Another one! WORDS

Usually it’s George Tabb who goes over the word count and squeezes the coordinator columns to their most minimal, this month it was Roehrs who unleashed an epic. What with Cock Sparrer live in SF, and the Agnostic Front reissues, the Roehrs universe was at its peak. I have been not been existing in a universe at its peak, just walking round town listening to tapes I made last time I had a walkman, in the early ’00s. King Crimson and PP Arnold, Quix*o*tic and Circus Lupus, Unwound and Jerry’s Kids. Wanna make me a tape? Brace claims he is going to. I am making one for Osa because she asked me about Wilma, San Francisco’s own lesbian separatist post-punk force who were on Subterranean. One of the women from Wilma gave a talk at the library here, for the queer part of the Penelope Houston curated punk series they’ve been having at libraries in town. Penelope is a librarian at the main branch here, and there was a rad exhibition of her Avengers ephemera, fliers and original record art, alongside an incredible photo exhibition by this woman Ruby Ray. The picture of the Zeros lying on the chalk body outline of a fresh murder scene in North Beach was my favorite. There’s going to be a Ruby Ray book, with contributions from Annex of Search and Destroy, who was involved with the early years of Maximum Rocknroll radio too. Annex’s daughter Zoe is a punk as well, continuing the family tradition, she says she is gonna interview Ruby for the mag, so that’s something to look forward to. I wanted to have it in the photo issue, but we thought it would be cooler to focus on more recent punk photographers. There are gonna be some other classic punk photographers interviewed in these pages in the upcoming months, including Edward Colver…
I like making tapes again, especially with the MRR library at my fingertips… Someone told me about this band Dress Up Like Natives, an all girl early ’80s Pittsburgh punk band that kind of remind me of a poppier Ama-Dots. (Another rad post-punk band from the same era from Milwaukee—a friend found their 7” about ten years ago in the 99c bin at Amoeba, I got one on Ebay as soon as I heard his copy). I dug out the MRR copy of the Dress Like Natives 7”, and started obsessing as to if there were other Pittsburgh girl bands at the same time. I wrote a few months back about a movie, Debt Begins at Twenty about the PGH art punk scene of this era, and guess what, you can watch it online now! www.lux.org.uk/collection/works/debt-begins-20. It’s a black and white movie, with sort of a boy meets girl plot, but basically it’s just about punks hanging out and putting on a house show in early ’80s Pittsburgh. My favorite band in it was Hans Brinker and the Dykes, who sound like Noh Mercy, and thusly are incredible. I have detectives at work trying to figure out if they recorded anything beyond this movie. Someone told me that despite the fact that the Cardboards had a great name, their record was super dull (but worth a lot of money!). They’re sort of like an uncool Contortions with the touch of a more awkward Devo, if you can picture that collision of dorkiness. I guess the drummer, who is the star of the movie kept the band going after the rest of the original members quit and put out that record. Anyway, if you don’t like art punk you will not be enthralled, but I do and I was. More girl bands that sound like Noh Mercy!
layla at maximumrocknroll.com whatwewantisfree.blogspot.com