Posts from the “Music” Category

Girls on Film: 70s Punk Legends by Jim Jocoy

Posted on October 7, 2015

Photo: Debbie Harry by Jim Jocoy

Picture it: San Francisco, late 1970s. The punk scene was in full swing and Do It Yourself was in the air. It was a time of youthful ingenuity and rebelliousness that was one part F the system and one part self-indulgence. It was at this time that photographer Jim Jocoy came upon an ingenious plan that resulted in some of the most iconic photographs taken at the time.

The 1970s was a time of Quaaludes. Inhibitions slipped and bold actions were taken without thought to consequence. Jocoy made regular trips to the 7-11 for Kodak color slide film. He loaded his camera, then headed on out to the clubs where he photographed everyone from Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, and Patti Smith to Darby Crash, Exene Cervenka, and Sid Vicious. He also photographed the habitués of the scene, the young men and women that shined brighter than life, each radiating with some much pure and wild energy.

Read the Full Story at Crave Online

Muriel Cervenka, photographed by Jim Jocoy

Categories: 1970s, Art, Crave, Music, Photography, Women

Scott Nichols Gallery: It’s Only Rock and Roll

Posted on August 26, 2015

Photo: Baron Wolman, Jimmy Hendrix with Guitar, 1968

Photo: Andy Freeberg, BB King at Montreux, 1980

The late, great B.B. King observed, “Playing the guitar is like telling the truth—you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don’t have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don’t have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It’s you.”

King lived his life in this truth and gave this truth to the world. He who had said, “I never use that word, retire,” continued to play live performances until just months before his death, earlier this year, at 89 years old. King, one of the greatest blues musicians of our times, showing us that music is not just in your blood, it is in your soul. He understood the power of music to bring people together, to reach them in a way that nothing else could. He sagely advised, “You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll,” and he set those words to song.

We feel his joy, long after he is gone, not just in his music but in the photographs taken of him throughout the years. “I want to connect my guitar to human emotions,” King said, and we are reminded of the power of his intention when gazing upon Andy Freeberg’s photograph of BB King at Montreux, 1980, which is currently on view in the group show It’s Only Rock and Roll, on view at Scott Nichols Gallery, San Francisco, now through September 16, 2015.

Read the Full Story at CRAVE ONLINE

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Crave, Exhibitions, Music, Photography

Danny Clinch: Still Moving

Posted on July 17, 2015

Photograph: Bruce Springsteen, 2007 (©Danny Clinch).

“Still is still moving to me,” Willie Nelson said, a beautiful sentiment befitting the photograph itself. A fraction of a second frozen in time, forevermore, is the ephemeral made eternal. This is a kind of magic, something more than art. It is an artifact, a document, witness to history as it unfolds. The photograph must stand the test of time; it must endure so that it can speak to future generations.

Music photography is a beautiful paradox: the silence is deafening, yet enveloping. That which is sound is now purely visual, distilled in a single moment that delivers all the highs and lows, all the rhythm and blues, as the crowd goes wild and we becomes one. It is this intensity that the photographer seeks, this moment when we are lost and found that we are truly present.

Danny Clinch is a master of the form, seamlessly moving on and off stage with his instrument, the camera guiding his way. More than 200 of his seminal photographs are collected in Still Moving (Abrams Books), along with an essay by Bruce Springsteen, who explains, “When Danny Clinch and I clicked as photographer/subject, it was because somewhere deep inside we had he same points of reference—the same songs and movies dancing in our heads. With each click of the shutter he was scrolling through my record collection, referencing my influences, searching for the same magic. I could feel he’d been mesmerized by the same images of our heroes that made me want to be a musician and that made me, during our shoots, tilt my head down a little (like Elvis), or move to the left into a half shadow (like Dylan) or out into light (like, like…?).”

Read the Full Story at CRAVE ONLINE.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Crave, Music, Photography

Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Record Covers 1949-1987

Posted on July 1, 2015

Melodic Magic, Vol 1, 1953. All images © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The album cover is an icon of the past, of an age when vinyl was something to be collected. The 12 x 12 inch surface was a canvas ripe for exploration, the square format offering infinite interpretations. The album cover, such as it was, provided a space for the artist to put us in the mood, to seduce us with images, words, ideas. It offered a space for contemplation, as the record spun round, creating a delicious interplay between audio and visual experience of the work. As a result, album covers, in certain cases, have become icons themselves.

ndy Warhol designed his first record cover in 1949; clearly he sensed the value of the medium, for he launched his career phoning record companies and soliciting them. Over the years, until his death in 1987, he created more than fifty covers which are presented beautifully in Andy Warhol: The Complete Commissioned Record Covers 1949-1987, Catalogue Raisonné, 2nd Edition by Paul Maréchal (Prestel). Produced at nearly actual size, with photographs of the original works, along with entries detailing the story of each album, this catalogue is a compendium of sumptuous delight.

Warhol’s gift for blurring the lines between high and low art and be felt in each and every illustration he created. His best known works, the covers of The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) and the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers (1971), appear alongside lesser known works such as Monk featuring Thelonious Monk with Sonny Rollins and Frank Foster (1954) Giant Size $1.57 Each, released in conjunction with the exhibition The Popular Image at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art (1963). Taken together as a group, we can follow the thread of Warhol’s transformation from illustrator to artist, his visual vocabulary becoming more exact and extreme as his ideas take hold.

Read the Full Story at CRAVE ONLINE

Monk, 1954. All images © 2015 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Crave, Manhattan, Music

Fresh Dressed: Directed by Sacha Jenkins

Posted on June 29, 2015

CNN Films: Fresh Dressed- Classic street style; Brooklyn New York, circa 1986.
Photograph by Jamel Shabazz

“Being fresh is more important than having money. I only wanted money so I could be fresh,” Kanye West says with the utmost conviction. Dressed in all white, Kanye is sitting in on the deck of a beach house, somewhere where the skies are blue and the water is clean, and drops bon mots like this for the camera. Yeezy is just one of the many moguls, masterminds, and pioneers in Sacha Jenkins’ documentary film, Fresh Dressed, which premiered at the SVA Theater, New York, on June 18 and releases nationwide on June 26, 2015.

The theater was a who’s who of legends who created the form of Hip Hop that took the world by storm. As KRS-One said, “Rap is something you do. Hip Hop is something you live.” This way of being was very much in evidence in the crowd, filled with the artists, musicians, and designers who have defined Hip Hop style. It was a veritable who’s who of fashion visionaries including Dapper Dan, Karl Kani, Mark Ecko, April Walker, Shirt King Phade, and Jorge Fabel Pabon, among others, people who revolutionized the look, feel, and availability of mainstream apparel as well as couture pieces.

Nasir Jones, executive producer of the film, was sitting in the audience as Sacha Jenkins took the stage before the screening began to welcome the audience and say a few words. Wearing a Public School shorts-suit, bow tie, and plaid shirt with red kicks, Jenkins was handed the mic and asked, “You know my first question, right? Is Queens in the house?” The call was answered enthusiastically by the audience. Jenkins did roll call, then he broke it down, introducing Nas by saying, “He went to the same shitty junior high school as I did…The guidance counselors told me the best way to make it in life was vocational jobs. None had any expectations of us.”

Read the Full Story at CRAVE

CNN Films: Fresh Dressed- The jean jacket was graffiti art’s first canvas. B boys on the street, Brooklyn circa 1983
Photograph by Jamel Shabazz

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Bronx, Brooklyn, Crave, Fashion, Manhattan, Music, Photography

The Way We Wore: Black Style Then

Posted on June 19, 2015

1978, Newark, New Jersey. Douglas Says.

Style is a statement of individuality, of identity, and of pride. Style is the great art of living manifest by our desire to beautify, to adorn, and to express a great inner being in tangible form. Style most readily finds itself expressed through fashion, hair, and makeup, though it is also evident in the very act of documenting one’s self. To have style is to give unto the world, to share it not only in the present tense but to capture it for future generations to enjoy.

In The Way We Wore: Black Style Then (Glitterati Incorporated), Michael McCollom chronicles African-Americans fashion from the 1940s through today. Featuring snapshots of over 150 black men and women’s most unforgettable “style moments”, The Way We Wore includes personal photographs taken from the author’s own family and circle of friends, a circle of 100 fashion insiders, outsiders, and beautiful people that includes Oprah Winfrey, James Baldwin, Carmen de Lavallade, Iman, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Tracy Reese, Patrick Kelly, Kimora Lee, Bobby Short, Bethann Hardison, Tookie Smith, and Portia LaBeija, among others.

The late, great Geoffrey Holder eloquently observes in the book’s foreword, “One should not enter a room and expect ambiance; one should enter a room and become it. Those that grace the pages of The Way We Wore took that concept and ran with it. Through the reader will witness the evolution—and, in some cases, the faux pas—of fashion and design, it is in the personal flair that an individual bestows to each outfit that creates the look…. Like a yearbook, you will come back to this work again and again. Though you may not know the people personally, you will recognize them. Michael has carefully chosen pictures and people that exhibit the historical framework of African-American influence on fashion, design, and culture.”

Read the Full Story at CRAVE ONLINE

1978, Newark, New Jersey. Linwood Allen, Designer.

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

Salut ! NYC, 1981 Nominated for Webby Award

Posted on April 8, 2015

SAMO IS DEAD, New York, NY, 1981. Photograph by Robert Herman

We are thrilled to announce that NYC, 1981 has been nominated for a Webby Award in the category of Website: Blog – Cultural, alongside the likes of Vanity Fair, The New York Times, Pitchfork, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

NYC, 1981 is a culture website inspired by the film “A Most Violent Year,” and a TWBE x A24 production. For the site, I had the great privilege of interviewing Charlie Ahearn, John Ahearn, Barry Blinderman, Joyce Chasan, Joe Conzo, Jane Dickson, Ricky Flores, Arlene Gottfried, Robert Herman, Douglas Kirkland, Joe Lewis, Christopher Makos, Toby Old, Clayton Patterson, and Jamel Shabazz. You can check out these interviews and more at NYC, 1981

We would like to encourage you to vote, and to spread the word, so that this great, independent site dedicated to New York City culture, politics, and art in 1981 will receive the recognition it deserves.

Vote HERE.

Categories: 1980s, Art, Books, Bronx, Brooklyn, Fashion, Graffiti, Manhattan, Music, Painting, Photography

Peter Mishara: Bronx 79

Posted on February 11, 2015

Bronx 79. I remember it well. Diana Vreeland once said something to the effect of the first five years of your life influence your sensibility and your taste because the world makes a powerful impression on your soul. It is those early years, when you are just navigating the world, that time and place are one and the same. This is style, in the truest sense of the word. Who What Where When Why & How? That’s what it’s all about.

Bronx 79, that’s where Peter Mishara comes in, with a trailer of the same name that you can view HERE. It takes us back into time, to a world so long ago that all that remains are the photographs, the footage, and the people who lived to tell.

Miss Rosen: What was the inspiration for Bronx 79 ? What made you decide to develop a documentary film to explore this place in time ? What are some of the ideas and themes that you are exploring in the film ?

Peter Mishara: Quite simply, Bronx 79 grew out of a lifelong love of the music and the culture. Hip-hop has been some part of my life from a very young age and something that has grown with me as I have and has connected me to people and places and experiences that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. The interest to me was twofold – one, I was born in NYC in 1976 and I’ve always grappled with the sense of nostalgia that I have for that era, not of my own specific memories but more of a time and place that is no longer. And two, even when I was a young kid listening to EMPD and Slick Rick and the like I still was curious to the origins of the culture – who were these cats that came before? So stuff like Crash Crew and Flash were getting a lot of play in my Walkman. My first screenplay that I ever wrote was a short film based on a Masta Ace story (with his blessing of course) that appeared in a 1993 issue of the Source called “Sleeping Snakes” which was about graffiti writers in the early 80s. In ’98 I turned it into my senior thesis at Temple University when I went there for undergrad (a trailer is HERE). In any event, my desire to accurately portray this era on film has been with me a long while.

This is the main idea that I want to explore – you’ve got a culture that was effectively on its own for almost 6 years, from ’73 to ’79, with its own constellation of stars, artists all within a 50 block or so radius. In today’s hyperconnected world, that’s an impossibility – that shit would be on Twitter tomorrow and by the end of the week be played out, but again we’re talking 6 years here – crazy, and not to mention set against the backdrop of one of the single greatest collapses of urban infrastructure in the modern history of the world. Its become cliché to say nowadays, but people forget how much NYC was in freefall at the time and there was serious consideration that it might not ever recover. All that to say that these kids were not expected to make any contribution to larger society, quite the opposite, they were in many ways abandoned and forgotten. Instead of being forgotten however, they laid the foundation to the greatest youth movement of the past 40 years. So they’ve got six years to cook the culture, let it percolate and establish rules and style. Then boom, this one 12” comes out – Rappers Delight – and changes everything. Literally, its BRD and ARD in hip-hop history – what does that mean to the constellation of stars and fans? Its almost like the introduction of sound in film, you’ve got some talent that’s able to make the switch, but a lot aren’t able to, and just like silent film, you’ve got a lot of those amazing pieces of art that are lost to time. That’s what compels me about this and what I want to explore in Bronx 79.

Who are the subjects who will be featured in the film ? What made you select them ? What expertise does each of them bring to the story?

In this proof-of-concept trailer, you’ve got 3 people interviewed – two people that were there at the beginnings, DJ Disco Wiz and Joe Conzo and a journalist, Jeff Chang to help give a little context. All three were incredible talents and I was lucky (with the help of a certain Miss Rosen) to get them on screen. Wiz wrote the amazing memoir It’s Just Begun (which served as inspiration for the main music choice of the trailer), and one of the things that’s fascinating about him is that during “BRD” he went upstate to do a bid and he missed the actual shift that the culture experienced, so that the change for him when he got back home was far more palatable. Joe is an incredible dude, just a kid when he took these pictures that would be some of the only records of this era and talking to him you can still see that same guy in there somewhere. The way he talks about that time you just feel like that you’re there with him. And Jeff was fantastic just in terms of his research and his knowledge of this specific time and place. I was very lucky to interview them as the basis for this trailer.

I do have a rather extensive wish-list of people that I’d love to get on film. Of course the “holy trinity” of Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash. You’ve got musicians such as Grandmaster Caz, The Furious Five, Charlie Chase, Kurtis Blow, Sha Rock, Buzy Bee Starski, Melle Mel, the list goes on and definitely talk to the cats that were on the front lines of this seismic shift – the Sugarhill Gang (RIP Big Hank Bank). If I could be quite honest, my biggest issue with the proof-of-concept trailer as it is, is that it doesn’t include any b-boying or graff, this is not an oversight, just a factor of production limitations. So that being said, b-boys such as Crazy Legs, Ken Swift, Jimmy D, Lenny Len, Chino “Action” Lopez, Popmaster Fabel, etc. And graff artists Lee, Lady Pink, Futura, Zephyr, T-Kid, Seen, Phase II just to name a very few. As a side note, its pretty interesting that what is considered the core “pillars” of hip-hop started out separately from one another and became inextricably linked in hindsight, but this is an element that would be worth exploring more. And finally, I’d like to interview people from that time that aren’t “names” but were avid fans of the scene. Jeff Chang has a great passage in his book Can’t Stop Won’t Stop with Cindy Campbell, sister of Kool Herc, whose desire for a new wardrobe for going back to school was the impetus for what is widely considered the first hip-hop jam in 1973. I’d love to interview people such as her to get a completely different perspective on what that world was actually like.

I love the original footage and photographs included in the film. What were some of the challenges in sourcing authentic materials from the era ?

The challenge is that there isn’t any! Well, that might be going a bit far, but the reality is that actual archival footage from that time is very few and very far between. First and foremost, Joe Conzo allowing me to use his photographs was huge – they are pretty much the only document from that era that directly shows that scene. The other first degree archival footage exists as personal photographs and in rare instances Super 8mm film, all of which I’d love to feature.

The other main resource is either a handful of narrative films and a few documentaries. The internet obviously is a great resource in terms of listing the films, but almost anything online is horrible quality. I strove for highest quality as possible, and I’ve been collecting DVDs for the past decade or so to pull from. What is exciting is that these movies, such as Fort Apache, the Bronx and Wolfen were shot on film and could be potentially uprezzed to HD, a possibility which is completely dependent on availability and cost. There’s a great blog run by filmmaker Jonathan Hertzberg (http://knifeinthehead.blogspot.ca/) where he creates these supercuts of what he terms “Dirty Old New York” which was an invaluable resource.

The challenge is a great one to have and forces you to find new ways to show what it was actually like then. In an ideal world, I’d like to bring to life some of these stories either through animation (Vaughn Bode and particularly Ralph Bakshi’s Coonskin are huge influences) or through live-action recreations. Both techniques should feel like a modern interpretation of era specific styles, meaning they should feel like a time capsule of the ’70s.

What are your plans for developing a longer length film?

Great question. On one hand, the proof-of-concept trailer were some ideas that I’ve had in my head for a long time and eventually I just wanted to get them out in the world. From that perspective, the experience has been invaluable in terms of allowing me to focus on what works and what doesn’t. For me, it comes down to storytelling – people that were there and lived it and through their stories are able to take you back to that time. There tends to be a romanticizing of what New York was like back then which doesn’t interest me. That’s why I started the trailer with Wiz’s great quote, “This wasn’t like no love pow-wow, this was the streets.” So basically I want to hear more of these stories, get them on film and take it from there.

Categories: 1970s, Art, Bronx, Music, Photography

Ain’t Got No (I Got Life)

Posted on June 19, 2014

I ain’t got no home, ain’t got no shoes
Ain’t got no money, ain’t got no class
Ain’t got no skirts, ain’t got no sweater
Ain’t got no perfume, ain’t got no bed
Ain’t got no mind

Ain’t got no mother, ain’t got no culture
Ain’t got no friends, ain’t got no schooling
Ain’t got no love, ain’t got no name
Ain’t got no ticket, ain’t got no token
Ain’t got no God

And what have I got?
Why am I alive anyway?
Yeah, what have I got
Nobody can take away?

Got my hair, got my head
Got my brains, got my ears
Got my eyes, got my nose
Got my mouth, I got my smile
I got my tongue, got my chin
Got my neck, got my boobs
Got my heart, got my soul
Got my back, I got my sex

I got my arms, got my hands
Got my fingers, got my legs
Got my feet, got my toes
Got my liver, got my blood

I’ve got life, I’ve got my freedom
I’ve got the life

I’ve got the life
And I’m gonna keep it
I’ve got the life
And nobody’s gonna take it away
I’ve got the life

~*~

Photographs by Liz Gomis
Lyrics by Nina Simone: Press PLAY

Categories: Art, Music, Photography, Poetry

Bonz Malone: Flo-Master

Posted on June 16, 2014

I first met Bonz Malone at Housing Works Bookstore on Crosby Street. I sat at a table in the back, which afforded the best view of the place, both the ground floor and the mezzanine. When Bonz arrived it was as though, and he sat down beside me and composed perfect sentences out of thin air, and made me conscious of the elegance that comes with precision. He also made taking notes utterly delightful. He never spoke so fast as to out run my pen, and more often than not, I could sit quietly, reposed with pen in hand and pd in palm and listen, really listen, as the words fell from his tongue and his lips and splashed on the page.

And so it was, the inevitable needs no plan, as I put fingertip to keyboard to send this note, and it took form in words because it be like that. Words, these words, they never stop, they are but are like limitless flows from the fountain of thought. And so it is that I asked questions and Bonz Malone replied, much to my delight.

Miss Rosen: I have quietly admired your way with words for so long I can’t even remember, but I feel like Ricky Powell is the dude who put me on. He has a photo of you that has a certain je ne sais quoi, and when I first heard your name, I thought to myself, “I better go find out.” And so I did, and thus, my admiration grew. I wonder if you might speak about when you first realized you had a way with words, both in the spoken and written worlds, and how that became a source of power, pride, and .. pleasure ..

BONZ MALONE: Growing up in New York City, you unconsciously pick up a unique swagger that can only be appreciated by someone else who has it or someone who wants to copy it. At home, my mother (An English major from Cambridge) trained me in the King’s English. Whenever I made a mistake in pronunciation or I misused a word, I was quickly corrected and had to look it up. She never told me what anything meant. But in the streets, I paid attention to the way others expressed themselves and it was very different. It was relaxed, abrupt, more general and less deliberate than a scholar of Oxford or Cambridge would ever care for. So I knew not to give anybody grammatical lessons or I’d be picking up teeth. I did notice that there were a selected few “Street Guys” who were very charismatic and had the knack for making people either laugh at everything they said or they made people piss on themselves with their life-threatening statements. Either way, I was diggin’ the way these guys communicated and quietly studied their poetic parlance. I thought that it would help me get “connected” and make me seem more cool and it did, but it took many years. It wasn’t until I began writing graffiti that I started to understand the power that words really had. As a Christian, I had been taught to tell the truth and I believed that nothing was more liberating or more powerful than walking the path of the righteous man. As a criminal, however, nothing was more important in the streets as loyalty, courage and honor. These are part of a code and when they become intrinsic, you become real, which is the street equivalent to True. When I realized that I could both “Keep it real and be True to the game” that’s when I started writing what I thought, but in the way that others spoke. So then I became influential to both by unifying these principles.

I’ve been enjoying your posts on FB for the distinctive mix of brilliance and audacity. Please talk about how the word is a vehicle for awakening the mind, heart, and spirit?

During the 80’s and 90’s, I saw the spotlight shift from hip-hop the culture to rap, its selfish, yet talented sibling. The glamour of guns and violence was fueled by drug sales and record labels were their laundry mats. At night I was on the streets or in the train yards lookin for the “White Whale”, but during business hours, I was either Script Consultant for the movie “Juice” at Island Records/Island Films or at The Source, introducing the Notorious B.I.G. as “The King of New York.” That piece is significant because I created that title as the name of the cover story on him. No one called him that until I wrote that article, in fact, the title (which is coveted by rappers that aren’t even from NYC to this day) didn’t even exist! If I could do that and even now, 90% of his fans don’t even know it, then I most certainly know that writing can do all three of those things you’ve described. If Jehovah God (Yahweh) himself uses written communication to enlighten us and instruct us on how to benefit ourselves, there can’t be a better example of its power. After Biggie’s demise I began taking on social issues. I figured, I had already given hip-hop an alphabet being “The Father of Phonetic Spelling” just to get people who were illiterate in my neighborhood to read; now I was gonna drug the public with phat pieces of sweet gum, which was basically, MC’ing on a white sheet of paper to my own rhythm and makin’ niggaz dance to the “other beat”. The only difference this time was that I was committed to making them aware of their power through social change and not about glorifying rappers.

I am curious about the way in which people respond to your work. Like, for example, this interview is my form of response #moremoremore .. I trust there have been many deeply felt personal moments of on all emotional fronts, be it joy, sadness, anger, and surprise among others. Why do you think words have the power to evoke such powerful responses from those who read them? What does it feel like to receive such strong feedback to your work and how does this feed your creative process?

BONZ MALONE: I’ve had every kind of response I can think of. Just the other day I was in Dunkin’ Doughnut at 1am and a guy walked in recognized me and told me about an article I wrote years ago at Vibe in which I interviewed a Shi Yang Ming, a Shaolin Warrior Monk about the use of the Swastika as a symbol of peace. It blew his mind completely. He had never known that it was a peace sign and that Hitler reversed the image, thus making it a negative the way the Yin/Yan symbol demonstrates the two. We talked for hours. It was very humbling as it has always been such to see and hear the deep emotion that a reader expresses after being affected by your work, especially if it’s positive. I’ve learned, however, not to interfere with their interpretation. If it is something that leaves a positive outlook, then it’s all good. It’s important to say things that after years of understanding, we now have the courage to say. Never would I want to let my society tell me what to buy, what to do, what to think. You have to embrace power in order to use it and many are still afraid of theirs. The pen is only mightier than the sword when it’s in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. Being a dope writer is only sexy to an intellectual. Being a great student of life and a better thinker and connector of principles to applicable situations is by far, more needed, yet both will inevitably make your words necessary should you have the courage to write with authority. It’s not the letters or the reactions from an audience or even the prestigious awards that can be won that you need to give you validation because most great writers don’t have those things, but all great writers know that their work is dope before it has even been proof read or they’ve clicked the spelling and grammar keys on their computer, if you have a computer. What if you don’t have a computer? Auto-Correct doesn’t make you an intelligent writer. Reading and meditating on the rhythm that the writer writes to and understanding it, even if you don’t agree with the reasoning, is making you better. Facebook has made me a better forecaster of trends and more knowledgeable about when to put the word out and to what degree of audacity. Twitter edits my thoughts, which sharpens my words into concise and powerful blasts, so when people come up to me and talk about my past work or my page or a cop recognizes me in a restaurant and asks me for my autograph, I feel the same way I did every time I walked into a subway car looking for my tag and saw my name up there and I remember who showed me how to speak, act and write like that. The ones who validated themselves and I just want the blessing to be able to do it forever.

I remember you said something to the effect that you would rather wait ten years to produce work that would last 100 years, rather than to satiate yourself with instant gratification. Where does that patience and discipline come from?

BONZ MALONE: 50% is conceit and the other 50% is procrastination. Writing is performing brain surgery on yourself! It is a reclusive form of art that’s lonely and that can lead to alcoholism and depression. Many writers hate writing. What they love is haven written something of worth and of interest. Edison failed for years before he stole God’s idea. Einstein meditated for ten years before he wrote the theory of relativity. That is truly amazing when you consider that although, he possessed considerable wisdom, he was smart enough to take the time needed to look at things from every possible aspect. If you are committed and honest and have the patience to perfect something, it could mean the difference in people’s lives! I believe that because I’ve seen proof of it in my own work. The things that I’ve written, both privately and professionally, have neither been outdated or undone. As a graffiti writer, I used Flo-Master because it had a dark, shiny pigmentation that made my name look good when I wrote over other niggaz. Plus, it was permanent and that is the whole point of doin’ dope shit when you’re alive is to leave a permanent mark on people’s minds and on history itself. As an Actor, Writer and Producer, I get paid every time my work appears in almost any form for the rest of my life. Even after I die, my name will still be making money, so I better earn that shit.

RADIKAL magazine *2002 Rock Steady Crew feature. — with R.I.P Frosty Freeze, Capital Q Unique, David Nelson, FeverOne Rock Steady, POPMASTER FABEL, Julio Cesar Umaña Rodriguez, Mitchell Graham, Bonz Malone, Rock Steady Crew, Brina AlienNess Martinez, Cookie Wear and Marc Lemberger. Photo courtesy Jorge “Fabel” Pabon.

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Bronx, Brooklyn, Graffiti, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Richard Verdi: New York Punk

Posted on May 2, 2014

Back in the 1970s when New York teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, a new world was being born, a world of Do It Yourself (cause if it ain’t you, it might never be). It was during this time that Richard Verdi went out every night going with his friends to catch live music shows at CBGB’s. Verdi has just released his book, New York Punk, self-published, because that’s what D.I.Y. means. New York Punk is a charming number, like the paperback photography books of the 70s, the collections of printed matter done in small editions and halftone printing. Paper and ink, bound in hand, pages turning one after another, a story of how we lived then.

Verdi’s photographs are from a time before video killed the radio star, from a time before any of these artists were on the radio, when they were still at the clubs doing shows for the crowds. Style is everything, and it is here in high contrast black and white. It is where it all began, an aesthetic of destruction distinctly American. New Yorker to be exact. This is downtown when it was underground and more people were none the wiser to what would come next.

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L’Oeil de la Photographie

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Fashion, Manhattan, Music, Photography