Ziggy/Linda D
My Punk Rock story is not always a ‘pretty one’. It is a miracle I am alive. I was homeless on the street at 14, very out of my mind, traumatized, mentally ill, drugged up,…
Category: Punk Rock Origin Stories
Brenda Perlin (Valley Girl)
Being different from my peers made me seem difficult and troubled. Family members talked about me when I wasn’t around, and I overheard them talking about me when I was around. It was obvious that…
Nancy Barile
I grew up in the 1970s, and when I turned 15, I experienced live music for the first time when my boyfriend, who was 18, took me to see Rod Stewart and Faces. WOW! What…
Edward “EJ” Giles
I was 15 years old, and living in Long Island City, Queens with my parents, and “Punk Rock” was breaking in the US. There was a television news highlight on “punk” and I thought it…
Bob Lee
I remember getting really into Patti Smith in summer of 78, friends of my mom had Radio Ethiopia, and I’d get real into playing it. My first experience with punk up close was the band…
Jeffrey Vallance
Punk Scene and Solid Eye Punk Scene From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, there was a unique relationship between the art world and the punk rock scene in Los Angeles. I hung out…
Jim Ruland
When I was 15 my mom took me and my younger brother to see the Ramones at the Wax Museum. It wasn’t just my first punk rock show, but the first rock concert I attended.…
John
When I was a young tween/teen, I thought punk rock sucked. I saw the Ramones on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert when I was 13 and thought all the songs sounded the same, plus the guitarist…
Big Pete Markowicz
I was a lost kid that did not fit in with the guidos surrounding me in the suburbs of Clifton, New Jersey. I was about 12 years old and was in the boy scouts. I…
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…