Brendan Mullen, who was interviewed for 3:AM by Jim Ruland back in 2002, has passed away. Here’s an extract from Jon Savage’s obituary in The Guardian:
All subcultures need a catalyst, and Brendan Mullen, who has died aged 60, after suffering from a stroke, literally stumbled into that role for the Los Angeles punk movement when he found a deserted basement in the heart of Hollywood. “It was like going into the labyrinth,” he recalled. “There was no power, it hadn’t been used in 15 years, so, like Theseus with his string, I dragged this decomposing garden hose in with me so I could find my way out.”
After a quick clean-up, Mullen opened the 10,000ft space in June 1977 as the Masque. Originally intended as a rehearsal room, it quickly found another use as an unlicensed music venue. At that point, few LA promoters and club owners would host punk shows, but Mullen provided the new groups with a stage, an audience and an ambience where anything went.
The Masque became the crucible for the first wave of LA punk — a musical movement that gained little attention at the time, but which has since grown in stature. That basement was forcibly closed in early 1978, but Mullen continued to promote shows, to DJ, to book clubs and to champion the city’s music for the rest of his life.
Multi-talented, visionary and highly combative, Mullen was by temperament and sensibility suited to the music industry. Born in Paisley, Scotland, he grew up in Stockport, near Manchester. After going through the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) training scheme, he began working on local papers before leaving for the US in 1973. After travelling across the country, he arrived in LA, where he immersed himself in the city’s musical demi-monde — briefly becoming involved with the late, self-destructive singer Judee Sill. It was the frustrations that ensued — “the cops kept shutting us down all the time” — that led him to the quest for a rehearsal space.
The Masque was situated in the basement of the Hollywood Centre, constructed in 1923 as the headquarters of the director Cecil B DeMille. The building made another kind of history in 1977 and 1978. Almost every major LA punk rock band played there in a series of nights featuring the Weirdos, the Screamers, the Dickies, the Dils, the Germs and X, among many others.
It was, remembered Exene Cervenka of X, “a speakeasy and a clubhouse for misfits”. Many of the groups were barely competent at that stage, but Mullen gave them the opportunity to play in public: as he recalled, “the inspiration was [English avant-garde composer] Cornelius Cardew, who said that musicians of all levels of playing, from beginners up, should mingle”.
Like the Roxy in London or the Electric Circus in Manchester, the Masque was an anarchic playpen — albeit cross-generational. Named by the Fluxus artist Al Hansen, it was famed for the philosophical vituperation of its graffiti, and the riotous quality of its shows, many of which were more like happenings than traditional rock events. Some of this freedom, denied elsewhere in the city, can be heard on the exciting 45s released by X, the Weirdos and the Dils on labels such as Dangerhouse. “I always admired Brendan for his outright, brazen chicanery,” said Dangerhouse founder David Alan Brown, “but he had a certain gravitas.” ….
First posted: Wednesday, November 4th, 2009.
