The Daily Swarm

From Flea’s LA Times piece:

Brendan Mullen had a lot of friends. I was one of them.

Variety:

Brendan Mullen, the promoter-entrepreneur who founded Hollywood’s legendary punk rock launching pad the Masque, died Monday in Los Angeles hospital after suffering a massive stroke.

Fishbowl LA:

We’ve just received news that author, DJ, punk-rock pioneer and archivist Brendan Mullen has suffered a serious stroke. He is currently in the ICU and not expected to survive. More details as we get them – right now we’re just busy being heartsick.

The Stranger:

For anyone with an interest in L.A.‘s budding pre-punk culture, or fringe-music culture in general, Brendan Mullen’s book We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk is required reading—as is his book on the Germs (Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs). Mullen, owner of original L.A. punk club the Masque, is not only a documentarian on the thriving misfit culture, he also lived within it, and still plays music as both a DJ and in an instrumental duo. I could print pages on Mullen’s unique take on the role of “punk” within the music community, but this is what we have space for—the rest you’ll have to ask him about in person.

What words of inspiration can you give to the next generation looking to start something unique?

Beware of hard-line punk fundamentalism with rules and dogma, like that weird veganist hardcore anarcho-hippie punk thing. Keep record companies out of it. Always make the records yourself and put the time into figuring out distribution. Also, punk DOES NOT OWE YOU A CAREER OR A LIVING. It’s not necessarily your “big opportunity” to get into the music biz. It’s all about creating music entirely for yourself, your family, your friends. No rules. No stereotyping. Your interpretation of punk should be completely open-ended and subjective according to your experiences. Punk is basically suburban “folk music.” Anybody should be able to get in on it, just like a bunch of grisly Appalachian billy goats sitting around their porches playing banjos and fiddles.

Swindle Magazine:

Brendan found[ed] the Masque space in 1977 while looking for a place to practice on his varied collection of percussion instruments, which included bells, gongs, shakers, a vibraphone, two trap drum sets, and a timpani set. “After being thrown in jail following noise complaints from a neighbor who lived above me,” Brendan claims, “I was out looking for a storefront, a warehouse, a garage, or something, anything where me and my friends could be left alone to blast music really loud and have insane freeform jams.” His search landed him in the basement of an office building on Hollywood Boulevard. He rented out the space he wasn’t using “at such rock-bottom monthly prices, even punk bands could afford them. Within a month or so, the basement morphed into a performance space.”

Like punk rock itself, the Masque’s expiration date came around quickly. But before the doors closed for good in ‘79, the club became a focal point for the local scene, and a series of shows would occur there that would provide fodder for the punk rock myth machine for decades to come. Without Mullen and the Masque, it’s difficult to know whether or not the legend of L.A.’s punk scene would’ve ever grown past the city limits.

Wikipedia:

The Masque was founded by a Scot named Brendan Mullen, and was the nexus of the Los Angeles punk subculture. It was located at 1655 North Cherokee Avenue, between Hollywood Boulevard and Selma Avenue. Many L.A. bands frequently performed there, including X, The Germs, The Mau-Mau’s, The Weirdos, The Quick, The Avengers, The Dils, The Skulls, The Controllers, Charleston Grotto, and others. The Go-Go’s rented practice space there. Rhino 39, one of Long Beach, California’s earliest punk rock bands played there often. At least two compilation records featuring live performances at The Masque have been released.