From the Back Cover
Arriving in 1978, hitched to the back of the Sex Pistols tour bus, punk soon became as mythic in Texas as the state's devotion to football, cattle, and prayer. Confrontational renegades like the Huns, the Big Boys, and the Dicks led a defiant new era of blood, sweat, and cross-dressing cowboys. Austin son Pat Blashill grabbed a camera and began shooting local punk bands, uncovering a story of desperation and creative deliverance, set in trailer parks, low-rent shared housing, and wild, Texas bucket-of-beer bars. Along the trail Blashill befriended and photographed the Big Boys, the Dicks, Butthole Surfers. Poison 13, the Hickoids, the Offenders, Scratch Acid, Daniel Johnston, Doctors' Mob, Glass Eye, and others. As Austin became a mecca for live music, he captured equally iconic images of touring bands including Sonic Youth, Devo, Samhain, Soul Asylum, the Replacements, and the Dead Kennedys.
More than two hundred of Blashill's deep black and white photos are joined here by essays from director Richard Linklater (Slacker/School of Rock); singer David Yow (Scratch Acid/Jesus Lizard); drummer Teresa Taylor (Butthole Surfers); and local luminaries Adriane "Ash" Shown and Donna Rich. True mavericks banded together to make a stand, and]¬¬]Texas Is the Reason.
About the Author
Pat Blashill was born in Austin in 1961. He grew up listening to KNOW-AM radio as he fell asleep at night. The first record he bought with his own money was ZZ Top's Tres Hombres. He learned how to operate a 35mm camera in high school. After he saw photographs by Robert Frank, it was on. Pat studied photojournalism at the University of Texas with Dennis Darling, J. B. Colson, and Ellen Wallenstein.
Inspired by punk bands at Raul's and local photographer Bill Daniel, he began shooting shows in 1980, and was pretty good by 1983. Pat took most of the photographs in this book with two cameras-a Canon TX and a Canon F-1-using a Vivitar 283 flash. He shot Kodak Tri-X black and white film, which he developed and printed himself.
In 1987, Pat left Texas for New York City, where he continued to photograph postpunk and indie bands. He began writing about music for Details, Spin, and Rolling Stone. Pat moved to Vienna, Austria, in 2005, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
