Posts from the “1970s” Category

Dissecting the Political Impact of Acid House

Posted on August 10, 2017

Norman Jay MBW. Photographer unknown.

Back in 1979, in a Chicago nightclub called The Warehouse, DJ Frankie Knuckles helped incubate the nascent genre of house music. Taking its name from The Warehouse, house music spread through the US underground and around the globe, and in London, it transformed into something entirely new. The acid house movement combined the hippie spirit found on the island of Ibiza with the sensation of taking a trip, be an ecstasy pill, a hit of acid, or a plane ticket to a faraway land.

By 1987, acid house had taken UK by storm with an irrepressible, revolutionary energy that evoked the utopian vibes of the Summer of Love. Peace, love, respect, and unity were the order of the day, albeit within the confines of illegal parties that were cropping up across the country, drawing thousands of revelers from all walks of life who wanted nothing more than to dance through the dawn. But the acid house scene was more than a cosmic display of hedonism. It was a movement that subverted the racial and class boundaries of Margaret Thatcher’s seemingly endless premiership. Although its political impact is often overlooked, acid house united a deeply segregated society, and what’s more, it empowered those who have been written out of history to rise and come to the fore.

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of acid house, Sky Arts are broadcasting The Agony & The Ecstasy, a three-party documentary series that tells the story of the rave revolution through 40 seminal figures on the scene including superstar DJs Norman Jay MBE, Goldie MBE, Paul Oakenfold, and Dave Pearce, as well as producers, promoters, club owners, former police officers, and the unsung heroes of the scene.

Norman Jay MBE, one of the original godfathers of warehouse parties, first got his start at the tender age of eight, when he DJed a tenth birthday party. The Notting Hill, London native was born to Grenadian parents and came of age during the 1970s when collaborating with his brother with a reggae sound system they called Great Tribulation. A visit to New York City changed everything and they renamed the system Good Times, with a nod to Nile Rodgers’ disco band Chic. Good Times led the way as acid house came up, helping to spread the culture through the creation of London pirate radio station Kiss FM in 1985.

Norman Jay MBE spoke to Dazed about the political implications of acid house, and how the music forever changed the British landscape.

Read the Full Story at Dazed Digital

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Dazed, Music

~~ A Tribute to Arlene Gottfried ~~

Posted on August 9, 2017

Portrait of Arlene Gottfried: © Kevin C. Down

“Only in New York, kids, only in New York.”

American columnist Cindy Adams’ famed bon mot could easily caption any number of photographs in the archive of Arlene Gottfried. Whether partying in legendary 1970s sex club Plato’s Retreat, hanging out at the Nuyorican Poet’s Café with Miguel Piñero, or singing gospel with the Eternal Light Community Singers on the Lower East Side, Arlene was there and has the pictures to prove it.

“Arlene was a real New Yorker who thrived on the energy of the city, roaming the streets and recording everything she felt through a deeply empathetic and loving lens,” Paul Moakley, Deputy Director of Photography at TIME observes.

It was in her beloved city that Arlene Gottfried drew her final breath. She died the morning of August 8, after a long illness that may have taken from her body but never from her heart. In the final years of her life, she experienced a renaissance with the publication of her fifth final book Mommie (powerHouse, 2015), sell-out exhibitions at Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York, and the 2016 Alice Austen Award for the Advancement of Photography – all of which she attended to with a style all her own.

I put together a tribute to the legendary lady who has always felt like family to me for today’s Dazed.

Photo: © Arlene Gottfried, courtesy of powerHouse Books

Photo: © Arlene Gottfried, courtesy of Daniel Cooney Fine Art.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Brooklyn, Dazed, Manhattan, Photography

The Jim Henson Exhibition

Posted on July 31, 2017

Jim Henson and Kermit the Frog in 1978 on the set of THE MUPPET MOVIE. Photo courtesy of The Jim Henson Company/MoMI. Kermit the Frog © Disney/Muppets.

My very first crush was on Animal, the wild-eyed drummer for Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, the house band on The Muppet Show. I might have been somewhere around three or four, and Animal was the most relatable guy I had ever seen. He spoke no words and was a creature of pure id. That he was a rock star added to his allure, as his flying mane and choke chain.

You might think to yourself, perhaps this is a bit extreme for a children’s television show. But that’s the joy of The Muppet Show—it spoke to people of all ages at the same time, reaching different audiences without offending anyone. Jim Henson, the mastermind who created the show, skillfully weaved subversive humor into the classic vaudeville format, and then added the perfect twist: all the characters were puppets, and yet they were drawn from life.

Kermit the Frog, the soulful leader, was inspired by jazz trumpeter Kermit Ruffins; his girlfriend Miss Piggy was the perfect incarnation of the chauvinist pig, whose appearance during the 1970s exemplified the good, the bad, ad the ugly sides of the gender wars that had been raging for years. Fozzie the Bear was a classic Yiddish comedian who played the Borscht Belt and was woefully out of sync with the times yet as lovable as any wacky uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.

Children might miss all of the cultural clues and still appreciate The Muppets for the sheer joy that a madcap troupe of performers promises. Plus there’s a slight twinge of utopian ideal at play: no matter what walk of life you come from, you are welcome here, so long as you put your heart and soul above all.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Crave, Exhibitions

TBW Book Series No. 5

Posted on July 27, 2017

Image courtesy of Susan Meiselas and TBW Books, 2017

Perhaps you’ve been gazing upon Susan Meiselas’ Prince Street Girls for so long you, you didn’t realize they had never been published in book form. It just seemed so obvious and yet it’s taken four decades for these iconic works to be printed and bound into one sumptuous volume when Soho was an Italian neighborhood.

Remnants of the era have been all but erased by the broad sweeping brush of gentrification. But for a lone street named “Carmine” you might not ever know—well, that and Meiselas’ photographs taken one summer long ago. The photographs were taken during the era of hot pants and wedges, tube tops and high socks, back when you and your crew used to stroll the block for kicks before hightailing it to the beach—when you used to go outdoors in the summer because there was nothing to do indoors, and it was just too damn hot to be inside.

These magical moments of yesteryear have finally been published in the TBW Book Series No. 5, a four-book set that includes Mike Mandel: Boardwalk Minus Forty, Bill Burke: They Shall Take Up Serpents, and Lee Friedlander: Head.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1970s, Books, Photography

Karlheinz Weinberger: Swiss Rebels

Posted on July 27, 2017

Photo: © Swiss Rebels by Karlheinz Weinberger, published by Steidl, Steidl.de

“My life started on Friday events and ended on Monday mornings,” Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger (1921-2006) said in 2000, on the occasion of his first major exhibition at the Museum of Design Zurich. This was the time when he could leave the daily grind behind, forgetting about his work as a warehouse manager at a factory day in and out from 1955 through 1986. It was on the weekends when he picked up his camera and came into himself.

His business card said it all: “My favorite hobbies: the individual portrait and The Extraordinary. Always reachable by telephone after 7 PM.” He refused to photograph people who did not pique his interest, throwing them the ultimate curve with lines like, “It’s easy to snap the shutter, but I’m so busy you’ll have to wait for maybe three to six months to get the photo.”

It takes nerve—and nerve is where Weinberger excelled. He dedicated himself to the raw sexuality of rebels, construction workers, athletes, and Sicilian youths, as well as men who regularly came to his home, undressed, and gave the camera a show.

As an outsider working in a milieu he created exclusively for his own pleasure and delight, Weinberger amassed a body of work is much a portrait of the artist as the subjects he photographed. Weinberger’s love of the human form was not limited to the bare flesh; he captured the raw sensuality in the very spirit of youth, fully dressed and perfectly coiffed, striking an exquisite balance between teenage lust and campy poseurdom.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Fashion, Photography

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

Posted on July 26, 2017

On June 16, 1966, Stokely Carmichael stood before a crowd of 3,000 in a park in Greenwood, Mississippi, who had gathered to march in place of James Meredith, who had been wounded during his solitary “Walk Against Fear” in an effort to integrate the University of Mississippi.

Carmichael, who had been arrested after setting up camp, took to the stage with fire in his gut. “We’ve been saying ‘Freedom’ for six years,” the newly appointed chairman of the SNCC announced, “What we are going to start saying now is ‘Black Power!’”

With those words, Carmichael did more than change the paradigm for Civil Rights, he transformed the language of race itself. Up until that time, Americans had been using the word “Negro,” taken from the Spanish slave trade. It’s linguistic resemblance to the “N” word was all-too evident; the Spanish word for “Black” that was commonly used had been corrupted by English speakers and infested with pathological hatred, fear, and rage.

Carmichael embraced the word “Black” while simultaneously making the case that “Negro” was the oppressor’s term of diminution and disrespect. Malcolm X, who had had been killed a year earlier, was also a proponent for the word “Black.” By the decade’s end, Ebony was using it exclusively, helping to guide the group towards a self-chosen identity that the rest of the nation came to use.

Why does this matter? Because we think in words; the very terms we use to describe the world, and the connotations they hold, inform our beliefs and perceptions, whether we realize it or not. “Black Power” began in the very naming of the act. It was a means of transforming identity from one that was given to that which was claimed.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Artwork: Betye Saar, Rainbow Mojo, 1972. Paul Michael diMeglio, New York.

Artwork: Emma Amos, Eva the Babysitter, 1973. Courtesy of the artist and Ryan Lee Gallery, NY.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Crave, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography

Godlis: Miami Beach, 1974

Posted on July 15, 2017

Photo: © Godlis

Best known for his photographs of the burgeoning punk scene down on the Bowery made in between 1976-1979, Godlis created his historic images of downtown New York in the same spirit of Brassaï’s Paris at Night. It was just two years earlier that Godlis created the photographs in Miami Beach that he describes as “the first time I took really good pictures that didn’t look like anyone else.”

Godlis took up photography in 1972. A year later he began studying at Imageworks Photography in East Cambridge, where he discovered the work of Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Robert Frank. But it wasn’t until he went down to Miami Beach that he found his eye, perhaps due to the fact that he was returning to a pivotal place from his formative years.

In the 1950s, his grandfather retired and moved to Miami Beach, purchased a multi-apartment complex and began renting out units. He kept a few apartments for the family so they would have somewhere to stay for free. Godlis remembers his mother would take him for a visit during the winter and they wouldn’t return to New York until the weather changed. He went every winter as a child until he was in high school. When Godlis returned to Miami Beach in 1974 at the age of 22, it felt like a homecoming. For the first time since he took up photography, he was able to relax and let the pictures happen.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1970s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Photography

How the Blackout of 1977 Helped Hip Hop Blow Up

Posted on July 13, 2017

At dawn, the Manhattan skyline shows no lights due to a power blackout, New York, New York, July 14, 1977. The photo was taken from Jersey City, New Jersey. (Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)

On the evening of July 13, 1977, DJ Disco Wiz and his partner Casanova Fly (later Grandmaster Caz) were in the park on Valentine and 183rd Street in the Bronx with their sound system set up for a battle with a local cat they had regularly been blowing off. But DJ Eddie wouldn’t take no for an answer, so they relented and gave him a chance to make a name for himself.

The city had been going through a ten-day heat wave with temperatures above 100. Wiz was concerned if their small portable fans would keep the amps cool, as they didn’t have internal cooling systems. Although it was hot and humid, people were having a good time. Around 9:30 p.m., Caz got on the turntables. Then the record slowly spun to a stop.

It wasn’t unusual for them to lose power in them middle of a park battle; they hooked their sound system up to the lamppost and had drained the electricity before. But this night, something was different as they watched the street lights go out in rapid succession. Then they realized all the lights in the buildings had gone dark. Suddenly, they heard a huge BANG. A bodega owner had just slammed the gate to his store shut.

As gates on the block began slamming down right and left, it dawned on everyone: Blackout! The crowd started yelling, “Hit the stores! Hit the stores!” Then they advanced on Wiz and Caz, thinking they could jack their sound system. But the DJs stayed strapped. Guns drawn, they pointed directly at the crowd, as Caz ordered, “Go that way, motherfuckers!”

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1970s, Bronx, Crave, Music

Henry Horenstein: Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music

Posted on June 13, 2017

The late songwriter Harland Howard, who penned Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces” and Ray Charles’ “Busted,” was once asked what makes a great country song. “Three chords and the truth,” Howard said, as succinct as the music he wrote. Like all things country, the very best doesn’t overly complicate itself: simplicity is the heart and soul of the people, and their music reflects this through and through.

But it’s not mere simplicity, in the sense of “Less is more.” Rather, it is the precise ability to speak to the people on their own terms. Nothing fancy or sophisticated, no need for the trappings of bourgeois aspirations of elitist status or wealth. Country is, in the truest sense, the culture of the folk.

Country music in America comes from the heartland, from the great fly over states that people on both coasts are quick to disregard. But deep in this landscape, the funky twang is set free, and it travels beyond the region, from sea to shining sea. This sensibility can be seen in the new exhibition, Henry Horenstein: Honky Tonk: Portraits of Country Music on view at the Newport Art Museum in Newport, RI, now through September 10, 2017.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1970s, 1980s

Godlis: Richard Lloyd at Beth Israel Hospital, 1977

Posted on June 13, 2017

Photo: Television’s Richard Lloyd in the hospital (1977). Photography GODLIS.

Back in 1973, when New York City’s Bowery was a more grim and foreboding place than it is today, Hilly Kristal set up the CBGB club on the site of a former biker bar and remade it into the birthplace of punk rock. As fate would have it, members of the proto-punk band Television spotted Kristal as he was hanging the white awning outside the club and let him know that yes, they played Country, Bluegrass, and Blues (CBGB).

The band sent their manager Terry Ork to negotiate a booking, which involved convincing Kristal that they could bring enough friends to support the bar while the band would make money from the door. Kristal had plans to put the stage near the front door but original frontman Richard Hell told him it was a terrible idea. Word has it that the band helped build the stage so that they could begin performing at the club in 1974.

Hell left the band in 1975, and Television went onto success without him. Their first album Marquee Moon was critically acclaimed and they quickly built a cult following. In 1976, a young photographer known only as Godlis stepped inside CBGB for the first time, saw Television performing live, and was hooked. For the next three years, Godlis documented the emerging punk scene in a series of moody black and white photos of Patti Smith, Richard Hell, the Ramones, the Talking Heads, and Blondie, among many others, published last year in History is Made at Night.

At the same time, Godlis was photographing the bands by day, collaborating with them on photos they could use to promote their music. In the fall of 1977, he was asked to create a photo essay documenting Television guitarist Richard Lloyd’s trip to the hospital for a procedure that would purify his blood after heavy drug use, just as Keith Richards had done. The story was to be then published in Rock Scene magazine, to provide an explanation as to why Television’s highly anticipated second album Adventure was being delayed.

Lloyd was staying at Beth Israel Hospital, just a few blocks north of the East Village, where he had the run of the place. Imagine a hospital with rules so lax you could sell marijuana out of your bed – that was par for the course in New York City back in the days. Naturally a photo shoot was easy to set up. Godlis spoke to Dazed about creating music and art in Old New York.

Read the Full Story at Dazed Digital

Photo: Television’s Richard Lloyd in the hospital (1977). Photography GODLIS.

Categories: 1970s

Miron Zownir: Berlin Noir

Posted on June 7, 2017

In 1978, photographer Miron Zownir arrived in West Berlin. At the age of 25, he was coming into his own while the capital of his native Germany was a mecca for artists and anarchists alike who had been drawn to the seamy, seedy underbelly of a city that seemed to be knocking on death’s door. And yet, within the chaos of poverty, new life came forth, as the culture was nourished by creative thought.

From cinemas to sex clubs, drug dens to publishing houses, nightclubs to demonstrations, Berlin was alive with the most nourish of pleasures—and through his camera, Zownir captured it all: the highs, the lows, and the glorious madness of squalor.

His photographs have been collected in Berlin Noir (Pogo Books), spanning nearly four decades, taking us up to 2016. In passionate black and white photographs that are as gritty as they are gripping, Zownir shows us Berlin as we’ve never seen it before. Here is a city filled with derelicts that haunt us with their zest for life and their taste for the edge.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Crave, Photography