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.
