Larry Livermore
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Larry Livermore (born 1947) is an American musician, record producer and music journalist. He is best known as the founder of Lookout! Records, which is credited with launching the pop-punk genre.
Born Lawrence Hayes in Detroit in 1947, he is casually known as Larry. His nickname is an allusion to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a nuclear-weapons testing facility in Livermore, California, run by the University of California.
He founded Lookout magazine, based in Laytonville, California, and continued to publish it until 1995. In 1985 he formed the Lookouts, a punk-rock band whose 12-year-old drummer, Tre Cool, later went on to play for Green Day. The Lookouts recorded two LPs, "One Planet, One People" and "Spy Rock Road," and two EPs, "Mendocino Homeland" and "IV," between 1985 and 1990, with Livermore playing guitar and singing.
In 1987, with his friend David Hayes, he cofounded Lookout! Records, which has released records by Operation Ivy, Green Day, Screeching Weasel, The Queers, and scores of other artists. Many of the bands on Lookout! were associated with 924 Gilman Street, a nonprofit, volunteer-run punk-rock club based in Berkeley, California. David Hayes left the label at the end of 1989, and Larry Livermore continued as president and principal owner until he retired in 1997.
In 1992, Livermore and Patrick Hynes formed the Potatomen, a pop band that has released two albums, "Now" and "Iceland," two EPs, "On the Avenue" and "All My Yesterdays," and a split EP, "The Beautiful and Damned/The Day I Said Goodbye," with the Canadian band cub.
From 1987 until 1994 Livermore was a columnist for Maximum Rocknroll magazine, and from 1994 to the present has written a monthly column for Punk Planet magazine. As of 2006 he lives primarily in New York City and is writing his autobiography.
