Nothing says punk more than screaming out your guttural disestablishmentarianist screams, only to have your teeth shlork out of your gummy mouth and bite the exposed breast of the pierced punk girl shouting your name in the front row. Which makes it sad that the world has lost 80 year old Joseph Bernard Zak, lead vocalist for the New York punk band Team Spider.
Zak was the oldest punk rocker in history. After fighting in World War II, Zak attempted to break into country music, even moving to Nashville with his portfolio of songs. He was not successful. Yet in the 80's, Zak manage to overcome his musical failures when he met Chris Ryan and Les Eckhardt, members of Team Spider, at a coffee shop, and crashed one of their concerts to start screaming the lyrics of one of his songs from the stage. A star was born.
Oh, sure, Zak's gifts as a lyricist may be arguable. For example, his song 'Bush, Bush, Bush' appears to take a cue from Allen Gibserg's justly ridiculed 'Hum Bomb?':
Catchy! But there's no doubt he was prolific: Zak left behind carboard boxes containing lyrics for more than 40,000 songs. The world's first punk rock graphomaniac!
Mr. Zak has no family, so his ashes will be cremated and spread over the Atlantic by his band mates and fans... probably by flushing them down a Lower East Side toilet. A real punk rock send-off.
A ‘Family’ Mourns a Punk Rocker Who Defied His Age: 80 [NY Times]
