Being young on the Los Angeles punk scene

Vaginal Davis about entering the early Los Angeles punk scene being a Jehovah’s Witness.

Vaginal Davis: I remember there was a club called Blackies on La Brea, and I remember I was scared to go inside there. I pretty much just hung outside of the club and just was, you know, I’m a people watcher and like, sort of, watching all the people and everything.

And of course, there was the swap meet at the Capitol Records parking lot and all the record collectors and record traders and whatnot. And Hollywood and Los Angeles, it was a completely different time. And it’s really hard to explain that era and that time because Los Angeles was such a different city in the 70s, in the mid to late 70s.

It was a very interesting time because people hardly wore any clothes then. People were running around butt naked almost. Sex was in the air. People were just like having sex on the street and no one paid attention. It was a very sexual time, you know. And in 1976 I was graduating from junior high school, and entering high school, and being that I had this Jehovah’s Witness background, a lot of my life was a bit on the sheltered side because, you know, I was in theocratic ministry school, of all things. So, there was this dichotomy with me in being, you know… the early rumblings of the punk rock scene and going to clubs or whatnot, or like hanging outside of clubs, not being… feeling a little too scared to go into clubs, and then being ultra-religious and also being an overachiever in school and…

I was just fascinated because Jehovah’s Witnesses religion was such an interesting religion. They don’t believe in celebrating birthdays, they don’t celebrate Christmas. They’re so the opposite of normative society. And there was a part of that that was perfect training for becoming part of the punk scene. That was a perfect introduction to that because I didn’t do the things that normal people do, like have birthday parties, celebrate birthdays, and whatnot. I didn’t do any of that.

So, being in the punk rock scene, it was just an extension of that and being, you know, going against the grain, going against the norm and normative values in a way. Yeah. And being a part of this strange religious sect was part and parcel of that. It was just like another way of sort of being rebellious, I gather.