Pastoral Spy Rock Memories by Larry Livermore
on Don Giovani Records
BOOK REVIEW: The day was already going to be a loverly morning. The kids were going with their Mom, Aunt and cousins to a kids zoo and I got a pass to enjoy the last day of vacation carousing around to do whatever I wanted. This never happens. So I did some research and wrote down a list of record and bookstores to hit up for a vinyl dig. Sure friends wanted me to hit Ameoba which if I had time would be on the agenda. Without GPS drove around downtown Oakland in my brothers old stick-shift Subaru until I finally stumbled upon the first place. 1-2-3-4 Go Records which was 98% filled with well organized Rock, Metal, Indie and Misc vinyl albums. Literally had about 200 CDs and rest all stax of wax. Since I was traveling browsing the selection of 7″s was in order. Anyway half thru new album release section some skinny older slender gentleman looking like John Waters with his slightly grown in mustache and backpack starts talking to the Clerk and then they both point to some books that were stuffed next to a bunch of fanzines. I don’t see fanzines anymore at records stores on the East Coast but there was comet bus and couple others.
Actually come to think about it there are barely any record stores anymore at all in New Jersey. Never mind stalking hand-made xeroxed fanzines! I can count like 4 stores from the dozen or I used to frequent. Anyway, the point this guy turned out to be Larry Livermore himself. The first hippie punk rocker.
They gestured some more and off he went and disappeared into the great abyss which is Oakland. Which is pretty much how his book ends. He mostly strays away from day to day grind of running his label Lookout Record which at the time was easily a Million Dollar business a couple times over. He instead focuses on how he went from city guy to mountain man. In fighting with his neighbors, growing pot, learning how to irrigate his food and where he started his first local fanzine. He interweaves his hippie activism roots which are at the core of most of his adventures which led him to help found Gilman street during his stint living at MMR HQ (that’s Maxium RocknRoll for you newbs). He tells the story how one of his own bands he started with basically local mountain kids. One of them we all know as Tre from Green Day who were one of biggest bands on his roster along with the likes of Operation Ivy. Either way this is a good read and you and should inspire you to read more books and do more things. Even if on a whim like my venture to a little record store.
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