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In
2002 an old friend, or I should say brother of mine, came
to an office I had in Fresno’s Tower District with a
shoe box full of 80’s punk photos from the local scene.
It had been fifteen years since I had seen most of the people
in those photos. I was mesmerized by the dazzled feeling of
time travel that I walked through that afternoon. Many of
the photos were of friends that are now long dead and buried,
or of youthful faces before the harsh destruction of a lifetime
of drug addiction set in. I started Punk Story.com with that
bunch of photographs. It was my intention to share our photographs,
stories, ticket stubs, flyers and original video footage,
with each other, and the world.
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I came rather late into the
punk rock lifestyle in late 1983 (at the age of 13!), after
the initial punk movement of the 1970’s had paved the
way for the second wave of punk kids. Even though our teenage
years were filled with raucous behavior, anti-social attitudes,
drugs, violence and immorality on the one hand, there was
also an intense political awareness, enlightened cynicism
and acute sophistication of the world on the other hand, more
than most other young people in America at that time. Moreover,
with the ever present threat of nuclear exchange between the
USSR and the USA, punk rock offered a haven to many of us
in times that were uncertain and fearful. Some were first
drawn to punk rock by the revolutionary music that was so
new, so intense, so exciting, and which seemed to be speaking
directly to us individually. Others came seeking a family,
and they found one for life.
I have no other intention
other than to piece together a shared memory of the early
punk scene in Fresno and outlying areas like Madera, Bakersfield,
and Visalia.
Please contact me if you have
photos, flyers and video. I am especially at this point looking
for video footage from the 1970’s through to 1989. I
will simply copy your film to digital format and will give
you back the original unharmed. Photographs and flyers will
be quickly scanned and the originals are given back to you.
It is my hope to put together a documentary that will combine
interviews and original footage. If you have any materials
that will help this project please contact me.
mypunkstory@hotmail.com
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