Music (Lewis King) Using the name "Lewis King," Weiss became drummer for the Anglo-American neo-Rockabilly band the Rockats in March 1981. In May 1981 the Rockats recorded and released
Live at the Ritz for
Island Records, produced by
Kenny Vance, formerly of
Jay and the Americans. The album spent seven weeks on the
Record World Album Charts, hitting a high of 177 on August 22, 1981. In March 1982, the band recorded two studio tracks with producer
Mike Thorne, “Make that Move”, and “
One More Heartache”, which would later be released on 1983’s
Make that Move EP for
RCA Records. In August 1982 King began working with former Rockat
Tim Scott McConnell and recorded the
Sire Records EP
Swear, produced by
Richard Gottehrer. The backing band included former Boyfriends, and Holly and the Italians’s bass player Mark Sidgwick. The title track was later covered by
Sheena Easton. During this period King also worked as a studio technician, assisting on a number of Richard Gottehrer recordings including
the Bongos Numbers With Wings EP for RCA Records and
Joe King Carrasco and the Crowns Party Weekend for
MCA Records. King joined Beat Rodeo in 1985, recording 1986’s
Scott Litt-produced
Home in the Heart of the Beat for
IRS Records. In 1987, King began working with singer songwriter
Elliott Murphy, whose band included former Modern Lovers bass player Ernie Brooks. They recorded the album
Change Will Come and 2013, and recorded several tracks with them which appeared on the 2013 Lanark Records release
Rockin’ Together.
Television Returning to his given name, Weiss began working for
KCTS Television, Seattle’s
PBS affiliate in 1992. Through 2003, Weiss helped manage national and international productions, including documentaries which were broadcast as part of the
American Experience and
American Masters series. In 2004 he began working for
Seattle Channel, the city of Seattle’s
government-access television station. Between 2007 and 2017, Weiss helped lead a team which won the Excellence in Government Programming award (often referred to as “the best municipal TV station in the nation”) from the
National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), eight times.
Author Weiss’s first book,
Stranded in the Jungle: Jerry Nolan’s Wild Ride - A Tale of Drugs, Fashion, the New York Dolls, and Punk Rock, was released in September 2017. On September 14, 2017 it became the number one new release in Amazon.com’s “Punk Musician Biographies” category. On October 1, 2017, it hit number one. The foreword was written by
Chris Stein of
Blondie. Reviews were mainly positive; Rob Ross wrote in popdose.com, “…Mr. Weiss is a damned fine writer. There’s none of the deifications that writers tend to do when writing about a “hero” of theirs; it’s objective, fact-filled – painstakingly researched and simply fascinating…” Joe Whyte wrote in LouderthanWar.com, “I can safely say that Curt Weiss’s “Stranded In the Jungle”…is up there with “
Please Kill Me”, “
England’s Dreaming”,
Andy Blade’s “Teenage Punk Rocker” and our own Brother
John Robb’s “Punk; An Oral History” as one of the best accounts of the era of punk rock and the preceding years and aftermath.” Negative critiques from Simon Wright in Only Rock and Roll, point out, “…the lamentably tabloid title…,” and notes that though, “…Weiss is himself a drummer…occasionally he discusses Nolan’s technique in some detail: I wish there was more of this.” ==Discography (As Lewis King)==