Larry Livermore - Spy Rock Memories: The Off-Grid Origins of Lookout Records and Green Day's First Record Deal (Book) Larry Livermore
){kind=link}
Book - Updated & Expanded Second Edition
Second edition featuring an "anti-forewar" from Aaron Cometbus, an interview with Tre Cool about growing up on Spy Rock, reflections from the author, and 22 added photos.
"In 1982 Larry Livermore, ex-greaser, post-hippie, burnt out and disillusioned by the Bay Area punk scene, journeyed north into an off the map, off the grid mountain wilderness that lay at the heart of California's Emerald Triangle, in search of something “real.”
Things got way more real than he’d bargained for, as he ended up confronting blizzards, droughts, floods, fires, marauding bears, skunks, rattlesnakes, and a posse of ornery pot growers, all while launching a magazine, a solar-powered punk rock band, and the DIY record label that introduced the world to the likes of Green Day, Operation Ivy, and Screeching Weasel.
As he learned valuable lessons in self-sufficiency, taking responsibility, and how to avoid (for the most part but not always) getting punched in the face by irate hippies, Larry also found his place and made his home in the far-flung, disjointed and eccentric community he encountered in the anarchic realm that begins where Highway 101’s tattered tarmac dissolves into the dust of Spy Rock Road.
Larry Livermore was the co-founder of Lookout Records, the editor and publisher of Lookout magazine, and a longtime columnist for Maximum Rocknroll and Punk Planet. He lives in Brooklyn.
“Spy Rock Memories is an unflinching look at life in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, a world usually hidden from view. Part social history and part personal history, it is as critically insightful as it is hopelessly romantic.” - Aaron Cometbus
“Greaser, hippie, glam rocker, punk… Larry tells some amazing stories. And I’m stoked he’s my friend.” - Billie Joe Armstrong
“A remote mountain neighborhood in remote Mendocino County has inspired this most remarkable memoir by a gifted man who came down from the mountain to bring America some of its best music ever.” - Bruce Anderson
“Larry was always deemed the troublemaker up on Spy Rock for telling and writing the truth.” - Tre Cool