ERROR:
subscribe to style file blog via RSSpunked in l.a.
January 2, 2008 10:21 am
L.A. will always have its detractors, but there’s one thing about the city you can’t fault: It’s saved a place in its heart for sleaze. Even today, as CBGB undergoes its conversion into a John Varvatos shop, in Hollywood you can spot kids a hop-skip from hot spots like Teddy’s who look as though they’d just stumbled out of an all-nighter at the Masque. Shuttered for more than a generation now, the Masque was L.A.’s answer to CBs, a rehearsal space/illegal concert venue that served as the epicenter of SoCal’s late-seventies punk scene. On the occasion of its 30th birthday, “Live at the Masque: Nighmare in Punk Alley” (Gingko Press) celebrates the all-but-forgotten club and the bands that made it briefly but brightly notorious. Redd Kross, X, Black Flag, The Germs, and The Cramps owe much to Masque man Brendan Mullen, an English expat who made the place a haven for all the street kids and misfits who wanted to make and hear some noise. For proponents of the anarchic L.A. sound, one of the book’s pleasures, along with rare early photos of style icons such as Exene and Alice Bag, is Mullen’s continued hostility to CBs’ comparatively slicked-out New Wave scene.
tags:
