Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk - Jon Doe with Tom DeSavia and Friends

X is releasing a final album and going on a farewell tour, and while final albums aren’t always final and farewell tours are almost never a farewell, I’m concerned enough they mean it to travel to Rochester on my own and see them while I still can. Buying my ticket got me in the mood to read a book I’d purchased years ago but hadn’t gotten around to until just now: Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk.

In my experience, a book authored by musician “with” another writer is usually little more than a biography in first person, the perspective belying the obvious distance of the actual subject to what’s being written. Here, though, the “and friends” gives a better hint of what the book is about. Rather than a straight up autobiographical account of Doe’s live before, during, and after X’s heyday, Under the Big Black Sun has the patchwork feel of an oral history, with musicians, writers, and scenesters contributing their own stories and perspectives on the unique scene that emerged in late 70s LA.

Doe gets the most page time, but in a way his parts are the least narrative of the book, focusing as they do on small moments and assuming (correctly, in my case) that the reader already knows the general story of the band. Most of the other contributors take the more traditional route, charting their arrival in LA and immersion into a small but rich musical scene, though the focus is almost always on the culture rather than the specific band, furthering the anthropological sense of the book. There are a couple of missteps, but for the most part the writers feel like earnest people wistfully recollecting a difficult but formative time in their lives. Contributors namecheck bands with frequency, and I came across a few artists I’d never heard of and now adore (Nightmare City by the Alley Cats is incredible). There were also bands I knew but had never associated with the punk scene (The Go-Go’s, really?).

As befitting an anthology, the book is a grab bag of styles, and while some went more florid than others, I found the whole thing well constructed and readable, with only a couple passages that struck me as indulgent and over-written.

Overall, a solid book for those interested in a scene that, while not launching many marquee names, undoubtedly influenced American music for the rest of the century.

The Seventies: A Look Ahead at the New Decade - Editors of the National Observer

Chantal bought this book ages ago at a church bazaar or rummage book sale, mostly as a sort of curio. I finally picked it up and read it the other day. The premise is pretty much spelled out by the title: a collection of essays penned by writers from the National Observer in early 1970, speculating on what was then the coming decade. Each chapter covers a different subject, and the topics are wide-ranging. Space exploration, the economy, politics, foreign policy, the environment each get a chapter, as do perhaps less expected fields, such as oceanography manners. One chapter predicts trends in the arts, and Vietnam, perhaps not surprisingly, gets a look in all to itself as well.

Having been born after the decade under speculation ended, it was interesting to look back at what the writers predicted, seeing where they were wildly off the mark and where they were prescient (sometimes almost eerily so). I could reflect more immediately on some chapters than others, based on my knowledge—it was pretty obvious what came true and what didn’t in the space and Viet Nam chapters, whereas in the medicine and oceanography chapters I could only say vaguely what came true and what didn’t (I know we have submersibles that can operate at 20,000 feet now, but did they begin operation in the 1970s as predicted? I have no idea).

Below, I’ve given a quick summary of what each chapter nailed and what it whiffed on, based on my recollections:

• Space Exploration: called GPS and satellite imagery, but wildly optimistic on moon colonies (supposed to be in operation by 1979. Oops)

• The Economy: no wild predictions, basically right on Keynesian Economics avoiding another depression.

• Medicine: my big takeaway here was how much was still on the horizon in 1970. Organ transplants were in their infancy, as were antidepressants (Lithium was the new big thing). Not sure if they really took off in the seventies, but they were right on the general trend.

• Foreign policy: more or less on target, except about Japan becoming a regional political power (they nailed it on their economic influence though).

• Lifestyle: ranging from the insane (see-through body stocking with modesty patches) to the prescient (modular construction to cut down on home costs).

• Vietnam: Humility in their predictions, as they made it clear they didn’t know, but erred on the optimistic side in assuming South Vietnam stood a chance.

• The Arts: Another chapter of home runs and strikeouts. Pretty much predicted punk (“In underground music, I think you’ll get a return to root forms, a sort of new classic approach to rock”) but completely wrong on cinema (predicted the doom of major studios and the continued rise of small, meaningful films at the expense of big budget epics. Someone didn’t see Jaws and Star Wars coming, that’s for sure).

• The environment: focused on pollution ,and right that it would be somewhat curbed. No sight of climate change yet.

• Oceanography: We didn’t get bubble stations on the ocean floor, sadly. The other stuff seemed more or less right, though I can’t speak to the timeline.

• Politics: Foresaw the death of the New Deal and the drift of the South, but prematurely buried the two-party system.

• Education: nascent view of technology in schools.

• Travel: They were right about trains in the US, that’s for sure.

• Manners and Mores: Nothing too outré. Saw the slow decline of religiosity.

• America’s Reputation: This was more about its current reputation than speculating on the future.

Not a bad grade, overall. A few big misses, but the writers were clearly thoughtful in their speculation. Not something I’m likely to reread, but was worth picking up for sure.