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Miriam Linna Biography

miriam-linna
  • Born:
  • Member of: Zantees
  • Genre: Rock & Alternative

Miriam Linna is a unique figure in rock & roll music. She's got credibility as a drummer on the New York music scene that she's been a part of since the 1970s, and a mystique equal to that of such fellow female percussionists in mixed gender bands as Maureen Tucker, Honey Lantree, and Karen Carpenter -- she's also earned praise from such genuinely august figures out of rock music as Bob Dylan. But beyond her work playing variously with the A-Bones, the Cramps, and the Zantees, she has also run the all-but-essential Norton Records label with her husband, producer/musician Billy Miller, and delved into literature (and book collecting) in ways that have opened up previously little-understood corners of those fields. Linna was born in Sudbury, Ontario, and was part of the punk rock scene in Cleveland, OH in the 1970s. It was there, in September of 1976, that lightning struck when the Sacramento-spawned Cramps, newly transplanted to Ohio, pegged her to replace Greg Beckerleg's sister Pam as the group's drummer. Her style was primitive but powerful, and between Beckerleg's playing, Lux Interior's banshee-like vocalizing, and Linna's stomping sound, they were good enough to get to New York and become known as venues such as Max's Kansas City; she left their ranks in the summer of 1977, joining Nervus Rex, a band founded by her friend (and future Washington Squares member) Lauren Agnelli. From there, she made the jump to the Zantees, a new wave band whose inspiration came from '50s rockabilly. Along with singer Billy Miller, whom she married, Linna went on to launch the A-Bones in 1984 -- by this time, the two were also publishing the music journal Kicks, and two years later, as the band made its first recordings, they also launched Norton Records. In addition to being a conduit for the A-Bones' music, the Brooklyn-based company has become the principal outlet for the work of such acts as Hasil Adkins and Link Wray, among many other notable figures in the odder corners of rockabilly, rock & roll, and country music. And Linna returned to her roots in 1994, playing drums on Maureen Tucker's Dogs Under Stress. Linna's early literary endeavors ran parallel to her music activities, although since the '80s they've transcended her playing -- in the '90s, she published Smut Peddler, an overview of paperback exotica, and Bad Seed: A Postcard Book; and in 1997, she published The Great Lost Photographs of Eddie Rocco, devoted to the work of the late photographer (which included a lot of iconic musician pictures from the '50s). As a writer, Linna has annotated numerous music reissues, and also co-edited Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties (Feral House). And that brings us to her other non-musical endeavor, in the literary field -- Linna is one of the world's foremost collectors of vintage paperbacks. That collection encompasses legitimate fiction and also more exploitative titles, playing upon such topical themes of the '40s and '50s as juvenile delinquency and the "swamp girl" genre (an offshoot of Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road). And she is one of the most renowned collectors of the work of Edward D. Wood, Jr., the filmmaker/author/actor, best known for his movies Plan 9 from Outer Space and Glen or Glenda, his portrayal by Johnny Depp in the movie Ed Wood, and his adult/exploitation novels. Linna's enthusiasms for music and literature frequently lead to two oddly paired public appearances every fall in New York City, where she has shown up at the Annual Paperback Collector's Show at the beginning of October, as a leading figure (and celebrity) in that venue, conversant in book-lore and all related matters; and at the WFMU Record Collector's Show at the other end of October where she is, similarly, a prominent figure on the music scene. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

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