John Colle Rogers
Back in 1984 I was a metalhead in North Dakota, a musical wasteland in many ways where we were tasked with finding alternatives on our own if we wanted to stray from the clutches of…
Lawson Desrochers (aka Lawson Jealous)
Like everyone, I had heard about the Sex Pistols and the Clash, even dug some of their tunes early on, but punk truly came to my world in 1981 via the older kids in Santa…
Joe Mendelson
My overwhelming passion for rock music began in 3rd grade, although I have a very distinct memory of being completely mesmerized by The Who’s I can see for miles that I heard on my sister’s…
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…
Jennifer Schwartz
This first time I heard the two words, “punk rock,” was around 1977. My mom, brother and I had just moved to Beverly Hills. That place sucks. Anyway, one day, a girl from my 8th…
Robert Hecker
I grew up in Hermosa Beach, California, and there was definitely a something-in-the-water thing going on in our sleepy little beach town. There was a decommissioned church that I knew as the arts & crafts…
ChrisO’
My story began when I came back from living on Oahu the summer of 1979. On the North Shore where I had lived since 1976, I was sheltered from all the music that was happening…
Deathany
I guess it’s all Jeremy Freeze’s fault. He was my little brother’s best friend who lived down the street. He came over after school one day with a mixed tape of Dead Kennedys, Black Flag,…
Kip-Xool
“TURN THAT BLOODY RACKET DOWN!! HOW CAN YOU CALL THAT MUSIC??!” Perhaps not the best psychological approach to curb a teenager’s new-found calling, but it also signalled a sense that I was in the right…
Stephanie Silk
I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, in the suburbs of Los Angeles. I went to Catholic school for 14 years. I had a pretty standard but boring start to things. I loved going…
Peter Landau
My childhood was idyllic until my family was part of the middle-class exodus from New York City in the early 1970s. I was eight years old and would have been able to walk across the…
The Discontent of Girls
As a woman “of a certain age” (as I refer to myself,) one might view me as simply a woman in nondescript clothing with a nondescript haircut leading a normal life. However inside my head…
Billy Lorance
Full-blown hippie life was before me as a child. Our house had waterbeds, water pillows, water couches, and water pipes. Psychedelic colored bean bag chairs adorned the living room floor and coffee colored beads hung…
Johnny Stingray
I guess it was ‘75 or so, I was working at an appliance store in Burbank, CA and living in Santa Monica with Kidd Spike (then known as Jeff Austin) and his sister, Gaye. Gaye…