The Devil's Music 29: Howard Paar

Multi-talented Howard Paar has been a primary rock’n’roll influencer for over four decades. His career in the music business evolved organically from his excellent taste in music. Starting out as an indie club promoter and deejay, he morphed into being a publicist before becoming an artist relations executive and award-winning music supervisor for film and television. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in the biz, including The Clash, INXS, The Go-Go’s, The English Beat, The Psychedelic Furs, Echo and The Bunnymen, Eric Burdon and Run DMC just to name a few. Born and raised in London, in the late 70’s on a whim, he took off for Los Angeles, where he created the iconic, boundary-pushing indie venue The On Klub, booking emerging artists who played ska, soul, paisley underground, rockabilly, punk and hip hop; many went on to become wildly famous. In this episode, hostess Pleasant Gehman and Howard swap anecdotes about those crazy times in London and LA featuring Lydia Lunch, The Specials, Los Lobos, The Untouchables and shopping for X-rated reggae bootlegs with Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Howard is also an author; they discuss his books, the novel “Once Upon A Time In LA” and his newly-published “Top Rankin’: A Punk/Ska Noir Novel” set in 1980’s Los Angeles. Website: www.howardpaar.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/howard.paar More from Pleasant Gehman www.pleasantgehman.com Instagram: @princessofhollywood www.facebook.com/pleasant.gehman www.twitter.com/PleasantGehman1 This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices