Tim Tracy
My PUNK STORY:
My Punk story starts way, way before PUNK.
My dad (or DA, as we say with our family voice in Ireland) introduced me to “HardCore” Dixieland via record albums when I was only months old along with Dixieland live shows when I was around three. If anyone knows real Dixieland, they know that shit has power and speed just like Punk. My Da did two other important things in my development that lead me to PUNK:
- He took me to every home game of the USC football team. Saturday’s that would start at the middle of the USC campus were the untamed, half drunk crowd of thousands would huddle waiting for the USC band to show and when they did, this crazy crowd never disappointed. The band’s drummers would only play the deep steady BUMM-BAABAA-BUMM-BAABAA-BUMM to set the feeling of battle and the cadence of WAR. Our crowd lined up behind the band ready to battle.
- His stories of Los Angeles in the 1940’s. Crazy, big band shows at the Palladium, fight after fight at the Olympic auditorium, at dance nights, and boxing matches, crashing out on the beach and hooking up with girls……just like our world in 1980.
But my intro to a real music life didn’t stop with DA. My Mom too had her own amazing history with music. She grew up in Cleveland and the peak years were in the 1950’s and her stories of going to underground clubs to see Jackie Wilson and all the original R&B bands of early Rock. AMAZING.
OK, For me, in 1973 or 74, when I was the ripe age of 7, my older cousin Linda had Bowie’s albums. I remember sitting in her room playing them over and over as I looked at the covers with glee. This was NEW music. This was not the bullshit TV played or KHJ a.m. I knew this was new…
THEN:
1976 I saw the Sex Pistols on some show about England. I also saw DEVO on Saturday Night Live and I took in other great spots here and there. I soaked them all up. Any second of Punk I could find, I took in deeply as the years passed. By 1978 I started buying New Wave records but also bought the Sex Pistols and a few random Punk singles out of England. By early 1979 I made it to some New Wave shows at first and a couple of Punk shows but I was not “awake” enough to cut my fucking hair until 1980. It all really started in 1979, because the examples of earlier indoctrination are all true, I didn’t know anything about a scene to join and my old sister was into disco so she was no help. LOL By this time, we got more and more out of the Valley. Each pass over the hills into Hollywood gave us another opportunity for info on PUNK. We found Slash Magazine, we found Flipside and we found record stores run by Punks for Punks and a few clothing stores including the original Poser address, not the Melrose shop.
From the winter of 1980 to the summer of 1984, I was hooked on Punk and went to show after show. I was knee deep in this amazing scene and am proud to say I went to every club from The Vex to The Nest and from The Starwood to Bards Apollo.
Because we were so young and going to shows, Mooching a ride became everything. I was the king of this task.