Vickie Chang
Chatted with TSOL frontman Jack Grisham about his new book of disturbing short stories:
I ask Grisham if his own two daughters ever read his books.
“Sometimes. They get to hear little bits of them. Like, the clean part. There are some clean parts,” he adds.
Grisham goes on to describe some of said clean stories in Untamed: Something about a pissed-off angel who falls in love but is bitter about the indentured servitude that comes with the job description.
“… And so he’s not happy about it, and he’s a real shit, so he tortures some old lady at an old folks’ home and …,” Grisham says.
“That’s a clean story?,” I ask.
“Yeah! That’s kinda clean. They’re supposed to be fun. Stories are supposed to be fun and you’re supposed to think a bit and you know … That’s the whole point of it. There are a couple of clean ones.”
Grisham trails off.
“I mean, I don’t know. Shit,” he laughs. “Maybe not.”
![I chatted with Goldenvoice founder Gary Tovar and forced him to whittle down his Coachella must-see list to just five acts. His picks (and festival advice!) and more at the link:
We ask Tovar how Goldenvoice plans on topping [last year’s Tupac hologram], and he exclaims right away: “We don’t try to top! We just go year by year. This year will have its own special appearances.”
“It’s like having multiple kids—they’re all different, and you like them all the same,” Tovar jokes. “Each Coachella is its own separate entity. I want people to be not so much meat-and-potatoes—don’t just go and see the headliners! Go off and see some small groups in the afternoon, there’s just so much good stuff.” Click here to read on.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/7433cd10d9db42d70140b7ed63397a7f/tumblr_ml0fx6VubD1rnosg3o1_500.jpg)
I chatted with Goldenvoice founder Gary Tovar and forced him to whittle down his Coachella must-see list to just five acts. His picks (and festival advice!) and more at the link:
We ask Tovar how Goldenvoice plans on topping [last year’s Tupac hologram], and he exclaims right away: “We don’t try to top! We just go year by year. This year will have its own special appearances.”
“It’s like having multiple kids—they’re all different, and you like them all the same,” Tovar jokes. “Each Coachella is its own separate entity. I want people to be not so much meat-and-potatoes—don’t just go and see the headliners! Go off and see some small groups in the afternoon, there’s just so much good stuff.” Click here to read on.
Wrote up the limited edition vinyl release of rare Vicious Circle (early incarnation of TSOL) tracks for OC Weekly. Got the chance to speak with singer Jack Grisham:
“This release was a mixed bag for me—history-wise, I’m glad the recording came to light, it’s a dark violent piece of Orange County that probably shouldn’t be forgotten, but emotionally it hurts,” shares Grisham today. “I’m not proud of what that music represented to a lot of us—it represented payback, aggression, and hurt, lots of hurt.”
Just wrote up the news that TSOL’s Jack Grisham is getting his novel, An American Demon, turned into a movie. I talk to Grisham about the news here for the OC Weekly:
“While the film, now titled again after the book, is still in its earliest planning stages, Grisham says they haven’t given any thought to the cast. When asked if he had any idea who could possibly play him, he lets out a bout of laughter. ‘Yeah, who knows? Gotta get a guy that looks kinda girlish-y—that’s how I looked when I was young—but also vicious at the same time. On message boards, that’s why everyone’s making fun of it: ‘You gotta get Adam Lambert to play you.’ Yeah. I’m pushing for Justin Bieber though.”
Placed second at last night’s National Entertainment Journalism Awards for my story on Joe Escalante, “The Punk Rocker Who Would Be Judge,” in the Best Personality Profile category. Congrats to all the winners!
Electric Daisy Kingpin: The Man Who Turned Music Festivals Into Carnivals: Meet Pasquale Rotella of Insomniac Events, mastermind and creator of live music events like Electric Daisy Carnival … and he did it all by putting people first and music second:
“I think there are great bands, and we want the best bands and DJs and what have you, but it’s not the only reason to go to a large gathering. There are beautiful people to meet, there is amazing art, there’s production that is advancing constantly that makes these events so much more. Music isn’t the only thing that is cool.”
Featuring Kaskade and 12th Planet.
Two of my stories were nominated today forNational Entertainment Journalism Awards:
- Print News category: “His Goldenvoice” on Goldenvoice founder Gary Tovar, OC Weekly
- Personality Profile category: “The Punk Rocker Who Would Be Judge” on the Vandals’ Joe Escalante run for LA Superior Court Judge, The Atlantic
My Q&A with HARD Events founder Gary Richards, who’s partially responsible for helping to change the face of “raving” as we know it—furry boots, G-strings and all:
‘Rave’ has a different meaning in Europe—a raver in Europe is not a 15-year-old girl flying out of her head wearing a G-string and furry boots. A raver over there is an average person who wants to go out and have a good night, listen to cool music, and dance or whatever.
You know, I never really use that word. I felt like when I decided to start HARD, that whenever I’d go to these clubs in America, I thought that people looked silly …
I think it took a minute for people to catch on, but I think it worked: People get it now, that you don’t have to dress like that to go and like this music. I’m not mad or anything at those people, but I just feel like it just gives the wrong message.
Agree? Disagree? Click here to read the rest of the interview.
And a neat mention from Fishbowl LA/Mediabistro on my Escalante story:
Check out this fantastic third paragraph from a feature article in The Atlantic by Vickie Chang, senior editor at BUZZMEDIA …
![The Punk Rocker Who Would Be Judge:[Joe] Escalante, 49 of Signal Hill, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, is a member of the area’s gracefully aging rocker sect answering what happens when punk grows up. Some of Escalante’s peers went on to start record labels and families. Some cultivated new music careers in their 40s and 50s. Others got their Ph.D.s, fell into drugs, or became Subway sandwich artists. Escalante, though, ended up with seemingly the least punk-rock resume of all: a law degree, a legal expert job, a career in entertainment law, and conservative Catholic bona fides. But he’s managed, perhaps inadvertently, to keep the spirit alive by running for a judgeship with the express disapproval of the local legal establishment, facing down a lawsuit from a Hollywood publication, and generally saying the kinds of things in public that conservative J.D.s with political aspirations don’t say.
Wrote my first story for the Atlantic (!) on Vandals punk rocker Joe Escalante’s run for Los Angeles Superior Court Judge. Click to read.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5jhedJRNZ1rnosg3o1_500.jpg)
The Punk Rocker Who Would Be Judge:[Joe] Escalante, 49 of Signal Hill, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, is a member of the area’s gracefully aging rocker sect answering what happens when punk grows up. Some of Escalante’s peers went on to start record labels and families. Some cultivated new music careers in their 40s and 50s. Others got their Ph.D.s, fell into drugs, or became Subway sandwich artists. Escalante, though, ended up with seemingly the least punk-rock resume of all: a law degree, a legal expert job, a career in entertainment law, and conservative Catholic bona fides. But he’s managed, perhaps inadvertently, to keep the spirit alive by running for a judgeship with the express disapproval of the local legal establishment, facing down a lawsuit from a Hollywood publication, and generally saying the kinds of things in public that conservative J.D.s with political aspirations don’t say.
Wrote my first story for the Atlantic (!) on Vandals punk rocker Joe Escalante’s run for Los Angeles Superior Court Judge. Click to read.
My review of Wilco at the Palladium, January 24, 2012: Hearing a fedora-ed Jeff Tweedy wax poetic about the word “pussy” might go down as some kind of live music highlight of my life.
A straight-faced Tweedy paused at the mic at some point after “War on War” and shared that the band had just watched a program on Sammy Hagar—and only then did Tweedy realize that he had never said the word “pussy” on stage. Click here to read on.
![Gary Tovar Has His Goldenvoice: The iconic concert production company birthed Coachella, helped punk-rock luminaries early in their careers—and isn’t done yet. It was 1981, and punk rock was a liability.Just as promoters and venues tend to freak out over electronic- and rave-anything these days, promoters and venues back then wanted to avoid punk“Nobody wanted to do punk rock because it meant damages. I didn’t see it as this Neanderthal music that some people wanted to stamp out,” Tovar says, sitting outside Jan’s Health Bar just off the main drag in Huntington Beach. He speaks energetically, with a passion that has clearly remained intact. “I refused to let the police, the authorities dictate what kind of music [could] be presented. We had every right to perform and every right to this culture.”Click here to read on.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxr4qgkmPZ1rnosg3o1_500.jpg)
Gary Tovar Has His Goldenvoice: The iconic concert production company birthed Coachella, helped punk-rock luminaries early in their careers—and isn’t done yet.
It was 1981, and punk rock was a liability.
Just as promoters and venues tend to freak out over electronic- and rave-anything these days, promoters and venues back then wanted to avoid punk
“Nobody wanted to do punk rock because it meant damages. I didn’t see it as this Neanderthal music that some people wanted to stamp out,” Tovar says, sitting outside Jan’s Health Bar just off the main drag in Huntington Beach. He speaks energetically, with a passion that has clearly remained intact. “I refused to let the police, the authorities dictate what kind of music [could] be presented. We had every right to perform and every right to this culture.”
Click here to read on.
![Jack Grisham of T.S.O.L.:In his new book, the infamous OC punk rocker describes how he exorcised ‘An American Demon’: Himself. Fuckability.It was what Jerry Roach, legendary owner of the also-legendary Costa Mesa punk venue the Cuckoo’s Nest, called the attribute required to be a leader—and Grisham has it. Though the two didn’t like each other at first—”I was the authority figure, and he was the punker,” Roach explains. “We had our roles to play”—he says Grisham had charisma to burn.“Jack is a punk-rock Elvis … but he wasn’t that great of a singer,” Roach says with a small hint of a laugh. “Can Tom Waits sing pretty, or Bob Dylan? You don’t have to be a good singer. You have to sell it—and they’ll follow [Grisham] anywhere. He’s a force even today.”Click here to read on.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxr24e6e1K1rnosg3o1_500.jpg)
Jack Grisham of T.S.O.L.:In his new book, the infamous OC punk rocker describes how he exorcised ‘An American Demon’: Himself.
Fuckability.
It was what Jerry Roach, legendary owner of the also-legendary Costa Mesa punk venue the Cuckoo’s Nest, called the attribute required to be a leader—and Grisham has it.
Though the two didn’t like each other at first—”I was the authority figure, and he was the punker,” Roach explains. “We had our roles to play”—he says Grisham had charisma to burn.
“Jack is a punk-rock Elvis … but he wasn’t that great of a singer,” Roach says with a small hint of a laugh. “Can Tom Waits sing pretty, or Bob Dylan? You don’t have to be a good singer. You have to sell it—and they’ll follow [Grisham] anywhere. He’s a force even today.”
Click here to read on.
