On April 24, 1983, the Desolation Center held the first of three concerts in the Mojave Desert. Formed by Stuart Swezey, the Los Angeles punk rock performing arts organization previously held gigs at various venues in the city. But tensions between the L.A. punk scene and the local police were hindering bands’ abilities to put on shows.Initially, Swezey was booking bands for Desolation Center shows at warehouses downtown in an attempt to avoid the cops. But his true vision was leaving the city altogether and holding gigs where the law feared to tread.“I liked the idea of doing shows downtown to be under the radar of the cops, but what I really had in mind was to get away from the vibe of these nightclubs on the Sunset Strip like The Whisky A Go-Go and The Roxy,” Swezey told The Hundreds in 2018. “It was just too Rock ‘N’ Roll for me, and I wanted to work with spaces that were blank slates.”In 1983, Desolation Center put on ‘Mojave Exodus,’ The First of Three Concerts in the DesertHe added, “I can’t remember getting through one gig I put on that didn’t end with police issues … It was the frustration with all of that which led me in another direction to put on shows.”Swezey’s idea to take Desolation Center out of the city began to take shape while on a road trip through northern Mexico. He rode through the Sonoran Desert landscape and played cassettes from Public Image Ltd, Wire, and Savage Republic. “The combination of the music with the emptiness of this otherworldly landscape made me wonder what it would be like to see this kind of music performed in this environment,” he said. “How uniquely Californian would it be to have a show in the desert? You couldn’t do that in New York.”Swezey got in touch with local L.A. punks Savage Republic and pitched the idea of a gig in the desert. He and guitarist Bruce Licher planned to stage the show in a dry lake bed where Licher had previously shot a short film. Instead of attempting to get permission from whoever owned the land, they cut out the middleman, deciding to squat there and hope for the best.‘The Amount of Freedom We All Felt Out There That Day Was Great’Alongside Savage Republic, San Pedro punks The Minutemen were added to the lineup. They had the location and the music, but how were the fans going to get out into the desert? Swezey didn’t like the idea of people driving their cars out there. So he devised a plan to include transportation in the ticket cost. In the afternoon of April 24, a gaggle of excited punks gathered in the parking lot of a downtown L.A. Chinese restaurant. There, three school buses awaited to drive them 3 hours into the Mojave Desert.As the inaugural event, the show hit a few snags. But punks are generally resourceful, and they quickly solved the problems. For example, when the desert wind started to kick up, the three buses were used to create a wind break behind the bands. Additionally, someone offered up their socks to prevent the wind from blowing through the microphones. Later, Minutemen guitarist D. Boon volunteered to siphon gas out of one of the buses to keep the generator going, saving the concert from having to close down early.“I had a real feeling of accomplishment,” said Swezey. “It felt like the culmination for all the shows I had put on up until then. The best part was there were no bouncers, no cops, and no one f—ing it up by fighting. The amount of freedom we all felt out there that day was great.”Stuart Swezey Planned Two More Desert Concerts and one at sea before retiring Desolation CenterIn 1984, a second concert was planned, christened Mojave Auszug. He booked experimental industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, noise artist Boyd Rice, and industrial-machine collective Survival Research Laboratories. With the avant-garde arthouse nature of this lineup, things were much more unpredictable. The show ran overtime, but Swezey recalled that working out for them anyway. With the bands’ sets including destroying appliances with power tools, setting off explosives, and hitting a cinder block with a sledgehammer, the vast darkness of the desert at night proved to be the perfect backdrop. It’s easy to see how Desolation Center influenced festivals like Burning Man in 1986 and Coachella in 1999. But before those would take shape, Swezey put on two more Desolation Center shows. Joy At Sea, featuring The Minutemen and Meat Puppets, was the complete opposite of the Mojave gigs in terms of venue. But there was still the essence of being apart from civilization, the emptiness of open water in a similar vein to the vastness of the desert. Swezey booked his last Mojave concert for 1985In 1985, Swezey booked his final Mojave concert: The Gila Monster Jamboree. It included Sonic Youth, Meat Puppets, and Redd Kross on the lineup, with Psi Com added at the last minute.Unfortunately, Swezey decided to retire Desolation Center after he faced federal charges from the Bureau of Land Management. They got him on trespassing, but it’s surprising that the charges only related to the Gila Monster Jamboree and not the other two concerts.Swezey met with the bureau rangers, and because he didn’t deny the trespassing, he was only fined $400 for clean-up. A much lighter punishment than what he could have received.The post 43 Years Ago Today, LA Punks Were Bused Into the Middle of the Desert for a Festival Blueprint of Burning Man and Coachella appeared first on VICE.