South by South Bay Punk Festival makes a scene
by Gavin Heaney
The inaugural South by South Bay Festival brought music, film, poetry, panels, photography, literature and art together in an exciting expose of South Bay punk rock heritage. But most of all, it gathered the local community to celebrate and reminisce in its own legacy. The most obvious difference between SXSB and your typical music festival is that most of the attendees participated in the celebrated events of punk’s past.
Punk heroes mingled with old friends and fans, each recounting the events that became punk rock lore. It was like the high school reunion of The Breakfast Club, a regrouping of the misfit friends who made mischief and myths together. I felt like Harry Potter discovering my salty, old curmudgeon neighbors, mentors and teachers were actually the wizards and witches from the legends and the tales were all true.
Redd Kross twins Jeff and Steven McDonald, at Saint Rocke. They last performed in Hermosa Beach in 1982.
The fest kicked off Friday evening with a screening of Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story, and an unforgettable Q&A with Jeff and Steven McDonald, along with director Andrew Reich. Jeff and Steven are the sibling twins who formed the band Redd Kross in Hermosa Beach in 1982. The film chronicled their musical journey from kid punk band to teen pinups to Almost Famous rockstars. The brothers are funny and irresistible. Although their music is not precisely punk, they are unapologetically themselves, flying on their own frequency and that is the definition of being punk.
“Are you ready to have a rock n’ roll party tonight?! This is our first show back in Hermosa since 1982 and it’s good to be back,” gleamed the long haired white clad, white bass wielding Jeff Mcdonald after they banged out their formative beach blanket, California surf punk ode “Annette’s Got The Hits,” and glitter glam anthem “Switchblade Sister.”
The twin powerhouse performers are energized from a symbiotic source and their harmony is inherent. Redd Kross’s sound was, as described in their documentary, the perfect mix of “heaviness and happiness” — hard charging rock with giddy, good time vibes. The McDonald bros are fun loving freaks and like Spinal Tap they are miracles in their own mind and natural born rock stars, effortlessly embodying stardom despite never attaining elusive, household fame.
Saturday morning, festival folk gathered on Cypress Avenue for punk rock poetry and photography. Inside a cramped Studio Hermosa, punks read poetry from crumbled notes and transcripts, revealing a vast inner world of words. People jammed the small corridor, leaning on the painted walls, peering in the black lit room as a lone disco ball spun to the rhythm of the rhymes. It was like a beatnik speakeasy, with curator Exene Cervenka, singer from the band X, leading the gathering and contributing her own spoken words.
“The thing about poetry is you really have to work at it. You have to take that one line that’s good and work it, again and again until it’s great, and I just don’t want to do that.” she murmured humorously. The audience laughed as she indulged in readings from her “fragments,” including “It’s Going To Be Loud” which turned out to be her best stuff.
The silence between each word and her breath revealed the eternal:
It’s going to be big and loud. When the sky lights up violent with stars, when it all goes down, and you can live without the screaming on the screen, when the silence inside whispers to you, and yours is the only voice to listen to, the silence, it’s going to be loud.
Shockboxx Gallery showcased the snapshots triggered by the teenage shutterbugs who, perhaps unknowingly, captured the iconic moments that would become history. A monochrome montage of Kevin Salk’s iconic photography documented Black Flag’s formative era, the riot show at Polliwog Park and their spray paint splattered squatter studio at The Church. The work of Naomi Peterson was represented by her brother Chris Petersen who was on hand to celebrate his late sister’s beloved work. “Naomi really knew how to get the bands to relax so that she could get the real moments,” he said. “She could make even Henry Rollins unwind and laugh. She was sweet and funny and the bands adored her.”
Brent Broza, at Shockboxx Gallery, discusses his photography of Pennywise in small clubs and giant stadiums.
South Bay photo fixture Brent Broza also lent his images of massive Pennywise shows, catching the crescendo of the South Bay punk wave at its peak.
After midday, Saint Rocke reopened as a memorabilia pop-up shop selling vintage vinyls, ‘zines and tees as the panelists prepared their presentations. SXSB founder Larry Little introduced the panel on the business of booking, featuring moderator and Vans Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, and others who discussed the realities of independent bands, venues, touring and the live music scene’s future.
The second panel featured a pairing of hoodlums and heroes, ‘80s punks Keith Morris of Black Flag and The Circle Jerks, Janet Housden of Red Kross with ‘90s punks Jim Lindberg and Fletcher Dragge of Pennywise. Spirits flew high as they squabbled over retellings of stories like intergenerational relatives over-served at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
Old pals Fletcher Dragge and Jim Lindberg of Pennywise and Keith Morris of Black Flag and Circle Jerks share stories during a panel discussion at Saint Rocke on Saturday.
The closing talk was moderated by John Norwood, bassist from Fishbone and featured Don Bolles from The Germs and Mike Watt from The Minutemen, among others. Their discussion was so insider code it probably sounded like babble to most who aren’t hyper hip to the micro-music scene. Their panel spoke more to the “Hoodlums to Heroes theme,” than the previous, as Bolles reminisced, “If a venue dared to advertise the Germs or Black Flag playing, the cops would call them immediately, and shut them down. And later they gave us a plaque on Hollywood Boulevard, and they had the mayor come out. Weird how the times change. Cops like The Germs now, ‘cause we raised them.” he said.
South Bay’s punk could be seen as the strange brew of ‘60s South Bay bands The Doors and The Beach Boys — “Good Vibrations” and “Light My Fire.” The bands are born innocent, barely teenagers with baby faces. Yet there is a wolf within their midst, an anti-hero frontman, turning, whipping them into a frothing pack of instigators.
The Adolescents perform for an all ages show at the Moose Hall, in Redondo, on All ages and all in at The Moose with The Adolescents.
This heritage was handed down at the afternoon, all ages Adolescents show at The Redondo Beach Moose Lodge. Watching the teenagers moshing at the Moose was time travel back to my own teens when I was slam dancing in 10 hole Doc Martens, stage diving and floating effortlessly with the same cat-like reflexes. The teenagers seemed lightning fast for me now, impossibly young, and shockingly powerful. Adolescents singer Tony Reflex was like old Fagin, with scraggly long hair, inciting the youngsters who twisted and tumbled through the chaos, artfully dodging fists and elbows. Festival volunteer and high school math teacher Josh Friedrich was suitably tasked with managing the mosh pit full of his own students. “The organizer asked me to get in the pit and stand my ground so that they didn’t take out the sound guy. I’ve seen my students outside the classroom of course, but I’ve never been thrashed around in a mosh pit with them. That was definitely a first. It felt good seeing kids let loose the way we used to in high school, pushing the edge a little bit, but in a constructive way. I’ll never forget it.” he said.
Shockboxx Gallery drew a capacity crowd for its photography show.
Back at Saint Rocke, a Strawberry Fuzz sticker on the green room wall decrees – Fuck Manhattan Beach – and though I have certainly held the same sentiments at times, I wondered, who are Strawberry Fuzz and what’s their beef? The band’s singer Colby Rodgers, who is from Palos Verdes, gave me the details on the decal. “Manhattan is just so easy to hate. It’s the richest zone, it’s all doctors and lawyers and everyone has their freedom. Golf carts..You can’t smoke cigs… It sucks and everyone young hates it. It’s what War Called Peace sang about in “Yuppie Ghetto,” he said. Rodgers cutely and callously crusades the same shirtless sortie as Black Flag’s Henry Rollins and decries the tackiness of the upper class like Keith Morris in The Circle Jerks’ antagonistic anthem “Beverly Hills.” These frontline frontmen call out the status quo of those posh with power, confronting their quiet, comfortable conformity. In these days of cancel culture, most people are too cautious to be critical, too convenient to be controversial. It takes a bit of brazen bravado to be truly punk rock. The Fuzz, currently based in Venice Beach like The Doors before them, represent the new generation and in order to make room, they have to unseat the elite. It’s a right of punk passage to ruffle a few feathers along the way. This is the very essence of the punk rock movement and the band surely put their music where their mouth is.
Pennywise’s Jim Lindberg, Hermosa Chamber president Michelle Crispin, and X’s Exene Cervenka.
Their raw power performance blew up Saint Rocke like a cherry bomb.
“Strawberry Fuzz brought so much energy and stage presence, the crowd was going absolutely bananas.’ said SXSB’s Katie Henley. “It was one of the best performances I’ve seen in a long, long time.”
The festival ended at Hermosa Saloon where Latch Key Kid played a late night after party set rocking surfy garage hard rock originals and celebrating classic punk covers from Black Flag, Circle Jerks, The Descendants, Pennywise, The Stooges, T Rex and The Sex Pistols, bookending Don Bolles’ white wizard DJ set on Friday night with live performances of many of the same songs.
The SXSB crew and Strawberry Fuzz showed up and rocked on into the late night, celebrating and cementing the band bonds that are at the core of a music scene.
“Punk rock is still very much alive in Hermosa Beach and we intend to keep it that way,” said Henley. “I think it’s safe to say that South by South Bay will be an annual event, and we’re already planning for next year.” ER