By Alison Fensterstock, The Times-Picayune NOLA.com
If you're 25 or younger and a rock fan, take a minute to imagine this: You live in a world with no Facebook and no Twitter. Nobody has a smartphone -- nobody has a cellphone. There's no mass texting.
If your band is having a show, your art is up in an indie gallery, your student film is screening at a cool coffee shop or you want to protest something, there's absolutely no way to instantly alert 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 of your fans, friends and followers of the details.
What is this dystopic, possibly postapocalyptic world, you ask?
Welcome to the '80's, my young friend.
And the '90's, too -- at least part of them. Those are the years (1982 through 1995) covered by consummate rocker Pat Roig's lovingly compiled book, " From Stapleguns to Thumbtacks , " the first volume to reproduce the primary documents of the underground punk, hardcore, rock and metal scene that thrived in New Orleans during those years.
"Today it's all done with Facebook events, " he said. "Kids are missing out. I really enjoyed sitting in a 24-hour printing place -- Kinko's used to let you use their glue sticks for free. Your friends would look at your first version, say that's dumb, and crumple it."
Roig, 40, was like many of his friends back in the day, collecting the Xeroxed, hand-drawn or cut-and-pasted black-and-white fliers that advertised shows at now-defunct venues such as Jed's, the Rose Tattoo and the VFW Hall at 3113 Franklin Ave., which were friendly to all-ages shows featuring loud music.
"When we were gutting my parents' house (after Katrina), I found a box in the attic with my name on it, " he said. "It was all the fliers I used to hang on my wall. My parents had boxed them up instead of throwing them out."
Roig put the fliers into a ring binder and brought them to a show in Fat City, where the veteran local metal band Eyehate-god was playing. Band members got a kick out of seeing ads for gigs that were 15 and more years old, and lead singer Mike Williams, who had recently published a book of his poetry, suggested Roig compile and publish his collection.
It took about two years for Roig to pull together the final book. He filled out his own collection with fliers that friends lent him.
Punk musician King Louie contributed several pieces; so did local visual artist Jessica Goldfinch, who under the name Swamp Rats/Swampcore had booked a significant number of the punk, hardcore and metal shows that went on here in the '80s and early '90s. (Goldfinch is also fondly remembered by the flier-makers she let hang around the Clearview Parkway Kinko's during her shifts in the early '90s.)
Roig also created a fan page on Facebook; soon, people he'd never met were contacting him, offering their own rescued fliers for the project.
His own 200 fliers had been "used to cover three walls of my bedroom. The fourth was horror-movie posters. Most kids I grew up with, that was their wallpaper."
Together, the 18 years' worth of fliers draw a figurative map of the scene as it evolved. The earliest are for New Wave and rock acts such as the Normals, the Cold and the Red Rockers, at spots including the Warehouse and the Beat Exchange; soon, more hardcore and metal acts take top billing, including Shell Shock, Exhorder and Acid Bath.
The art ranges from crowded cut-and-paste to spare, early computer-graphic design. Some are purposely rough scrawls, and some, like Goldfinch's punk-rat cartoons and an intricate pencil drawing by Bunny Matthews for a 1983 show by the band the Gun Club, are quite artful. Some even include maps -- sketches in the corner detailing how to get to out-of-the-way house shows.
The first dozen pages of the book contain forewords written by as many local musicians and fans, sharing their own memories of the scene.
"It was great, " Roig said. "You show a flier to five or six people, and you got five or six different stories about what happened at the show."
"From Stapleguns to Thumbtacks" has been out for nearly a year. The signing event on Saturday at Siberia is scheduled because of a visit from the band OFF!, whose frontman, punk legend Keith Morris (formerly of speedy Southern California upstarts Black Flag and the Circle Jerks) is an old buddy of Roig's who wrote a blurb for the book.
The signing turns out to be timely, however: In June, the New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance cracking down on "bandit signs" -- any advertisements posted on neutral grounds, telephone poles or other public property, except for "temporary political signs" within 48 hours of an election and signs advertising open houses within 24 hours of those events.
At the end of August, the city announced that beginning Sept. 12, it would begin collecting " bandit signs " and fining their owners -- in the case of rock shows, the venues where they take place -- $25-$50 per offending flier.
Roig said he opposes the ban for two reasons: "One, officials are allowed to bypass it with the clause that allows them to hang up their signs for 48 hours, so why not bands, clubs, and other causes? Two, I feel like they're wasting our taxes to combat the wrong problem. How about fixing the streets, or helping to curb the violent crimes that take place every day?"
Morris, who has an extensive collection of fliers dating back to the late '60s, says that they were an indispensable part of the underground rock scene when he was first touring with Black Flag and the Circle Jerks.
Raymond Pettibon, the iconic punk artist who has made flier and poster art for Black Flag, the Minutemen, Sonic Youth and others, is essentially the fifth member of his band, Morris said.
As for the New Orleans "bandit sign" ban?
"It's a royal, flaming bummer, " he said.
Alison Fensterstock can be reached at fensterstock@gmail.com. Read more music news at nola.com/music . Follow her at twitter.com/AlisonF_NOLA .
What: Pat Roig signs copies of his compilation of New Orleans punk and metal fliers from the scene's '80's and '90's heyday, at the performance by OFF! the new punk supergroup featuring members of Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Burning Brides, Hot Snakes and Redd Kross.
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