Born in 1969 in Redlands, California. Lived in Redlands in the ’80s and attended shows at various venues throughout Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Orange Counties. Currently lives in Virginia City, Nevada, and works as a teacher.
I THINK I WAS AROUND FOURTEEN. I went through the new wave phase in the early ’80s, but I think it was around 1984 or ’85 that I really started listening to punk.
I came from a musical family. My mom taught guitar from our home when I was growing up, so I always had musical influence in general. My parents took me to both US Festivals in ’82 and ’83. The first year, I got stuck with their music: Grateful Dead, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, etc. I still like some of this music, but the next year they were cool and we went to the new wave day. This was my first live music venue besides some small bluegrass events. Growing up in SoCal, we had the influence of KROQ, so I had already been listening to bands like the Stray Cats and the Clash, both of whom were on the bill at the ’83 US Festival along with Flock of Seagulls and the English Beat. I have to give huge credit to KROQ and Rodney Bingenheimer’s show as being a major influence. Also, in Redlands at the time, the university had a radio station and every day after school they had a punk show. I’ll never forget the politically charged set by the Clash and their last performance with Mick Jones. The Clash instantly became my favorite band, and I miss the hell out of Joe Strummer to this day.
Aside from the musical influences from my parents, I distinctly remember friending a mostly unpopular boy in middle school named Tom. Tom had his hair bleached white and always wore flannels and boots. I was immediately attracted to the style. I had already cut my long hair short and was experimenting with color. One day in class, I caught a glimpse of his Pee-Chee folder on his desk and it had all kinds of band names written on it. Some I recognized, but one that I did not stuck out in my mind: the Toy Dolls. What a silly name, I thought. I asked him about them, and the next day he brought me a cassette tape full of stuff I had never heard and I was hooked. I think after that, we sought out punk rock at local record shops and started picking up flyers there and going to shows.
We went to shows religiously—every weekend. In the beginning, there weren’t any shows in Redlands, so we always had to find someone who drove to get us to the gigs. I think my first show was at the De Anza Theatre in Riverside. It was the Circle Jerks and I can’t remember who else, but I do remember someone shot off a gun inside during the show and then people started rioting, tearing seats from the floor and throwing them. Excitement level 100 for a first show! Throughout the years, we traveled all around SoCal for shows—mostly Riverside, San Bernardino, Corona, Pomona, and Los Angeles. I went to shows at Linda’s Doll Hut, the Olympic Auditorium, the Grange, Monopolys, the Glass House, the Cathay, the Barn at UC Riverside, Madame Wong’s, Spanky’s Café, the Whisky, and I’m sure a whole bunch of small places I can’t remember the names of.
I do remember that Social Distortion and D.I. seemed to be “house” bands for a lot of these venues, playing in one of them every weekend. I still have an affinity for SD, and Mike Ness’s voice still makes me feel invincible, like a kid. Nothing better than driving my ’55 Buick and screaming along to “Telling Them” with Mike Ness.
Once we were at a show at the Olympic in L.A., watching Social Distortion back when we used to joke that the long sleeves Mikey wore were the only thing keeping his arms attached. He had developed a nasty heroin habit by then. After the show, we found him wandering around, so we went up and talked to him and ended up sitting on the floor of the Olympic drinking beer with him as they closed down. The rest of the band had left him there. It’s one of my best memories.
Aside from shows, I wrote a few pieces for Maximum Rocknroll. That and Flipside were huge influences back then.
By 1985, I had regrown my hair for a year or so just so I could cut a mohawk that would be twelve inches when up. The summer of my sophomore year, my boyfriend and I cashed in all the money we had, which was around a thousand dollars, and we hopped a Greyhound bus bound for NYC. I had become obsessed with the story of Sid and Nancy, and I was determined to stay in room 100 of the Chelsea Hotel. Long story short, we made it as far as Wisconsin, spent the summer there with his extended family on a farm, and never made it to the Chelsea. I did come home and immediately went on a trip to Hawaii with my family with my freshly cut mohawk and pierced nose.
I started out listening to the standard punk rock: Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Fear, Dead Kennedys. Around 1986, I got involved in the skinhead movement and started listening to more of the Oi bands like the Business, Cock Sparrer, Skrewdriver, the Cro-Mags, etc.
I do have to say that the band that had the biggest impact on my life was Bad Religion. It is still one of my favorites to this day for two reasons. One, I was raised completely without religion, but everyone I knew claimed some sort of affiliation with some kind of church, so I was an outsider there. BR gave a voice to those of us that were raised without it and had never bought into it. It made me do research, and I believe it really sparked my desire to always question and seek out answers on my own. Number two, along those lines, I was always impressed that the guys in the band were educated and were constantly in school. Punk rock was their voice, but they had passions for other things. Same with Milo from the Descendents. I loved the smart things they sang about.
There was sort of a division in punk rock then. A lot of the kids thought punk rock was about being homeless, saying fuck the man, and begging for change and cigarettes down at the mall. I went the other way and became academic and entrepreneurial.
I never really thought about the scene and women until I got into the skinhead scene. I felt that punk rock was welcoming to everyone. Even with the skins, we had black skins in our circle, so I never felt there was prejudice in the beginning. As the skinhead scene grew and gang affiliations got bigger, there was a clear division between punks and skins, whites and other races, and men and women.
Skinhead Confessions by T. J. Leyden is half of my story. We grew up together. His right-hand man in the book was my best friend, and he even mentions my daughter’s father. He makes a clear point that women were around but not prominent, at least in that scene. I was on my way out of that scene around ’87, ’88.
I always listened to other kinds of music. Being brought up with music, I appreciated a lot of stuff no one else had ever heard. I really liked the old folk-type stuff, mainly because it is what my mom played on her guitar and listened to in the house. This included Marty Robbins, Hank Williams Sr., Don McClean, and Jim Croce. I also got into Black Sabbath for a while and started playing the bass guitar. I never really got into the ’80s stuff everyone loves today like Depeche Mode, but I do love me some Flock of Seagulls! I like a handful of typical ’80s stuff now, like the Psychedelic Furs, the Cult, etc.
I don’t think my musical taste changes; I think it grows. I’ve never abandoned my punk rock roots, and if I’m listening to music, probably eight out of ten times it’s punk. For me, music has to make me feel something. I have to want to sing or cry or dance or something in order to like it. I love some of almost all forms of music now. Even stuff I thought I hated, I now appreciate. For example, I have attended Burning Man for the last three years and the music out there is predominantly played by DJs and is that electronic, repetitive, never-ending cacophony of sound. Somehow, out there in the wide-open desert, it works and I like it. I’m not rushing out to buy any CDs, but I like to appreciate things in the moment, in the context in which they are being presented.
Right now I am really liking some of the newer folk-inspired bands, like Rose’s Pawn Shop and the Avett Brothers. Rockabilly is big in one of my circles, so I listen and frequently go to shows of that nature. I’m into old cars and antique motorcycles, and this scene has seemed to adopt a lot of the rockabilly music scene. They say rockabilly is where old punks go to retire.
I know punk rock influenced my life. I think it formed the basis of my personality. It definitely sparked my creativity and ambition, and it led me down an academic path and taught me to question everything and seek out answers to things I don’t know, rather than to hold on to one-sided opinions and beliefs. I still constantly buck the system when I think it is wrong! It has taught me to live life and not to be afraid of trying things, even if the attempt leads to failure.
I have owned and built several businesses in my days. The first was a punk rock record store. After my second business, a multimedia marketing firm, I went back to school and received my undergraduate degree in business and management. After that, I went on to receive both my elementary and secondary teaching credentials, as well as a master’s degree in teaching. I spent five years teaching middle and high school graphic and web design classes. I am currently working in a foster home with four teenaged girls. I know it is my background, especially in punk rock beliefs and values, that has instilled a love of teaching and nurturing kids today. School isn’t always about test scores, and not all kids go to college. I had no problem telling my students this. It didn’t make me popular with teachers, but I really did try and instill the passion to follow your dreams in these kids. College is great and I think everyone should do it, but not always just to gain a career. It teaches responsibility and gets you knowledge you may never seek out on your own and hopefully gets you out of your hometown. I’m all about seeking knowledge and less about SAT scores.
I am very successful with the teenaged girls that I care for. I get them. I wasn’t ever in foster care and was the only person I knew growing up whose parents were still married, but if nothing else, I have a great understanding of human nature and I connect with those that are more misfortunate, creative, and sometimes outcast.
I totally still feel connected to the scene. I still go to shows. Most of the best people I have met in my adult life are old punks. I’m still connected to a handful of my friends from high school, the ones who got their shit together, and I have met some outstanding friends just in the last two years or so through the antique motorcycle scene, all of whom seem to have roots in punk rock. I guess we gravitate together. I think it has influenced our adult hobbies, such as cars and bikes. I still have my pair of blue Doc Marten boots I got on my sixteenth birthday, and wear them occasionally on motorcycle rides. And keeping with tradition, when purchasing a new pair of moto boots, I ended up buying another pair of Docs.
I had a daughter in 1986, and she was raised around punk rock. Although she didn’t carry on in that specific scene, she has a great appreciation for music and a love of some of my favorite old bands. We have gone to several shows together over the years. She is twenty-seven and has a seven-year-old daughter of her own now. I’m proud to be a punk rock grandma!
I feel very fortunate having grown up where and when I did. I had a rocking childhood. I wouldn’t trade my involvement in the scene for all the money in the world.