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Like Nirvana? Community World Theater and 5 bands you should know about
64 Spiders. It opened on Valentine’s Day 1987 and shut down after one last Circle Jerks gig on June 28, 1988 — but during its short span, Community World Theater in Tacoma, Washington, hosted formative...
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Like Bruce Springsteen? 5 bands you should know about
Bruce Springsteen and Robbin Thompson reunite in Richmond, Virginia, August 18, 2008. By the time 23-year-old Bruce Springsteen officially introduced the E Street Band in October 1972, he’d already put...
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Gene Harlot remembers: Glitter punk, Coventry and the Harlots of 42nd Street
Gene Harlot, the Harlots of 42nd Street. Good news for fans of classic glitter punk: FiveBands’ recent retrospective of the early ‘70s scene at Coventry in Queens prompted a response from Gene Harlot...
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Richard LaValliere: Milwaukee’s finest and 5 bands you should know about
Richard LaValliere (photo by James Prinz) More than four years gone, Richard LaValliere makes me angry. As a kid, I had a brief but intense relationship with Milwaukee (where Richard electrified the...
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Johnny Angel, Boston’s Rat, and 5 bands you should know about
Johnny Angel, 2015. There are 8 million stories in the naked city, and Johnny Angel has a few thousand of them. As founder of Thrills, the Massachusetts native (and current Los Angeles resident) played...
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Return to the Rat: 5 more Boston bands you should know about
The Real Kids. The votes are in, and veterans of the late-’70s Boston music scene focused on the Rathskeller (a k a “the Rat“) want you to know more. I recently stage-dived into this scene armed with a...
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I was a teenage Street Punk: Peter Rossi, NY’s glitter-punk underground and 5...
Peter Rossi. Peter Rossi is a Los Angeles-based filmmaker — but in the early ‘70s, under the name Peter Ashley, he played guitar in Street Punk, one of the forgotten stalwarts of the New York music...
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Fox Pass and the Modern Lovers connection: On the record with Jon Macey
Michael Roy (left) and Jon Macey. (Courtesy Jon Macey) I’m not just the author of FiveBands — I’m also a fan. Working on this project has given me the chance to discover groups I never heard of but...
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Never mind 2016: Here are 5 New Year’s gigs you should know about
2016 homage by Chris Barker. Those of us who admire music-makers of renown shared many hard losses over the past year. And many us who treasure our own music scenes have lost local heroes as well. Time...
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Milwaukee rising: “Taking the City by Storm”
Filmed before his death in September 2015, Kenny Baldwin was a musician in the Milwaukee punk scene and proprietor of the Starship, home of many formative gigs. Milwaukee is among the smallest cities...
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Remembering Elda Stilletto
I never met Elda Stilletto, who died unexpectedly on August 6. But I’d corresponded with her on social media, and I’d hoped to interview her about her role during the New York underground’s crucial...
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The Fast and 5 bands: Flyers from the Paul Zone collection
Joe Poliseno, Louis Bova, Miki Zone, and Paul Zone backstage in 1979. With a performance history that stretched from 1973 to about 1984, The Fast were among the most enduring of the first wave of New...
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Hunting The Frogs with 5 famous bands that loved them
Dennis and Jimmy Flemion of The Frogs. Nearly 40 years after The Frogs decided to take their wild musical collaboration out of the garage and onto Milwaukee stages, the team of Dennis and Jimmy Flemion...
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Factory fresh: 5 acts processed by Warhol’s machine
Andy Warhol, November 1975. Most fans with even a passing knowledge of The Velvet Underground know about its close connection with Andy Warhol. The band coalesced as part of the retinue of performers...
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Kenny Baldwin and Locate Your Lips: Out of Milwaukee’s vaults, into your ears
When I first traced five key bands of the Milwaukee scene from the late ’70s and early ’80s, one act remained a tantalizing enigma: Locate Your Lips. Locate Your Lips’ drummer was the late Kenny...
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Hurrah! 5 great gigs from a forgotten NY club
It wasn’t as early to the party as Max’s Kansas City, CBGB or Coventry, but Hurrah on West 62nd St. was the first big-time venue for punk and New Wave on New York’s Upper West Side. Hurrah was open...
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