today live interview with New York Hardcore Chronicals

TODAY in NEW YORK CITY 7pm TOGETHER FOREVER book event!

I will be having a public talk and book signing at Barnes & Nobel on Union Square. Come get the new book and stay for the talk and get your book signed if you want. DMC and Chuck D. will be there for the talk and quite possibly some other contributors to the book may be in the house.

Get advance book/pass before it sells out here:
https://togetherforevernyc.eventbrite.com



"Extra Strength Posse 1987"

LL COOL J live on stage with supersized Boom Box from my IG

LL COOL J on stage somewhere I'm guessing around 1986, based on the huge radio boom box behind him, and the classic Kangol on his head and shell toe Adidas on his feet... Good times, James Todd Smith blowin' up! So bad he could gargle with peanut butter. LL wrote an incredibly revealing essay for the MY RULES book, and along with many previously unseen photos of him the story he tells will blow you away. I'm grateful for his sharing and inspiration we all gain through his story. #hiphop #GoldenEra #DefJam #rushproductions #inspiration #godsquad #MC #RAP #FuckYouHeroes #MyRules #GetTheNewBook

A post shared by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Jan 31, 2016 at 11:47am PST

Having Fun Onstage With Fugazi

HENRY ROLLINS, live like a Lion! circa 1991

HENRY ROLLINS at CBGB’s circa 1991 with The Rollins Band. This photograph appears in my book “The Idealist” and also on the book flap beside Henry’s commentary in the very first printing of “Fuck You Heroes”. I love this photo taken only with available light. It was around this time that i decided to stop using artificial light sources such as a flash... it was very rare after this point to use one, and of course i am talking about making photographs on FILM here so that stuff was not nearly as sensitive as digital technology is now, or even in the last 15 years. In order to make photos like this everything had to be just perfect and you’d never know if you made what you had hoped until you got your film developed and printed. This was a turning point. And of course Henry has always been one of the most incredibly intense singers around, emulated worldwide. He’s a killer, “as serious as a heart attack” when he’s in front of a group of musicians. You can say what you like about previous Black Flag singers (as they were all great in their own ways) and Henry as he was in S.O.A., but to front on him as Black Flag’s last true singer is a grave mistake. #Inspiration #FuckYouHeroes #TheIdealist #Integrity #PunkRock #Punk #HarDCore #SOA #RollinsBand #Badass #CBGB #SeriousAsAHeartAttack #MyRules #StateOfAlert #LionShot

A post shared by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Jan 7, 2018 at 5:06pm PST

Minor Threat Skateboarding (with me and Rodney Mullen) at Kenter Canyon School Yard

sorry the quality is so horrible, all we can find out there . . .

from Flipside Video Fanzine #2

OH SHIT! LL Cool J freestyle @ After Midnight in Philly (1985) Killin' It!

you can't front on this:



from the YouTube uploader :

Say what you will about crossover TV/ Movie star/ Mr. Hey Lover, LL Cool J. Just don't forget to mention that the man was a rap beast in the days of real rap... Energy for days! Originally recorded live from After Midnight in Philly. This is from Lady B's Street Beat radio show circa 1985 on Power 99 FM. "...On Sunday afternoons from one to five/ She's the lady with the juice that's kickin it live...Street Beat Lady B". 'Nuff Respect!

Besides that they use a bunch of my photos in this lo-res clip, here's a great photograph that appears in my MY RULES book and one at the top of this post that didn't make the cut, both from the same roll of film around the same time as this 'freestyle'.



BONUS: from The Roxy Live , 80's sometime:

Watch the Buzzcocks; farewell concert before they split in 1981

One of my all time favorite bands...



from Dangerous Minds:

The story of the Buzzcocks begins with an ad on a college notice board in 1975. The ad was placed by a young musician named Howard Trafford at the Bolton Institute of Technology. Trafford was looking for like-minded musicians to form a band. A student called Peter McNeish replied and the band that was to become the Buzzcocks was born.

McNeish changed his name to Pete Shelley. Trafford changed his to Howard Devoto. A drummer and bass player were recruited and the foursome played their first gig in February 1976.

They had ideas, they had a sense of what they wanted to do, but it didn’t really all gel until Shelley and Devoto traveled to London to see the Sex Pistols play. This was the kind of music they wanted to play—fast, furious, with purpose and edge. Being enterprising young lads, they booked the Pistols to play a gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester—the venue Bob Dylan played in 1965 when he went electric and was called a “Judas.”

The Sex Pistols first appearance at the Lesser Free Trade Hall was in June 1976. It’s been well documented and fair to say it was one of those gigs that changed musical history.  Among the 35-40 people in attendance that night were Mark E. Smith who would form The Fall, Steven Patrick Morrissey who would go on to form The Smiths, Ian Curtis who became the lead singer of Joy Division, Paul Morley who would write for the NME before becoming involved with record label ZTT and the Art of Noise, and er…Mick Hucknall….which proves that not all revolutionary events end in change.



He was there: Pete Shelley showing the poster for the Sex Pistols second appearance at the Lesser Free Trade Hall with support from the Buzzcocks.

The Buzzcocks were supposed to support the Pistols that night—but Shelley and Devoto couldn’t rally any musicians together. This led to a more professional attitude and a new more permanent line-up. Steve Diggle joined on bass guitarist with John Maher on drums. When the Pistols returned in July, the Buzzcocks did support them this time. The Buzzcocks name came from a magazine headline—a review of the Rock Follies TV show—containing the words “buzz” and “cock.” You can see how this Sex Pistols-inspired name appealed to a group of young guys.

The band formed a record label, New Hormones, to release their first EP (the third ever punk single in the UK) “Spiral Scratch.” Unexpectedly, Devoto quit the band. Shelley took over lead vocals and shared songwriting duties with Steve Diggle—who had moved from bass to guitar while Stephen Garvey eventually joined as new bass player.

Over the next four years, the Buzzcocks produced a selection of powerful, memorable and infectious songs (“What Do I Get?” “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t've),” “Harmony In My Head” and “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” to name but four) that were sharp and clever and often lyrically as good as songs written by Ray Davies for the Kinks but with a more frenetic beat.



The Buzzcocks should have been massive. They should have been one of the major bands of the 1980s. But somehow it never happened. Musically they had evolved from punk into New Wave—which Shelley described as a bit of “spring cleaning”—into their very own idiosyncratic style. But somehow the audience didn’t go with them. While the Buzzcocks matured as a band, the fans had moved on to, say, Gary Numan, electronica, and the lipstick and powder of the New Romantic groups like Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and Culture Club.

On January 23rd 1981, the Buzzcocks played their final gig before splitting-up in Hamburg. It was a superb farewell concert that makes you wonder why the hell they didn’t continue.

Track listing: “Why She’s a Girl From the Chainstore,” “What Do I Get?” “Fast Cars,” “Fiction Romance,” “Harmony In My Head,” “Everybody’s Happy Nowadays,” “Lipstick.” “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t've),” “Something’s Gone Wrong Again,” “Airwaves Dream,” “Strange Thing,” and “Noise Annoys.”

The Buzzcocks reformed in 1989 and are currently on a 40th anniversary tour in North America and Europe, details here.

 

One of my top 10 LP's:

Fugazi Live at Fort Reno, Late 90's from my instagram

FUGAZI LIVE AT FORT RENO in the late 90's is my guess when i made this photograph... These shows were the best , sorry i have no notes or my book in front of me to give you any more particulars tonight, its been a full day and i'd like to thank everyone for the nice thought and well wishes for my birthday, very cool. THANK YOU ALL. But i am sure i made a great bunch of photographs this day which you can see in at least a couple of my books. This one appears up front in my book "KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN - The Fugazi photographs of glen E. Friedman" with an essay by Ian F Svenonious - From their first year, to the last show played on US soil with all different types of photography experiments of light, texture, film stocks, techniques, clearly one of my favorites and best. Shooting good friends for no outlet to share in mind, just for the sake of capturing and portraying something that i knew was special, fantastic, groundbreaking and inspiring. There are some great FUGAZI photographs in MY RULES , but the reason there are not a ton more is becuase of this entire book devoted only to them. If you are a Fugazi fan there is no reason you shouldn't have or Love it. "Maybe the best visual of a single band ever" someone said. #FUGAZI #brendancanty #joelally #guypicciotto #ianMackaye @dischordrecords #integrity #idealism #inspiration #punk #WashingtonDC #photography #ianFsvenonius #fortreno #positiveforce @chainandthegang

A photo posted by glen E. friedman Ⓥ (@glenefriedman) on Mar 3, 2016 at 6:47pm PST

Nice Sunday Listening Black Sabbath - "War Pigs" Live Paris 1970 + the whole show if you want it!

Black Sabbath performing "War Pigs" live at the Olympia Theater in Paris, France on December 20, 1970





and here's the full show if you're as stoked as I am on this for a sunday morning:

A One-Episode Show With a Lasting Impact on Hip-Hop GRAFFITI ROCK

ONLY A FEW DAYS LEFT TO SUPPORT 30th ANNIVERSARY



from the New York Times

By DAVID GONZALEZ

When it comes to hip-hop pioneers, years before MTV rapped, Michael Holman repped.

He first made his mark in the early 1980s as a journalist and filmmaker who documented the emerging urban blend of graffiti, rapping, D.J.-ing and B-boying. He took Malcolm McLaren, the manager of the Sex Pistols, to witness Afrika Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay mixing beats at an open-air free-for-all in the maze of brick towers at the Bronx River Houses. That, in turn, inspired the British impresario to have Mr. Holman bring a hip-hop revue to the Ritz in Manhattan to open for Bow Wow Wow.

By 1984, Mr. Holman was the host of “Graffiti Rock,” a nationally syndicated television show that had him presiding over a sea of bobbing Kangol caps and swiftly moving, fat-laced Adidas sneakers, as the likes of Run-DMC had lyrical battles with members of the Treacherous Three, all set against a multicolored aerosol backdrop. People still talk about the show; Polish B-boys copied dance moves step for step. Rappers sampled parts of the show, as the Beastie Boys did on the intro to “Alright, Hear This.”

Mind you, it lasted only one episode.

“That was my tragedy. I was ahead of my time,” Mr. Holman said. “I had ‘trend-heimer’s’ disease. The station managers thought rap was a passing fad. Who knew where this was going to go?”

Actually, he did.

A conversation about pop culture with him crisscrosses the late 20th century, peppered with references to Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab Five Freddy and the Rock Steady Crew. It is not name-dropping, but a reflection of his wide-ranging interests in painting, music, journalism and film.

Since arriving in New York in the late 1970s, he has been adept at sizing up pop culture. Among his early friends and collaborators in New York was Basquiat, with whom he formed the band Gray. As he became part of the downtown scene, he grew curious about some of the uptown parties he had heard about from people like Fred Brathwaite, who would later gain fame as the host of “Yo! MTV Raps” in 1988.

“When I came downtown, part of the news I was spreading was about this new culture coming out of Harlem and the Bronx,” Fab Five Freddy said. “Michael was one of the first people I met on the scene, and I kind of introduced it to him. And he dove right in.”

Mr. Holman went from writing about the different elements of this early scene, in the East Village Eye and Artforum, to playing a pivotal role in its global spread when he persuaded Mr. McLaren, a British trendsetter, to check out one of Mr. Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation parties at the Bronx River Houses in 1982. Yet when Mr. Holman picked up Mr. McLaren at his Midtown hotel, they almost did not make it to the party.

“Remember the New Romantic movement with pirates and Indians?” Mr. Holman recalled. “Malcolm was dressed like a pirate, with a puffy blouse and these big pantaloons. I thought, there was no way we could go up there with him dressed like that.”

But they did.

“It was like something out of Joseph Conrad,” Mr. Holman said. “There were like 1,000 kids rocking to Bambaataa, and the beats were thumping off the buildings. These were the kids who were too young to go to Studio 54 or a Luther Vandross concert. They were junior high school kids. And Bambaataa had a captive audience.”

That encounter inspired Mr. McLaren to ask Mr. Holman to bring a hip-hop revue to open for Bow Wow Wow at the Ritz, which in turn led to a regular Thursday spot at Negril in the East Village. Two years later, “Graffiti Rock” had its exceedingly brief run.

“That show was seen by so many people who blew up in the ’90s, like Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest,” he said of younger members of his audience, some of whom went on to achieve success. “I knew in my heart when I was putting it together that kids his age, 10, 11, 12, that was the exact target market. He was not only the future, but the future of hip-hop.”

Mr. Holman still thinks the short-lived show has a future, which is why he is raising funds through Kickstarter to finish a 30th anniversary documentary on the making of “Graffiti Rock” and its vision of hip-hop’s various elements of art, music and dance.

He would especially like to remind well-off rappers like Jay-Z, who compares himself to Basquiat on his latest release, that it is not all ancient history.

“There is a part of hip-hop that did not become such a commercial success as rap did,” Mr. Holman said. “The other elements are still somewhat in the shadows of rap. But they’re part of an indigenous New York City culture that needs to be celebrated. We need to return rap to its roots, where it needs to be.”

SUPPORT MICHAEL -

30th Anniv. release of the first ever Hip Hop TV Show, "Graffiti Rock", & new Hip Hop documentary "Graffiti Rock: The Untold Story"

A Great example of Minor Threat In LA in 1983, I Was There!

Minor Threat Live at the Rollerworks, Los Angeles, CA. 2 April 1983

What A Great fucking show - JUST LOOK AT THIS!

I think this was the night before I brought them to skate at Kenter the next day. Great show, Suicidal was also on the bill.

I was there to have some fun, no camera ;-)



and really another, maybe even better show in Philadelphia at Love Hall:



and in DC

(Black) FLAG - Tour Dates Announced

I'd say from the looks of this just released short film of one song from the first gig a few weeks ago at the infamous Moose Lodge, this is a show you will not want to miss. I know I won't.

05-27 Las Vegas, NV - Punk Rock Bowling
06-07 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
06-08 Detroit, MI - Orion Music + More Festival
06-09 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
06-13 Buffalo, NY - Town Ballroom
06-14 Toronto, Ontario - NXNE Festival
06-15 Montebello, Quebec - Amnesia Rock Fest
08-24 Los Angeles, CA - FYF Fest
09-13 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
09-16 Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Soundstage
09-18 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero
09-19 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
09-20 Boston, MA - The Paradise

NEW YEARS EVE ! with The Ramones 1977

HIP HOP GODS tour on the road now

I just got back from the show, totally fun Hip-Hop family affair brought together by none other than Chuck D., great classic hip hop performed by the pros, if you love hip hop it's a no-brainer, if you like the classic stuff and haven't seen a show in a long time, you'll have a good time. Many artists and many guests, a non-stop cavalcade of RAP. "Son of Bezerk & No Self Control" brought me back to the early days in a flash with their style and classic flow. "Poor Righteous Teachers" were cool. "Brother J" from The X-Clan and Schooly D. were awesome highlights, two artists i never met before (until tonight!) and have appreciated there records for years. Public Enemy close the night with a really strong set including a live band. Rarely will i recommend a live hip hop show, but this is the great exception, out on the road for two weeks now. check it out.

HipHopGods.com, the premier destination for classic rap fans, will launch the inaugural HipHopGods Classic Tourfest Revue with a series of concerts featuring Public Enemy and a revolving lineup of allstars from the Golden Age of hip hop including X Clan, Schoolly D, Leaders of the New School, Monie Love, Son of Bazerk, Wise Intelligent (of Poor Righteous Teachers), Awesome Dre and Davy DMX.

The tour begins on November 28th in Washington, DC at the 930 Club and will make its way across the country to Los Angeles several weeks later.

The collection of artists will take the stage each night to deliver a rare combination of thought-provoking entertainment and history lesson in the musical phenomenon they helped build. Each act not only played a vital role in the development of hip hop culture but continues to be an important and influential force in music.

Official dates and venues are as follows:

Wednesday, November 28, 2012 / Washington DC / 930 CLUB
Thursday November 29 2012/ New York / IRVING PLAZA
Friday, November 30, 2012/ Public Enemy in PHILADELPHIA
Saturday, December 01, 2012 / Burlington Vermont / HIGHER GROUND
Sunday, December 02, 2012 / Boston / ROYALE THEATER
Tuesday, December 04, 2012 / Indianapolis / VOGUE THEATRE
Wednesday, December 05, 2012 / Chicago / HOUSE OF BLUES
Thursday, December 06, 2012 / Minneapolis / FIRST AVENUE
Friday, December 07, 2012 / Lincoln, Nebraska / BOURBON THEATER
Saturday, December 08, 2012 / Denver / OGDEN THEATER
Sunday, December 09, 2012 /JacksonHoleWyoming/PINK GARTER THEATER
Monday, December 10, 2012 / Aspen, CO / BELLY UP
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 / San Diego / 4TH AND B
Thursday, December 13, 2012 / Los Angeles / NOKIA THEATRE

HipHopGods.com is the first fully-comprehensive community for old-school hip hop fans, bringing together the most important and enduring rappers into one site where classic rap lives on.

Developed by BTNEastlink in association with Chuck D, HipHopGods.com aims to "encompass and empower the hip hop nation," Chuck D explains, and "to have the hip hop community get and keep a hold on itself and connect the legacy." The site has been likened to "classic rock radio" by DMC of Run-DMC. KRS-One noted that "When I log on to HipHopGods.com, I feel like I am entering the Hip Hop nation."

Keep an eye on HipHopGods.com for exclusive content coming your way from our team on The Hip Hop Gods Classic Tourfest Revue!

http://www.publicenemy.com/tour

http://hiphopgods.rapstation.com/news/hiphopgods.tourfest.revue

NPR discusses FUGAZI's new live series website with Ian "Steady Diet Of Everything: The Fugazi Live Vault"

Obviously, I could write my own story about these tapes finally being released this way, but I think the NPR perspective is pretty interesting (almost as much as Fugazi gracing the cover of the New York Times on line last week) and a nice interview with Ian as well.

When the iconic American punk band Fugazi started playing back in 1987, it started taping, too.

"Our friend Joey Picuri, who was a local sound man — or a fellow who helped do sound for bands — he recorded the shows," Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye tells NPR's Guy Raz. "He just gave us tapes of our first show, and he gave us a tape of our second show."

From the beginning, the band appreciated his efforts: "It was just nice to be able to hear the songs realized, in that sense," MacKaye says. "In many ways, you can write a song and you practice it, but it doesn't really become a song until it goes into someone else's ears — in this situation, the audience's. So hearing it in that setting, it's like, 'OK, this is a song now.'"

For a lot of bands, that would have been it; record the first show, show it to your friends afterward, then forget about it and continue living the dream. But Fugazi isn't most bands.

"Joey started to travel with us as a sound man," MacKaye says. "He just started to record the shows out of habit. We didn't really plan on recording all the shows, but after we had 50 or 75 or 100, it seemed like, 'Well, we might as well keep doing it.' And we ended up with 850."

Not 850 tracks, or even 850 hours — 850 shows. Fugazi, one of the most important bands in the history of punk, recorded every single show it ever played. But what does a band — even one with as fanatical a fan base as Fugazi's — do with all that tape?

"At some point, we were around the 300 mark, and the band discussed the tapes," MacKaye says. "And we were thinking, like, 'We don't need these tapes.' We didn't even listen to these tapes. The first shows, sure, we listened to those things. But when you're on a tour and you play, say, 60 shows in 63 days, pretty much the last thing you want to hear is a recording of those shows. It's unbearable! We just kept stashing them in the closet."

It must be a pretty big closet, because the band has ended up with more than 1,300 hours of tape. "We were trying to figure out how to get all this music out there," MacKaye says. Now that technology has caught up with Fugazi, the band has done just that: Fifteen years of shows will be made available to buy off the Internet, warts and all.

"These tapes are not all good," MacKaye says. "I certainly cringe at some of the stuff I hear, especially sometimes when I'm talking to the crowd. I think sometimes my humor is extremely dry, and a lot of times I would say things that I thought were very funny but ... I have a reputation of — people think of me as a very fundamentalist, humorless fellow."

'At Least A Dollar'

Fugazi is employing a pay-what-you-want strategy for this enormous library, so listeners can decide how much these hyper-authentic recordings are worth to them.

"They have to pay us at least a dollar — there's no free on this one," MacKaye says. But with their purchase, listeners get a true oral history of the band, riddled with moments that would have otherwise been lost.

"There's a really great show from Munich, in I think the early '90s, '93," MacKaye says. "At that time, it was pretty typical for the audience to say things like, 'Get on with it!' and 'Play the music! Just play!' I remember we had come back on stage for an encore, and somebody was lost or confused, or I don't know; something had happened and somebody needed help. So we were trying to say, 'Hey, there's a woman back here, she's lost and she's looking for her friends.' And some guy was just yelling, 'Get on with it! Just play!' And at that moment, I understood the dynamic, what was going on in this relationship, where he was a consumer and wanted to consume. He wanted sound. So at that moment, we just all turned on our guitars and started feedback, and it was a wall of feedback. And it was like, 'Okay, here's sound. You just want sound.' There was no actual engagement with the music; it was just sound they wanted.

"So it's maybe five minutes of just feedback. It was a totally surreal moment, and when I hear that, I can smell that moment. It's so visceral to me, but it's one of my favorites, because we go right into a song from that. I'm not sure that's even up yet, but it'll show up."

Included is the band's last show to date, on Nov. 4, 2002, and its traditional set-closer, "Glue Man." These recordings bring MacKaye back; in reliving the moments he recorded, he remembers the moments that weren't.

"The truth is, what I really miss is the six-hour drive in the van with them, because we always just hung out. We did a lot of time together, and those moments, those are very difficult to come by at this moment. Whether or not we play again, I don't know. That's just the way that goes. In some ways, this has been such an incredible project, mostly because I've just been sitting on these tapes for so long, and I think, 'Finally, here, everybody else have at it.' "

Chain & The Gang - so far best show of 2009!

I blogged about trying to make this show last week.
I made it and I was not disappointed.
Ian Svenonius delivers the goods just like he used to,
with a new band and new songs. Always an inspiration.