Lobotomy #5

I was recently able to procure a couple of copies of Pleasant Gehman’s legendarily notorious and notoriously legendary late 70s LA punk fanzine Lobotomy, thanks to the benevolence of an overseas Fanzine Hemorrhage reader who’d probably seen me faux-whining about all the great fanzines I’d never, ever see. And no, I’d never seen Lobotomy until 2024. I’d just read about it and seen it talked about in a few LA punk histories here and there. I knew it would be fun – I mean, Pleasant is fun, a woman whose picture appears in the dictionary next to the word “extrovert” and someone who’s basically been the personification of weird, eccentric, non-cinema Hollywood for over five decades now. Getting to read, hold and lovingly caress copies of her punk fanzine – for instance, this April 1978 Lobotomy #5 – is something I wasn’t sure would ever actually happen. 

You know it’s an early homespun labor of love when it’s only xeroxed on one side and stapled in the corner, much like my copies of San Francisco’s New Dezezes from the same era. Right up front there’s a gossip column, much like her “L.A.-De-Dah” society page I’d regularly read in the LA Weekly in the 80s. She’s so excited and so much is happening that even when the typewritten page hits its limit, she’s hand-scrawling breaking news in the margins, like “New Germs single on Slash Records is incredible!!!” (that’d be this one, and it is). Some other hand-picked nuggets from this page: “Romance: LEIF GARRETT and JOAN JETT – WOW!….Oklahoma punk group MULETTO is in town, playing around, and possibly recording for Dangerhouse….PHAST PHREDDIE is now working at Carl’s Jr. in Glendale….JOHNNY ROTTEN went to see THE MUMPS at The Whiskey and said they were great….DARBY CRASH and KATHY went to see BOWIE off at the airport….THE BAGS are banned from Orange County….i had a big giant birthday party at the tropicana….i was too drunk to remember anything but i wasn’t the only one making a fool of myself…”.

I just want to know: who can tell us anything about MULETTO??!?

Then there’s Theresa Kereakes photos from a Lobotomy benefit party at The Whiskey, including this one of The Flesheaters that I’d never seen before. Pleasant reviews some singles, including Generation X’s Ready Steady Go: “Well what if I’m in love? Whaddaya mean, ‘what if’? Before I start the review, I want you all to know that you’re invited when Bill and I tie the knot (eat your hearts out)”. She crosses out her name at the end of the review and hand-writes in “Mrs. William Idol” instead. A few pages later, there’s an interview with Bradley Field of NY’s Teenage Jesus and The Jerks. There’s a lot to pull out of this interview, including his admission that it’s 100% Lydia Lunch’s band; that he and anyone else could be easily replaced, and that she mostly just yells at them. But how about this part here:

L: So when did you move to NY?

B: I lived in Cleveland until about a year ago. I just used to go to New York all the time to visit, and I figured ‘What the heck, I should just stay here’. Cleveland was great, though. There wasn’t a big scene but they had good bands. Of course the Dead Boys, and Pere Ubu, but the best was the Electric Eels. The lead singer was a polio victim, and he was really helpless-looking. They used to have a lawnmower flying off the stage. I got tapes of them with the lawn mower flying off the stage and the audience screaming. The audience used to keep time by breaking bottles or banging their head against the wall. The first time they played they all got arrested. The singer came out all wrapped in barbed wire, the bass player had long silver hair and he was wearing a dress, and this was like five or six years ago!!!”

“Nancy Nitro” reviews her attendance at the UC-Irvine filming of the NBC TV show “The Rock and Roll Sports Classic”, which her friend Joan Jett and The Runaways were asked to participate in, along with the aforementioned Leif Garrett, plus members of ELO, Boston, Earth Wind & Fire and Rod Stewart. Wow. I mean, I remember these sports competition jigglefest shows from my childhood all too well – “Battle of the Network Stars” and so on. I was delighted to find the full episode of this one that aired on May 5th, 1978 here. You’ll absolutely want to see Joan Jett win the bike race, along with Tanya Tucker, some dude from The Commodores and Bowzer from Sha Na Na competing in the team endurance sprint. 

In fact, Jett herself writes in Lobotomy #5 about seeing X-Ray Spex at CBGB’s, on a live show page that also includes write-ups of springtime fiestas in LA with The Weirdos / The Bags / The Last and X / Black Randy & The Metrosquad / Arthur J and the Goldcups. Finally, one “K. Heights” gets to review a Lou Reed / Ian Dury and the Blockheads show and put a gravestone on Lou Reed’s career. “I feel his time to come has quietly stopped going. The whole band reeked of passivity and acceptance. I guess it’s time to call it quits”. What an issue. What a time to be young and drunk in Los Angeles.