D.O.A.'s Joey Shithead Elected To The Burnaby City Council

Back at the tail end of the '70s, when I was playing punk rock indie records on the radio, one of my favorite bands was a hard core punk trio from the Vancouver area, D.O.A. They came down to play in San Francisco so frequently, that people came to regard them as a local band. I had them on my radio show as often as an local band, maybe more for their left-wing politics than for their music per se. And also because of what nice guys they were. They weren't one of those bands with a chip on its collective shoulder. They may have looked and sounded angry and even dangerous onstage, but a nicer bunch of guys you were never gonna meet, especially not in the punk rock confines around the Mabuhay.

And their leader singer/guitarist, Joey Shithead, was always so real and smooth at the same time, a natural born politician who everybody liked a lot. Believe me, not every band that tried to crash the San Francisco punk scene was welcomed so thoroughly as D.O.A. was. And a lot of that was due to Joey Shithead's personality and his political adeptness.

So I can't say I was completely shocked this week when an old friend of mine told me Joey had just been elected to the Burnaby city council, breaking the power monopoly of the Burnaby Citizens Association. The BCA elected seven members of its slate-- the seven incumbents, but Joey Shithead Keithley, running on the Green Party slate narrowly beat BCA candidate Baljinder K. Narang for the 8th seat on the 8-man board. Burnaby is the 3rd largest city in British Columbia with a population of around 233,000 and a reputation of being Canada's best-run city.

Keithley won’t be the only new face at city hall.

Independent Mike Hurley defeated longtime mayor Derek Corrigan of the Burnaby Citizens Association in a race that will no doubt send shock waves across the region.

Keithley said the issue of demovictions is the biggest issue facing the city.

“We have to put a stop to that right away… Housing should be a right, not a privilege,” he said.

Nazis In Unpop Culture

A month or so ago, rock journalist Steve Knopper called me to discuss how punk music pushed back against Nazis who tried infiltrating the early anarchistic punk music scene. Fascists in London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York seemed drawn to the scene's iconography, rowdiness and anti-establishment perspective. Soon after I went off to Thailand-- the Land of Smiles-- and forgot all about it. This week Steve's story, Nazi Punks F**k Off: How Black Flag, Bad Brains, and More Took Back Their Scene from White Supremacists was published by GQ. First paragraph:

Every hardcore band you loved in the '80s and beyond, from Black Flag to Minutemen to Fugazi, had one unfortunate thing in common: Nazi skinheads occasionally stormed their concerts, stomped their fans, gave Hitler salutes in lieu of applauding, and generally turned a communal experience into one full of hatred and conflict. Punk rockers had flirted with fascist imagery for shock value, with the Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux wearing swastikas in public, but, as early San Francisco scenester Howie Klein, later president of Reprise Records, recalls: “Suddenly, you had people who were part of the scene who didn’t understand ‘fascist bad.’”

I watched in horror as bands, and their supporters, tried to out-do each other in outrageousness in the mid to late '70s. The idea is that if you could piss off your parents and other authority figures, you were succeeding (at something). At the time I had a punk label in San Francisco and our first signing was the most popular local band, The Nuns. Our very first release, a 3-song 7" EP-- looked vaguely Nazi-ish:

There were 3 singers-- one was Jewish, one was gay and one was an art school woman and the guitar player was from a prominent socially conscious Latino family. The song was "Decadent Jew," a live version of which from 1978 is posted above. The Jewish singer uses the N-word. At one point Bill Graham said he would manage the band if they stopped performing the song; they refused. The two other songs on the record were "Suicide Child" and "Savage." They got a lot of attention, which was the whole idea and the way to compete. The fans picked up on the vibe and were soon out-of-control, especially when the scene went from an ironic art school in-crowd joke, to a way for suburbanites to blow off some steam.

By 1980, a more violent strain of punk fans was infecting punk shows. “Pogoing became slam-dancing, now known as moshing, and some of ’em didn’t seem like they were there to enjoy the music, as much as they were there to beat up on people-- sometimes in a really chickenshit way,” says Jello Biafra, whose band, Dead Kennedys, put out a classic song about it in 1981: "Nazi Punks Fuck Off."

Many of the more conscious scene leaders, like Joe Strummer and Mick Jones (from The Clash), Jello Biafra (from the Dead Kennedys), Joey and Tommy Ramone (though not Johnny or Dee Dee) were having misgivings and feeling some responsibility very early on. The bands that didn't give a shit-- or even encouraged and exploited the worst aspects (like the Sex Pistols)-- were cooler, at least in some circles.

Knopper then puts the 3 decade old movement into the context of "the era of Trump and the alt-right, Charlottesville, and 'very fine people on both sides,' [when] fighting Nazis is sadly newly relevant, and veterans of the hardcore-vs.-skinheads battles of yore are happy to help with war stories and advice." The rest of his piece is a very worthwhile oral history on how punks took back their scene, featuring, among others, Black Flag's Henry Rollins, Mike Watt from Minutemen, Darryl Jenifer of Bad Brains and Camper Van Beethoven's David Lowery. I should have told Knopper to include Penelope Houston from The Avengers. Last night she surprised me with her recollection. "The Avengers broke up in mid-79. We didn't seem to attract super narrow-minded fans. I think the Nazis coming to punk gigs happened years after that, but I wasn't there. I'd made my way into more arty or folky kinds of punk: Human Hands, Monitor, B-People, Violent Femmes, after hardcore reared it's nearly shaved little head. There was one time some dudes from the suburbs came to our show at the Mabuhay and started punching people in the audience. We just stopped playing. This was in a pre-pit, pogo-esque time period. I still don't get why some people say the Avengers were the first hardcore band. We were not having it."



Darren Hill was the bass player-- and the brains behind-- the Red Rockers, a band on my label, 415 Records. They had come from Metairie, Louisiana, home of KKK Grand Wizard or Dragon (and Republican state legislator) David Duke. The Red Rockers were nothing like David Duke-- and when their first album was released they were often referred to as "the American Clash." Today Darren manages Paul Westerberg of The Replacements. I asked him to read Knopper's story and give me some input.

We knew that Nazi imagery had been adopted by some of the punk pioneers strictly for it’s shock value. That always made me uneasy but I never imagined that anyone in our scene would actually adopt their ethos.

Slam dancing had become a thing at our shows in New Orleans but it was harmless fun for the most part. Occasionally ignorant and testosterone fueled jocks would come out and misinterpret what was going on. They thought it was some kind of sport and started hurting people-- even girls.

We did a pretty good job policing it though-- stopping the show and calling them out. Ridicule and shaming was pretty effective because they were outnumbered.

It wasn’t until we hit the road that we encountered real Nazi Punks for the first time. I couldn’t believe it. This is a real thing? What in the hell are you doing at our show? Do you know what we’re about? Have you ever listened to our lyrics? We went from awareness and singing “Springtime for Hitler” in the van to the cognizance that this was real and dangerous… and very, very frightening.

By the time we returned home they had infiltrated OUR scene. The vilolence had spun up several notches and we could no longer control it-- to the point that the club we played at all the time had to ban us due to the violent element. I always believed that violence begets violence but there was no reasoning with these animals. Failed attempts and a black eye led to the realization that they were not just ignorant, they were brainwashed. We understood that we had to defend ourselves and our scene. The next time we hit the road, we took our friend out as a roadie-- the only employee we could afford at the time. He was a six-foot-four 260 pound hulk of African/Puerto Rican decent. Picture a NFL linebacker with a mohawk in a kilt. He couldn’t tune a guitar to save his life but probably saved our lives a few times. He would slowly skank across the stage while we played always keeping an eye on the crowd. If he saw any sign of trouble he would leap down into the middle of it and dance, then jump back up and resume skanking. He was actually quite graceful for such a big man. He was so intimidating yet peaceful and we never had a problem after that.

Years later, in the late 90’s, I was managing the Dropkick Murphys. There was a resurgence of the skinhead movement and they adopted the band as their own. Even though the band denounced them, there was still a huge presence at the shows. There was freightening confrontation at a Warped Tour show one year in Salt Lake City. The band’s vastly outnumbered crew stood up to a literal army of bad skins that day in what can only be described as a battle. What can I say, our guys were from Boston. Luckily there were no serious injuries and the skinheads were chased off in shame. There was a serious threat of retaliation if the band ever came back to SLC so we stayed out of the market for a while. Fortunately that dissipated over time.

Those who believe in hate cannot feel empowered and be allowed to grow. Charlottesville reminded me of this.

A Real Time Look Back Into DIY San Francisco Punk Rock

I have a vague recollection that this happened. The first part of this video above was a TV show I apparently taped with KTVU icons Ann Fraser and Ross McGowan in the early 80s in San Francisco about the punk rock scene. Someone sent it to me Friday. (And, no, that was not John Amato shouting "Howie" when I came out on the set. This was decades before we ever met. Does sound like him though.) It looks like they put makeup on me. Eventually I stopped allowing that when I went on TV but this early in my show biz career. Here's a picture of me from back in those days-- without the makeup; I'm the one on the right, at the KSAN studio with Chris Knab, my 415 Records and radio show partner, and a couple of Sex Pistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook:

Take Off Your Swastika: Berkeley Punks Rule-- Gilman Street/Green Day Film Arrives Just In Time For Campus "Free Speech Year"

Green Day at Gilman, 1992-- photo by Murray Bowles

-by Denise Sullivan

In 1988, the peace punks who congregated at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California, had a choice to make: To meet encroaching skinheads with violence or to fight back with the tactics of non-violence. Choices were made, the inevitable schisms from within ensued, and life went on, as the new documentary, Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk, tells. While the story and other tales of punk rock glory illustrate punk's inherent contradictions and what happens when utopian ideals like egalitarianism and rule-by-committee are put to the test, the film is also in perfect synch with the hate speech controversy happening in Berkeley here and now.

“The film played in Charlottesville a few weeks back,” explained its director, Corbett Redford. “Someone from the audience commented, 'This is how allies work. Allies stand up.”

The punks of Gilman, far more of them straight, white, and male than queer, people of color, or women, did indeed stand up to the Nazi strain in their midst. And yet, the politics of waging peace and the how music fits into those politics is often more nuanced and complicated than taking up of pitchforks, tiki torches, or baseball bats. The project at Gilman Street, while largely a success and a piece of the Bay Area's larger legacy of resistance, is also a reminder, to me anyway, that people on the same team are not immune to the cruelties and divisiveness that destroys alliances, especially here in our own left coast bubble.

Recounted against a backdrop of music, animation, and collected ephemera, the film provides plenty of context in the form of hundreds of testimonials by the fans, friends, DJs, zine makers, and bands, all who helped to shape and were shaped by the intentional community that was Gilman. Additional voiceover narration is supplied by Iggy Pop. All of the elements go a long way toward explaining how one place held close white punks, black speed-metal heads, self-identified queers, and baby feminists, as capitalism moved steadily toward its hypernormal end phase.

Take the story of Green Day, who are also the film's executive producers: Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt were just two kids with long hair-- mullets, in fact-- trying to find their way out of the suburbs and into rock 'n' roll. This was a logical career choice for people back then-- in the years before the Internet-- a time when music still meant something and musicians with actual talent had a real shot at making a living with their art. For kids from East Bay suburbs like Pinole, El Sobrante, and Rodeo (accent on the day-o) any options beyond their semi-rural, semi-industrial refinery towns would've been welcome in the economically dim R & B (Reagan and Bush) era, as was Gilman, a place where you could dream about life beyond the 'burbs (or get away from parents), accompanied by a hardcore punk soundtrack of your own making. You were also taught about others systems of governance and lifestyles, all of it an alternative to skateboarding in 7-11 parking lots, video games, and bottomless bowls of weed, the area's standard fare.

At Gilman, kids were people too; they had a voice and made decisions. But as players on the punk scene, musicians with songwriting talent the likes of Green Day were also subject to skepticism and derision. By the time Billie Joe came around asking to play, the band was perceived as “too pop” and was turned away by Tim Yohannan, Gilman's co-founder and booker. Yohannan (“A red-diaper baby who had been at People's Park,” according to filmmaker Redford) was also the founding publisher of the punk zine and radio show, Maximum Rock'n'Roll; he used what means he had to secure the 924 space, becoming its de facto elder. He then gave the youngsters its keys, as well as an education in all things collective, communal, and dogmatic: Enforcing the strictly straight-edge, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic rules worked in theory, but was more complicated in practice. Yohannan does not get to tell his story (he died of cancer in 1998), but his friends and co-workers remember him in Turn It Around.

Howie recently compared Billie Joe to Shakespeare in a tweet. I mention this because both his and Yohannan's extreme positions on Green Day go some way toward explaining the divide within the small but mighty Bay Area punk scenes which supposedly had a code of no racism, no sexism, and no homophobia, but at times felt racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and threatening to anyone who wasn't a straight white male. Back when Yohannan held dominion over Gilman and the East Bay but before Green Day hit the scene, Howie was young and I was younger still. We both worked on the San Francisco side of the Bay, spinning records that were not heard anywhere but in clubs and on the left end of the dial, and our tastes were decidedly more “commercial,” and catholic. These simple differences led to real hostilities, you might even say warfare, between rival college radio stations KUSF and Berkeley's KALX (Redford tells me that version of his film was mostly left on the proverbial cutting room floor but will likely show up as extras on a DVD). By the time Green Day was on the rise, I was reporting on Bay Area music for the region's paper, the Contra Costa Times. Admittedly, much of what I knew about what went on inside Gilman was colored by my experience with punk rock at KUSF and SF's own punk clubhouse, the Mabuhay Gardens. I was among those who perceived hardcore and the suburban influence to have poisoned our scene, bringing with it slamdancing, mosh pits, skinhead violence and the smell of fear. The small-minded punk versus "not punk enough” dynamic came to bear further after Howie left San Francisco and was heading Green Day's chosen record label, Reprise, which helped make way for their superstardom (for those unfamiliar, Green Day are stadium-fillers with Grammy and Tony Awards to their credit; they are also among the handful of American recording artists who stood up in the era of Bush II and cried foul during the Iraq war with a concept album titled American Idiot). Green Day's success was not entirely celebrated by the punks at Gilman who had “collectively” banned major label recording artists from their space. I ultimately attended some girl-friendly shows there, but while the place wasn't for me, it was a godsend for the kids in the East Bay, a once largely conservative bastion whose districts by and large vote Democrat these days, though there is still one assembly district held down by a Republican in the wealthier, far east county. Filmmaker Redford contends that things could've easily gone the other way.

“When you have a blustery blowhard in the media everyday, it emboldens people to come out from under their rocks,” he says in the wake of Berkeley's recent defeat of Nazi terror and in anticipation of the University's planned Fall program of hate speech. “But I don't believe there are more of them than people who believe in treating people fairly and equally. I have to believe that. I don't want to lose hope."

Green Day is currently on a multi-city mega world tour. Gilman survives as an all-ages, non-profit collective and its alumni seem more comfortable celebrating each other's successes since its regulars have gone on to become popular zine makers and authors, scholars, professional musicians, and workers of all stripes-- everyday people who still believe in the dream of pluralism while the threat of fascism looms large in Berkeley and throughout the land. Our differences, for the most part, have been cast aside, we are all children of punk rock, and its spirit of self-reliance and resistance serve us well in these times: Punk made us pro-peace and against racism, sexism, and wage slavery. We still seek safe places-- a safe country for people of all identities-- and reject patriarchal, colonial mentalities. And while we recognize it is uneasy business to create these spaces, many of us remain involved in trying.

“People building things, making positive change, creating art for each other, anywhere you find that, there is punk rock,” says Redford, much like a true-believing, modern day Tom Joad. “Punk isn't dead, no matter what anyone tells you. If you can't find it, you might have to change your way of thinking. Wherever there is resistance culture, wherever there are people, there is punk rock.”

Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk opens in theaters nationwide this week.



Denise Sullivan reports on arts, culture, and gentrification issues for DWT!

Trump's More Like Journey Or Confected Nashville Crap Than Like Punk Rock

When they were younger, music fans of a certain age had to choose-- Beatles or Stones. The next generation had a similar choice-- Pistols or Clash. I liked the Beatles-- a lot. I used to take acid when a new Beatles album came out so I could really get into it fully. But, like Trump, I was a Stones guy. By the time punk rock got going I was a dj on KSAN in San Francisco and KSJO in San Jose. Many people in the Bay Area will tell you that the first time they heard Anarchy In the U.K. or God Save the Queen was on one of my radio shows. Maybe other American DJs did live interviews with the Pistols as well but one of the ones I did with them wound up on an album, Big Tits Over America. I got fired from KSJO over that one. Anyway, I always preferred the Clash-- more coherent, more melodic... truth be told, easier.

Johnny Rotten was in the "news" yesterday-- "backing" Trump and Brexit:

Godfather of punk, anarchist and former Sex Pistol John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten, was on the show this morning promoting his limited edition new book Mr Rotten's Songbook. Having built a career on his anti-establishment views, he didn't shy away from talking about todays political landscape.

Lydon came out in support of Brexit claiming the working class had spoken and that he would stand by them. He also claimed he could see a possible friendship in Trump, praising his ability to terrify politicians. Rotten himself inspired a generation of anarchists.

This alt-right character Paul Watson is a real dirt-bag-- and is either incredibly stupid about what punk rock is or is just trying to deceive the simpleminded people likely to care what he has to say. Worth watching though:



In late January, his former bandmate, L.A. resident Steve Jones, also flogging a book Lonely Boy: Tales From a Sex Pistol, was asked about Brexit and Trump. Being more of an American these days, he went right for the Trumpy part of the question:

So we’re living in crazy times, obviously. You’ve probably been asked this but in the wake of Brexit and also Trump’s presidency, do you feel like we need another Sex Pistols right now?

Well, to be honest with you, I think Donald Trump is the modern-day Johnny Rotten.

Wow. What? Why?

Well, they have the same color hair, and he’s basically come out of left field, with no experience of anything, and he’s just doing it. Like, not in the normal way that all the others do it. It kind of is a bit like Sex Pistols-like, if you want to look at it like that. You know, it’s an odd one.

You’re not trying to say that Donald Trump is punk rock, I hope?

No. I’m not saying that, but as far as politics goes, he’s about as knowledgeable about politics as we was in playing rock music when we first started. Don’t misquote me, though!

I'm not sure who the first person was to mislabel Trump a punk, but we tried explaining why that's embarrassing earlier this month. Kyle Smith made the assertion, derogatorily, on Nov. 9 in the NY Post.

Donald Trump may favor stodgy blue suits and boring red ties and wear his hair in a strange double combover, but don’t be fooled. That’s how he looks, not who he is. Who he is is a guy with a safety pin through his nose and a purple mohawk. He just pulled off the most punk act in American history.

If you’re a Hillary Clinton voter, or a member of the average media outlet, observing the Trump phenomenon to you was like watching Frank Sinatra in the 1970s: has-been, used-up, going through the motions appealing to a rapidly disappearing demographic, relying entirely on crusty oldies like “My Way.”

Yet the version of “My Way” Trump actually represented was the one gargled by Sid Vicious, the short-lived Sex Pistol, over the closing credits of Goodfellas-- crude, sneering, shocking, postmodern. None of us could believe what Trump was doing-- because no one had ever seen anyone do it that way before.



Remember when somebody mentioned the sainted war hero John McCain and Trump wisecracked that he couldn’t be that much of a hero if he got caught? Punk!

Remember when he promised a big announcement that he was ready to concede that President Obama was actually born in the United States and every news hound covered it as if it were the Super Bowl? He turned it into an infomercial for his new Trump hotel in the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC.

Hey, what’s more punk than shameless love of filthy lucre?

Remember when Hillary Clinton, Lisa Simpson-like, was busily organizing a landslide?

She did everything by the book. She amassed a prim little army of do-gooders, covering her bases by opening proper little field offices in every burg in America, even in Dallas and Houston. Trump scoffed, and sent out some 3 a.m. tweets. (Hillary, we learned from WikiLeaks, once needed 12 staffers and 12 hours of deliberation to craft a single tweet.)

Even Trump himself often seemed so ambivalent about the position he found himself in that the most seasoned political reporters openly wondered if he even wanted to win.

Just not giving a flying fig is the quintessence of punk.

Trump didn’t just throw out the playbook, he set fire to it. And America loved it. Not releasing his taxes? Fine, said America-- can you help us game the system too? So antagonizing the media that major news outlets dropped all pretense of neutrality and openly campaigned against him? Not a problem, said America-- we hate those sons of bitches too, and the enemy of our enemy is our friend.

Punk is the art of taking the stage with no preparation whatsoever and screaming: It’s me against the world, and what the freak are you gonna do about it?

The last year-and-a-half it was Trump against the world, and the world lost.

Trump May Be A "Punk," But No, Trumpism Is Not The New Punk Rock, Even If There Are Some Common Roots

I hadn't been back in America very long-- having been living abroad for nearly 7 years-- when I ran into someone I had met years before when I booked a Doors concert at my school. It was Danny Fields, who had gone from being an A&R man at the Doors' label, Elektra, to working as a journalist and managing a new band. He wanted me to see the new band. I didn't want to. He insisted and insisted until I agreed. I went down to the Bowery to a skeetzy club I had never heard of, CBGB's and saw a brand new band that hadn't recorded yet-- the Ramones. It charged my life, quite literally and completely. Along with others, I started one of the first punk rock magazines, one of the first punk rock radio shows and one of the first punk rock record labels in the U.S. Long before I wound up as general manager of the Ramones label, Sire Records, I had become close with virtually all the punk bands, from the Pistols and the Clash to locals like the Dead Kennedys and Crime. In fact, Johnny Strike of Crime just sent me this piece by Scott Galupo, Is Trumpism The New Punk Rock?

This post is meant to respond to Galupo's and Ijust want to establish that I was there and had a hand in it and understand what it was and why it was and feel confident that the Alt-Right isn't and never could be anything do do with punk rock, other than maybe being the antithesis. This goes way beyond the little dust up over American neo-Nazi Richard Spencer and his assertions about his love for Depeche Mode, unrequited I might add. After writing this little piece about what Depeche thinks of neo-Nazis, I received an e-mail from Daniel Miller, head of Mute and the guy who discovered Depeche Mode, signed them and produced their early music and helped guide their career. It don't want to quote it because it was a little more violent than the way Daniel has always portraysed himself but let it suffice that he wished bodily injury on Richard Spencer.

Anyway, back to punk rock-- which has always used fascist iconology to communicate anger, irony, and, most of all, perhaps, attention-grabbing outrage. Punk bands have always drawn some equivalents of simple-minded, low-IQ Trump supporter-types (i.e., facsist dupes.) and the bands have always had to respond to it. The Clash, Morrissey and the Dead Kennedys all had mini-crises over fascist followers and all disavowed them in no uncertain terms-- the way Depeche Mode did with Richard Spencer last week. Is there anything unclear about this Dead Kennedy's underground hit and the way Jello Biafra introduced it at this 1982 show at the Ritz in Austin?

Punk ain't no religious cult
Punk means thinking for yourself
You ain't hardcore cos you spike your hair
When a jock still lives inside your head

Nazi punks
Nazi punks
Nazi punks-Fuck Off!

Nazi punks
Nazi punks
Nazi punks-Fuck Off!

If you've come to fight, get outa here
You ain't no better than the bouncers
We ain't trying to be police
When you ape the cops it ain't anarchy

[Repeat chorus]

Ten guys jump one, what a man
You fight each other, the police state wins
Stab your backs when you trash our halls
Trash a bank if you've got real balls

You still think swastikas look cool
The real nazis run your schools
They're coaches, businessmen and cops
In a real fourth reich you'll be the first to go

[Repeat chorus]

You'll be the first to go
You'll be the first to go
You'll be the first to go
Unless you think

Galupo writes that a young CPAC attendee explained that he'd grown up a standard-issue George W. Bush conservative Republican, but had more recently migrated to the alt-right movement. One of its attractions, he said, was that it felt like "the new punk rock." I suppose he's never seen Biafra's 1982 explanation at the Ritz. "The word 'punk,' to many, evokes images of angry hooligans and anarchic behavior," continued Galupo correctly. "Then again, it may sound blasphemous: The memory of 'punk rock,' as it has been canonized in the upper echelons of rock criticism, is associated with left-wing anti-authoritarianism. Hence it would be ridiculous to call yourself 'punk' while supporting a right-wing authoritarian like Trump." Exactly... like Trump-- an acolyte of Joe McCarthy collaborator Roy Cohen-- accusing President Obama of McCarthyism, as he did in an Adderall-fueled rage before dawn on Saturday morning on Twitter. He references his friend and former editor Daniel Wattenberg for his rejection of "any association between punk rock the alt-right, racialism, or white identitarianism. Rather, he sees parallels between punk and Trumpism more broadly. "I have to say, it does feel similar in a lot of ways, psychologically and emotionally," he says.

The first thing one must understand about the right-wing character of punk, Wattenberg says, is not that its exponents were soi-disantYoung Republicans, quoting Goldwater or God and Man at Yale. New York-centered punk began as "an intramural insurrection within the counterculture," he says. It was the punks vs. their somnolent, sententious hippie older brothers and sisters, who had for years propounded what Wattenberg calls the "reverse pieties" of anti-Americanism and anti-commercialism and white guilt.

What does this have to do with the president and his core following?

Wattenberg says Trumpism was "an insurrection against Conservatism Inc."-- a political establishment that had become flabby, complacent, and self-indulgent in the same way that 1970s progressive rock music had grown bombastic, pretentious, and long-winded. Whereas Republicans before Trump had been terrified of deviating from orthodox positions on trade, the desirability of immigration, or the wisdom of the Iraq war, Trump thumbed his nose at this orthodoxy.

Then there's Trump's seeming amateurism-- his "inexperience and rawness," Wattenberg says. Just as punks weren't trained musicians, Trump is frequently assailed for not playing politics the right way, that is, the professional way. When Wattenberg hears the media establishment pounce on Trump for falsehoods, misstatements, or exaggerations, he hears echoes of musical sophisticates belittling punk rock for its primitivism. Trump may get lost in the details, but he gets the big things attitudinally right. Put another way: He may know only three chords, but Wattenberg says his followers hear the "right three chords."

He also sees in Trump a political manifestation of punk's do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos. (By "do-it-yourself," punks don't mean changing the oil or remodeling your bathroom; it's meant as a command: Write your own song. Paint your own painting.) Punk-rock bands created their own independent labels and staged gigs in small clubs or church basements. Trump lacked support from Republican Party elites in the same way that punks lacked support from major labels and promoters. So he ran a shoestring campaign and made himself recklessly accessible to the media in pursuit of free coverage.

Finally there is the transgressive appeal of Trump's rejection of political correctness. Wattenberg says: "There's power in that. Punks were also occasionally misrepresented as harboring fascist sympathies. Once they call you a fascist, there's nothing more than they can say. That's the source of excitement Milo [Yiannopoulos] generated on campus: 'We're free again.' That's the thrill and the power of busting taboos."

Where does Trumpism lead, then? The legacy of punk rock can be looked at two ways. It could be seen as a musical movement that, outside of two bands (the potent, one-and-done Sex Pistols and the more creatively catholic Clash), ultimately didn't amount to much. Or it can be seen as a vital current that runs through subsequent movements from grunge to emo to more recent garage revivalists like the White Stripes.

Wattenberg, for his part, doesn't see Trumpism disappearing any time soon. "There are no longer any criteria of judgment independent of politics," he laments. For as long as the left gets to define the "permissible boundaries of expressive freedom," there will be some variant of Trumpism spoiling to defy it. And for as long as politics overspills into awards shows and sports pages and our personal social media, he adds, Trumpism will continue to appeal to those who want to escape its clutches.

It's enough to make you wanna be, well, sedated.

Wattenberg goes wrong in his belief that punk "as a musical movement that, outside of two bands (the potent, one-and-done Sex Pistols and the more creatively catholic Clash), ultimately didn't amount to much." This may sound blashpemous but by almost any conceivable measurement Green Day has had a bigger impact than their spiritual parents (the aforementioned Pistols and Clash). Green Day has had quite a lot to say about Trump and Trumpism to the non-Alt-Right among us. Another figure from the heady early days on punk rock in the late 70s and early 80s San Francisco punk scene was then-producer, now cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist and best-selling author Dan Levitin (This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession , The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature , The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload and last year's A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age. Literally, moments after Johnny Strike of Crime sent me Galupo's piece, Dan sent me one he had just penned for the Daily Beast, The Butchering of the Age of Reason. "Our country," he wrote, "is in a crisis that threatens to set us back 400 years." He didn't even specifically reference Trump. "I’m talking about reversing the Age of Reason, which ushered in a period of unprecedented intellectual, economic, and social growth. The Enlightenment, as it is also called, drew a line in the sand between rumor and fact, between testable hypotheses and anecdote, and between demonstrable facts and nonsense. Prior to the Age of Reason, people who heard voices in their heads might have been drowned or burned at the stake as witches; by the 20th century we had identified a biological disease that causes this (schizophrenia) and developed drugs to treat it. The Age of Reason led us to the germ theory of disease, penicillin, and-- although it took a while and is still not ubiquitous-- women’s rights, child labor laws, and a reduction in racism." The essence of punk ethos is far more in tune with Dan's critical analysis than in Wattenberg's hand-wringing stretch.

[U]ntil the last few months, [the Elightenment] allowed we citizens to engage in constructive discussion with elected officials about public policy matters, based on facts. It has allowed a free and independent press, with trained investigative journalists, to help us understand what is true and what is not. If the current administration brands as “fake” facts they find inconvenient, it undermines the entire political system. If we are going to throw out facts as a prerequisite to discussion, we are reversing centuries of cognitive progress.

...Why is it that musicians and scientists reach different conclusions when considering the same data? Perhaps for the same reason that voters reach different conclusions when considering the same statements, claims, and data presented by politicians. We engage in expectation-driven perception, and opposed to evidence-driven perception.

Expectations retune neurons and change the way our retinas, our eardrums, and our brains work. They cause firing patterns in our brain consistent with what we think we saw or heard rather than what we actually saw or heard.

Simply knowing that an instrument has a certain history could alter auditory pathways so that they actually sound better to us-- that is, if we know which one we’re hearing. Simply knowing that a person whose political views usually align with ours is speaking may cause us to evaluate the information less critically. Lord Chesterfield understood, over two hundred years ago, that we form impressions of others based on what we see and what we think, and that the seeing tends to overpower the thinking simply because seeing is so much easier than thinking. But we would do well to remember the words of his friend Voltaire: Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

When we listen to someone we like, such as an elected official whom we have supported, we tend to accept what they say more trustingly, even gullibly. We filter their remarks through a cognitive bias that they have our best interests at heart. We focus on aspects of the remarks that confirm our hopes, and we discount those that confirm our fears. We do the opposite with elected officials whom we oppose, thinking there can’t be anything of value in what they say. This has led to the current polarization of political parties, and obstructionism in congress. Evidence-based thinking would have us evaluate each statement objectively, and avoid jumping to conclusions. But that’s hard to do. As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has shown, under conditions of cognitive overload, we are much less likely to be able to do this.

So it takes some work. We need role models in positions of authority and influence to show us how evidence-based thinking works. Fortunately we have three institutions to help us, institutions that are the foundation of a free and democratic society, institutions that need our support more than ever. They are the judiciary, independent press, and the scientific method. When the panel of federal judges reviewed the Trump administrations immigration ban, note the language in the ruling: “We find no evidence.” Journalists reported that there was “no evidence” of WMDs in Iraq. Science reports “no evidence” of a link between vaccinations and autism. Former Republican President George W. Bush said in an interview recently that an independent press is “indispensable to democracy.” Cutting funding to education, interfering with judges and the press should never be made political issues-- supporting them supports the power of reason.

Punk rocker Billie Joe Armstrong's immediate reaction after learning that Trump had won the election was to urge people to "treat each other with respect and kindness and love" and then to re-write a song slightly, one I don't see the alt-right kiddies embracing any time soon:

Life Of Crime... And So On

This week, I had a call from Steve Knopper, a writer doing a story for Billboard, about how musicians may look at their responsibility to call attention to the political anomalies around Trump and Trumpism. I'll share that with you when it's published next week. Usually when people ask me if I'm involved in the music business any longer I just say "no" or, if I'm feeling garrulous, "no, thank God." In fact when Steve asked me a question for a post-Nirvana period book he's writing, all I could do was offer to talk about how in 1994, the midterm election after Bill Clinton's first victory, saw a loss of 54 Democratic House seats and the rise of Newt Gingrich... but that my mind was blank about anything to do with music of the period other than how we had a huge success with Candlebox in that period. He didn't seem interested in hearing that Ted Strickland, Jack Brooks, Dan Rostenkowski, Maria Cantwell, Jay Inslee, Speaker Tom Foley and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky all lost their seats that year. Alas, who would be? That said, just hours later I got three music-related e-mails.

The first came from the producer of a film, Pitching Tents who is locking down the score and trailer and is eager to use a song my own little company publishes, "Teenage Underground" by the Red Rockers. Here listen:



I should have told Steve Knopper to call them about how singers and songwriters are going to react to Trump. You can probably guess how the Red Rockers would react. They also recorded Guns of Revolution, the song that persuaded me to sign them to my little indie label, and Dead Heroes. I did mention Bodycount to Steve. That was Ice-T's rock band that got into some trouble for their song, "Cop Killer." I was the executive producer. It's a little harsh but listen:



Why bring that up? That was the second e-mail. It was from a sociology professor at Cal State Long Beach telling me one of her students asked her to invite me to speak to her class about censorship. I'm going to.

The third e-mail was from Johnny Strike, who I haven't been in contact with in a couple of decades. He was one of the singer/guitar players in San Francisco's legendary punk rock pioneers, Crime. Crime was mostly Johnny plus Frankie Fix who I believe died about 20 years ago. But there were a delightful cast of characters over the years I lived in San Francisco who came and went from Crime and two of them-- Hank Rank and Joey D'Kaye-- are, according to Johnny's e-mail joining him in a new recording project, Naked Beast. LP out in 2017. I can't wait. Meanwhile, I didn't even realize that Johnny Strike is an author and has a new book out, Name of the Stranger. He described the new music as "Crimey but also experimental." Want to hear what "Crimey" sounds like? This is Crime's classic first single, "Hot Wire My Heart" b/w "Baby You're So Repulsive" from late 1976. This is what I used to play on my radio show:





UPDATE: New Old Pic

Johnny just sent me this, a photo, probably backstage at the Mabuhay in 1977, of Crime's Frankie Fix and Johnny Strike and yours truly in the middle. The world has changed so much since then! (I'm pretty sure I was wearing a Jefferson Starship promo jacket in the photo that Craig Chaquico gave me in return for a compromising audio tape.)

Sanders Campaign Needs More Punk Rockers To Join The Chorus of Musical Support

photo of Alice Bag and Frightwig by Eric Goodfield

by Denise Sullivan

The rock 'n' roll choice for president is clear, according to the Artists and Cultural Leaders for Bernie Sanders. Politically conscious, engaged, and enlightened performers whether from folk roots like Bonnie Raitt or Jackson Browne, or edgier stock like Wayne Kramer, Jello Biafra, and Margaret Cho, comprise the diverse list of performers. Meshell Ndegeocello, Lucinda Williams, David Crosby, John Densmore, and Serj Tankian (System of a Down) have also signed on to support Sanders.

Of course music people traditionally lean left, whether Fleetwood Mac for Clinton or Bruce Springsteen for Obama; we rock the vote. We also know Democratic leaders and insiders rarely allow rebels like Sanders to prevail, but we in the arts and humanities must maintain hope and stand with Sanders. As a woman, I'm particularly interested in Sanders on the ERA and the Paycheck Fairness Act, his advocacy for increasing minimum wage, commitment to expanding health and reproductive rights, and belief that childcare, pre-school and parental leave should be available to all Americans, not just a privileged few.

While I don't know where original punk rocker Alice Bag stands on Sanders, over the weekend I heard her perform "Equality in the USA" with Frightwig in San Francisco at the Punk Renaissance, a weeklong festival organized by Punk Rock Sewing Circle, former punk rockers committed to social justice. Interestingly, Sanders has ties to punk rock, when as mayor of Burlington, he approved the Mayor's Youth Office and punk gathering spot, 242 Main. Not only do I think there could be a valuable meeting of the minds here-- as in a coalition of punk rockers for Sanders-- but Bag's powerful punk performance once again reminded me of my generation's musical ability to change hearts and public opinion in fundamental ways.

Sung to the tune of "Anarchy in the UK," Bag snarled, "Time for equal pay I thought this was the USA!" This is one punk rocker with plenty to say and she does it with more fire than most ("I'm tired of this patriarchal bullshit!"). Accompanied by the forceful  Frightwig, core members of the San Francisco scene who have long advocated for women's rights in song, the band's Mia Simmans led the group through her own anthem, "Redistribution of Wealth." Bag also sang out against Monsanto in "Poison Seed." The evening's lineup also featured the Mutants and Penelope Houston with the Avengers performing her "We Are The One" and "The American In Me," among other timeless indictments of a broken system.



I don't know about you, but I'd rather hear these kinds of songs, sung by women, leading our way into the future, instead of "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)." I look forward to the continually updated roll call of the artists joining the fight with Sanders, and more songs that will lead the way forward. Until that time, here's some inspiration worth remembering from punk rock's past.

Mink De Ville: Slick Fur Fury

In 1977 I wrote a story about Mink DeVille for Creem. It isn't easy to access online so I figured I'd post it here at DWT... no special reason, except so that more people should be able to acquaint themselves with this largely unknown American band. Enjoy:

"MINK PIE, how's that!" challenged Willie, whose darkly silent, sinewy presence dominated the dimly-lit cold-water flat in Oakland. The band had been up speeding for four days; it was 5 a.m. and they wanted a change.

Why not start with a new name? The San Francisco Bay Area hadn't treated them all that well-- not as the Lazy Aces and not as Billy de Sade and the Marquis. Willie, a New Yorker born and bred, had wound up in San Francisco in 1973, looking for a band.

"Everybody was an asshole in New York. Nuthin' was happening at all, so I figured the same type of thing was happening out on the Coast, except maybe there might be more musicians out there 'cause California's a bigger state. Right?"

Makes sense. And via the Musicians' Switchboard, a garage in Daly City, and a patio in Marin County, Willie found what he was looking for. Now he wanted to convince an audience it was what they were looking for too.

"We were playin' the leather bars down on Folsom Street," recalls Willie impassively, referring to San Francisco's infamous warehouse district where mild-mannered accountants and ribbon clerks get dressed up in macho drag at night to grope each other in dark corners and pee on that special man. "We were Billy de Sade and the Marquis then. We played The Barracks. After a while they would take their clothes off. This one guy-- Jesus Satin he called himself-- he'd dance on the pool table. It was nuts! Crazy!! I could just tell that place wasn't gonna be in the scene. You know where it is-- it's on the wrong side of the tracks."

It also wasn't paying the rent and the band looked like it might have been going nowhere, in reverse. So maybe another name change would help-- God knows the music was great. Mink Pie... hmmmm. "No, it's gotta be something slick-- something sorta French, somethin' sorta black... poetry. Mink... MINK DE VILLE!" blurted out Toots, Willie's omnipresent, black-bouffanted old lady, whose quiet intensity is not unlike his own.

But the new name didn't seem to be what the Marin County organics were looking for. At their first gig at the Garden of Earthly Delights, Mink's white, urban blues were too raw, too... unrefined rock for the disciples of Werner Erhard, Guru Nanek, Crunchy Granola and Jerry Garcia. All ya gotta do is look at that leering, anemic face and you just know he's not singing about cleaning pot in the California sun.

"So it was just like the logical time to say, 'We gotta split now,'" recalls Willie, still basking in the correctness of that decision. "I kept reading in the Voice-- and I saw there were all these bands. And our landlord was about to evict us. We were forced into a decision."

So it was into the truck and bye-bye Frisco, hello New York. But not for long: no sooner had they picked up their "missing piece"-- guitarist Louie Erlanger, another San Francisco emigre-- than they were off to Stamford, Connecticut.

"We got a house there. You know-- to get enough money off the suburbs to get a loft in the City. It was really terrible, really boring, but they had lots of bars and we got lots of money. We were playing all blues. I knew that would sell. Like if we came out and we played disco, we'd be like every other bar band, so I knew we had to start with a reputation as being weirdos. Nobody was playin' blues there so we played Chicago South Side style and I knew any bar room-- I don't care where it is-- you play good Chicago blues, swing stuff, the bar people are gonna go ape shit. We played a lot of Junior Wells stuff."

But the band hadn't come East to be the hottest mothers in western Connecticut. Willie ran into another transplanted Californian, Terry Ork, who was doing the booking at CBGB's. "He loved the name," laughs Willie, "but he said something like, 'I don't find anything interesting in a white blues band.' He couldn't see that because he probably didn't know that the Rolling Stones were a blues band; he didn't know that Eric Burden and the Animals were a blues band; and he didn't know that Van Morrison and Them were a blues band."

But good ole Hilly Kristal, CBGB's owner, has a soft heart for anyone as sincere and earnest as Willie and he granted them another audition. "Look," Willie told him, "all I need is a break. I can take this town over." Mink de Ville opened for a now-defunct City Lights on a Wednesday evening. The response earned them a return engagement, opening for CBGB-kingpins, The Ramones.



"Immediately we got into a confrontation with them. 'Hey, mothafuckas, take yer drums off!' What their guy was saying was actually very logical-- 'like since we're the headliner and you're going on first, you guys should do your soundcheck last.' But it was the tone in his voice that we objected to. So me and Manfred just looked at him and... (makes motion with hand indicating impending doom) that lead singer don't look like he's gonna do a damn thing, about it. Like immediately Mink de Ville was known as a hostile band, antagonistic. What a buncha fuckin' pussies, man. You know-- punk rockers, and we're antagonistic! We're just lookin' for our fair share. We don't want no lip from these..." (snorts contemptuously.)

"They're sayin' the punk image is a cross between Marlon Brando and James Dean. Now what would Marlon Brando do if you called him a punk? You'd be stomped. James Dean? You'd get your ass knocked if you called him a punk. Another word for punk is lame. Punk was always the kid who used to get chased home from school, wasn't he? The kid who wouldn't fight-- just run home. The word for punk in jail is someone who's constantly gettin' corn-holed. The thing is, it's a good word for the media 'cause it's so shocking that it gets out to the suburbs and the parents aren't gonna like it and it's always been a good source of music-- if the parents don't like it, it's gonna sell."

So Mink became a "CBGB's band," although all everyone ever said about them was, "Yeah, they're great, but they're not punk, are they?" Bet your ass, they're not punk, punk! "I knew the kinda material we'd have to do would have to be so shocking to these cats, 'cause they're all frustrated Rolling Stones. And if you did the Rolling Stones, you usually did r'n'b 'cause that's the Rolling Stones' roots. So we rehearsed a lot of Otis Redding stuff. We went in there and we played a really polished set. We played an old James Brown routine where the cat falls on the floor and they cover him with a cape. We pulled it in the middle of 'I've Been Lovin' You Too Long' and I dropped to my knees and everybody went fuckin' ape-shit... bananas."

Everybody loved that first show, but Willie knew even then that they'd have to make it on their original material. "When we started to get a good followin' a lot of people were sorta saying that we were copping black riffs and it's not really fair. I was waitin' for 'em to start calling me a racist. So I knew I hadda write a buncha new material. So I did and we started playing original stuff. And," he told us last year, "it's just as good as anything anybody else is playing on three chords."

But that was last year, and they're not doing the three chord stuff any more, and besides, Mink's rise to fame in New York wasn't really based on their material anyway. The trendies dug Willie's flashed-out stage presence-- their r'n'b wasn't fuddy-duddy; it was Genuine American Flash, a la Eddie Cochran. "People compare me to Lou Reed and Mick Jagger and Nils Lofgren," snickered Willie (neglecting to mention Peter Wolf, Ben E. King, Bruce Springsteen, Graham Parker, Van Morrison, John Hammond and Tom Rush), "but nobody compares me to Eddie Cochran. I never even hearda Nils Lofgren in my whole life!"

And then there was the four-sided Live At CBGB's LP. Mink de Ville's three tracks-- far rawer and more rockin' than their solo album-- won everyone's vote as the best of the lot, even if it was by default. (None of the other heavy bands played on it. The Ramones, Blondie, Television and Patti Smith were signed or about to be signed and the Dictators were banned from the club because Handsome Dick had bad grades for "works and plays well with homos.") So Mink took it away lock, stock and barrel. And a contract-– a good un, from Capitol Records. Ex-CREEM Editor, Ben Edmunds, might be an A&R man now, but he still recognizes a good thing when he sees it. He signed Willie up to the label, hooked the band up with Phil Spector's ex-arranger, Jack Nitzsche, and let Capitol know that the company had a winner on its hands.

Four years after the cold water flat in Oakland incident, the Barracks had burned down. Mink's album has been number 1 on KSAN for three weeks. A full quarter of the albums sold have been bought in the Bay Area! And the boys-- along with two saxophone players and a three-man Jamaican-born vocal group, the Immortals-- are on the road. Word of the band's triumphal week at L.A.'s Whisky filter up to San Francisco, where two clubs have booked them, a spacious, plushly carpeted adult club (the Old Waldorf, tres chic), for Mink's maturer followers (as well as parents and family), and the Mabuhay Gardens, the West Coast's Punk Rock Capitol. The first two nights-- predictable early sell-outs-- were sleek. The well-dressed audience was relieved it wasn't punk rock. "This is GOOD new wave," one bloated, besotted provincial promo hack told me. That's right, baby. Then, Friday night the safety pin and razor blade crowd spilled out into Broadway as the line snaked past tit shows and massage parlors. And Willie knew who he was playing for. The Mabuhay is Dictators/ Ramones territory and Mink threw 'em the raw meat they were looking for. "This is GOOD new wave," one garbage-bag clad, green-haired young lady told me. That's right, baby.

Live at Montreux, 1982:

Interested In a Bunch Of Missing Clash Footage?

Did you miss the BBC documentary about The Clash on New Year's Day? That's it above-- and worth an hour and fifteen minutes of your time. I remember how excited The Clash were that Julien Temple was filming them-- and I always wondered what happened to that footage. That's it-- almost 4 decades later. There are interviews and some decidedly mixed quality context bits, of course, and a somewhat interesting history of Covent Garden, but the greatest value here is the New Years Day 1977 concert The Clash did at The Roxy-- despite a seriously fucked-up sound system. These are the early versions of what became the band's very iconic debut album, the album that earned them the nickname, "The Only Band That Matters."

I used to hang out with the band in the rehearsal studio near the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm. Paul Simonon took down one of the posters from the wall and gave it to me. It was my most prized possession for many years. I wonder what happened to it.

The Next Generation Of NYPD Looks To Be About As Rotten As The Current One

Over the past few days we talked about the corrupting nature of the culture of policing-- from the perspective of victims and from the perspective of good apple police officers who were sickened by the entire filthy enterprise. By now, everyone has read about the spoiled brat attitude the police took in turning their backs on Mayor De Blasio last Saturday at the funeral of slain policeman Rafael Ramos. Monday, De Blasio spoke at Madison Square Garden at the graduation ceremonies for 884 new police officers from the city's Police Academy. The assholes booed and heckled him, while he was coddling them and kissing their asses, describing their career choice as "noble calling," and telling them they will "stare down the danger" and "keep the peace." Some jerks stood with their backs turned to the mayor for the entire time he spoke. According to the NYTimes report this all stems from the police unions freaking out about the mayor's support for Eric Gardner protestors after he was murdered by police.

Mr. de Blasio encouraged demonstrators who protested the grand jury decision, saying, “Anyone who believes in the values of this country should feel called to action right now.” And he said that he has often spoken to his biracial son about “dangers he may face” in interactions with the police.

In addition to the back-turning incidents, the main police union distributed a flier to officers three weeks ago urging them to disinvite the mayor from their funerals should they die in the line of duty.

With Mr. de Blasio at odds with many officers, the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, has been thrust into the role of peacemaker.

On Sunday, he stood by Mr. de Blasio’s comments on race relations-- saying it is the “reality” that officers have to deal with. But Mr. Bratton said he understood the officers’ frustrations even if he found it “inappropriate” to express them at the funeral of an officer slain on the job.

Mr. Bratton also addressed the graduates. “We are at a very difficult time in this country, in this city, and in this department,” he conceded.

But he added, “You have the opportunity with that badge on your chest to do extraordinary things.”

Mr. de Blasio is arranging meetings with five unions representing officers of nearly all ranks. He has faced the sharpest criticism from the head of the union for patrol officers, Patrick J. Lynch, who along with other officers turned his back on the mayor on Dec. 20 at Woodhull Hospital after Officer Ramos and his patrol partner, Wenjian Liu, were shot dead in their marked car.

That night, Mr. Lynch said that responsibility for the officers’ deaths-- “the blood on the hands”-- started at the office of the mayor.

Since then, Mr. de Blasio has mostly avoided engaging directly with the unions. He took questions from reporters last week and spoke at the funeral of Officer Ramos, but in recent days has otherwise not directly addressed the controversy roiling his administration.

On Monday, the closest he came was to remind the cadets of the importance of winning the trust of civilians.

“We will work every day to deepen your relationship with the communities you serve,” he said, “for the safety of all, for the betterment of all.”

Looks Like We Have A Police Problem-- Ask Frank Serpico... Or Jello Biafra

A few days ago we took a look back on the 1992 war between the police and Body Count. They were hardly the only punk rock band to decry police racism and violence-- just the band that the police felt most threatened by. MDC never managed to sell the millions of records that Ice-T sold. Their music, which you can hear in the video above, was less accessible... and those initials stood, at least for a time when they moved from their native Austin to San Francisco, for Millions of Dead Cops. They did a lot of songs the police wouldn't have liked, like "I Remember" and "Dead Cops"-- and albums called Millions of Dead Cops in 1982 and another in 1991 called Hey Cop, If I Had A Face Like Yours. If the lyrics are difficult top decipher, here are the first couple of stanzas from "I Remember":

I remember getting intimidated and busted at age 13 by the police.
I remember my friend Tate Bryan getting shot in the back in Tampa, FL for his first-offense burglary.
I remember the police firing at the crowds and killing children cause they were the wrong color.
I remember the narcs from my high school trying to set me up for a big fall.
I remember the police bringing dogs into our school and sniffing away my rights.
The police is the klan is the mafia and they're out for me, and soon they're going to be out to get you, so you better get going if you know it's good for you and take your stand.

I remember when I first went to school
They said, Don't be a joker, don't be a fool
Pledge your allegiance to the red, white and blue
Don't expect your country to do nothin' for you
They said your forefathers loved you
but I only had one
And I watched him die in the heat of the sun
Suckin' up the bullets of a policeman's gun
There was nothin' I could do but stay away

Black Flag was one of the earliest California hardcore punk bands, starting playing gigs in Hermosa Beach in 1976 (as Panic) and become West Coast DIY icons-- and not big fans of the local police, as you can hear in their song "Police Story."

This fucking city is run by pigs.
They take the rights away from all the kids.
Understand we're fighting a war we can't win.
They hate us, we hate them.

We can't win, no way.
Walking down the street.
I flip them off.
They hit me across the head with a billy club.

Understand we're fighting a war we can't win.
They hate us, we hate them.
We can't win, no way.
Nothing I do, nothing I say.

I tell them to go get fucked.
They put me away.
Understand we're fighting a war we can't win.
They hate us, we hate them.

We can't win, no way.
I got to court for my crime.
Stand in line, pay bail.
I may serve time.

Understand we're fighting a war we can't win.
They hate us, we hate them.
We can't win, no way

I don't recall the Crucifucks' "Cops For Fertilizer" ever becoming a hit but maybe it was big in 1981 in their native Lansing, Michigan. Leftöver Crack, from NYC, sprang out of the band Choking Victim in 1988. I don't recall any songs they ever did that weren't radical but "One Dead Cop" and "SoYou Want To Be A Cop" certainly stood out. The anti-authoritarian bands often wrote anti-police songs, for obvious reasons. The Bad Brains, which formed in DC in 1977, got pretty big for a hardcore punk band and there wasn't any question what "The Regulator" was all about, even if it tried to delve a little deeper into why the police were seen as the mechanism for social control in society.

You tell me what to say and when to say it.
You tell me what to do and how to do it.
And if I ask you why, you'll arrest me.
And if I call you a liar, you'll detest me.

You control what I'll be.
You control who I see.
And if I let you,
You control me.

You're the man who owns all the keys to the stores.
You're the man who always wants so much more.

You're the regulator.
You're the regulator.
You're the regulator.
You're the regulator.

The Clash had a lot more commercial success than almost any other early punk bands. They sold millions of records and their songs penetrated the mass consciousness, despite lyrics that were radically anti-authoritarian. "Guns of Brixton" (1979), from London Calling, their big U.S. breakthrough album, was the first Paul Simonon song the band recorded. Obviously reggae-influenced, the message is chilling-- if you're a cop.



First three stanzas:

When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting on death row

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton

The Dead Kennedys also became pretty successful worldwide And they were also about as anti-authoritarian as a band could be. "Police Truck" was a popular song and "Bleed for Me" was more about the CIA than the police per se, but the point was pretty much the same.

Anti-Flag formed in 1988 in Pittsburgh and released their first album, Die For The Government in 1996. It featured "Police State in the U.S.A." and the immortal "Fuck Police Brutality."



A couple of months ago, former New York City police detective Frank Serpico published a piece about the police in Politico. In light of the Pat Lynch threats against civilian control of the NYC police department, The Police Are Still Out Of Control is probably worth reading today. Excerpts:

In the opening scene of the 1973 movie Serpico, I am shot in the face-- or to be more accurate, the character of Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino, is shot in the face... [T]he Narcotics division was rotten to the core, with many guys taking money from the very drug dealers they were supposed to bust. I had refused to take bribes and had testified against my fellow officers. Police make up a peculiar subculture in society. More often than not they have their own moral code of behavior, an “us against them” attitude, enforced by a Blue Wall of Silence. It’s their version of the Mafia’s omerta. Speak out, and you’re no longer “one of us.” You’re one of “them.” And as James Fyfe,  a nationally recognized expert on the use of force, wrote in his 1993 book about this issue, Above The Law, officers who break the code sometimes won’t be helped in emergency situations, as I wasn’t.

...I still get hate mail from active and retired police officers. A couple of years ago after the death of David Durk-- the police officer who was one of my few allies inside the department in my efforts to expose graft--  the Internet message board “NYPD Rant” featured some choice messages directed at me. “Join your mentor, Rat scum!” said one. An ex-con recently related to me that a precinct captain had once said to him, “If it wasn’t for that fuckin’ Serpico, I coulda been a millionaire today.” My informer went on to say, “Frank, you don’t seem to understand, they had a well-oiled money making machine going and you came along and threw a handful of sand in the gears.”

...So my personal story didn’t end with the movie, or with my retirement from the force in 1972. It continues right up to this day. And the reason I’m speaking out now is that, tragically, too little has really changed since the Knapp Commission, the outside investigative panel formed by then-Mayor John Lindsay after I failed at repeated internal efforts to get the police and district attorney to investigate rampant corruption in the force. Lindsay had acted only because finally, in desperation, I went to the New York Times, which put my story on the front page. Led by Whitman Knapp, a tenacious federal judge, the commission for at least a brief moment in time supplied what has always been needed in policing: outside accountability. As a result many officers were prosecuted and many more lost their jobs. But the commission disbanded in 1972 even though I had hoped (and had so testified) that it would be made permanent.

And today the Blue Wall of Silence endures in towns and cities across America. Whistleblowers in police departments-- or as I like to call them, “lamp lighters,” after Paul Revere-- are still turned into permanent pariahs. The complaint I continue to hear is that when they try to bring injustice to light they are told by government officials: “We can’t afford a scandal; it would undermine public confidence in our police.” That confidence, I dare say, is already seriously undermined.

Things might have improved in some areas. The days when I served and you could get away with anything, when cops were better at accounting than at law enforcement-- keeping meticulous records of the people they were shaking down, stealing drugs and money from dealers on a regular basis-- all that no longer exists as systematically as it once did, though it certainly does in some places. Times have changed. It’s harder to be a venal cop these days.

But an even more serious problem-- police violence-- has probably grown worse, and it’s out of control for the same reason that graft once was: a lack of accountability.

I tried to be an honest cop in a force full of bribe-takers. But as I found out the hard way, police departments are useless at investigating themselves-- and that’s exactly the problem facing ordinary people across the country-- including perhaps, Ferguson, Missouri, which has been a lightning rod for discontent even though the circumstances under which an African-American youth, Michael Brown, was shot remain unclear.

Today the combination of an excess of deadly force and near-total lack of accountability is more dangerous than ever: Most cops today can pull out their weapons and fire without fear that anything will happen to them, even if they shoot someone wrongfully. All a police officer has to say is that he believes his life was in danger, and he’s typically absolved. What do you think that does to their psychology as they patrol the streets-- this sense of invulnerability? The famous old saying still applies: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (And we still don’t know how many of these incidents occur each year; even though Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 20 years ago, requiring the Justice Department to produce an annual report on “the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers,” the reports were never issued.)

It wasn’t any surprise to me that, after Michael Brown was shot dead in Ferguson, officers instinctively lined up behind Darren Wilson, the cop who allegedly killed Brown. Officer Wilson may well have had cause to fire if Brown was attacking him, as some reports suggest, but it is also possible we will never know the full truth-- whether, for example, it was really necessary for Wilson to shoot Brown at least six times, killing rather than just wounding him. As they always do, the police unions closed ranks also behind the officer in question. And the district attorney (who is often totally in bed with the police and needs their votes) and city power structure can almost always be counted on to stand behind the unions.

In some ways, matters have gotten even worse. The gulf between the police and the communities they serve has grown wider. Mind you, I don’t want to say that police shouldn’t protect themselves and have access to the best equipment. Police officers have the right to defend themselves with maximum force, in cases where, say, they are taking on a barricaded felon armed with an assault weapon. But when you are dealing every day with civilians walking the streets, and you bring in armored vehicles and automatic weapons, it’s all out of proportion. It makes you feel like you’re dealing with some kind of subversive enemy. The automatic weapons and bulletproof vest may protect the officer, but they also insulate him from the very society he’s sworn to protect. All that firepower and armor puts an even greater wall between the police and society, and solidifies that “us-versus-them” feeling.

...Many white Americans, indoctrinated by the ridiculous number of buddy-cop films and police-themed TV shows that Hollywood has cranked out over the decades-- almost all of them portraying police as heroes-- may be surprised by the continuing outbursts of anger, the protests in the street against the police that they see in inner-city environments like Ferguson. But they often don’t understand that these minority communities, in many cases, view the police as the enemy. We want to believe that cops are good guys, but let’s face it, any kid in the ghetto knows different. The poor and the disenfranchised in society don’t believe those movies; they see themselves as the victims, and they often are.

Law enforcement agencies need to eliminate those who use and abuse the power of the law as they see fit. As I said to the Knapp Commission 43 years ago, we must create an atmosphere where the crooked cop fears the honest cop, and not the other way around. An honest cop should be able to speak out against unjust or illegal behavior by fellow officers without fear of ridicule or reprisals. Those that speak out should be rewarded and respected by their superiors, not punished.

We’re not there yet.

...Every time I speak out on topics of police corruption and brutality, there are inevitably critics who say that I am out of touch and that I am old enough to be the grandfather of many of the cops who are currently on the force. But I’ve kept up the struggle, working with lamp lighters to provide them with encouragement and guidance; serving as an expert witness to describe the tactics that police bureaucracies use to wear them down psychologically; testifying in support of independent boards; developing educational guidance to young minority citizens on how to respond to police officers; working with the American Civil Liberties Union to expose the abuses of stun-gun technology in prisons; and lecturing in more high schools, colleges and reform schools than I can remember. A little over a decade ago, when I was a presenter at the Top Cops Award event hosted by TV host John Walsh, several police officers came up to me, hugged me and then whispered in my ear, “I gotta talk to you.”

The sum total of all that experience can be encapsulated in a few simple rules for the future:

1. Strengthen the selection process and psychological screening process for police recruits. Police departments are simply a microcosm of the greater society. If your screening standards encourage corrupt and forceful tendencies, you will end up with a larger concentration of these types of individuals;

2. Provide ongoing, examples-based training and simulations. Not only telling but showing police officers how they are expected to behave and react is critical;

3. Require community involvement from police officers so they know the districts and the individuals they are policing. This will encourage empathy and understanding;

4. Enforce the laws against everyone, including police officers. When police officers do wrong, use those individuals as examples of what not to do-- so that others know that this behavior will not be tolerated. And tell the police unions and detective endowment associations they need to keep their noses out of the justice system;

5. Support the good guys. Honest cops who tell the truth and behave in exemplary fashion should be honored, promoted and held up as strong positive examples of what it means to be a cop;

6. Last but not least, police cannot police themselves. Develop permanent, independent boards to review incidents of police corruption and brutality-- and then fund them well and support them publicly. Only this can change a culture that has existed since the beginnings of the modern police department.

There are glimmers of hope that some of this is starting to happen, even in New York under its new mayor, Bill DeBlasio. Earlier this month DeBlasio’s commissioner, Bill Bratton-- who’d previously served a term as commissioner in New York as well as police chief in Los Angeles-- made a crowd of police brass squirm in discomfort when he showed a hideous video montage of police officers mistreating members of the public and said he would “aggressively seek to get those out of the department who should not be here-- the brutal, the corrupt, the racist, the incompetent.” I found that very impressive. Let’s see if he follows through.

I wouldn't count on it. As Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report wrote Saturday, "When Police Benevolent Association chief Patrick Lynch said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has the blood of two dead cops on his hands, he was issuing a physical threat to both the person of the mayor and the civil authority to which the police are subordinate and sworn to protect. In a nation under the rule of law, such a statement by a representative of an armed and enflamed constabulary-- 35,000-strong, the equivalent of three light infantry divisions-- would trigger an immediate defensive response from the State, to guard against mutiny. But, of course, no such thing happened."

The cops’ rage has been building in synch with the growth of a nationwide movement that challenges the legitimacy of the Mass Black Incarceration State, of which they are the frontline troops.

The cops are understandably angry and confused. As primary enforcers of the social order, they have an intimate knowledge of actual class and race relationships in America. Their perspectives are molded by the geographic and social boundaries they patrol; they are shaped and informed by the inequalities of the system they protect on behalf of the powerful people they serve. (Yes, they really do “serve and protect” somebody.) The cop’s worldview is also firmly anchored in the history of the United States. He may not be aware of his profession’s antecedents in the slave patrols, or even that the U.S. Supreme Court once ruled that Black people have no rights that the white man is bound to respect, but cops are the reigning experts on the borders that delineate rights and privileges in their localities. They know that public housing residents have virtually no rights that cops-- as agents of the rulers – are bound to respect. They know that whole sections of their cities, encompassing most of the Black and brown populations, are designated as drug zones where everyone is suspect and probable cause is a given, or as high-crime zones where every shooting is pre-qualified as a good one.

The cops threaten mutiny if the State does not stick up for the men and women who do its dirty work. PBA honcho Patrick Lynch denounced “those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protests that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did everyday. We tried to warn, ‘It must not go on. It cannot be tolerated.’”

To which the protesters answer: the police killings and the criminalization of a whole people must not go on and cannot be tolerated.

The movement has come to a critical juncture, a moment that would have arrived even if Ismaaiyl Brinsley had not made his own fatal decision. It was always inevitable that the cops would at some point demand that the State dispense with civil liberties pretenses and allow them to crush the nascent movement. New York City’s police force-- by far the nation’s largest army of domestic occupation-- is especially prone to mutiny and coup-plotting. Thousands of cops, many of them drunk, stormed City Hall in 1992 to express their utter contempt for Black mayor David Dinkins. But, the current crisis is far different, because it is the movement’s show, not the cops’. The people are exposing the most acute contradictions of American life through direct confrontation with the armed enforcers of the State. The cops are supposed to be upset. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. explained, “the purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.” The crisis is here, and will grow deeper, but freedom is non-negotiable. The movement must win or be crushed.

UPDATE: Ever Hear Of Redditt Hudson?

Hudson is a former St. Louis police officer who works for the NAACP and chairs the board of the Ethics Project. He wrote an essential-reading OpEd for the Washington Post a couple weeks ago that's worth revisiting, Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are. There’s only one fix.

When he was a kid he-- as well as friends and family-- were routinely roughed up by white cops. In 1994 he joined the force. He wrote that he "was floored by the dysfunctional culture I encountered. I won’t say all, but many of my peers were deeply racist... This attitude corrodes the way policing is done."

I liked my job, and I was good at it.

But more and more, I felt like I couldn’t do the work I set out to do. I was participating in a profoundly corrupt criminal justice system. I could not, in good conscience, participate in a system that was so intentionally unfair and racist. So after five years on the job, I quit.

Since I left, I’ve thought a lot about how to change the system. I’ve worked on police abuse, racial justice and criminal justice reform at the Missouri ACLU and other organizations.

Unfortunately, I don’t think better training alone will reduce police brutality. My fellow officers and I took plenty of classes on racial sensitivity and on limiting the use of force.

The problem is that cops aren’t held accountable for their actions, and they know it. These officers violate rights with impunity. They know there’s a different criminal justice system for civilians and police.

Even when officers get caught, they know they’ll be investigated by their friends, and put on paid leave. My colleagues would laughingly refer to this as a free vacation. It isn’t a punishment. And excessive force is almost always deemed acceptable in our courts and among our grand juries. Prosecutors are tight with law enforcement, and share the same values and ideas.

We could start to change that by mandating that a special prosecutor be appointed to try excessive force cases. And we need more independent oversight, with teeth. I have little confidence in internal investigations.

The number of people in uniform who will knowingly and maliciously violate your human rights is huge. At the Ferguson protests, people are chanting, “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.” I agree, and we have a lot of work to do.

NOAH'S 2014 IN REVIEW CONTINUES MONDAY --
at 5pm ET/2pm PT

Crackpot Utopia: The Year in Republican Crazy, Part 7:
• And so it begins: The running of the buffoons
• Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 7, George Will has no idea what rape is
• and Crazyspeak of the Year nominee No. 8, Rick Wiles calls for a coup

#