Lenny Kaye: From Nuggets To Doc Rock To The Patti Smith Group & Beyond

Originally published in American Music Press (1990s)
By Devorah Ostrov

The Patti Smith Group

(Arista Records publicity photo)

Guitarist, rock journalist, solo performer, producer, historian, record collector, and fan. At one time or another, Lenny Kaye has been all of these. His earliest recorded work dates to 1966, when the 19-year-old college student issued his first 45; his initial forays into rock journalism date from the same period.

He began the '70s by gathering together a collection of garage rock classics under the title Nuggets, and throughout that decade was an integral member of the Patti Smith Group as well as co-editor of Rock Scene magazine. By the 1980s, he was fronting his own band and producing some of alternative music's biggest names. These days, Kaye is hard at work co-authoring an "autobiography" of country rocker Waylon Jennings.

You Could Hear It In The Air

Lenny Kaye was born on December 27, 1946. His first year was spent living in upper Manhattan ("beneath the shadow of the George Washington Bridge"), before his family moved to the middle-class neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens. When he was eight years old, they moved again to Brooklyn. By then, it was the mid-'50s and Kaye was just discovering rock 'n' roll.

Flyer for a six-night PSG/Television 

residency at Max's Kansas City 

August 28 - September 2, 1974

"I was probably walking around Flatbush Avenue at some point..." he reminisces over the phone. "Y'know, you could hear it in the air! I was a little young for rock 'n' rolls actual birth, but I was aware of Elvis Presley. One of my first musical memories was hearing 'Tutti Frutti' on the radio. I remember thinking it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard!"

One Christmas, Kaye received a record player in the shape of a bongo drum — "I wish I still had it," he laments. And soon after, he purchased his first batch of 45s: "It's Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty, the novelty hit "Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley, "To Know Him is to Love Him" by the Teddy Bears, and "The End" by Earl Grant.

"I feel in a lot of ways that I had the privilege of growing up with rock 'n' roll," says Kaye. "When I hit adolescence, the Beatles were happening. Certainly, in those years rock 'n' roll was 'youth music' and I was a youth! I loved listening to the radio, listening to all the AM DJs: Cousin Brucie on ABC, Scott Muni on WMCA, Murray the K on WINS... It really drew me in."

Kaye had begun taking accordion lessons when he was five but quit playing the instrument as a pre-teen. "The accordion was big in the '50s, but in the '60s it wasn't the coolest of instruments," he laughs. "Mostly, I was a record collector, and I bought faithfully off the Top 40. By the time I got to high school, I was infatuated with the doo-wop sound. And I kind of slid into the record collecting underground, which centered around Times Square Records at 42nd and 6th Avenue. That was the first place where I heard about the concept of 'rare' records. They were selling old Sun Records and the Moonglows on Chance Records."

Kaye's family relocated again, to suburban New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he spent his teenage years. "New Jersey introduced me to car culture," remarks Kaye, "which wasn't much of a possibility in the City. I got into that whole custom car idea — which I think is a real part of rock 'n' roll. Certainly, the Fender Stratocaster is a beautiful example of Southern California custom car art!"

PSG play two nights at London's Hammersmith Odeon

with support from the Stranglers

In 1964 Beatlemania swept the world, and Kaye's interest shifted from being "a high tenor in a doo-wop harmony group to being a bass guitarist." His first outfit was an all-covers band called the Vandals ("Bringing down the house with your kind of music!"), and their bread-and-butter gigs were frat house parties. "We played four sets a night to drunken college guys," he recalls. "Animal House really did catch it with the 20-minute versions of 'Shout' and 'What'd I Say,' with all the dirty verses: 'See that girl from Trenton State/That's where they teach you to masturbate!'"

When the Vandals folded, Kaye hooked up with another covers band, the Zoo. "We'd learn all the hits of the day. That's when I first started playing 'Gloria.' It was a good learning ground, and I thought that's where it would stay. I certainly never dreamed of becoming a rock musician."

Kaye attended Rutgers University, where he studied journalism and wrote about music for the school newspaper. "I'd write about the Fugs," he remembers. "I was very much influenced by Crawdaddy. Paul Williams [Crawdaddy's editor] had a way of looking at music which opened it up. Previous to that, you just had fan magazine stuff — what's your favorite color? — which was cute, but the mid-'60s was a very important transition period for rock 'n' roll, and the Crawdaddy writers [the staff included Jon Landau and Richard Meltzer] could take an idea and run with it. They could connect the most incredible archaeological thoughts around the music, and especially in those early psychedelic days, that really influenced me."

"Crazy Like a Fox" b/w "Shock Me"

Ork Records 1977 reissue of Kaye's 1966 single

In the fall of 1965, Kaye entered Associated Recording Studios in New York to cut his debut 45. Released the following March, both the A-side ("Crazy Like a Fox") and the B-side ("Shock Me") were penned by the team of Larry Kusik and Ritchie Adams. The former was Kaye's Uncle "Q," who later scored "Speak Softly Love" from The Godfather and "A Time for Us" from Romeo And Juliet; the latter was the vocalist for '50s combo the Fireflies.

"I guess they needed a folk/ protest kind of voice for the single," muses Kaye referring to the A-side's cheesy lyrics: "They call me neurotic and say I'm psychotic because I let my hair grow long/They say that I'm crazy and they call me lazy because I don't like to work all day long."

But curiously, the performer credited on the 45 is Link Cromwell — not Lenny Kaye. "We made up 40 first names and 40 last names," he explains. "Link is my initials disguised somewhat, and Cromwell was English in the manner of the Sir Douglas Quintet."

Based on the single, Cashbox named Kaye/Cromwell "Newcomer of the Week" for March 19, 1966, and he began to think seriously about a future in rock 'n' roll.

But it was only a fleeting thought because, like the rest of his generation, Kaye was easily distracted in the mid-'60s. "It was a time of college rebellion," he points out. "And I was pretty involved politically with smashing the state; there were protests and marches... and I was perfectly positioned for the Summer of Love."

Setlist for the 1980 Los Nuggets show in SF

In 1967, Kaye and his buddy Larry piled into a '56 Ford and "speeded out of our minds, spouting the philosophy of Finding Thou Self," drove cross-country to San Francisco.

"I went to the Avalon and saw Big Brother and the Holding Company," says Kaye. "I went to Golden Gate Park and saw the Grateful Dead. I can't say that it changed my life because my life was well along that path anyway, but all of a sudden I had a world in which to function."

Eventually, he returned to New York and pursued a degree in American History at NYU. One day, while he was "hanging out," someone introduced him to Patricia Kennealy [later Patricia Kennealy-Morrison], editor-in-chief of Jazz & Pop.

Kaye's first byline in the magazine was a favorable review of the Small Faces' Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. "I did two or three reviews each month and got free records," he enthuses. "I was just amazed!"

He adds that it was almost a year later before he was invited to his first press party, held to honor the publication of Lillian Roxon's definitive Rock And Roll Encyclopedia. The contacts Kaye made that night not only became lifelong friends but irrevocably set his career in motion.

Roxon (oft described as the "mother hen" of rock 'n' roll) took Kaye under her wing and introduced him to Lisa Robinson and Danny Fields. In turn, Fields introduced him to the staff at Cavalier, where he was given a monthly music column. "Before I knew it, I was writing for a living," marvels Kaye.

She Asked Me If I'd Back Her Up On A Couple Of Things

If you believe in fate, Kaye's life is a textbook case. On February 10, 1971, in celebration of Bertolt Brecht's birthday, Patti Lee Smith gave her very first poetry reading at St. Mark's Church and Kaye backed her on guitar.

Patti Smith and Raw Power

The two met when Smith responded to a piece Kaye had written for Jazz & Pop. "It was the one article I felt I had to write," he says, "because I thought I was the only one who knew anything about it — the Acappella doo-wop scene of the tri-state area. It was a great article! Patti read it and she called me up."

A Chicago native, Smith grew up in New Jersey. She'd moved to New York in 1967 to dedicate herself to a career in art but was leaning towards poetry.

"On Saturday nights, she would come into Village Oldies, where I was working," recollects Kaye. "We'd drink a little beer, and I'd put on the Moonglows and we'd dance around the store. It was kind of sweet. She knew I dabbled in guitar, so she asked me if I'd back her up on a couple of things. We worked out three or four musical pieces. It wasn't hard figuring out what to play because even then, she had a rhythm and a certain melody to her voice. We did 'Mack the Knife' and 'Fire of Unknown Origin' [a version of which later appeared on a Blue Oyster Cult LP]. We did a song she wrote called 'Jessie James,' and this song about a car race and subsequent crash called 'Ballad of a Bad Boy.'" 

Smith also read several self-penned poems that night, the first of which was "Oath." Its opening line went: "Jesus died for somebody's sins/But not mine..."

I Wanted To Call It Rockin' And Reelin' U.S.A.

That same year, Esquire featured Kaye in its Heavy 100 round-up. "I was the token rock critic," he states. On that basis, he was hired by Jac Holzman, head of Elektra Records, to "do a little A&R, although they never seemed to like anything that I turned up." One group Kaye wanted Elektra to sign was the Sidewinders — a Boston-based pop band featuring Andy Paley. 

Nuggets — released on Elektra Records (1972)

Still, Kaye's short-lived record company stint was not entirely without purpose as it resulted in the 1972 release of Nuggets. Subtitled "Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968," the compilation of garage rock classics urged listeners to take a more serious look at what had been considered simply AM radio pop ditties.

While most of the tunes were only a few years old in '72, "we were far enough removed that we could see something had happened then," says Kaye.

His extensive liner notes began: "This is the story of a transition period in American rock and roll, of a changeling era which dashed by so fast that nobody knew much of what to make of it while it was around, only noticeable in retrospect by the vast series of innovations it would eventually spawn, both in the way music would be listened to and the way it was constructed."

The preliminary idea for the project was Holzman's — "He wanted to put together an album of all these great one-off cuts" — but the implementation was all down to Kaye. "I made a list of songs that I would play on Saturday night at Village Oldies; there were 50 or 60 songs on the original list! I organized it, got the information, wrote the liner notes, pushed for cool cover art... One of my models was the Yazoo blues albums [which showcased titles such as Blues Of Southwest Georgia 1927-1932], very scholarly things with all the keys and tunings. The other was the Mr. Maestro oldies albums, which had teenage hoodlums on the covers." Even misspelling artifacts with a "y" was Kaye's idea: "It was like the Byrds."

Holzman did, however, make one significant decision. "I wanted to call the album Rockin' And Reelin' U.S.A." confides Kaye. "But Jac said, 'No.' He wanted to call it Nuggets, for which I'm eternally grateful!"

Advert for some 1978 PSG UK

shows with support from the Pop Group  

But when his day job ended six months later, Nuggets was still just a work in progress. "About six months after that," says Kaye, "this lawyer called me up and said, 'We have the rights to all these cuts. What should we do with 'em?'"

Kaye's inventory was pared down to 27 songs, which filled four sides. The eclectic track listing contained both Top 10 smash hits and rarely heard obscurities, including the Standells' "Dirty Water," "Night Time" by the Strangeloves, "Sugar and Spice" by the Cryan' Shames, The Magic Mushrooms' "It's A-Happening," and the Chocolate Watchband's "Let's Talk About Girls."

In his CREEM review, Ben Edmonds commented: "[Kaye's] come pretty damn close to pleasing all of the people all of the time, and probably wound up pleasing himself most of all." But Kaye didn't stop to ponder the impact Nuggets would have because at the time of its release, he was busy creating a new type of rock 'n' roll magazine, as well as reinventing the genre itself with the Patti Smith Group.

"Not Just A Front Seat, But Backstage With The Stars..." That's how Richard Robinson defined Rock Scene magazine. He went on to say that, "somewhere between Dylan going electric and the Beatles recording Sgt. Pepper, rock and roll became art, and as art it was gulped down without a grain of salt. By the early seventies, rock journalism totally reflected this art-form consciousness; the humor and energy of rock was so bogged down with charisma analysis that it had become difficult to remember that rock was a teenage dream."

Patterned on film magazines of the 1930s and teenybopper 'zines like 16 and Tiger Beat — "Lots of pictures and damn few words!" Robinson once declared — the first issue of Rock Scene was published in March 1973 with David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust on its cover. The masthead listed Robinson as Managing Editor, his wife Lisa as Society Editor, and Kaye as Associate Editor. Kaye fills in the job descriptions: "Richard and I would divide up the photo spreads. We'd spend about three days smoking pot and writing captions! A lot of the information was Lisa's because she was into rock as gossip."

Patti Smith on the cover of Rock Scene

May 1976

Rock Scene went to glamorous parties, fabulous openings, and swanky premiers. Articles featured intriguing headlines like "David And Lou: The Deadly Duo Of Rock & Roll," "Ian Hunter Rocks After Dark," and "The Ramones Go To Washington." And there were regular columnists — such as Wayne County, who doled out fashion and beauty advice to the likes of Dave from San Diego who pleaded: "My platforms are killing me! Is there a way out?"

New bands were promoted in each issue. (The Talking Heads got their initial publicity via Rock Scene, while a very early picture of a heavily made-up quartet from "New York's theatrical band scene" was captioned: "Are you ready for Kiss?") And under the heading "Doc Rock," Kaye answered music trivia questions.

Although no individual Doc Rock query stands out as his favorite ("I haven't opened that drawer in a long time," he says), Kaye does remember meeting one noteworthy letter writer: "I went to see GG Allin three or four years ago. I was sitting at the bar, and he walked up to me and introduced himself as one of the kids who used to write to Rock Scene."

Given its geographic location and hip staff (Leee Black Childers and Bob Gruen supplied the bulk of the photos, and Patti Smith sometimes contributed articles), it should come as no surprise that Rock Scene was also one of the first music magazines to cover New York's embryonic punk movement. "I'm sure we had the first pictures from CBGB," states Kaye, "because we were among the first 25 people to hang out there."

What We Were Doing Was So Out Of The Ordinary

Since her debut performance with Kaye, Smith had become a published poet. She was living with Allen Lanier of Blue Oyster Cult, working in a bookshop, and writing the occasional article for music 'zines. One night in 1973, she again dropped into Village Oldies, where Kaye still worked on Saturday nights. "She said she was gonna give a reading in honor of [19th-century French poet] Arthur Rimbaud's birthday," says Kaye. "And she asked if I wanted to do a couple of songs with her — just like old times!"

Arista Records advert for the Wave LP

Following that show at the Hotel Diplomat, the Smith/Kaye duo began making regular appearances around town. "Her manager would get us a gig about once a month, and I would go down and play my three songs," notes Kaye.

But by the time they opened for Phil Ochs during a weeklong run of shows in late December at Max's Kansas City, the poetry and rock 'n' roll were getting equal treatment throughout the set, and a permanent piano player had been added. "We always had a different piano player," observes Kaye. "Nobody stayed with us. Nobody knew what we were doing, so it was a little tough at first. But over the course of three or four months, we became more integrated. It coalesced into a band."

An ad in the Village Voice for a keyboardist with "relentless rhythm" netted them Richard "DNV" Sohl, a classically trained pianist who wore a sailor suit to the audition. "He helped us so much to get the music out to the — astral plane," says Kaye. "He had so much technique, and yet he could space out so well. It was very telepathic."

Patti Smith on the cover of Punk Rock

December 1977

In his book, From The Velvets To The Voidoids, author Clinton Heylin writes that during this formative period: "Smith and Kaye still conceived of themselves as an art project whose connection with rock 'n' roll was at best tangential."

Kaye agrees with Heylin. "What we were doing was so out of the ordinary," he reflects. "I don't think either of us felt there was much place for it in the world. You gonna play the Palladium with three pieces, reading poetry?"

However, between '74 and '75, a series of events turned the unusual threesome into a group whose music Lester Bangs once characterized as: "A new Romanticism built upon the universal language of rock 'n' roll, an affirmation of life so total that, even in the graphic recognition of death, it sweeps your breath away."

Easter 1974: On their way home from seeing the film Ladies And Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones, Smith and Kaye stop off to watch Television play their third show at a seedy Bowery bar called CBGB.

June 5, 1974: With Television's Tom Verlaine on lead guitar, Smith, Kaye and Sohl record "Hey Joe" b/w "Piss Factory." The band's debut single is issued through Mer Records, a purpose-made label principally financed by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. "We wanted to see if we could get the magic we felt we were creating onstage onto a record," explains Kaye. "We recorded it in about three hours."

The A-side, a radically reworked version of the quintessential mid-'60s rocker previously recorded by both the Leaves and Jimi Hendrix, was preceded by a poem Smith had written about kidnap victim Patty Hearst called "Sixty Days." Heylin states: "This technique of prefacing covers with snippets of her own poetry was a logical extension of the early Smith/Kaye sets." Of the B-side (a frank account of the degradation she suffered while working in a New Jersey factory), Smith has said: "To me, that little 'Piss Factory' thing is the most truthful thing I ever writ."

Sire UK reissue of "Hey Joe" b/w "Piss Factory"

November 1974: On a shoestring budget, the trio travel to California, where they make their West Coast debut at the Whisky in Los Angeles. A couple of days later, they travel to the Bay Area and play upstairs at Rather Ripped Records in Berkeley, which is followed by a gig at San Francisco's Winterland (legend has it that Jonathan Richman sat in on drums). "By then, the music had grown to the point where we needed somebody else," stresses Kaye. "I was really trying to keep the rhythm going. I couldn't really do anything else."

Once back in New York, they auditioned for a rhythm guitarist/bassist. "Every conceivable kind of guitar player came down," remembers Kaye. "We'd play 'Gloria' with them... They usually had no idea what we were doing. It was interesting because, for the first time, we had to define our sound. Who are we? What are we?"

It was Ivan Král, then-guitarist for Blondie (and onetime guitarist for Shaun Cassidy!), who got the job. In Heylin's book, Smith shares her memories of the audition: "Finally Ivan Král came in ... this little Czechoslovakian would-be rock star. He said, 'I am here to be in your band.' We did 'Land of a Thousand Dances' and it went on so long I thought I was gonna puke."

"He played for 20 minutes," emphasizes Kaye. "He didn't wanna stop! He also had a rock 'n' roll look to him, which was nice since the rest of us were these weird alien creatures!"

March - April 1975: Having made their CBGB's debut in February, the group is booked for a memorable two-month residency at the club, playing four nights a week (Thursday-Sunday) on a bill with Television. "That was when we really homed in on all the songs," says Kaye, "a lot of which were just abstract jams. That's where 'Land' started to really blossom and 'Tales of Johnny.' Then, with 'Free Money' and 'Gloria' we started repeating moves, and the songs started taking on a very organic structure. We didn't plan it; it just came out of the playing. We'd all go to the same place at the same time, and the next night we'd remember that. Pretty soon, we had our whole set."

"Child Bride" b/w "Tracks of My Tears"

Mer Records (1980)

By the end of their residency Clive Davis had signed them to his Arista label ("For reasons that still escape me," chuckles Kaye), and Jay Dee Daugherty had been added on drums. According to Kaye: "We thought, 'Okay, it's time we become a band. We might as well get a drummer too.'"

The previous year, Daugherty had moved to New York from Santa Barbara to join the Mumps, a quirky pop-punk band led by Lance Loud and Kristian Hoffman. By February 1975, the Mumps were playing CBGBs alongside Patti Smith and Television. But shortly after they'd recorded their first demo tape, Daugherty was recruited by Smith's group.

Later accounts confirmed that Smith was actively (and ruthlessly) looking for a drummer at this point, but Kaye doesn't recall Daugherty playing live with the Patti Smith Group until after the release of their first album. (In a separate interview, Daugherty told me: "I think Tom Verlaine recommended me to Patti. So, during that period, I sat in a couple of times with her, and they eventually asked me if I wanted to join them. And, y'know, there wasn't really too much choice in it. I mean, I'd never seen or imagined any kind of music or person or persona like that. I felt horribly guilty about leaving the Mumps. I didn't want to leave my friends in the lurch. But it was sort of my calling to play with Patti." Follow this link to read my full Mumps interview: devorahostrov.blogspot.co.uk-mumps)

In the summer of '75, the Patti Smith Group entered Electric Ladyland studios with producer John Cale to record their debut LP, Horses. In From The Velvets To The Voidoids, Heylin contends that the emotionally charged album in which Smith draws upon the images of her heroes — Hendrix, Morrison, Rimbaud — as she rages and sometimes falters over the band's minimal-yet-forceful backing, was down to her and Cale battling for control of the studio.

Arista advert for the Horses LP

"If Smith had believed that ... her songs were in recordable form, Cale was not convinced," writes Heylin. "Through his lack of conviction, he forced Smith to re-evaluate all that she had produced." Heylin's assessment is backed up by a quote from Smith, who says: "We came into the studio really half-assed and glib, then I had to pound my fists into his skull day and night."

In a wide-ranging CREEM interview just prior to Horses release, Smith alludes to the studio tensions: "John kept pushing me to improvise and extend — 'Birdland' used to be four minutes onstage, but it flowed in the studio and ended up about nine minutes long." But she also seemed downright pleased with the producer's input: "I was concerned 'cause in some of my songs I take on different personas some people might not understand, like 'Gloria' is a guy singing to a girl — but I didn't want to have to think about my sex on the record. Cool thing was that John was into the chameleon thing, the changeling aspect — and I wasn't made to feel guilty or nervous about any of the subject matter."

Technically, the Dictators were the first of the New York vanguard not yet labeled punk to release an album (1974's critically acclaimed but publicly ignored Go Girl Crazy!). But PSG were the first to attain what could be called success, as Horses entered the Billboard Top 50 — "surprising everybody!" exclaims Kaye.

"I don't think it was so much what we were saying or doing or singing," he continues, "but what we represented. Sometimes a band fulfills a psyche need for people. During our first tour, I could feel that we were becoming a rallying point for all the disaffected rockers in each city. Every place we played, we'd hook into the alternative rock community — all of whom were starting bands. Patti described it as: We were Paul Revere yelling, 'Wake up! Wake up!'"

Lenny Kaye sent Idol Worship a postcard to say

"Thank You" for the interview I did with him in 1980!

In the fall of 1976, PSG issued its sophomore effort, Radio Ethiopia, which Kaye terms their "most angry and uncompromising record."

This time around, Jack Douglas (producer of Aerosmith) oversaw the studio proceedings, which prompted influential music critic Robert Christgau to fume: "It's priggish if not stupid to complain that Radio Ethiopia's 'four chords are not well played.' If they were executed with the precise attack of an Aerosmith, then they would not be well played."

Still, Douglas rendered an air of gravity to the LP, which centered on the title track — a ten-minute free-jazz improvisation co-written by Smith and Allen Lanier — which one music journalist called "their 'Black to Comm,' their 'Little Johnny Jewel.'"

Kaye, specifically, was hugely influenced by free-jazz artists like Albert Ayler and Pharaoh Saunders. "To me, it's the place where rock, jazz, all music blends," he says. "Where all of a sudden, you can break apart structure so totally that you get beyond the beat, beyond melody, into the realm of pure sound. The Velvets — they got there. Something like 'European Son,' when that glass shatters and the band moves into warp speed... There's not much difference with the energy blasts of Roland Kurt or the Art Ensemble. It's something we always tried to do in the Patti Smith Group — to get out there."

"Beware Of Imitators" — Arista advert for

the Radio Ethiopia album

Many considered "Radio Ethiopia" to be the group's ultimate statement — "That track is what we've been working up to for a year," Kaye said at the time. But the album itself was poorly received. Even longtime friend and fan R. Meltzer complained: "Like the title cut's great and tense and all that but it could've extracted a wee bit more from the lesson of the Fugs' 'Virgin Forest' ... 'cause like you can't do 'Goin' Home' — 'Sister Ray' — 'The End' forever cause after a while it just kinda bristles with more than a morsel of uh, dated-ness per se." And radio airplay, even with the closer-to-conventional rock tune, "Pumping (My Heart)," was nil.

When one fanzine journalist asked Smith how this made her feel, she confessed: "I cried. I mean I cried, you know. I fought. I fought with the radio stations and they told me ... either I watch my language and change titles on the songs ... or forget airplay." She added, "I think of Radio Ethiopia as the sacrificial lamb. It got us banned, it put us in a really dark place ... We had trouble getting jobs after that, we were known as troublemakers."

We'd Gone As Far As We Could

Patti Smith on the cover of Time Out 

May 1976

During the US tour in support of Radio Ethiopia, disaster (or divine intervention, if you prefer) struck. In "Ain't It Strange," Smith poses a direct challenge to God: "God make a move..." she shouts at a particularly climactic moment.

On January 26, 1977, He took her up on it. During the song's extended middle-section jam, as Smith spun about in a height of ecstasy and chanted: "Hand of God I feel the finger! Hand of God and I start to whirl! And I whirl and I whirl! Do not get dizzy! Do not fall now..." she plummeted off a 12-foot stage in Tampa, Florida.

Kaye recalls the fateful show: "It was our second night opening for Bob Seger. We hardly ever opened for people, but we were down there and we thought, why not see what we can do with an alien audience. The first night we didn't do that well, so the second night we were itching for blood. We were trying to win the crowd, and we were so in synch as a band. We started moving the rhythm around; it started getting more jerky, dizzier... Patti reached for the microphone and went off the stage."

While it wasn't life-threatening, the fall broke several bones in Smith's neck and her head required 22 stitches; she was completely immobile for three months. Afterwards, she said: "I did feel the finger [of God] push me right over ... I feel it was his way of saying, 'You keep battering against my door and I'm gonna open that door and you'll fall in.' I've had a moment where I had to make a choice, just as I was losing consciousness and I really felt like I was gonna die ... Did I want a communication with God so intimate that I'd be dead, off the earth?"

The accident proved to be something of a watershed for the band. "With Radio Ethiopia, we'd gone as far as we could," asserts Kaye. "We had pushed our own personal envelope as far as it could go. And I think it's good to know that point."

Advert for Easter and a

couple of UK gigs

Yet he insists that the two albums which followed it — Easter and Wave — don't represent a compromise. "I wouldn't call it compromising because that's something we never thought of. If anything, we were rebellious to a fault. Those two albums represent — instead of a music of confrontation — a music of accommodation, of learning to live with one's self and one's demons."

When the band finally returned to the studio in 1978, it was to record their strongest (and certainly most commercially successful) LP: Easter.

Heylin states that the record was going to be called Rock 'N' Roll Nigger after the exuberant anthem in which Smith announces: "Outside of society they're waiting for me/Outside of society that's where I wanna be..." But within a week of her fall, Smith was thinking of the next release as "a resurrection ... it's more creatively sparking, more celebratory ... it's gonna be a celebration of the whole new scene, the whole new wave."

Gone was the experimentation and sometimes overlong ramblings of the previous albums (gone, too, was Richard Sohl, replaced here by Bruce Brody from John Cale's band). Instead, with the help of producer Jimmy Iovine, PSG crafted an album of tough, tight, confident material — and in the process achieved their only Top 40 hit with "Because the Night."

"Because the Night" was the result of a collaboration between Smith and Bruce Springsteen, a collaboration Smith was resistant to. She told CREEM's Susan Whitall: "Bruce was working at the same studio as us and he kept sending me this music ... he'd send me over these tapes and I wouldn't be into them. I was determined not to do any Bruce Springsteen songs. He kept sending these songs and I'd say, 'I ain't doin' nothin' with this guy, he ain't my type.' But then he sent me this music that, like, I wouldn't have cared if Olivia Newton-John had sent me it ... I'd probably have used it. It was so infectious and so perfect for my voice because Bruce really understands that element in it. It's strong, and there's a lot of intelligent animal sexuality in it. A lot of hope."

"Because the Night" 45 picture sleeve

Arista Records (1978)

The liner notes for Easter included a passage from the New Testament: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course..." which some interpreted as Smith's way of saying she was finished with rock 'n' roll. She wasn't.

Wave, PSG's fourth (and at times most delicately beautiful) offering, was released in 1979. Heylin calls it "[Smith's] most overt testament to a new-found spirituality." And Kaye maintains: "In a lot of ways Wave is my favorite album. A song like 'Broken Flag' is a real anthem of the human condition."

Sadly, the critical backlash which had been brewing since Radio Ethiopia now came to a boil. Smith was called an "AOR sell-out" and deemed a "pretentious phony," and the LP was almost unanimously dismissed. Christgau grudgingly allowed that Wave "is an often inspired album," but moaned: "I find 'Seven Ways of Going' and 'Broken Flag' as unlistenable (and less interesting than) 'Radio Ethiopia.'"

Meanwhile, CREEM's Joe Fernbacher found Smith's lyrics "ineffective" and her vocals "childish." He called Todd Rundgren's production job "absolutely pedestrian," and in a pique of sarcasm added: "Wave is like a stagnant lagoon in search of a creature to justify its existence."

But the negative reviews didn't hurt PSG's drawing power which, especially in Europe, was at an all-time high. That summer, they sold out a 70,000-seat stadium in Florence, Italy. "And we were the only band on the bill," says Kaye.

Arista advert for the Easter LP

The Patti Smith Group could have carried on indefinitely, but Wave was indeed their "wave good-bye." The band's last live appearance for a number of years was in June 1980, when they played a benefit for Detroit's symphonic orchestra.

Back then, Kaye gave a vaguely mystical and mystifying explanation for the break-up, saying: "Basically [Patti] had certain [spiritual] questions when she began as an artist, and through her art, she was able to answer them and come to the end of the rainbow." Today, his reply is more matter-of-fact: "We'd done all that we'd set out to do. We'd had our hit single. We had influenced everybody that needed influencing. And we'd played the songs every conceivable way."

And it wasn't only Smith who wanted the break. "I was ready to make my move into the '80s as well," Kaye emphasizes.

The River Was Flowing In That Direction

Poster marking the final concert at CBGB

During Kaye's tenure with the Patti Smith Group, his rock writing was limited to bits and pieces in Rock Scene, and the co-authorship with David Dalton of Rock 100 — a hand-picked catalog of the all-time best bands/musicians. (Who wrote what is supposed to be a state secret, but some of Kaye's entries included the Velvet Underground, Duane Eddy, the MC5, and Love).

But as PSG wound down and Rock Scene published its final issue, he found himself a bit adrift. (One of Kaye's last "Doc Rock" columns referenced a San Francisco fanzine called Idol Worship and its teenaged staff, for which we thank him very much!)

In 1980, Kaye turned up in the Bay Area — ostensibly on holiday. As he stated in Idol Worship: "I wanted to get out of New York. I needed a little perspective on what's going on, y'know. So, I figured I'd come to another cool city. I think San Francisco's a pretty cool city." (He also revealed that he'd visited El Cerrito earlier that day.)

He played a one-off gig in San Francisco with a pick-up band dubbed Los Nuggets, which featured ex-Avengers' bassist Jimmy Wilsey and Sudden Fun drummer Derek Ritchie. Included in the setlist were "La Bamba," "Yummy Yummy Yummy," "Rock 'n' Roll Nigger," and an encore of "For Your Love."

He released a 45 through Mer Records ("Child Bride" b/w a live cover of "Tracks of My Tears"). He backed Jim Carroll on a 1982 US tour. He took a job at a radio production company, which at least made his mom happy. ("I called my mother and said, 'I got a job, it pays $30 grand a year.' She said, 'Oh, thank God!'") He fathered a child (Anna Lee, now 10 years old). And in 1984 — fronting the Lenny Kaye Connection — he released his first solo LP, I've Got A Right, on the specialist GPS label.

"In retrospect," says Kaye, "if I'd been more on top of it, I would've just started soloing and doing original stuff quickly. But I didn't really know what I wanted to say." When I ask about major-label interest, he replies: "I was never in the right place at the right time to land a deal."

Lenny Kaye Connection — I've Got A Right LP

Released in 1984 on the GPS label

In the end, Kaye found his niche — which turned out to be producing other people's records. As he puts it: "The river was flowing in that direction." Rather than focusing solely on either writing or playing, Kaye feels that production allows him the best of both worlds. "It combines my analytical/intellectual side — where I listen to something and figure out why it does or doesn't work — with my musical side, because I have to be able to relate to the musicians."

Kaye's first production credit was for Japanese artist Go Ohgami. He went on to produce Suzanne Vega's eponymous debut and its follow-up Solitude Standing. "I was brought in fairly early on by Suzanne's A&R agent," says Kaye. "She felt that Suzanne was playing in a very insular folk scene and wanted her to have some contact with her musical peers. A lot of my work with Suzanne involved opening the doors to the wider world of rock 'n' roll, as well as helping her to understand her gift and her vision."

He pauses for a few seconds in thought. "In a lot of ways, that's what my kind of production is. I don't get people 'a great drum sound.' To me, you're dealing with wild cards of talent and personality, and sometimes it's helpful to have someone be a mirror; to have someone help conceptualize the vision."

To date, Kaye has put his stamp on over two dozen albums, including James' Stutter, Soul Asylum's Hang Time, and most recently Kristin Hersh's (ex-Throwing Muses) solo debut. "I've gotten to work with some of the most wonderful people," he acknowledges. "I feel like every one of them has been shot through with genius!"

"Crazy Like a Fox" — Norton Records reissue (1990)

Currently (when he's not providing backing for Jim Carroll's poetry readings), Kaye can be found at home in Philadelphia, where he's writing an "autobiography" of country rocker Waylon Jennings. "I know calling it an autobiography sounds odd," he admits. "Waylon tells it to me and I 'creatively organize' it, put in the right connectives, get him to dig deep."

Kaye mentions that Jennings has already "burned through" two previous biographers but adds confidently, "I went out on the bus with him for a few days and we got along great. He likes the fact that I'm a guitar player. And he likes the fact that I'm not from Nashville; I have an outsider's perspective. He's really starting to open up to me."

And there's always the possibility that he and Patti Smith will reconnect. As he told Idol Worship in 1980: "I've been working with Patti for nine years now, and I expect to be working with her for the rest of my life."

Some Q & A

Q: As a well-known record collector, is there anything you're still looking for?
Kaye: Not really. Anything I've looked for, I've been able to find. But there's a million records I never knew existed! I'm amazed that I can still find records I've never seen before!

Q: What's the most you've ever paid for a record?
Kaye: Maybe $30 or $40. I just paid $16 for this record by the Scramblers called Psycho Cycle, 12 weird motorcycle songs: "Steel Shoes," "In the Pits"... But I won't pay $100 or $200 for a record. Well, I would if I was crazy, but that takes the fun out of finding it for a buck somewhere. This reminds me of when I was working at Village Oldies. There were all these strange kids whose social world was one of collecting records. And to be honest, I was one of them myself. Y'know people don't give record collectors their due. They really find and keep a lot of music alive that would otherwise be lost to history.

Q: As a music critic, have you ever been totally wrong about a group?
Kaye: I've been wrong about lots of groups. I thought the New York Dolls were gonna be massive! My feeling is that no matter how objective you think you are, you're still filtering everything through your own sensibilities. We all have our internal prejudices, likes and dislikes. Obviously, if I like the Stooges and MC5, I'm not going to be as open-minded to someone like Hall and Oates. But what I write is just my opinion. A lot of critics think that what they say is the gospel truth as opposed to, "Hey, this is my opinion." And sometimes you're right and sometimes you're wrong.
     A lot of [popular] records are not on my turntable, and I love a lot of records that I can't defend critically. A lot of times, records take me by surprise. I'll groove to them on the radio and then find out it's by somebody I hate. I actually own a couple Chicago records! I don't think that they contributed anything to the world, but I'm sorry, I like "Color My World."

Q: Do you see yourself as a musician first/writer second or vice versa?

Kaye: I know it seems like either you write or you play music, but I've never divided the two. When I'm really into the rhythm of writing, I feel the same sense of concentration that I do when I have a good night playing the guitar. I always felt that one of my main strengths as a rock writer was that I knew what it was like to be in a band, and one of my main strengths as a musician is that I can turn off my intellectual abilities and just get into the music.

The Patti Smith Group (publicity photo)

Punk Magazine: The Birth Of A 'Zine And A Genre

Originally published in American Music Press (February 1994)
By Devorah Ostrov

Debbie Harry & Anya Phillips as Nazi Dykes in "The Legend Of Nick
Detroit: A Film Starring Richard Hell" — a "lost" panel from Punk #6.
(Photo by Chris Stein with graphics by Bruce Carleton)

Magazine staffs are a lot like bands. And the best magazines, like the best bands, are infused with a heavy dose of their creator's (often warped) personalities. Such was the case with Punk, which existed for 17 issues between 1976 - 1979.

"Punk wasn't about the bands," emphatically states its founding editor and art director John Holmstrom. "It was about us."

In 1971 Holmstrom graduated from high school — where he had been the star of the school play, winner of the Kiwanis English award, and the first to be caught by the police for smoking pot. In '72, he moved from the small town of Cheshire, Connecticut, to New York, where he attended the School of Visual Arts. There he studied cartooning under such masters as Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman. But when Kurtzman offered him a job (albeit at a non-existent magazine), Holmstrom felt he was ready for the real world.

After stints at Screw ("It wasn't considered smut back then. It was this radical underground magazine that explored the frontiers of sexuality.") and Scholastic's Bananas (his "Joe" strip paid the rent for ten years), he went back to Cheshire. It was here while working with a theater group called the Apocalypse Players that Holmstrom met Eddie "Legs" McNeil, the troupe's P.R. Agent.

John Holmstrom

"Legs was supposed to get us gigs and make us famous," laughs Holmstrom. "See how famous we are?"

At the time, McNeil was a high school freshman who, says Holmstrom, "would drink one or two beers and pass out."

Before Holmstrom returned to New York, the two, along with a third friend, Ged (G.E.) Dunn Jr. collaborated on a 16-millimeter film called The Unthinkable (in which four mentally retarded gangsters escape from a mental institution and steal all the town's toilet paper; McNeil produced).

Soon after, McNeil dropped out of high school and followed Holmstrom to New York to pursue a career in film. Dunn, bored with university life, joined them, using his school money to finance the threesome's new venture.

Initially, there was talk of two enterprises: a film company headed by McNeil and a publication headed by Holmstrom. And Holmstrom already had the magazine's unique blueprint in mind. "I always thought that if you could marry comics and rock 'n' roll — kind of Zap and Creem — you'd have the perfect hybrid," he remarks.

A 'Zine and a Genre Are Christened: "Let's see... I think it was while we were stealing trees..." reminisces Holmstrom.

CBGB Summer Rock Festival advert

It was the summer of '75, and McNeil's film company needed trees to transform a rooftop into a forest. While driving back from digging oaks out of the nearest woods, Holmstrom proposed they call their 'zine Teenage News (after the New York Dolls' song). McNeil thought that name was "stupid." Instead, he suggested Punk.

Around the same time, the groups playing at a Bowery bar known by the acronym CBGB were starting to get some media attention, but their stance and sound didn't yet have a label. Owner Hilly Kristal was calling the music of the Ramones, Patti Smith, and Television "street rock." However, says Holmstrom, the term "punk rock" was already in use amongst some journalists.

"Bomp magazine would use it to describe the garage bands of the '60s. Lester Bangs had used it to describe Iggy and the Stooges in the early '70s. The Bay City Rollers were then being called punk rock; Eddie and the Hot Rods were being called punk rock. The term was all over Creem, but I don't think Legs knew this. I knew it because I read Creem. That's why I liked the word."

In John Savage's tome, England's Dreaming, McNeil recounts the conversation that followed the naming: "John said, 'I'll be the editor'; our friend Ged said, 'I'll be the publisher'; and they both looked at me and said, 'What are you going to be?' 'I'll be the resident punk!' It was all decided in seconds."

In July, Holmstrom went to the CBGB Summer Festival, where he discovered the Ramones. "This was it! I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard!"

In October, Holmstrom, McNeil, and Dunn moved into their new headquarters — an abandoned trucking company storefront at 356 10th Avenue, which they rented for $195 a month.

Debbie introduces Joey to her dad.

"Mutant Monster Beach Party" - Punk #15

In November, they began gathering material for the first issue. Their first interview was with the Ramones.

"Lou Reed was there with [Ramones' manager] Danny Fields," states Holmstrom. "Legs went up to Lou and asked if we could interview him. Lou was just about to lose his label deal over Metal Machine Music and said, 'Okay.' We ended up hanging out with him for hours!"

By the end of the year, there were posters up all over the city announcing:

Watch Out! Punk Is Coming!

The folks who hung out at CBGB thought it was some cheesy out-of-town band they were supposed to be watching for.

"Everybody at CBGB was waiting for New York Rocker," states Holmstrom. "We beat New York Rocker's first issue by a week or two and flipped everybody out!"

Printed on 50 lb. offset paper in a broadsheet format, Punk #1 was published on New Year's Day 1976. Instead of typesetting (they couldn't afford it), each and every word was painstakingly handwritten; photographs were turned into cartoons, and cartoons were used to tell entire stories.

David Johansen imparts his wisdom

to Legs McNeil.

John Savage describes the visual impact of one story: "...the surrounding artwork is as important as [Lou] Reed's insults: the Ramones play on the interview tape and one can see them in photograph form. When the interviewers follow Reed down the block, there they are in the cartoons. The effect was both immediate and distanced, a formal innovation on a par with Mad magazine..."

Much like the music it chronicled, Punk could be silly, as in this exchange between Legs McNeil and Richard Hell in issue #3:

Legs: I'm gonna throw up.

Richard: Go in there first okay?

Legs: Yeah, will you talk...

Richard: While you're gone? No, I'll turn off the tape recorder.

Or it could be intellectual (from the same interview with Richard Hell):

Richard: Did you ever read Nietzsche... he said that anything that makes you laugh, anything that's funny indicates an emotion that's died.

But its real accomplishment was in unifying all the disparate CBGB's groups into an identifiable "scene." Holmstrom's opening editorial — Death To Disco Shit — was an ultimatum:

Editorial - Punk issue #1

ISSUE #1: Published on January 1, 1976. A Holmstrom-drawn caricature of Lou Reed graces the cover; inside is a four-page comic strip interview with Reed. "A lot of people told me, 'It's the best thing you've ever done and it's the best thing you'll ever do,'" says Holmstrom.

There's also a feature on Marlon Brando: The Original Punk, as well as a Legs McNeil "Famous Persons Interview" with cartoon personality Sluggo ("It gets tiring playing a stupid tramp..."), a Ramones centerfold, and a photo essay called "Cars and Girls" which outlines McNeil's dating tips.

Lou Reed - cover of Punk #1

Dunn put up the $5,000 needed to print 5,000 copies. Folding the 17x22 sheets would have cost extra, so this was done by hand. Two thousand copies were given to a distributor who was "supposed to" put them on newsstands all over New York. Supposed to? "He didn't," says Holmstrom. The remaining copies were all sold or given away.

In fact, the first issue became such a sought-after collector's item that back issues were priced at $25 to discourage ordering. "We heard that somebody broke into an apartment in Detroit, and the only thing they stole was a copy of Punk #1," boasts Holmstrom.

Creem, Rock Scene, the Soho News, and The Village Voice all gave the first issue enthusiastic write-ups. Lester Bangs said he wanted to leave Creem, so he could move to New York and write for Punk. Danny Fields proclaimed Holmstrom a genius, and Lou Reed said the 'zine "knocked him out."

"Everybody was falling all over themselves to praise us," verifies Holmstrom. "Girls who wouldn't look at us before were suddenly trying to pick us up. It was great!"

ISSUE #2: Published March 1976. Using two different photos of Patti Smith on the cover was, reflects Holmstrom, "dopey." As well as an interview with Smith, this issue includes the Talking Heads, Marbles ("What a mistake"), and Television ("Boring"). A three-word review of Bob Dylan's Desire album reads: "Sludge, mud, suds."

Patti Smith - cover of Punk #2

"It was a mess," sums up Holmstrom of #2. "The whole issue is so wimpy. People said it was horrible. And it killed us because we printed more [7,500] copies."

ISSUE #3: Published April 1976. "Boy, that came out quick!" marvels Holmstrom. A brilliant issue, beginning with a beautifully illustrated cover of Joey Ramone drawn by Holmstrom. Inside, Joey reveals that he likes girls who are fun and out of their minds. Tommy's fave TV show is Zorro. Dee Dee's pet peeves are crummy sound systems and nagging, pushy girls. And Johnny's dream date is a meal at Jack in the Box. There's also a year-by-year diary that tracks our heroes from high school in Forest Hills to the release of "Blitzkrieg Bop."

Half-a-dozen pics taken by then-novice photographer Roberta Bayley accompany the Ramones story. Holmstrom remembers the photo session and how it led to the cover of the Ramones' debut LP: "First we shot them in their loft in front of their banner. Then Legs said there was a cool playground around the corner, 'Let's take them there!' So, we took all these pictures in front of a brick wall for the magazine. Then Danny Fields called us up, 'Have you got anything? Any pictures at all?' The Ramones had hired some famous photographer to do their record cover... 'The pictures look horrible.' They looked through Roberta's and found that one great picture from the session that became the album cover. They only paid her like $100."

Joey Ramone - cover of Punk #3

Plus, the gang interviews ex-New York Doll David Johansen, who observes: "We maintained [the Dolls] on a very democratic level. I mean, you can ask Jerry about that." Pam Brown interviews the Heartbreakers, and Jerry Nolan says: "There was a certain member of the Dolls that sorta had most of the say and I disagreed with him completely."

Holmstrom's mother writes a Letter to the Editor: "Please pay your bills. Find a job that will pay you and let the cartooning be a sideline. You have wasted a lot of time already. Love, Mom." Debbie Harry models Punk t-shirts, and Legs conducts a "Famous Persons Interview" with Boris and Natasha:

Boris: We have certain members of de so-called "Free World" which have plagued our organization for years... a certain squirrel...

Natasha: And a very dumb moose.

"This issue was really sharp!" enthuses Holmstrom. "$850 worth of ads in it according to my copy."

By this time, Rough Trade was distributing Punk, air-shipping thousands of copies to the UK. "I would have to say that Punk helped create and fuel the English scene," states Holmstrom. "I don't think it ever would have happened like it did if it weren't for this magazine. When Blondie went over there, Chris Stein told me that everyone was throwing up because Legs threw up in the Richard Hell story." (And there's no doubt that Punk influenced such British do-it-yourself fanzines as Sniffin' Glue and Ripped & Torn.)

Beware of Imitations! Punk is the BEST! Advert from issue #11.

ISSUE #4: Published July 1976. Iggy Pop is on the cover. "We let Pam Brown interview him," says Holmstrom, "and that was kind of a mistake. Iggy wanted to talk to me. I met him later on; we talked about insects and stuff." In addition, there's an interview with Richard Hell's female alter-ego Theresa Stern; Legs goes to Gilligan's Island; Debbie Harry is the pin-up centerfold; and Lester Bangs contributes "Diary of a Cabby," a story based on Taxi Driver.

Iggy Pop - cover of Punk #4

"Lester was obsessed!" discloses Holmstrom. "He would play the movie instead of music, and he would force everybody to listen to it."

Perhaps most surprising was a Holmstrom-penned review remarking favorably upon the new Donna Summer record. Did he really like Donna Summer?

Holmstrom: Yeah...

What about that "Death to Disco Shit" editorial in issue #1?

Holmstrom: I wrote that as a joke! I was shocked when everybody took it seriously, and this big anti-disco movement happened.

ISSUE #5: Published August 1976. Holmstrom dubbed #5 the Ultra Wimpy Dull Issue. "It wasn't that interesting," he acknowledges. "I ran into Lou Reed at a party, and he told me how fucked up the magazine was. That's when I got determined to do something cool." This decision led to...

The Monkees - cover of Punk #5

ISSUE #6: Published October 1976. "The Legend Of Nick Detroit: A Film Starring Richard Hell." Legs McNeil wrote and directed; Roberta Bayley and Chris Stein (among others) operated the cameras.

The first of Punk's photo/comic special issues follows the adventures of Government Agent/ inhuman killing machine Nick Detroit (Hell) and his faithful sidekick Norris McGillicuddy (McNeil). The cast features a plethora of New York's finest, including Lenny Kaye (Special Agent Victor Martino), Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz (ruthless murderers in barbershop), David Byrne (Special Agent Reed), David Johansen (Tony the Rose), Tuff Darts (a squad of armed goons), the Marbles (coppers), Helen Wheels (General George the Dyke), and Debbie Harry and Anya Phillips (Nazi Dykes).

It had been a couple of months between issues #5 and #6. "We had pretty much stopped publication," states Holmstrom. "We ran out of money after #5." 

Enter Tom Forcade, publisher of the very successful High Times magazine.

"The Legend Of Nick Detroit: A Film Starring
 Richard Hell" - cover of Punk #6.

"Tom came into the office in the summer of '76," recalls Holmstrom. "He put his feet up on the table and said, 'I'm gonna make you rich and famous.' He was going to distribute Punk and set up a company to sell advertising for us."

With the publication of "Nick Detroit," Holmstrom and McNeil were the toasts of CBGB. "I remember after it came out, Legs got mobbed! Twenty people surrounded him! He was freaking out. He didn't know what to do."

An optimistic 10,000 copies were printed, but the issue bombed, and High Times backed out of its deal.

"In retrospect it's wonderful," muses Holmstrom about issue #6. "But nobody wanted to read it then. Everybody wanted to read record reviews, I guess."

(Update: According to illustrator Bruce Carleton, the "Nick Detroit" panel featuring Debbie Harry and Anya Phillips used at the top of this article "didn't appear in #6, but was done a year or so later for a version that was supposed to be published in Germany. That never happened, and I had thought all the boards were lost.")

ISSUE #7: Published February 1977. The special Upside-Down issue — every other article was printed upside-down. "I went nuts!" declares Holmstrom. Patti Smith was on the cover for a second time. "It was between her, Blue Oyster Cult, Eddie and the Hot Rods, or Satan," says Holmstrom. This issue also includes Lou Reed's rapidograph drawings, an interview with rock journalist R. Meltzer, and comic strip record reviews.

Patti Smith - cover of Punk #7

Punk was back in business thanks to Tom Katz (a pseudonym). Katz had received a $20,000 settlement from the City of New York for the wrongful death of his brother; he gave the entire amount to the struggling magazine.

ISSUE #8: Published March 1977. For the first time, there's an English band on Punk's cover — the Sex Pistols, of course!

Johnny Rotten discourses while Bob Gruen takes photos; Holmstrom does a phoner with Frank Zappa; McNeil interviews Hitler; there's an advertisement for a Battle of the Bands between the Ramones and the Dictators (it never happened — "The gig fell through," comments Holmstrom); and a letter to their landlord exposes the conditions in which Punk was produced: "Front door lock must be installed and secured properly, raw sewage leaking from ceiling frequently, gaping hole in the ceiling must be patched, leaky toilet and plumbing fixed, regular heating — we have not had any heat in two days..."

"I'll never forget when they came to fix [the leaking sewage]," says Holmstrom. "Somebody flushed the toilet upstairs, and sewage was gushing all over Legs. He was sleeping, and he wouldn't wake up. I was like, 'Legs! Raw sewage is on you! Get up!' And he was like, 'I don't care. I wanna sleep.'"

The Sex Pistols - cover of Punk #8

Publisher Ged Dunn was fired after this issue. "He didn't know what he was doing," asserts Holmstrom, emphasizing that the $20,000 given to them by Tom Katz was now gone.

According to Holmstrom, "He wasted what little money we had on some typically crazy publishing philosophy: put out a glossy product and get the advertising... blah, blah, blah. We should have just been run efficiently and economically. Instead, we were going out of business every six months."

As an early indication of the problems to come, Holmstrom refers back to the naming of the magazine: "Ged wanted to call it The Punk Journal. He wanted it to be very pretentious."

ISSUE #9: The first of the fabled "lost" issues of Punk. If it had come out, it would have featured the Damned on the cover. Inside, you might have read the interview with KISS. "We ran into them at Lou Reed's party," mentions Holmstrom. "Paul and Gene made a point of talking to us. They seemed like cool people, and I didn't mind their music." You could have perused the excerpt from William Burroughs' Junkie or chuckled over a comic strip entitled "Life of a Fly." Alas, #9 never saw the light of day.

Holmstrom states that the printers had been paid in advance and adds, "We gave them the original layout, so they'd have high-quality artwork to reproduce from." However, when he went to collect the 'zines, the print shop had disappeared — along with all the artwork.

"All the machines, printing presses and stuff were gone! The worst thing about it was we had rare, one-of-a-kind photographs of William Burroughs hanging out with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac — priceless stuff. The last thing I expected was that the printer would evaporate into thin air."

David Johansen as Tony the Rose & Cyrinda Fox as Tony's Lady.

"The Legend Of Nick Detroit: A Film Starring Richard Hell"

Punk #6

ISSUE #10: Published Summer 1977. A cartoon version of Debbie Harry strikes a Betty Boop pose on the cover. The issue opens with photos from the Punk Benefit Concert hosted by CBGB. The two-night affair (May 4 & 5, 1977) raised $2,000. Performers included Alex Chilton, the Dead Boys (joined by the Dictators' Ross the Boss), Suicide, the Patti Smith Group, the Cramps, the Lester Bangs Conspiracy (Bangs' stage debut, not counting playing the typewriter with BOC), Richard Hell & the Voidoids, and Blondie. An auction also helped raise funds. "Debbie Harry's underwear went for $25 or $50!" exclaims Holmstrom.

Elsewhere in this issue: Eno gets philosophical ("...the most embarrassing aspects of the things you do are normally the ones that are most interesting..."); Blondie goes on tour and Chris Stein snaps some pics to prove it; Twiggy chats about fashion ("I think people are gonna do what they want, which I think is lovely"); and the Ramones are #1 on the new Top 99 list. (Other stuff deemed cool by Punk readers: towels #16, carbon monoxide #51, and parking lots #71.)

Debbie Harry - cover of Punk #10

Lining up acts for the benefit was easy. Holmstrom says the CBGB bands were grateful for Punk's coverage, and in return, they were always happy to lend a hand.

"What happened was, we would often write an article on a band and the next month they'd get a record contract. At the time it happened, the Ramones credited us with getting them signed. Danny Fields told us, 'Thanks a lot for the publicity you did. It helped get us the deal.' Blondie told us the same thing. They said, 'We'll be forever in your debt.' And the Dead Boys the same."

Did Holmstrom ever use this power for evil? "I do remember one [unnamed] band who offered us $500 if we'd put them on the third cover, but we didn't do it. So, we were pretty committed to whatever vision we had, as screwed up as it was." (Hint: When the mystery group broke up, their newly solo lead singer did make it onto a cover. For free!)

ISSUE #11: Published October/November 1977. Handsome Dick Manitoba and an American flag fittingly share the cover. "We wanted to do the ultimate Dictators' story," says Holmstrom. And they did. Beginning in 1971 ("Andy started his first band — Grand Funk Salinsky..."), their history is charted on an almost daily basis. (October 31, 1974 — "Manitoba does his infamous White Castle french fries act, during which he ate hamburgers and threw bags of french fries at the audience, yelling 'Rock 'n' roll? BAH! Who needs it?!'")

Handsome Dick Manitoba - cover of Punk #11

In the news: Russ Meyers is directing Johnny Rotten in a major punk rock movie, and Blondie is recording their second LP. Plus, John Cale holds court ("People aren't stupid — they can tell when someone's disinterested in what they're doing") and Lester Bangs reviews the Dead Boys ("They are evil, they are everything you would not want your mother to marry"). And San Francisco's punk scene gets a nod with our representatives, Crime.

Putting Manitoba on the cover was a risky move. "We really went to the wall for the Dictators," confirms Holmstrom. The previous March, Manitoba was involved in what became known as "The Wayne County Incident." As Punk reported: "Dick was on his way to the men's room so he stepped over the stage. He called Wayne County a homo. Wayne County called him a fat fuck and slugged him with a microphone stand."

"Everybody was for Wayne County," states Holmstrom. "The Dictators were basically blacklisted. Everybody in New York hated them." Issue #11 was not a big seller in New York.

ISSUE #12: Published January 1978. Robert Gordon (recently split from Tuff Darts) is this issue's cover boy, and eight-year-old Nellie Kurtzman (cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman's daughter) is the "Punk of the Month." Meanwhile, the New York Dolls garner a five-page photo spread with text that contends: "If they stuck it out they could've been like the Beatles — leaders of a new sound/generation"; a photo/comic pairs Debbie Harry and DEVO in "Disposable DEVO"; the Turtle Mountain Community School in Belcourt, North Dakota, cancels its subscription in a huff ("We were under the impression the magazine was for kindergarten and elementary levels"); and the Ramones are still #1 on the Top 99.

Robert Gordon - cover of Punk #12

"I didn't like this issue very much," admits Holmstrom. "Legs was in the hospital for drinking." (One page features a fun maze titled "Help Legs get out of the mental hospital.") However, Holmstrom points out, "this issue sold fantastically!"

Issue #12 also saw the return of High Time's support (the full-color ad for e-z wider rolling paper is a dead give-away). "We didn't have the money to print this issue," says Holmstrom. "So, I went back to Forcade, and he said, 'That's funny, I was just going to get back in touch with you. I think it's time for us to try again.'"

ISSUE #13: The second "lost" issue. Some of the pieces scheduled for this issue were carried over to #14 (the Bay City Rollers interview), while others were scrapped (the cover story on boxer Sugar Ray Leonard). Ostensibly, they skipped this issue because of superstition. In reality, Forcade was pushing for "a big thing on the Sex Pistols," states Holmstrom.

ISSUE #14: Published May/June 1978. Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious portrayed as puppets (perfect!), are on the front cover. The Bay City Rollers, portrayed as gigantic people-eating, building-crushing monsters (perfect!), are on the back cover. In between, Holmstrom reports on the Sex Pistols' tour of America:

Atlanta: Sid managed to get lost and gave himself a nice wound in his arm...

San Antonio: They played "New York," John spitting the words "You fucking little faggots" at the audience.

The Sex Pistols - cover of Punk #14

Dallas: A punkette from L.A. gave [Sid] a bloody nose so he wiped the blood all over himself. He was so out of it he was playing with three busted strings on his bass.

Tulsa: I walked to the elevator carrying a six-foot pair of steerhorns. John was waiting there with his bodyguard... "What the FUCK is THAT?" "Steerhorns," I mumbled... "Want them?" Greed overcame his face in a strange smile...

San Francisco: Malcolm was extremely depressed after the show. "Fuckin' awful show, wasn't it? They were just like any other rock band." Everyone connected with the band felt the same way.

For their part, the Rollers are shown to be even more heinous than the Pistols. The writer complains: "These guys never spend any money! They eat McDonald's food... They can't even buy their own cigarettes..."

This 56-page, action-packed issue also gives us Dorian Zero: "That was one of my finest moments!" chortles Holmstrom. "He says to me, 'Put it this way, if I can get over by being called punk rock, I'll do it.' He's not a punk, but he's calling himself a punk because he wants to be famous! How stupid can you get?" In other news: Amanda Lear — sex change or not? Legs conducts a "Famous Persons Interview" with Combat star Sgt. Saunders ("Live hard, fight hard and dig a lot of foxholes. That's my motto"), and Holmstrom talks about girls with Angus Young:

John: What kind of girls do you like?

Angus: Dirty ones.

John: Girls who don't wash?

Angus: No, just dirty cows.

Plus, Edith Massey gets aggressive about cereal: "Pebbles... that's what I had for breakfast, and these little punks better have the same thing. Maybe with a little raisin or two on it." Lou Reed's Street Hassle is reviewed ("Of course it's great" — J. Holmstrom), and it's not too late to order your 1978 Punk calendar featuring Suicide, Iggy Pop, the Paley Brothers, cartoons, and important dates — like Heckle and Jeckle's birthdays!

A Legs McNeil "Famous Persons Interview"

with Boris and Natasha - Punk issue #3.

Punk was looking mighty spiffy by issue #14. There were lots of full-color photos, and some of it was professionally typeset. "Forcade was trying to get us to come out on time and be a real magazine," moans Holmstrom. "It was killing me."

But now there was big-time competition in the form of a new bi-monthly, nationally distributed magazine ingeniously called Punk Rock. Published by a conglomerate called Stories, Layouts and Press, Inc., it was a shoddy attempt to cash-in on the bandwagon. Its staff had names like Nancy New Age and Sheena Ramona. And the editorials insulted its readers en masse ("Hello, all you spoiled, middle-class little assholes..." began one) and Holmstrom personally. "They called me an asshole," he says. "It was awful."

"Mutant Monster Beach Party" - Punk #15

In this issue, Punk responded to its rival: "We are not jealous of our honestly acquired position or of other worthy publications devoted to modern music," stated Holmstrom's proclamation, which urged "fans and readers" to check out other underground 'zines like Slash, Bomp and ZigZag. "These magazines, for the most part, are put out by people who believe in what they write. They don't write for money. They're not covering the latest youth fad."

ISSUE #15: Published July/August 1978. "Mutant Monster Beach Party: an original Punk International Production." Holmstrom designed this issue, while Bruce Carleton illustrated the cover; Roberta Bayley took the photographs.

Punk's second photo/comic special — and its most ambitious undertaking — stars Joey Ramone as a dreamy surfer boy and Debbie Harry as the beach bunny he loves. It's a simple boy-meets-girl tale. Until a mad scientist accidentally turns his assistant into a hideous blob of quivering nuclear slime which escapes from the lab. The slime helps some Bothersome Bikers stomp all over the surfers and kidnap the girl. Martians in a flying saucer help the boy get the girl back. The monster turns into Peter Frampton and the girl turns into Edie the Egg Lady.

The sizable cast included Andy Warhol (mad scientist), Chris Stein (Debbie's dad), Peter Wolf (head biker), Scott Kempner and Ivan Julian (surfers), John Cale and Lester Bangs (bikers), David Johansen (priest), and Joan Jett (maid of honor).

"Mutant Monster Beach Party" - Punk #15

The wedding photoshoot.

Advertised as "coming soon" as far back as issue #10, "Mutant Monster Beach Party" was two years in the making.

"We were shooting this all the time," says Holmstrom. "When Debbie introduces Joey to her father, that was shot at the sound studio when the Ramones were recording Rocket To Russia."

During the creation of this issue, some of the cast went from obscurity to worldwide fame, but Holmstrom only recollects one slightly tense episode. "We were doing [Joey and Debbie's] wedding shot. It was one of the last pictures we did, and Debbie was visibly agitated. You can tell she's getting tired of hanging around all day waiting to do a photo shoot for us."

Sadly, like "Nick Detroit" before it, this photo/comic sold "horribly," states Holmstrom. "It put us out of business." Again.

ISSUE #16: Published March/April 1979. A cartoon send-up of John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever character is on the cover. "[The movie] had come out six months earlier," notes Holmstrom. "It was a very smart thing to do."

Inside, Shrapnel star in the "Brat Patrol" photo/comic ("Shrapnel — the janitors of justice, are out to sanitize New Jersey..."), and Bob Geldof insists he's not just in a band to get rich, famous and laid more often ("I'm in it for revenge as well, to prove to people that in fact I was never a nobody, that I was always a somebody and that the rest of them can eat shit!"). An interview of sorts with Sid and Nancy (an extract from the upcoming film D.O.A.) fills up the centerfold:

Mutant John Travolta - cover of Punk #16

Nancy: Wake up and answer him.

Sid: I'm answering...

Nancy: He asked you a question... It's no time to go to sleep!

Sid: Grunt... What was the question again?

Punk's new Resident Punk, 15-year-old Jolly (Legs retired from the post to manage Shrapnel), reviews some records:

The Doors/An American Poem
"Who said this was good?!? This stinks!!!"

The Ramones/Road To Ruin
"Best album of the year."

Plus, the Bottom 99 makes its debut (Studio 54 is listed three times), and the Ramones are still #1 on the Top 99.

It had been nearly half a year since the "Mutant Monster Beach Party" issue. The magazine was being sued for an old printer's bill and was declaring bankruptcy.

On October 13, 1978, Punk held its 1st (and last) Annual Awards Ceremony — as much to say farewell as to thank all the groups. Posters for the celebration promised: "Meet Jolly! Mutant Monster Live In Person! Be Able To Buy Drinks! A Special Concert By A Surprise Rock 'n' Roll Band!" The day prior to the show, Sid (or someone) killed Nancy.

Poster advertising the 1st Annual

Punk Magazine Awards Ceremony.

"Everybody flipped out," understates Holmstrom. "There were television cameras all over the place, and nobody wanted to talk to the media. Nobody wanted to be there."

Not quite the spectacular event he'd hoped for? "Oh, it was spectacular all right. Lou Reed [winner of the Class Clown award] hasn't talked to me since."

Some of the grisly details were printed in issue #16. "[Jolly] was the emcee and provided a fine target for the evening's beer bottles, glasses, pieces of table and assorted projectiles... The awards themselves — various novelty items such as plastic dog turd, lemons, brooms, or baseball trophies mounted on Budweiser cans left over from the night before — proved totally worthless as most of the recipients were too embarrassed or afraid or smart to go on stage anyhow."

Issue #16 sold "like hotcakes," and John Spacley ("the one drunk who was so obnoxious he had to be thrown out" of the awards show) became Punk's new publisher.

ISSUE #17: Published May/June 1979. The last official issue. In a Punk exclusive, Jolly interviews "that fantabulous rock band," the Rolling Stones:

The Clash - cover of Punk #17

Q: What's your favorite color?

Rolling Stones: Red.

Q: Are you playing any dates soon?

Rolling Stones: Yes.

Undeterred, Jolly also gives the Clash a go...

Jolly: I saw the show last night and it wasn't so great...

Topper: Then don't do the fuckin' interview, then.

David Johansen answers the musical question: Does rock and roll go in ten-year trends? ("I think locusts come out every fourteen years or something like that. That's about the only thing you can count on. Locusts.") McNeil and Alice Cooper compare booby hatch info (Alice: "There was one girl who smashed the stereo every three or four days... she went for the TV one night and I had to stop her... If she broke the TV, I couldn't watch The Odd Couple"). Holmstrom reviews the London Symphony Orchestra's new one and the state of things in general: "This record, more than disco, more than Billy Joel, or Sid Vicious, more than the fact that punk rock and new wave is being swept under the carpet by radio programmers, Jimmy Carter, and dullards, spells the end of rock 'n' roll." Destroy All Monsters' lead vocalist signs her pin-up centerfold "I love you, but you're dead," and Shaun Cassidy's mug is the backdrop for a graffiti contest.

From the outset, Holmstrom had wanted to produce an underground 'zine that combined rock 'n' roll and comics. McNeil's fondness for rock tilted the early issues in that direction. But as Legs became less involved, Holmstrom began working closely with illustrator Bruce Carleton, tipping the scales towards humorous art.

"Blondie In Punk" - Debbie Harry models the Punk t-shirt in issue #3.

Photos by Chris Stein

Carleton designed this issue's cover collage of rock 'n' roll mayhem. And inside, there were more examples of his work: a subscription coupon set amid the Monolithic Punk Meat Grinder, and a spread depicting Leonid Brezhnev as the Punk Playmate (Goals: "...to become a successful fashion model and to bury the U.S.A.").

Other cartoons included "Ze Artiste" and "Joe's Pimple Pop Boffo" — both drawn by Holmstrom. "By this point, I was really thinking of making Punk a humor magazine instead of a rock magazine," he confesses.

Holmstrom's disenchantment shows in his summation of issue #17: "This is sorta like the last Sex Pistols' gig — an Alice Cooper interview with [record company] publicity photos, some humor, but... who needs it?" The final issue sold "really badly."

ISSUE #18: Holmstrom owns the only extant copy of #18, nicknamed the "Rock 'N' Roll High School" issue in honor of the Ramones' movie it (would have) publicized. This issue also contains another comic strip interview with Lou Reed, and the Plasmatics take over the #1 position on the Top 99.

All pasted-up and ready to go, #18 never made it to the newsstands. "The owner of the printing company took one look at it and said, 'I'm not gonna print this shit!' We had trouble with printers. A lot of them refused to print the magazine. We were too sleazy." But fussy printers weren't the magazine's only nemesis. In the end, it was Punk's stubborn refusal to go corporate that actually doomed it.

Surf's up! Joey rides the waves in "Mutant Monster Beach Party." 

Punk #15

Schedules? We Don't Need No Stinking Schedules! Punk's printing schedule was, at best, erratic. A voucher in #10 inquires: "new address?" then warns, "You better let Punk know in case another issue ever comes out." Needless to say, this charming unpredictability scared off many potential advertisers. And although more advertising would have meant more income and thus more issues, Holmstrom stresses: "We were trying to do something creative and different and exciting, and you can't always do that on schedule."

And then there were the subscribers. There were just too many of them. One promotion with Creem netted 2,000 of the buggers alone! "So, we had to print at least 2,000 copies of anything we did," grumbles Holmstrom. "And when you get into the printing and mailing of 2,000 copies — who's got the money?"

But all in all, Holmstrom is content with Punk's historical niche. "I knew when I was doing it that I was doing something important, and something that would be enjoyed for a long time. And at the same time, something that wouldn't last long."

* * *

A few updates:

The 25th Anniversary issue

After the demise of Punk, Holmstrom worked for several publications including The Village Voice and Heavy Metal. In 1986, he contributed a comic-based chronology of punk rock for a special edition of Spin.

In 1993, Holmstrom and McNeil teamed up once again to produce the short-lived (four issues) but wonderfully eclectic Nerve magazine. Over the years, several special editions of Punk have been published. In 2000, an issue featuring Murphy's Law marked the magazine's 25th Anniversary, and they paid "A Tribute To CBGB" in 2007.

In 1996, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain published Please Kill Me, considered to be the definitive oral history of punk rock.

The Best of Punk Magazine

book cover

In 2012 HarperCollins published The Best Of Punk Magazine, an oversized book containing high-quality reproductions of the original issues, behind-the-scenes stories, and an interview with Joey Ramone from the unpublished "Rock 'N' Roll High School" issue.

For more information about Punk, please visit: punkmagazine.com