Category: CH3

When I’m 64……

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

I’m sitting at the bar at Pappy and Harriet’s treating myself to a full breakfast:

Creamy egg yolks soak into the sourdough toast, deliciously greasy bacon strips nap upon a bed of fried potatoes.

I dig in with only the slightest pang of guilt, consoling myself with the fact that tomorrow it will be back to the steel cut oats and scrambled egg whites.

You see, it’s my birthday today.
This marks 64, not a remarkable one (save for that Beatles song that everyone seems compelled to start singing whenever the number is brought up).

As usual, I take the day to treat myself to a gluttonous breakfast and then head out on a motorcycle ride.

I like to mark the day alone, with my thoughts of the past and the year to come accompanied only by the low moan of the twin cylinders and the desert landscape.
In this way, I can measure just how sore I am compared to last year, calculate how many years I have left in me to swing a leg over the saddle before succumbing to a life of slip on Skechers and pickleball.

It’s packed at the roadhouse, the tables behind me all crowded with hungover hipsters and Chinese tourists.
The throngs have returned to the mythic high desert, selling out the overpriced AirBnB shacks, attracted helplessly to the stringed lights like moths.


Next to me an old desert rat sits with a morning highball while doing a crossword puzzle.
A section of the New York Times, it looks by the Times Roman font, the page quarter folded as the rest of the paper sits patiently nearby.
He works the puzzle methodically, alternating between Across and Down, scratching out calligraphic letters with a ballpoint pen.
He peers over the top of his readers as the bartender walks past, shakes his glass but once and she begins to mix him his next drink.

When she sits the glass down she looks down at his work and shakes her head.
“Dang Jerry,” she says. “Don’t know how you do them tiny puzzles and in ink!”
And here she whips out her cell phone, its cover bejeweled with a galaxy of rhinestone.
“Don’t ya know you can do them all online now? It’ll even give you hints when you get stuck.”

When she walks away to mix up another batch of Bloody Marys he turns to me and shakes his head, admitting me into his confidence: another old guy in a room of youth.
“Hints,” he says.
And then he goes back to his puzzle, his head still shaking , sad for us all.

I think guiltily of the LA TImes I only get on my Ipad these days, of how pretty soon you won’t be able to hold a fat Sunday paper between elbow and rib as you walk into a diner.
The things we lose with each passing year, things deemed extinct or useless.

I still know how to change a typewriter ribbon.
I could probably still get across town using a Thomas Guide.
Write in cursive, dial a rotary phone.

In my old job, I would unspool blueprints the size of a Farrah Fawcett poster and clip them flat to my drafting table.
And using scaled rulers and callipers, trigonometry and scientific calculators, translate the figures into a code that the hulking machinery could understand.
A job that now takes but a few minutes of uploading a cad file into a waiting control.
These life learned skills have been dismissed now.
Things, though quaint, are simply not needed, like travel agents or political integrity.


I pay the tab and head out, only to discover a couple miles down the highway that the bike has a flat rear tire.
A quick look around the treads reveals a naughty little sheet metal screw embedded deep in the tire, just between a row of big block knobbies.
And now my mind starts running through the immediate scenarios:
Shall I attempt to pump it up and limp back home down the 62?
Find a nearby garage on 29 Palms Highway ? (This a longshot, it being a Sunday.)
Or, most likely, accept the humiliation of calling AAA to tow my bike back down the hill?

The desert air is fine, always a surprise after a hellish summer out here.
I gaze up at the sun, weakened by the season yet still held high in the sky.
And I figure I could still have time for a trip through the National Park if I do the right thing-the old thing-and fix this problem myself.

I find a flat piece of pavement and unpack the tools I have onboard: wrenches and screwdrivers, everything sized down as to be portable and suddenly ridiculous.
I pull out a set of tire spoons the size and weight of KFC sporks.
This motorcycle has old school inner tubes, the production year just missing out on the tubeless rims that need only a plug and compressor to carry on.
I will need to take off the wheel to change the tube, a job that I abandoned decades ago, nowadays just taking the bike into the dealer for a tire change.
I sit in the showroom as they wrestle the rubber on and off, playing Candy Crush until I am called up to the counter to pay the bill.

But I am committed now, and start the job.
Somehow, it is oddly comforting to go about this business.
I loosen the axle nut, and slide out the rod, laying the spacers out on the correct sides of the bike so I don’t screw up the install.
Working on my knees, and I am back in the old garage in Cerritos.
In the years before the tangle of handlebars gave way to amplifiers and drum sets, back when the gas fumes made the water heater pilot dance with glee.

It’s all coming back to me, the struggle to break the bead, dropping one side of the tire and then the other into the well of the rim, the slow methodical bite and advance of using three tire irons in concert.
I am amazed to get the punctured tube out and replaced rather quickly, though I am only half way done.

I struggle with the install, cussing into the desert sky as my hands slip off the wee tire irons as I try to reseat the tire onto rim.
I think of frantic tire changes between motos at Saddleback, of the long garage hours spent trying to coax an engine to life, searching for missing spark or fuel.
My teenage years spent kneeling before a motorcycle as if in desperate prayer.
These aching knees sacrificed at the altar of a a rascal god.

But I am happy, suddenly, to be doing this.
To make use of a skill long forgotten, speaking once more in a language thought dead.
And when the rubber finally slips back into place I sit back on my haunches as the portable compressor cackles away.
I pray that I haven’t pinched the new tube, hope that I still have time to complete my ride.
Hope for the best for another year to come, that I will be out here again to celebrate 65.

I pack up the tools and suit up again, checking the tire pressure once more before starting up,.
It holds steady, air captured like a spirit within the tire.
And when I get back on the bike and take off, it feels as though I am flying.


The Fly-In II: Chicago

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No matter what time we get off stage, it is always seems to be 3 a.m. when we get back to the motel.
Late night set?  Matinee at 4 pm?  No matter. 

They like to push the set times back on these out of towners, sensibly trying to time the last song with last call, keep the crowd drinking until the last minute.
I don’t blame them, the club owners, really. 
Since that pesky little Covid episode, it has becoming increasingly difficult to coax people out of the house.-hell, out of their pajamas!-so ingrained has this whole shelter at home and let the world come to me mindset taken hold.

I salute each and every one of these hardy souls who venture out of the house after dark.
The faithful who enter the clubs and put up with our nonsense, support the local clubs and the traveling bands. 
Sometimes I see someone holding up a smartphone for longer than a quick photo, and realize they are streaming the show on some social media site. 
Stop it, I think. 
If those fuckers didn’t show up, they don’t deserve to lie in bed and watch us play forty year old punk songs slightly out of tune.
That privilege is your own reward buddy!


By the time I have draped my soaking stage clothes across the shower rod and flossed my teeth, the clock is clicking toward 4 a.m.. 
And, still, I cannot sleep. 
Too wired from the set, the conversations and laughter with friends, a great night in Indianapolis.

I roll over and reach for my phone, seeing if I look fat or tired in the gig photos already posted online.
Then I open an app, a game in which you take screws out of wooden boards, trying to make them drop and clear the screen. It is idiotic and addicting, infuriating when I hit a dead end have to start the level yet again.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror then, a 63 year old man in a Rick & Morty tee shirt, reading glasses perched upon the bridge of my nose, squinting at a glowing screen in my hand.
Swiping at the phone like a chimp pushing the red button that causes another peanut to drop.

And that is when I think of my father, a distinguished physician at this age, a veteran of a war that defined his generation as the greatest. What would he think of this little tableau?

I switch off the light and try to sleep as dawn breaks, light leaking around the blackout shades like shame.

We’ve slept through the breakfast service, of course.
The front desk clerk tells us that they stop serving at 9 a.m. and apologizes. (Though I detect a slight Midwestern superiority in her tone, for they must be genetically trained to rise with the sun and feed the hogs or whatever the hell it is they do out here.)
Walking through the lobby on our way out I see the tell tale traces of pancake mix crusted on the Formica counter.
Stray Fruit Loops crunch underfoot, but there is no trace of food. 
No coffee. 

The ride to Chicago is pleasant, if not a bit flat.
The landscape tends to farmland, long stretches of blank highway occasionally interrupted by a riot of gas stations and fast food joints clustered around a clovered interchange.
Sometimes a huge complex looms on the horizon, yet another Amazon warehouse sprouted up from the fecund soil.
These monstrosities that serve as our modern day cathedrals, Prime membership our religion.

I’ve bluetoothed the iPhone though the minivan’s stereo, and the Spotify account provides a varied soundtrack to the miles scrolling under the wheels:  Starz and Discharge, Big Star and Slayer. 
But I find I am muting the stereo often, tilting my head back to hear the conversation.
For there is nothing finer than whiling away a Saturday with mindless van chatter, the close quarters urging confession and filthy jokes.
I eventually switch off the stereo as we talk through the miles.
.A heated debate on Chinese guitars, the historical season of Shohei Ohtani, insane shit Trump popped off with this week. 
But, as usual, the conversation seems to eventually settle on our favorite shared topic: food. 

We recount meals we’ve shared on past travels, restaurants to avoid back home.
And today’s destination being Chicago, we naturally end up arguing over deep dish pizza versus New York style for thirty minutes. (New York wins.)
And then, naturally, (after dissecting that puzzling third season of The Bear), we craze each other with descriptions of that most sacred of sandwiches, the Italian Beef.

We make it into the city and beeline it to Al’s #1 Italian Beef.
Yeah yeah, I know name checking any one food joint just invites a lot of shit talking from the locals (What? You ate at Pat’s and/or Genos? What are ya, fucking tooorists?) but just fuck off a minute.
I mean, we don’t get all judgmental when you kooks come into our neck and try to tell us the best breakfast burrito do we? (Nick’s on Main Street.)

Soon we are seated at a picnic table, silenced by the soggy masterpieces we shove into our waiting mouths.
We are rewarded with fingers that will slide easily across the fret board tonight!

We end up in a tiny Italian bakery just up Taylor Street, just window shopping as our bellies are stretched with those gravy soaked rolls and chapters of sliced meats.
We cannot resist though, and are soon sipping Americanos and eating freshly filled cannoli.
I take a moment to ponder that just a decade ago this would be not a cheery little bakery but a dark dive bar that we while away the afternoon before the gig.
Have we grown old? Or perhaps grown up?

Arriving at Liars Club we find the stage decorated as a crazed medical office, each flat surface cluttered with oversized prescription bottles. Seems the Destroy Everything fellas have a new theme cooked up for the night, the mad Doctor Cheddar and his band of Nurse Ratchets!
I turn my head sideways to read one bottle, PhenoFuckItAll, it reads.
“Yeah,” Brooks sheepishly admits, “they really shouldn’t let us play first, Gives us too much time to set up this kind of shit on stage, right?”


They take stage and run through a manic set, spilling gel capsules into their mouths and all over the stage, leaving heaps of cellulose detritus that will dissolve into a sickening goo that is melted into our waffled soles still.

It has become a tradition, to drop in to the Liar’s Club and play a Riot Fest after-party show.
Riot Fest? Have you heard of this giant corporate festival?
Sort of a Coachella for the near-sighted, it has come a long ways from the scrappy little punk show we first played in 2005.
Now a mainstream fest, we have steadfastly boycotted this bloated showcase, and shall not play there until we asked to again.

Besides, we need to check into Liars Club each year to see the latest dumpster finds from Gary, await his entrance and see which pimp loafers and flared trousers he will wow us with tonight.

And then Herb comes rolling in and all bets are off.
Between Herb’s manic monologue and Gary’s crazed decorations, my head begins spinning.
Fastplants play a blistering set, and then Electric Frankenstein takes the stage.

Outside the club, it is a constant Uber drop off zone,.
Each ride pulling to the curb and depositing another couple of Riot Fest survivors.
It was bloody hot day, and their raccooned sunglass rings and sunburnt noses give them the look of life raft survivors finally landed ashore.
Bur god bless em, they’ve rallied for a late night show, made their way from a full day festival to this crazed bar for yet more sonic assault.
Our old pal Jeff corners Anthony and pleads with him to play Indian Summer and Manzanar first, so he can slink off to bed.

Then, (1:45 a.m. now) we play.
We honor Jeff’s request and flip the the setlist around, play Manzanar and I Got a Gun first.
I then say good night and excuse these burned out souls, tell them to go home and get to bed.
But no one leaves, seems they have found that second wind, and then we have to play all the other songs too. Damn.

The guitars blazing, the walls sweating, Gary’s wacky lighting and thrift store fog machine pumping out the smoke.
Herb jumps on stage and shouts along with the songs.
Our fingers hit wrong chords, still coated with a fine layer of au jus.
I slip on one of Cheddar’s fake pills, and it is wonderful..
And when we get done, there’s Jeff, still, with us til the very end.

It becomes another late night, another early morning by the time we escape the bar’s clutches, say goodbye to the same dear friends for the fifth time each.
We say our farewells to our weekend traveling pals, wish the Electric Frankenstein crew safe travels to Japan.
It is too late even for a stop at Wiener’s Circle, and we resign ourselves to vending machine honeybuns and tap water back at the motel.

I lay in bed, wide awake as the day breaks grey and drizzly Sunday.
Today will be another long one, the Fly-Out, as it were.
Everything done in reverse of the last 48 hours, the rental car returned, the security lines endured, the delayed departure, the negotiation of hogging up the overheads with guitar cases and left over merch.

I pick up my phone then, surrender to its pull, and open that fucking game.
And then I touch it.
And when the final board drops, I smile, and then finally sleep.

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The Rebellionfest: Blackpool

~ CH3 ~ 2 Comments

I slip behind a barricade, the security guard nodding me through as I hold up my credential laden wrist.
It all seems so familiar, the cozy backstage space behind the Empress.
The jolly little bar, the food stations serving up lunch, the tables assorted like at a wedding reception, inviting strangers to sit down with their plates and join in on the conversation.

I walk down the dressing room hall and find our assigned room, then back step a few feet to once again read the adjoining room’s door.
Oh nothing, we’re camped next door to The Sweet, that’s all!
I take photos of the door, hoping Andy Scott might emerge and grant a photo as well, but no such luck.

I enter our room and find Kimm in there alone, strumming his guitar in the corner.
He looks relaxed, as if he were sitting in a sunny spot in his backyard, and I take out my guitar to join him for a little warm up.

We share the moment of quiet, neither of us speaking, just communicating through steel guitar strings and tapping feet.
It is nice sanctuary between the shouted conversations of the halls, behind the roaring rooms where the bands cycle though endlessly, each claiming their 40 minutes of stage time with frenzied assault.
We could just be two friends sitting together on a park bench, old and growing older.
Feeding the rabid squirrels, complaining about the price of gasoline.


It is not lost on me, though, that we are decades beyond those first times we sat next to each other and strummed guitars.
In each other’s houses, out in the Cerritos garage.
And now sitting together, a few feet away from where The Sweet sits, behind a stage that once held The Beatles and Sinatra.

The fellas join us then, each of us taking turns telling of the bands we’ve just seen, the friends we’ve just caught up with.

There is a knock on the door, the stage manager letting us know there’s five to set time.
We file out separately, each of us on our own, hoping we will soon lock in as, well, a group.

There is a sea of people in the hall, though as is the nature of festival crowds, not all stay for more than a couple songs.
The fans wander the grounds clutching highlighter marked schedules, some just tasking themselves with catching as many bands as humanly possible.
Two songs, check another one off the list, and onto the next. Fair enough.

But there are other people, I can see them from up here, that we know.
Some loyal fans, grown into friends.
Some faces from back home as well, a few who have been with us from the very first days in the backyards of Cerritos.

We start out, and it feels a bit strange on this vast stage after the great pub shows we’ve enjoyed the last few nights.
The sweating clubs where the crowd knocks the microphone into your teeth once again, where hands reach out to strum the guitar with you.


There is a timer set in my periphery stage right, its numbers scrolling down like a terrorist bomb planted in a train station.
Time is now a puzzle to be solved, as we cut songs from the set, add some of the old favorites we think will go over.
We send the songs into a a black void, only the first few rows of faces illuminated, and those faces are still ten feet away and two meters down, beyond a barricade.

The green haired Finn Jukka, who you might remember popped up on stage with us back in Osaka, is here of course.
We bring him up on stage for the English/Finnish rendition of Mannequin (Mannekiini!!) for the fest truly is a global festival, putting those tacky Summer Olympics to shame!

Mannekiini!!

It’s over all too soon of course, and we are back in the dressing room.
We pack up the guitars and peel off our sweat drenched shirts, hurry out to the merch booth to meet some of the people who have stayed after the set.
Hopefully we will sell the last of the tee shirts and check an empty suitcase home.

.In the morning we all say goodbye (early!) at the foggy seaside curbside.
Dave and Briony shuttling the kids back down to Heathrow with Kimm and Nick, while Ant takes the train up to Edinburgh to investigate the Fringe with his pal Chris.
I stay on in Europe with The Wife, and remain here even as I tap out these words, staring out a hotel window at the Amsterdam Centraal train station.

And to think it was nothing more, or less, than sitting together with my old friend and strumming those guitars that has brought me here.

Thanks Lorrie Smith photos

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

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

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?.

A Punk Rock Museum

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

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.

40!

~ CH3 ~ 1 Comment

Let’s put it into perspective people:
Forty goddamned years.

Well, 41 and a half, really, if you statistics nerds are going by your Discogs bible.
But just as a juiced homerun record is forever scarred by an asterisk, our ruby anniversary was postponed by a pesky little pandemic.

Ronald Reagan was just sworn in (his first term!).
We were still communicating through landlines and, get this, letters.
The TV had seven channels, save the fuzzy UHF channels that showed those baffling Japanese cartoons.
And when the price of gas briefly breached one dollar there was mayhem on the streets.
Yes kids, we’ve been around that long!

But, no. Four decades?
Could it have been that long ago, 1981, when we first saw that Posh Boy EP on the racks of Zed Records?
We bought a copy each, still wary that this was all some sort of elaborate prank.
Then Kimm and I stood on the sidewalk and tore at the shrinkwrap, slid black vinyl from sleeve.
I held the record up to the sky, proof to the cruel gods that we did exist:
We had made a record.

When Kimm first proposed this project, I was skeptical.
“Do ya know what that would take?” I’d say, my phone on speaker as I worked on my dreadful chip shot from the fringe.
“Licensing and remastering, artwork. And to get vinyl pressed nowadays?”
You know…..work.

Undaunted, Kimm set forth and did just all those things.
Teaming up once again with our pals at Hostage Records, we went about the messy business of stuffing a lifetime into a box.



We hoped to do 40 songs (duh), but even our brief sonic sketches would not fit ten per side.
After briefly considering a bloated Sandista-d triple vinyl monstrosity, we settled on 27 charming tracks that nicely showcase them all, the gems and turds alike.

As we listened to the songs leveled and remastered, finally corralled together in one place, we smiled.
The early demos, the hardcore zingers, those big haired guitar anthems–they’re all here folks!
As the songs scroll past I am taken back to those days in the Cerritos garage.
The hours on the highway come back to me; the taste of gas station hot dogs, the smell of another backed up backstage toilet.
Each moment precious now, burnished a golden glow by the passage of time.

We decide to do the whole booklet thing too, of course.
Pulled boxes from the attic, photo albums from the garage.
We gathered around the scanner, ready to render our past to digital code.
But the chore took hours longer than necessary, as we would hold up a photo and say, ….remember this?
And then we would be back there: at a dive bar in Knoxville, say, or stuck in a ditch outside Calgary, the night wet and our faces young.
And then we would be wiping our eyes on our sleeves, our eyes moistened by laughter and regret.



We briefly consider asking some friends, or maybe other musicians or journalists, to contribute a few words.
But I could only envision pages of chaste language, politely recalling our glory days.
I feared a booklet reading like an obituary, the words underrated and unappreciated popping up again and again.
(Code words for unmotivated and second rate.)

Hell, I’ll just write the story myself.
And so the 6 page booklet doubled to 12, swelled again to twenty pages, before we stopped ourselves at 28!

After the excruciating production wait, the day finally came: the records were ready.

Kimm and I opened the first box and took out that first record.
We could have been those kids, again, standing in front of Zeds, not quite believing just yet.
We passed it back and forth, remarking at its weight, the richness of the cover artwork.
The smell of recently pressed vinyl, vivid as the electric scent of an oncoming summer storm.

And after tearing at the shrinkwrap, I take out the twinned albums and lay them side by side.
The booklet is thick, bulging with victories and heartbreaks, friends aged or gone.
But I pause before sliding the records from their sleeves, to hold them above my head, squint at the daylight beaming through the center hole.
Not quite ready to sign off on the project, not quite ready to hold that many years in my hands..

The CH3 40 Box Set available in limited edition Purple Splatter Tomorrow!
Saturday Jan 14 at the CH3Webstore and at Hostage Records.

In Search of Internal Combustion at the HoeDown

~ CH3 ~ Leave a comment

We get to the Port damn early, pulling into the backstage parking lot before the morning mist has yet to lift from the harbor.
A huge tanker chugs past, like a block long condominium set adrift by a jolting shrug of the San Andreas fault.
I pause a moment, guitar case in hand, as we unload.
I squint up at the stacks of containers moving past, then down to the waterline where the filthy port water is churned turquoise by the prow of the ship.
Propelled forward by submerged violence, I wonder at the sheer horsepower generated within that steel hull.
The miracle of fuel re-imagined as power, the massive screws twisting endlessly in battle against distance and time.

Nick got there even earlier, and has already staked out a prime spot near the stage.
We have room for not only our pop-up and merch table, but also for Nick’s straight axle gasser, Dethtrap.


It gives our staked space the cool feeling of being back in the pits, of those 1970’s evenings out at Ascot or Orange County International Raceway, where we would race under the lights on the tight MX track while just beyond a chain link fence the garage built cars smoked their tires.
The night air perfumed with the acrid sweet funk of melting rubber.

We’ve pulled an early set time, but that’s okay.
It’s just a thrill to be back here at a festival, though Tucker went through hell pulling this one off.
Through re schedules and band changes, the fest remained a torn flag on the horizon, a beacon to end this nutso Summer.
There is still the delicious vibe of chaos going on.
But the bands are indeed piling in and the stages have been set, and it looks like against all odds this thing is going to launch.
We get up there and do the thing:




We play alright, though it it is always interesting to air our setlist under the midday sun.
Forty year old songs of longing and desperation, nocturnal as raccoons.
Perhaps they are better suited to the late nights in sweaty nightclubs?

I wander the festival grounds, the vast space starting to fill in with all the people who have sensibly arrived after our set.
People come up and apologize for missing us, ask how it was.
I assure them it’s all good, though a shame they have missed one of our all time great performances.
We walk away from each other, each reassured by the white lie, faces intact.

Casey

Familiar faces everywhere, there is a sense of relief in the air.
The lines snaking up to the food trucks start growing long, the port a potties start reeking with their astonishing stench. By god, it is a music festival after all!

Farrell with PR Karaoke


Back at the merch stand we huddle beneath the pop up, watch as Paul grumpily rejects another potential customer.
We don’t have that one in that size he repeats yet again.
But most people stop by not to look at our meager selection of T shirts, but at the car.
Nick stands by Dethtrap like a proud papa, pulling the pins to tilt forward the hood again and again to show off his build.
A mild ’61 Dart repowered and rebuilt to 357 cubic inches of primitive power, 500 horsepower atop a 2900 pound car.
It is Southern California.
As people stop and look at the car, the sight of it seems to conjure sweet memories of their own late nights in the garage.
Huddled over engines or flat backed underneath: a pal’s reassuring hands gripped upon their ankles to pull them out on the dolly, a four speed transmission cradled heavy upon chest, precious as an unexploded ordnance.


My brother JB comes by and I watch as he and Nick talk, and I know he is telling the story of his own ’72 Nova that he built and rebuilt, the most notable marker of his high school life.

Love Canal


And those memories are mine as well.
The nights pestering him for a look by shop light at the hulking big block, until he would finally send me to a corner of the garage with valve seating compound and a suction tipped wand to grind down the valve seats on a cracked head.
I haven’t thought of such things in decades, but I am instantly back in that Cerritos garage, long before we had the notion to egg carton the walls and turn up the amps.
I smell the upturned hubcaps filled with gasoline to soak dirty parts, hear the clatter of tools dropped out of reach and the string of cuss words that followed.

Untouchables!

The three stages go non stop and the crowd sweeps back and forth with each changeover.
Every set seems a victory against the threat of a shutdown, under broken security lines or viral load.
The day gains terrific momentum, like pistons unleashed of gravity, sending propulsion to crankshaft with each miraculous ballet of intake and compression, ignition and exhaust.

The HoeDown lineup features several acts that tend toward rockabilly and sleaze rock, their mirrored audience looking like a generation longing for the days of leaded fuel and cigarette machines at full service gas stations.
Pinup dreamboats that look like they should be perched atop the classic rods and the greasy haired rockers who look like they should be underneath in the grease pit.

Suoersuckers
Throwrag

Back in the pits, another crowd has gathered around the gasser.
Marshall, my old pal who spent his career as a Ford mechanic, comes by and looks it over grimly, like a man who’d be happy to never peer at another greasy motor in his retired life.  
But then Nick opens the hood and Marshall grins, and he goes, aw jeez, what have you done here….and then they are both pointing and talking.

An old punker stops in front of the car.
In typical uniform, short pants and Vans, a faded Suicidal Tendencies Tshirt washed thin through the years and stretched tight over expanded waistline.
He holds hands with a young boy, and though I first assume it his son, I do a quick calculation and realize he is my age, and therefore that is a grandson.

His eyes come alive with memories of past cars, the sweet torture of working part time jobs and counting a pile of soft bills weekly until he could buy his own ride
And then, in the time honored tradition of So Ca Speed, he starts customizing.
We take what we love and then immediately want to change it.
Faster, and louder.

The boy squints at the gleaming motorwork and tilts his head in wonder.
He has looked under a hood but once, that at his Mom’s Mercedes E Class wagon.
He discovered only a bland sheath of plastic cowling covering a small city of computers and injectors.
He knows only of the sewing machine efficiency of vehicles, bland couches that transport him to soccer practice, silent as a block in solitary.

PopPop points at the motor excitedly, relieved to finally show his grandson these things, to be able to explain how the gas goes from there, and mixes with the air here, and explodes there, and exhaust comes out there.


“That?” he asks in response to his grandson’s whispered question.
He squats until his face is level with the child’s.
They both point to the chrome contraption crowning the motor.
“That’s a carburetor,” he says, as if showing his grandson the last of a near extinct seabird.


And later this night, he will hold his grandson upon his shoulder as the pit rages for Suicidal, and the boy will look wide eyed at the sweet violence, pure as the blue spark that ignites gasoline and propels us onward.

Awesome concert photos by Ron Lyon @Ronlyonphoto