Barred for Life

IF IT STANDS TOO LONG IT IS EVIL...

2010-02-28T20:48:00.006-05:00

...KNOCK IT DOWN...

Today was a long anticipated interview with a famous photographer that took many of the most iconic images of Black Flag during their heyday in the early 1980's. I don't want to go to in detail about the event but I must admit that it was one of the most mind-blowing of the interviews for Barred For Life thus far. Not only did this photographer, an icon himself, open up and offer his opinions, but there was so much wisdom in what he said that it was just, well, inspiring..!

So frequently we take things for granted. We take our "things" for granted, our friendships for granted, our projects for granted, and, most of all, we take what we know for granted. Since beginning the Barred For Life project I must admit that I thought that I knew a lot about my subject. I thought, for instance, that there were a lot of people out there with The Bars tattooed on themselves, and that they would offer enlightening information about why they got it, and offer their side of the story as to why bands like Black Flag inadvertently change lives, and I got received that. While the information is stimulating, and the subjects interesting, few of us really get the "dedication" that was necessary to keep a band like Black Flag floating during its most difficult times, and so when a subject comes along that just exudes this dedication it becomes necessary to rethink the word dedication. Probably, and definitely in my case, it has been taken for granted.

More than anything, dedication means going without (more often than not). It means doing without expecting (frequently). And, it means that there is no clear definition of what you will encounter, and/or what you will gain by doing, but you do it anyway because you believe in it.

For religious practitioners this is referred to as faith. For Punk Rockers it is just the way that it is, will be, and always has been.

And so this interview was wrought with insight into doing stuff "in the moment" without any realistic idea of what could be expected on the other side. In fact, there was no other side. If Punk Rock in the 80's could have seen itself lasting into the 2000's, well, it probably would have done some things differently, but it didn't. What we have now (or at least what we are able to glean from it now) is that there was no gold at the end of the rainbow. There was nothing to hope for except to keep moving in the moment. There were goals but in a world where you carve out your own version of "goal," what are you achieving anyway...?

Personally, before I found Punk Rock I didn't know what the fuck I was gonna do with my life. Funny how my life has come full circle in the last 25 years, but at least I had been tempered as a teen not to expect anything and go for the gold anyway. For me a "goal" was simply to make it to a place where I could plan my next leap for just long enough to catch my breath. Then I would jump in again, find a rock in the storm, reorient myself, and then jump back in the water. This is the way that I finished college. It is the way that I got myself into graduate school. It is the way that I approached my first real job as a teacher. And, now, it is the way that I am approaching Barred For Life.

Sometimes it seems like I am the only one out there. I don't always know who to turn to for advice. There are times when I have no money but have to drive or fly somewhere to interview somebody, and I find it somewhere just so that I can make it to the next interview. In doing so I've had a tendency to build up a huge insecurity because I can look at the faces of friends and family and see that they think that I am making a huge mistake by pursuing this project, but sometimes you just need to employ something that looks like faith in order to get to the other side, to catch your breath, and then move on to another project. It doesn't look linear. It doesn't look logicial. It doesn't seem to have an end, but you know that it does.

Anyway, that is what I was thinking about while interviewing this person today. His stories about being so inspired that he "had to do whatever he could to promote this thing," and how he "never thought that 30 years later we would be looking back to those times for inspiration," but somehow there we all were (looking like a professional interview was taking place) talking about why we are all doing the things that we are doing, and how it all goes back to those times. It was pretty amazing.

In the middle of the interview somewhere our subject brought up in passing an television interview with Chuck Dukowski. The set up is this: Black Flag was probably at the peak of their popularity. Their shows were getting busted by the LAPD before they even had a chance to play. Their fans were being threatened and beat up by the LAPD for doing nothing but coming to see their favorite band play. Shit was a mess but Black Flag just kept on booking shows and getting a lot of attention (most of it bad). And just when things seemed dire, Chuck appeared on a Los Angeles talk show and eloquently explained to the host that the problems of the world are with conservatism. Things, some of them very bad, become institutions and we don't question them. We just let them go because it is easier to let things go than to challenge them. And by not challenging them we are not doing a service to "creating change in the world," but are submitting to things that we know are wrong (in essence that is what is being said).

So, in the middle of his band, Black Flag, being given a bad, bad, bad wrap by everybody in LA, instead of kowtowing and asking for forgiveness Chuck essentially says that the problem isn't with Punk Rockers (because they are doing the right thing), but is with people who let bad things happen and don't challenge it. I think (to paraphrase) that,

IF SOMETHING STANDS TOO LONG KNOCK IT DOWN. IT IS EVIL.

Now, that is dedication. I, personally, would not have had the balls to say anything like that if my band (or my life) was being watched carefully by the Police. Yeah, that is dedication.

look for the Black Flag reference...

A PROJECT FOR YOU ROLLINS FANS OUT THERE...

2010-02-22T22:52:00.005-05:00

LIFE GETS IN THE WAY SOMETIMES. SORRY.

My new favorite Black Flag tattoo

Maybe you have have wondered why i have been delinquent in posting to the blog (?), and you may be justified in your question. So I guess that I owe you an explanation. Here goes.

I am sure that many of you have been in bands, and that your bands have set off for a lengthy tour. While the tour is on the tour is FUCKING ON. However, when you get home the reality sets in that you are no longer on tour, and that you must settle back down from whence you came, and get your life back on track.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the process of reuniting with my real life took me from couch to couch, and from home to home, until I finally said enough is enough. Now settling back into my life in Philadelphia, maybe I will be able to kick out some more interesting thoughts on the topic of Punk Rock, of its evolution, of how its principals have invaded the popular culture not so much as novelty but as good solutions to persistent problems, and how weird it is for me to hear Punk Rock-ish songs played on the radio. So, yeah, sorry. Lift got out of control there for a minute.

WELL, ANYWAYS...

THE HENRY ROLLINS APPRECIATION PROJECT

Angela Bennett

Those of you that know me, or if you met me in person on tour, know that I am not the biggest Rollins fan in this world. But, and this is a big caveat of mine, his tenure in Black Flag was undeniably the most profound of all four Black Flag front men. While not my favorite voice, the Rollins version of Black Flag still rings to me as EPIC.

Apparently I am outnumbered, and I am happy to be just that. We don't all think alike in this world, and so for those of you that think that I am lame for thinking that Ron Reyes (aka Chavo Pederast) was the best of the Black Flag frontmen, well, here is your opportunity to get your cut in.

A few weeks ago a talented Canadian writer, Ms. Angela Bennett, contacted me about her project, which includes people contributing their stories of what Henry has done for the cultural underground while in Black Flag, and now as a popular culture talent. When I say "people contributing," I mean, YOU. Read the statement below, and if you feel compelled to reach out to her, then, well, I encourage you to do so quickly.

Like Barred For Life, the Rollins Project demands outside input. The story of Rollins, or of Black Flag is not something that a person can just write because acts and individuals like these are way more a personal thing than a public thing, and so this is your opportunity to have your say.
________________________________________
________________________________________

Project of Love From the Fans of Henry Rollins

Thanks to Hank

WANTED: Personal stories from the fans, a.k.a, ‘fanatics’, of Henry Rollins. If Henry Rollins has moved you, inspired you to reach higher, helped you in some way, or just makes your life better by way of knowing he is out there, living art and inspiration, and you are willing to share your story in a future publication of Fanatic Stories of Thanks to Hank, please send your story!

The target goal is to complete the project by February of 2011, Henry’s 50th birthday. All potential proceeds will go to the charity of Henry’s choice.

Fanatic and novice writer, Angela Bennett, commented on the project, “Henry has made such a profound contribution to the lives of many thousands, perhaps even millions of people around the world. He is an inspiration to so many people regardless of age, race, or socioeconomic class. This is an opportunity for fanatics to share their stories with, and thank Henry.”

During the first month of this project, fans and media are responding from across the world; from 15 year olds to 50 year olds, from the U.S. to Australia. It’s one thing to be a fan of a band, or an actor, but often it’s about more than that when it comes to Henry. Henry moves people, he is a catalyst in people’s lives. There’s a quote from The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, by Lewis Hyde, that captures Henry well, “…the gift we long for, the gift that, when it comes, speaks commandingly to the soul and irresistibly moves us."

People can contact Angela Bennett with stories, or artwork, at bennettangela@rogers.com, through the Facebook Group, Henry Rollins – Thanks to Hank Project, or http://open.salon.com/blog/angelalala. Angela does not work for, or represent Henry Rollins, other than being one of many grateful fanatics in the global neighbourhood.

MORE ABOUT THE TRAVELERS AND CREW

2010-02-04T14:39:00.012-05:00

MAKING (SH)IT HAPPEN

THE BOOK CREW

If you came to any of the photoshoots while we were on our tour you might remember some faces, some strange, uncomfortable situations, or possibly you became friends with one of us. However, unless you are one of the crew then I don't believe that it is possible to have met us all, and so allow me to do some introductions.

Without this group of dedicated individuals this project, and the tour that allowed us to harvest all of the photos, interviews, and the experiences would not have been possible. While I was able to do a lot of the nuts-and-bolts stuff on my own, let's face it, nobody has all of the skills necessary to put together tours, books, graphics, blogs, and all of that other stuff all at one time. While I am multi-talented, I am not anywhere close to being good at all of the things that I can do, and that is where everybody else comes in. And not only that, I managed to surround myself with a group of people that really know the insides-and-outsides of Punk Rock at many different levels, and that provided me perspective.

Possibly the biggest problem that I have encountered over the past three years that the Barred For Life project has been active is that I have a tendency to approach the topic from a "back in the day" sort of way. So, when I was placed for 7-days in a car with Noe, for instance, I was quickly schooled that there IS an active Punk underground. While it doesn't look exactly like it did when I felt that it was relevant to me, IT DOES EXIST, and these sorts of revelations gave me a new perspective on the information I was gathering.

So, with this in mind, let me introduce you to the cast of characters; me included.

Stewart Dean Ebersole

I am Stewart. About three or four years ago I walked into my friend's tattoo shop in Westerville, Ohio, and that is where the project found its roots. Five of us sat there on that rainy day, and all of us had The Bars tattooed on us, and some had better bars than others. But I'll be damned if the stories that we related to one another about this "cult" tattoo weren't amazing. Naomi, the owner of the shop informed me that the numbers of people coming into her shop requesting the tattoo was on the rise, and about a year later I was working out the plan that would become the book Barred For Life that you should be reading in about a year.

When I am not spending my savings on touring the world to take pictures of you, and interview you, I am just working on the book; writing, researching, communicating with other poeople, an just trying to gain more and more perspective. I have a birthday in a few weeks, and I will be 43. I spent nearly 20 years of the 43 actively involved in the Punk Rock culture between the east coast and the mid west. My favorite era of hardcore happens to be that which came about when Gravity Records started releasing bands like Antioch Arrow, Angel Hair, John Henry West, Heroin, and stuff like that. However, I am pretty sure that that whole thing was inspired by one of my other favorite bands of all times, the Nation of Ulysses.

Jared Castaldi

Jared joined the Barred For Life crew almost as soon as I had decided to tackle the project back in 2006. He was just starting his photography career, was a talented web designer, and was drumming for a band called The Vote. Jared was rather busy, and is now even busier, but he took interest in the project and seemed to grove pretty heavily on traveling around the east coast shooting photographs of Punk Rockers young and old.

Jared set the ball in motion, and he defined the visual aesthetic of the book from his first few shots. His style evolved, in my estimation, directly from shooting the activity of bands, and so his style had this rich darkness to it. I am not totally sure but I think that he settled easily into shooting black-and-white images for the book both because they broke the photos down to their bare essentials, and because it would be cost prohibitive to to produce a book about an element of the Punk Rock culture in color.

Jared's stark black-and-white photography set the standard for the book, and so when I found out that he was not going to be able to tour with me, um, I had to man-up and take over the photography duties. With Jared's guidance, somehow I made it through. His picture of Mike Cummings of Backwoods Payback has become the most utilized image whenever BFL is mentioned in the media, which it has been more than even I know (because nobody is telling me). Let's face it, this project would not have been possible without the input of Mr. Castaldi, who is now the staff photographer for Main Like Today magazine.

Matt Smith

Matt Smith has a rather impressive Punk Rock pedigree, but that isn't the only reason that I asked him to be part of the project. Matt, besides being something of a walking encyclopedia of the history of the Punk Rock culture, he is a solid Graphic Designer as well. If you saw a flier or an advertisement, or you've seen a copy of the manuscript that we were shopping to the media and publishers, then you've invariably seen the work of Matt Smith. From day one Matt and I seemed to share an interest in making Barred For Life look more like a zine, or an album insert, then a cut-and-dry documentary about a very active and colorful cultural phenomenon. Together with the photographic contributions of Castaldi, Matt was able to produce a manuscript that read my mind. It was pretty cool the day that I saw it in print, and I knew that it was gonna be an amazing finished product just as soon as I was able to take the project across the country and Europe to get the goods, the pictures and interviews.

Beyond all of that book-related stuff, if you've ever heard of Rain on the Parade or Shark Attack, these are two mighty impressive bands that Matt played in, along with an early manifestation of Terror. Yup, all of that and recently married, when you finally get a copy of Barred For Life in your hands you will be looking at the design of Matt Smith.

Todd Barmann

Todd is the newest member of the Barred For Life crew, and meeting him was kinda whimsical. About two years ago I was invited out for drinks on a Thursday night with a lawyer friend of mine. When I finally made it to the bar I was introduced to Todd. I had no idea that he had any association with Punk Rock, but that would all change later. My first impression of Mr. Barmann was that he was smart to the point of genius, one of the most articulate people that I've ever met, and so sarcastic that at times I was actually scared of him.

After a few drinks, however, while watching folks perform many a Punk Rock classic care of a karaoke band, I realized that Todd Barmann is a Punk Rocker of the same school as me; that of the early 1980's. Similar in age, I also learned that we are both Aquarius', which means that we shall remain brilliant, broke, and defiant until we die, and we Aquarians are fine by that.

Todd is a wordsmith. Todd is also, like Matt, a walking encyclopedia of Punk Culture. Part of the famed North Jersey scene, Barmann was a staple of New Brunswick and Trenton. Now a freelance editor, Todd was an instant in, and logical choice as editor for the book. Proving to be a faster writer (albeit, a bit messier) than me he also took over the interview duties during the early group photo shoot for the book. What you will be reading upon your purchase of Barred For Life next year will invariably be his crafting of my information, and so if you disagree with it you can try to kick either of our asses (yeah, good luck with that...)..!

THE ROAD CREW

So, yeah, getting the book finished is one aspect of Barred For Life, but there is another aspect that I refuse to overlook; The Barred For Life tours. Between the months of October and December, 2009, we took to the road. Fifty photoshoots and 300 people later, here I sit at my computer trying to make sense of what just happened to me (us, really), and it is difficult.

For me at least, I quit a job, gave up an apartment, spent almost 5 months calling and reaching out to promoters trying desperately to make them understand (1) I am not a band, (2) I was coming to their town to shoot photographs of people with Black Flag tattoos, and (3) they needed to figure out a way to get people to come out and allow us to shoot and interview them for this mythical book. Well, it worked and as of October 1st, 2009, I set off for 40 shoots with my trusty companions Stefan, Jorge, Noe, and Audrey. Allow me to introduce them to you, won't you..?

Stefan Bauschmid

Go back one blog entry and there I laid out a pretty solid rundown of the events that led to Stefan accompanying me across the country. I will cliff note some of the information.

I met Stefan a bunch of years back in Wasington, DC. he was hosting an event called Indie Tea (see last blog for details), and I was invited as a friend of a friend. It was a cool vibe. Over the years we had a bit of contact but not a ton of it, but I was always excited to greet he and his wife Amy whenever they were spending time in my home city of Philly.

Stefan is a drummer with an obsession with the Minutemen. His obsession is not a bad obsession, but his obsession drives him to know more about that band than anybody else that I know in the Punk Rock scene. While on tour in LA, every time that he saw a sign for San Pedro (the town of origin of the Minutemen) he would let out a rebel yell. I never found out the root of his obsession, but it sure was interesting to the point where he had decided that the Minutemen anchor would be his second tattoo; his first being the Black Flag Bars scored in Buffalo, NY, on this very tour.

Stefan kept the tour together. By the end I was just a tired mess and burned out organizationally. Yup, he kept it together. While there was some bickering and so forth toward the end, I will have to go on record to say that for two people that didn't really know each other that well in the beginning, we made it almost 50 days together squeezed into a tiny, white, Hyundai Sonata, and no punches were thrown. In my book, that is pretty fucking amazing.

Stefan resides in Arlington, VA, and from what I have gathered his band now has a singer.

Jorge Brito

I met Jorge while a bicycle messenger in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. He had never been to Canada, and I am not sure the exact set of circumstances, but he was adamant about being my travel companion, half the driving team, and principal interviewer on the Canadian leg of the tour. Who was I to say no..?

Hailing from somewhere in Virginia, Jorge went to school in Richmond, VA. In VA I'd imagine he was influenced by bands like Avail and Municipal Waste (which he was), and so by the time that I had met him he was road hardened by touring with bands and traveling to see shows. Jorge met up with Stefan and me in Buffalo where Stefan trained him in the art of conducting an interview, and in no time Jorge was pulling people aside and getting their information. Not that I could read any of this formally trained "school teacher's" handwriting, but it all worked out in the end when I forced him to read his own writing and pull the quotes that you will see later in the book. But I refused to judge a man by his insane handwriting, except for that I think that it is a sure sign of a serial killer instinct. But what to do I know..?

Beyond that, Jorge was my party partner. I am not much the party guy (unless I am really drunk), and so having Jorge pulling me onto dancefloors, crashing wedding parties, and making me crack up until milk ran out of my nose, was definitely a necessity on the Canadian leg where just about everybody (except for those crazy straight edge kids in Ottawa) was drunk when we interviewed them. So, yeah, Jorge stands out as the person that brought me out of my shell, if only for a few days.

Noe Bunnell

Noe is the first Hawaiian Punk Rocker that I've ever spent a lot of time getting to know. I know her roommate Jackson, who is also a former Hawaiian Punk Rocker (now also living in Philadelphia), but that is about it. I, seriously, didn't know that Hawaii had a scene, so in our many conversations on the topic I was continuously made aware that I didn't actually know everything. I know most things; just not everything.

Before the tour I had only met Noe one or two times, and one of them she had just gotten her bars done, was drunk, had just finished a bike race, and showed me her ankle while I shot some pix of the tattoo. While on tour Noe and I stayed in contact with one another and I think that it was in Chicago that she reached out and asked if she could share a leg of the tour with me on the West Coast. Unfortunately we weren't able to work that one out, but soon we had her on board for the trip from Florida to Philadelphia, and covering a lot of states that she had never seen.

On day one Stefan took off for home and I trained Noe on the interview protocol, and like that she was doing the interviews. After a mad rush of seven folks in a few hours Noe settled into the chair for her second, pink, set of Black Flag bars on her other ankle, while I got some updates to my bars as well.

Our trip up the coast was enlightening in that Noe schooled me in a lot of "what is new in Punk Rock." While I know that there is still a scene in existence, I wasn't sure just who occupied it and what young Punk Rockers did, and this profoundly effected how I would approach the writing of Barred For Life afterwards. Seriously though, the average age of a person with The Bars tattooed on them is 25, and Black Flag broke up 24 years ago. So, I have to blame that bands legendary status for half of this, but if you didn't have some necessity to connect to this band and their legacy why on earth would you get the tattoo..? Because, you want to connect to the beginnings of the scene that you are living in. Simple, but I was a bit resistant to that idea at first. Yup, I was pulling a "back in the day" episode until I got Noe on board.

Audrey Dwyer

Audrey is awesome. I met her at a photo shoot in Philadelphia, where I interviewed her. From Audrey I got the craziest answer for the "favorite singer" question part of the interivew (promised that I would never tell anybody her answer), and we became friends over time. She is a hair stylist and is constantly putting up stickers that scream, "I GOT DONE BY AUDREY." Maybe you've seen them.

Anyway, Audrey wanted to join in on the fun in North America but that just never worked. So, after some thinking we agreed that maybe she would come to Europe with me and be my assistant. I was broke as a joke and she offered to pay her own way, and with that gesture she was in. Featuring the best hand writing of all of my interviewers, Audrey was my party surrogate. When I wanted to sleep but our hosts wanted to party, I would sleep and allow Audrey party enough for the both of us.

Having Audrey along made the last leg of the trip interesting. By the time we got to Rome, a city where I'd been a number of times before, it had become a vacation. I showed her around the ruins and, then, all of a sudden she was gone and I was on my own.

PAST WAS, PRESENT IS, THE FUTURE HOLDS...

2010-01-28T18:57:00.007-05:00

TRUSTY TRAVELERS
&
WORTHY WANDERERS

STEFAN BAUSCHMID

INDIE-TEA

I met Stefan a few years ago through two different friends who were both camping out in Washington DC. I was friends with both of them, but neither of them were really that close, and so on my trips to DC I had to choose carefully how I spent my time so that I could hang out with both of them.

One day, while staying with my friend, William, I was invited to an interesting event called INDIE-TEA at Stefan's apartment in the city. INDIE-TEA was a simple event orchestrated by Stefan whereby he served tea, asked others to bring deserts, and one person was chosen to spin new music of one's choosing. Immediately, upon entering his home, I was struck by Stefan's laid-back attitude and his ability to bring lots of people together for a rather "off the beaten path" sort of event. Not that hanging out and drinking tea is all that crazy, but the event wasn't just some ironic DC hipster event, but was a really cool way to start the week. It was like a reading circle and potluck stirred together with a liberal dose of Independent Music being played while people commented, sipped tea, and ate yummy pastries. While still just a bit on the foggy side, this memory constitutes my first meeting with Stefan.

Fast forward a few years and I meet up with Stefan in Austin, Texas at the wedding of our mutual friend William, who was marrying another mutual friend, Stephanie. I am not sure that Stefan remembered me that well, given that we had only had contact once or twice after INDIE-TEA, but I remembered Stefan. The wedding was pretty fucking cool but, well, by its end we all parted ways and I didn't run into Stefan again for a little while.

AND WE CONNECT

Stefan marries Amy, a beautiful and talented cellist, and on a trip to Philadelphia they find their way onto my floor after a show, and that, I believe, constitutes the beginning of our more formal connection. There was most certainly another meeting in there somewhere, and it ended up in a short hang at another club in Philly with me wearing a suit after a formal event, and then everything starts blending together.

Now this is where my memory goes a bit out of control. Somehow we end up FaceBook friends, and realize that we have another mutual friend, Joe McRedmond, and after a BFL-related trip to DC I was invited to Stefan and Amy's house to eat and reconnect with Joe after about 13 years of separation. The event was chill, and I was on a juice fast, so I sat and watched everybody eat and drink and be merry, while i shot pictures with my new camera.

I HAVE A TOUR PARTNER

What is significant about this event is that Stefan, at that point, knew that he was losing his job, and either I asked or he committed, and next thing that I know I have a partner to help me with the Barred For Life tour, and I couldn't have been happier. Somewhere along the way I just didn't think that I would need a partner for this tour so his commitment allowed me to do a bit more advanced planning because it would both lighten all of the things that I would have to do at each event, and I would have capable help driving across the continental United States.

After more and more planning via FaceBook it became clear to me that Stefan was not only an ambitious tour advocate, but was also very good at getting shit done. Now understand that I have a number of people on my crew working on the book (and I will illuminate them in future posts), but for reasons beyond any of our control, none of them could make the tour. In fact, the idea of somebody traveling for 50 days in a car in late Autumn with me was not only remarkable, but was sort of unbelievable. I thought that I was the only one foolish enough to take unpaid leave of my work, open up my wallet to the forces of the tour, and not know what was going to face me upon completion, but Stefan manned up.

While I would be the only one pulling all 50 days, Stefan was on board for about 35 of them, while his stints away for weddings and recitals were covered by a few other capable hands (also illuminated in future posts) by the names of Jorge Brito (did I get the spelling right), Noe Bunnell, and the lovely Ms. Audrey Dwyer, who so amazingly came to Europe with me to take care of BFL business there (and keep me from going absolutely crazy). At any rate, I was just floored by his commitment and, well, I thought him both the most awesome person in the world and, possilbly, the biggest fool in the world for agreeing to go anywhere with ME for 50 days. I am not the easiest person with whom to share a travel. Just ask my former tour partners and they will tell you, I am a bit of a demanding dick. Oh well, I felt that Stefan was capable of kicking my ass if I stepped out of line, and so I agreed 110% to have him as my partner.

THE TOUR MAN COMETH

The kind and organized Mr. Bauschmid sent to me a list of rental car options, with one of the major suppliers as our best price/value for the tour. We laid our dates on the table, booked a car, and went for broke. Stefan in DC and me in Philly, FaceBook chat, email, and text message got us where we needed to go and the decision to rent either a mini-van or a big car seemed to be our sticking point; a sticking point that we would work out the day that we left.

So I quit my job and he lost his, and on our first day of tour we converged on the AMTRAK station in Wilmington, Delaware to pick up our car. An idea of doing a blog was put on the table, and with a title of "GET IN THE MINI VAN," had a nice ring to it as a parody to Rollins' book GET IN THE VAN. However, the minivan weighed in about about 500 dollars more expensive than the full sized care, and since it was just the two of us, I made the call for the full size.

The disagreement over the choice of rental would not be the only argument that would ensue on our tour of the continental US, but if I must say so I think that we pulled it off very well. I won't bore you all with details since there are 40-some-odd posts from the tour you can look at and glean our experiences, but Stefan's participation on the tour changed me a bit. Of all of the things that I have done in my short lifetime I do believe that my trip across the US with Stefan will stick out to me as one of the most ambitious things that I've done, and will safely admit in retrospect that without his help would have fully fallen apart.

NAME THAT ATTRIBUTE

Thank Stefan for this blog. After spending a few days touring it seemed as though with a bit of boredom in Boston, and his asking me for some quick pix of the various shoots, he had the Barred For Life blog up and running in what seemed to be no time. Fighting it out with a prisoner's blog of the same name, Barred4Life found its way onto the list of accomplishments that I will credit to my design-savvy Austrian partner. After a while I grabbed the reins of the blog, but I could not have started it without his git-r-dunn attitude, and so I am humbled.

Beyond everything that would be expected on a photographic and interview tour of people with Black Flag tattoos, Stefan excelled as my gray-card model, my photographic assistant, the man that encouraged me to stop at McDonalds to eat a Filet-o-Fish every now and again, my "get the fuck in the car" guy, and the man that could do just about everything. Stefan was the McGuyver for the Y2K(+), and a DIY mastermind.

At any rate, I could never say enough good things about being on the road with Stefan, and so I will just let the picture speak to you (and the memories speak to me).

Stefan, thank you for signing up for a Ulyssean adventure. Thank you, unfortunately, won't do justice to your contributions to Barred For Life, but they are the best that I have to give for now.

Stewart

LONG TIME NO SEE

2010-01-18T22:17:00.003-05:00

NOTHING CHANGES
ON NEW YEARS DAY

R.I.P. Michael; It was my pleasure to meet you...

I've been home now for about two and a half weeks. To make a long story short, after the shoot in Rome on December 27th, I discovered that somebody in Bulgaria was kind enough to steal my debit card info, and my pin, and then tank my account to the point that I as a good bit over $2000 in the hole. I was in Italy, the most beautiful place in the world with the most awesome people in the world, and I was broke, broke, BROKE. And so I decided to come home a week early.

For those of you that believe that your book is already written, and that your job is to simply stay on the path without stumbling, falling, or trying too hard to follow somebody else's path, you might understand my dilemma. TOO MANY THINGS WENT WRONG ALL AT THE SAME TIME, and so I decided that the powers that be were calling me home, and I will spare you the details, but I somehow managed to slip onto a flight from Rome to NYC on December 31st.

So, here I am in Philadelphia. After three weeks of laying low and trying to get this book started/finished, I guess that it is now time that I keep everybody posted as to where I am in relation between the start and finish of Barred For Life.

Starting this week I will try to post once or twice a week and keep you all abreast of the progress of the writing, the publishing, the work that is being done behind the scene, and will make sure that you are all in the loop.

Thanks for reading.

VINI, V.D., VICI; I came, I saw, I canquored

2009-12-24T16:33:00.024-05:00

AUTUMN, WINTER, AND SPRING AGAIN
THE STORY OF A WEEK IN ITALY

When I left the US it was chilly. The series of railed connections, be they trains or subway cars, aged me just about a year until I reached JFK. If not for the layover at my friend Richard’s house I may have collapsed from exhaustion.

It was clearly early winter on the outside and there was no reason for me to believe that the rest of the tour would be any different. If you look at a map most of my destinations are roughly more than a bit north of Philadelphia lattitudinally speaking, so I just thought winter everywhere. Even Rome, lying roughly equivalent to Washington DC was still subject to cold weather. And we got what we bargained for.

Audrey left the tour after four really successful photo shoots in the city of Roma. And since that time I’ve been trekking alone all over Italy, and will be doing the same for the next two weeks until I return home. And since it has been almost two weeks since Aurdrey and I landed in Rome, I’ve seen just about every season this side of summer until today. Today I woke up to sunshine and basic warmth. While it may only be roughly 65 degrees outside, it sure beats trekking home from a tram breakdown in Milan durning a blizzard.

Watching the television upon my incredibly late arrival back to Tuscany, and to the home of friends that I met on my first trip to Italy back in the summer of Y2K, it was obvious that I witnessed something first hand that doesn’t happen very much in these parts. According to my friend Sandro, “the most organized of Italian cities (Milano) was stopped by confusion.” And I was there to see it. In fact, while there my host Mayo joked that I brought the snow with me from the north. Alas, Sandro’s family said the same thing about the cold here in Tuscany since he arrived here from Finland two days before (and boy was it cold here).

In many ways I simply lost sight of the real reasons behind the project because I was caught up in a whirlwind of traveling, and my eternal struggle to grasp the Italian language enough to communicate with all of my friends here instead of always making them speak English to me. But, somehow, catching a punk show in a small town outside of Milano slapped me back into reality. It was strange seeing an American band play along side a number of Italian Punk bands, and there be no significant differences besides the obvious one of the American band singing everything in English, and screaming “Grazie Italia,” over and over at the end of the show as though it was an olive branch extended over the Atlantic Ocean.

In fact, while shooting at this strange club in a secluded alley I noticed a lot of similarities between Punk Rock kids all over the place. Basically, they are all a lot alike. Not that being alike is a good or a bad thing, because it is just a thing. What is remarkable is that of all the things that America has exported, Classic Hardcore has probably been one of its greatest. Unfortunately, the shittier elements of Hip Hop culture made it over here too.

As an aside, I was standing on the platform of Livorno’s central station watching a cell phone commercial on the track-side television. A young tough looking an awful lot like Eminem was performing all of the most clichéd commercial hip-hop moves in an oversized white tee shirt and hat half-cocked to the side, while trying to convince me to go Vodaphone (I think, but I was too busy laughing to be convinced). It is so strange to see this kind of thing here. Ten years ago when I first came to Italy nothing like this was happening. Italy was Italy and America was America, and then Berlusconi took office (more about him some other day). In my estimation this media tycoon stood to gain everything by importing American Culture to Italy because we’ve soooooo effectively learned to control the spending habits of our adolescent population, as where Italy, up to that point, the spending habits of immature brats was relegated by parents. Now, not so much.

anyway

It appears that American Punk Rock band, those of years gone by, have really shaped the ideology of the European Punk scenes. We’ve met at least one person at every photo shoot that had seen Black Flag (which is a bit more than we’ve found in our American photo shoots), and the American bands still kinda dominate the record collections of the folks that I meet, so I guess that American Hardcore has done its job well in terms of making Punk Rock something that is socially real, and not just something that is in obscure documentary books at your local Punk Rock book seller.

In fact I would say that most of the people that I’ve met here in Europe in general have had a more profound understanding and interest in a more equitable Hardcore scene that doesn’t restrict one to just a certain aspect of it (straight edge, crust, old school, etc). They love it all, the whole damned thing. The fact that I’ve seen so many American band shirts makes the point that Europeans not only love these bands, but their scenes are heavily influenced by them. Good or Bad, I have no idea. All that I know is that it makes communication way easier if you have things in common, and that is good for me.

WORKING BACKWARDS

I spent the last four or five days in Milano. The last time that I was in Milano I was there only to see the public Velodrome. When I got there, and it was very close to the hostel where I was staying, I was amazing. The biggest velodrome that I’ve ever seen. Wooden track under a huge timbered roof. Amazing. If you know my love for cycling you will understand my near orgasmic love for this velodrome. However, I heard from my host, Mayo, that this velodrome, sadly, no longer functions and there is no plans to renovate it for future use. Sad.

Anyway, if one word could sum up my experience in Milano it would be EXTREME. It seemed that from the second I was met at the train in the cold rain by Mayo that everything was going crazy in Milano. With the holiday season on, his leaving to come to Los Angeles for the holiday, the cold rain that would soon become snow, and my insanely tenacious flu were just the basics. However, the ensuing blizzard was just the knock out punch. Luckily, BFL scored a bunch of Lifer’s, and from the perspective of the book it was a successful mission.

I was really only slated to be in Milano for two days but “things beyond my control” seemed to keep me there eternally. I could see in the eyes of my host that I was beginning to cut into his holiday plans a bit, but raging winter storms made travel nearly impossible. But for the first few days of the trip Milano was a winter wonderland.

Mayo is in a band called La Crisi (The Crisis), and we were linked up last Spring by a mutual friend, Amy Toxic, in Boston. Amy told me that Mayo and one or two of his bandmates had the bars tattooed on them and that I should try to photograph them in the US. Strangely, when this news came to me I hadn’t even begun to book the European dates, but as it became clear to me that I wouldn’t get a chance to meet La Crisi I reached out to Mayo and asked him if he would organize something in Milan for me, and I would come there…! He said yes, and so I compelled myself to make an effort to make Europe happen too; and look what happened.

My train arrived at Milano’s central station at 10pm. There was no heat on the train (and it was fucking freezing), so I could barely feel my feet upon stepping off out of the car. Snapping a few shots of the station at night, I walked to meet Mayo at the gate and we were off to his home. He assured me that his apartment was warm, and so upon arrival I couldn’t wait to get my shoes and socks off and sit by the radiator to warm up my feet.

Meeting his fiancé, Valeria (sp?), rapping a bit about what I was doing in Europe, and showing them some pix, it was suddenly 2am and time for bed. I slept like a log until like 6am when I woke up and realized that my cold was back; and this time it was pissed off. For the next three days the flu would hammer away at me and my hosts were more than happy to help me in any way that they could. They allowed me to sleep for hours, made me food and coffee, and gave me medicine. It was truly amazing how well they cared for this stranger in their house. And what started out as a three day trip turned in to a three day trip and two days of nightmarish weirdness connected to a sudden snow-storm-gone-blizzard.

Somehow, though, sitting here in my friends’ home in Tuscany, where the sun is shining and it is relatively warm, I really cannot believe that I just came through the winter wonderland. It was awesome. Got a lot done.

GAINS TRUMP LOSSES

Okay, so I was sick as hell. Who hasn’t been, right..? So on the second day Mayo took me out to see the city. Like I said, I’d only ever been to Milano one time and that was to see the Municipal Velodrome, so this was candy. Mayo, like most of our European hosts, knows his city well. He’s lived in Milano most of his life, and so he has a particular love for it that is evident from his desire to spend time in the downtown section, and he knows a lot about its history (which I love). He showed me around the Brerra-district, and that is when we saw snow for the first time. Flurries, but snow nonetheless. I shot a bunch of photos, and off we went. Of my favorite things of the day was this creamy little pudding/drink called the “zabaione” and the Christmas Market. I mean, hell, there is a lot to love about Milan if you have the right host, but zabaione would be worth the trip even if you had a bad host.

Zabaione is not only difficult to pernounce, but it is so potent that it is hard to eat fast. Eggs and sugar beaten up until they are a sweet, warm liquid, then topped with a concoction of liquor, and then topped again with sweet, whipped cream, um, this little confection is man’s ruin in my book.

I am willing to bet that zabaione is available in more places than just Milano, but it probably goes under a different name everywhere. The closest that it came to anything that I’ve ever eaten is if you totally undercook crème bruelle to the point that it was drinkable, and it was infused with something like rum or some other sweet liquor. I cannot say enough about zabaione, and it is my person mission to learn to make this crazy drink/desert when I get home the the US. Otherwise, I am gonna try to track it down here in Tuscany, or on my next visit to Roma.

After a few hours of walking and eating and stuff like that we headed back home. Eventually we had to make it to the show, and the show was about ¾’s of an hour outside of Milano, and so off we went. We arrived home, ate a fast meal, and then took off for the shoot. We got lost a few times, and even though I don’t always understand Italian (especially if it is spoken fast) I do understand the universal truth of mates arguing in the car about which turn should have been taken. It was a funny scene. I kept my trap shut. Eventually we made it.

The show was at a local bar/cantina in an alley in a small town in what seemed to be an industrial zone, and we entered at the point when most of the bands were arriving. The show was, well, a show. Punk shows don’t differ too much from town-to-town in the world, so I set up shop and shot like 5 barred folks from Milano, including on guy that saw Black Flag back in 1983; so that was pretty cool. I am thankful for the opportunity. Food, drink, music, records to buy, and people to photograph. What more could I ask for?

The show was over, my head throbbing from my cold/fever and a full day of walking around Milano, I couldn’t wait to get home and go to sleep. So, we made that happen. Upon arriving home and preparing for bed I knew that I was seriously fucked. My head was close to exploding. Mayo and Valeria gave me some medicine to help me sleep, and I did so; however restlessly. By the next morning (Sunday) things started blurring. I don’t remember on what day I made my way into the city looking for a restaurant suggested by a friend back home, but on that day the skies were gray to the point of near-black.

An hour later the snow was coming down heavily. An hour later city traffic was going haywire. All that I know is that I was walking, taking pix, eating heavily, and trying not to let my flu keep me from exploring. I had a zabaione, I ate focaccia, I asked directions, I bought salami at the Christmas market, and was much the full-on tourist. I love it. Nobody watching, I did all of the tourist stuff that I could and didn’t care before it was time to board my tram.

An hour later, stuck in a massive traffic jam behind 6 other stuck trams, the folks in my evacuated and started walking home. The trams in Milano are not heated, and so sitting/standling/lying in one of these things is as cold as a refrigerator in the cold weather. Evacuating was the best thing to happen to me, and the walk home in nearly a foot of snow while watching the citizens of Milano stuck in their cars for however long was kinda funny. Funny, yes, but I knew that my flu would suffer from the walk, and upon arriving home I just went to sleep for a while. Luckily, I’d overeaten.

GOING HOME

I was slated to leave the next morning and so when I woke up after my little walk I planned out my day. The weather outside was certainly frightful, and so I anticipated delays. No matter how much anticipation of delay, you really don’t know delay until you are in the situation.

My plan was to wake up at 6:30am, take the train to the subway, the subway to the central station, and be on my IC train by 8am. Great plan. Most of my plans worked well up to this point. However, when I woke up there was about 15 inches of snow on the ground. While city transit was moving, it was moving slowly. Everything was in delay, so when I got to the station there were thousands of holiday travelers milling about the station trying to get their tickets for trains that may or may not have been operating. That is when I started to worry.

Hastily buying my ticket I ran to the platform to find out that my train was not only on the board, but was so far in delay that an hour later it was cancelled. FUCK, my train was cancelled and I had to be back in Tuscany (where it wasn’t snowing) to meet up with my friends there without causing serious strife, which can be the case if dinner is interrupted or something like that.

Anyway, I stood in a one hour line just to be told that they would refund my ticket, and I could take another train to Tuscany (no guarantee that it was to be on time) and it would cost me an additional 50 or 60 dollars. So, to sit in a cold-as-fuck train that was not going to be on time, I was being asked to pay almost 100 dollars. Fuck it. I rebooked for the next available IC train at 4 and called Mayo. “Yo, Mayo, my train is cancelled and my next one doesn’t leave until 4pm. Can I come back and crash at your spot..?,” “Sure, I will meet you there in an hour..” I could tell that he was bumming, but he took me in and made me lunch.

A few hours later I was back at the station and my train was delayed by almost an hour, but it was actually on the platform. I crawled on board, cozied up in my seat, and waited for the train to pull out, which it did, but only after 4 more people crept into my cabin and started rocking out on their cell phones. I was surrounded by 3 young women and an older guy. The older guy was awesome. When his phone would ring he would step outside the cabin to talk, while the girls would giggle and yell on theirs; thus keeping me awake for periods of time where I really wanted to be sleeping. Better that with the fact that (1) there was no heat (and I was frozen for the entire trip), (2) the snow was rain once we reached Genova (so the train had to go very slowly), and (3) I almost missed my connection train due to lateness, which would have had me sleeping in the central station in Livorno (and there was an inch of rain water on the entire floor), so the gods must have been smiling on me to get me to Cecina, to the home of my friends, and under plenty of covers to keep me warm for my 12 hour hybernation.

Today marks the first day in three weeks where it is warm enough to leave the house without massive winter apparel and I am preparing to explore, but Christmas gifts, and find a zabaione (if applicable).

From the makers of Le Tour de France, I present to you Lyon

2009-12-20T02:41:00.013-05:00

THE PUNK ROCK RIVIERA
LYON, FRANCE

ALL GOOD JOURNIES BEGIN WITH A DRAMATIC INTRO

AND HERE IS MINE

France is probably about the size of the states of Pennsylvania and New York put together, but as for culture this place is just outrageous. Much like the kinds of cultural diversity that I’ve experienced in Italy, France is just as dotted with culturally unique spots that are intimately tied to geography, resources, and just how many invading armies crashed through its gates once the Roman Empire fell; leaving most of western Europe just a bit on the unprotected side of the equation.

I don’t know, call me culturally sympathetic but I think that France took a lot of grief in the past two thousand years, but the pay off is a pretty diverse country and a bunch of culturally interesting craziness that will definitely find me back sometime in the near future. Some things, such as the realities of modernity, do catch me off guard sometimes, and Lyon made the first move.

For example, if somebody asked me the first thing that came to my mind when hearing the word France I would think, um, wine, rich foods (with lots of meat), famous artists, Le Tour de France, and stuff like that. The last thing that I would think of would be, say, vegan straight edge kids, or even vegetarian straight edge kids, but we did manage to meet some in Lyon. So, needless to say I was caught a bit off guard. But fuck my perceptions because, after all, I am writing a book about an endearing part of Punk Rock culture and not a book about French popular culture. Anyway…

Both JB and Benoit told me of these big Hardcore scenes in both Lyon and in St. Etiennne (very close by Lyon), and both had some friends in Lyon with The Bars. Lyon was not on the schedule but it found its way there very fast. With Patrick on the phone in seconds, we had our first contact there and he was going to organize his people for a noon shoot the next day, which gave us precious little time to make arrangements by train. Somehow we managed, and by noon the next day we were at least on our way to the station in Paris, thus making it necessary for us to rebook the shoot for around 2pm, which was fine by most of the Lyon folks since most of them were drinking heavily the night before.

Our train to Lyon was fast as fuck, and it only stopped in Lyon, and in one of Lyons suburban stations (which is the one where we had to depart). Upon landing I couldn’t get any of the phones that I found to accept my coins, and so I decided to catch a cab. We were told that the tattoo shop was just a short hop from the train station but it turned out to be a 10 Euro short hop (roughly two miles), which I would have had to carry my massive bags across to get to our location. Upon exiting our taxi we were greeted by a tall, handsome, clad-in-all-black Jean-Luc, the shop owner and Audrey’s grandest obsession.

Jean-Luc told us that the others would be showing up shortly so we took the time under the clear blue sky to shoot Jean-Luc outdoors. We arranged a bunch of furniture on the first floor of the studio and took one big furry black chair outside, and about the second that we finally pushed it out the door the rains came. Not one to back down in the rain, we shot Jean on a black furry chair in the middle of a rather heavily traveled street in Lyon (which is about as artsie as it has gotten thus far).

In the next few hours we became quite friendly with our host, and after shooting about 6 people that day I became quite friendly with a bottle of single malt scotch. What I love most about single malt scotch is the way that it makes me feel so good at first and, then, how god-awful it makes my stomach feel afterwards. So, after shooting we walked back to the house of a friend of a friend named Lucien where I fell to drunken sleep, and where we would prepare to shoot our final French victim IN THE NUDE.

Yup, Lucien would become our first NUDE Barred For Lifer. Not even the guy in New Orleans that had the bars on his ass was ballsey enough to be documented naked, and so Lucien made it so. It wasn’t too difficult to talk him into getting naked, and word has it from a few of his friends that he is part of a crew of kids in Lyon that gets naked at shows and dances it up in the pit. Trust me, I like fun and all but I think that I would probably stay off to the side at a show where there were sweaty naked dudes running the pit. At some point I would have a hard time enjoying myself while getting splashed with ball-sweat. Anyway, Lucien not only got naked for the camera but he drove Audrey and I to the airport at like 3am so that we could wait for three or four more hours to be processed for our flight to Rome, which would be Audrey’s last stop on the tour.

So, a few hours later we are both half sleeping on our luggage waiting for our flight, and everything goes as planned, which is quite rare for me in Europe. Comfortably on our flight (after being totally condescended by the person checking us in), the sun begins to shine for the first time in a few days.

LUCIEN
FIRST NAKED BARRED FOR LIFER

I HEART PARIS

2009-12-18T18:27:00.024-05:00

PARIS
BEAUTIFUL ON THE INSIDE

I’ve been on the road now for roughly two-and-one-half months, and in that time I have learned many things that I was not so apt to believe beforehand. One of the most important things that I learned was that nothing works out exactly how you would like for it to work out no matter how hard you try. It is possible to wish your life away hoping that everybody likes what you are doing but inevitably there are some people, and often this constitutes a massive majority, that just don’t seem to get it even though they should get it. However, it is not in my place to force feed onto others what they choose not to believe, and so I just keep on doing what I am doing and hoping that those that do get it really do get it, get it.(?)

It would be impossible for me to name everybody that so believes that certain aspects of the Punk Rock saga need to be documented because it just seems so logical not to let these aspects become subjects of revisionist histories (like that of the beats and proto hippies), and so no matter how much I like or dislike what others have written about the culture of which I chose to take part for so long, I am simply happy that they took the time to do so.

I could comment that Get In the Van is a bit on the uber-dramatic side, and that I know a few people that attended one of the Baltimore shows where the light that fell and hit Henry on the head was written in GITV as him being beaten up by skinheads (nice), but it presented information for a comparison of what some witnessed and what Henry revised as “truth.”

I could comment that in American Hardcore many aspects of the East Coast scene were deleted in order to make California look that much more powerful in shaping the future aspects of “American Hardcore.” But in failing to research the smaller scenes, Mr. Blush simply gave room for others to document it more fully (and that was pretty cool of him; now who wants to pick up the torch???).

Over the past few years a lot of books and a lot of documentaries have found their way to the shelves of my favorite book stores and my favorite movie rental houses, and I have tried to watch them all in a way that was, shall we say, most objective (meaning not allowing my scene affiliations to effect how I felt about the information being presented). The one thing that I found to be true in most instances is that (drum role) PUNK ROCK EXISTED. Not only did Punk Rock exist, it thrived. Not only did it thrive, there were people there who were so possessed by what it had to offer that they felt compelled to document it so that I could watch it. Not that they documented it specifically for me, but they documented it so that me and all of the other people that wanted to know how it existed for those other than ourselves could check it out.

I’ve watched movies about African Americans in the Punk Rock scene, women in the scene (specifically Riot Grrrls), about disparate scenes, about punks in England, Germany, Japan, and the like. I’ve seen interviews with people I’ve always wanted to see interviewed, and with people I didn’t even know existed (but had an opinion and wanted it to be voiced). As well I’d seen some friends interviewed, and I’d seen some of my former enemies interviewed (though I don’t really keep enemies alive any longer, so that is sort of a misnomer I guess).

Anyway, what I am saying is that I am quite happy that Barred For Life is following a similar track to a certain end. For those of you who don’t know the philosophy of my effort, it is that there exists this symbol that once belonged exclusively to the efforts of one very important hardcore band called Black Flag. The logo, called The Bars (a creation of Raymond Pettibone) have now transcended the band by a factor of almost 30 years, and while they still do wholly represent the band Black Flag, they more-or-less now represent a sort of Washington Monument of Punk Rock (specifically American Hardcore). Now, this logo, in basically an unaltered state (though I have found other examples to discount the word “unaltered”) been communicated through about three generations of Punk Rockers and is now been imbued with more positive attributes than the band surely ever intended. In fact, in some of the interviews I’ve conducted I’ve found that people use the bars to denote everything from “destroying everything” to “building a better future” and everything in between. And, as you might guess, I find this to be quite awesome. Even in death Black Flag is as misunderstood as a cultural phenomenon as it was in life.

PARIS

So what does all of this have to do with PARIS…? Well, everything, really. Many of you that know me, or have recently met me, know that I quit my job, gave up my apartment, and have disconnected from all things stable to pursue a 4 month trip across the US, some of Canada, and a bunch of places in Europe, just to document this phenomenon. So, while I was working my mind-dulling job with the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Recreation, and simultaneously booking the BFL tour, I stumbled on to a Face Book page called, oddly, PEOPLE WITH BLACK FLAG TATTOOS. It was there that I think that I found a man named Patrick Waterpeach from Paris, and he had stated that he had the bars in an unfinished mode. From the information that I gathered I had asked him to take the people that I had found from France and invite them over for dinner and host a shoot if he thought this was appropriate.

Patrick, like most of my European hosts, went to it with the fervor of a saint. He put up a FB page and handed out fliers at gigs, and did what he could only to find that there were just three (or possibly four) people in all of Paris with The Bars. He seemed saddened by the lack of enthusiasm of his compatriots, but I assured him of two things: (1) Maybe there were only two or three people in Paris with The Bars, and (2) It didn’t matter because I was planning to come to Paris if it was just Patrick with The Bars and nobody else. I am not sure but I think those statements made him feel better because when he picked up Audrey and me at the airport he was 100% FUCKING GO.

We arrived on a late flight into Paris, so to make things work properly, and so that we could shoot JB (in from Avignon in southern France) before he left early the next morning, Patrick arranged everything with military precision. He picked us up, dropped us at his home, left to pick up JB, and returned moments later and ready for action. Dinner on the table, we ate, drank some wine, and set up shop. Moments into setting up my lighting I soon realized that my Amero/European adaptor was not working (more electrical problems, ugh!!!). 2 minutes later Patrick arrives on the scene with a halogen work light and we were back in business. I shot JB and Patrick on Patrick’s leather couch (individually, obviously) and soon JB was being ushered back to his home with Audrey and myself in tow; through the streets of Paris at night. It was fucking amazing if I must say so. In under 24 hours we’d seen the birthplace of the Smiths, then the birthplace of the Beatles, then the birthplace of the authentic French Kiss, and Air (French Band). And then it was off to bed.

The next day Patrick took the day off of work to show us around Paris before going to the home of Benoit to shoot another set of Bars. Benoit lives in the Bastille-section of Paris, which is a very artsie place indeed. Benoit works on a magazine called Maelstrom and lives in a really cool flat with a really cool girlfriend and some really cool furniture. We showed up, ate some candy, drank some water, and shot Benoit in his leather chair near his record collection. With my lighting up and running we took another few shots of Patrick, which turned out to be slightly more flattering than those taken at his house, and then we exchanged information.

Benoit suggested that we drop off in Lyon to photograph some old bandmates with the Bars. He gave us phone numbers and locations, and off we went back to Patrick’s home. In a strange twist of fate, Patrick’s son was not going to be returning until the next day so Patrick invited us to stay another day in order that we see more of Paris and to properly organize our trip to Lyon, and then to Rome. So we accepted. The next day was spent sight seeing, eating, chilling, and organizing our trip, and then our last dinner with Patrick and his lovely girlfriend Carol.

Our train left at noon the next day and by some strange occurrence we managed to find yet another Barred individual that lived very close to the train station. Making the proper arrangements we found ourselves at the home of our last Parisian participant in time to photograph/interview him on the street, and then to the train station with enough time to easily make our train.

Having coffee in one of the most posh cafes I’ve ever been in, we bid our hosts a final farewell, and then boarded the train to Lyon (Obviously I will get more into Lyon next time). My heart sank because in Patrick I met yet another kindred spirit that I had to leave in order to finish my book. Knowing, however, that I will meet up with him again is an amazing feeling, but for now I just don’t even know how to settle down enough to build a lasting friendship. While I am focused on Barred For Life, the project and the end-product, I am afraid that I just cannot be anybody’s friend right now. It is a sad fact but I will have plenty of time to cultivate these friendships in a few months, once I am a bit more stabilized back in my country of origin.

So, to me it would not have mattered whether we only photographed Patrick, or Patrick and 100 other Parisians. What is important is that he did everything in his power to make the stay in Paris one of the most amazing of the trip, and I hope that I can do the same for him when he comes to stay in America (along with all of our hosts) sometime in the future.

MANARCHY in the UK, cont'd...

2009-12-12T17:38:00.019-05:00

THIS JUST IN
VIRGIN OWNS EUROPE

Boarding a Virgin Train, two hours later we landed in the northern town of Manchester. Virgin owns just about everything. They have their own planes, trains, communications networks, record labels, fast food joints, rocket ships, and stuff like that. One cannot walk but a few feet before stumbling into something owned by Virgin, and this seems especially true of England. So, yeah, okay, we rode a very fast train to Manchester owned by Virgin.

So we were a little late and oddly our host Phillip was waiting for us at the station. I've never met Phillip, and from his FaceBook picture (in makeup), I wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a line-up. But somehow he saw us getting off of the train and ushered us to The Studio where people were waiting to be photographed for Barred For Life.

Before talking more about Barred For Life and the Manchester participants just let me explain that I FUCKING LOVE MANCHESTER. Besides there being so many great bands from Manchester, like the Smiths and Stone Roses and Chapterhouse and, um, millions of other bands like that, there was just such a chill and open vibe going on there. Given that Audrey and I spent half of our time in downtown London dodging commentary and criticism by a consort of frat-boy-looking-douchebags, the open-mindedness of Manchester was both refreshing and chill-as-hell.

Phillip and his crew took us under their wing, gave up their beds and their food to share with us, and three days later it seemed like family to me.

The Studio is a rather interesting tattoo-joint-slash-punk-rock-shop just off of Pickadilly Square. It is just one of about 50 punk-rock-shops jammed into one huge punk-rock-building, and this is where Phillip organized our shoot, which ended up taking two or three days to document all of the people from Manchester with the bars tattooed on themselves.

Tattooist Claire became a fast friend, and on our last evening spent the entire night tattooing our fingernails, and herself, with the bars (among other things; Audrey got her boyfriend's name on hers and I got RISE ABUV on mine, duh). On all of my journies Claire was the first person to tattoo herself in front of my camera and I will be damned if I DIDN'T LOOSE ALL OF THOSE PHOTOS TO SOME RANDOM SAVING ERROR..! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK...

11 people came forward with the bars, or had the bars consturcted on them for this shoot and, and as I mentioned before it took us about three days to do the documentation (and I lost some of them too)...

Thrown in for good measure was a trip to see Jay Masckus (sp?), a few nights of awesome cooking, a trip around the city, drinks in the space shuttle, some well placed showers, a few bottles of wine, more dinner, and a lot of fucking rain. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of rather angry bus drivers that seemed intent on not letting us ride their busses or be helpful in any way at all. Oh, yeah, and there were some museums, some coffee shops that made their cappuccino with milk cooked so long that it was almost merrangue. Okay, so not everything was perfect, but it was not a bad scene at all. In the end it was exceptionally hard to leave that city, however necessary it was.

Then night before leaving the internet made it quite difficult to book our flight to Paris but somehow we managed to score some alright priced plane tickets to Paris. Due to some flight constraints we almost missed out on the opportunity to shoot a man from the south of France in Paris, but more on that later. Long story short, because of a number of unforseen difficulties some events did not work out as well as they could have. But somehow everything worked out and, not only did we get to Paris, but we had a total blast in Manchester.

WHERE THINGS STAND.

I could have called this tour quits after the US and Canada, and this trip would have been a success. However, rummaging through Europe and finding no shortage of amazing people here with The Bars, and equally inspiring stories has made this an amazing success. Just as in the US, some places shit-the-bed and some have risen well above the standards.

One thing that i've noticed about our European shoots, and our European promoters, is that the ones that don't drop the ball are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY seriously amped, and they will work so hard to rally people to the shoots that it warms the heart to watch them in action.

Making phone calls on our behalf, helping us book our trains and flights, speaking to people in their native language, and going out of their way to make us feel welcomed, um, I don't want to come home. It is unfortunate that we will not be shooting in Germany (and most likely not in Spain either), but if I decided that I wanted "full coverage" of cities, towns, countries, and people with the bars I could easily spend the rest of my life (and definitely the rest of my savings) trying to make this a reality.

The fact of the matter is that when Black Flag was a band, and long before we Punk Rock Historians decided what parts of the DIY ethic to attibute to them, they were a relatively unknown band here in Europe. The only facts (if you want to call them that) that I know of BF's European tours is from "Get In The Van," and from that the tours didn't look like they went that well. For many early US punk bands making their way in Europe seemed to be a daunting task. Figuring out tour routes, working with promoters that didn't speak English, and dealing with punk cultures that were not really all that similar to that of the US. Just traveling as a solo traveler in Europe is a humbling experience. In America I can at least call somebody and instantly communicate, so if I need a place to stay or a person to organize a shoot or whatever, the communication barrier is only personal. Here however there is just this huge communcation and cultural barrier from easy flow of information and movement; though it is not impossible.

One thing that I have learned in my many travels is that being humble and appreciative is the best way to move. Making demands just doesn't work, and it just doesn't work for me personally. It is a cool way to live, always being thankful for the little things, and by being thankful and showing it in as many ways as you can just makes good sense. Anyway, I don't mean to be all sentimental here but I swear that so far our hosts here in Europe have been so incredibly helpful that I cannot explain it exactly. And for that, and for their efforts, Barred For Life is going to be an amazing product that represents a very, very broad swatch of people who are all struggling to be part of something bigger than themselves. And, honestly, The Bars are just totally representative of that. Sure, they are becoming a pretty cool HIPSTER tattoo, but it just doesnt' matter. It never has. Hipsters suck. They will always misrepresent everything. The rest of us know this, and it is the "we" that will be represented here. The HIPSTERS CAN SUCK IT, thank you very much.

MANARCHY in the UK

2009-12-11T20:26:00.013-05:00

ENGLAND'S
screaming
NOOOOO FUTURE

Arrival. Prejudices. Hurdles.

I never wanted to see London. I am a crabby, cranky, pissy guy with some serious hang-ups on what I like and what I don’t like. So, for most of my traveling through Europe I determined any country that speaks the same language as me, thus making it easy for me to communicate and exchange information, as culturally inferior to those that spoke incredibly difficult languages (and many with crazy dialects).

Well, I’ve grown up a bit since those days and have overcome many of my hang-ups simply by understanding that the worlds’ cultures do not live-and-die in the world of Stewart. It just makes sense to try new things every once and a while, whether you determined them to be lame in a former lifetime or not. So, after a rather insane commune with the multitude of travel routes that got me from my home in York, PA, to Philadelphia, to Jersey City, NJ, to NYC, to Queens, NY, to JFK airport, I fell asleep on my carry on baggage at my gate and proceeded to worry a lot about what was to happen to me once my plane landed at Heathrow International Airport.

Language be damned, in a world dominated by mobile phones, and me without mine, I had to take a massive breather in the airport and sip across my first British cappuccino for nearly 2 hours while I made my plans to enter the city, meet up with my contact, Wayne, settle in at the POGO CAFÉ, and prepare myself to photograph Europeans tattooed with an obscure American Punk Rock band’s logo; a band that broke up 25 year ago; a tattoo whose wearer’s average age is around 24 years of age. Weird. Here, yes. And, in the US too.

Weird.

My assistant, Audrey, flew into Manchester with a layover in Frankfort, Germany, and was slated to arrive in the UK about 4-hours after me, and then take a 2-hour train ride to London, where I would meet her and bring her back to the café. Only one problem stood in my way of making this a basically flawless operation: The Pogo Café was closed due to some unforeseen plumbing problems and, so, I had to wait outside for quite a while until I could communicate with Wayne so that he could get me into the café, drop my gear, and then run to pick up Audrey.

Understand that if I were simply traveling by myself through Europe I could get on with simply a backpack and a weeks worth of clothing. But since I am taking pictures for Barred For Life I found it necessary to travel with my bag, a FUCKING HUGE bag for my lights, plus my camera case. Once these three pieces of travel luggage find their way into/onto my arms all at once it become incredibly difficult to carry them comfortably and safely. In fact, if, while walking, somebody decided to try to rob me I would have to allow them to do so even if it took them 20-full-minutes because I would hate to have to reposition my bags, or try to run with them, or try to fight off an attacker with them on my arm. It would just suck, so I would let a robber rob me. It would just be easier that way.

Finally, after taking a series of underground trains and overground trains, and then finding my way to an ATM to pick up some cash, and then a seemingly long walk up a crowded avenue in the rain, um, I found POGO. I found it closed, locked, and the lights out. I found a closed, locked, and uninhabited POGO CAFÉ. FUCK ME.

Toting all of my bags back down the street I called Wayne on his mobile phone. Wayne works as a bicycle messenger so he was busy, busy, busy, but found some time to call a fellow co-op friend and get me under a roof and into warmth; and there were some comfy couches. Oh, and there was internet.

Dropping my bags, scooting down the street, buying more train tickets, training it to Euston Station (yup, the same on as in the “LONDON,” the song by the Smiths), I met up with Audrey and totted her back to POGO.

By the time we arrived back at the café a sizeable contingency of folks had showed up to await the plumbers and to prepare food just in the case that everything went well and they could open later that day.

THE LOWDOWN.

POGO CAFÉ is a fucking rad place. All vegan, mostly organic, and most of the food is prepared on the premises. Most of the kids that work there are dedicated squatter-types with an anarchist-bent, and seem to love bikes and alternative culture. If you are ever in London you gotta go to this place. Prices are fucking totally good and the food is amazing, especially the cakes and cupcakes. Yeah, what a blast.

WAYNE.

Wayne is one stand up motherfucker. Irish as the day is long. Barred For Life. Squatter. Amazing guy. He works all day as a messenger then comes home and cooks at POGO. Wayne was handed the torch to set up the shoot in London and managed to organize it in just a few weeks. In fact, most of my European helpers were able to do amazing things with very little time, and Wayne showed us the light rather quickly.

Giving us his room for two nights, hooking us up with free vegan food, and providing space on a crowded Saturday night for our shoot, this is the kind of person that is necessary to keep one’s spirits high while traveling in a foreign country. A consummate London-ophile, he knew where to go, how to get there, and what to do once there. It is good to know Wayne Glass. Fuck Yeah.

THE CITY.

Okay, even with a common language I still had difficulty doing a lot of things. I had a “LONDON UNDERGROUND” guide that should have made traveling a snap, but it didn’t always, but that was fine. Not all cities are easy to navigate. Over the course of two evenings Audrey and I managed to find our way to some of the more popular tourist sites, get a bit lost, and then find our way to an overpriced eatery even though POGO had us on its dole. I have heard the “when in Rome” saying but never the “when in London” version. But we did what we had to and made it happen.

Of note, even though London is a rather culturally diverse spot on the planet, um, if you look weird on your own accord you might just get fucked with like we did. Both nights in town found Audrey and myself on the catching end of some downright fucked up commentary from rather normal looking douche-bags and their haggard, dolled-up for no good reason, lady-friends. It was pretty fucked up but rolling with the punches is all part of the program. In the end I have some interesting memories of toting around London, but way more amazing memories of toting around, and shooting around, Hackney, where the POGO is located.

THE SHOOT

Between the number of social networking sites that I use to track down barred individuals, I had compiled a list of about 20 folks in the London vicinity. I reached out to them early on, just before the trip over, and then again once I landed. Mind you, some of these people reached out to me first, and I was just returning the favor. Many had pleaded that I come to the UK, so I did. However, once the shoot was on only 5 dedicated individuals showed their faces and tattoo. But as I like to say now that I am some 70 days into my tour schedule, THIS BOOK IS ABOUT DEDICATED PEOPLE, NOT SLACKERS. So slackers found their way to the door simply by slacking. Dedicated people found their way to the shoot despite the desire to say, um, stay at home and drink beer. You know. I don’t have to tell you.

Plagued with light difficulties, I managed to burn out two voltage converters inside 20 minutes. Running out of POGO at the speed of sound, I followed a trail of electronic stores to a full service shop and bought a converter capable of charging a fucking hospital and not burn out, and it cost me as much. Inside just a few hours of shooting abroad I spent a chunk of my travel budget on a necessary evil, a power converter that I could use all over Europe (or at least I had hoped)

Following my “OJ Simpson in a Hertz Rental Car Commerical from the 80’s” style hunt, find, and return the shoot went without incident. While I would like to offer a huge FUCK YOU to those of you that made it sound as though you would swim through shit to make it to a shoot if I made the effort to get to London. Yeah, FUCK YOU.

But what seems so strange about this whole thing is that Black Flag, at least according to Get In The Van, was hated by the Brits. Maybe it was a generational thing. Henry could have just been exaggerating his understanding of how the Brits treated Punk Rockers back in the 80’s, but it seemed as though a lot of them now draw quite a bit of inspiration from that band; at least as much as most American kids do. And this was a revelation to me. While I generally regard Rollins’ testimony as way on the DRAMATIC side of things, my feeling is that all the spitting and bottles breaking and the dark, smelly squats were just par for the course for the early British scene, and not so much part of the American scene’s evolution. So, who the fuck knows…? All that I know is that I had a blast inside a city that I never really thought I would go to in my traveling life and I owe an awful lot of thanks to Wayne, Audrey, the POGO staff, and the 5 folks that made it out to the shoot to rap it up with us and allow us to place a name with the face.

THE END

Day One; London

2009-12-04T13:08:00.001-05:00

SAME OLD STORY
DIFFERENT CONTINENT

BEFORE THE TRIP

Seems like every time I prepare to leave for a trip I have some fucked up argument with a girlfriend and lose her. It is becoming such a par for the course piece of my working framework that if I had to guess, well, I would say that it is fated that I not ever be in a committed relationship. Whether it is them or it is me, or some roughly equitable combination of both of us together, it happened again. And here I sit in Heathrow Airport (London, UK) drinking my cappuccino wondering why these episodes keep occurring, and how I am going to find my way to Hackney, and sometimes I think about both at the same time.

DURING THE TRIP

I am beginning to establish a sort of martyr complex in my dealings with this book and its evolution. A few days after completing the tour of the US and Canada a publisher showed an interest in the book. The only condition imposed on my pursuits was that it had to be good. Now, If I were some dirty young punk good might look like a cut-and-paste zine. However, when I was a dirty punk I did a zine and, predictably, my visual aesthetic evolved. As I began buying art, design, and architecture books, what I began to desire visually became more involved than what I used to desire visually. And now I feel like I must perform to that standard. DAMN AESTHETIC EVOLUTION TO HELL.

So here I am in London for the first time ever. Most of my Philadelphia friends never knew me when I traveled to Europe every year, and so when I set out to produce photo shoots there a few of them were like, “do you know what you are doing, really..?” And I had to say, YES I DO. Piecing together information from a number of social networking sites, originally I had 10 shoots set in stone; or so it seemed. However, I let some of my contacts slip while I was overly-concerned with finishing the US tour and I found the entire European venture in jeopardy.

The fact of the matter is that the European venture was never really supposed to a series of photo shoots, but was to be a one month trip to Italy where I would do my damnedest to focus in and finish the text of Barred For Life. The photo shoots would just widen the scope of the book to include The Bars, and the barred, from the perspective of a culture that had no direct connection to Black Flag until they first toured there. And so I opened up the structure to include only the cities that reached out to me since the theme of the data collection evolved from me “taking the country by storm” to me “letting the dedicated reach out to me and document those that share a key piece of the Black Flag work ethic, which happens to contain a chunk about information-proactivity.

The European tour now consists of roughly 5 shoots, including London (tomorrow), Manchester (Sunday), Paris (Tuesday), Roma (Dec, 27th), and the possibility of Milano and Barcelona. All are chill and all are being promoted by people that really, really, really want to tell their story, and that is totally fine by me. The rest of the time I will be camped out in a small town in Italy called Scarlino, in the home of my close friends Mauro and Laura Corbani. I will be accompanied and assisted for the first week by my good friend Audrey, and everything is shaping up to be a solid mixture of work and relaxation.

FIRST FOOT IN EUROPE

My flight from JFK left at 6:50pm, and the trip to JFK from my friend Richard’s house in Jersey City took about 2/3’s the time that it took for me to fly from JFK to Heathrow. I’ve flown into Italy about 5 times in the past bunch of years and to me the insanity of the airport in Rome is less a bizarre situation than landing at 5:30am in a county where English is the native tongue. I don’t know why I’ve been so confused but I am sure that it has something to do with the fact that nobody that I know, and especially those who will be helping me settle in and set up shop, will be awake for another few hours.

Deciding to sit tight in the airport and plan my day has been a blessing. Cappuccino for clarity, fluffy seat for comfort, and ears open in order to sonically spy on those who are moving through space close to me, all of which is keeping me from losing my mind while desperately trying to find a wireless network that doesn’t want to charge me the equivalent of $5 just to check my email for an hour. Plus, I just hate signing up for services that I will use once (and they will batter my email acct for eternity with frivolous advertisements). Fuck that. So when the clock strikes 9am (45 minutes) I will make my first official phone call in the UK and set out on my first ride on The Tube. A few hours later Audrey arrives on a train out of Manchester (yeah, we didn’t book our flights together, or at the same time, or for the same city), and by tomorrow we will be shooting our first Barred For Life folks in Europe. Very exciting. I will have to let you know how it turns out.

From what I’ve been told it is about 40 degrees outside. I brought a sweater, a hoodie, and a fluffy vest. I didn’t bring gloves, but I did bring a hat and some scarves. So off to enjoy the ride. Wish me luck and shoot me an email if you have a chance (stewart.dean.ebersole@gmail.com)

Stewart

Lots of sleep but no rest...

2009-12-01T20:40:00.003-05:00

REST PERIOD IS OVER
crossing the Atlantic Ocean

It seems rather premature to say that my stop-over in Philadelphia is over but, well, it is. As of tomorrow I stow my truck, pack my bags, and then to and sit in an airport for about 20 hours waiting for my plane to the UK.

As Noe and I were driving up the eastern coast of the US we had our ears and eyes on a brewing problem here in Philadelphia; that of the vicious split on the roads between cyclists and motorists ushered on by two unsolved bicycle/pedestrian hit-and-runs that resulted in the death of two people.

As a former Philadelphia messenger I knew first hand that the police generally favor automobiles and pedestrians when there is an encounter with a bicycle, and frequently cyclists are vilified and fucked with simply for not bending to the whims of people driving gigantic steel boxes with four wheels that can cause huge, if not catastrophic problems when they connect directly with bicycles.

It is a fucked up mess that is resulting in radical legislation toward cyclists in the name of safety, but with more than a hint of anti-messenger glits and glam attached. Two unsolved hit-and-runs, two deaths, and ALL OF PHILADELPHIA CYCLISTS ARE TO BLAME..? That is highly doubtful, but that is what is happening.

What is worse is that in this messy local political landscape is that a friend, and former coworker, suffered at the hands of both a vicious motorist and a frothing-anti-cyclist police force. After being run off the road by a car my friend was pushed onto the sidewalk and fliped over her bars. She landed on her face and was messed up pretty badly. Once the cops arrived they apparently refused to write it up as an aggressive hit-and-run, and blamed her accident not on the driver but on her flipping over her bars. For FUCKS SAKE, flipping over bars is generally something that doesn't happen to a well traveled cyclist, but for some reason the cops just generally gave her a piece of what the city has been serving up for years; a taste of "I don't give a fuck about you. You are on your own."

So, as I prepare to go overseas I am hoping that the PBMA (Philadelaphia Bike Messengers Association) along with the Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition push for legislation that protect cyclists instead of vilifies them. I don't know. I felt helpless the whole time, like there was nothing that I could do. So, I guess that the best that I can do is put it out there to you. Check into the recent incidents here in Philly and judge for yourself if this city is really trying to go green or if it is just talking cheap talk. Let's face it, bicycles are fucking green. Cars are not. Do the math.

HOME SWEET FUCKING HOME

2009-11-23T00:06:00.004-05:00

FINALLY (?) FINALE (?) HOME

I feel like I’ve aged a hundred years since October 1st, the first day of the Barred For Life national tour. On this tour about 30 states were traversed in the brave little white Hyundai Sonata. Some were stopped in, some were shot in, and some were passed right through. Trinkets were purchased, people were visited, friends were made, and life moved at the speed of sound. I changed travel partners three times and am greatly indebted to Stefan Bauscmid (35 days), Jorge Brita (6 days), and Noe Brunnell (6 days).

Alas, I’ve only aged 50 days, though my friend commented that I’ve more gray in my hair than when I left (thanks for the ego boost, friend). Along the way I reconnected with old friends Steven Wade, Katya Rudzik, Scottie Neimet, William and Stephanie Phipott (and son Wyatt), Allen Milletics, and many others, while making a whole shit-ton of new friends as well. To everybody that we met, tons of thanks. You made this trip sooooo worth it. While I am at it I should send out a huge thank you to Ron Reyes, Kira Roessler, Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, and Rick Spellman for agreeing to be interviewed by me and my crew, and to Mister Sweettooth for offering his assistance videotaping said interviews for a future video companion to Barred For Life.

Finally, at a gas station near Richmond, Virginia, our gas card ran out of funds. While sitting there ready to push my person bank card into the pump, I thought back on all of the folks that made the US/Canada leg of this trip even remotely possible.

In no particular order I would like extend a heart-felt thank you to:

Stuart Leon Esq.
Rachel Fletcher
Shark Fin
Kyber Pass Pub
Chubb Rock
Snack Flag
Brown Jeff
The Danzig Brick
Tritone
Doug “99” Achtert
Copout
Backwoods Payback
Aneurysm Rats
Autolyze
Exit Skateboard Supply
Robert and Tattooed Mom’s
Phillip and the Saylor Jerry Crew
Stephen of Cantina/Kyber/Royal Tavern fame
Dani Hill
Bill from Red Hook Café
Rolan from Reload Baggage Company
Carrie from Fabric Horse

All those that contributed monetarily and service wise to the Barred For Life project, and those that hosted the events (more on that later), those who attended the events (too numerous to mention in one effort), those bands that played the events, and those who put us up on their couches, beds, floors, rugs, and hardwood floors, what can I say, YOU ROCK. You made this event happen and worthwhile in so many ways.

To everybody that has followed this blog, sorry for making you wait so long between posts in the past few weeks but, fuck, I just wanted to get home.

In about two weeks Barred For Life will be in Europe. I promise to be more vigilant with my posts while there. Barring any unseen difficulty, most of the book should be written by my return mid January.

The cradle of Rock and Roll

2009-11-15T15:18:00.004-05:00

DIRTY SOUTH
HEADING NORTH

PLACES TO GO AND THINGS TO DO

What a fucking ruckus. Once we hit the south, southwest to be exact, it seemed as though every shoot was a full 9 hour drive from the last. Austin to New Orleans, New Orleans to Tampa, Tampa to Atlanta, Atlanta to Richmond. Long, all-nighter drives that made camping out in any one place kinda not likely. As a result I am kinda lost in a most general sense. I don't remember when is the last time I sat down and wrote a blog so while sitting in an Atlanta coffee shop I figured that it was time to do so.

Traveling is pretty cool in that it kills the will to know exactly where you are, what you are supposed to be doing, and how you are supposed to do it, and it forces you to kinda work with what you have. Since I've left Philadelphia on October 1st my hair has gotten longer, my beard has grown to jesus-proportions. There have been a few days where brushing my teeth was a luxury. There were many days where showers were nonexistent, and simply splashing water on my face from a well-used faucet in a rest area served as "quite refreshing." Oh, yeah, and let us not forget the hundreds and thousands of people that have come in and out of frame, and many I forget for a mintue and remember when in another state. Yeah, so to keep oneself from going absolutely nutty you just have to be there for you, and that is it. Down the road a piece, once you are settled into some "known" place it will be possible to give thanks properly. But for now it is the road of the "self" that I must focus upon. The rest of you get cred in a few weeks.

Okay, a brief summary. A brief summary is all that I can offer since I haven't had a lot of time to take too many pleasure pix. So here goes.

New Orleans:

NOLA could have been a big blur had it not been for the antics of our host Lacey. Local promoter, DIY activist, and awesome person in general, Lacey took us out, entertained us, introduced us to the many amazing tastes of New Orleans and general vicinity, and made our stay there one of the most awesome stays of the entire trip.

Night one was spent in Baton Rouge. Lacey's house was this amazing amalgam of what appeared to be two or three houses, replete with a big-loveable bulldog. There was a cat, a television, some cushy chairs and couches. It was awesome. Making our way to a 24-7 collegiate eatery, we were intrduced properly to the Po-Boy sandwhiches and grits. Baton Rouge would have been good enough for me, except for that the next day we were on our way to New Orleans.

Once in New Orleans we found our way to many a tourist spot. I encouraged it so I got what I wanted. Funny drinks, drinking during the day, walking down the Quarter with a drink in my hand, Cafe Ole at Cafe du Monde, weird shit, yummy food, pastries, strange people, some folks wanting to get naked for the camera, and all of that. It was surreal to say the least. But it was surreal in the best possible way.

Making our way to the R-Bar we set up shop and shot some VERY interesting characters with the bars. One dude with the bars on his ass (the first person with them there that I shot), and antoher guy with them tattooed on him no less then three times. Once the night really got going there was a lot of interst in the project and a lot of interest in getting naked (others more so than me). So, one guy fully intent on being photographed offered up his bare ass to the camera. My caveat; only if you let one of your buddies spank you. He agreed. I took the pic. It was weird but not unexpected. I have a good set up and don't think that I should just shoot any-old-person when they want it, unless they want to give me $$, or sex, or something like that.

And as soon as it was over it was over. Stefan and I packed up and we were off faster than you could say, "hey, wait, you forgot to pay your tab...!" No, really, we did pay our tab. Then we were out.

Tampa:

Long fucking drive through the night. We handled it in a few shifts. On my morning shift, after a brief nap in a Florida rest area, we were merged into by an old man from Alabama. He left a black racing strip on our white car, and this marked our first acciding in 40 days. Police faulted our old friend and off we went.

Atomic Tattoo, and Tommy Johnson (our host) were giving free tattoos all day. It was a pretty extraordinary concept. So, we got a lot of good shots in on very little sleep, and I got my bars ammended with a quote from a song from the Black Flag album that made me not like Black Flag very much. See picture. Anyway, I though that it was fitting because MY WAR is a song that means a lot to me personally, based on the fact that EVERYBODY seems to be one of THEM, but the album, especially side B, was where I kinda let that band go. I was over BF by 84. Yup, I said it, and now Ironically I was getting lyrics from that record recorded onto my skin for the rest of my life. Like I always say, "Humor, there is not enough of it in my life..."

In Tampa I bid Stefan, my faithful travel associate, a farewell, and picked up Noe for the last week of the trip. While my first day without Stefan didn't seem so strange, I must admit that our strange synergy worked very well for this tour. We both were able to chill for long periods of time and make the most of long stretches of time where there just wasn't anything else to do. Now I feel like I have to make things happen when there really isn't anything to do. Oh well, there is just on more week.

Atlanta:

The drive to Atlanta was long and boring, and full of construction. We arrived in Atlanta and instantly got lost. Once we found our way to Lenny's Bar we set up shop and shot some pretty solid shots of a bunch of local old-heads, and some new-heads to boot. Atlanta has a long history of Oi and Skinhead bands, and so we shot a few cats that kinda started the whole thing up here in Atlanta in the early 80's. Having not known much about Atlanta punk culture, I was quickly schooled. It was a good time, and then it was over.

Went back to the home of a friend and got a very good night's sleep. Now, um, I dunno. I have two days off. What to do with them..? Hmmm, I dunno. Anyway, I guess that I am about to explore that...

Stewart

AUSTIN is EXHAUSTIN...

2009-11-10T21:46:00.024-05:00

THE LONG WAY HOME
ACROSS THE BARREN SOUTHWEST

I couldn’t have picked a more wicked route across the southwest of the US if I tried to punish myself purposefully. However, I must admit that when I began booking the US tour I had never envisioned it being (1) so damn long time-wise, or (2) so damn long distance-wise. So I gave first-come-first-serve precedence to those people that contacted me in order to set up an event. And, well, that is the story of the last three nights that have had us covering thousands of miles and sleeping many a night in the car.

If you have a map handy you can do the math: San Diego, CA to Las Vegas, NV (6hrs) then to Pheonix, AZ (9hrs), then to Salt Lake City, UT (roughly 10hrs), to Denver, CO (roughly 8hrs), and tomorrow to Austin, TX (12hrs).

I admit that there are a lot of other towns where we could have gone, or a lot of ways one could have juggled the towns that we did have confirmed, or we could have even simply contacted individuals from my MySpace or FaceBook lists and went directly to their houses (and gotten more shots), but, well, I didn’t do it that way. I did it the way that I did it, accepting it, and moving on with my √life.

Once upon a time I was in this little band called Railhed. We were this tiny four-piece band out of Newark, DE, and one summer we went on tour (I think that it was 1991) with two much bigger bands; World’s Collide and No Escape. I must admit that I enjoyed the fuck out of our days playing with those other bands, but the point of the story is not a recount of that tour. The point of the story, and I cannot remember why we did it like this, but we only played from the East Coast to the West Coast, and after our show in Thousand Oaks, CA (a small suburb of southern Los Angeles) we drive the rest of the way home to Delaware straight through in like 30 hours.

By all accounts we did that drive faster than anybody could have anticipated much due to the fact that me and our guitar player (and now good friend, haha) Mark McKinney, took these long-ass night shifts across route 40, and were able to squeeze nearly 100mph out of our little wagon the entire time. The result, a quick trip home. The trip home didn’t come without its weird personal legacy for me in that we had covered 3 time zones in two days, and I had to sleep myself into oblivion to make it back to East Coast time. It was a radical mess by all accounts, but two days later I was either working for my father trying to make money to sustain me through my last year of college, or I was enrolled in a college class.

The next year Railhed broke up after her gig in St. Louis, MO, must before we took off to go south, and so I didn’t get to see the southwest again until 1997 when I toured with my friends from Columbus, OH, in a band called Ambassador 990. In a rather interesting twist of events, we played more or less the same cities that Stefan and I have hit over the past week, but it didn’t seem like this much driving, but I guess that it was, and I think that we did it in the reverse order too. Anyway, what I am saying here is that, okay, I could have planned better but based on what I remember from my past tours the dates didn’t seem so wonkie in terms of travel, and now I am finding out once again that both Stefan and I are going to return home fucking mega-exhausted.

THE DATES

LAS VEGAS:

After all of this time I still don’t equate “Las Vegas” and “people living in some US city” at all. Vegas seems like some place where robotic automatons deal cards, clean up tables, serve food, dance, sing, rob, steal, and recreate, and have replaced human beings. But, well, I’d be lying if I didn’t meet some living and breathing Las Vegas residents.

Early on the Reverend Rob Rukkus had learned of the book from his NYC contemporaries (and Barred For Life friends) at Double Down Saloon NYC. He was on board faster than I could say, “Am I really gonna quit my job and tour the US for this book..?” So, yeah, Rukkus was on board almost immediately, and curiously I still haven’t met this mystery man. Rukkus, strangely not at the shoot even though he is rumored as having some pretty big Bars tattooed on him somewhere, had found his way to San Fran to see a show, and so his Double Down crew graciously allowed for us to set up shop and shoot Barred folks for a few hours.

Prior to the shoot I was asked to participate on a radio show that takes place every Friday night from their stage at 8pm, and so after Stefan and I traversed the UNLV campus in search of food from Cappriotti’s (a Delaware based sandwhich company best known for their vegetarian and vegan sandwhiches), we returned to Double Down and set up shop.

Competing for space with the radio show, we managed to fire off about five or six folks in rapid succession before I got called on stage to rap with the DJ about the project. A minute later it was all over. I was free to go. It was somewhat anticlimactic.

After the initial group of Barred citizens we respectfully waited out Rukkus, both to shoot his photo for the book and to ask him for a place to stay, but Rukkus never materialized. So, after a text telling us that he wasn’t going to be able to make it to the shoot we saddled up the white Hyundai and got the fuck out of Vegas. Honestly, I just couldn’t stand the glow of that town any longer. That place is 24 hours of electricity burning out of control and I just wanted to get on the road.

A hundred or so miles into our drive, me behind the wheel (and sleeping behind it for who knows how long), we slept at our first gas station of the trip; mostly because this had been the first place where we didn’t score accommodations and the temps were warm enough to sleep in relative comfort.

PHOENIX:

Getting into Phoenix in the early afternoon, the promoter called to tell us that a local “PUNK ROCK” owned tattoo shop called Golden Rule was giving The Bars at a reduced price, and that we were allowed to shoot there. So we high-tailed it to Golden Rule where Stefan and I wandered the city in different directions before returning to shoot a fella getting some pretty tricky bars in the shaped of the state of Iowa.

Others would come in and take advantage of the reduced price of the bars, but we would not be there to photograph them. We would be at Jughead’s Bar where we would be shooting pix while the band BLACK FAG would be rocking BLACK FLAG covers while dressed in full DRAG of some sort or another.

Soon after setting up my lighting the amazing folks from BLACK FAG asked if I would shoot pix of them in a “professional way” and I obliged them. They changed into stage clothes and returned to the stage where I had am amazingly difficult time wrangling them into a decent pose conducive to making them look serious. Finally I managed to sneak off about 10 shots of them that blew me away.

We shot about 8 or 9, or maybe even 10 folks there before jumping in the car and racing off to Salt Lake City. What stood out to me about that night, besides how hard our host at Jughead’s Bar pushed people to come out to be photographed, was that BLACK FAG blew me away. Here are all of these folks dressed up as the variety of perceived “gay” stereotypes, and they played Black Flag songs in and evil and aggressive way. Besides the singer changing some lyrics to sound “gay,” they handled the material so well that I was, well, blown the fuck away. I couldn’t believe how coincidental their playing and our shooting on the same day was for both parties. They ended up with some great photos and I ended up with another great experience.

SALT LAKE CITY:

Stefan took the first leg of the drive and made it until sunrise before I took over the driving duties. We were in the middle of this huge canyon. I was totally disoriented, and quickly realized that we were on a back road that was still more accommodating than most major access roads we’d been on for most of the drive.

Once behind the wheel it was 80-90mph the entire way to SLC via some of the most awesome landscape I’d seen up to this point. While desolate and a bit depressed, it was proven to me once again that the US has some of the most awesome empty space, public space, and we should visit it more frequently instead of sitting behind the television and complaining that there is nothing to do. Now I am not saying that everybody should write a book and go on tour, but just getting out to see the landscape does so much for ones mood. If you get it you feel an instant connection. If you don’t get it, well, then stay in the city and pretend like everything that you need to be healthy. It isn’t, but you can keep believing it. Go for it. Dude.

We were amazingly early for our SLC shoot and even from that early point I had this feeling that there wasn’t going to be a lot of folks coming out for this one. I am developing this weird premonition-system on nights when we should expect at most two or three tattooed folks to show up at a public event, and in general the ones that do REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want to be there. There stories are good and their enthusiasm for the project makes up for the ANTITHETICAL HIPSTER ATTITUDE that determines any project that is not “yours” to be unworthy of your collaboration. And, well, as we know hipsters don’t do much so they end up being a pretty reclusive bunch unless Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah makes their way to town. Or any event sponsored by PBR. Cannot forget PBR. Or can we…?

Anyway, Germ (a name given to our host by Darby Crash of the Germs back in the late 70’s) and his wife Shelly came to pick us up at NOBROW café and took us to their home in a northern suburb of SLC. After making some dinner (fish tacos), I set up a shoot with Jimi (who got his bars in prison, ironically) and Shelly, and then we all sat around and talked before going to bed.

Mind you, this would be the first night where Stefan and I were to sleep in a home, let along in beds, and allowed to sleep for as long as we wanted. I woke up, predictably, at around 7:30am to find that Shelly had given me a pair of hand-knitted gloves. We all got our things together and took off to shoot one more person (a lovely lady named Echo) at the café before hitting the road across eastern Utah and all of southern Wyoming.

Just moments from arriving in Denver it is hard to imagine that we will be breaking down at 10pm and driving all night just to arrive in Austin in time for our shoot at 7pm. Thankfully we have a day off before hitting up New Orleans, which I am looking quite forward to.

Stewart

I'm on my way, just set me free, home-sweet-home

2009-11-07T02:28:00.018-05:00

IN TOWNS IDENTIFIED BY LETTERS
LA, SD, AND ON OUR WAY TO LV

Holy Shit Stefan and I are a machine. He processes, I shoot, he interviews, and off we go. We are getting so good at this that we don't really even need to talk to one another while doing it. Nods generally work. A wave from across the room, too. It is nice to be one half of a team that seems to function with such synergy. Don't get me wrong, we still get into tiffs here and there but, fuck, he and I are adults. We power through the little things. And, for what...? Well, I shall tell you what... Imagine being given the opportunity to sit in a room with a person, or some people, who generally do not sign on to be interviewed about things that happened 30 years ago, and then imagine that what they say, almost at every step, is a total revelation. The hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Yeah, for that. Kira, Morris, Dukowski, Reyes, and many more have been kind enough to invite us over to their homes on this leg of our mission and allow us to set up shop and interview them, to pry information from them, and to revel in their story; which happens to be the story of this book.

LA is the birthplace of so much awesome mythology. Think X, the Germs, Fear, the Circle Jerks, and Black Flag. Then, think of so many more awesome bands and awesome people, and how their contributions to the American Punk Rock ethos have afforded all of us the ability to be part of this lifestyle, subculture, and cultural imperative. So, I guess that it is safe to say that I am willing to overlook little things in order to revel in these moments. And I do.

Our LA host, Phillip Acala, is a tattooer. Not only is he a tattooer, but Phillip apprenticed with Rick Spellman; an oldschool tattooer that has tattooed folks from X, from the Misfits, and from Black Flag. So, imagine my surprise when Phillip says to me, "Hey man, would you be interested in photographing Rick Spellman tattooing London May (drummer for Samhain, Dagnasty, etc) here at the house...?" Um, hey Phillip, FUCK YES, FUCK YES, FUCK YES... And it was on.

Our last day in LA went as follows. Wake up, walk to the taco shop, meet some guy with the bars on his neck and ask him to come back to the house, walk home, set up shop and shoot Phillip in his driveway, get into the car, drive to Hollywood, interview and photograph Keith Morris, drive home, set up shop and shoot Rick and London, sleep momentarily on couch, get into long discussion with London about punk rock and Baltimore in the early 80's, look at his Black Flag "stuff" collection, wait for call from Chuck Dukowski, get it, get in the car, drive to Venice, get lost, get to his house, set up shop, interview Chuck Dukowski, take pix of him in his livingroom, get back in car, drive back to LA and drop off Sweettooth so that he might make it back to SF in time for his morning class, drive back to Phillip's house, go to sleep.

If that sounds like a lot of stuff to you, it was way more than you can even imagine. It was even more than I can imagine and I am a pretty productive person. It was intense int he best possible way. So, in looking back all that I can say is this; if it were not for meeting Phillip and being part of a fucking amazing crew, I am not sure any (and surely not all) of what we accomplished could have been even remotely possible. So, to Phillip, Sweettooth, and my man Stefan I present my heart-felt grattitude.

The next morning we were up early and ready to roll to San Diego (meaning whale's vagina I think???), and most of the coast between LA and SD. Long, slow, chill, sunny, breezy, laid-back drive down the coast; something that I've always wanted to do but was never given the chance in the bands I was in prior because we were always in a hurry. In what seemed to be a 8 hour period we meandered south making it to San Diego in a relaxed state. There were some driver changes and all, but the vibe was quite pleasant.

SAN DIEGO:

I've always loved San Diego. One of my early favorite hardcore bands, the Batallion of Saints, was from San Diego, as were many of my mid-90's favorites (Antioch Arrow, Swing Kids, Heroin, etc), and so I always dream of finding my way there whenever I can. Arriving in SD we made our way to our host, Mike's, tattoo shop (Metropolis Tattoo). For me, my arrival in SD also signaled a re-connection with a friend that I haven't seen since 1991 named Lisa. I met Lisa in Jackson Hole back when I was in college, and now she is a rather brilliant photographer living and work in SD. So, yeah, my pleasures were manifold.

After a while we made our way to Kadan's, where we set up shop and shot some really, really, really killer folks, and some brilliant tattoos. Between shoots I was pulling people under the lights (including the lovely and talented Fatima once more), Lisa, Mike, Stefan, and some old folks that were wandering about the bar. What a fucking brilliant night of collecting stories.

Nothing to See here folks...

2009-11-03T21:34:00.020-05:00

DISPATCHES FROM LOS ANGELES AND THE SURROUNDING 52 SUBURBAN TRACTS

Having grown up on the East Coast, or the Right Coast as I like to call it, I've had itsy-bitsy California dreams on occasion; but it was nothing serious. I woke up, shook off the cobwebs, and found myself right where I started. I was still on the East Coast. Don't get me wrong, I fucking love my coast and would defend it if the western part of the US (led by Texas, obviously) decided to break away from the union and begin a civil war. I would fight like hell for my rights to be offensive, loud, mean, evolutionarily-stalled, and somewhat unfamiliar with the basics of the English language. Yo, You'se, Whut(?), What'chu lookin at, and the like, would be used as a sort of secret code to help us defeat our mortal West Coast enemies. Honestly, we are just so much fucking meaner. Plus, on our coast time just moves so much faster. So, while the west coast army prepares to move forward into battle, well, we'd already have wiped them out just so that we would be home in time to see the Phillies win the World Series. We just wouldn't have the time to dally with strategy because, well, we just don't have the time. We are in a hurry. Period.

But for some reason, and I cannot explain it, but crossing that border between Oregon and California something happened to me. No more anxiety, no pressure, no freak outs, no more calls home to make sure that everything is alright. I had settled into my moments and had no idea why I should want to relive the past or project into the future. Sure, I could plan into the future, but I would have to be happy with what I got (which is not always the case with me as you might guess).

So, goddammit, I became a California hippie. The border, as borders do, kept the California posi-vibes from making it to my decision center, and so upon making it to the border, well, "dude, I just had to chill out, man..." That is exactly what the doctor ordered. I needed to chill the fuck out... And I did so with great authority. While in San Fran, despite the reasonably poor showing to the shoots, and the absence of promotion, I stayed level-headed. It was amazing. Stefan and I basically stayed at his friend's house for like three days and it felt suspiciously like we were just living there. No pressure, no problem, no nothing. Honestly, at times I feared that once we were on the road again to LA that things would get all crazy, and I would feel like I wanted to lose my shit again. But it didn't. In fact, LA has been a mirror image of the San Fran days. All is chill. All is well.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES:

The drive to LA was divided into two parts; the Stewart part and the Stefan part. The Stewart part included a handful of hours out of SF, across the flat-as-fuck desert-plains, and the Stefan part included more mountains (and more of me sleeping through them). Finding ourselves nearing the city I took over the wheel again and Stefan copiloted me into the Long Beach area for our first shoot.

Dan Habershaw was our host, and on that day we would be shooting at a spot where hot-rodding in California was, well, invented. Masterson Customs is a shop along Atlantic Avenue, and in the back are about 8 or 10 classic cars in various states of restoration, and out front is Dans 48 coupe, also in a various state of restoration. We were amongst hot-rodders.

We were running late, and Dan contacted me to tell me that the woman from LA Weekly, like Elvis before her, had left the fucking stadium. She would not return phone calls or an email, and so I had to deal with not getting any publicity, even if it was to come out after we had left, for the LA area.

Shooting 3 or 4 people, I was thinking, "uh oh, here we go again," but had to keep in mind that we had about a week to organize this shoot. It was from-the-hip, off-the-cuff, and not really that well organized from my end. So, the shots we got were pretty awesome (including a baby with a custom Black Flag fan shirt) and the baby's mom with the bars on her throat), and off we went to Dan's house for a cook-out. Burgers, brats, mac-n-cheese, and some drinks later, we were still in the garage talking punk rock and hot rods, all before Dan stepped inside to be tattooed by a visiting tattooist friend from Oregon.

Trying not to be a burden, I fired off some shots and off we went toward LA proper to hook up with the host of the following day's shoot, Phillip Acala. Phillip is a tattooist who was trained by Rick Spellman (yes, the man who did Rollin's classic back piece, and work on most of the punk bands of the early 80's), and we would get to meet him at some point in our stay as well.

Phillip put us up in his home and we slept our asses off since in the morning we had to pick up Sweettooth (our videographer) at the train station and high-tail it to Kira Roessler (Black Flags only female member, and bassist)'s house up north. We would be cutting everything close but, well, the gods willing we would make everything happen before the photoshoot in Fullerton.

Dammit if things didn't work out perfectly. Kira stands out unique among Black Flag members, not so much because she was their only female member, but because she replaced the irreplaceable Chuck Dukowski. Let's say for a second that you were asked to step into Bill Gates position at Microsoft. The pressure would be on. Wouldn't matter if you were male or female. The pressure would be on. And, remembering events from that time, she did it pretty fucking well. So, it would be my pleasure to interview her and take her statement. Oh, yeah, and to photograph her. Yeah, that was fun.

Anyway, the whole thing went off without incident and we were off to Phillip's house for a nap before heading to Shelter Street and Skate for our show and shoot.

Now, I'd been to Los Angeles before but, fuck, dude, I never remember it being so fucking spread out. I've heard the stories, but dammit, this town is sprawling. I am still lost every time we walk out the door of Phillip's home. So, yeah, I've been getting lost a lot. The drive to Fullerton, well, I might as well have been blindfolded.

Upon arrival, the bands set up, I set up (under a cut little palm tree) and it was on. Non stop tattooed folks for about three hours. Both Stefan and I were so busy that we didn't see each other but for a few seconds at a time. The second I'd finish shooting on person another person would arrive on the scene. After some lighting changes I'd be firing shots off, and then there would be antoher kid waiting over my shoulder. Honestly, it was a bit exhausting. However, the results were amazing.

Between shooting of Barred folks I managed to get off shots of some rather fancy ladies in the crowd, and a shit ton of pix of the various bands. Could not beat the experience with a fucking stick. Loved it. Loved the venue. Loved the show. Loved how great a job Phillip did with the planning of the show. Loved meeting Mr. Spellman. Loved catching up with fellow East Coaster, London May. All tolled, fucking amazing.

Spent today at the beach. Not much to report. We are in LA folks. The cradle of West Coast Punk Rock. When the East Coast beats the West Coast in the next civil war I am gonna steal some land here. Well, not here in LA, but somewhere a bit further north where the women are a bit less uber-hot, and can probably beat me arm wrestling. And where there are no little dogs in purses. Oh, shit, yeah, that is everywhere. Sorry. Fuck little dogs in purses everywhere.

Stewart

I LEFT MY HEART, AND LUNGS, IN SAN FRANCISCO...

2009-10-31T15:17:00.021-04:00

THE FOG IN PRAUGE FALLS MAINLY

ON THE BOGGS
and in San Fran it just eats the city whole

Years ago I was in a band called Railhed. We were early on the "emo-core" scene, but far behind the great bands from DC that made that gave the genra legs in the middle-1980's. We were lucky enough to play a few songs at Gillman Street with Jawbreaker, and I must admit that I was more than a bit honored. However, the luke-warm greeting, appreciation, and the attitude of the folks that were hanging outside really turned me off to the Bay Area scene.

We were staying in Oakland near the now-famed Arkansas House that was established by the band Econochrist, and we were invited to a party at said home. The kids that I met and with whom I conversed were a brazen mix of Arkansas-onians and rich-punks-cum-runaways-from the northern hills. I grew up in a rigid middle-class, working-class home in south-central Pennsylvania, and we had just what we needed, and then a bit more; but not that much more. So, when I am in a situation where I am forced to rap with drunkin 18-year-old run away kids who are running away from a LOT OF MONEY, and will most likely be able to return to that LOT OF MONEY somewhere down the road, well, I am not really into it. To have a kid tell me, "yeah, all that my parents care about is money. I am not really into that so I ran away..." is not that interesting.

Here is mine, "I grew up in a place where punk didn't really exist. I hunted and hunted, and then it found me. I got beat up, fucked with, hit from behind, fucked with somemore, could not get a date, and was teased incessantly in school, oh, and yeah, my family is just breaking even." Not that I think that my situation is better or worse then, but my situation didn't have a trust-fund clause built into it. Yeah, so my first taste of the Bay-Area was not a pleasant one.

On top of that, the house where we were staying had a previous infestation of lice. Yeah, so there goes the romanticism of being a Bay-Area punk for me.

For years I eschewed that same Punk Rock romaniticism, which was only made more intense by the major-label antics of such acts as Samiam, Jawbreaker, and, let us not forget, Green Day. Yeah, it was rather epic for me to believe that SF and the Bay Area had nothing to offer me personally, and so I wrote it off. End of story.

THE TREK SOUTHWARD:

Stefan wanted to make the drive to SF from Portland before daybreak, though we really didn't have a place to stay. Not to mention, I really wanted to visit this place along the Oregon coast called Newport, just to check it out and see what my feelings are for it some 12 years since I visited there last. However, with Stefan offering to drive to the border, and it being like 11pm, I just didn't really want to fight it.

The drive down the FIVE was awful. I tried to sleep but with all the mountain passes and road construction, and trucks, and twists and turns, and all of that shit, well, sleeping was nearly impossible. So instead of insomnia, on this night I was having massive amounts of bad dreams; crazy, hurried, rushed-to-the max, anxious dreams. After 6 hours of driving, at around 5:30am Stefan handed the wheel over to me. I had no interest in taking it. I was tired, disoriented, and most of all I was pissed. I got over it eventually, but I didn't really want to drive. I just wanted to put my tent up in a rest area and try to get some sound, un-crazy sleep.

The next 5 hours were just me sitting behind the wheel thinking of just how much I didn't really want to be in the Bay Area. On top of that, just days before, my contact here in SF informed me that she thought that I was dealing directly with the venues and, well, the shoots had more-or-less not been put on the schedule at either Mama Buzz (Oakland) or Modern Time Book Store. Figuring that we wouldn't shoot a soul in SF I just basically condemned my stay here at a split second of purgatory before winding up in SoCal.

SET UP SHOP:

Getting in to SF was not such an easy endeavor since the Bay Bridge was out of commission. New routes were formulated and we found our way in via a more obsucre bridge in the deep south. Upon making it to the home of our hosts, we set up shop and decided to stay awake all day instead of trying to take a short nap before trekking over to Oakland to see if anybody actually showed up to the cafe where we were to shoot.

As predicted, there was to be no shoot at Mama Buzz but we made our way over to Oakland anyway, where I was to meet up with my friend's little brother. The call that I placed earlier in the day confirmed that not a soul had scheduled our shoot so we were just there as a cautionary measure. Yup, Oakland had let a bad taste in my mouth once again. Back home we trekked with a shit-ton of photographic equipment and no shots to document our trip across the bay.

Home to bed we went.

The next morning I awoke to a call from some friends from a band from back home in Philly called HOOTS and HELLMOUTH. They were still in SF from a show the night before and we devised a plan to meet up for lunch, which we did, and then some.

As Rob, their mandoline player told me, "a taste of home on the road is an unbeatable experience," and I couldn't agree more. Ever since our meeting my spirits have been super high. It was just the fuel that I needed to make it the rest of the way home over the course of the next month.

These MODERN TIMES, they are a changin:

HOOTS and HELLMOUTH gone I started making calls to my east coast friends to put out their feelers and get people to the MODERN TIMES shoot in the Mission District of SF, proper. I called Modern Times and, as predicted, they also had no idea what I was talking about but would accommodate us anyway.

Stefan and I humped it down to the shop, set up shop, and eventually a handful of folks showed up to participate in the project. Each one of them had individually repsonded to the offers put out there by my east coast contingency, except for my old friend Richard, who was responding to his wife's request for him to make his way there.

Knowing very well that there are probably hundreds of BF tattoos in the Bay Area, scoring a handful, while not ideal, got me to thinking about the nature of BARRED FOR LIFE. And this is what I've determined...

Originally, BFL was going to be a joke mag about people with really poorly executed Black Flag tattoos. While funny, I didn't find the stories behind the tattoos at all funny. In fact, what I found when I started talking to people about their individual work was that these people are passionate about whatever it is that THE BARS mean to them. Whether Black Flag was their favorite band "back in the day" or whether they believe that The Bars have transcended all of that, these tattoos are intensely personal and, therefore, the book changed its focus toward documenting this personal nature and perspective.

As the idea for the tour began looking like a reality even I found that I was taking the project quite personally; to the degree that I was willing to quit my job and up-end my life to make it a reality. Yeah, it became that personal.

The tour started out solid enough with amazing turnouts in most cities. However, when turnouts began to drop (in Detroit) I was super bummed. Moving across the rt 90-94 stretch between Minneapolis and Seattle, and with poor turnouts along much of the coast, well, I had to once again rethink this project.

Now, sitting in SF for the third day it has dawned on me that I am back to the original purpose of the project; to document a very personal thing that seems only personal to those who possess the tattoos, or are part of this subculture. To those that feel most strongly about their beliefs, and those beliefs are connected to this tattoo, they are the ones that make it out to the shoots and make it into the book, period. The book is not a documentation of the American Hipster trend to eschew things that don't make sense, or of me traveling to people's house and begging them to participate in the shoots. In fact, this book is about those people who get out and do shit much in way that the bands "back in the day" made punk rock tour routes (before thought impossible), possible.

So, off we go to sunny So Cal tomorrow. With my new love for San Fran, well, now I don't really have any geographic hangups tagging along with me on this trip. Guess that the tour starts today then.

PS. A call to my mom back in PA yielded the following information: "You got a magazine in the mail. Tattoo's For Men I think it is called...? And there is a page about your project in it. And there is a picture of a girl, a tall girl with blond hair, with the tattoo on her leg in the middle." Haha, the beautiful Audrey Dwyer found her way into the mainstream media yet again.

NO, YOU ARE NOT MY HERO...

2009-10-29T00:09:00.006-04:00

THE GREAT NORTHWEST PASSAGE
TIME BETTER SPENT DREAMING

The insomnia persists. Every little sound that chimes out of the night’s silence wakes me up in a flash of brilliant blue and white. It is like an electrical storm in my frontal lobe that is accompanied by a pang of adrenaline shooting out of my gut and into my bloodstream. One lucid thought propels itself into a million more, and the next thing that I know I am worrying myself awake into a shallow panic.

Now, while all of this sounds a bit on the painful side, generally I am getting a solid 5 or 6 hours of sleep before these waking episodes have my faculties on high alert. Normally that would be plenty of sleep for me but, well, for some reason I am operating under a condition of constant exhaustion. At any rate, if I said that I wasn’t having the time of my life on the road I would be lying. If one desires to combat all of their fears all-at-once one simply needs to give up his/her normal life and take off for points unknown for a little while (three weeks is recommended). One is sure to find his/her fears illuminated very quickly. While confronting human fears and such might sound kinda shitty, overall it is an amazing experience to know where you need to focus your energies, and actually start doing so. After all, what else do you have to do while driving from city-to-city..? Well, besides sleep and read..?

Anyway:

What to say about the northwest..? Well, it is beautiful… I mean this is the land where the seas-meet-the-trees afterall, and that is a fucking beautiful site. There has been enough of this repetitively beautiful landscape to push me to a drunken bender. I can visualize myself sitting high atop a mountainside in a field of wildflowers, dancing, singing, chanting, and running around naked in such a landscape in some messed up lucid, lack-of-sleep, hippie dream, but enough already. Wherever you might live, living in the mountains just isn’t a reality for a east-coaster with citified tendencies. So, then what..?

The skies…? Yeah, the sky is fucking beautiful. Gray as gray-can-be for 10-minutes, sunny the next 10, snowing lightly 20-minutes later, and then sunny again 5-minutes after that. Sometimes while driving the clouds blend so perfectly in the distance with the Cascade Mountains that it is more than difficult to tell where the mountaintops end and the cloud bottoms begin. It is mind-bending for the most part. Yeah, but it isn’t about living your life looking at clouds either.

The people..? Oh, fuck, the people are all so beautiful. Styled out women and the hippest dudes. Trailer trash side-by-side with urbane fucksters. It is a weird mix. Tons of homeless people. Liberal attitudes butting up against mega conservative mid-western overspill. While the east coast has basically segregated such element, the northwest seems to exist in a state of all-at-one-ness, and I am not sure how well neighbors treat neighbors. It is just weird. I dunno. It all seems so safe for a second, and then there seems to be this undercurrent of danger a second later. Everything human appears to change like the weather here. Guess that makes sense.

The cities..? Ah, the clusters of humanity all trying to make this thing work. Tons and tons of human energy boxed and crated and channeled and deluded. Human energy going straight into keeping up a front. Where you live, who you know, and how you go, just like back home. However, there is a rub here that rubs me the wrong way. I cannot put my finger on it but I am actually happy to be getting out of the northwest in the next few days. A recap of our time in the great NW might shed some light. Allow me to shed.

SEATTLE:

Rained from the border until I reached an uncharted town where I met a really old guy that told me a rich and vivid history of said town. He knew everybody. I took a lot of pix of seals in the water and of men fishing for salmon with gill nets. He told me that “east is that way” when I thought that it was the other way. I love, LOVE, LOVE being lost and having somebody point me in the right direction. I adore being humbled by my surroundings, which is why I go in search of such adventures more often than not.

Anyway, arriving into Seattle proper and making my way to the Funhouse was like driving to the docks to make a drug deal in a television show or movie about drugs. And then, all of a sudden, poof, the NEEDLE. There is it, a Seattle landmark. And, across the street, the FUNHOUSE.

At the Funhouse I was reacquainted with Stefan and we both had this less-than-encouraging feeling that we were going to end up in a fist fight. While the happy hour crowd was mostly punky-alternative types, it was these types in a gnarley-aggressive attitude. As I remember of Seattle from my last visit, lots of long hair and ratty facial hair (think Alice In Chains, or grunge in general). Once we were finally shooting people, the handful of folks that did make it out on a Monday night were pretty fucking rad. The rest of the place was littered with I-don’t-care types. I dunno. It just didn’t seem all that up-and-up to me. For the first time since we left the coast we couldn’t get anybody to put us up. That alone is a rather strange thing, right, given that is just two of us. Not that the people who couldn’t put us up didn’t have healthy reason why, but we just couldn’t get anybody to put us up.

Then, at the last minute, as we were packing up and ready to drive to Olympia to find cheap beds, two old friends from Detroit showed up and summarily took us to their house for some sleep, but not before taking us to a favorite watering hole for some drinks. As I like to say, my time in the Midwest in the early 90’s yielded some rather awesome, and far-reaching friendships.

After sleep it was off to Olympia, but not before driving to Aberdeen; home of Nirvana and the Melvins, and to see the beaches of the west coast for the first time on the trip.

ABERDEEN:

Dirty, industrial, crack-heads-running-amuk, and free internet at the local grocery store.

The beaches were cold, scary, and beautiful. Waves so angry that they made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Oysters and huge crabs. If Aberdeen wasn’t so dirty and depressing I would move there and make it my surf-and-destroy wonderland.

OLYMPIA:

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t “hate” as a rule, but I think that I “hate” Olympia. Hippie kids spare changing. Flakes. Our host was cool, and accommodating, but the person/people that requested that we come to Olympia to photograph their Black Flag tattoos stopped answering emails about two days ago and did not show up to the event. WHAT THE FUCK..? What would you do if the pizza guy didn’t show up after you ordered (and were charged for) a pizza via your phone..? Same shit different perspective. Sorry people. Just not really interested in this brand of childish flakiness. Call me an east-coaster, but shit has got to get done and it doesn’t get done on lip-service. It might start that way but it doesn’t get finished that way. WALK-THE-WALK, people…

Yeah, while I try forcefully not to judge, I don’t think that I will be spending any time in Olympia any time soon, and I am kinda glad that our “friends” didn’t show just so there will be no “Olympia” section in Barred For Life. In fact, the only mention of Olympia that I will make in the book will a be shout-out to our host and venue, and a footnote about how I will never visit Olympia ever again in my long, long fucking lifetime for any reason whatsoever. So sue me for judging. Bummer.

PORTLAND:

Just got here. I have about three friends here. People are pretty and styling. Lots and lots of bicycles. In a Whole Foods-wannabe grocery store. Prices are a bit higher than WF but I got some pretty awesome Greek Yogurt with fig preserves, which happens to be my favorite amenity to Greek Yogurt. I would like some raw honey and granola to mix into my ambrosial concoction. So, let’s see what tonight brings.

COAST TO COAST, BITCHES...

2009-10-28T00:07:00.014-04:00

VANCOUVER, BC
BIKES AND PUNKS

A rather riotous border crossing behind me, yet my heightened need for sleep and massive headache still on board, I entered Vancouver at 11pm on Saturday night. Honestly folks, I don’t party like you do. I drive long hours on Saturday nights. I call people at absurd hours of the evening and ask them to let me into their homes so that I can go straight to sleep and then allow them to get back to their Saturday evening. That is a party to me; disrupting somebody else’s good time (kidding, but it happened).

As bad as that sounds it wasn’t all that bad. Larissa is a friend of a friend, Juls, who I met last year right after my home had been broken into and vandalized, and right before I moved into the warehouse (more on that some other day). Juls keeps on turning me on to these really fucking rad people across the country that either have The Bars tattooed on them, or are just cool as fuck people in general. So, Juls turned me on to Larissa; Vancouver scene stalwart. Larissa turned out to be VERY FUCKING COOL.

Larissa met me at her doorstep, let me into her home, made me feel totally welcome, and then went back to her party. I went straight to sleep. Larissa never came home so the next morning when I awoke at like 6am, I had this sort of major WHERE THE FUCK AM I (?) Moment. If you remember, I wasn’t really in the best of mindsets when I arrived at the border, and was even less conscious when Larissa allowed me into her house, so it seemed rather okay that I had no clue where I was when I woke up. And, so, I sat up and did what anybody would do; I called my mom (haha).

Anyway, my adventure to Vancouver was two-fold; (1) to photograph a handful of people at Scratch Records (a very cool record store in downtown Vancouver) and (2) to interview Ron Reyes (aka Chavo Pederast). While on this trip I have slated interviews with a few former Black Flaggers, and some people just close to the band, and Ron was to be my second (Dez was my first) interview, and supposedly the first interview he has given on his Black Flag years since he left the band. HONORED..? HELL YEAH I WAS HONORED..!

In 1982 or 83, just as I was getting into Punk Rock, I picked up Jealous Again at a record shop in York, PA. I didn’t know much about Black Flag, except for what I had heard about them through some skater kids at a local, abandoned skatepark. So, I bought it, brought it home, put it on the old record player that my brother gave me, and I wasn’t sure what to think. Honestly, I had never heard anything quite like it, and, again, honestly, I didn’t really know anything liked it existed. AND I WAS BLOWN THE FUCK AWAY. There wasn’t a second’s hesitation; This was what I wanted to be. Fuck the Clash, the Cars, even DEVO (just for a minute though), Black Flag, and the plethora of records that I bought afterwards, was my point of entry into American Hardcore Punk.

And, so, predictably, Ron Reyes (called Chavo Pederast on the record) sang intense and aggressive lullabies to me in the form of Jealous Again, Depression, White Minority and the others. Ron’s words and delivery were like the first words that I heard after coming out of a 16 year sleep, and that feeling never left me.

It may sound a bit “fan boy” of me, but I never saw Ron Reyes as a guru or anything. Even recently when I contacted him it was purely a respectful partnership. While he only lasted 6 months in Black Flag, what music he recorded, and the image he portrayed in Decline of Western Civilization, was really what made me like American Punk so much. Mostly, I wanted to gain Ron’s perspective on where Black Flag was headed when he was in the band, since it earned its greatest audiences under their 3rd vocalist, Dez Cadena.

Did Ron see Black Flag headed for near-legendary status…? That was what I wanted to know. And after an hour and a half interview with Ron I walked away realizing that unless Ginn had a revelation somewhere along the way, nobody ever thought in terms of status down-the-road. They were more worried about surviving to play their next show.

I gave Ron a ride home. He is a family man now, and he is just now coming to terms with his time in Black Flag. As he mentioned to me a few hours earlier, “Stewart, if you would have approached me about this last year I would have said that I wasn’t interested,” and now he is. And that is cool by me. Not only did I get to finally meet a man that changed my destiny as a run-amuk teenager, but he was just an amazing person in general; a very 3-dimensional man.

So as I dropped him off at his home and continued back to Larissa’s house for dinner, I felt that if everything else were to fall through I was happy just having met Ron and talked to him about everything from Punk Rock to graphic design. It was an amazing experience.

The next morning I packed up my stuff, loaded it into the car, and met up with Larissa and Dunkin at the coffee shop. I bid them both farewell as I prepared to meet up with Stefan once again in Seattle. Off to the border where my car was searched again (don’t the US and Canada exchange information), and made a valiant shot down the 5. Along the way I receive a text, “Stewart, I will be in touch. You have a great project. Ron.” Amazing.

I HATE BORDERS but I LOVE VANCOUVER

2009-10-26T21:02:00.008-04:00

RODE HARD AND PUT UP WET
aka. THE BORDER BEATDOWN

The story goes that a Manhattan doctor gets funded by the state of Alaska to do earn his medical degree at Columbia University in exchange for 4-years of indentured servitude in Alaska in order to pay his bills. Yes, if you are old enough to remember this show, Northern Exposure, then you are pretty old (like me).

Northern Exposure was my favorite television show back in the early 90’s, and I would even interrupt band meetings to drive back to my girlfriend’s pad in order to sit through an episode on a Monday night and drink in the sites and sounds of being in the relatively untamed wooded world. I lived in Delaware at the time and the wooded mountains of Alaska seemed a million miles away from me. No matter; I still wanted someday to visit Alaska, or at least some place where there were big mountains and women that flew air planes from one small town to another small towns just to deliver mail.

So, a few years later I was in a band called Ambassador 990 and we were touring the US. On our way out of Seattle I followed the advice of a friend in California and hopped off rt. 90 in the middle of the night in order to take a gander at Roselyn, Washington to at least see the town where Northern Exposure was filmed. At 3am, with the entire band sleeping in the van, I dropped off in Roselyn, snapped some pix, and as our band leader woke up, he demanded that I jumped back in the van and continue the drive to Missoula, MT, which I did pretty much without aid. I was pissed, and I vowed to visit Roselyn again before I died, and Saturday was my chance.

We left Nate’s place at around noon for a 9-hour drive to Seattle. I had a massive headache, and suffered another night of no sleep, so I did about an hour and a half behind the wheel before I handed it over to Stefan. After a few hours of driving through some pretty barren Montana wasteland I retook the wheel. Headache in tact, I pulled a marathon drive session that would take us right to Roselyn so that I could enjoy a meal at the Brick Tavern (yes, it really does exist, though it is not called the Brick). That was my goal; to simply stop at Roselyn, Washington one more time before I die, and I drove right past the exist. WHAT THE FUCK…? I DROVE PAST THE EXIT..? Apparently I did.

Now, 5 hours behind the wheel, no food since noon, and entering Seattle (on a Saturday night) to drop off Stefan before I drove the next three hours to Vancouver, and I was a fucking mess. Two times zones in three days. Two night of insomnia. Big headache. Yeah, all of that and so much more.

Getting Stefan to his abode was the easy part. A few turns onto some Seattle’s hippest streets and we were there. Backtracking, I was back on the 5 on my way Vancouver. I’ve never been to Vancouver so this was going to be yet another addition to my experience collection, and I was a fucking mess. Not only was I hungry-as-fuck, sleep deprived, and pissed off that I drove past the Roselyn exit, but I looked super CRACKED OUT. I was tired, tired of driving, and tired of not having getting a break on the crowed 5 on my way to the border.
Okay, so here is where shit gets good. I drive up to the booth at the border and there is a very attractive young woman in combat gear standing there. She asks for my papers. I hand them over. She looks into my bloodshot eyes and makes me respond to the same question a number of times. I am barely coherent in my speech. I am barely able to keep my eyes open. I look like I’ve been smoking crack all day long, and this I know because I can feel it. I know that I am gonna get searched, which is fine because I have nothing to hide. And, as predicted, they take my papers and give me a slip. Pull over there and take this to Gate A and they will process you. Nice. Here I go. All that I want to do is sleep and I am about to be hastled for the next hour at least.

Where you going Stewart? Vancouver. For what reason? To Visit a friend. Where does your friend live? Vancouver. Do you have a street name? No, I don’t really know her. She is a friend of a friend. So you are going to Vancouver to visit a friend of a friend? Do you know that you have a rental car? Where is your vehicle? My vehicle is at my dad’s house in Pennsylvania. Why are you renting? Because I am on tour with a friend doing work for a book. Where is your friend? Why isn’t he with you? Well, he is not allowed to leave the country right now and so I had to drop him off at a friend’s house in Seattle. Okay, I see, and so what do you do for work Stewart? Um, nothing. I quit my job to go on tour. Okay, Stewart, um, can we have your keys and are you aware of the contents in your car…? OH FUCK, here we go again.

Back in the early 90’s I had a similar experience coming back from Toronto. In this episode I have dreadlocks down to them midrift and looked a bit like a crazy-man, and was also driving a rental car. Always the rental car. It gets me busted so easily. Anyway, same basic situation, same silly questions, same me unable to formulate sentences because I WAS FUCKING NERVOUS. Yup, “pull over, give me your keys, check in there, and prepare to be searched.” Fuck, I thought that meant my car to be searched. Nope, while my car’s contents were being eviscerated, I was preparing to be STRIP SEARCHED. “Mr. Ebersole? Please step into this room and take off all of your clothes. I will be bringing a witness along into the room for the search. HER name is (???) if you have any questions.” And, OH FUCK, it was on.

The head search was fine. Mouth open, eyes rolled, etc, etc. Then came the thing that me, as a young man, feared most in the world. “Stewart, reach down and grab the backs of your knees.” FUCK, FUCK, FUCK. “Now cough for me a few times Mr. Ebersole.” Cough, cough, cough…! And nothing. I was being fucked with for looking like a fucking hippie. I was thinking of showing them my Straight Edge tattoo but, well, what good is that gonna do in a world that doesn’t have a fucking idea what that means…? An hour later it was all over. I am given my walking papers, and a chuckle by the border staff, just so that I could go out to my car and clean up the mess that they had left on the pavement beside it. Everything was open. Everything was searched. Everything was a fucking mess.

Anyway, I was expecting that last night given how cracked out I appeared, but after some begging and pleading, and telling them that I couldn’t lie my way out of this one; “yes, I quit my job, gave up my apt, and I am 42.” After an hour, and no strip search, the nice woman handed me my keys and said have a nice day. My second longest retaining session in my life at the border and all for not (again). Luckily Vancouver fucking ruled but, well more on that tomorrow.

The cloud has obscured the entire mountain

2009-10-24T11:27:00.013-04:00

GROWING UP AND GETTING ON

And still fucking shit up 110%

Nathan Howe has been a most awesome host here in Bozemen. Nate and I grew up in much the same way, with respect to being small-town punk rockers, and yesterday during an adventurous drive to Fairy Lake we had a chance to hash out our styles and where we’ve ended up as punk rockers that have grown up and gotten on, but are still tied into subversive ways of thinking.

Bozeman is as landlocked as a place can be, and so my surfboards and Nate’s skis are essential synonyms for where we’ve ended up now that we are both in our middle years. Years ago both of us carried skateboards, punk’s weapon of choice, as part of the common uniform. Without knowing him back then I would imagine that he, like me, like thousands, wore cut-off jean/camo-pants, a shredded band tee-shirt, a flannel shirt, Vans or Converse, had some sort of funny hair, and that was just what was expected. The image was so common in the 80’s hardcore underground that it had a name; Skate Punk, and its own bands; Aggression, JFA, Ill Repute, etc, etc.

At any rate, skateboarding was the official live-by-the-sword lifestyle choice of landlocked punk kids until it was co-opted in the mid 90’s (think; Tony Hawk 360), toned down to meet the expectations of upper-middle-class parent nationwide, and put on display at the X-games, and given “SPORT” status. No more would skateboarding be a radical way of life. Now it was a “look,” a “product,” a “consumer choice,” and oh so very “mall punk” in the most clichéd way imaginable. To lifers, however, the co-opting of the skateboarding lifestyle meant that it had to be trashed from our common dream, and then had to be replaced by something that meant as much to each of us as individuals.

Note: I am not saying that to some skateboarding has not remained totally part of their radical way of life (think Vallely, Jesse, Roy, many others). What I am saying is that by the late-80’s and mid-90’s it no longer defined punk rock (and punk rockers) like it did in the early-80’s. What radical activity Punk “WAS,” then, needed to be redefined, but, well, never really was. We all seemed to set out on our different paths.

For what it was worth I chose two-wheeled urban transit in the form of the bicycle, and then found my way into surfing later on. Nate found two skis, and he stuck with it. As we talked on our drive into the mountainous winter wonderland it became more apparent that our paths were not only destined to cross, but that both of our lives had come full circle. And here we were on some of the craziest snow covered roads (if you wanna call fire access dirt roads in Montana roads) I’d been on in a long time and we were talking the exact same language. And it was refreshing.

There were times when he and I could finish each other’s sentences by simply exchanging the word surfing with the word skiing, or the word snow with wave. The concepts of “energy” and of “nature” just weaved a storyline that sounded, on the outside, a bit like the language of the stereotypical hippie, but instead seemed totally natural because there are few other words to describe what we do for fun. We don’t go out into the ocean or onto the slopes to “tear shit up” anymore, but we go out to “blend in” and to “take part” because it seems like one of the most subversive things to do these days is to actually work with nature, to respect it, and not simply look at everything as though it is an obstacle to surmount, co-opt, and tear up.

In fact, as it turns out, surmounting, co-opting, and tearing up are quite common threads in what is making America a rather disenchanted place to live (think politics, foreign affairs, economy, bank bail outs, and so many other newsworthy catchwords appearing in the media-eye these days), and what could be more punk than to eschew all of that anger and aggression and redefine what is radical and what is subversive.

Besides Nate, I have had the pleasure of speaking with a lot of older punk kids (a term used to describe punks who are no longer kids) and the verdict is the same. Amy in Boston spoke of her changing role in a scene that she has been part of for 20 years, and the folks at the Trumbull Plex in Detroit talked about looking at these tracts of abandoned urban green space as an opportunity to get back to the basics of urban farming, Peter in Milwaukee has become a family-man, who so fully embraces bicycle culture that he has been publishing a VERY respected journal (COG-Magazine) about its international (and underground) appeal. Pro-natural, back to basics, and green seem to be the new Punk objectives (and have been for quite sometime, tough quite under the radar). Oh, yeah, and documenting things. We cannot forget about the importance of documenting things, can we now…?

So, while the old uniform has faded away, and the old tools of the trade were co-opted and reformatted, older punks have been curiously finding new, and more subversive, social implements (implements that on the surface appear to be rather commonplace) that actually seek to erode society’s current trend toward total disorder in no-time-flat, and THAT IS FUCKING PUNK…!

I have chosen surfing and cycling. Nate has chosen back-path-skiing. My friend Doug has formed a Philadelphia off-shoot of Dharma Punks. My friend Chris has chosen to write a book about his former scene. Peter has chosen to push COG. Trumbull has chosen urban homesteading. And, as you might imagine, the list goes on and on and on.

Creative, WAY-outside-of-the-box ways of thinking: This is the cutting-edge. This is where the rubber hits the road. This is what a bunch of once-angry-kids (now up there in years) that were once connected by PUNK ROCK have determined environmentally friendly, productive, and worthy of their efforts. This is DIY, not that other shit that is “called” DIY. DIY is DOING, not “being called DIY.” There is a difference and it is not so subtle, and I am counting on you to be conscious of it. Is that asking to much..?

Okay, enough ranting.

Now off to Pacific Northwest in search of the elusive Ron Reyes (aka, Chavo Pederast). Photos and interview to follow.

A FLURRY OF FUCKED UP ACTIVITY. MILWAUKEE, MINNEAPOLIS AND WESTWARD

2009-10-22T18:03:00.020-04:00

RANT NUMBER ONE IS NOT A FUCK YOU RANT

STUFF THAT YOU NEVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT ME

It is not as bad as it sounds but I think that I am going to chime in here with a small rant about things. Remember, rants should be a highway to more positive things to come, and not just some going off, grinding-of-gears, about shit that pisses you off. So with some luck you will see the silver lining in this fluffy cloud over the mountainous Montana Sky.

While I used to be an avid "journaler" on my trips across the country and Europe, I gave it up for the direct experience. Telling my journal what I was experiencing at the time amounted to telling my journal what I wasn't actually experiencing, but was writing. It was my own MST3000 (remember that show) sort of dialogue with the world at large. Instead of living, I was talking about living. I was documenting my talking about living. I wasn't living. There is a difference.

TAKE HOME POINT A: WALK THE WALK, DON'T JOURNAL YOURSELF INTO A CORNER.

I know way punker people than myself. My friend Allen, who really taught me the ropes about Punk Rock in the very early 80's, was fearless. I am not fearless. I am to the degree whereby I might drive my car into a deep mud bog knowing all the while that I can call a tow truck to pull me out, right..? Allen was fearless. He was the kid at the shows who would dance in the pit when the skinheads stood in the center and scared the rest of us off to the corners crying. He would carry knives to show, would bring a bag of wheat flour to a show and throw it all over the audience just when they were at their apex of sweaty and fucking up a lot of people's nights. To some Allen was a monstrous fuck up, fly in the ointment, flaky, coolest-kid-in-the-scene. He had the raddest girls, the best records, and the most fucked up stories. And it is maybe to Allen that I dedicate this book and this trip because I've become a lot like Allen was to me in the 1980's, now.

Real Punks come/came/will come in two basic varieties, but with way more evolutionary stalwart-types. For the most part, at least on the visual-aesthetic level, you either find your way into it because you are really, really messed up or, conversely, you find your way into it because you are really, really smart. This world favors the average. Thinking outside the box for a normal American doesn't even come remotely close to the day-to-day thoughts of alternative types that LIVE OUTSIDE THE BOX. No matter whether you found your way into punk from the "messed up" end or the "uber smart" end, you always knew that you were different. You knew from an early stage in life that you didn't fit in and all of us chose different ways to express that FUCKED-UP-NESS.

When we found Punk (or it found us), we were ready. We were so fucking ready that many of us just jumped in without testing the water. I, personally, had been dying to find something like the punk-rock-underground for years before I found it. I was the biggest (and I mean tallest and most freakish) weirdo at my school. I was tall, lanky, zitty, and not so beatiful. But to make a point of all of this I didn't much give two shits about the sports that everybody seemed to think that I should be playing or the academic-stuff that I was being encouraged to learn. None of this stuff seemed particularly relevant to a bombed-out shell of a kid that seemed destined to become homeless before he was 20. I was a weirdo living in an ultra-conformist utopia in a south-central Pennsylvanian farm town.

My story aside, we all know/knew that we didn't like the world-story that was being offered to us, so we rebelled. By 16 I was a DEVO worshipper and by 17 I was a punk. At my first show I felt that I had found my tribe, and this, too, was a double-edged sword. Nobody told me that only the strong survive int he scene. Your tribe was filled with pussies that would bail out in a hot-mintue at the point they realized that if they liked a more like-able style of music, dressed a little more preppy, or whatever, that they would get laid more often. And so in our own little utopia there was this factor of folks coming and going to the degree that you never really knew who your friends were on a wider scale of THE SCENE. However, when you met a person at a show or at the record store, and that friend seemed firmly planted in your world, well, you had a friend for life.

And, so, this is the premise of Barred For Life as a documentary and a cultural entity. Here we are years after its inception, its high points, and its most awesome displays of saying FUCK YOU to popular culture, and we still don't know who our friends are. We are lost. We are scared. We are meeting our destinies, individually and collectively. We are in need of direction. And, well, the Black Flag Bars are this secret handshake to the secret knowledge; the booty that is a future that we can all live with and that we can generally agree is good.

After meeting so many freaks and geeks on this trip I have remet my tribe. Even if we remove the words Black Flag from the discourse, the Bars carry an important message of I HOPE THAT I MADE THE RIGHT DECISION WITH MY LIFE. DID I...? And we can all say to one another, shaking, lump-in-the-throat, I THINK SO. RIGHT...?

As for me most frequently I look like a normal dude, though I've photographed some that look way more "NORMAL." As well, I shot some really fucked up looking people too. And, then, I've shot everything in between. So one thing has made it through the filter of my camera, and my conversations with my people, and that is that while the disguises that we wear as punks, undergrounders, or whatever you want to call it, the desire remains to not buy in, and to stand strong with a set of ideas and beliefs that are not NORMAL, not AVERAGE, and not altogether American.

Maybe the most important thing that I have learned on this trip is that those of us who still believe that our individuality, our individual fucked-up-ness, is a postive trait, well, we still believe in something greater and are making moves toward an out-of-the-box future that is still light years ahead of popular culture. So, if we remove the words Black Flag, and the words Punk Rock, and maybe even sub-culture from this dialgoue I have been having with people across the country, what remains is a segment of the population that is so far ahead of the pack that the path we/they are blazing seems a bit daunting. And there is fear. And there is indecision. And there is an willingness to let the pack catch us. But we all know that what we are doing is far more awesome than these other things. We are not only progressive but we are smart, clever, shrewd, and motivated.

With only 1/3 of this tour completed, and Europe not even fully planned, I may end up coming out of this episode of my life feeling empowered instead of daunted by the masses that don't get me, you, and we collectively. More on this later.

As for the trip, um, what can I say..? Stefan and I have seen the following awesome things. COG world-industry HQ, Peter's awesome family and beautiful home in Milwaukee, our first BF BRAND on the former singer of 309 Chorus and owner of High Hat Garage, a bunch of amped punks in Minneapolis, a street where a tornado touched down in August and ripped the rooves off of most of the houses, Jack Daniels being shot from shot glasses shaped like cowboy boots, Fargo, North Dakota, a long, flat, fucked up plain called "the rest of North Dakota," the Montana (big sky country) border, a definitive change in landscape from boring to holy-dramatic, a deserted rest area that became our abode in what turned out to be one of the coldest nights of our trip (and I spent it in a tent), a Montana State Trooper that didn't like that I had set up a tent and woke me up to tell me so, Mountains, more big, beautiful mountains, some trains, a few rivers, a lot of ranch-land, tons of animal carcasses on the rolling roadsides, and finally Bozeman.

We are staying with a cool cat named Nate that used to drum for Steel Pole Bathtub. Steel Pool made up this story in the early 90's about their van flipping, thus killing all of the band, and I believed it. So, when they toured a bit later I was mystified as to how this was possible. Now Nate has a cool home in the skirts of Bozeman, in sight of the mountains, and we are hanging out there.

Now, fuck you and go start your own revolution. I am way ahead of you.

Minneapolis, MN

2009-10-21T01:17:00.002-04:00

From Stefan:

Triple Rock Social club was a highlight on our tour of the midwest.

8 folks total!

And one tattoo that combined the love for Black Flag with the love for bacon!

And 2 beers for 1 on Tuesdays!

And a gigantic veggieball sandwich (a gutbomb candidate)!

All those exclamation marks came easy in anticipation of our monster drive to Bozeman, MT.

CHICAGO, ANXIETY EPISODE, MILWAUKEE, FIN...

2009-10-20T11:05:00.010-04:00

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
AND
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

From Stewart:

Inertia kicked in for just a hot minute while in Chicago and it was hard for me to break free. So, let me explain and see if it makes more sense. Doing some quick math it seems that I've driven across the country 5 times now; 3 times in bands, 1 time as a geology student on my way to field camp in Wyoming and Montana, and once when I was 14 with my parents going across the country to pick up my brother as he was discharged from the Air Force in Las Vegas. In all cases I was under 25, and so seeing the country as an under 25-er was more than overwhelming, and in most cases I was either sleeping in a tent, on a floor, in a van, or some combination of these venues, or worse.

This time however Stefan and I are staying in some pretty deluxe accommodations. Aside from the heat being off in the mansion in which we stayed in Detroit, everywhere else has been warm and toast (in this crazy cold snap), with great people, and all of the comforts of an awesome home away from home. So, trip number 6 is not only taking us, me in particular, to places where I have been before and long to return to, but it is taking us there in relative comfort. So, this isn't exactly PUNK ROCK, and that is fine by me. I am, after all, not 25 anymore.

In Chicago we stayed in two wonderful homes, and by day number three not only was I not all that interested in quickly getting out of dodge, but there was sooooo much that I hadn't seen and wanted to, including hanging out with a friend from Philly that now lives there, and whom I haven't seen in years. Add to that an unexplained anxiety attack that was calmed down by a strong-as-fuck cappucinno and a trip to Whole Foods for my (and I assure you I am addicted to this stuff) daily "Green Goodness" drink. So, yeah, and it was then that I realized that we were getting out of dodge.

I took the wheel and began driving to Milwaukee. 2 hours as the crow flies, but 3.5 hours as the car drives. Rt. 94 was under massive construction and suffering through post-rush-hour mega congestion. I was tired, coming down from my high-anxiety, and behind the wheel. Somehow we made it without incident, and we set up shop at the High Hat Garage. We ate and awaited our victims, two local old-heads; one with the bars in chrome (Michael) and one with them branded into his stomach (Scott), and our host Peter DiAntonio from Cog Mag.

While small in number, our first BRAND is pretty significant. Scott, the possessor of said brand, also owns the Garage, and so shooting was a dream. Great shots and lots of great talk about punk rock, bicycles, motorcycles, and photography (was in the company of no less than 4 photographers). In a few moments we take off to explore downtown Milwaukee, get our cafe' on, and possibly tour a bicycle manufacturing shop. Next stop, Minneapolis and the Triple Rock Social Club. I haven't been to Minneapolis since 97. Been a while.

Milwaukee, WI

2009-10-20T02:12:00.000-04:00

From Stefan:

Fantastic conversation at our shoot at the Hi-Hat Garage.

2 models (one branded, one tattooed).

2 brats

2 beers, and a few more

Our accommodations are awesome. Thanks to Peter from COG mag (and his 4-year old daughter for clearing her room for us...).

I love Milwaukee already and haven't even seen it in daylight yet.

Short and crisp - good night.

Chicago, Day 2.

2009-10-18T20:34:00.003-04:00

From Stefan:

Stewart and I spent the better part of the day on N. Milwaukee Ave.

Stewart bought much needed new shoes and a digital voice recorder, I checked out Belmont Surplus (hopelessly hip-ish and overpriced, and no M65 parkas). For the rest of the afternoon we awaited the arrival of 2 more candidates for the photo/interview treatment right on the sidewalk.

At 5:15 PM, we were all done and finally got back in the car. Before heading over to Bucktown to our generous host Jessica's place, I got all the right ingredients to treat my cold (beer, pizza, 3 different kinds of homeopathic globuli) at Whole Foods.

Time for some rest and Mad Men now.

Tomorrow: a stop by a huge surplus store on N. Lincoln, then off to Milwaukee, WI.

CHICAGO; TWO WEEKS DOWN, FIVE WEEKS TO GO...

2009-10-18T01:59:00.009-04:00

CHICAGO, IL
QUIMBY'S BOOK STORE
NATIONAL STRAIGHT EDGE DAY

BEGIN RANT HERE: ______________________

So, where do I start with today's post. Well, let's see, TRAFFIC... Now there is a good topic, and a good rant, but let's just say that somethings suck no matter whether you are trying to translate the information into a sort of adventurer's journal entry or just going off on shit that makes you want to fucking start a revolution from behind the wheel.

Stefan and I got off to a bit of a late start, albeit not too late to get to Chicago on time, but a late start none-the-less. We bid Scotty farewell and, if our measurements were correct, we would be in at Quimby's before 3pm, which was our slated shoot time. So, yeah, about that estimate. I remember watching the movie Stripes way back when I was a kid and the one line that I remember more than any other is when the mean seargant says, "NEVER ASSUME BECAUSE WHEN YOU ASSUME YOU MAKE AND 'ASS out of U and ME'." And so the story goes. It seemed like at every turn onto every new highway there was miles and miles and miles of fucking construction and, not surprizingly, very few places along the construction routes where we actually saw people. It was just long stretches of highway preparing for construction most places. And in a few places there was construction; though that was rare.

Anyway, by the time that we made it to Quimby's, where we met up with another of my old 90's hardcore friends, Steve Wade, there were just two people waiting to be photographed. Steve not only fliered the fuck out of this event (see yesterday's post), put it up on FB, MS, and Twitter, and talked to a ton of people about it, but I talked to at least 10 people though my various contacts that were DEFINITELY GOING TO BE THERE. However, they were not. What a fucking bummer. It is not just a thing trend in the hardcore punk community, but it seems to be a hipster affliction nationwide. TOO COOL TO LEAVE THE HOUSE, BAR, or BRUNCH JOINT.

Maybe it is the lack of sun for the past 8 days or maybe it is residual angst from the traffic that we encountered today, but I am going on record here today to say FUCK YOU to all you people who flaked out. Luckily I love Chicago, and I am stoked to visit Chicago again, but what is gonna end up happening here (as always does in the Punk Rock scene) is that you will eventually see 250 or so people who showed up to these events t0 be photographed and be like, "I was gonna be there but I had to finish my beer and, well, by that time it was pretty late so I just went to the bar instead," and pursue your copout life without much fanfare attached. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, FUCK YOU...

Okay, now that that is off my chest, let me just say that today was officially, unofficially, Straight Edge Day. I don't know where this crazy day came from but, well, since our host is an official card-carrying-member of the OLDER THAN YOU CREW, and I was sXe until about 10 years ago (and have a tattoo to remind me), we decided to take pix of our little celebration. While I am a very big fan of my wine and cheese, living the vegan straight edge lifestyle just doesn't really work for me anymore but, well, I honor those for whom it works. Congrats on your hard work.

Thanks to our two friends who showed up today. You will be happy to know that I am stoked that you braved the insane weather changes today to be at Quimby's for the shoot.

COLUMBUS, OHIO ROCKS.

2009-10-17T10:21:00.012-04:00

COLUMBUS, OHIO
SOVERIGN TATTOO COLLECTIVE

After three less than stellar shoot with rather low turnouts, Columbus came through BIG-TIME. There was this point while I was putting together the plan for this book where I was worried about people hurrying out to their local tattooist to get the bars just so that they could be ready with a story when we got to their town. In fact, I was really interested in turning them away because I saw it as a bit unfair to be a newly barred participant instead of having had the bars for years and years and years. But there was something sort of shitty in that logic. Over the last few years that we've been interviewing people it has become obvious that you cannot have it all one way or another way; YOU'VE GOT TO GO WITH THE FLOW. Plus, after having visited a few cities where the "barred" citizens, those who've had the bars for a while, seemed to either actively boycott my project, or were just TOO LAZY to get out from behind their beers and television to come out to the events, well, it was refreshing to stumble into our next experience on the road.

Scotty Niemet is a Columbus legend. First having been an active part in the Cartwheel Collective back in the early 90's (introducing hardcore shows, food not bombs, and the like to Columbus), then a member of the Neilhouse (one of Columbus' longest running house-show venue), fronting the band Inept, and at the same time vocal in making the "LEGION OF DOOM" house even more famous in the hardcore scene than the Neilhouse, and so much more. When Scotty agreed to run the show in Columbus I was stoked. Very stoked.

We teamed up with the Soverign Tattoo Collective on High Street, which is housed in an amazing building that is both a tattoo shop and art gallery. Soverign signed on and offered a special on The Bars at $40 all day, any placement, any size. We were still in Cincinnati when the tattooing started so we missed a lot of opportunities to shoot live tattooings, but on our way to Columbus we stopped in to Thrill Vulture, the shop where the idea for Barred For Life was born, so that we could shoot Naomi Fuller again. Long story but at the beginnings of this project we had two photographers, Jared and Will. Some fallout over shoot schedules and other silly stuff found Will on the outs. He withdrew his pix and bailed. Naomi was among the shots. I was devistated. So it seemed only fitting to show up to Thrill Vulture unexpectedly, and shoot Naomi again.

Upon entering Soverign I was blown away. There were people waiting to be photographed, people waiting to be tattooed, and people just hanging out listening to Scotty spin old hardcore records. After hours of shooting and interviewing we ended up with 14 new additions to the book. 14 is a pretty good one-day shoot given that we didn't even manage to do that in the last three shoots combined. So, with my confidence up it was time to go back to Scotty's home and get some sleep.

In the past three shoots we've managed to score some pretty delux accommodations, and last night was no exception. Scotty lives in a mansion that was originally built for the aunt of a long dead president. It lies on the east end of town along side a number of other such mansions. There is a long story about the rebuilding of this area a few years back, but we were quite lucky to end up in such an amazing space. Seriously, this place if fucking amazing. At any rate, as Stefan and I wake up and set our compass toward Chicago, I look forward to hanging out with another old friend from my Ohio years and hope to score my interview with Barry Henssler, the former front man for both the Necros and Big Chief. Today, in the words of the immortal Ice Cube, is gonna be a good day.

2009-10-17T01:21:00.001-04:00

BE HERE TOMORROW. QUIMBY'S. 3 TO 6PM.
EDGE, THE MOVIE, TO FOLLOW; ELSEWHERE

CINCINNATI, O-HIGH-O

2009-10-16T09:29:00.011-04:00

Stewart Here:

Okay, we've spent the last three fucking days under gray skies and at the 45-degree mark. I most certainly packed for the trip with extra jackets and sweaters but, damn, I thought that I would make it a bit further than Detroit before I had to unpack all of that stuff. Don't get me wrong. I love the cold weather just like any east-coaster. However, I don't like for it to attack me from behind like this. Anyway. Luckily for Stefan and I, we ended up in a town where I know many kind folk, and many cute kitties.

Arriving in Cincinnati two days ago, we made our way to my friends, Eric and Alice's, home in the Northside section of town. Northside is the equivalent to the Mt. Airy section of Philly, with big homes and lush lawns, and cool people. Our hosts have been nothing but gracious since we've arrived, and this is what I've always loved about this town; the people, my friends in particular, are super accommodating, and always cool as hell.

Well, some things went awry with setting up this shoot and, upon checking my email, I found that not a lot had been done to promote this one. So yesterday morning, first thing, I made up a poster, found a local kinko's, fired off about 100 copies of the poster, and then Stefan and I began distributing them to every tattoo shop and punk rock botique in town. The final yield, 4 people. But what an awsome crew. Our first shot was of a woman from Lexington, KY, who had more BF tattoos on her than anybody we've met up to this point. The next few shots were of 3 people that got the bars tattooed for free on with the cavaet of the tattooist that they agree that Rollins was the worst of the four Black Flag singers.

After the shoot we returned home for some well deserved sleep before trekking up to Columbus later this afternoon.

Cincinnati is a wrap.

2009-10-16T00:17:00.002-04:00

From Stefan:

After our canvassing efforts earlier today, we ended up getting a handful of folks who descended into the basement of the Comet in Northside. And what a great mix they were: a woman who came up from Lexington, KY (showing off the bars, several Black Flag album cover art renderings and the band's name, all on her forearms), a high school teacher/city councilman, a mom with her infant son, and another guy (who had gotten the bars together with the latter two and another friend of his, whom we hope to connect with in Chicago). Alright, then...

Tomorrow Stewart will put in a few hours of tattooing with his friend Mike Dorsey in Northside, while I will likely spend some time here.

After that we'll be heading off to Columbus, OH (where I hope to score a cheap M-65 military parka in S or XS), but not without thanking our fabulous hosts Eric & Alice (and their 3 cats). Eric's an old friend of Stewart's back from Cincinnati grad school times, and Alice is a native of Washington, DC. Ergo, great conversation for all of us.

Pics and words to come from Stewart later on, I'm sure.

Cincinnati, continued.

2009-10-15T19:11:00.002-04:00

From Stefan:

Cincinnati was the first stop where we saw ourselves forced to pick up the slack our local contact (who hadn't really done anything, as it turns out...) had created.

So, armed with a handful of posters, we hit up local record stores, coffee shops and tattooers, who were all generally pretty interested and indicated that they would contact folks directly who had the bars. So, we'll see...more on the actual shoot once it'll be wrapped up.

2009-10-15T00:49:00.002-04:00

BE HERE TODAY
I WON'T COME TO YOUR HOME
I WON'T WIPE YOUR ASS AFTER YOU SHIT
YOU ARE AN ADULT
JUST SHOW UP AND LET ME PHOTOGRAPH YOUR TATTOO
WHEN IS THIS GOING TO EVER HAPPEN TO YOU AGAIN
(???????)
NEVER
FIN

PITTSBURGH TO DETROIT

2009-10-14T10:40:00.012-04:00

Stewart here:

Okay, we left Pittsburgh at like noon after eating at a hippie owned breakfast joint. Belly filled with a strange mixture of fat and starch, and after having had a night full of insomnia, I left the driving up to Stefan in order that we get to Detroit in one piece.

Anybody who has driven the stretch of toll road(s) known as the PA/OH turnpike knows that this drive it a drive where one might just as easily see humanity or a UFO, an approaching tornado or aperson fixing their tractor road-side. Just boring enough that it will lull you to sleep, and just interesting enough that you might take a look and decide that they never want to make this fucking boring drive again. I am of the latter category. I just don't want to do it. Never again. But something tells me that I will have to for some unknown reason.

Detroit gets a pretty bad rap overall, and especially from its surrounding neighbors in Michigan and Ohio. Admittedly, if you don't know anybody in Detroit it can be a rather heavy experience rolling into town and seeing nothing, nobody, not a soul for very long distances. The tracts of bombed out cottages and mansion surrounded by green space are pretty common features of the landscape as well. However, if you do know somebody in Detroit, especially in the punk community, you will find that Detroit is an awesome place to start new social experiments and watch them grow without the fear of developers or city planners coming along, coopting, and then gentrifying. Luckily for Detroiters, there will be no gentrification any time soon. In defense of a lot of my weird preconceptions, isn't this where the mighty MC5 came from...?

The Trumbull Plex is a compound of three buildings (one show space and two houses); an Anarchist collective that has thrived here for 15 years based on a revolving door policy of willing members and consensus governing. There are such entities in West Philadelphia to be sure, but this one has it all; a show space, lots of living space, lots of green space, and lots of really cool people. Oh, yeah, and chickens.

We arrived here and were summarily put up and fed. After a few hours of getting to know Jon, one of the organizers here, we waited for "barred" folk to show up to be photographed; and they never came. Zero, our worst night yet. To despair would have been premature because we got wind that the band Drunken Ship was playing at the Old Miami (MIA Michigan), and that the drummer had the bars. And, off we went. The show was fun, the club was awesome, we made some Portland, OR connections.

So, now, as I write this we are packing up and taking off to Cincinnati, Ohio, my former grad school alma matter, where I will be tattooed by connsumate tattooer, Mike Dorsey, and will be shooting tomorrow at one of my favorite pubs in the US, The Comet.

Detroit #1

2009-10-13T18:04:00.002-04:00

From Stefan:

After roughly 5 hours on the road we arrived at the Trumbullplex in Detroit, MI, for tonight's shoot. Speaking for myself, I'm fairly curious what the crop is going to be like...

DAY WHATEVER; MONTREAL, BACK TO TORONTO; PITTSBURGH

2009-10-13T07:23:00.009-04:00

There were days that I remember from touring with my various bands where I just lost track of days. There were days on my trips to Europe, especially when I stopped journaling, where I just stopped taking note of the calendar because it was too heavy a concept; a point where I might disconnect from the moment-to-moment goings on of the trip in order to control my future (not likely) or revisualize my past (silly). Yesterday was just such a day; the day when days stop meaning much.

I should probably recap the last three days as best I remember them and then alert you to the fact that by the time that you read this I will have remembered things that I should have put in the text that were probably important enough to warrant space. However, until then you just get the bare bones.

MONTREAL
It was generally agreed by my travel partner, Jorge, and I that Montreal was a most exciting, albeit bizarre, stop in our travels. As the attached pictures might suggest, our time at Soundcentral Records was rather productive, informative, and enlightening (in a social sense). While the turnout was not a stellar one, our trial-by-Montreal-fire was stellar in a few ways.

Soundcentral is a rather cool record store located near Rue St. Catherine (Montreal's main drag). We loaded in and were instantly drawn to the fact that there was a lot of vinyl (one of my former downfalls), and a cafe vibe. Setting up shop, I found a pretty good angle at which to shoot and settled in for a minute. Spoiler, the promter, introduced himself (he is the guy in the flanel shirt) and alerted me that there were three people ready to be photographed. Perfect...

Next thing that I know Erin finds her way in front of my lens and I am stoked. A most beautiful Montreal-er, I ended up shooting about a hundred pix of her in three different sessions, between a whole mess of impromptu "silly" shots, and a few serious shots. At any rate, I enjoyed photographing her and she seemed stoked to show Jorge and I around Montreal a bit later that evening. After shooting 6 barred folk, and shooting 3 or 4 other folk, we wrapped it up and toured Montreal's party district.

We were shown around by three Montreal-ers in a most tourist friendly way. As we made our way to the Copacabanna, a Caribbean inspired Indian joint, for dinner Montreal's Friday night social situation was just getting started. Montreal is serious about its summer social scene mostly becuase October signals a long, cold, shitty winter. So people make the most of it. The streets are crowded, the bars are crowded, and for the most part the city explodes with activity that often spills out onto the streets; and this freaks me out sometimes.

It was at the point when I had wrapped up dinner that I regretted not bringing my camera because what happened afterwards was not something that generally happens to me in my normal Philadelphia existence. Unusual circumstances took us to a "GOTH" nightclub where we were entertained by a young transvestite folk singer who took great liberty with his between-song poetry/satire/rants that covered such diverse topics as getting high, the giving tree, and people just don't understand me. While this all sounds like it could be art-school banter, it was laid out in a stripped down, comedic, sing-songy way that was actually pretty cool. Needless to mention that the clientelle, most looking like expats from an Interpol music video (all dressed up in black and red and white suits and such), made the visuals more than a touch on the surreal side. Realizing that we were only supposed to "come in and check things out before we decided to pay (or not pay) the $8 cover" we split for a different spot where our host worked on occasion. It was a "PUNK" club.

I cannot remember the name of our "PUNK" club experience, but the literal translation is something like "The Electric Ass(?)" This spot has been a punk-rock stand by for like 25 years and most of its party crowd were definitely not born when this club first opened its doors. With a drinking age of 18, um, yeah, the crowd was young as fuck. Floor one was a cluster fuck of metal-heads, punks, and kids watching hockey on one of the 20 televisions that dotted the back-bar area of the club. One of our "barred for life" participants, an older punk rocker guy who spoke poorly in English worked the first floor as a bar-back and gave us the nod to go upstairs without having to pay the $8 (what an interesting cost for floor entry) cover.

Upstairs was a fucking mess. One part cave and one part industrial wasteland, the floor was covered with every genera of underground social experiment known to the 21st century. There were metalheads, punks, poppy punkers, gothy rockers, hip-hopsters, and other kinds of folks that you will either find dotting the stands at the ex games or pogo-ing at the Warped Tour to the sounds of the times.

The dancefloor on floor 2 was just out of control. As we made our way through some hidden hallways, and emerging onto what amounted to a WWE cage-match-like dance floor, we found about 15 kids "moshing" to punk, metal, hip-hop, and shit like that, while throngs of other teenagers stood in a circle nodding acceptingly of their peer's dancing style. Jorge, a beer in each hand, jumped in and began doing what I think that we used to refer to as "the skank." While he was more-or-less just kidding around, it seemed like he got the thumbs up from the 18 year old crew of judges because everybody began emulating his dance. A few songs later, a heavy one I recall, I jumped into the pit and began what one would call the "picking up change" dance, followed by the "start the lawnmower" dance. Seconds later I was thrown to the floor, trampled, and kicke, and I was done. As I pulled my lame ass off of the mosh floor (and just in time), the DJ qued up a HATEBREED (yes, Hatebreed) song and the floor erupted with floor punchers, wind-millers, and moshers of all shapes and sizes. It was fucking crazy (in a comedic sort of way), and I believe at that point I was done with my social experiment. I just wanted to go home and go to bed.

However, while waiting for our crew to reassemble I hobbled over to the bar area to chill and struck up a conversation with a woman (a very hot woman) who shared with me that it was her birthday, but little else. She only spoke French. My non-existent French tried to understand her but I could not. So, since it was her birthday I just bought her a drink and we shared in a moment of the language of alcohol before her friends grabbed her and pulled her onto the dancefloor to dance to a Sublime song. Lame.

Anyway, we assembled the posse and headed back to the record store. It was now 3am. I had seen so many drunk teenagers, and had been spoken down to in French just enough to warrant wanting to go to the home of our host and sleep; but we did not. Upon arriving at the record store there was more drinking, talking, and number exchanging. This little wind-down was probably the most deserved and necessary interaction of the evening. We parted ways with hugs, kisses, and number exchanges, and made our way to the suburbs where we were going to be spending the night.

30 minutes later we were in the burbs and sleeping. It was sleep well spent. Montreal blew me away in many ways. Our people were fucking so amazing. The rest of the people, the ones littering the streets trying to get drunk and laid, um, well, they were just joke fodder. As predicted, right...?

Thank you to our new Montreal-er friends for being so awesome to us.

TORONTO REVISITED

The next morning we were on our way back to Toronto to stay the night with my friend Katya and her family. I will not go into detail on my history with Katya and the Toronto crew, but let me just say that for the past 10-years I have sorely missed my connection to that city and, at its heart, was Katya. In the early 90's I would visit Toronto about every other month, and Katya once made an impromptu drive to visit me in York, PA (yeah, who goes there) just to hang out. So, things all changed when I shipped off to grad school and she got married. Seems like both of those activities, together or separate, promote a decisive inability to be TOO impromptu, and so our friendship waned. On a positive not, it never died because, dammit, we are friends again. Fuck Yeah.

Jorge and I landed in the epicenter of bike messenger culture of Toronto at a place called Jet Fuel; a high-end coffee shop in the Cabbage-Town section of east Toronto. The coffee there was so strong that it may have been responsible for both Jorge and my inability to find a restful sleep some 6 hours later at the casa di Katya, but it was soooooo fucking good. And after a 6-boring-fucking-hour drive between metro Montreal and metro Toronto, we needed a good coffee buzz in order to function highly while meeting Katya's family.

A phone call and some directions later we arrived at her home and met the fam. We were summarily fed and put up, and then we spent the rest of the night just hanging out in one of the warmest homes in which we've stayed all tour. I shot some family photos, caught up with an old friend, ate some more food, and then retired to the loft for some sleep. The next morning, officially Canada's Thanksgiving (Columbus Day in the states) I walked the streets in search of coffee and whipping cream, and then returned to the house with only one of them. Played some street hockey with Katya's boys, and then we packed up and prepared to drive the 6 hours across the US border and down south to Pittsburgh. Immediately, upon pulling away from Katya's house I remembered why I used to visit Toronto so frequently; BECAUSE IT FUCKING RULES. Not only are its people fucking amazing, but it is just a big, beautiful, amazing city; with some pretty cold winters as I remember.

ON TO PITTSBURGH

I officially handed the wheel over to Jorge just outside of Erie after driving about 3.25 hours under a hazy, sunless sky, while listening to a lot of new wave music and driving nearly 85 miles per hour the entire way (except when crossing the border). No sooner did Jorge take the wheel and I feel immediately to sleep. I am sleeping much better on this trip than I was before leaving for the trip, but with the additional work of driving and taking photographs and stuff like that (not to mention moshing it up in dancefloor pits of Montreal), I seem to need more sleep than every before. Anyway...

We got lost a few times trying to find the Morning Glory Cafe in the Morningside section of Pittsburgh. Finally, finding our way there we reconnected with Stefan. We shot a few folks for the book, including the bass player for Aus-rotten and the singer for Submachine. Following the shoot we made our way back to Jessie's house (a fellow messenger from Philly, now student in Pittsburgh) and then to an after-hours speakeasy in the basement of an art gallery in downtown (ghost town) Pittsburgh.

Like I said, I've been missing lots of photo ops as a result of not taking my camera with us following our slated photo shoots but, well, it is needless to say that we are getting into some really cool shit as a result of our travels. The vibe on the road is quite pleasant and our hosts have been some of the most amazingly patient and sweet folks that one could hope to know/meet/want to keep in touch with.

Early this morning Jorge woke me up, as planned, to take him to the train station. At 6:45am I dropped him off and instantly felt a weird feeling in my stomach. Jorge was a most amazing travel companion and a huge help in almost every situation. He is patient, forgiving, funny, and super-loving. We talked a lot about future uncertainties, and I appreciated every second of his presence. From this point on it is Stefan and I until tour's end in November. To Jorge i am eternally greatful.

Canada; Not sure what day; Ottawa; Crew

2009-10-11T09:57:00.018-04:00

I was sad to leave Toronto on that rainy morning, and we had a 5 hour drive facing us to Ottawa; Canada's national capital. I took the first leg out of the city and drove until we hit a travel plaza about two hours northwest.

Now I am not saying that my eating habits loosen with each day but, um, well, we ate KFC. Meat is a grounding food, and when traveling sometimes it is necessary to ground yourself. And, so, that is what we did. We fully grounded ourselves.

Jorge took the wheel and proceeded to drive through what looked to be Iowa on a very rainy day. It was a gray, blah, and hectic drive (what I remember of it since I fell asleep in the passenger's seat almost immediately), but we managed to make it to Ottawa with great time.

We found our way to the house where Finner, our host, was staying. When we arrived they were in the midst of making Black Flag themed cupcakes, vegan style, which has been probably the most awesome thing that I've seen since leaving Philly over a week ago.

An hour later we were in Endhits Records basement setting up equipment and prepping to shoot. All at once a mob of people show up and we shoot about a dozen people in two hours.

Back to Finners for shower and then a Friday night out on the town. We left the house and semi-crashed a wedding rehearsal dinner afterparty. Jorge and I proceeded to drink a lot and heckle the band. There was a dude wearing a Philadelphia Fliers jersey there. The band was called the White Wires. Played a fraternity-party brew of old garage rock and took our heckling with a grain of salt. Hours later we were home watching the complete DVD set of "DiGrassi Senior High"

Roommate Dave promised us brunch at his workplace the next morning but by noon he still had not awakened. So we took off to metro Ottawa for coffee and an awful hippie-granola cookie, and started meeting all of these old punks (i.e. Rene, the bearded guy in the photos above) and lots of hot girls (we didn't actually meet them, but looked at them), which Ottawa seems to host in droves.

Next thing we are in the car on our way to Montreal. Montreal..? Never been... More on that later. Cool As Fuck people. Weird As Fuck place. Neither Jorge or I spoke French so my attempts to rap with this super hot girl at a local "punk" bar met with "cultural" problems right off the bat. A drink was needed; Gin and Tonic thank you. But, yeah, more on that later.

More on Toronto...

2009-10-09T18:25:00.016-04:00

Okay, after leaving Buffalo, and Erich, and Erich's most awesome dog Lilly we took off to Canada. The pix above are a blow-by-blow of a border-crossing, some wine-tasting at my favorite Niagara-On-The-Lake winery, Konzelman, to the drive to Toronto.

In Toronto, disguised as tourists, we snuck around Toronto looking for bicycles, record stores, and coffee shops. We found all of them.

For Bikes, Cyclemania

For Records, Hits and Misses

For Coffee shop, Moonbean

We also met a dude who is a community organizer from Detroit, and a really cool guy who has lived all over the world, was in the US Navy during the JFK era blockade of Cuba, and was overly concerned about my not wearing a jacket in some pretty nasty, rainy weather. Fucking blast. The beautiful blonde is my friend (from the past) Katya....

Toronto, Ontario, Night One.

2009-10-09T17:44:00.010-04:00

Stewart Here:

Jorge and I touristed to the max on Queen Street West where I found absolutely no friendly internet service providers. I stumbled into a "Second Cup" by the lure of free internet and found that I was permitted 15 minutes of free internet before being punted into the world of anti-internet once more.

Following our stint as Toronto tourists we showed up on the door step of Sneaky Dee's whereby we set up shop and took power naps. An hour later fellow Philadelphians appeared in the form of the Loved Ones. Jorge works with Mike, their drummer, and from there on out it was business as usual. In the end we shot 12 Torontonians, and a lot of barred women.

Ended up at Mark Pesci's spot on King Street West for some sleep and contact with my friend Katya, who I have't seen in 10 years. Met up with Katya this morning before shooting off to Ottawa. I was stoked by this entire morning. The whole thing. The meet up, the coffee, the rain, and the drive to Ottawa.

It dawned on me that I am only one week into 7 weeks of the US tour. Holy Shit.

Toronto, Ontario; Day One. LOVE...

2009-10-08T17:00:00.002-04:00

Stewart Here:

In Toronto today. The trip up was a blur mostly because I slept while Jorge drove. Traveling with Jorge is a lot of fun for he has never been to Canada, and so everything is new to him.

I have had a long, long, long love affair with this town. Got my first bike messenger gig here in 1990 before taking it on as an on-again-off-again career option in Philly. So, yeah, lots of memories here for me to revisit, though all my solid Toronto friends are long gone.

We are at Sneaky Dee's tonight shooting while the Loved Ones (a Philadelphia band) plays. Small world. Pix to come later. I am stoked...

Buffalo; Day Two; Day Off

2009-10-07T20:54:00.012-04:00

Stewart here:

Today was an awesome day. We put Stefan on the plane home and Jorge and I took off for Niagara Falls, NY and Canada. For those of you who have been there the US side kinda sucks in many of the same ways that many US cities kinda suck; Walgreens, Rite Aids, and crappy sight-seeing ops. On the other side of the Niagara River is the Canadian version of the New Jersey coast; a piece of Atlantic City, a piece of Asbury Park, and a lot of Wildwood boardwalk (see pix above).

We began our day at the falls by walking across the bridge, up Clifton Hill, and to our breakfast destination; Golden Griddle, for our $6.99 all-you-can-eat breakfast.

After a fat-filled breakfast we took a little walk down to the falls to check them out. Now, remember, Jorge has never been to the falls. To a first-timer they are pretty mind blowing for about 20-minutes. 20-minutes later, as predicted, we were humping it back to the car and on our way back to Buffalo, to the house of our host for a few naps and some chill-out time. A quick trip through Buffalo and we were hooked. Beautiful place. Nice people. Good coffee. The end.

Toronto tomorrow. Sneaky Dee's. Be there.

Buffalo; Day One

2009-10-07T14:53:00.008-04:00

From Stewart:

We left Syracuse early yesterday morning and fired across Rt. 90W on our way to Buffalo. Along the way Stefan began craving a reasonably tasteful cup of coffee, and so a Tim Horton's was tracked down and utilized.

A few hours later we found ourselves parking near Spiral Scratch Records and Rise Above Tattoo Shop, directly next door. At 4pm we fired off one "live" tattooing of Nora Brown getting her bars, and for the next three hours I shot another 7 folks; including Stefan getting his first tattoo.

A few hours after shooting we ended up at Erich, owner of Rise Above Tattoo's, house for another awesome night's sleep.

Stefan departed this morning for DC and then to a wedding in New Mexico, and was replaced temporarily by Jorge Brita, who will be my company for the entire Canadian leg of the tour, and includes Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.

Before that, however, we have one day off to enjoy Buffalo and Niagara Falls. More on that later.

Syracuse, NY, part 2

2009-10-06T01:33:00.007-04:00

From Stefan:

Syracuse surprised me in many ways. Miller High Life cans in camo design, people driving off to drag more people in for the shoot, one BARRED upstairs housemate who refused to partake at all, one of the interviewees selling me the National Record Day edition of the entire Jesus Lizard singles catalog. The perfect end of the night was a male nurse coming by around 12:45 AM after his shift to have his photo taken and interview done.

Total: 7

Thanks to everyone who came by the shoot in the 'cuse and especially to our outstanding hosts, Ben and Sarah!

Syracuse, NY, part 1

2009-10-05T20:43:00.003-04:00

We pulled up at our location (a private home this time) around 6 pm and got right to work with interviewing and photographing the first 2 folks, while "The Exorcist" played on DVD. After that, delicious pasta and fun conversation. 1 more person got "processed" after our meal, after that more chatting and "Seven" on DVD. Another person is supposedly showing up around midnight after getting off work. Stay tuned...

...oh, and there are more awesome kitty cats, of course.

What is it with the Upper Northwest???

2009-10-05T12:30:00.003-04:00

From Stewart:

"Now on promoter #5,..."

From Stefan:

Just like in a Bermuda Triangle, things such as commitment, promise and support have been mysteriously disappearing from our planned stops in Olympia, WA, Spokane, WA, and, last but not least, Portland, OR.

Fortunately, the same can't be said about the rest of the country...

...well, besides St. Louis, MO. The contact there finally told us last night that he hadn't done any promoting the past 3 months.

Meanwhile, we're truckin' along. The East Coast has been great to us.

Up I-87

2009-10-05T01:48:00.002-04:00

Todd caught his bus to Philly, the hard drives came back into our hands, and after a stop at the Houston St. Whole Foods we headed up to Albany, NY.

Right around 1:00 AM we arrived at Joe Berben's place in Troy, where, much to our delight, we also got to meet another cat, "Milo".

Time for a late night snack and much needed sleep before the shoot in Syracuse.

Day off. Sort of.

2009-10-04T13:16:00.003-04:00

2 more people came by Amy & Will's this morning to get interviewed and photographed while coffee and pancakes were materializing in the kitchen.

Breakfast and good conversation with our generous hosts before the Hyundai Sonata will be heading to NYC. Todd is going to resume his search for his passport in Philadelphia, Stewart and I are going to reclaim the 2 external hard drives we had forgotten at the Double Down Saloon.

After that, back north.

2009-10-04T01:46:00.003-04:00

Much appreciation to Mike & Jenn for putting us up in Bridgeport, CT. And to Ella for letting us into her 2-year-old world of playfulness.

Will & Amy in Brighton, MA, went above and beyond with support during our shoot, a home cooked pasta meal, excellent accommodations and many other services, such as wireless internet.

Tomorrow will be a day off! Down to NYC to drop off Todd and then back up to Albany, NY.

2009-10-03T17:56:00.003-04:00

Day 2 of the Barred for Life tour, time to set up a little blog about it.

We had a nice start last night at the Double Down Saloon on the Lower East Side in Manhattan.

Today we've set up our lights, camera and interview chairs at Horror Business in Alston, MA.