Self-portrait by Patti Smith, 1969.
 

“The first time I saw art was when my father took us on a trip when I was 12. My father worked in a factory, he had four sickly children, my parents had a lot of money problems, and we didn’t go on excursions often. But there was a Salvador Dali show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that included the painting “The Persistence of Memory,” and my father found Dali’s draftsmanship just astounding, so he wanted to see the show in person. So he dragged us all to the museum. I had never seen art in person before. And seeing paintings - seeing work by Picasso, John Singer Sargent - I was completely smitten, I totally fell in love with Picasso, and I dreamed of being a painter.”

—Patti Smith on her first exposure to art.

The sublime Patti Smith once described her drawings as the “merging of calligraphy with geometric planes, poetry, and mathematics.” While in her early 20s and living with artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe at the Chelsea Hotel, the inseparable lovers would draw together side-by-side for long periods. Mapplethorpe would be a constant stream of encouragement to Smith, empowering her to keep creating despite the noise in her head telling her she wasn’t good enough. She would draw images of Mapplethorpe as well as his gorgeously aggressive X-rated photographs. In 1978, Smith and Mapplethorpe would sign on with New York art dealer Robert Miller who had just opened his art gallery on Fifth Avenue a year earlier. 1978 would mark the first time, at the age of 32, that Smith would show her original works of art alongside Mapplethorpe’s photographs—including a variety of his portraits of Patti. As I will never tire of hearing stories told by Patti Smith, here’s a bit more from the high priestess of punk on the wonderful thing that is “creative impulse”:

“The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can’t give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work. And that continuous exchange—whether it’s with a rock and roll song where you’re communing with Bo Diddley or Little Richard, or it’s with a painting, where you’re communing with Rembrandt or Pollock—is a great thing.”

Her artwork has been exhibited everywhere from New York to Munich, and in 2008 a large retrospective of Smith’s artwork (produced between 1967 and 2007) was shown at the Fondation Cartier pour I’Art Contemporain in Paris. In 2019, Smith’s illustrations were used for the album, The Peyote Dance, a collaboration with Smith and Soundwalk Collective (Stephan Crasneanscki, Simone Merli). So, without further adieu, let’s spend some time perusing a few of Patti’s illustrations produced over the last four decades.
 

Self-portrait, 1974.
 

“Ohne Titel,” 1968.
 

Portrait of Rimbaud, 1973.
 
More after the jump…

 
Besides Go-go, the music scene of Washington D.C. in the eighties was largely defined by the birth of hardcore and the influential ‘Revolution Summer’ movement that followed. At its forefront were bands like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Government Issue, Scream, Rites of Spring, Embrace, Fugazi…. need I say more?
 
Something beautiful about punk rock is that for every scene that budded in America, there were a few bands that were simply nontraditional. Perhaps the members didn’t dress like everybody else. Maybe they had different influences. Or better yet, they played a completely different style of music altogether.
 
But that didn’t change if a band was punk or not. Because who gives a fuck
 

 
The Obsessed are a band from Maryland that Ian Mackaye tipped me off on. They formed in the late-seventies in Potomac, about a thirty minute drive from the Capitol. The leader of the group is a guy by the name of Scott Weinrich, but people know him as “Wino.” As far as I’m aware, there was no tougher motherfucker in the scene than Wino.
 
The band went through several lineup changes over the years, but not much else has changed. They were quintessential lifers; longhairs from the suburbs who ripped fat doom metal riffs and lived to play rock & roll. Henry Rollins described them as a band that truly represented America’s youth culture. They had nothing to lose, so there was nothing to lie about.
 

Early Obsessed Gig
 
Evidently, The Obsessed and its fans found themselves intermingling with the burgeoning hardcore movement of nearby Washington D.C. They’d play with bands like Bad Brains, Iron Cross, and the Dead Boys, so naturally they became a crossover band between hardcore and heavy metal. As Ian put it, they occupied their own space in the musical world. Because nobody does it with as much conviction as Wino does. Sure, there was plenty of tension between the suburban metal-heads and the skinhead punks. Wino didn’t care, though. He liked punk rock because it was cool - and he’d beat the shit out of anyone messing with punkers. But he’d take on anybody, really.
 

Scott “Wino” Weinrich
 
With no proper music released, the band called in quits when Wino moved to California to join another important stoner rock band, Saint Vitus. Eventually, The Obsessed’s self-titled debut was released and they reformed in 1990. Within a few years, they signed to Columbia Records before dissolving once more due to poor record sales.

In anticipation of their major label debut in 1994, Columbia Records filmed a short promo documentary on The Obsessed. An introduction to the mythical band, this amazing piece of work features no holds barred-style interviews with hardcore punk and metal mainstays, like Henry Rollins, Ian Mackaye, Dale Crover, Tesco Vee, Joe Lally, and members of Pantera, White Zombie, and Corrosion of Conformity. There is early performance footage of the band at a local high school, recordings of Wino shredding it up in the studio, and commentary by members of the band (and some super-‘Obsessed’ fans). Oh, and a story about Wino doing speed off the blade of a giant knife.
 
With the ‘boom’ of doom in recent years, Wino brought The Obsessed back in 2016. They signed with Relapse Records and released Sacred in 2017 - their first record in 21 years.
 
Watch the amazing ‘94 documentary on D.C.’s heavy metal crossover band and realest ones around - The Obsessed:

“Hells Angels were trying to impress Wino.”
 
Much more of The Obsessed after the jump…

One of the entries for Punk magazine’s “Patti Smith Graffiti Contest” from 1976.
 
One of my very favorite possessions in my home library is the massive 2012 coffee table book Punk: The Best of Punk Magazine, gifted to me by a punk rock pal of mine. If you don’t already own a copy of it, find a way to part with $20 (or so), buy the book, and I promise you won’t ever regret it. Every so often, I pick it up and start reading from a random entry point and am taken back to the magazine’s heyday and its gritty yet comical approach to covering the punks of the scene when it began its glorious print run in 1975.

Core components of Punk were the comic strips based on the fictional exploits of the punk elite, the photo pictorials used for “The Legend of Nick Detroit” (starring Richard Hell) and another epic punk rock tale, “Mutant Monster Beach Party.” Both pictorial “movies” featured appearances by, well, everybody involved in the New York City punk scene and beyond, like David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol and Joey Ramone. Punk marched to the beat of its own high-hat-loving drum kit, but they also did regular magazine stuff like running contests.

In 1979 Punk solicited submissions from readers for their Patti Smith Graffiti Contest, requesting that they deface a press photo of Patti. When Volume I, Issue #5 published in August of 1976, the magazine noted it was still receiving entries commenting they “maybe” might print more, but they “doubt it.” Eight Graffiti-inspired press photos of Patti were chosen for the three-page, black and white layout and run the gamut from Patti looking a bit like Alice Cooper (pictured at the top of this post), to a topless collage of Patti (with her name spelled “Paty”) with tattooed boobs. It would take three more years for Punk to launch the Shaun Cassidy Graffiti Contest, announcing it in Punk #17 in 1979. Submissions were strong, but sadly, Issue #19 was scrapped, Da-Doo-Womp-Womp. Lucky for us, Punk’s John Holstrom included nine of the brutal illustrations of Cassidy, sent to Punk in Punk: The Best Of Punk Magazine. What a time to be alive. Some of the images that follow are NSFW.
 

Scribbles announcing the winners of the Patti Smith contest. The photo below is the one mentioned, sent in by Bimbo.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

Cover of the “Broken Toy” single on the Max’s Kansas City record label, 1981

The Fast were a glammy NYC-based punk/power pop band formed in NYC in the mid-70s by brothers Miki and Mandy Zone, with bassist Tommie Moonie and drummer Peter Hoffman. A third Zone brother, Paul, joined in 1975 and the group became a core part of the Max’s Kansas City/CBGB punk scene, with Blondie and the Ramones. They had two songs on the famous Max’s Kansas City 1976 album along with acts like Jayne County & The Backstreet Boys, Suicide, Pere Ubu and others. In 1978, Mandy Zone peeled off from The Fast and started his own band, Ozone. They released one single, but the trail goes pretty cold after that.

After becoming obsessed with Ozone’s music and thinking it deserved a wider audience, Weasel Walter has put out Mandy Zone & Ozone Live at Max’s Kansas City, 1981 on his ugEXPLODE label.

Weasel Walter writes:

“My discovery of Ozone’s devastatingly great music came in the most roundabout way possible. In the mid-2000s, when Netflix would send you DVDs in the mail, I checked out a seedy reissue of a 1976 Carter Stevens porn flick called Punk Rock, ostensibly a cheap quickie trying pathetically to capitalize on the then-nascent NYC punk club scene. Being a rock trivia geek, the main draw was the grimy footage of the obscure bands tacked on to the unwatchable sex and dopey “private detective” plotline. The main event turned out to be two songs performed quite raucously by the seminal power pop group The Fast, a combo featuring TWO sets of brothers, most notably the Zones - Paul, Miki and Armand. The maniacal low-budget genius of the group displayed in these film clips (shot at the legendary rock dive Max’s Kansas City, where they used to sit down at tables and watch the show!) blew my mind, particularly the weird, shrieking falsetto of the iron cross-laden, proto-goth keyboardist, Armand (or Mandy, for short). Inspired moments of genius like these, especially when they are excavated from obscurity out of the rubbish bin of the past, tend to etch themselves into my psyche permanently.

Forward to 2012: I am in Los Angeles, newly deputized as Lydia Lunch’s guitarist and bandleader in Retrovirus and, somehow, my predilection for these little clips of The Fast come up in discussion. Turns out that back in the day, the teenaged Lydia used to run in a pack with Paul Zone—the only remaining brother of the three, and bearer of the torch—so she introduces us. Paul is very happy to hear about my rabid enthusiasm, especially my ravings about his brother’s unique talents, and I am glad to make a connection with somebody I believe is an important historical figure. Paul and I kept in touch. Around 2015, Paul sent me a copy of a live set by his brothers’ band he had dug up, just for fun. I was immediately floored and played it on an endless loop. My life was pretty frickin’ complicated at that point, but after listening to it a few more million times over the following three years, I realized I should ask Paul if I could release it. Paul was happy to say yes, so the long process of editing and remastering began as well as sifting through the visual artifacts. So, here it is a labor of love and a tribute to Mandy Zone and his able cohorts.”

Buy Mandy Zone & Ozone Live at Max’s Kansas City, 1981 via ugEXPLODE
 

 

 
On January 21st, 1979, Blondie found themselves in a strange predicament. Canadian megaband Rush (R.I.P. Neil Peart) needed a last-minute opening act for their sold-out show at the Spectrum in Philadelphia—most likely New Jersey’s early-glam metal band Starz, or perhaps the opener from the previous night, Georgia band Stillwater had to cancel. It’s not entirely clear. What is clear is that the unlikely pairing of the New York New Wavers and the Canadian rockers wasn’t what Rush fans were expecting that night, and they let Blondie know this the minute they walked out on stage.

Blondie had played the Spectrum before, opening a show for Alice Cooper in the summer of 1978. This gig also started off on shaky ground for Blondie as they were greeted by boos as well as one Cooper fan shouting “Boo Blondie off stage…they’re PUNK!” The crowd kept jeering Blondie, but, according to people at the show, by the time they ripped into their second song, the audience was hooked, and they finished their set, incident- and heckling-free. For some reason, Rush fans were not as well behaved as Alice’s (which seems weird in its own right, right?). There are several first-hand accounts posted by fans who were there, telling the story of what happened that night at The Spectrum, describing Deborah Harry getting pelted with glow sticks and more. And it wasn’t pretty like Deborah Harry. Not even close.
 

A photo of Deborah Harry backstage at the Spectrum as seen in the book, ‘Daft Punk: A Trip Inside the Pyramid’ By Dina Santorelli.
 
The Spectrum was packed to the gills with around 18,000 rock fans waiting to see their idols perform jams from their sixth album, Hemispheres. Blondie took the stage in front of a standing-room-only floor, and the audience immediately started to boo them. Ignoring the haters, they started their set. By the second song, objects were steadily flying at the stage. At one point, Harry leaned into the crowd during “One Way or Another” and was slapped by dozens of glow sticks.

Continues after the jump…

Debbie Harry by Andy Warhol.
 
On December 8th, 1977, Blondie were set to make their first appearance in Brisbane, Australia. But the show didn’t go on as scheduled, and it would become known as the only show the band would be forced to cancel. In Australia, Blondie’s first record, Blondie was a huge hit, and fans were rabid as they waited at Her Majesty’s Theater, a former opera house, for the band to take the stage. And, as the title of this post indicates pretty clearly, that never happened. Here’s the story about how Debbie Harry’s alleged overindulgence on a fruit close to my heart, cherries, resulted in a good-old-fashioned punk rock riot.

As the story goes, the turnout for the show was about 1200 strong. After waiting around an hour for the show to start, drummer Clem Burke came out on stage to personally apologize to the crowd, letting them Blondie wouldn’t be able to play because Deborah Harry was “ill.” The cause of Harry’s illness was blamed on the singer eating too many cherries, and was apparently so acute a doctor was dispatched to the theater to treat the ailing singer. Ray Maguire, the band’s road manager, would later make a curious statement supporting the cherry-theory:

“In New York, we don’t see very much fruit, but out here, we’ve been going mad on it. I think that Deborah just had a few too many cherries over the last few days.”

I don’t know about you, but I had no idea there was some sort of fresh fruit crisis going on in New York in the 1970s. Anyway, after apologizing to the crowd, Burke was loudly booed and pelted with an object thrown by someone in the audience. As bottles and cans started to fly at the stage, Burke made a hasty exit while local Brisbane punk band The Survivors (known initially as Rat Salad, just like Van Halen) were begging show promoters to let them play. Some attendees started to leave while a group of five tried to get on stage and ended up throwing their fists at members of Blondie’s road crew. The fisticuffs continued backstage as crew members battled to eject the punchy fans, a few who were arrested by the police.

Meanwhile, other angry ex-Blondie fans somehow managed to remove a huge iron gate and iron bar from the premises and using their makeshift weapons to try to bust open the door. They were eventually able to hurl the iron bar over an opening at the top of the door, where it nearly landed on top of fans trying to leave what was pretty much a riot in progress. A riot attributed to an unnamed, unemployed twenty-year-old youth and three minors charged with willful destruction of property. The youngsters were tried in Children’s Court.
 

An article in the Telegraph describing the riot at Her Majesty’s Theater.
 
In a fantastic twist to this story, Australian writer and culture vulture Clinton Walker (author of many books, including the incredible biography on Bon Scott, Highway to Hell: the Life and Death of AC/DC Legend Bon Scott) literally had a front-row seat when the riot began and, according to Walker, his pal Bob Farrell (later of the band Laughing Clowns) was one of the kids who stormed the stage. In Walker’s account of the riot, cherries were perhaps not to blame for Harry’s illness, but instead the ingestion of potent Australian heroin. The acclaimed author admits it was a “scurrilous” thing to say, but confirms it to be very much a part of the mythology behind the cancelation of Blondie’s first gig in Brisbane. Walker was also at the poorly attended make-up show ten days later on December 18th at Her Majesty’s Theater, where the band concluded their set by smashing up their instruments. Nice.
 

Blondie live at CBGB’s in May of 1977.

A flier for the GBH/Accüsed show at Natasha’s in Bremerton on October 3rd, 1987.
 
The “riot” that went down on the Washington State Ferry M/V Kitsap on Saturday, October 3rd, 1987, made its way to the pages of The New York Times. The paper published a short report on the incident (via the Associated Press), detailing how fans of local Seattle band The Accüsed and British punks GBH went bananas with an ax and skateboards, destroying defenseless tables and chairs during a ferry ride back to Seattle. According to the article, when asked for his thoughts on the destruction at the hands of his fans on the M/V Kitsap, GBH vocalist Jimmy Wren responded he was “quietly proud” of what went down.

Before we get to the story itself, it is necessary to be aware of how the Teen Dance Ordinance (or TDO) passed in 1985 in Seattle contributed to the angst of young music fans during the years it governed the underage music scene. The passage of the TDO required club owners to obtain a $1 million liability insurance policy for any all-ages event. Another requirement was all underage events were to be staffed by two off-duty SPD officers, a sure-fire buzzkill at any party. Nearly every club was unable to take on the insurance policy, so underage shows in Seattle city limits became a rare occasion. Also important to note is the fact the TDO was a response to some very, very bad things happening to kids hanging out at underage clubs. Specifically The Monastery, a club/church run by George Freeman, an accused predator of Seattle’s homeless youth. When the TDO became law, Freeman referred to it as the “George Freeman Law.”

Four months after the TDO went into effect, the SPD showed up at an all-ages gig at Gorilla Gardens after receiving reports of fire code violations. The club was packed and waiting for the Circle Jerks to take the stage. The fire marshall cut the power at the club, and the crowd flipped out. As they poured outside into a freak Seattle snowstorm, they started hurling bricks and Molotov cocktails at the cops. So it’s safe to say underage music fans, especially the punks, were not feeling fond of Seattle during the days of TDO. When GBH and hometown heroes The Accüsed came to Washington during the Panic in the Casket Tour, they opted to play the gig at Natasha’s (aka Perl’s) in Bremerton, where clubs were not subjected to the rules of the TDO. And what could go wrong when 150 or so drunk punk rockers board the 1:50 am ferry for Seattle following the show along with two off-duty Seattle police officers?

Fucking everything.

According to several accounts, it all started with some sort of disagreeable conversation, which led to a female passenger to start stripping her clothes off on top of a table. One of the punks on board then decided to whip his dick out urinating in a planter or on a bench. The rowdiness does not go unnoticed, dicks out in public normally don’t, and a worker on the ferry grabbed the territorial pisser and pulled him into a large utility closet and closed the door. The mood of the crowd changed in an instant, and people started yelling at the ferry worker to release their friend. One punk got close enough to the door to get pepper-sprayed by the ferry worker inside. By now, some of the more level-headed passengers are calling for help to free their friend. The off-duty cops arrived, and then things went completely to shit. Some of the punks began to spit at the cops. The situation continued to escalate rapidly. When someone got the idea to break the glass protecting the fire ax in the wall with a skateboard, the cops retreated to the closet where their friend was locked up with the ferry worker. While inside with their guns drawn, a guy with an ax went full, “Here’s Johnny!” on the door, while others screamed, “KILL THE COPS!!!” KILL! KILL! KILL!”
 

Turn it up, man! It’s FERRY ROCK!
 
Forty-five minutes later, as the M/V Kitsap pulled into Seattle, the rioters had done about $40,000 worth of damage to the inside of the ferry, destroying tables, chairs, and parts of the asbestos-filled ceiling. Word spread through the ferry that as many as a dozen police cars were waiting for the boat to dock in Seattle, aware of the current situation on board. This sent some of the punks scrambling to hide in the trunks of cars to evade arrest.

Continues after the jump…

 
Mute Records have released a special deluxe edition of The Pop Group’s debut album Y seeing the iconoclastic album remastered and cut at half-speed at Abbey Road.

To mark the 40th anniversary of this groundbreaking 1979 album, there’s also a box set including the original album, “She Is Beyond Good and Evil” on 12” single and two additional albums Alien Blood—a 10-track album culled from the original 2” tapes of their studio sessions including studio recordings of “Kiss The Book” and “We Are Time (Ricochet)”—and Y Live, a compilation of live performances from shows in New York, London, Sheffield and Manchester. More information at the Mute website.

In the following essay, director Michael Calvert describes what it was like to make a short film with The Pop Group. You can download a special PDF booklet with stills from the 1979 shoot here.

The Ray of Sound

Closer in time to D-Day than the present day, The Pop Group film is, nevertheless, instantly recognisable as the modern world, which fortunately still exists today. It shows the world of bands, drum-kits, amplifiers on chairs, and singers holding microphones facing an audience in a non-hostile environment. Back then, all this was alternative culture, now it is the mainstream.

They had rented a Chapel—Hope Chapel on Hope Chapel Hill—which was disused at the time. It was in Hotwells, where ideas come from the earth, like the hot water which bubbles up from underground. It was the perfect location for the film we wanted to make, which was a ‘promo’ film for the band and their first single. Dick O’Dell had me on the lowest of low budgets. That was a good thing, as it prevented any form of cinematic excess. It was one camera, one lens, and a few lighting ideas stolen from classic Hammer horror. I had promised them that it would be nothing like Tony Bennett’s “Stranger in Paradise,” the first promo from 1952.

I drove down from London with Phil Reynolds, in a rented car with a load of rented gear in the back. We had both just graduated from LCP. Phil took the b&w photos shown here for the first time.

Cinematic discipline, the careful synchronisation of the film to the music track which was playing back on 1⁄4” tape, went out the window in the first five minutes. I was standing in the middle of the audience and things were happening in a different way. I realized the only way to shoot this was to go with it, just to look for good footage, good angles, good light, and hope it would fit together later on.

It was a good performance, and not just by the band. The audience, their friends and fellow travellers, all played their part, some in strange costumes. The lack of a stage meant that everyone was on the same level, so there was an atmosphere of a happening rather than a gig. It was a 60s thing mixed with a punk thing. We might have done four or five separate takes; they got increasingly abstract.

The fire scenes were set up across the river in the woods. They had built “Beyond Good + Evil” as letters supported by long staves. It was hard to get it all burning at the same time. The best part of that scene was when a few people took the staves and used them as torches, spinning them round. It was improvised.

About a week later, I set off for Bristol again, a couple of big tins of cutting copy under my arm. I had hired an editing suite down by Temple Meads.

This time I was staying on Simon’s sofa. He was programming me with the meandering Eric Dolphy, alternating with slabs of Ornette Coleman. The next afternoon, when I finally got to the cutting room, I had Eric Dolphy’s fingers. I cut and cut. People would drop in from time to time, to see what was taking shape.

When they left, I would cut and cut again. It became a mosaic of footage. It was more like making a stained glass window out of tiny coloured fragments.

This went on for a week or so. I eventually ran out of material to stitch into the seven minutes or so running time, so I took it back to the negative cutters, who translated my battered cutting copy - which I still have - into the master negative. Some of the shots are no more than six frames long: a 1⁄4 second.

Looking at the film again, what stands out, in comparison with most other work in this genre, is the lack of a fixed perspective. Every shot is from a different take or a different angle. The time-line is inconsistent, it meanders, it’s disorientating, it’s raucous.

But this is all as it should be; this is The Pop Group. It wasn’t planned like that, it just happened.

—Michael Calvert 2019

The Pop Group will be touring from the end of 2019 and throughout 2020 in support of the release.
 

“She is Beyond Good and Evil,” directed by Michael Calvert.
 

“The Boys from Brazil,” directed by Michael Calvert

A vintage business card for The Iguanas.
 
Iggy Pop was only sixteen years old when he became the drummer of teenage band The Iguanas in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Jimmy Osterberg starting playing the drums in his middle school marching band. His pal Jim McLaughlin was also in the marching band and would soon purchase his first guitar, while Jimmy would acquire a small drum kit. Jim’s parents, James Osterberg and Louella Christensen were so supportive of their son’s desire to play music that they vacated the master bedroom in the family’s small trailer home to make room for his kit. Later, Iggy and McLaughlin would form the band Megaton Two, named by Iggy because, in his words, he’s always been into “naming stuff.” Megaton Two would play their first “gig” at Tappan Middle School in Ann Arbor performing two songs, “Let There Be Drums,” a drum and surf guitar duel by Sandy Nelson (1961); and an original guitar jam written by both McLaughlin and Osterberg, which apparently electrified its youthful audience so much that Osterberg and McLaughlin suddenly became much more popular in school, especially with the girls. Which is pretty much why every guy starts a band in the first place, isn’t it?

In high school, Osterberg and McLaughlin would team up with three more aspiring musicians, guitarist Nick Kolokithas, bassist Don Swickerath, and sax player Sam Swisher. In the summer of 1965 the group would soon become one of the house bands at the drug and alcohol-free teen mecca Club Ponytail on Pleasantview Road in Harbor Springs. In its past life, The Ponytail (or as the kids called it “the Tail”), was once a speakeasy and casino inhabited by gangsters during prohibition, filled with fake walls, hidden tunnels and rooms in the event patrons needed to make a quick getaway.

The Iguanas made $55 a night opening shows for The Four Tops, The Guess Who, and the Shangri-Las. Not too shabby for a bunch of high school kids who were now the talk of the town in Harbor Springs, as was Iggy’s hand-made towering drum riser. The Iguanas would record a cover of Bo Diddley’s 1957 single “Mona,” releasing it on their own label, Forte Records. During their time together, they also recorded an original song written by Osterberg called “Again and Again.” Around this time, Iggy would get a job at Discount Records managed by Hugh “Jeep” Holland, the founder of the A-Square Record label in Ann Arbor. Holland was also the manager of The Iguanas’ high school rivals, The Rationals. It would be Holland who would first start calling Jimmy Osterberg “Iguana” while the two were working together at the store. Not so coincidentally, Discount Records was the frequent haunt of Ron and Scott Asheton, who both got to know Iggy while they were loitering outside the store. Here’s more from Iggy on his time at Discount Records:

“I got my name, my musical education, and my personality, all from working at a record store during my tender years. In the ’50s and ’60s, the teen kids used to gather after school at these places to listen free to the latest singles and see if they liked the beat.”

Not long after that magical summer in Harbor Springs, Iggy would start to push boundaries with his appearance. He let his hair grow long and then colored it platinum blonde. He got into trouble with the law and was no longer welcome at Club Ponytail. As 1965 came to an end, so did Osterberg’s timekeeping with The Iguanas, and he got with the Prime Movers where he would officially drop his original first name and adopt a new one—Iggy.

Continues after the jump…

The invitation for the ‘Nevermind’ record release party held at Re-bar in Seattle on September 13th, 1991.
 

“Nevermind Triskaidekaphobia, Here’s Nirvana. On Friday the 13th, join Nirvana and DGC Records for a release party in honor of Nirvana’s DGC debut album Nevermind. Edible food, drinks, prizes you might want to take home, a few surprises, people to meet, the band to greet… But nevermind all that, the important part is the music. Hear Nevermind in its entirety and loud.”

—the details for Nirvana’s album release party for Nevermind.

The first signal that things at Nirvana’s record release party for Nevermind might get out of hand was it was a strictly “beer only” event. To remedy this, Kurt Cobain’s pal Dylan Carlson of the band Earth snuck in a huge bottle of whiskey (allegedly Jim Beam) served it up covertly in a photo booth inside the infamous Seattle entertainment mecca/gay-friendly watering hole, Re-bar. Smuggling booze into a bar is a thing thrifty drunks do, but you also might be asking yourself why did it have to be smuggled into a bar hosting a party full of industry types from Geffen Records, local label Sub Pop and thirsty musicians? To explain this, we have to consider Seattle’s long, complicated history with hard liquor. Prior to the 1970s, it was illegal for people to drink whilst standing up, and women were not permitted to sit on bar stools.

Additionally, and until very recently, all sales of hard liquor were controlled by Washington State and obtaining a license to sell booze in clubs, restaurants, and other establishments was challenging. Getting a license to sell booze was even more difficult for venues that catered to lovers of “black” music or that was welcoming of gay people. The Washington State Liquor Board started watching Re-bar (a gay hotspot) microscopically, and would often roll into the club close to closing time to check up on Re-bar’s clientele and essentially harass patrons and employees.
 

A photo of Nirvana (apparently with former publicist Susie Tennent) taken inside the whiskey bar/photo booth at Re-bar.
 
In Everett True’s book Nirvana: The Biography, author and journalist Carrie Borzillo remembers she was told the reason Re-bar wasn’t able to serve liquor at the Nevermind record release was due to the venue also serving food (or the frightening promise of “edible food” as the invitation at the top of the post notes). Borzillo arrived at the party, and after surveying the food, spotted Cobain allegedly knocking back a fifth of Seagram’s straight out of the bottle. There were several kegs of beer but the free suds disappeared quickly. Sub Pop’s Bruce Pavitt was DJ’ing the party, and around the time the beer ran out, he had already spun Nevermind twice and twice was enough for Kurt, Krist, and Dave, who started feeding Pavitt requests to play new wave and disco hits. Naturally, Pavitt, a purveyor of good taste, complied. It wouldn’t be long before some of the edible food offered up at Re-bar starting flying, and Borzillo’s new dress was covered by onion dip.

The first food item that became a projectile was a tamale hurled by Krist Novoselic at Kurt and Dylan Carlson.

Since Nirvana was no newbie to food fights, Kurt whipped some guacamole back at Krist, though Nirvana fan club founder Nils Bernstein was certain (as noted in Nirvana: The Biography) Kurt actually threw Green Goddess dip at Krist, because these details are fucking important. Amid the flying food chaos, someone thought it would improve the party’s awesome anti-ambiance by rolling the tapped kegs around the bar. Steve Wells, the owner of Re-bar at the time collected the three knuckleheads who started the food fight, the guests of honor, and tossed the trio (as well as Bruce Pavitt) out on Howell Street, where they would proceed to puke, because it’s not really a night to remember until someone barfs.

Recently, Screaming Trees guitarist Gary Lee Connor shared his memories of the night recalling that after Nirvana got booted, he heard Krist egging on the people still inside their party through a barred open window, sarcastically “begging” to be let back in. Since this is Seattle in the magical year of 1991, Susie Tennant, the band’s publicist at the time, pulled up in a limousine and brought the band and a few friends back to her house to continue the festivities. Kurt slingshot eggs at her neighbor’s cars with Fastbacks vocalist, the always well dressed Kurt Bloch. Now that’s a fucking party. A few photos of the night Nirvana got kicked out of their own party because they knew how to party follow.
 

A photo taken at the Re-bar party by Jennifer Finch of L7.
 

Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic.
 

A thrilled looking Kurt Cobain at the Nevermind record release party. Photo by Charles Peterson.
 

Dylan Carlson (standing), Screaming Tree’s vocalist Mark Lanegan and Kurt playing dress up at Susie Tennant’s apartment. Photo credit.