On Friday, October 24, 1980, NBC news magazine show Tomorrow sent their cameras to an east Hollywood club to document a gig headlined by Black Flag, at the band’s own invitation. Guitarist Greg Ginn was tired of his band being harassed by the LAPD, and hoped that the presence of a national TV crew at the Bace's Hall show might deter the cops from clashing with Black Flag fans, and prematurely shutting down their gig, as had been happening with wearying predictability in their home town.
Instead, the TV cameras got explosive footage of another violent confrontation between punk rock kids and the authorities at the close of Black Flag’s performance.
Skateboarder Steve Alba was one of the those in attendance, and in music writer Stevie Chick’s Black Flag biography Spray Paint The Walls, he recounted his memories of the evening.
“Tension was building as the police went on tactical alert,” Alba recalled. “The punks were ‘Seig Heil’-saluting the LAPD, trying to goad the cops into attacking. The police commander blew the whistle to clear the area. All hell broke loose, like the riot scene in the movie Quadrophenia, cops beating down everybody in sight with billy clubs, shotguns, mace, water-hoses, you name it. Some girl next to me got a club to the head, and blood spurted out like a geyser… It was like a war with no bullets. Instead, it was punches, kicks, bites, tears, knives, rocks, batons, sticks…”
The Tomorrow Show’s report on the gig, the ensuing violence, and by extension, America’s “punk rock situation” was introduced with grave solemnity, making it all the more amusing to modern ears.
“Punk has it’s own history, it has been around since 1978, maybe earlier”, a voiceover informs America, a curious introduction given that the Sex Pistols had already split by mid-January 1978. Worse was to come when The Tomorrow Show's viewers were informed that the genre had “it's own surprising heroes”, specifically Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler and cult leader Rev. Jim Jones.
“But many of these rebels are our own children," the voiceover continues. “The majority of punks seem to be young WASPs who masquerade at night in leather and chains yet retreat by the light of day back into the fabric of our society as students, waiters, you name it.”
After namechecking the Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, the report cuts to footage from Black Flag's show, with violent clashes between police and punks, and then to a Los Angeles TV studio, where host Rona Barrett has convened a panel of three local punks, Black Flag bassist Chuck Dukowski, punk band manager Daphne Vendetta, and photo-journalist Gary Leonard for a discussion on the genre.
“Could you tell me what was just happening there?” Barrett asks. “Was that blood on the floor? And what was that 'Sieg Heil, Seig Heil'? That to me brings up the Nazi movement. Is the punk movement part of the Nazi movement?”
“No, the police, that's the Nazi movement,” Chuck Dukowski answers calmly. “It's a pre-emptive effort to stop the shows. It started two years ago, there was a gig in LA at the Elk's Lodge... the police came, no provocation whatsoever, and made an effort to stop the gig... a phalanx of armed officers came through and beat the living crap out of a lot of kids, and told them never to come back."
“Why are the police against you?” asks Barrett.
“I think it's because they're scared,” comes the reply.
Watch the ensuing entertaining discussion unfold below:
