Doe John - Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk

JOHN DOE SPECIAL THANKS

Kristina Teegerstrom, Veronica, Elena & Amelia Nommensen, Kenneth F. Duchac, Gretchen B. Nommensen, Fred Duchac, Joelle Shallon, Alfred Harris, Michael Blake, Ray Manzarek, Grace Cavalieri, Michael Mogavero, Jack Chipman, Mike Rouse, Dave Alvin, Cynthia Wasserman, Dave Way, Viggo Mortensen

TOM DESAVIA SPECIAL THANKS

The DeSavias (Tony, Terry & Natalie), The Whites (Nicky, Corey, Ethan & Aaron), Cathy Kerr, Richard Edwards, Matt Messer, Joyce Caffey, Dave & Nicki Bassett, Matt Pincus, Carianne Marshall, Rob Guthrie, Frank Handy, Amanda Tufeld, Mitch Wolk, Rachel Jacobson, Ken Bethea, Murry Hammond, Rhett Miller, Philip Peeples, Eric Gorfain, Sam Phillips, Jenny Oppenheimer, John Vlautin, Lance Ummel, Jeff Boxer

JOHN DOE & TOM DESAVIA SPECIAL THANKS

John and Tom would like to thank all the authors and all the photographers who contributed to this project, our agent Lynn Jones Johnston of Lynn Johnston Literary, all at Perseus/Da Capo (especially Ben Schafer, Matty Goldberg, Maha Khalil, Kevin Hanover, Lissa Warren, Sean Maher, Justin Lovell, and Amber Morris), Richard Scheltinga and Christine Langianese from Kessler, Schneider & Co., Scott Sherratt

John Doe and Tom DeSavia would like to thank each other.

JOHN DOE

Born in Decatur, Illinois, John has lived in California for forty years. Graduated from Antioch College in Baltimore, Maryland, he remains a member of the band X, has made ten solo records & acted in over fifty films & television shows. He is the proud father of three daughters & currently lives with his sweetheart in Richmond, California.

TOM DESAVIA

A Los Angeles native, music industry veteran, and longtime record and music publishing A&R man, currently of SONGS Music Publishing, DeSavia started his career as a music journalist. He loves LA punk rock more than just about anything.

EXENE CERVENKA

Exene Cervenka is a member of both legendary LA punk band X and alt-country pioneers The Knitters. She has been writing songs, music, poetry, prose, and fiction since 1976. Her collages have been exhibited in galleries and museums in LA, NY, Austin, Miami, and Copenhagen.

JANE WIEDLIN

Jane Wiedlin is a founding member of The Go-Gos. The band was the first-ever successful all-girl group to write their own songs and play their own instruments. Jane has released six albums of her own. Besides being a songwriter, guitarist, and singer, she is also a playwright, the worlds first atheist minister (licensed to perform weddings), a comic book author, an actor, and an animal rights activist. She lives in Hawaii and San Francisco.

PLEASANT GEHMAN

Pleasant Gehman is a writer, dancer, actor, musician, and painter. She is the author of eight books, including Showgirl Confidential: My Life Onstage, Backstage and on the Road (2013) and The Belly Dance Handbook (2014). Her latest books (Super) Natural Woman, a memoir about her paranormal experiences, and Journalista!, a collection of her rock n roll articles from 1977 to 1997, will be published by Punk Hostage Press in 2016. www.pleasantgehman.com

CHRIS MORRIS

Morris has been writing about music in Los Angeles since 1978. He was a senior writer at Billboard (19862004) and music editor at The Hollywood Reporter (20042006) and served as the music critic at the Los Angeles Reader (19781996) and LA CityBeat (20032008). Morriss writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, and other national publications. His roots music radio show, Watusi Rodeo, aired on the legendary Indie 103.1 and Scion Radio. His book, Los Lobos: Dream in Blue, was published by the University of Texas Press in 2015.

HENRY ROLLINS

Born in Washington, DC, Henry Rollins moved to California in the summer of 1981. For over three decades Rollins made albums with Black Flag and The Rollins Band, wrote over twenty books, and performed in bands and on his own all over the world. He continues to write for magazines and newspapers, publish work on his imprint, 2.13.61 Publications, and speak to audiences in up to twenty countries a year.

CHRIS D.

Born in Riverside, California, Chris D. graduated from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. Singer/songwriter for Divine Horsemen as well as for all incarnations of The Flesh Eaters, he is also a writer, actor, and teacher. He wrote record reviews for Slash magazine (mid-19771980), was an A&R man for Slash Records (19801984), and was a film programmer at the American Cinematheque, Hollywood (19992009). His books include five novels, a short story collection, and two nonfiction film books.

MIKE WATT

son of a sailor, was born the year sputnik was launched. came from virginia as a boy and has lived in pedro town ever since. started the minutemen w/ d. boon after becoming involved with the punk movement. works bass and also paddles kayak in the los angeles harbor near his pad. got to learn for 125 months serving w/ the stooges. more information on him and other stuff is at the mikewatt.com website he runs himself.

ROBERT LOPEZ

Robert Lopez is an actor, comic, musician, and songwriter for stage musicals, theater, and film soundtracks (yes, that Robert Lopez). He has been performing since a child in punk-rock music. He still performs with The Zeros and other music projects in the United States and Europe. Hes most renowned for his over-twenty-five-year career as El Vez, the Mexican Elvis. Recording dozens of albums, he has toured all over the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan. He has been presented on Oprah and The Tonight Show, and has even been a question on Jeopardy! He has had the honor of having his music and gold Mariachi suit displayed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

TERESA COVARRUBIAS

Teresa Covarrubias is a native of Los Angeles, California. Born and raised in Boyle Heights, she is a Chicana, educator, poet, and perpetual outsider. She was the lead singer and songwriter for The Brat and currently works as an elementary school teacher in East LA, where she shares her love of art, music, and lifelong learning with a rambunctious group of second graders.

CHARLOTTE CAFFEY

Charlotte was born and lives in Los Angeles and remains a member of The Go-Gos. She continues her intense passion for song-writing, composing for artists, and theater. She has been married to Jeff McDonald for twenty-three years. She is the fiercely proud parent of her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Astrid McDonald.

JACK GRISHAM

Jack Grisham currently lives in a haunted old schoolhouse with his wife and five kids. He writes. He tours. He refuses to play well with others. He is the vocalist for the punk band T.S.O.L.

DAVE ALVIN

Grammy Awardwinning singer-songwriter Dave Alvin formed The Blasters with his brother, Phil, in 1979. After leaving that band in 1985 and playing guitar for X for two years, he has released multiple solo albums, including King of California, Public Domain, Eleven Eleven, and Ashgrove. He lives in California and on the national interstate highway system on his way to the next show.

KRISTINE MCKENNA

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Kristine McKenna moved to Los Angeles in 1976 and began writing about music for various publications. Shes published two volumes of collected interviews and twelve books on different aspects of the West Coast counterculture between the years 1920 and 2001. She continues to live in Los Angeles.

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Ed Colver

Frank Gargani

Michael Hyatt

Debbie Leavitt

Jenny Lens

Gary Leonard

Melanie Nissen

Rick Nyberg

Ruby Ray

Ann Summa

by John Doe

I t couldve been 10 p.m. in July in a painted, plywood hallway upstairs at the Whisky a Go Go. There was a corner w/ red & black linoleum squares on the floor. This corner was at one end of another short hall & staircase that led down to the stage. I stood there breathing short breaths waiting for the rest of X to join me before wed walk down those stairs. I imagined Jim Morrison & Ray Manzarek or Otis Redding or Arthur Lee or Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell standing on the very same spot, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up to them. It wasnt the first time Id been here & this had become a kind of ritual. But it was the first time in 1978 that the show was sold out & the Whisky added another. This was a place where you knew that something was definitely happening, that you were definitely headed somewhere. I would look down at my shoes and those red & black squares and think that we were part of something, like others had been part of something else. Where the people in their audience had known something that other people did not & were about to see something the rest of the world might see soon.