Jane's Addiction, Lollapalooza | Perry Farrell, Musician and Founder
best known as the frontman for the alternative rock band Jane's Addiction. Perry created the touring festival Lollapalooza as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction in 1991; it has since evolved into an annual destination festival. He is the only person who has performed at all twelve Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festivals to date, having appeared under five different names (Perry Farrell, Jane's Addiction, DJ Peretz, Satellite Party, and with Hybrid). Perry attended all three Desolation Center desert happenings as well as the Joy at Sea boat expedition and performed with his first group Psi-Com at the Gila Monster Jamboree event.
Sonic Youth | THURSTON MOORE, Musician
Underground icon for his work in Sonic Youth, ardent advocate of DIY culture, and prolific solo artist; Thurston Moore’s musical wayfaring has always aimed to blaze new territory, rejecting conventional rock tropes with his signature detuned guitar explorations and art-damaged punk sentiment. Sonic Youth began closely tied into the early 80s NYC no wave music and art scene when he founded the band with Kim Gordon. Over the course of three decades, the band and Moore’s questing solo work remains firmly dedicated to venturing the outer fringes of rock. He currently runs the Ecstatic Peace! label (founded in 1981) and his latest solo album ‘Rock and Roll Consciousness’ was released to critical acclaim in 2017.
Minutemen | MIKE WATT, Bassist
A virtuosic bass player and founding member of the hugely influential and gone-too-soon trio Minutemen, San Pedro’s Mike Watt is the living embodiment of punk. Taking cues from punk rock’s brevity and energy, Minutemen distilled a youthful intensity while exploring jazz, folk, and funk without pretension. Following Minutemen’s sudden, tragic end with guitarist D. Boon being killed in a van accident on tour in 1985, Watt remained dedicated to punk’s DIY ethos and working class sensibilities in fIREHOSE, Dos, and subsequent solo works, emerging as one of underground music’s most respected figures. Watt remains prolific as ever moonlighting in countless number of bands over the past few years, most notably playing bass in the reformed Stooges and playing shows regularly with his new band the Missingmen.
Einstürzende Neubauten | BLIXA BARGELD, Vocalist
A pioneering figure in experimental and industrial music, co-founder of Einstürzende Neubauten, and longtime member of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds; Berlin’s Blixa Bargeld is a multi-disciplinary artist whose influence since the 80s cannot be overstated. One of the progenitors of industrial, Einstürzende Neubauten’s earlier sounds were an avant-garde mesh of noise and visceral vocals driven by a clanging percussion section often consisting of construction materials, power tools, and various metal objects; resulting in riveting performances, simultaneously hypnotic and brutal. As Neubauten’s sound evolved throughout, the band took less abrasive approach opting for more conceptual, dynamic directions. Bargeld also began acting, starring in his first role as himself in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire in 1987, and playing supporting roles in such works as Die Totale Therapie (1996), Recycled (2000), and Anhedonia (2016). He has also scored a number of short films and independent features, both solo and as part of Einstürzende Neubauten.
sonic youth | LEE RANALDO, Musician
Revered as one of the most inventive guitarists of our age, Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo began his career in New York performing with Glenn Branca’s electric guitar orchestra before joining Sonic Youth. Ranaldo has been an active member of New York’s underground music community since the 80s recording and collaborating with like-minded artists, releasing numerous solo works, and publishing poetry books and tour journals. His latest solo endeavor ‘Electric Trim’ was released on Matador Records in 2018, featuring Nels Cline, Sharon Van Etten, and Raul “Refree” Fernandez.
SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES | MARK PAULINE, ARTIST
Founding Survival Research Laboratories in 1978 in San Francisco, artist and inventor Mark Pauline has explored taking technology and art to the limits with their exhilarating large-scale machine performance art. Employing themes of socio-political satire, each performance is a set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and special effects that are often violent, noisy, and destructive. Pauline describes the collective as “an organization of creative technicians and technical creatives dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare”.
REDD KROSS | STEVEN & JEFF McDONALD, Musicians
Founded by brothers Steven and Jeff McDonald as middle school teens in Hawthorne, CA, Redd Kross’ exuberant punk-pop stands out as an outlier of LA’s thriving 80s punk underground with their fascinations with topical pop-culture and a glammed-out aesthetic. The band evolved from their loud and fast beginnings into a sleeker power pop machine with each new incarnation of Redd Kross. After a hiatus in the late 90s, Steven and Jeff McDonald returned to making new Redd Kross albums. Their last record Researching The Blues came out 2012 on indie powerhouse Merge Records and the brothers remain busy touring. In 2016, Steve McDonald was asked to join The Melvins contributing to their 2017 double album A Walk with Love & Death.
MEAT PUPPETS | CURT & CRIS KIRKWOOD, Musicians, Meat Puppets
Brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood co-founded the punk/alternative band Meat Puppets in their their hometown of Phoenix in 1980. Establishing a unique sound blending elements of country with psychedelic rock; two of their albums, Meat Puppets II and Up on the Sun are acknowledged as landmark records of the post-punk era and highly influential to the grunge era that followed. Their guest appearances on Nirvana’s 1994 MTV Unplugged album thrust the Kirkwood brothers into the public spotlight with Nirvana covering Meat Puppets’ “Lake of Fire”, leading to the band’s mainstream breakthrough album Too High To Die in 1994. Taking a brief hiatus in the early 2000s, Meat Puppets reformed in 2006 continuing to make new albums and tour up to present day.