Today marks an epoch in Punk history. The Iron Lady, who fueled the outrage an era of incredible punk fury, died today of a stroke at the age of 87. Not to get nostalgic, but let’s take a trip down memory lane from some anarcho to anti-peace punk to a Killed By Death hit…

Interview by Amelia

Vegan chef Joshua Ploeg (photo by Larry Bob)

I reviewed your zine Fire & Ice for MRR a year or so ago. Can you speak a little about that zine? Have you done any since?
That little guy is mostly spicy recipes, with some alcoholic beverages and vegan ice creams and sorbets. Essentially I did it so that Microcosm would have something of mine on tap and then we could do a cookbook together. It was later reprinted in its current form. Cute little thing, with a few amusing typos.

Can you explain your lifestyle as a traveling vegan chef? How do you survive? Where is your home base?
Home base is at the moment a storage unit in Los Angeles. I travel around booking and cooking for dinner parties, catering, special events and take out from people’s houses. Sometimes vend at shows. I have to book and promote myself so it can be a bit sporadic and I go everywhere on transit and rideshare. Crazy, sometimes long and unpredictable trips but I get by enough that I’ve been doing it for 10 years!

Any weird scenarios you’ve found yourself in as a traveling chef, sometimes going into strangers’ homes who are more friends of friends of friends of friends…ever meet any real weirdos?
Weirdos? Sure! The guy who said “the hurricane happens at 3 o’clock” and then these industrial fans turned on and blew around paper chains and stacks of paper, orange peels and plastic buckets for three minutes all over the apartment comes to mind. The “you’re cooking for 200 people and we have no gear, two burners don’t work and there is one shop light and christmas lights for lighting” incident comes to mind. The people having a three-way on the Greyhound across the aisle in the middle of the night while the woman’s children were sitting behind her playing with a light up singing teddy bear and there was occasional farting comes to mind. It’s all weird! You never know what the situation will be when you get there or even on the way there. I’ve been stranded more than a few times.

Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live! (photo by Elsbeth Perry)

Have you had any really magical experiences living this way?
Yes, always fun to make a fabulous meal that never happens again—live in the moment! I love the people I meet and many of them have become great friends or regulars. I feel comfortable in almost any city, I love that, and have developed a great deal of patience and immunity to boredom and waiting around, which is convenient. It’s a beautiful world, I still love seeing something new even when I’m in a place for what seems like the hundredth time! I like to shop where people in the town shop—at the little mercados, the big discount markets and the curious little stores and interesting produce bonanzas—it is a bit unglamorous, but really, why bother if you are going to the same chain supermarkets that are everywhere or that affluent people shop at?

What do you think of serving others and contributing and enhancing others’ experiences and relationship with food?
Well it wouldn’t be at all fulfilling if that wasn’t such a huge part of it.

Is your way of living in accordance with DIY punk ethics?
Sometimes, but I do expect to get money—but that can be a verrrrrry sliding scale! Also I like when I can be freed to do trades and benefits, that is nice to be able to contribute something or accommodate people with lower budgets. Clients and I are equals and plan events together and there is no “boss” so that’s good. I guess I don’t really make any claims of how DIY or ethical this is in general, it’s more of a “happening” that sometimes coordinates with that mentality. Food is complex and I wouldn’t recommend playing holier than thou with the ethics of it, there’s always something lurking in the chain of events that is probably questionable.

How did you get into being food conscious?
I was at home alone a lot and wanted to eat something interesting and also offer that to guests and visitors as sort of an experiment in proper hospitality.

How old were you when you became vegan?
I was 20 but I go back and forth between vegan and vegetarian. It has been 21 years! I old!

Joshua Ploeg servin’ it up (photo by Faythe Levine)

I understand you’ve been in a band or two. Can you give us some background?
Yeah, several hardcore/queercore bands I sang for: Behead the Prophet, Mukilteo Fairies, Lords of Lightspeed, Warm Streams, played the drums in Kiss Me Kill Me, did some noise (Standard Operating Procedure) and also a bit of chanting and folk singing under my name or “Sanctuary of Sound/Sanctuary Studios” which was supposed to be weird and aggravating and it was! Currently I’m in Select Sex (hardcore band from LA) and Behead the Prophet is playing a few shows this month. And I have Woozards and Wootches which is noise and I guess tropical black metal.

When is your reunion?
This week! Should be fun; Eric from Noggin will be playing in Michael’s place (on his violin!). It’s really more of a cathartic occurrence and group awakening than a reunion if I may be so bold. Olympia, Bellingham, Portland and Seattle are the places we’re playing, a big northwest hootenanny. The Need, Thrones, JonnyX and the Groadies, Hysterics, Body Betrayal, Disemballerina and Federation X are all in on it, a nice once in a blue moon treat.

What are your future plans?
More cookbooks with various publishers, more traveling and eventually a nice vegan salon/bed and breakfast, microbrewery/winery and small organic farm out in the country (but not too far) that people can come hang out at. Count on it!

What is the best way for our fellow vegan readers to get in touch with you and host you or to get their hands on your zine?
Get the zines and cookbooks by checking/ordering from your local bookstore. Or get them online from Microcosm or whoever happens to have them. Email is the way to reach me (thetravelingchef {at} gmail(.)com). I have a blog (joshuaploeg.blogspot.com) and a Facebook (it’s personal and business so ya have to put up with all of my videos and pontificating and baseball as well), but whatevah!
Thanks for the chat!

Hey Spanish Maximum Rocknrollers, you still have another week to check out “Perder la Forma Humana”, an awesome exhibition about political art in Latin America at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid through March 11th! More info can be found at the museum’s website. And for the rest of us that can’t be there, check out this video — the exhibit looks amazing!!

UPDATE: The organizers of this even contributed a special Latin American punk episode to MRR Radio. Check it out here!

If you are in SF Saturday! Come out!

In 1977, in the wilds of Essex, Dave King created a logo for his friend Penny’s impassioned manifesto: “Christ’s Reality Asylum.” Later that same year, he moved to the US. He now lives in San Francisco, where he works as a graphic artist and photographer. In the intervening 34 years, what became the Crass symbol has been emblazoned on records, flags, clothing and human bodies. This exhibit will be the first time the artist has shown original sketches for the logo, alongside alternate versions and contemporary “remixes.” Editions will be available for some of these designs.

TWO EVENTS:

First, the opening on Saturday, November 5th, from 6-9pm.

Second, on Sunday, November 6th, from 12-5pm, we will be holding a PUBLIC STENCIL EVENT. We will be offering FREE on-site logo spray painting. Bring your jacket, your shirt, your skateboard or your best flat surface and we will make you a piece of art.

Goteblüd, 766 Valencia, San Francisco
Hours Saturday/Sunday 12-5pm

Kevin J. Mahoney, the former vocalist of Siege, passed away on Friday October 14^th. The official cause of death has not been reported, but it is believed to have been sudden.

Mahoney was born on September 6^th, 1965, and played saxophone in a ska band before joining Kurt Habelt, Henry McNamee and Rob Williams to complete the line-up of Siege. The band’s first official show was at a “Battle of the Bands” in the spring of 1984 at their Weymouth, MA high school, where they were disqualified when McNamee smashed his bass onstage.

Although the band’s members lived in and near Braintree, MA (near Boston and also home to Jerry’s Kids and Gang Green), the band was never fully accepted by the XClaim-dominated Boston hardcore scene. They were definitely not lacking sonically, however, playing furious music at breakneck speed and pioneering a new style of brutal and nihilistic hardcore.

In 1984, Siege went into Radiobeat studios to record a demo with Lou Giordano. The tape made its way through the hardcore punk underground, and clearly made an impression on Pushead for one, who included Siege on his seminal 1985 compilation Cleanse the Bacteria. The band split up the same year, and the three songs on Cleanse the Bacteria were to be the only “official” release by the band, until Relapse and Deep Six reissued the demo on CD and vinyl in 1994 and 2006, respectively.

At the time of his passing, Kevin was working in the IT department at Children’s Hospital Boston, where he had served in many capacities in his several years there. Prior to Children’s, Kevin worked for many years – beginning in 1992 – in the IT department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.

Hey Punx! Here’s an unashamed cry for crowd-sourced help for the encyclopaedically minded among you. I’m working on a selected discography of all/majority-female, specifically hardcore, punk bands from 1980 thru now. It’s to accompany a chapter about the very same thing in a neat book called Women Make Noise coming out on an independent publisher in the not-too-distant future.

Amy Pickering of Fire Party at 924 Gilman (Photo by Matt Bokovoy)

There’s really not that much published on women in hardcore punk explicitly, which is why I’ve been asked to do this, and I chose 1980 because that’s when (according to those pesky dominant narratives, which we like to avoid, right?) punk is supposed to have mutated into “a violent mosh fest that made all punk women ever give it up to go play keyboards in a new wave band” (ahem, I paraphrase, but you know…)

While I’m plugging the internet depths, maybe there are some gems that you play every day that I’ll have missed, or a local band that never got out of town which should totally make this list because they plain ruled… or indeed maybe a new band that’s blown your mind with lady rage recently?

If so — comment! They don’t need to have internet presence necessarily, and can be from any country and any era, as long as they recorded something – but the more info you care to give the better. When the list done, it’ll be shared here, of course! If you want to know more, or feel like sending me your awesome suggestions and MP3s or anything like that: bryonybeynon AT gmail.com !

I first met Keli’i Beyer when my band flew to Oahu for a weekend of shows. He welcomed me, along with his roommates, into his home. I was struck by his intellect and passion towards Hawai’i. We spent a couple afternoons arguing and passionately debating ideas and we’ve become friends since then. When I was reminded that I should contribute some things to MRR’s website, I thought of Keli’i, and this is the conversation that took place over a few days.

—Steve Hart

Keli'i Beyer getting arrested in NYC

MRR: I know that you have been involved in a lot of different groups — especially working with domestic violence. How did you get involved with that and when did you start?

Keli’i: I’ve been a domestic violence educator now for about six years, working with the Domestic Violence Action Center here in Honolulu. My job is to talk with intermediate, high school, and sometimes college, students about the aspects of violent relationships, and how to help friends/family stay safe or get out of these dangerous situations. Initially, through my work with various community activism (i.e., anti-war protests, environmental issues, human rights campaigns, Cultural Native Hawaiian activism, promotion of gay/LGBT rights, as well as the issue of pro-choice and women’s reproductive rights), I was introduced to the appropriate networks and landed a job as an educator in the DV field (domestic violence). I try to use my experiences working with community organizations and activism as a way to connect the various issues of oppression evident here in Hawaii, and connect the dots about why these issues occur in the first place. This includes, but is not limited to, the overt militarism and history of land stewardship in Hawaii; having an economy that relies solely on tourism and the military (and how that keeps us reliant on the US for resources, food and energy, rather than a “homegrown,” sustainable and uniquely cultural approach); the sense of heightened nationalism post-9/11 (and how this influences our attitude towards American interaction with the rest of the world), and importantly, understanding how the collective cultures here in Hawaii can affect our relationships with one another, especially around ideas of race, gender, and overall identity…

MRR: Did you go to school (college) in order to do this?

Keli’i: I was actually raised in Chicago, and moved to Hawaii in 1998 to attend the University of Hawaii (and because this is the only place i ever wanted to live, even growing up). I always knew that I’d like to study art in college, but really had no idea what I would do with it. Since both my parents are teachers, I always kinda figured I’d end up doing something similar, though really had no idea until I graduated from UH in 2005 and got my job at the Domestic Violence Action Center (at which point I had already been working as an art educator with the Honolulu Academy of Arts, so that was putting my art education background to use). I think being educated in a creative field such as art has given me the mentality that it’s more important to gain awareness and experience through life, than to seek making a quick buck at the expense of those around me (including my friends and family, the larger community, and globally, through limiting the detrimental impact I might have on the planet).

MRR: How has being kanaka (Native Hawaiian) affected you growing up here and what advice would you give young kids who are kanaka and have a hard time struggling with identity?

Keli’i: I am a part Hawaiian, and have always identified more with my Hawaiian heritage growing up (since my dad was a proud Hawaiian, and my mom died when I was a little kid, therefore cutting off most ties to that side of my family). Living on the mainland and feeling really connected to the island culture is hard, as there’s not only a physical disconnect living way in the Midwest, but there’s also a major cultural disconnect as well. It’s really difficult being a kid who’s interested in Hawaiian cultural identity, being surrounded by a society that simply views Hawaii as that “magical tourist destination,” where all Hawaiians live in grass huts on the beach, husk coconuts for a living, and surf and do hula all day long (even more annoying when I hear that from tourists coming here for the first time, expecting all locals to cater to their beck and command). It was important to have this identity, but also discomforting to move to Hawaii and realize how little I actually knew about my heritage. As well, it was kinda sad to see how kids here in the islands take for granted what a truly special and unique culture they have here. I was also really surprised how little the majority of “locals” actually knew about their host culture, the Kanaka Maoli. If anything, there seems to be this idea that if you live in Hawaii, then you’re a Hawaiian. Whenever I hear that type of mentality, it always makes me cringe, for it’s almost like saying a whole group of people that lived here for centuries matter very little in the larger scheme of things (even though, ironically, these indigenous “Hawaiians” got to these islands through a series of Polynesian and Micronesian migrations over a couple thousand years).

It’s definitely helped me understand more about my role as an activist and educator, to see what struggles face our people, and where the majority of these troubles are coming from. But it’s dually important that I can educate others about the history of the Hawaiian Islands, and how that history continues to affect us today (through economics, religious disparity, loss of culture and the struggle to regain access to the past; drugs/alcohol/crime/poverty/homelessness, land issues, and a whole slew of other issues). Any advice I have for fellow Hawaiians is to understand more about where we came from, so we can begin the healing process, move forward and grow from the mistakes and lessons the past has taught us. I absolutely love the fact that spoken Hawaiian language has seen a resurgence, and I would definitely advocate that more Kanaka Maoli take part in learning and teaching their language, as well as the other aspects of Hawaiian culture that will help us move ahead.

For me, a lot of this has come from taking part biannually in a religious ceremony called makahiki, which I attend on the island of Kaho’olawe. For those that don’t know, this is a small island that was used by the US military as a bombing range for over 60 years. In ancient times, this island was seen as the center of the Hawaiian island chain, and was the most important place for young Hawaiians to learn about navigation and the celestial “map” they used to guide their travels throughout the Pacific. To see an island as culturally significant as Kaho’olawe relegated to target practice by an institution like the US military is a constant source of pain for me (and many other Hawaiians), and I utilize this pain as a source of inspiration to maintain diligence in my pursuit to teach others about our struggle, and as a source of hope for the future. To continue the healing process that has begun on Kaho’olawe and elsewhere throughout Hawaii, there is much work still to be done.

MRR: It’s important to me that people hear the truth from the kanaka and it’s very rare that this is told in punk rock circles. A follow up question, do you think that it’s hard to be kanaka and be involved in punk rock? Do you get shit from the other side of that? Do you see a connection between the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and punk rock anarcho-type politics?

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