All Roads Lead To Punk – BOOK + 7″ record set Genny Schorr
I thought all the stories had already been told, or at least endlessly circled, (like a clogged toilet) with regards to the early days of the LA underground music scene. But I was wrong. At that point in time, the early to mid ‘70s, punk wasn’t widely accepted as a thing to be, but Genny Schorr’s attitude and actions were entirely punk. Genny’s storytelling is laid out like an old telephone cord; wound into pliable circles that stretch and contract. While the narrative is linear, the chapters overlap and connect. Genny takes you back to the beginning, like the beginning for most of us, when a friend took you under their wing and she rolled you through her life of impulse with her, “why not me?” mindset that collided headfirst into right-place-right-time opportunity.
This book-and-record combo isn’t entirely unlike those from our youth. Remember the book and record sets that would beep to tell you when to turn the page? This one offers a more modern twist: sprinkled throughout the pages are QR codes that direct you to songs reflecting the recording sessions and stories written in the book. Beyond the drugs and the sexual encounters, including one threesome with someone from the JAM, this book leans into a deeper theme that’s often missing from other accounts of the era: lifelong friendships. There isn’t a song tied to the JAM sex, at least not explicitly, but there are songs where Genny has the BOYS(UK) as her backing band.
Filled with accounts surrounding friendships with the GO-GOs, the BANGLES, X and EXCENE, ALICE BAG, and many others, there are several unexpected turns in her life path. There’s the heartbreak of friendships falling apart, unbalanced love, and dreams dying. The book also captures the opposite of all that as well. I don’t want to spoil her story by melting it down to the juicy plops, but I do need to touch on the band she was (and is) part of, BACKSTAGE PASS. Genny’s band found themselves opening or headlining for what, by today’s standards, would be considered genre-defining bands, though at the time, they were simply friends and peers sharing the stage, like the WEIRDOS, ELVIS COSTELLO, WALL OF VOODOO, DEVO, and many others. BACKSTAGE PASS undeniably made a crater in the LA late ‘70s underground scene.
I’m only going to touch on the music dollops and leave some of the larger twists for you to discover on your own. Parts of the book mirror so many of us and our excitement while waiting for touring friends to come through town, to moving into adulthood and losing touch with those same friends. All Roads Lead to Punk is a twisting pothole ridden ride, made tolerable by kinship and astounding landscape that undoubtedly leads to the dead center of punk.