Keith Morris, the legendary vocalist for OFF!, stands as one of the grand elders atop the punk rock family tree of Los Angeles. His new memoir, a snarling page-turner titled My Damage: The Story of a Punk Rock Survivor, is culled from a lifetime of fronting multiple major acts—including Black Flag and Circle Jerks.

Brimming with stories of wild success and epic failure, the book demonstrates that Morris was never more than a few degrees of separation from almost every SoCal band worth a damn in the last 40 years. A riotous, yet humble, endeavor, My Damage rips right on by. It’s a quick read.

“It’s like listening to a Black Flag album, then listening to a Circle Jerks album, and then listening to an OFF! record,” Morris says of Damage. “It’s got that kind of pacing, which is perfect.”

To this day, both the four-bar logo of Black Flag and the skanking Circle Jerks kid with the flannel tied around his waist remain universal punk rock symbols. Morris now fronts two bands: OFF!, a punk rock supergroup of sorts, which features guitarist Dimitri Coats, bassist Steven McDonald, and drummer Mario Rubalcaba; and Flag, which features a cohort of former Black Flag players covering songs from every era of the seminal hardcore outfit’s discography. While these groups remain Morris’ most famous projects, My Damage reveals aspects of his life before, after and between the music. Readers take away a street-level, cracked-window peek into the world of L.A. hardcore from its very inception.

“Before I had taken my detour to play music, I had something else I wanted to do—and that was teach art,” Morris says, explaining that he had secured a scholarship to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. But after critiquing all the bad art created by the stoners in his high school, Morris traded insults with a teacher and his scholarship evaporated.

Pivoting away from visual art, Morris turned to music. It wasn’t long before he met guitarist Greg Ginn. The pair sowed the seeds for what would become Black Flag at a Journey concert in 1976.

From that point on, historical and hysterical connections crop up on practically every other page. On one occasion, Spinal Tap, Slayer and the Circle Jerks all opened up for The Blasters (Read: Huh?). At certain junctures Morris saw AC/DC with Bon Scott at the Whiskey and lived with Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the Gun Club. He partied in Hollywood mansions and the grimiest alleys. He appeared in Repo Man for 30 seconds, and his chiropractor played bass on the first two Elvis Costello LPs. In the ’80s, Morris crossed paths with just about every L.A. musician you’d expect—punk and otherwise. Mötley Crüe, Los Lobos, Thelonious Monster and David Lee Roth all make appearances, in various conditions.

Morris got clean 28 years ago, and much of his journey to sobriety emerges throughout the book. He never gets righteous or preachy. He just takes the time to acknowledge the ways in which he treated people like shit or fucked up someone else’s party. He maintains that he’s never relapsed, even though he threw himself back into the fray of gigging just one month after leaving the machinery of a drug-addled life.

Detailed revelations also surface about Morris’ experience working for the darker side of the business—the record companies. He doesn’t paint a wholesome picture. They used and abused him more than once.

Near the end of the book, Morris reflects on Black Flag’s ascent—explaining that the band exploded out of a vastly different Hermosa Beach. Nowadays, the town is a wasteland of jock bars, foodie hipsters, mini malls and perpetual spring-break oafs. A history mural depicts Black Flag, but features Henry Rollins instead of Morris, the band’s original singer, the one who actually grew up in Hermosa.

“They’ve destroyed the place,” Morris writes. “It’s like any beach city in Florida now.”

Keith Morris Book Signing
Nov 10, 6pm, Free
Streetlight Records, San Jose

OFF!
Nov 10, 8pm, $15-$18
The Ritz, San Jose

Pivotal Silicon Valley innovators and some of the biggest names in music will converge at San Jose’s C2SV Technology Conference and Music Festival, headlined by Iggy and The Stooges.

The festival, held at 12 downtown San Jose venues September 26-29, provides a new platform for sharing ideas, discovering new music and, of course, having a lot of fun in the heart of Silicon Valley. In addition to Iggy And The Stooges, 90s alt-rock pioneers The Lemonheads, electro-pop duo The Limousines, Oakland political band The Coup and modern funk pioneer Dam-Funk are among the 70 acts expected at the festival. Many more acts will be announced soon.

Robert Scoble, Jeff Stibel, Nolan Bushnell, Chris Anderson and Steve Kirsch are among the many speakers who will share new ideas during presentations and panels at the technology conference.

Early-bird tickets are on sale now HERE.

First wave of acts:
Iggy And The Stooges
The Lemonheads
The Coup
The Limousines
OFF!
DAM Funk
Black Milk
Clawhammer
Deafheaven
Fatso Jetson
**Many more to be announced

Scheduled Tech Conference Speakers:
Chris Anderson – CEO, 3D Robotics
Andre Haddad- CEO, RelayRides
Kare Anderson- CEO, Say It Better Center
Beth Rogozinski -Founder, Transmedia SF
Todd Wilms- Social Business Strategy for SAP
Lesley Mottla- EVP, ZipCar
Nolan Bushnell – CEO, Brainrush
Elisa Camahort Page – Co-founder and COO, BlogHer, Inc.
Dafina Toncheva- Partner, US Venture Partners
Ephraim Lindenbaum-Managing Director, Advance Ventures LLC
Joe Davis – CEO, Tocata
Nadav Gur – CEO, Desti
Brian Behlendorf- Compurter Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Labortory
Robert Hawn- Attorney, Structure Law Group
Shel Israel – co-author, Age of Context
Steve Kirsch – Founder and CTO, OneID
Gary Kremen – Founder, Clean Power Finance, Sociogramics
Wedge Martin- CoFounder, GeoPapyrus
Matt Miesnieks – CEO, Dekko
Chuck Reed – Mayor, City of San Jose
Jeff Stibel- CEO, Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp
Scott Schreiman – CEO, Kerio Technologies, Inc.
Robert Scoble – Startup Liason Officer, Rackspace
Josh Silver – CEO, United Republic
Rich Skrenta – CEO, Blekko
Ralph King- Producer, Extreme By Design
Raj Singh – CEO/Founder, Tempo AI
Kim Walesh – Director of Economic Development, Chief Strategist, City of San Jose
Steve Westly-Founder, The Westly Gorup
Rujul Zaparde – CEO, FlightCar
Maya Zuckerman – Co-Founder, Transmedia SF
**More to be announced

Fore more information, visit the official website: http://c2sv.com/

As SXSW reaches its peak, Austin is getting progressively louder, more crowded and beer-soaked. Highlights from the passed two days include blistering performances from Off! and High on Fire at Thrasher’s Texas Style Death Match Party, hip-hop at the Fader Forth, a strong set by Bass Drum of Death, local blues tunes on Sixth Street and a warehouse party featuring AraabMuzik, Atrak, Questlove and Diplo.

Photos by Chris Ellis unless otherwise noted.

High on Fire at Thrasher's party.

Off! at the Thrasher party. // Photo by Matt Crawford