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Fun Fun Fun Fest 2010 preview: Joe Sib
At first blush it doesn’t sounds incredibly compelling; the head of a major punk rock label spending 70 minutes on stage waxing rhapsodic about the music’s history and its place in his life.
But let Joe Sib - founder and head of venerated punk label Side One Dummy Records - get going and he magnetically pulls audiences into the comedy and tragedies of his formative years as a teen during the heyday of the southern California punk scene of the early ‘80s.
“Even if you’re not a fan of punk rock, that could totally not be your thing, but everyone has a time in their life when all they cared about was music and that was the single most important thing in their lives,” Sib said by phone from his home in California.
“That’s where the connection is, and I didn’t want this to be me going on and on about how things were great back then and they’re not good now, because that’s not the case. Instead, I’m talking about being 14 and sneaking to shows or meeting up with my friends behind a liquor store and getting drunk while we’re listening to bands like 999, The Buzzcocks and The Clash.”
The sum total of those tales, along with 70-plus photos and audio clips make up “California Calling,” the one-man stage show Sib has been touring around the country after favorable responses to the memories he recalled during his former radio show on Los Angeles’ Indie 103.1 FM, and a compilation CD of the stories titled “True Stories and Bad Ideas”.
Sib will bring a truncated version of the show with him to Austin to perform at next month’s Fun Fun Fun Fest, with a 30 minute daytime slot altering the show to Sib mostly just talking and interacting with the audience while punk and metal bands he’s known for more than 20 years in some cases - Suicidal Tendencies, The Vandals, Bad Religion - bang away on stages nearby.
“I’ve known The Vandals since I was 17 when they would stay at my house and would announce my address as the place where the afterparty was going to be. We’d be driving home and I’d wonder if anyone would show up, then the next 30 cars behind us would turn on their blinkers to turn down my street,” Sib recalled.
“Graham (Williams, of Austin’s Transmission Entertainment) was all about this show when he heard what I was doing, and he said I had to bring it down here if I could figure out how to make it work outside with a shorter set. In the end, if I’ve got a microphone and people I can talk to about this stuff, that’s all I really need.”
Sib said he hopes to bring the full stage show back to Austin next year - a summer performance was nixed because of scheduling conflicts - to regale audiences with life stories that are equal parts “Fast Times At Ridegemont High” and “Almost Famous.”
“It all comes down to that one day - December 27, 1981 - that changed me forever, when my dad took me to a skateboard park for the first time. One because finally there was a sports-type thing that I could be good at and on an equal level with people, and two because I started hearing music outside of what my parents played at the house, and it sounded amazing,” Sib said.
“This isn’t a story that’s going to change your life, but if you’ve ever really cared about music more than anything else, you’ll get it and you’ll enjoy it.”
Joe Sib performs at Fun Fun Fun Fest at 2:05 p.m. Saturday, November 6 on the Yellow Stage.
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