November 1, 2002

The video clip for this month comes from a performance at the Starwood in 1980. It was Mike's last time with the band (or so we all thought), so the clip starts with him saying a short goodbye to the audience (who don't let the sadness of the moment stop them from continuing to scream out their requests). This clip was the 2-song encore that night, consisting of "The Other Side" and "Be Bop a Lula." I gave-up on the Real Audio Surestream, as I have a DSL connection, but could never get the stream to play at the correct speed - so the Real Audio has two different formats: 56k and DSL. Pick your fave...

Robbie Rist is back in town, and hopefully recording will get back underway on "Shank," the band's next release.

"L.A. Explosion" is still on track for a January 2003 release date. See the News Archive for more details.

David Nolte, former Last bassist and all-around swell-guy, is touring in David Gray's band. As I type this, David Gray's newest release is battling for the top spot in the English charts! David has been on several TV shows so far with David Gray, including "Parkinson," "Top of the Pops" and a couple of others, whose names I forget.

Which brings me to the reason I switched the prize of the Mystery Song Contest below (I told you last month it was a secret). I'm quitting my job at Disneyland in a couple of weeks, so I won't have access to the occasional comp tickets they throw at us every now and then. I'm helping David with all the graphics design work he had to leave in order to tour with David Gray. But I'm sure most of you would rather have a chance at a Last DVD than a ticket to Disneyland (especially if you live far, far away).

Don't forget, the Last will play this Sunday night in Silverlake, CA. Check out the Gigs page for details...

October 14, 2002

Sorry about the delay in getting this month's video clip up - work has kept me very busy lately. Anyway, the video clip for October is up - consisting of the 1982 music videos the band attempted with the help of a local film student in San Pedro. I don't know too much about them, but if you have a question, I'm sure Joe will answer it if you post it on the Message Board. The songs are "Everybody Had It With You," and "Wrong Turn." With this month's clip, we bring back the option to view the video in Quicktime. Also, for those of you viewing the RealVideo version, let me know how it works - I encoded the video as a "Sure Stream" file, meaning one file is capable of streaming at various bandwidths. If you have problems, make sure your connection speed in the Real Video preferences is set correctly.

Bomp has officially announced the release of the Last's debut 1979 album "L.A. Explosion" on CD - slated for a January release! This is very exciting and long-awaited news. The bonus tracks consist of:

• She Don't Know Why I'm Here (45 version)
• Bombing of London (45 version)
• Every Summer Day (45 version)
• Hitler's Brother
• L.A. Explosion
• We're In Control

Hopefully this release will be just the start. One project we'd like to see is a rarities CD, crammed with unreleased gems and pre-Last recordings, like the wonderful "Obliteration," and "You Call Me Up." Cross your fingers...

Speaking of The Last on CD, the recording for their next release, "Shank," has been going well. There have been a few sessions so far in Fullerton, but now everything is on hold as Robbie Rist is out touring with other bands.

David Nolte, former Last bassist, is back touring with David Gray, who has a new, highly anticipated CD coming out October 28th in Europe, and November 5th in the U.S. - "New Day at Midnight." David performed with David years ago, and even produced one of David Gray's albums, the 1996 release "Sell, Sell, Sell." Check out the tour dates here.

On a final note, the song contest below has been modified. Instead of the prize being Disney tickets, the prize is now your choice of either a CD-R of rare Last and pre-Last recordings, or a DVD-R of some of the Last video clips you've seen here on the site (but of better quality - not pristine, but not crappy web quality, either)! Why no Disney tickets? I'll tell you next month...

September 10, 2002

Good news about the hopeful release of L.A. Explosion on CD! Well, obviously if it's "good" news, the project is happening as you read this! Bomp will be releasing The Last's debut (and some say best) album on CD! There will be lots of bonus tracks (not sure how many or which songs) and a nice booklet, which brother David is putting together (with text from Joe and a few pictures from me). Of course I'll give you more info when I get the word(s). A couple of songs I'd like to see as bonus tracks are "Obliteration" and "You Call Me Up."

The new video clip for September is up. I've phased out the Quicktime version of the clip, and gone with Real Video (or Real Systems, or whatever they want to be known as). Although the smaller version of the Real Video clip is worse quality than the Quicktime versions, the larger version (meant for fast internet connections) is, I believe, much better quality than Quicktime. And, since you can download the clip onto your hard drive and play it from there, anyone can view the larger file (which is also a lot smaller than the old Quicktime clips were).

By the way, the clip this month is from the Cafe Club Fais Do Do show in July. The band perform "Take Care of Her" and "I Don't Know What to Say" (both from their upcoming (new) album "Shank"). I chose these this month 'cause I like the way Mike dances during "Take Care of Her."

Speaking of their new album, I don't think the band has started recording yet - things got delayed; but they should be headed into the studio very soon...

August 4, 2002

I know it's a bit late notice, but Joe is playing an acoustic gig today (August 4th) in Silverlake, and will be appearing in a Gun Club tribute band in a couple of weeks (Aug 25th) at the Sunset Junction Street Fair (also in Silverlake). These aren't "Last" shows - just Joe playing with himself - but do show up. Joe likes it when people watch...

However, there will be more Last shows. In fact, The Last will be performing with none other than 20/20 at the end of the month! This will happen Friday, August 30th at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood. Check out the Gigs page for further details.

The new video page is up, with the ability to view a Real Video stream of the monthly video, alongside the traditional Quicktime version. The video this month is from the recent IPO gig at the Cafe Club Fais Do Do, and features 2 new songs by The Last - "I Know" and "Go Away Sunday."

In ongoing rumor/news, talks are still progressing to get LA Explosion released on CD; Joe is trying to set up some gigs in Japan for next March; and he'd like to play the IPO festival in New York, but it doesn't look good at the moment. The recording sessions for "Shank" should begin soon in Fullerton...

July 23, 2002

The Last will be recording as soon as the International Pop Overthrow series of concerts comes to a halt (you see, drummer Robbie Rist plays in many other bands, and will be quite busy for the next couple of weeks). Meanwhile, there will be an acoustic show that Joe will be playing on Sunday, August 4th. See the Gigs page for more info. This performance might include Missy, Mike and Luke as well (if any of them feel like participating).

Former Last bassist David Nolte will be playing in a couple of bands during IPO on Monday, July 29th at the Derby in L.A. The first is with his wife, Kristi Callan, and then later he'll be playing with Wendy Ip. Kristi will be playing songs from her soon to be released album, so check it out!

The upcoming video clip for August will feature two new Last songs played live recently at the Café-Club Fais Do Do: "I Know," and "Go Away Sunday." This will be the first clip simultaneously offered in Quicktime and Real Video. You'd think, since the Real Video clip is about half the size of the Quicktime file, that it would be of lesser quality - but I think it actually looks a lot better than the Quicktime version. I don't know why that is - perhaps I'm using the wrong combination of settings for encoding the Quicktime clip. The Real Video clip is made for those with fast connections, so I will add directions on how to download the video to your hard drive, so people with slow connections can watch the clips without having the video stop every few seconds as it tries to stream. The clips should be up around August 1st, unless the world comes to an end suddenly. And if that happens, we all won't really care anymore - would we???

July 14, 2002

The Last will be playing in L.A. this Saturday, July 20th, at the Café-Club Fais Do Do. Other bands performing are Rob Goraieb, 5 Star Crush, The Shambles, The Loons, The Wombats, Pop Lolita and Jupiter Affect. For more information and directions, check out the Gigs page of the web site.

Recording of the new Last album should start next month. The Last have returned to a harder-edged sound, closer to what they were doing in their early days. Some of the new songs Joe wrote recently (and which will be recorded on the new album) will be played at Saturday's show, so come check it out - or, for those of you living in Siberia, you can catch some of the songs as upcoming video clips, as we will attempt to videotape this show. If anyone else feels like videotaping the show, that would be cool - we could edit it together and have multiple angles, like a professional shoot. Let me know.

Speaking of the monthly video rotation - the July clip has been fixed, so it should stream properly as it downloads, rather than you having to wait until it fully downloads before you can watch it. This month's clip comes from the early "Danny Winter" video of The Last playing at the Starwood in 1979. The songs are "I Don't Wanna Be in Love," and "A Fool Like You." Joe loves this clip, where David shouts "This club sucks! This club sucks! Fuck this club! Fuck this club!" during "I Don't Wanna Be in Love." I asked David about this recently - and he said the band was angry that night about some sort of mistreatment they got from the Starwood. I think it involved some of their friends being kicked out, or not being able to even get in, and some other stuff. I can't remember. Maybe David and/or Joe/Mike will add to this in the message boards on the site.

In other news, our friends The Urinals have reworked their web site - and it looks great! Especially cool are the addition of selected lyrics to Urinals songs. I love their lyrics! I love the Urinals! Where would our world be without Urinals???

In "other people's tour news," our friends the Circle Jerks will be playing the last few dates of the Warped Tour in August; Sparks is about to release tour dates in support of their new album; and there are even reports the Residents may come out of hiding for an upcoming tour in support of their new album "Demons Dance Alone."

June 6, 2002

Again, we start with some sad news, the passing of Dee Dee Ramone. Dee Dee was found dead in his home last night (June 5th) in Hollywood. He was 50. At the time of this writing, the cause of his death is unknown. For more information, please visit the Ramones Web Site.

Joe is almost finished composing his latest batch of brand, spankin' new Last songs, which will be recorded this summer for a new album. Joe says he feels these new songs are some of the best stuff he's ever written. We plan to videotape the show at IPO in a month or so, so you should be able to hear one or two of these new songs as coming video clips...

Speaking of video clips, the new clip for June is up (came up June 1st). The video quality is pretty poor, coming from an old black and white home video camera (which now resides in a back corner of my closet), but it's still interesting to see. This video clip uses Qdesign sound compression, which gives better quality and makes a smaller file size, allowing me to put up 3 songs instead of 1 or 2. The drawback is that you need Quicktime 4 or 5 to view. The good news is the Quicktime plug-ins and viewers are FREE! For those of you who hate Quicktime, or don't wanna install it, or can't install it, or whatever - we will be adding a Real Video version of the monthly video clips as soon as we get a little problem with (Last drummer) Josh's web server fixed. The clip features the songs "L.A. Explosion," "Obsession," and "Snake in the Grass." It is from a show at the Starwood in 1980 (in fact, it was Mike's last Last show).

Speaking of Mike, I just added Mike's song notes to various pages in the Discography section. Check 'em out!

On a final note, there is a band from Orange County called "LaST." Hopefully there aren't too many people out there who have gotten the two confused, as they apparently have been playing a bunch of shows. So be careful when browsing the online music web sites, looking for Last records. I have seen a few places that get the two bands confused - Amazon.com, for example, lists an album by them, and refers to them as "The Last." See this yourself by clicking here.

May 1, 2002

The new video clip for May is up. For those of you new to the Last web site, we rotate the video clip every month. This month's clip is from October of 1979, and is the earliest video of the band that we have (or know about). The Last performs "Lies" and "Walk Like Me" at the Starwood in West Hollywood. This is the "classic" Last lineup (the one that I know the best) with Joe, David and Mike Nolte, along with Vitus Mataré on keyboards and Jack Reynolds on drums. Technically, this is the 4th Last lineup, but it existed from their 2nd gig (early 1978) to November of 1979. The video was filmed by former Last guitarist Danny Winters (he was in the band for about 5 months) and a couple of his friends. I believe I remember him saying that they were pretty drunk during the filming (you'll notice the shaky cameras). Danny worked at the local cable station in Hermosa Beach, and had access to cameras and editing equipment and lots of cool stuff like that. Still, there was a lot of problems with the video - the sound quality was pretty bad, and a lot of the edits created dropouts in the picture and sound. Also, the beginnings of a lot of the songs were chopped off - you'd come in a few chords late into the song. Luckily, I was able to restore the video (to a certain extent). I had three different copies of the video (all of which had problems, but generally different problems; so one clip (ranging in length from a couple of seconds to a couple of frames) from one copy would be bad, while the same clip on another copy would be okay. In addition, David Nolte had made a cassette recording of the same exact show that night. This recording was pretty bad, but it was still a big improvement over the original sound in the video. More importantly, it allowed me to restore the intros of the songs. This is a lot of work, and it is still nowhere near finished, but I was able to squeeze out these first two songs for this month's clip. As a work in progress, you'll notice a few stray clips here and there...

We will be taking down all the songs (but one) from our page at MP3.com, so get 'em now while the getting's good. The songs will be taken down very, very soon - any minute now. Perhaps as you are reading this... The one song that will remain (for now) is "Red Hair" from the 1997 demo. The other songs will be converted to mere short clips and added to the Discography/Sounds section. So that will leave 3 complete songs available from the site: "Red Hair" (via MP3.com), "Perfect World" (via Eggbert Music); and "Bombing of London" (a poor quality version from a college radio program in 1978).

There was a report the other week about Noel Gallagher (Oasis) supposedly saying one of his favorite bands was The Last. He was talking on local L.A. radio station KROQ. We found the audio of that interview and posted the short segment in question here (via Real Audio). In fact, it sound like Noel is saying "The La's" instead of "The Last" - but have a listen and judge for yourself...

March 4, 2002

A visit to Mike Watt's web site confirms reports that he's been covering The Last's "She Don't Know Why I'm Here" recently. Mike plays with the Jom & Terry Show this Friday (March 8) at the Garage in Silverlake, and March 17 at UCLA.

David Nolte played bass as a one-time special event at the recent gig at Brennan's Irish Pub. Missy Buettner was unable to make the Brennan's practice sessions due to prior commitments, but will return as bassist for the Last from here on out. David will be touring with Dave Davies next month- much to Joe's eternal jealousy. Here are those tour dates.

There is a possibility that The Last will perform at Stockage - the 2-day All festival in Colorado. There are just a few logistics to work out, it seems. If, by some odd twist of fate, it doesn't work out, there will be a show that same weekend at the Knitting Factory in L.A. with the Question, Jupiter Affect, and the Records. If Stockage works out, then hopefully the Knitting Factory gig will be bumped to April 20th or so.

The Last have also been invited to perform at this year's International Pop Overthrow - which will take place throughout L.A. at the end of July & the start of August. As Joe puts it, "More gigs this year? Of course. Touring? Absolutely - no idea when, though. The new album must come first."

New album??? Yes, the band plans to record and release a new album this year, possibly releasing it themselves. This year, it is also possible that the various interested parties may come to an agreement which would allow Bomp Records to finally release the debut album "L.A. Explosion" on CD. Stay tuned for new on that...

The first Common Thread video (a video series showcasing the history of punk music in the South Bay - a section of LA county to the south, including Hermosa Beach - hometown of The Last and Black Flag) is slated for a mid year release, with the first 7 minutes or so devoted to The Last. Possibilities of a kick-ass release party are in the works...