In the late ‘70s and early to mid 1980s, San Francisco was a creative incubator, bringing forth all manner of new music acts. Ground zero for the scene was the Mabuhay Gardens, home to huge barrels of popcorn, once-a-week spaghetti nights, colorful emcee Dirk Dirksen, and punk/new wave bands from all over the Bay Area. Concert booker and renegade radio deejay Howie Klein joined with Aquarius Records owner (and fellow deejay) Chris Knab to launch a record label in support of that scene.
Disturbing the Peace: 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave is Bill Kopp’s chronicle of the groundbreaking independent record label founded by Howie Klein & Chris Knab, featuring the stories of Romeo Void, Red Rockers, Translator, Wire Train, Roky Erickson, The Nuns, Pearl Harbor and Explosions, and nearly two dozen other bands.
Based on nearly 100 interviews with the artists, industry execs, producers, friends, rivals, onlookers, journalists and hangers-on, Disturbing the Peace also features hundreds of photos and memorabilia from the personal archives of those who were there.
When Tim from Dagger zine approached us about his book idea covering long-loved “spaces” held sacred for countless music fans, we knew it was a great project to get behind, Similar in its community effort to our last book release (The White Label Promo Preservation Society), Hinely organized an incredible list of contributors from all stripes of the underground music spectrum, each waxing their own warm recollections of wild nights seeing life-changing bands and/or terrible bathroom experiences.
Chock full of photos, original newspaper ads, flyers, and long-lost monthly calendars of the pre-Internet age, WHERE THE WILD GIGS WERE illustrates how important these sacred spaces really are, and how much it’s noticable when we can’t actually be AT these homes-away-from-home, spread all across the USA. From Stache’s in Columbus, OH to Flynn’s Ocean 71 in Miami, FL (the ‘CBGB’s on the beach’), back to The Brewery in Lansing MI (complete with previously unpublished Stooges photos!), to City Gardens in Trenton, NJ (staffed by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart) to Peter Aaron’s sordid details on the mob-run Jockey Club in Newport, KY, you won’t find many dull moments as each page bleeds into the next, oozing with recollections of blurry good times and endless excitement before the world changed, as we know it,
With a Foreword by Byron Coley and an Afterword by Tesco Vee, you can just imagine how good it gets in between.
“Historically, “alternative music venues” (colloquially known as punk clubs) are known for a few things. These include lousy bathrooms, loose policing, mean soundmen, and treacherous load-ins. But for all that (and more), such hangouts are amazing places to discover the kind of music you weren’t really sure existed. The kind of messed-up sounds that exactly match the confusion of whatever era you happen to grow up in.
Sometimes these are dive bars in parts of town parents described as “dangerous” when you were a kid. It might take a few beers and several co-conspirators to get up the nerve to actually visit them for the first time. Sometimes they’re just established music clubs that get a new, enlightened booking agent for a spell. Sometimes they’re just random places that have some bands during a brief period, for reasons that can’t quite be augured. Whatever their initial draw might be, these venues all share the ability to turn people on to new music, and in doing so they often assume the aura of a personal clubhouse, regardless of the quality of their commodes.
…Writing this now, when so many of the current places that put on weird-ass shows are shuttered, some for good, it’s easy to imagine the era of great underground clubs is over. But there’s no doubt that once things have settled down, they will begin to sprout again, like strange mushrooms growing in the nation’s asscrack. Because there are always going to be a certain number of people who really don’t understand what functionally popular culture is about, and they will continue to seek fun and strange sounds. And I’ll be damned if they won’t find them. In places like the ones written about herein and also in settings that haven’t even been imagined yet.”
HoZac Books is proud to present The White Label Promo Preservation Society: 100 Flop Albums You Ought to Know, written and compiled by Sal Maida and Mitchell Cohen, who have recruited for their “society” a gang of esteemed music obsessives: musicians, label executives, and journalists who chose favorite albums from the 1960s and 1970s to rave about and expound upon. The only criterion was that the albums never made the top 100 on Billboard’s LP Top 200 (although in a few cases, they did quite well on the R&B or country chart). The selection ranges from east coast vocal-group harmony to punk and metal, from superstars like The Who and the Beach Boys to virtual unknowns.
As Sal and Mitchell write in the book’s introduction, “These are the albums you might not read about, except here. No one needs to tell you why Pet Sounds, Revolver or Blonde On Blonde are essential parts of any decent record collection, or guide you towards classics – or even somewhat lesser efforts – by the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry or the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Or which Pink Floyd album is indispensable (hint: the debut; you can stop right there). Although we have strong opinions about pantheon artists like Led Zeppelin and Marvin Gaye, and are happy to share those views with anyone in earshot, that isn’t what this book is about. We aren’t here to challenge or endorse rock orthodoxy. Neither is the mission to, once again, assert the brilliance of Skip Spence’s Oar, of such artists as Nick Drake, Big Star, and the Velvet Underground, whose influence, despite the lack of any commercial success in their time, has been thoroughly – one might even say exhaustively – documented elsewhere.”
To help tell this story, Sal and Mitchell called on an impressive team of guest essayists: Lenny Kaye, Russ Titelman, Amy Rigby, Brian Koppelman, Dennis Diken, Bebe Buell, Jim Farber, Susan Whitall, Steve Shelley, Phil King, Ira Robbins, Billy Altman, Marshall Crenshaw, Peter Holsapple, Wreckless Eric, Peter Keepnews, Miriam Linna, Joe McEwen, and a cast of dozens. Sal Maida has played bass guitar with Roxy Music and Sparks, was a member of the snappy NYC power-pop band Milk ‘n’ Cookies, and has chronicled his exploits as fan and musician in the HoZac book Four Strings, Phony Proof, and 300 45s. There is not much about rock music in the ‘60s and ‘70s that he doesn’t know, and it was quite an ordeal getting him to hone his list of underrated, underselling albums down to manageable length for these purposes. Mitchell Cohen has been writing about music and movies since the early ’70s (CREEM, Film Comment, High Fidelity, Musician, Phonograph Record…), was a major-label A&R guy for around a quarter-century, and is the co-author of Matt Pinfield’s memoir All These Things That I’ve Done, as well as the author of an upcoming book on Arista Records for RPM/BMG Books.
What you will find out here are things like how Evie Sands, with Any Way That You Want Me, made one of the most confident and accomplished albums by a female singer-songwriter before Tapestry. You’ll find out how Bobbie Gentry followed up “Ode to Billie Joe” and the LP of that title with a haunting, mysterious concept album. You will, in all likelihood, be introduced to the quirky New York folk-rock duo of Bunky & Jake, to the art-rock of Ars Nova, and to the entrancing psych-pop of Blossom Toes. Georgie Fame, Joe South, the Hollies, Jackie DeShannon, the Impressions, the Everly Brothers, and Nico, all pop up here, often in ways you might not expect. This is a book for everyone who has gravitated to used-record stores, garage sales and flea markets in search of something he or she hasn’t encountered before. You might be at a record fair, browsing with a friend through cardboard boxes, and have that friend say, “You need to hear this,” pretty much forcing an album you’ve never heard of into your hands.
HZB-009
272 pages, paperback
FIRST EDITION of 500 copies: SOLD OUT
SECOND EDITION of 500 copies: AVAILABLE SOON
ISBN: 978-0-9963319-9-9
After two long years of painstaking research and development, we present to you, the first major memoir covering the birth of DIY Power Pop, from Paul Collins. From its initial conception as a film script to its re-birth as a full-bore rock & roll revelation, this is one crazy story from beginning to end. Outlining the first National DIY cross-country tour by an unsigned band in 1977, and by default, creating the pathway for the true indie underground network of the 80s to take as a template. It wasn’t even a second thought for Collins and bandmates Peter Case and Jack Lee, but the underground rock & roll world is a better place for it. But until now, the real details of the origins of The Nerves, Breakaways, and The BEAT have eluded most of us, so with this tome of incredible survival stories from the trenches, Paul Collins opens up and reveals all the drama, victories and defeats with such an impassioned voice, you won’t be able to put it down. The coverage of the pre-Punk 1975 landscape of both LA and San Francisco is unmatched, and your mind will be BLOWN.
Featuring TONS of previously unseen photos, flyers and ephemera from the earliest days of The Nerves lineup as a FOUR PIECE, to the legal documents challenging The Paul Collins BEAT vs The English Beat, to the ill-fated Nerves reunion, and so much in between. Truly a smorgasbord of juicy details and revelatory discoveries await, balancing the failures with triumphs from the mid 1970s to the mid 2000s, when Paul returned to the touring circuit. From literally renting out a space for the first documented Punk show in Los Angeles in March of 1977, to The Screamers story about buying a copy of The Nerves EP at the Capitol Records swap meet and smashing it to pieces- it’s all in there, along with so many more soon-to-be-legendary tales from the real trenches you don’t usually rise out from unscathed…
Stream the Paul Collins’ BEAT video collection HERE:
HoZac Pure Pop Playlist
HoZac Archival Playlist
HoZac Darkwave & Synth Punk Playlist
HoZac – 21st Century Underground
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL UPDATE LIST
ORDER HOZAC BOOKS HERE
OUT NOW:
Noise In My Head: Voices from the Ugly Australian Underground (ORDER HERE) Dare To Be Stupid SOLD OUT Denim Delinquent 1971-76 SOLD OUT Jaguar Ride: Memoir of an electric eel by Brian McMahon SOLD OUT Four Strings, Phony Proof, and 300 45's by Sal Maida SOLD OUT Madman's Eye - Artwork of Mac Blackout ORDER HERE There Was A Light: Chris Bell (BIG STAR) SOLD OUT I'm Just the Drummer - by Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Chrome Cranks, Pussy Galore) SOLD OUT Dodged & Burned -Photography 1976-84 by Brian Shanley SOLD OUT I Don't Fit In: My Wild Ride in The Nerves & The Beat by Paul Collins with Chuck Nolan SOLD OUT When Can I Fly? The Sleepers, Tuxedomoon & Beyond by Michael Belfer with Will York ORDER HERE The White Label Promo Preservation Society: 100 Flop Albums You Ought to Know - by Sal Maida, Mitchell Cohen & Friends ORDER HERE Where The Wild Gigs Were: A Trip Through America’s Legendary Underground Music Venues by Tim Hinely & Friends ORDER HERE
Disturbing The Peace- 415 Records and the Rise of New Wave by Bill Kopp ORDER HERE Wicked Game: The True Story of James Calvin Wilsey - by Michael Goldberg Kill A Punk For Rock’n Roll – Photography by Marty Perez GUILTY! My Life as a Member of The Joneses - A Heroin Addict, A Bank Robber, and a Federal Inmate - by Jeff Drake
COMING SOON:
Pull Down The Shades: Garage NZ Fanzine 1984-86 - by Richard Langston ESCAPADES - Music & Art 1980-2022 - by Jowe Head (Swell Maps/TV Personalities/Steve Treatment) The Other Side of Reason- Peter Jefferies memoir by Andrew Schmidt (Nocturnal Projections/This Kind of Punishment/Plagal Grind) Bottom's Up - Give The Bass Player Some by Sal Maida Diary of An ADman: Rock, Punk & Underground Advertising - by Nathan Webber Canderson Photography Book ONE
UPCOMING HoZac Archival LPs BY:
NEON LEON Singles & Rarities (1979-84 NYC)
SCREAMING URGE 1980 debut LP (OH) THE MIRRORS (1973-75 Cleveland) THE TERMINALS 'Disconnect' debut (1988, NZ) LIVIN' SACRIFICE debut (1982 Sweden) 8 LIVING LEGS debut (1983 NZ/Flying Nun) MARS Village Gate: 1977(NYC)
EPICYCLE 1978-81 volume 2 THE BRIDES Singles, Demos/Rare tracks
FULL LENGTH LPs BY:
BURNT ENVELOPE I'm Immature II LP GENTILESKY debut LP DISCO JUNK debut LP
V/A- Trunk City Junk: Chicago 2003-07 LP
UPCOMING HoZac Archival 7"/EPs BY:
VILETONES 'Look Back in Anger' (1979 CAN) THE IMPORTS (1980 Chicago) THE BRATS 'Criminal Guitar' (1973 NYC) THE SLUGS 'Problem Child' (1979 NYC) THE BOYS 'S.A.P.' (1979 UK) SCRAPS 'Strike 3' (1981 Chicago)
