theunderestimator-2
THE UNDERESTIMATOR
PUNK ROCK TIME CAPSULE
FOR A FUTURE GENERATION
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13-year old Winona Ryder (next to Allison Hart, another young actress of the mid-'80s) sporting a Clash t-shirt during her first movie audition back in 1984. According to the Reddit thread this was found on, the movie was Desert Bloom and she didn’t get the role but her audition tape made its way to an agency which led her to be cast in her first film Lucas.
Ryder has explained how she was considered 'different' during her high school years, when she used to sport a boy-ish short haircut and dress in menswear -which actually resulted in her getting horribly harassed and bullied at school: "…people thought I was a boy. At the time, I was obsessed with Bugsy Malone but also very into the Clash and the Replacements. I believe my friend cut my hair, and I remember reading somewhere that if you mixed beer and egg whites and put it in your hair, you could get it spiky like that."
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Crime lords: Frankie Fix (centre) and Johnny Strike (right), founding members of Crime, "SF's First and Only Rock 'N' Roll Band' along with Ricky Williams (left), original singer for The Sleepers -and former Crime drummer- as captured by James Stark at the first Sleepers show at the Mabuhay Gardens, December 25, 1977.
According the Sleepers' bio:
"The Sleepers formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1978. Michael Belfer had been trying to form a band with his friend, Tim Mooney, and Belfer had decided he wanted former Crime drummer Ricky Williams for vocals, as "he was so awesome looking". The band released a five-track 7-inch EP in late 1978, and then broke up, with Belfer playing in Tuxedomoon and Williams co-founding Flipper, from which he was fired before the band made any recordings 'for being too weird'."
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#Ricky Williams#Frankie Fix#Johnny Strike#Crime#1977#early punk scene#punk#san francisco#mabuhay gardens#the sleepers#people
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Siouxsie dancing during a gig with The Banshees at De Montfort Hall, Leicester, in 1980, as captured by Mike “Dawkeye” Dawkins.
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The Raincoats as photographed by Janette Beckman for Rough Trade records while rehearsing in London for their 1979 debut album. As the photographer recalls: "...I went to shoot them at their rehearsal space, but if you look at that picture, you can see that it's a toilet. They were literally in the bathroom practicing. It's just so punk and the place is kind of a wreck."
Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the group in 1977 after seeing the Slits perform. As Birch stated in an interview, "It was as if suddenly I was given permission. It never occurred to me that I could be in a band. Girls didn’t do that. But when I saw The Slits doing it, I thought, ‘This is me. This is mine.’ Palmolive, the Slits' ex-drummer at the time, actually joined them in '78, performing with the line-up that played live and recorded the debut album.
A weird fact for this all-girl band that was influential for so many female artists, is that it actually took a guy to help younger generations re-appreciate them and that's why the Raincoats somehow always seem to be mentioned along with Curt Cobain, since his enthusiasm for their music brought them back from obscurity in the '90s after citing them as one of his favourite bands and writing the liner notes for the reissues of their albums.
If you ask me, I think ol' Johnny Rotten was spot on when he said that: "The Raincoats offered a completely different way of doing things, as did X-Ray Spex and all the books about punk have failed to realise that these women were involved for no other reason than that they were good and original".
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The Pagans (Tim Allee, Mike Hudson, Mike Metoff & Brian Hudson) on the edge at the legendary Independence Day party on July 4th 1978 at Peter Ball’s family mansion, Bratenhal, Cleveland, which also included The Cramps and Pere Ubu, as captured by Randy Meggitt.
The bands performed on a concrete ledge built into a cliff face overlooking Lake Erie and the audience, various hippies and members of Cleveland’s underground scene, watched from the lakeside 15 feet below, while others were twisting on boats and yachts moored in the lake, later on enjoying the 4th of July fireworks.
The mighty Pagans started out as a Rolling Stones cover band became a punk powerhouse led by the formidable Mike Hudson, releasing four 45's between '77 and '79 that still influence punks.
"Mike Hudson could be a piece of shit. He could be the coolest guy you ever met. He could be the guy you wanted to be. He could sucker you out of your last nickel. He could laugh so hard he would throw up and his dental plate would ride the puke stream like the best California surfer. He could make you wanna kick his cocky drunk ass. I was lucky to know that fucker for 40 years”.
Scott "Cheese" Borger, clepunk veteran.
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Johnny Rotten in Teddy Boy quiff & attire with a studded leather dog collar around his neck as a splash of punk attitude in 1977 (since he's wearing the same clothes as in the Sex Pistols photo session by Adrian Boot at the Glitterbest offices in Oxford Str. in 1977).
According to Omega Auctions which sold this photograph for £750 in 2023, it originally belonged to Helen of Troy of the Sex Pistols entourage:
"...this photograph originally belonged to Helen Wellington-Lloyd. This was Helen Wellington-Lloyd’s favourite photograph of Johnny Rotten and was the only photograph of the Sex Pistols she had framed in her living room in her flat in West Hampstead where she lived until 1999."
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#johnny rotten#helene of troy#sex pistols#hellen wellington llioyd#1977#earl punk scene#teddy boy#punk#punk rock#people
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Writer/photographer/performer/club promoter and legend of New York's art & club circuits Gerry Visco, here shot by her friend, DJ & photographer Bobby Busnach in a SEX Cowboys t-shirt and leather miniskirt at the Park Royal, NYC, back in 1976.
According to Paul Gorman 's source post on his site:
"…We lived at The Park Royal,” says Visco, who later appeared in Woody Allen’s 1980 movie Stardust Memories. “It didn’t have a cool scene. It was a residential hotel in a neighborhood on the Upper West Side which at the time was considered somewhat dangerous, a la Panic In Needle Park, but we lived across from The Dakota, where we often caught glimpses of people like John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Mia Farrow, Lauren Bacall, Roberta Flack and other celebrities.”
From the turn of the 70s Busnach and Visco socialised in Boston and Manhattan as prominent figures in the gay disco and post-glam/pre-punk crowds. Meantime Busnach’s experiences as a DJ placed him dead centre of the scene out of which hip-hop grew.
Visco attended New York’s Fashion Institute Of Technology and wore her own designs. She also sourced clothes from such labels as Fiorucci, Charles Jourdan and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s SEX, which was sold through Ian’s at East 61st Street and Second Avenue.
“Keep in mind that I am an UPTOWN BITCH – always have been and always will be!”exclaims Visco. “Downtown is for POSERS. Ha ha. The Ian’s on the UES was really good – the owner was always there and I bought some great stuff. I also worked in Macy’s briefly in the early 1980s in the cosmetics buying office.
“As well as Ian’s I bought a lot of my clothes in vintage shops and at Henri Bendel’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf Goodman,” adds Visco, who also visited the UK where she bought McLaren/Westwood designs direct at 430 King’s Road…"
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Joe Strummer in his post-Clash days, hanging with Matt Dillon at the Tin Pan Alley bar in NYC, as captured by Bob Gruen ca. 1987.
Photo no.1: Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.
Photo no.2: Hey, Joe!
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I was sayin let me spin that record before I was
even born -it's such a gamble when you get a face:
Richard Hell DJing at the Mudd Club, NYC, ca. 1980/81.
"…The Mudd Club was simply impenetrable. Our South Street gang had all gone there from the moment it opened. We caught the initial outings of ex-Television-guitarist Richard Lloyd as well as the Feelies, in their revved-up, Velvets-infected majesty, and readings from William Burroughs, sitting behind his grey metal office desk. The DJ one night would be Cookie Mueller, the next night James Chance, the next night Richard Hell.
…Traipsing back and forth between Tier 3 and the Mudd Club, sometimes multiple times a night, became a ritual for all of us no wave boys and girls. The rout from White Street to West Broadway –with a break at Dave’s Luncheonette once in a while- could be as social as the gigs themselves. Club hoppers would compare notes with those heading in the opposite direction, gleaning how dead or alive each spot was…”
'Sonic Life: A Memoir' by Thurston Moore.
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“Oh, to be young. To still be one's own hero.” (David Guterson):
the late Marilyn Dean & Kathy Valentine, drummer & guitarist of The Violators, Austin's 1st (?) punk band, here at Randy's Rodeo for The Sex Pistols show in San Antonio on Jan. 8, 1978, as captured by Tom McMahon.
austinchronicle.com/ :"When The Violators and the Skunks invade Raul's, fourteen days after the Sex Pistols break up and mainstream media declares punk dead, Austin's scene begins at a Tejano bar…", [before a crowd of no more than maybe 50 or 60, since a 100 was a big crowd at Raul's at those first shows.]
"The Violators were very young kids," says [The Skunks'] Blackmon. "Marilyn was like 16, Kathy was 16, Carla was probably 21. Jesse was probably the best musician in that band, off the top of my head. Carla was good. They were just kids playing fast English punk music. Those were our influences at that time."
"It was mainly people who didn't seem to know what to make of cute girls playing guitars and drums," remembers Valentine. "More than the music, it was the fact that we were female that they had no reference for. The only females in Austin doing this played fiddle – Marcia Ball was the only real musician in a band. Everybody else played fiddle or sang or were folk people."
"…More than anything, it was the shock of the new. The Violators were mostly young, attractive women playing loud, fast, Sex Pistols-meets-Ramones punk. And they were doing this in a Tejano bar on the Drag, in a town musically ruled by Cosmic Cowboys and white bluesmen. Everything was changing. You either changed with it, or you opposed it. There was no room for the lukewarm…."
Marilyn & Kathy met in high school & quickly became best friends, the teen kind that does everything together: as Kathy Valentine recalls, they started bands, went to clubs, met boys and dreamt of big things in life, even moved out to LA together in 1978 but as it so often happens in life, they drifted apart after a falling out. Kathy later went on to play bass in The Go-Go's and sadly Marylin Dean passed away in recent years.
Photo & info via Tim Stegall's 'Austin Punk Chronicles' at austinchronicle.com.
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#kathy valentine#marilyn dean#the violators#early punk scene#1978#austin#texas punk#sex pistols#punk#punk rock#the go go's#raul's#randy's rodeo#san antonio#people
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Disclaimer: The Underestimator is not responsible for damages that may result from playing this mixtape, especially noise complaints from neighbours or finding yourself lost in music.
The Underestimator Mixtapes - Post Punk Dancefloor
Two hours of mostly-'80s post punk, new wave & funk/disco/jazz-related sounds guaranteed to spin you round like a record.
Available for online streaming on Mixcloud or Spotify:
https://www.mixcloud.com/the-underestimator/the-underestimator-mixtapes-post-punk-dancefloor/
or
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5R4BxxRTTcvlmtFhzZpOF9?si=8fe6882b52224fa5
Download as separate mp3 tracks in a zip file on Mediafire or Mega:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/en6l3od3e3mci8x/THE+UNDERESTIMATOR+MIXTAPES+-+POST+PUNK+DANCEFLOOR.zip/file
[Don’t be alarmed if you are denied access: In case you get the error message “Permission Denied” prompting you to download a copyrighted song via Amazon or sth, you should be aware that this is a Mediafire trick to discourage you from downloading when the uploaded file includes copyrighted material, so they can appear legit in the eyes of the copyright holders. If you close the tab and try a couple of times or more, the link will eventually appear (don’t refresh the mediafire page, it doesn’t work that way, just open the link from the underestimator post to a new tab, then close it and re-open it in a new tab a couple of times or more).]
or
https://mega.nz/file/PuwCSBwJ#m4Ywwi9aRyvsiYZhIPB7YQBaUFrYYl_yJ4CSwFd46X8
Download some more playlists posted on The Underestimator Mixtapes series, here.
Lost In Music (Sister Sledge cover) – The Fall (1993)
Adolescent Sex – Japan (1978)
Heart Of Song – Josef K (1981)
Do The Du (Casse) – A Certain Ratio (1980)
We Got Soul - Big Boys (1982)
Shoot You Down – APB (1981)
Tear You Apart – She Wants Revenge (2005)
OBCT –Sleaford Mods (2020)
Heart & Soul - Joy Division (1980)
Optimo – Liquid Liquid (1983)
Same Beat – Marine (1982)
(secret track)
UFO – ESG (1981)
Wipeout Beat – Alan Vega (1983)
Nerve – Shriekback (1984)
Funky Stuff (Kool & The Gang cover) – Lizzy Mercier Descloux (1982)
The Comb – The Waitresses (1978)
You Fascinate Me – The Offs (1980)
Crosseyed & Painless – Talking Heads (1980)
Overpowered By Funk – The Clash (1982)
Black Arabs – Black Arabs (1979)
You’Re My Kind Of Climate – Rig Rig & Panic (1982)
Black Leather - Nightmares In Wax (1985)
Love Song – Simple Minds (1981)
Bostich – Yello (1981)
Der Mussolini – DAF (1981)
Some Aspects – Chain Of Command (1983)
The Night Watch – The Bellewether Syndicate (2012)
50:50 – Sad Lovers & Giants (1984)
I Found That Essence Rare – Gang Of Four (1979)
Super – NEU! (1973)
(Cover photo: dancing in the early-'80s at Duke’s in Austin, Texas, by Ben Desoto).
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A young greek punk arrested in Athens back in September 1984 during one of the infamous police raids known as “Operation Virtue”, when police forces raided various public and private hangouts in the center of Athens targeting anyone suspected as anti-authoritarian, anarchist or any individual deemed dangerous to public safety during the mid-'80s, which were the glorious days of the Athenian punk scene.
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#punk#early punk scene#punk rock#greek punk#greek punk scene#athens#1984#operation virtue#police raids#anti-authoritarian#anarchists#people
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Sally Norvell singing "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" on her punk stage debut as captured by Will Van Overbook back in 1978 in Austin, Texas, with Cold Sweat, a band that led to the Norvells.
Sally Norvell is an actor, director, writer and producer and most Wim Wenders fans may remember her appearance in "Paris, Texas" (1984) as 'Nurse Bibs' on a rubber horse behind the mirror of the peep show but her curriculum vitae also lists her as a frontwoaman who was central to Austin's punk history right from its inception. Having been one of the early punk rebels that attended the San Antonio show of the Sex Pistols (a game-changing moment for Austin's scene which basically sparked out of conversations between future pioneers in cars heading back to Austin from Randy's Rodeo in the wee hours of Jan. 9, 1978) and also having one of the best female punk voices according to the revered historian of Austin's music scene Margaret Moser, she fronted various bands who all shared members and gigs as an entwined entity, starting with Cold Sweat -who actually opened for The Huns during the notorious Raul's gig that turned into a riot after their singer Phil Tolstead kissed a cop on the lips-as well as The Violators, if I'm not mistaken, and followed by Motor Men, The Gator Family and The Norvells.
An important musical figure in her own right by this point, she spent the '80s leading the revisionist-swing combo Prohibition (also featuring members of Scratch Acid, Poison 13, and Glass Eye) and the '90s in the Congo Norvell, a long-lived partnership with Kid Congo Powers.
(via, via, via, via, via, via, via, via & via)
#sally norvell#the norvells#austin#early punk scene#punk#punk rock#1978#cosld sweat#the gator family#motor men#prohibition#congo norvell#kid congo powers#paris teas#wim wenders
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How a non-musician evolved into the 'Godfather of ambient music': teenage Brian Eno, here captured during his formative years while attending Roy Ascott’s influential and experimental ‘Groundcourse’ at Ipswich School Of Art back in 1968.
Today a highly acclaimed teacher, theorist and pioneer of new media, Ascott named his foundation studies program Groundcourse (learning from the ground up) and focused on the eradication of preconceived ideas through disorientation and various challenging and confusing practices designed to disrupt creative preconceptions and embrace this idea you are not a fixed thing, you can change things about yourself, you can see what it is like to be somebody else, through social experiments in class or personality exercises, so that students would express the process they had been through artistically.
thequietus.com/: "...Eno laughed as he explained how this next stage was the crux of the game.
"We had to design exactly the opposite person and live that person for the next 10 weeks. So, in my case, I wasn’t allowed to talk unless spoken to because I was always a chatterbox. I wasn’t allowed to initiate anything; I just had to do what other people asked me to do, so I had to execute other people’s plans. I was very physically energetic, and I had to sit on a trolley so that if I wanted to go anywhere, I had to persuade someone to push me. So, for 10 weeks I was another person, and so was everybody else, and yet we were trying to do these new projects together. The meekest person had to be the leader of the group, the direct opposite."
Ascott defined the ideas that developed, through disorientated projects, as being quite radical and challenging artistic preconceptions.
"They had boards which they folded in different combinations that would result in going to the next level, or not, then if you didn’t win you wore some enormous thing over your head. There were two stories that came out of it: Eno had to go around with a paper bag over his head because he couldn’t see for a period and Townsend was in a trolley for a few days. Basically, they would build quite large things that you would go into with lights, all kinds of stuff, but on quite an environmental scale. We gave them about six weeks for that.
You can imagine the scene within the art studios as the future destructive Who guitarist is pushed around by fellow students and the creator of Ambient music is quietened, redefining their natural impulses supported their development of cultural impactful work. Conceptual development through closely exploring personality interference into artistic creativity, supported a widening of some student’s minds, unpacking the creative processes of art forms."
Eno pondered the impact, saying he was a non-musician who entered the field through an alternative direction to traditional music training:
”So, I didn’t come into music from that route; I came into music from the route of thinking how do I make music happen, given that I can’t do the things that people normally do to make music happen. I very much took that notion that Roy had given, of creating scores actually. Activity maps, as it were, ways of getting to something.”
(via & via)
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Synth-punk legends The Screamers as shot by Richard Alden Peterson in late-'70s San Francisco: whispers of an early punk band that intimidated audiences, dominated stages wherever they performed and packed the hottest punk venues of their time, though “…they never released a record, and disappeared into yellowing fanzine pages, decaying handbills and old VHS copies…" as Jon Savage once said, here as captured in an amazing cinematic photo with Tomata du Plenty in the shadows and so much happening on the front and on the back of the photo that it's impossible for the viewer to not be able to make up some sort of backstory in their mind.
The Screamers, one of LA’s mightiest and most influential early punk bands, still remain one of those unsolved mysterious punk cases: way ahead of its time and having no need for guitars. they released their fury through keyboards and manic art performances, packed the hottest LA clubs of their time, such as the Masque, the Whisky and the Roxy but though on the verge of major success, never released any of their stuff, so only demos can be found, other than fond memories of those who were lucky enough to catch them live.
"Type 'the Screamers' into the search option", said Jon Savage about the band on YouTube, "and you'll find an array of live and studio footage, including 122 Hours of Fear. The total hits for the clips add up to more than 100,000, which is probably 95,000 people more than ever saw or heard the group throughout their career."
If that was the case in 2010 when this was written in The Guardian, today it should be updated into “around a 1.000.000 people more than ever saw or heard the group throughout their career".
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#the screamers#synth punk#electro punk#early punk scene#punk#punk rock#late 70s#san francisco#people
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"See you later, Joe…": On this day, Dec. 30th, 2002, the Punk Rock Warlord Joe Strummer’s funeral was held in private at West London Crematorium where he was cremated (from a Los Angeles Times clipping dated January 1, 2003).
The funeral was held on a dark and grey Monday with rain belting down in bucketfuls and the service was attended by his widow Lucinda and two daughters, the rest of the Clash, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon, Chrissie Hynde and Jeannette Lee (formerly of PIL, then co-managing director of Rough Trade), Jim Jarmusch, Bob Gruen, Rat Scabies, Pearl Harbour, Joe Ely, Don Letts, the Clash road manager Johnny Greene, some more close friends and relatives, according to Chris Salewicz, who wrote 'Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer'.
He remembers that he heard about Joe’s death after Don Letts called him and when he called up Mick Jones, who in between sobs was his usual funny self, he told him
"… how glad he was he’d played with Joe at the benefit for the Fire Brigades Union five weeks before.
-‘I don’t even know what religion he was,’ Mick said.
-‘Some kind of Scottish low-church Presbyterian, I imagine,’ I suggested.
-‘Church of Beer, probably,’ laughed Mick, tearfully.
"…Joe’s coffin slowly comes in, held aloft by half a dozen pallbearers. It is placed down at the far end of the chapel. Keith Allen, the actor and comedian, steps forward and positions a cowboy hat on top of it. There’s a big sticker on the nearest end: ‘Question Authority’, it reads, then in smaller letters: ‘Ask Me Anything’. Next to it is a smaller sticker: ‘Vinyl Rules’. On the sides of the coffin are more messages: ‘Get In, Hold On, Sit Down, Shut Up’ and ‘Musicians Can’t Dance’. Around the end wall of the chapel are flags of all nations. More people are ushered in, like the kids Joe would make sure got through the stage-door at Clash gigs, until the place is crammed.
…‘Wandering Star’ [by Lee Marvin] begins to play. ‘See you later, Joe,’ someone says. Yeah, see you later, Joe…"
(from Chris Salewicz's 'Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer'.)
Soundtrack of the day: ‘Wandering Star’ - Lee Marvin (1969)
"When I get to heaven, tie me to a tree/
Or I'll begin to roam, and soon you know where I will be/
I was born under a wandrin' star/
A wandrin' wandrin' star…"
A detailed rundown of Joe's funeral from Chris Salewicz's book: https://www.litres.ru/book/chris-salewicz/redemption-song-the-definitive-biography-of-joe-strummer-39768017/chitat-onlayn/
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Baxter Dury as a 5-year-old alongside his dad Ian Dury in a '77 shot by Chris Gabrin taken near their house in front of the Axford Clothing store in Vauxhall, London, and used for the cover of Ian Dury's debut album 'New Boots and Panties!!' and again in 2023 as captured by Pål Hansen and edited in a 2001 reworking of the original photo by Sir Peter Blake.
Baxter Dury: "There’s a fair bit of mythology generated around the shot because Dad was a bullshitter, and consequently so am I, but the recollection I have of that day is that he said: “I’m getting my picture taken. Come along with me.” Being bored, I went. I walked into the shot and said: “Can we go now?” There were four frames taken, and he decided it would become the album cover. That was that.
We would have been pretty impoverished at the time. Dad made no money from music at this point (...) I have amazing memories of my childhood, but we were on the breadline. Dad lived in London, near the Oval, in a council flat that didn’t have a toilet, so you had to use a local bar. He used to cut my hair back then. But after New Boots and Panties!! came out, there was a boom period when all the royalties came in and we behaved like there was an endless stream of money. Dad devoured the cash and at one point he lived in the Montcalm hotel. Jemima and I would get dropped off at the entrance and the concierge would freak out at the unwashed, feral kids running through their premises. We’d end up ordering loads of club sandwiches in Dad’s room. It was pure decadence.
...I was mostly brought up by my mum who was artistic but gentle and conventional. She wasn’t in a pot-smoking fraternity like Dad was. He got up at 12 in the afternoon; she got up at a normal hour. But when I was about 13 I moved in with Dad. He was in a chaotic state of mind, one career had drawn to a halt, and he wasn’t in the healthiest state. I exploited that to do what I wanted.
...My son and I now live in the flat Dad bought in west London. When we moved in, our neighbours, who’ve been there for decades, were like: “Oh my God, no! They’re returning!” I was like: “No, wait! We’re different!”
theguardian.com/
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