The Parallel Lines Parallel Lives Project has completed its particular journey.

It has spawned the WAR STORIES project, which recounts the experiences of two L.A. punk girls in the wild nascent days of punk rock, 1976 and onwards.  Follow their adventures in their live shows where they discuss Lobotomy fanzine and from there, a traveling photo exhibit and a new podcast

Follow our journey!

On March 9, 2015, we will be at The Stone Fox in Nashville, TN for an evening of reminiscing the great year 1978, a little show & tell, complete with live music from Warren & The Gospel of Power (Matt Bach, Ben Martin, Matt Swanson).

2014 - Updates and the Journey so far

On October 21, Warren Pash was presented with an award from SOCAN (they were happy enough to tweet about it! )

Warren and Theresa Kereakes have created a multimedia presentation to suit a variety of forums and venues (entertainment; education; business-to-business; cultural).  Their project, Parallel Lines Parallel Lives debuted a year ago in an early form as 1978 RPM.  Local coverage of the project helped to create a buzz, and a more comprehensive program has grown since.

Parallel Lines Parallel Lives examines exactly what its name suggests.  It is the first-hand account of how two career creatives, a musician and a photographer, lived parallel lives and forged parallel paths during the 20th Century's last exciting cultural upheaval - punk rock - while maintaining both peer-group cultural currency and their unique identities.

The dots that connect their story are Warren's music, both original and covered (recorded for this project) and Theresa’s photography, which are the featured entertainment components of the project.  Part oral history, part Q&A, part show & tell, the presentation has already caught the attention of law professors in the area of Intellectual Property programs, vis a vis issues of attribution, authorship and veracity in the digital age.  The intersection of technology, the arts and intellectual property is an important one where Warren and Theresa offer valuable, real-life insights and commentary on the state of matters in this tricky balance.

At the core of Parallel Lines Parallel Lives is a 5-song recording of punk rock songs by Warren, backed by notable Nashville musicians Matt Bach, Ben Martin and Matt Swanson (together, they are The Gospel of Power)  that illustrate and help drive a narrative to a series of Theresa’s photos.  Both the music and the images are from 1978, which is the year each of them made their creative beginning in Los Angeles.  Warren recorded the tracks during a 5-hour party, live to tape at the Bomb Shelter in Nashville with producer Andrija Tokic completely in the DIY/analog spirit of 1978. There was a photo exhibit installed in-situ, with the pictures of the artists whose music was being covered displayed as if they were family pictures.

Despite the DIY/family spirit of things, the collective pedigree of this group impresses.  Warren Pash, while best known as a writer of the international hit for Hall & Oates, “Private Eyes,” is a rock n roll performer in his own right and produced the final album by pop music’s legendary iconoclast, Tupper Saussy.  Theresa Kereakes is a world-class photographer, filmmaker and television producer with album covers and awards that span decades.  The Gospel of Power is the loose congregation of Nashville's veteran underground rock musicians who play and record with Dave Cloud.  

 (l-r: Andrija Tokic, Ben Martin, Warren Pash, Matt Swanson, Matt Bach; 

photo: theresa kereakes)

Recording with Warren for the Parallel Lines Parallel Lives EP are GOP members Matt Bach (guitar/Cheetah Chrome Band), Matt Swanson (bass/Lambchop) and Ben Martin (drums/Bonnie Prince Billy).  Andrija Tokic owns and operates the analog Bomb Shelter Studios in Nashville, and has produced Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Ettes and many more.

What's Past is Prologue

William Shakespeare wrote that in "The Tempest," his play from 1610.  Punk rock's most visible mouthpiece, Johnny Rotten wrote the refrain "No future" in the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" and reiterated in the press what The Clash proclaimed,  "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977."

Punk got one thing right - no more Elvis in 1977, but could Johnny Rotten have predicted no Sex Pistols in 1978 or that during that year the Rolling Stones would have a hit record incorporating punk rock strains?  1978 is the intersection where the past exploded into the future and to this day, leaves a cultural mark.

Our friends at the East Nashvillian know that too; they kick off 2014 not only with a nice piece on us, ( and we are thrilled!) but they share our rallying cry:  "the past informs our present and our future."

(19)78 RPM: Memoirs from an Analog Life

They’re in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, they’ve got Grammy Awards, and some of them are household names.  But in 1978, Blondie’s Debbie Harry, The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, Joan Jett, Belinda Carlisle, The Ramones and Billy Idol were all gritty young rockers hanging out elbow to elbow in sweaty night club backrooms with their friends.

Among those friends:  a California native, photographer Theresa Kereakes and a songwriter born and raised in Winnipeg and Montreal, Canada, Warren Pash.  In 1978, unbeknownst to one another, they attended the same concerts, and forged parallel youthful paths towards their artistic goals.

One such coincidence: a 1978 photo Theresa took at a regular house party hosted by her neighbor Joan Jett, flanked by a visiting Billy Idol catapulted both the photographer and her local scene into international press; at the same time, Warren was appearing in the movie FOXES alongside Jodie Foster and Jett's band-mate in The Runaways, Cherie Currie.

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Theresa’s fly-on-the-wall documentary photographs of her musician friends were gaining worldwide attention.  A photo taken backstage at the Whisky A Go Go in 1980 of the then-Monday-night-residents Huey Lewis & The News became the cover of their 1997 Greatest Hits album, Time Flies. By 1981, after paying his dues playing grimy rock n roll bars, he’d penned the Number One hit song, “Private Eyes” for Daryl Hall and John Oates, after meeting Daryl at Madame Wong’s punk rock club.

Artists ranging from Carole King to Patti LuPone have covered Warren's songs.  His Los Angeles band, Laughing Sam's Dice included punk legend, Paul Cutler (45 Grave) and Mark Walton (Dream Syndicate). As a  performer and founder of Plastic Rulers, he has shared the stage with Lucinda Williams, Cheap Trick, The Pixies, Todd Rundgren, The Waterboys, Roger McGuinn, Jeff Healy, and Big Star, and has played bass with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and the late Rosco Gordon, and has appeared on the Conan O’Brien Show.  Warren’s current solo project has him working with Goffrey Moore (Brian Blade), Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire), Bryan Owings (Tony Joe White), and Jim Oblon (Paul Simon).  Theresa feels, however, that Warren's coolest project was his work with pop music's legendary Tupper Saussy.

Kereakes’ career in the visual arts embraces moving as well as still pictures, highlighted by a stint as the producer of some of VH1’s most iconic and award-winning programs (Storytellers, Legends, and VH1 to One, which was George Harrison’s last public appearance.)  Since launching her photoblog, punkturns30 in 2005, Theresa has taken her photos on a never-ending traveling exhibit that culminated in her work being included in Christie's Auction House's Pop Culture Auction of 2009.  With several record covers to her credit, the latest is the 2014 release of Pittsburgh’s Nox Boys on Get Hip Recordings.

Today, Warren and Theresa are Nashville neighbors with only an alleyway dividing them and (19)78 RPM uniting them.

1978 was the year when punk found a way into both disco and classic rock. Blondie’s  single, "Heart of Glass” was a hit on the dance floor and pop charts. The Rolling Stones gave punk rock a nod with tracks like “Shattered” from their Some Girls album.  The sine qua non of punk, The Sex Pistols greeted 1978 by breaking up in January after their tour of the USA, and later  marked the 30th Anniversary of the release of their only album by snubbing the ceremony inducting them into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.

Pop Culture has always celebrated its own - from the stage show "Beatlemania" (an incredible simulation) to the scores of bio-pics and tribute bands around the world, the phenomenology of nostalgia has become big business. In the 21st Century, reflecting on the glorious history of its past, the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame,  as well as colleges and universities are offering courses of study, seminars and lectures on the topic and spectacle of Rock n Roll and Punk Rock specifically (The School of the Art Institute of Chicago offers a course in Punk Rock 101 ! Middle Tennessee State University has their Center for Popular Music).

More and more consumers, ranging from fans to the simply curious are joining alongside cultural scholars to dig deep for evidence from the early days of this movement looking for a story behind how and why rock n roll’s rebellious nature continues to be a dominant force in contemporary culture.


(19)78 RPM is an audio-visual record and oral history as seen and told by Kereakes and Pash – a chronological journey where photos, live music and memory combine like a Ken Burns documentary come to life.  Together, they reminisce, testify and analyze their own lives within the context of the era and the trajectory of the intersection of rock n roll pioneers, their friends, fans and the celebrities, who like the beautiful people of Andy Warhol’s ‘60s, came to revitalize their “street cred” by slumming with the “stars of tomorrow” in the gritty backstage environs of Hollywood Blvd. and the Sunset Strip in the Year That Changed Pop Culture – 1978.

In their presentation, Theresa’s images and Warren’s musical interpretations provide a taste of music history as it was being made, and as seen and heard from the inside, as both participants and witnesses.

As they read aloud from and offer responses to music reviews from rock magazines published in 1978, Theresa and Warren put a whole new spin on the meaning of a seminar/Q&A !  Their program reflects with 20/20 hindsight and clarity how the underground has always informed what the general public would be doing in the near future.

PRESS

The East Nashvillian Issue 21, Jan-Feb 2014