkie sides: beans and mushrooms, stewed tomatoes, copper wire.

After check in, it would be far too easy to hole up in the room and nap away the jet lag.
Plunder the flatscreen’s HDMI inputs with our Firesticks and AppleTV devices and snore away to another episode of Succession, as if we were back home on the couch.


But there’s a nagging vitality to the touristy streets just outside, and so we rouse and meet back in the lobby.
And though we vowed never again, we surrender to the usual spots and take those grinning tourist photos all over again.
Lining up for a photo at the Clash steps, popping into Dublin Castle to worship at the Madness shrine.
A brief stop at the Amy Winehouse statue, suddenly feeling guilty as everyone else gathered to silently consider her memory.
Her tragic fall witnessed by all, yet not one of us stepping in to save her.

The Underworld is a muggy affair in its own right, but that fake news global warming has somehow conjured a blistering summer day in London once again: the room is already baking at load in,

We’re on a bill with The Dreadnoughts tonight, and two young ska-flavored acts, Deadbeat at Dawn and Dakka Skanks.

It’s one of those puzzling bills we are on tonight.
What, not one other ancient punk act on the bill?

But we are grateful for them having us onboard, for the night is already sold out.
We meet hese vital young bands on the rise as we tilt downward in our twilight years.

Our glances meet on our respective escalators, one heading up to designer goods, one down to the bargain basement, and we wave hello and farewell at once.

The jolly Dreadboughts crew is sound checking, and as we have no interest in such professional protocol, we just drop off merch, ensure backline is in place and make our way back to the Market.

Nick has discovered some mad concoction online, at one of those trendy food stalls that populate the former stables.
They serve up a sort of Sunday roast dinner burrito, the whole mess wrapped up in a Yorshire pudding tortilla.
We take turns taking photos of the monstrosity, decrying its bastardized existence, poking at it tentatively like chimps daring to touch the monolith.
Then we take a bite and gotta admit that it’s not too fucking bad.

Return to the Underworld to find the place packed to the rafters, the crowd skanking along furiously to Deadbeat at Dawn and then the Dakka Skanks.
A quick bit of math confirms that the combined age of either band still can’t match my own.

I’m startled to find lots of the crowd dressed as pirates or perhaps cosplay gypsies, but when the Dreadnoughts take stage it all makes sense.
Their set is a wild mixup of old sea shantys, Gogolian waltzes, manic ska and honest to God polka numbers.
The crowd action so dense and frantic that fat drops of condensed liquid drips from the ceilings, the floors soon slicken with sweat.

And our set?
Surprisingly, it goes over well, these 40 year old punk songs still somehow finding connection.
The young crowd gives us a chance, which is all we can ask for..
There is actual movement on the dancefloor, shouts of encouragement, hearty applause at the breaks.


We emerge to the streets of Camden Town as if renewed, the lights brighter, the honking taking on a sweeter tone.
Our jaded grumpiness now melted away on that blistering stage, and we feel nothing but welcomed and grateful for the night.

A young couple come up to us, their clothing drenched as if they’d been thrown into a pool.
“You guys were great,” they pant. “Who are you again?”

And really, is there any better compliment?.

Shhh! This is a Library…..

~ CH3 ~ 1 Comment

The 605 traffic has coagulated to a crawl, so I take the DelAmo exit to cut across town.
Easy.
I know this route, this town.
Its shortcuts and backstreets are embedded somewhere deep in my very being, like a Naugles hot sauce stain that forever soils a Camaro dashboard.

Past Pioneer, then Norwalk, turn left at Bloomfield at the Gemco.

Gemco? Is that what I said?.
Yes children, long before Target marked that corner with its illuminati bullseye, Gemco was the shit.
A department store, that’s what they called it.
A place that sold blenders and ironing boards, TV consoles big as a fat man’s coffin.
Magazines and records, pastel shaded clothes both itchy and flammable.

As I continue down Bloomfield it is the memories of places long gone that I am seeing.
There, the old Cerritos Cycle Park, where I spent countless afternoons burning up the clutch of my XR75.
It is now just a softball field in a shaded corner of the Regional park, site itself of so many late night high school hijinks.

That tract of homes? Was still a dairy farm when we moved in, what? 1969?.
I can still smell the cowshit symphony that seasoned every family dinner, still hear the lowing cattle being led to the milking machines.
And the tractors roared, new construction: everywhere, always.

I’ve returned for a Meet the Author event at the glorious Cerritos Public Library, though the word Author still gives me a bit of a cringe whenever it is applied.
Sort of like a line cook calling himself chef, or punk rocker calling himself a musician.

But I can’t deny it is an honor to be invited back to the old stomping grounds, a night to celebrate not just the book but this very town itself.

As a punk band with a wildly generic name and rather meek members, the early fanzine scribes had a hard time tagging us.
Nerd rockers? Emos? That wasn’t a thing yet.
So they finally settled on that Cerritos band as our classification in the phylum.
An easy enough shortcut I guess, relying on that hoary old built-in irony: Punk coming from a sterile suburban place.

But ya know, situated on the very border of Los Angeles and Orange counties, Cerritos was indeed a fitting home for us.
Part of both “scenes” though not fully embraced by either OC or LA.
We existed in a sort of punk rock limbo, too fast for the LA art rockers, too timid for the wild new breed of OC thugs.
But this dear old town was a hotbed of weekend parties that let us hone our meager craft.
Parents gone, drywall destroyed, a hip broken. And next weekend? Again.

But apparently punk rock is safe enough to be city celebrated now.
Mike Ness receives the key to Fullerton, Ventura names an April date Ill Repute Day.
And now, (on the eve of No Values, a festival that indeed has value to Goldenvoice stockholders), we are invited back to Cerritos to dig up some old laughs, meet up with some old chums.

I’ve invited the original fellas to come help me:
Kimm of course, but also Larry and Jack, both survivors of those Hey Vern! Auto square commercials and a fiery plane crash that marked our youth.

I get up there by myself at first, and I find myself mumbling and stumbling through a few introductory remarks.
I’m nervous.
Why is that?
Haven’t I been doing this for four decades now, standing there in front of a crowd?
The elevation of stage and amplification of a battered Shure SM58, the only things keeping the lions at bay.

I realize, of course, that is because I am up there alone.
Without my shield of electric guitar, without my constant companion at stage left, Kimm’s spiky blonde head burned forever into my peripheral retina.

So I call the lads up to join me and strap on the Rickenbacker, and all feels suddenly right.
We settle into an easy groove, play a song, bring it down, read off a few paragraphs,
I read a page while Jackie and Larry vamp quietly on a verse, updating the Greenwich Village coffeehouse reading with pyramid spikes and dick jokes.

We are playing at a lower volume than usual, but it’s working.
I see some heads bopping along to the songs, but the Summer sun has not yet set.
We are in a library after all, and this keeps the crowd seated.
Though I know a few troublemakers are just itching to get up and get the fuckin pit going, if for nothing else but bragging rights of getting this shit boiling in the multipurpose room.

On the final song, we go into the final chorus, reminding the world we indeed are still dangerous (I got a gun, mannnnn!),
Yeh man, and don’t let this graying hair or that electric car in the parking lot fool ya—we still punk!

Riled thusly, I take the opportunity to kick over the music stand that I have been squinting at all evening.
The stand goes flying, the pages take flight.

And for a moment the words float before us.
The memories of a blessed youth, the characters that have gone ahead or are, incredibly, in this room tonight.
.

A Punk Rock Museum

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A cloudy Vegas Friday in mid January, the day chilled enough that the slutty showgirls prowling the strip are encased in flesh colored leggings and North Face Parkas.

It’s a small crowd at Harrah’s Piano Lounge, and I easily make it in for the 3:30 Big Elvis show.

As I enter the room Big Elvis-Pete Vallee – is sitting on his plywood throne, listening to his hype man warm up the room.
The emcee goes through a tired karaoke rendition of Sweet Caroline, a performance so lackluster he can’t even coax the goddamned bah bah bah’s out of the tourists.

Ol Pete, though, he’s a fuckin’ trooper.
He sways to the music, yelling yeah, get it boy! as his valet croaks through yet another verse.  

I point at Pete as I walk past, and he hits me back with the double finger guns-pow pow!-in response.
Surely, I think, he recognizes me.
For I am one of the true fans; I have followed his act for well over a decade.

Sure, his size (Big Elvis being the marketing hook, after all) brings them in the door.
Bemused hipsters come into the room and roll their eyes, turn to each other and mouth oh my god…….
They’ll stay just long enough to take a discreet photo for their shameful Insta-feeds. 
I imagine the insipid captions: What a Riot!  Viva Fat Vegas baby!
But we-the devoted-stare them down and shush them.

For when Pete takes the mic and sings, you are transported back to a far better time.
These songs, long parodied, come alive with conviction.

And though it is within these gaudy temples of Willy Wonka slot machines and 99 cent shrimp cocktails we are presented with the Great American Songbook, it somehow all makes sense.
The greed and shame, the impossibly decadent food, the yardstick tall novelty glasses shaped like the Eiffel Tower.
I watch as a lithe hooker takes the seat next to a Midwest convention goer. 
She whispers something into his hair covered ear and when he responds, she throws her head back in almost-convincing laughter. 
And though her cruel little teeth are white as aspirin, they are also fanged and crooked.

This is America baby, extra cheese and double sized.

We are gathered on the weekend for the DiWulf Publishing takeover of the Punk Rock Museum. 
There is to be some guided tours, some talks on the books, vague plans to play a few songs even.

Dave and Jack from Adrenaline OD are already doing a tour when Kimm and I drop in Friday evening.
Amy and Howard from DiWulf wave us over to the merch stand.

“How long they been at it?” Kimm asks, tilting his head toward the NYHC room.
We can hear Dave talking in there, telling yet another one of his stories of adventures past.
Amy checks her watch.
“Dunno, ninety minutes? Two hours?  You know, when Dave starts talking……”

KImm and I look at each other and grimace.
We will be tasked with leading a couple tours on Saturday, but have no idea how we will fill in the minutes.

I mean, sure punk rock, I’ve been there.
But I lack that baseball-nerd proclivity for statistics and dates that seem so important when considering our music as history.
And as far as museums, I just don’t buy into that hushed reverence crap brother.

May I remind you, I toured the entire Louvre once, in 28 minutes..
Running past the masterpieces on the way to happy hour at Harry’s, pausing only once to take a dick pic in front of Michelangelo’s David, my thumb and finger held two inches apart, my mouth open in howled laughter.

Museum? Punk Rock?
Didn’t we set out to destroy the past, not celebrate it??

But as we walk through the joint, trailing Jack and Dave’s tour, we are charmed.
By the tasteful exhibits, by the flyers of golden nights forgotten until just now.
There are photos that ignite remembrances that leave us teary eyed for a suddenly distant past. .

And if we have to call this memory warehouse a museum, so be it. 

On Saturday we meet at the appointed hour and are shocked to find a group of people there ready to follow us through the exhibits. 
A few friends and family, our old pals Becca and Debbie (though I suspect they are mainly there for a reunion with the AOD guys rather than a chance to see our old mugs again).
But there’s also a handful of people who actually paid and made the appointment to join us on this tour!

We start out tentatively, pausing in the first room and pointing out the different photos of Punk legends that need no description.
But thankfully Kimm takes the reigns, connects the flyers and photos with our own long history, people and places we have shared with these memory triggers.

I point out a half dozen photos of shirtless lead singers, accusing Becca of sleeping with them all.
“Oh fuck off Magrann,“ she crows, and then takes over for me, filling in each exhibit with her own remembrances of what really happened.

We come to a guitar I had used on several European campaigns, as battered as a sword used to defend a mad king.
There are flyers on every wall, and we are noted on several.
I note aloud the positioning of our band, growing in size of font and placement near the top, until we are headlined.
And then I point out the sad but inevitable decline, falling once again below the headliners until we are listed as special guests, and then, tragically, as only support act TBA.


I think of those nights stumbling hone from the Cathay, emptying my jacket pockets of a dozen flyers like these.
The hand drawn art, the transfer sticker lettering.
Printed at Kinko’s and handed out .by hand.
Fitting they are here, as primitive as cave paintings depicting a woolly mammoth meeting it’s gory demise

We come to the Pennywise Garage, a quaint little tableau meant to recreate a cramped South Bay practice room.
We just happen to have Ant and Nick planted in there like animatronic rats in hibernation mode, ready to perform for the kiddies.
Kimm and I climb over the chains and strap on guitars ourselves.  

I’ve chosen Chet’s Dan Armstrong from the Wasted Youth session, it’s Plexiglas body drilled out in effort to lighten the guitar.
I plug in and feel, if not the weight of history tugging at my shoulders, then perhaps the heft of time.

And then we launch into a three song set, ending with the shameful Wetspots after being hsckled mercilessly by Becca and Deb.

As a bonus, Jack and Dave get inside the chains with us, and we all rip though AOD’s Suburbia.
The night culminates with Fat Mike himself taking on vocals.

The crowd retires to the attached Triple Down bar then, drinks are poured into Pringles cans, everyone sparkling over the day.
I scan the room and see gray heads, punk tees stretched over expanded waistlines.
I see survivors.
This celebration of our little thing turns out to be not so bad.
We are institutionalized, yes, cataloged and frozen for time.
Displayed in a museum.

My flight home is delayed yet again on Monday, but that’s ok.
Pete is back in the lounge.
A free lounge act in the middle of the day, just like it used to be.
Back when the stars shone bright in the showrooms, when cigarettes were free at the blackjack tables.
When men wore goddamned long pants and blazers when they went out to gamble away money they didn’t have and drink irresponsibly.

Pete kicks off the set with, naturally, Viva Las Vegas, and is energized enough by our clapping and whooping that he actually stands for a few bars, shaking his hips and pointing to the skies.

I sit at the bar, feeding dollars into the video poker machine as I watch Big E do his thing.
“Say, he’s good isn’t he?”: says an old gal at my elbow. “I mean, for a big fella, he’s got the pipes, huh?”
I’ve just been dealt three Aces and I hold my breath as I hit Deal.
Nope.

“Oh yeah,, he’s the best. I must’ve seen big Pete at least twenty times,going back to Bill’s Gambling Hall” I boast.
“Yeah?” she says. “Well, I was at the opening night when the real Elvis played the International. He split his pants during the encore, and my friend Vicki gave him a handjob after the show.”
And here she rolls her eyes, dismissing the memory.
“I dunno, Vicki’s a liar though, huh?”

But isn’t that how it is?
There’s always someone there before, someone that can top your own memory.
The best we can hope is to hold onto our own little slice of history, futile as trying to bring a snowball back from the mountains to live in the freezer.
Mention you saw Black Flag with Dez singing, and some wag will tell you how they overdosed in the bathroom while the Sex Pistols imploded at the Winterland Ballroom.

Pete goes into the American Trilogy then, and the old bird next to me lets out a Whoo!
I’m dealt a heartbreaker, Ace, King and Queen all suited, while out on the strip two nearly naked policewomen handcuff a hapless tourist, releasing him only after he submits to a twenty dollar selfie.
And this moment, now, is frozen in time, as if hung on the wall of a museum.

Hey, I wrote a book! Now what?

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

Outside the Cure Insurance arena in Trenton NJ.
Trapped under an awning as the rain falls in great sheets, painting this cold December day in shades of dusk.

I’ve been posted up here for ten solid minutes, waiting for a break in the rain.
Across the parking lot a clutch of food trucks idle, their grills steaming up into the skies, smoke signals telegraphing the grilled onions and processed meats within.
I involuntarily drool a bit, thinking of the sandwich I had the day before, a regional specialty that instantly starts a bewildering debate: Taylor Ham? Pork Roll? 
Fuck if I care, I just want another.
But the rain only pounds harder, so I retreat back inside the arena and surrender to some dried chicken strips at the snack bar.

We’re at the Punk Flea market in Trenton, a seasonal holiday bazaar with crafts and gifts covering the arena floor.
The items on sale are all punk inflected, of course: Pyramid spiked tree ornaments, artisanal coffee roasted by over-caffeinated crustpunks. 
At one booth titled, literally, Fuck the Police, they are selling strap on dildos with the MDC logo.
That sort of thing.

Around the outside perimeter are the signing booths, C level actors and voiceover characters, all desperately shilling autographs and photos ops at 20 bucks per.

The DiWulf Publishing crew is here, posted between the voices of Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger force and the Sonic the Hedgehog.  
A few booths down, the line is twenty deep waiting for Doyle to come out and sign glossies. 



Business has been steady but slow, a sale now and then, a few books signed.
People stop and flip through my book, frown when they discover no pictures inside.

When someone actually decides to purchase a book, I sign it gratefully and suppress the urge to kiss them on the lips.
A dying breed, these people who will take a chance and buy a book.
To make the appointment with themselves to soon sit quietly and read some words from the page.

But we are nothing if not hopeful and cheerful, our hardy little crew under the glare of distant lighting, another long day upon the concrete floor.
Steve and Amy from DiWulf, Dave along with Jack from Adrenaline OD.
Offering our wares to the holiday shoppers.
Spreading our words one page at a time, like necktied missionaries passing out pamphlets door to door.

The days of writing words, the daily routine of sitting before screen and tapping at the keyboard, had finally ended by Summer….. 2021!
The “book” finally done. 
What I had imagined as a tight 19 chapters (same number of tracks on London Calling, don’t you know) had bloated to a four part, 140,000 word monstrosity by the time I finally shut off the laptop.

You think it would be a problem, just getting enough content for a book, right?
But no.
The problem was when to stop.
When to realize that no amount of words will convey that ineffable angst that lies just beneath the breastbone.
After a few culling edits to bring it down to a more manageable length, I had to admit that the book was done.

Now what?
I talked to a few published writers I know, and they suggested an agent?
But I soon learned to get an agent they want you to have something published, and to be published you need an agent. 

After playing out this Abbott and Costello comedy routine for a few weeks (38 cold call queries sent, only two replies via automated out-of-office messages) I gave up the avenue.

Oh, I had assumed the publishers would be lined up outside the door, each bearing fruit baskets and thick envelopes of cash.
The only problem I foresaw, should I accept the offer from your Penguins or maybe Simon and/or Schuster? 
Perhaps I would take the noble route and go with Black Sparrow just so I could sit in Vesuvios and see my bold titles displayed in the front window of City Lights Bookstore?

But months went by, as they do, and the world did not come calling.
Stalled, like a ship in a dead zone, I began to panic–what if no one wants this thing?

Does it matter? 
The art is in the creation, that’s what we tell ourselves.
Think of grumpy old JD Salinger holed up in New Hampshire, writing his precious words daily, yet unwilling to have it published for the waiting world.
A Buddhist monk journals his meditations for a decade, only to burn the scrolls beside the smoking incense, offering his thoughts only to the gods above.
Fuck that, brother.
I am vain enough to admit that if I write this crap, I surely want someone to read it!


I look a few booths down and now Doyle is sitting alone in this booth, tapping a sharpie idly on a stack of Misfits posters.
I take the chance to drop by and say hello, hoping I won’t be charged twenty bucks for the privilege..
“Hey man, Doyle,” I say, offering a hand to shake, “it’s Mike? ”
I then add, “Channel Three? Been a while.”
He takes my hand and gives it a weary shake, though he does not look up from his phone.
“Hey there Channel Three,” he says.
When he looks up I search for a flicker of recognition in his eyes but there is none.
It’s clear he has no idea who I am, but why should he?
We are decades removed from when we last shared a stage, my head grayer, our paths diverted wildly.

But here, we are all just vendors today.
Selling our shit, punk to punk, human to human.

The last of the holiday shoppers are staggering toward the exits now, as the vendors all start to pack up their wares.
We all hug it up at the DiWulf booth, make plans for our Las Vegas meet up in January, wish each other happy holidays.


We will each retreat to our corners, recharge, and come back again to offer our books to an increasingly non-reading world once more.
Scattering our words out there one at a time, like the hopeful seeds of a near extinct plant.

Hey, I’m Writing a Book Here!

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

I crack the window and peer over the ledge, hoping to see my youth.

I’ve come to New York a day earlier than the lads, doing a bit of last minute book business before the weekend’s events.
Following the worn steps that bring me West coast to East, three hours into the future:
LAX to JFK, Airtrain to Jamaica, LIRR to Penn, F train to Ave 2. .

I’ve been repeating the mantra to myself all day like a henpecked husband wandering the produce aisle, tasked with bringing home just 4 measly items.
Doomed to forget the shallots, ending up in Harlem instead of Soho.

Incredibly, the hipster boutique hotel is right off Houston and exactly across the street from Jack Rabid’s storied old apartment. The very same street where we first stayed in this city, the home of such golden memories.

I hang my head out into the bracing evening air, the Fall bite of breeze perfumed with diesel and cooking oil, the street already a symphony of car horn and deranged soliloquy.
But when I look down upon 249 Eldridge, it is not the charming grime of 1980’s Lower East Side I see, but a swanky awning above security doors, the corner bodega transformed into a Bank America ATM kiosk.
There is a line of tourists a block long for Katz’s Deli, and the stylish locals walk their sweatered French bulldogs, sipping on seven dollar lattes.

Packs of young ladies, some looking no older than the children profiled upon milk cartons, parade up Ave A in skimpy cocktail dresses.
They stare at their gleaming handheld screens, unaware of the dangers that used to rule these very streets.

Could this really be the wonderfully scary neighborhood we spent those early days?

I start to formulate my grumblings, that familiar old man rant of how they are destroying all the good stuff, how much the city has changed, man!
But then I realize I am speaking outloud-to myself- in an empty hotel room.

Sure the city has changed, but who am I to deny the march of time?
My head is all but gray now, and my knees ache deeply from a mere five hour flight
I squint at the TV remote a full minute in search of Power On before tossing it aside in defeat.




The fellas get in safely, and we have a few hours to kill before the afternoon event at Generation Records.
We discuss a few options to spend our day before surrendering to the inevitable.
We take our place in line with the other tourists, the door to Katz’s 60 people ahead.

Sure, there is a Kienholz retrospective at the Whitney, and we could still catch the last of the turned leaves in Central Park…but C’mon man! –That Pastrami!

**************************************************************************

You never say you are writing a book, that much I know.
Utter such an audacious thing aloud, and you are met with sympathetic smiles and encouraging nods.
Oh you are? people might say.
Or, Of course you are! Good for you! in the way you pat a child on the head after they inform you they are going to be an astronaut or pilot the Goodyear blimp when they grow up.

Not quite believing I would ever finish this project, I kept it quiet, at least until after the first trimester.
And then, it was just to inform the principals involved that I would be writing about that one long summer.
Heya, long time, my texts started. Anyhoo, if I was to write, like, a book would you be cool with that?

To a man, they all graciously allowed their characters to be used in the book, after my assurances that this would be a fictionalized account.
And I wouldn’t be writing about, you know, that one time…

Going into Covid’s first birthday, I had one hundred pages written.
I had also painted the bathroom cabinets, watched the entire series of The Wire yet again, and was a 358 pages into Moby Dick.

Daily writing, I found, was a daily exercise in procrastination and self negotiation.
Put down three good paragraphs and you get a half hour of Golf Clash, I’d tell myself.

I bought and sent back three perfectly fine laptops, deeming each unsuitable platforms to capture my vision.
I’d spend a whole mornings playing with fonts and spacing, imagining how these words would look, someday, in print.

Then, finally, after all the excuses were exhausted, after I cleaned the dust off the top of the Pogues poster once again, would I get down to the business of actually writing.
And in this fashion, the words would somehow come out, the pages started to fill.

************************************************************************

There’s a nice little crowd at Generation Records, familiar faces from our many visits to this place.
God love ’em, the people who show up actually buy the book, and I have every faith that they will some day read it.
A dying breed, these heroes that still take the time to read.
To sit still, to put down the phone and turn from the flatscreen.
Read a book

I sign each book gratefully, honored.

We start off with a quick chat with our pal Drew Stone.
The pro he is, he peppers me with softball questions about the book, allows me just enough time to mumble a few answers without revealing me for a goofball.
We play a few songs in the basement of the store, I sign a few more books.
The whole thing is done by 7 pm, and we have time to hit Little Italy for a nice dinner and be back to Eldridge before midnight.

As a wildly unfunny episode of SNL plays out we drift off to sleep, the city out there still pulsing.
And though changed, still open to the wild possibilities of the night.

Hey, You Should Write a Book….

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

It’s getting late now, the evening shadows spilling into the storefront, a lot of the crowd already gone.
But we’re still up there playing; nobody wants to call it.

It’s been an exhilarating day, filled with moments of reunion and laughter, friends and family gathered together to celebrate something I’ve long dreamed of.

My book release party.
I say aloud these four words I’ve just typed, then again.
Unbelievable as a desperate prayer to a god you are not quite convinced is listening.

It’s the old fellas up there with me and Kimm, the original lads from the 1983 Lights Out lineup.
Jack’s been playing with a dozen other bands since we last saw him,when? 1983?
Larry’s kept up the bass but hasn’t had this much stage time in years.

I turn and look at him while we play.
He concentrates hard, but can’t lose the grin on his face.
It’s like we’re back, back there in the garage on Cortner Ave, playing the music that drew us together in the first place.

We got together for one brief practice, spending most of the evening catching up: wives and kids, the path we’ve each traveled to return to this same place.
We laugh at the gray hair, turn silent when we recall those who didn’t make it.

We go through the usual CH3 songs, sure.
But then it only takes one of us to play a familiar riff.
The siren intro to Police on my Back, say, or the climbing bass line of 999’s Titanic Reaction.
And then we are those kids in the garage once again, winging it, playing the songs of our heroes.
Hoping to finish one more song before Mom—-Mrs. Magrann the guys would call her–flicks the lights on and off, signalling the end of practice.

Oh sure, I’ve thought of writing a book before.
I mean, who hasn’t?

Perhaps a collection of these whimsy little blog posts?
Written as accompaniment to a satisfying bowel movement, really, wouldn’t a book of these things make for a fitting bathroom book?
Or maybe sprawling memoir, our days in the garage to the hardcore fests that infested the shuttered roller rinks of the 80’s.
A story that everyone already knows: They lived it too.

I soon realized the story of the band is not all that compelling, on paper at least.
I mean, Kimm and I were good kids in high school, long before nerd chic was a thing.
The band never suffered the thrilling tragedies that makes for good pulp:
No drug overdoses, no dramatic breakups.
And as far as successes, we never quite made it out of the “worthy supporting band” classification.

Underrated, that’s the word they often use to describe CH3.
A term not unlike a good sportsmanship trophy handed out to the last kid picked for the team.
The reward for being unremarkable.


But still, there was a story in there somewhere, if I could only find a way to tell it.
To express what these years, what this band has meant to me.

So i turned to the past, took up a worn journal that has sat upon various desks for four decades.
Unread for years, yet always within an arm’s reach.
It was a journal I kept of one long Summer, back in 1983.

And so I took a moment, and I read.
Then I wrote.

Hapa in the Apa

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

Checking into yet another APA Hotel, this one in the sleazily wonderful Nagoya Sakae neighborhood.
We go to the self check-in kisok, scan the passports, are told we are at the wrong APA.

Not a worry though, as we’ve learned this nutty chain puts several properties within the same area, and we simply wheel the gear back out to the sidewalk and look up the street and walk to the correct joint.

And though I’m sure this is some sort of Corporate/Starbucks strategy of cover and conquer, I prefer to think it is just another simple kindness extended us confused and weary travelers.

Yes, the rooms are tiny, but they are cheap.
And to have your own room while traveling on a nerve stretching punk rock tour, well.
To be able to check in, say farewell to the lads if even for the precious 90 minutes before soundcheck. 

I shut the door behind me and finally drop the bags and guitar to the floor.
I put the kettle on, plug the Firestick into the HDMI 2 input hidden behind the TV, and I am soon atop the twin mattress, my aching feet escaped from the Doc Martens.
Logan Roy up there on the flatscreen,  growling his patriarchal atrocities, as comforting as papa reading me a bedtime story. 
I nod off as he kisses my forehead, whispers goodnight in my ear : fuck off.

I find these little origami cranes in each room, usually on the identical light control board, though sometimes the birds nest among the tea packets, or have migrated to the bathroom counter.

I find the birdies comforting, and it wasn’t until we hit APA Kobe (or was it APA Mito?) that it occurred to me why.

A dreamed memory stays with me just as I wake from the nap, of childhood family gatherings.

These cranes, I’ve seen them flocked by the thousand.  Hung from ceilings or as curtains by barely visible filament, a traditional ritual –senbazuru-at Japanese weddings.

The girls and women would gather for weeks before a cousin or uncle was to be wed, folding these things at the kitchen table.
Their fingers mindlessly folding,, chattering away as if in a sedge of noisy cranes themselves. 
Sometimes they would enlist the boys to help as well, until I would destroy enough squares of foil backed origami to be dismissed once again to the backyard. 

At the wedding receptions the cranes would be present, a gift of good luck to the new bride and groom.
Known to mate for life, the birds would hover in the corner as the guests got drunker and the room got louder.
Then my bored cousins and I would inevitably swipe several birds off the lowest branches and steal outside to race them down the flowing gutter, probably dooming more than one marriage to early failure. Oops.

A word comes to me as I hold a bird up by the beak: Orizuru.

I say it out loud, to myself, alone in my tiny room.


A lot of long forgotten Japanese words and phrases come back to me on this trip, unexpected little daily bonuses.
Like crisp dollars found while unloading the dryer.
It is my half-Japanese coming to the surface of my thick Irish skull, for I am half breed: Hapa.

We jump into the cab and I automatically say Eki, the word for station.
The cabbie nods then, and I am so pleased.
Then I get greedy and say densha…..isn’t that train?
Densha eki kudasai I blurt out now.
.
Train liquid please, that’s what I’ve just said to the suddenly startled driver.

Back on the bullet train now-shinkansen-a bento box balanced on each of our laps.
The fellas expertly picking at their lunches as the scenery blurs past.

Anthony points at me with his chopsticks.
“Watch out for that olive,” he says.
He spits a stone into his palm. “Pits.”

I look down and see a mauve orb atop my rice, and I recognize it.
That’s not an olive.
I taste it, and I taste my childhood, with grandma, bachan, the meals around the table.
Umeboshi, I think. Not think, but know.

I look at my lunch anew, the rice freckled with black sesame seeds, gohan.
The utensils I click together with a grooved muscle memory: hashi.

Onstage, I growl out Minasan, konbanwa!, each night and the crowd hoots back.
Watashi tachi no namae wa CH3!
I say it in an urgent growl, like a samurai begging the honor of seppuku.
I am miming the cadence imprinted by bachan’s blaring TV, Spy Swordsman coming in snowy through channel 52.

Pronunciation is key I soon learn, and I call out the songs, introduce the guys as if I know what I’m saying.
People corner me after the show, now assuming I know the language

But they speak so quickly, I ask them to repeat please:
Mo icihido itte judasai, I say, then ask if they speak English.

Sukoshi, they usually say, holding up pinched fingers, as I do too.
A little bit, we are saying.
And in this tiny space, within these few millimeters between thumb and index finger, we communicate.

The days are going by way too fast now.
After Kyoto, it is Kobe, Nagoya, Kanazawa, all one nighters.
Each day, we check out of the APA, make our way to the station, train it to the next city.
Check in, play, sleep, repeat.
The shows are early, but somehow it is always 1 am when we return to our tiny individual cells.
A bowl of noodles from Family Mart, another episode of Succession, five hours of sleep.


On the way to Kobe station I look up at the green hills just beyond the high rises.
There are tramways that leave the city below, climbing up to the cool shadows of Mount Rokko.
Or so we’ve been told, by the cheerful lady who has just checked us out.
But we are burdened with guitars and luggage, and as always another train ride and transfer await between us and soundcheck, check in.
I vow to come back, though, and I will spend three days here. San nichi.


Looping back to Tokyo, it just happens that Robbie Fields-Posh Boy-will be in town as well.
We chat back and forth on messenger as I hurtle along the countryside, another train ride, another bento box lunch on the knee.
We make plans to meet for a quick coffee as we make it from Tokyo Station to Shinjuku.

Robbie, the world traveler, the master of the deal and the upgrade.
Here in Tokyo after a Trans Pacific cruise, this after a cross continental train ride that followed another cruise, Rome to New York.
This works, he messages back to me, will text the address shortly.

I start to dig into my lunch when my phone chirps once again, Robbie telling me he’s staying at a cozy place, tiny but quite efficient.

It’s an APA, he texts. Have you heard of these places?

Ah, Soda-ne I automatically say out loud, without thinking.
Oh yes.