For you lazy mothers, here's a quick index of the shows:
Party at the Rockplex (Possum Dixon & Puddy Jr. & the Punk Rock All-Stars)
Hootenanny '98 (X, The Cramps)
Mr. Bill Show taping (Sluts For Hire)

This is the city.  Los Angeles.  The city of lights.  The city of angels.  The city of Michellen as soon as Michelle & I hit town.  Look out southern California!

The prime directive of this trip was to see X at the Hootenanny '98.  We had procured tickets for show on the 4th of July.  About a week later we found out there was also a show on the 5th of July.  Darn it all!  Confusion reigned supreme; we didn't receive our tickets until four days before we left, we weren't sure if our tickets were good for both days of the show, we didn't know where in the hell the Oak Canyon Ranch was.  All we knew was that we were each $42.00 lighter in our pockets (not to mention airfare, rental car & other assorted expenses), thoroughly confused, and headed for a warmer clime.

DAY ONE - July 3rd
We left Seattle on the afternoon of Friday, July 3rd.  We survived the plane ride.  We had arrived.

After we picked up our economy rental car at LAX (which was more like a luxury car compared to what I usually drive) our first stop was the "Punk House," home of one Nick of POPDeFECT & Masher fame.  This was where we were to stay.  Located near the beautiful Dodger Stadium.  Loaded to the gills with lovely cultural artifacts.  Alas, Nick was not there to greet us, but the lovely Misty was there, and she & her sister Wedge got us drunk and fed us turkey burgers.  We were very appreciative.

The infamous Nick arrived later on, only to inform us that he had to go & practice with his third band, Puddy Jr. and the Punk Rock All-Stars, as they would be playing a show the very next day.  The fabu Babs was with him, and she stayed with us in order to entertain our sorry asses.  Drinks flowed.  Gas Huffer videos were played.  I got sick.  Yea, we know how to par-tay!

Prior to arriving in L.A., I had received a few e-mail messages from Billy Zoom of X fame in regards to my previous story about the X show here in Seattle.  I checked my e-mail at Nick's house and found out that X wouldn't be playing until 7:00 pm the next day, leaving us time to see Puddy Jr. play.  We were excited to see one of our host's other bands, since POPDeFECT is the only one of his band's we've had the privilege to enjoy live.  Plus there was a hint that Michelle & I might be put on the guest list (by the generous Mr. Zoom) for the following day of the Hootenanny '98.  So we were terribly excited.

DAY TWO - July 4th
The next day we headed over to the Rockplex for this big 4th of July party.  I must explain a bit here.  The Rockplex is a fourplex in the Silverlake area where a bunch of musicians live.  They apparently have big parties featuring live music quite often.  The 4th of July soiree has become somewhat of a tradition.  We arrived at the venue in time to catch Possum Dixon play an amazing set.  When we spoke to them later, we found out they had just played Seattle the previous night.  We mused that our planes might have crossed paths.

We thought that Puddy Jr. & the Punk Rock All Stars were next, but alas we had to endure about an hour of easy-listening style jazz.  Yipe!  All the while the clock was ticking, and we were wondering if we'd make it to Orange County in time to see any other bands play besides X.  Around 4:00 pm, Puddy Jr. finally took the stage.  Boy were we glad we waited.  These guys are silly as can be, and man can they rock!  Some people accuse them of being a punk rock cover band, but they really wrote all those songs themselves.  Really they did.  Sonic Reducer, yea, that's theirs.  Manimal?  Sure, they wrote it.  Tainted Love?  Of course!

As soon as Puddy Jr. played their last melodious strains, we hit the road for Orange County.  Armed with good directions (courtesy of Babs), an atlas, a Thomas Guide and some tepid drinking water, we drove like hell.  When we arrived at the Oak Canyon Ranch, tons of people were leaving.  Oh well, that meant we got great parking, right by the gate.  The security guards seemed perplexed that we were arriving so late.  They said "you only have about an hour left."  It was 6:30, and we could hear Social Distortion still playing, so we weren't too worried.

We received a royal shakedown at the gate.  They weren't going to let Michelle bring in the cookies we had made for Billy Zoom and John Doe, but Michelle blurted out "I'm a diabetic," and I said "we're giving these cookies to X." at the same time.  The security woman was not amused and bellowed "get your story straight girls."  Geesh.  You'd think we were smuggling crack or bombs into there or something.  They finally let us in, with our precious cookies.  Yea!

After the show, we finagled our way backstage as I had a copy of an e-mail from Billy Zoom asking us to come and introduce ourselves at the Hootenanny.  We got to speak with Mr. Zoom, John Doe (who immediately upon spying us said "Where's my cookies?") and my hero, Exene Cervenka.  Between Billy Zoom and John Doe, we were assured that we would be on the guest list for the next day's show.  We were X-static and X-tremeley grateful.

We drove back to Los Angeles to hook back up with Nick and Babs at Al's Bar.  We got there just in time, they were just about to leave a note for us giving directions to a party.  (You see, Nick's other band Masher, had just finished playing a show at Al's Bar.  Drat - we missed it!)  We got to meet Adam (also of Masher fame) and hang out with him at this fabulous soiree.  We also met Fred (photo below) who demonstrated his drinking prowess to us.  We were having so much fun with these nutty guys that when we were all 86'ed from this house party, we moved the mirthfulness on over to Adam's pad.

DAY THREE - July 5th
Oh yea, were we feeling good on day three.  It took forever for us to get our butts moving, especially after about four hours of sleep.  And we had to get our asses back down to Orange County for day 2 of the Hootenanny.  We decided to take our lovely hosts Nick & Babs to this show with us.  Against their wills, of course.  Bound & gagged in the trunk.  Adam, Michelle and I headed on over to Bab's pad for some fine vittles and some Gatorade (for the kids with the hangovers.)

Ah, but we didn't miss The Cramps, and thank god for that!  They played the best set I've ever seen them perform at this show.  Lux was hilarious, joking that he'd never seen the sun before (although getting a gander at his complexion, he just might not be kidding about this!) and crawling all over the stage, monitors, and p.a. speakers.  Near the end, he ripped the butt out of his skin tight black iridescent cat suit and kept on dancing & spanking himself.  (Babs, Michelle & I all agreed that it was sad that Lux had to spank himself - we just KNOW that one of us could have helped him!)  Mr. Lux bared even more of his naughty bits to the world before the end of their set.  The crowd was going crazy.  It was fun fun fun!

Next we caught some of Reverend Horton Heat's set, but it didn't really capture our attention all that much.  The same could be said about Social Distortion's set as well.  These bands all play well, but they're lacking that certain something that makes me want to care about them.  We spent most of the time during these sets eating the over-priced food that was for sale, and talking to the members of the Groovie Ghoulies (who unfortunately had the bad luck to be playing at the exact same time as X!)

When X finally came on the stage, we were all ready!  And man oh man, if they didn't even sound better than they did the previous day (as if that was humanly possible!)  The set even seemed longer than the July 4th one.  We were all thoroughly blown away by this show.  Oh boy, what a good time we had!  Unfortunately I have no pictures from the second day of the Hootenanny.  The security guards refused to let me bring my camera in, even though they let me bring it in the previous day.  And there were so many great photo ops this day - half naked Lux prancing around on the speakers.  A roadies big 'ole butt crack high up on the scaffolding above Billy Zoom's head as they took down one of the stages while X played.  Ah, so many Kodak memories.

We headed back to the endless highway system (take the 302 to the 101, then turn onto the 615, which becomes the 819, blah blah blah - how do you people do it?) to Bab's house for some dinner and shut-eye.  Ah, luxury accommodations at last!  Michelle and I were most grateful.  We drifted off into nod land.

DAY FOUR - July 6th
We decided on this day we would do some girlie things.  First things first.  I hadn't packed enough bras and needed another one.  We took the car into downtown L.A. in search of some sort of mall.  We knew they were around there somewhere.  Ah, but where?  We drove down Broadway, boy what an interesting street that was.  Very multi-cultural, lots of visual stimulation.  It looks like another world in this part of the city.  Turning just a couple of blocks to the north brought us back into the sterile downtown world.  We found a Macy's mall that seemed like the mall that time forgot.  Hardly anyone was here!  We found what we needed, and headed back to Silverlake.  On the way back, we passed the type of mall we thought we were going to find, the big glitzy, sparkly shiny mall of your dreams (or nightmares.)  Oh well.  I had my brassiere, I couldn't complain.

We hooked up with Babs and her friend Stacy for some thrift store shopping.  They took us to a Goodwill and a Salvation Army near an area called Frogtown, so named because it used to be over-run by frogs (not by French people, you dork!)  We also hit a great thrift store near Glendale where I was fortunate enough to find several new additions to my wardrobe.  We then decided that margaritas & Mexican food would hit the spot.  We ate & drank & talked girl talk - in other words we had a blast!  Later on, we headed over to Elysian Park (over-looking Dodger Stadium) where we took some lovely photos.

Thank you for reading this travelogue.
Yours , Helen

Thanks to everyone we met in Los Angeles for making this trip so enjoyable!

Thank you to Nick, Misty, Wedge, Stacy, Matt and Fred.
Special thanks to Billy Zoom, John Doe, Adam, and especially Babs for putting us up for several nights, and putting up with us!  We love you, babe!
 

Al's Bar
Endless Los Angeles
Gustoline
L.A. Cacophony Society