John Brannon Crowd Surfing at Circle Jerks Gig in Detroit 06-06-82

With the Circle Jerks officially back in the saddle and the news that Detroit's favorite Fun Boy Three tribute band, the mighty Negative Approach, will be firing up the van and strapping on the jackboots in order to accompany Morris, Hetson, Schloss, and Associates on the majority of the dates, I figured this photo would make a timely addition to the long-dormant PDGB blogroll.

Long story long, the day started in Ann Arbor, where we stole a Rick Springfield promotional standup from the dearly missed Schoolkids Records, with every intention of giving to the Circle Jerks. We did, they played, and Keith utilized the cardboard Rick as stage prop while the crowd partook in the usual sweaty shenanigans that culminated in JB getting in some epic crowd surfing runs. NA, of course, opened the show, and now the Circle Jerks are reuniting for a tour to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Group Sex, their influential first release. Concerned the punkness needed a little extra shove to send it over the edge, they invited Negative Approach and Adolescents along for the ride. Now shaping up to be the Old Punker event of the summer, the tour dates are below. Sadly, at this point it doesn't look like the fellas will be venturing East of the Mississippi, but we're confident there are more dates to come.

FOUND!

Musty old Brooks leather jacket with the lining removed and the sleeves cut off. Awesome.

Danzig screened the Crimson Ghost image on the collar. I handled the Gone In Sixty Seconds logo myself. Punk outing, people shouting; you can't hack it, without a leather jacket.

Digging a Ditch: Tim Kerr & Brian Mank, 9/83

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An otherwise bone-dry culvert overflowing with passion, soul and style. Necros tour, somewhere East(?) of Austin, Texas. 1983.

01.27.97 Legendary Detroit Televison Movie/Trivia Show Host Bill Kennedy Goes to the Big TV Studio in the Sky.

Faking sick and staying home from school hasn't been the same since.
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01.12.74 New York Dolls, Toledo Sports Arena

UPDATE 01/20/11:

Try as we might, PDGB can't find a single Toledoen who both attended this gig and retains enough unpolluted gray matter to produce an even remotely-lucid recollection. Lucky for us, we found this nearly decade-old interview with Sub Pop Records founder and Toledo Native Jonathan Poneman floating around on the interwebs: 

"The New York Dolls played in the Sports Arena, not in the main arena, but in the little exhibition center right off to the side of it, and there weren't very many people there. It was really funny. I remember everybody sitting down and kind of like... I didn't get it. I was like a Creem magazine reader, and I remember buying the first [New York Dolls'] record and going "Wow!" I was into Todd Rundgren, and Todd produced that record. I was going, "What the fuck's up with this?" There's no (Poneman proceeds to imitate an insanely fast guitar solo). I didn't really get it. This is before The Ramones; it was even before [The Stooges'] Raw Power came out, as far as I can remember. And, so, that's the thing about my earliest experience with punk rock is I thought it sucked, because there weren't enough notes. I was much more [a fan] of like Skynyrd and Allman Brothers and even barfier than that."

You can find the entire interview here:

And if you were there, let us know. A little street cred is a good thing. 

01.07.83 Misfits, Henry Ford Community College, Dearborn Michigan

photo:  Mark Wakabayashi

Doyle, romancing the .016's while sweating out his 20-piece McNugget and McRib sandwich pre-gig appetizer. Wait! Is he wearing Pajama Jeans?!

In the crowd: Foxy Greg Boker, John Gumpf, toke!, and, directly in front of the D-man's strumming hand, Anna, sister of Larissa Strickland(Stolarchuk) of L-Seven and Laughing Hyenas.

Second on the bill were one of toke!'s all time faves, Big Boys from Austin,Texas, with Toledo's own Radical Left in the opening slot. Featuring long-time Glass-City scenesters Joe Testa on nicotine-stained screams and cries of social injustice and all-around good guy Mark Podany bashing the skins, the short-lived and virtually forgotten Rad Left remained unapologetically themselves and did what they needed to do regardless of trends or criticism. And that is about as punk as you can get. Except for maybe a big honkin' semi fully-laden with reproduction punk ephemera destined for Hot Topic mall stores crashing headlong into a Broadway theater auditorium during a command  performance of Green Day's American Idiot. That would really fuck society up.
 
If only Henry1 was around to see his namesake institution of higher learning finally actualize his dreams. But history indicates he was more into the D.K.'s anyhow.

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