It All Dies Anyway—L.a., Jabberjaw, and the End of an Era

The definitive visual narrative of a forgotten time and place in American indie music history: the Los Angeles post-punk scene of the 1990s. Jabberjaw was for Los Angeles what CBGB was for New York—the cornerstone of a movement, the emblem of an era, and the stage on which influential bands would cut their teeth. Bridging the gap between post-punk of the 1980s and the indie and grunge movements of the 1990s, and doing for the West Coast what the hardcore movement had done in D.C., Jabberjaw was a bastion of the counterculture that hosted bands from the obscure (Hole, Unsane) to the legendary (Nirvana, Pearl Jam). Produced in collaboration with the club owners and including contributions from fans, artists, and musicians, It All Dies Anyway covers Jabberjaw’s brief but tangible influence on the art and music of an overlooked period in Los Angeles’s countercultural evolution. Like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, Jabberjaw was a focus for a generation’s cultural underground, allowing musicians and artists as diverse as Ween and Elliot Smith to explore material to the most immediate reaction of Los Angeles youth. Featuring illustrations from the owners’ archives, the book includes flyers, handbills, and Xeroxed posters, photographs, handmade record covers, and Polaroids of the cafe, painting a portrait not only of the club but of a time and place in music history.

Bryan Ray Turcotte is an author, curator, designer, publisher, and musician based in Los Angeles. He is the author of the seminal books Punk is Dead: Punk is Everything, and Fucked Up and Photocopied: Instant Art of the Punk Rock Movement.