Early LA punk rock wasn't what you think it was. It wasn't just alienation, safety pins, and three-chord aggression. And it didn't take its cues from London or New York. It was something older — blues, country, rockabilly, Chicano folk music, rhythm and blues — filtered through a city that the rest of the country had written off as shallow.

Tom DeSavia spent years convincing his friend John Doe of X to help set the record straight. The result was two books — Under the Big Black Sun and More Fun in the New World — oral histories told by the people who were actually in the room: Jane Weidlin of the Go-Go's, Dave Alvin of the Blasters, Mike Watt, Allison Anders, Mike Ness, and dozens of others.

In this conversation we cover how a Tower Records in-store appearance accidentally reunited X for the first time in over a decade; why the Go-Go's were punk rock even after the scene decided they weren’t; what happened when hardcore arrived from Orange County and the South Bay; and why the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime is still being discovered by teenagers half a century later.

The scene produced X, Los Lobos, the Blasters, Black Flag, Fishbone, the Go-Go's, the Minutemen, and Dwight Yoakam…and yet it remained a footnote for decades. This is the story of why, and why it matters.

Under the Big Black Sun and More Fun in the New World are available wherever books are sold.

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