#dgeneration

The Black Halos “How The Darkness Doubled”

The Black Halos “How The Darkness Doubled” There are some bands who remain a mystery to the masses but in their own genre and amongst their peers have a legendary status. In our humble opinion, The Black Halos are one of those bands. Indeed when you are thinking about albums that really epitomise the whole glam/punk ethic (glunk) then “The Violent Years” must be up there. Any fears that the…

Howie Pyro was a jewel, a true lifer of the wild. A total inspiration to anyone who scoffs at the notion you have to stop being an over-excited teenager. Really thought he'd make it through his health troubles. But damn, what a ton of fun he crammed into the years he graced the streets. 

Myself, Howie, Danny Krohau at the Gories show, NYC, 2010

Hung with Howie a few times over the years. Always funny, droll with that drawl, and chatting out integral trash culture nuggets as easy as you or I burp up lunch. So very glad I decided to go to the surprise King Khan & BBQ show at Home Sweet Home in NYC back around 2019. Howie was in town, he was holding court at a back table, and we had a proper chat through the noise, with the noise really...

In the early ‘90s, Howie and Dgeneration bandmate, Jesse Malin, started doing parties at their pad and at (now gone) St. Marks club, Coney Island High, called “Greendoor.” I remember us New Bomb Turks hearing about them, slipped into a couple that were super fun. Essentially -- and this is very hard to explain today to a post-iPod, genre-blended generation -- but those parties spun records from all over the uber-raw rock map. Bouncing a lost rockabilly track right off a new punk band 7″ next to a Ronettes song and after that a Black Flag track then some insane old early ‘60s peeler club tune, Stooges, Cheap Trick, New York Dolls, James Brown, forgotten power pop, and right back to a new punk band that played in town last week... 

(GreendoorNYC fliers courtesy Howie Pyro)

By ostensibly just trying to meld all trash-sounds coolness into a wild night out, they basically coalesced the kind of attitude that the bands in my book, We Never Learn, understood in our bones (but could rarely find, outside the Crypt catalog) -- that cool music isn’t “old” or “new” or set into one genre, but is simply COOL, WILD, NOW, FOREVER! And it’s the style most great rock’n’roll DJs ubiquitously spin now, but believe me, was not at all easy to find in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s. Extremely influential.

Howie and me outside the Seeds documentary premiere, Brooklyn, 2014 - Photo by my great friend Maria Asher

I am positive Howie is already making his mark in the next plane.

"I have spent every waking hour of my life pursuing my obsessions, which is an art in itself." - Howie Pyro

One of the great punk photos ever - Howie and pals at the Palace Hotel, Bowery, NYC, 1977, cutting hair with a lighter. - Photo by the great Godlis

R.I.P. Howie, and thanks for all the fun...

Wyldlife “Year of The Snake”

Wyldlife “Year of The Snake”

We loved Wyldife’s last album (https://thesoulofaclown.com/2017/12/27/wyldlife-out-on-your-block/) so were excited to hear this new release. Let’s face it, they certainly have the ‘cool credentials’ you’d want from a band given they hail from New York and are on Stevie Van Zandt’s Wicked Cool label. That’s even before we start drooling over their promise of an…