My Damage - Keith Morris

 

Keith Morris is, of course, the original lead singer for Black Flag, the Circle Jerks and many, many other congregations over the years. His story is also the story of west coast punk rock, although he was in the southern beach areas and not living in Hollywood, so he wasn't involved in the day-to-day of the very first wave of punk rock in LA, but he made up for it by immersing himself and his bands in the scene as soon as he was able.

After moving around the country for his first few years, his family settled in SoCal and his dad opened a bait shop that Keith worked in/helped out with off'n'on for a number of years. Early on he saw Love, the Barbarians, Iggy and the Stooges, David Bowie, Steppenwolf and more - he certainly had great taste in music - think he still does! A Thin Lizzy concert with Greg Ginn was their impetus to form a band, although it had nothing to do with Lizzy's music, even though they dug that. Ginn was writing songs and initially asked Keith to be the drummer but after a spazzed-out lip-syncing performance to the Stooges while hanging out with friends, Greg declared that Keith had to be the lead singer! 

As with any band, there were some false starts and it was difficult getting their initial gigs - even with the Hollywood scene already blooming, they were initially trying to play around their beach areas. Greg already had a business named Solid State Transmitters that morphed into SST Records so that Black Flag could put out a record. Things started moving pretty quickly after that and their shows would have hundreds of people (at times, anyway) and they made friends with other beach area bands like the Last (Keith says they were a big influence on Black Flag and I understand that, because of the times) and the Tourists, who included Jeff and Steve McDonald, who soon formed Redd Kross.

Of course, he goes into the violent attitude the police had towards the punks - although the cops hated all of the underground music - I got hassled for having long hair just like the punks did for short hair! He also details some of the asshole-y shenanigans of the punks, as well, including himself - things that did turn me off about some of them at the time - as well as the influx of unwanted (even by many of the bands) jocks into the scene who turned fun, faux-violence into the real thing and shunted many of the original fans out of the scene.

(A funny aside - Keith mentions a gig at the Music Machine with a band called Megadeath, which was a metal parody band, not the famous serious metal band, and Thee Fourgiven was on that bill! I have a flier and always wondered if that was the band that went on to fame'n'fortune - guess not!).

In between the various bands - some oddball projects that didn't go as far as some of the others - Keith had various jobs, including his time at Millie's, one of our favorite breakfast spots while we lived in Silverlake, which he blames his diabetes on! He sickness nearly killed him, but thankfully he managed to get it under control, he sobered up, he started new projects, new gigs and seems to be fairly centered in his life right now.

Definitely a fun read, particularly for those who lived the LA scene or simply love it. Get it!