It’s kind of morbid how excited we were to come across a love note from Sid Vicious to Nancy Spungen on The Daily What — especially when you factor in that just a few months after listing off his girlfriend’s best qualities, Vicious was accused of stabbing her to death, but died of a heroin overdose before standing trial. (A suicide note found in the pocket of his jacket read: “We had a death pact, and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. Goodbye.”) Check out the letter from happier times after the jump, but be warned: reason #9 is NSFW.
Did you know that punk music is a subgenre of New Wave? Or that, after the Sex Pistols bit the dust, the Clash were the only punk band left standing? Did you realize that “the punks didn’t catch on in America,” or that they had something to do with the deadly stampede at a Who concert? Don’t worry — those aren’t facts. But they were reported on 20/20 back in 1979, when the long-running TV newsmagazine decided to profile it. Hey, if you sit through the first three-and-a-half minutes of misinformation, you get to watch a whole minute of the Talking Heads performing “Psycho Killer”!
Veteran British music impresario Don Letts’ feature-length punk documentary explores the philosophy of the subculture, from Elvis Presley to the Stooges, Sex Pistols, and the Clash.
Originally released at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005, the out-of-print film is now back on DVD, featuring cameos from legends such as Jello Biafra, Chryssie Hynde, Jim Jarmusch, David Johansen, Henry Rollins, and Siouxsie Sioux. The two-disc set offers over 90 minutes of bonus material, including short pieces about the fashion, sounds, and spirit of the punk movement.
New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn is sick of punk. She is bored with hearing Sid Vicious’s version of “My Way” — a painfully appropriate cover that, in our opinion, never gets old. If she never had to see another safety pin, it would be too soon. The take-home, listeners of loud, snotty music, is that “punk is now a style cliché.” And the idea of Balmain putting a high-fashion price tag on a leather jacket covered in spikes is, frankly, “a joke — and not even a very clever one.” Got that, 15-year-old Johnny, with your ripped jeans and your mohawk?
For our part, we enjoyed the Balmain collection Horyn describes, which manages to balance punk and fashion in a fun, witty way. (In fact, there’s a pair of black-and-silver striped pants in there that we’ll probably dream about tonight.) And considering that designers have played a major part in the punk movement since its inception, we find it both historically ignorant and totally unimaginative to declare them antithetical to one another. What’s more, counterculture has provided inspiration for haute couture for as long as both have existed. After the jump, we review seven movements that have been co-opted, often to great effect, by high fashion.
Christopher Walken played him in the movie Basquiat, but the creative life of Marc H. Miller transcends that singular moment via his website, 98 Bowery.
Landing a loft on NYC’s infamous Bowery in the late ’60s, Miller blossomed as an artist, curator, journalist, and publisher. After organizing the very first punk art exhibition in 1978, he migrated to Amsterdam and shot Polaroid portraits in the red-light district, before returning to the Bowery to make videos about artists, write a column for the East Village Eye, and organize museum shows — a lifestyle that’s now amusingly and thoroughly documented online.
Made in 1986 by X’s Exene Cervenka and director Modi Frank, Bad Day is a 20-minute silent punk-western with a cameo by young Kevin Costner as a town drunk.
The black-and-white modern melodrama features title cards instead of spoken dialogue, and a guitar-driven soundtrack by Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Dave Alvin and D.J. Bonebrake. The rare film has finally been made available online on a pay-what-you-can basis — with partial proceeds going toward helping victims on the Gulf Coast.
From Frank Sinatra to Foo Fighters, Five Hundred 45s: A Graphic History of the Seven-Inch Record chronicles more than half a century of vinyl-single art, all reproduced at original size.
Compiled and written by album designers Spencer Drate and Judith Salavetz, the book groups its 500 subjects thematically, rather than chronologically. Collectively, the images represent the best use of art, illustration, photography, and typography in the packaging of an analog format that has survived through the digital revolution.
Forget about Baby Mozart, it’s time for Baby Angus Young. Does that send a shiver of revulsion or a twinge of delight down your spine? If it’s the latter, then you may be the target audience for Soundscreen Design‘s twist on the classic children’s ABC books. They come in three musical flavors — metal, country, or punk.
Get a headstart on teenage rebellion with Never Mind Your Ps and Qs — Here’s the Punk Rock Alphabet. Nurture the next frontman for your Morbid Angel tribute band with M is for Metal. Or cultivate that high lonesome sound in your wee one with ABC&C: The Country and Western Alphabet. Billed as “perfect for every hipster child,” they’re just as appropriate for the aging music obsessive who wants to remember how to read. Each volume is filled with charming illiustrations and 2-year-old-ready doggerel. See a selection of our favorites after the jump. Read More »
With images of Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and Smashing Pumpkins and text by Thurston Moore, Michael Lavine’s photo book is a grunge almanac.
As label photographer for Sub Pop Records in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Lavine spent as much time snapping the street scenes in Olympia and Seattle as the bands that made them famous. Grunge collects over 180 of his pictures, ranging from tattooed street-corner angels to the musical artists who would define a generation. Read More »
