Greg Burk (2)

Los Angeles journalist who writes mainly about extreme jazz, heavy metal, experimental/noise, mostly as a staffer for L.A. Weekly which he left in November 2006, for launching MetalJazz.com in early 2007. Greg Burk was born on Christmas 1950 in Rockwell City, Iowa. In 1977, he formed the punk band Dred Scott, which featured himself on vocals and songcraft, and college pal Chris August (who died in 2003) on bass. After Dred Scott disbanded in 1985, Burk played for a few years with the rocking Romanoffs, as a solo folkie, and as a saxist with performance artist Johanna Went and jazz poet Phast Phreddie. Burk has appeared as a talking head in the video documentaries Un-defining Punk (Susan Ricketts, 2000), Satan’s Top 40 (2001), Heavy: The Story of Metal (VH1, 2006) and God Gave Rock & Roll to You (BBC, 2007). With original Dred Scott guitarist Dave Van Heusen, Burk wrote the booklet notes to Rhino’s popular The Very Best of Deep Purple; his notes have also accompanied CDs by Henry Kaiser, the Eastside Sinfonietta and Surrealestate.