Line-up: Joe Nolte (Guitar, Vocals), Mike Nolte (Keyboard, Vocals), Bill Stevenson (Drums), Karl Alvarez (Bass)

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Story: Our story begins in 1965, 1975, 1976, or perhaps it really begins one evening in the late summer/early fall of 1978. Members of the only two punk rock bands in Hermosa Beach, California had arranged to meet each other for the very first time. As it happened, the host band's drummer was not available and a young friend of that band's singer was going to fill in for the night. His name was Bill Stevenson. That evening, he would make his public debut, drumming for a rather riotous conglomeration of most of the members of Black Flag and The Last. It was there and then that the later-to-be-legendary South Bay scene really began.

The Last had been playing all over Hollywood since their debut that January at the Masque. They had released a single on their own Backlash record label the previous November, and they were certainly something of an inspiration for other fledgling South Bay musicians, such as the relatively new Black Flag.

Joe Nolte remembers his first sighting of Bill Stevenson as a somewhat incongruous vision. Bill was pedaling up on a too-small bicycle with fishing poles sticking out of the back. Nolte remarks, "Little did I know that this same guy was going to end up saving my life." He is almost certainly referring to Bill's monumental help in recording and producing the new Last album, Danger (End Sounds), their first release in 17 years.

Nolte, who founded The Last in 1976, is sometime hailed as the "Godfather of South Bay Punk" by people who remember those long ago days - people like Keith Morris (Black Flag, OFF!, Circle Jerks, FLAG), who recalls, "Where we grew up, all the ... Read more