Posts from the “Music” Category

Janette Beckman: The Cool Clique

Posted on May 16, 2018

Salt N’ Pepa, New York. Copyright Janette Beckman

For over 40 years, British photographer Janette Beckman has been a fixture on the underground scene, creating a body of work that is stored deep in the memory banks of music fans everywhere. You may have seen her shots on the covers of seminal albums like the Police’s Outlandos D’Amour and EPMD’s Unfinished Business, or on singles like New Edition’s “Candy Girl,” the B-52s’ “Love Shack,” Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” and Run-DMC’s “Mary, Mary.” One thing is for sure: Janette Beckman is everywhere.

Whether shooting music, fashion, portraiture, or documentary work, Beckman’s commitment to celebrating cutting-edge culture has made her one of the most important photographers of our time. But Beckman never rests on the success of her past achievements. Now 57 and living in New York, you can find her most recent work in the pages of Interview magazine, capturing up and coming female rappers. Or in the new Levi’s campaign—creating block party vibes for the new millennium. Whatever the case, Beckman is always in the mix, celebrating the spirit of rebellion, freedom, and self-determination that exemplifies the DIY culture that she has long helped shape.

Read the Full Story at Bust Magazine

The Islington Twins, London, 1979. Copyright Janette Beckman

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Bust, Music, Photography

Huck Magazine: The Coming of Age Issue

Posted on May 14, 2018

Cover Story: Angela Boatwright X Godlis: Punk Now and Then

If coming of age means realising who you are, then the breakthrough can arrive at any time – no matter what stage you’re at. But wherever life takes us, wherever we end up, we all remain connected to the same point in our rearview mirrors: that wide-eyed teen just trying to figure shit out as best we can.

Join us as we celebrate characters who know that better than anyone – from the teenage activists shaping our future to prodigious creatives who don’t believe in failure – and keep forging their own path regardless.

For more, visit Huck Magazine

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

Teenage Kicks: Angela Boatwright X Godlis on Punk Now and Then

Posted on May 11, 2018

What is it about punk that endlessly endures, uniting kids across space and time? Photographers Godlis and Angela Boatwright may have captured two distinct scenes – 1970s New York and contemporary Los Angeles – but in-between these images, made then and now, lies a single connecting thread.

Read More at Huck Magazine

Categories: 1970s, Huck, Music, Photography

Rammellzee: Racing for Thunder

Posted on May 2, 2018

RAMMΣLLZΣΣ. Photography Keetja Allard

Hailing from the outer limits of New York City and maybe even the earth itself, Rammellzee (1960-2010) arrived on the downtown scene aged 19, fully realised, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus, clad in armour, ready to take on all comers.

A singular figure in the early years of graffiti and hip hop who stood apart in a world filled with charismatic talents and revolutionary pioneers, Rammellzee introduced his philosophies of Gothic Futurism and Ikonoklast Panzerism in his artwork and performances. He donned characters and costumes as extensions of himself, comfortably shrouding himself in mysticism, mythology, and legends.

Did he go to jail in the 70s for robbing a bank? The world may never know – but now a new exhibition titled RAMMΣLLZΣΣ: Racing for Thunder tells the story of the elusive artist through those who knew him best. Organised by Red Bull Arts New York Chief Curator Max Wolf and cultural critic Carlo McCormick, the artist’s largest survey to date presents an inclusive selection of work from the icon throughout his three-decade career along with oral histories told by those who knew him best. Here, friends and colleagues share memories of Rammellzee, the man behind the mask.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

RAMMΣLLZΣΣ. Photography Brian Williams

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther Man, Art, Exhibitions, Graffiti, Manhattan, Music, Painting

Danny Fields: My Ramones

Posted on April 24, 2018

Ramones in 1977 playing a festive New Year’s concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre. © Danny Fields / Reel Art Press

The Ramones live at Phase V. © Danny Fields / Reel Art Press

Punk rock might not exist if it hadn’t been for Danny Fields. Born in Queens, the legendary music magnate spent the 60s in the East Village, hanging with the likes of Andy Warhol and his superstars. He championed bands like the Velvet Underground while working as a radio host for WFMU, did publicity for the Doors and the Stooges, and by the 70s, was writing a hugely influential column for the Soho Weekly News. Fields is also the guy who discovered the Ramones.

In 1975, the band begged Fields to hear them play at CBGB, and he was instantly enamored. The Ramones wanted Fields to write about them—but he did them one better and became their manager. He spent the next five years brokering record deals, arranging the band’s first video shoot, and booking their first tours, including a trip to England to play alongside the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned.

But five years in, craving superstardom, the Ramones fired Fields and hired Phil Spector, the manager who notoriously pointed a gun at Johnny Ramone and demanded he play a riff repeatedly. But during his brief tenure, Fields meticulously documented the band’s rise, amassing an incredible archive of photos from the band’s early days. In 2016, Fields released a collection of them as a rare limited edition photo book. But now, My Ramones (Reel Art Press) is being republished and getting a wide release.

VICE tracked Fields down recently to chat about what it was like managing the Ramones in their wildest years.

Read the Full Story at VICE

Ramones first video shoot at M.P.C.’s TV studio. The video contained eight songs in 17-and-a-half minutes and has never been officially released. © Danny Fields / Reel Art Press

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Music, Photography, Vice

Do Angels Need Haircuts? Early Poems by Lou Reed

Posted on April 17, 2018

Lou Reed. Copyright Moe Tucker.

In August 1970, when he was 28 years old, Lou Reed quit The Velvet Underground and moved back into his parents’ home in Long Island, where he stayed for the better part of a year in seclusion to write poetry. He vowed never to play rock and roll again and focused on writing verse which eventually found its way into the pages of Rolling Stone, in addition to smaller poetry zines like The Harvard Advocate, The World, Fusion, The Unmuzzled Ox, and Cold Spring Journal.

“I’m a poet,” Reed publicly declared on March 10, 1971, as he took to the stage of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, New York. Standing before the likes Allen Ginsberg and Ted Berrigan, who smiled in support, Reed recited a selection of new poems along with the lyrics by The Velvet Underground.

Six months later, Reed began recording his self-titled debut solo album produced by David Bowie and arranged by Mick Ronson. But his time away from the limelight was not in vain for it had solidified Reed’s gift for penning lyrical verse that lived on the page – and sometime later in song.

In 1974, Reed compiled All the Pretty People, a book of poetry that was never published. It is only now that his verse has been unearthed, collected, and released in Do Angels Need Haircuts? Early Poems by Lou Reed (Anthology Editions, May 1). The book includes 7” record of the 1971 live reading along with a foreword by Anne Waldman, an afterword by Laurie Anderson, archival notes by Don Fleming, and photographs by Mick Rock.

Here, Fleming provides a five-point guide to the poetry of this music icon.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Lou Reed. Photography Andrew Cifranic

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Books, Music, Poetry

Mark Murrmann: The Midwest Basement Band Scene

Posted on April 16, 2018

Teengenerate at the Fireside Bowl, Chicago, IL © Mark Murrmann

The Tyrades at the Ice Factory, Chicago, IL © Mark Murrmann

American photographer Mark Murrmann caught his first gig as a teen in 1987. It was a GWAR show, with a local band called the Slammies as the opening act. “I had no idea what to expect or what it was about, but I got hooked,” he remembers. “From that point on, I’d go to every show I could.”

There were only a handful of venues in his hometown of Indianapolis catering to the under-21 crowd back then. The only larger venue, the Arlington, didn’t book small touring bands, who made due by playing at high school cafeterias, hotel conference rooms, park recreational halls – anywhere someone was willing to host a show.

“This wasn’t new, but was new to me,” Murrmann explains. “Going to see a band play in a crowded basement or small hall with everyone packed together – the energy was combustible.”

“A guy named Steve Duginsky was booking a lot of the hardcore and emo shows featuring early Bay Area Lookout Records bands, Dischord bands, Chicago bands, bands via Maximum Rock’nroll’s Book Your Own Fucking Life guides. He rented a shitty storefront as a space for shows and called it the Sitcom. In the early ’90s, a lot of spots like this were popping up around the Midwest.”

Read the Full Story at Huck Online

Short Eyes, Monkey Mania Warehouse, Denver, CO. © Mark Murrmann

Categories: 1990s, Art, Huck, Music, Photography

Stranded in the Jungle: Jerry Nolan’s Wild Ride

Posted on April 4, 2018

L.A.M.F. cover sessions. Left to right: Billy Rath, Walter Lure, Jerry Nolan, Johnny Thunders, August 1977© Roberta Bayley

Hailing from Brooklyn, back when it was still a gang town, Jerry Nolan (1946-1992) was an indisputable force in shaping the look and sound of the city’s biggest glam and punk rock bands. As the drummer for The New York Dolls and The Heartbreakers, Nolan set the pace, crafting the face of hard rock during the 1970s – a distinctive combination that was at once raw, rough and rugged, yet highly dandified and charismatic.

“Jerry saw Elvis when he was really young, back in 1956. It reminded him of the gangs he saw in New York,” says Curt Weiss, author of Stranded in the Jungle: Jerry Nolan’s Wild Ride – a Tale of Drugs, Fashion, The New York Dolls, and Punk Rock (BackBeat Books), which released its Kindle edition yesterday. “For Jerry, gangs and rock and roll were interchangeable. It was a secondary family. He never had a dad; his mother kept divorcing, remarrying, and moving around. The only constant men in his life came through gangs or music.”

Nolan, who had learned to sew and cut hair, created what he described as a “profile,” which allowed him to stand above the crowd. “People thought he was in a band even when he wasn’t,” Weiss notes. But soon enough, he was. He joined The New York Dolls in 1972 after drummer Billy Murcia died of asphyxiation following efforts to revive him after a drug overdose while on tour in England.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Dolls “reunion” at Gem Spa, left to right, Johnny Thunders, Sylvain Sylvain, Jerry Nolan, Arthur Kane, David Johansen, August 1977© Roberta Bayley

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Books, Music

Janette Beckman for BUST Magazine

Posted on March 19, 2018

In my latest 8-page feature for BUST Magazine, Janette Beckman shares stories of a life in photography, starting in the squats of Streatham while a student at St. Martin’s back in the 70s all the way up to the present day, with big plans for 2018, just you wait and see. JB has been a fixture on the scene photographing the underground before the crossover came.

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Music, Photography

Charlie Ahearn: The Wild Style 35th Anniversary

Posted on March 16, 2018

In 1983, Wild Style debuted in Times Square and Tokyo, introducing the world to what would soon be called hip hop like the rush of an oncoming subway. Breakdancing, graffiti, and rap—this was the youth culture of the Bronx captured in a semi-scripted feature by a Manhattan filmmaker named Charlie Ahearn.

Wild Style introduced Fab Five Freddy, the Cold Crush Brothers, and graffiti legends like Lee Quinones. It went on to become a sacred text for graffiti writers and aspiring DJs, inspiring art and music from Banksy and the Beastie Boys to Nas and Missy Elliott. “As soon as I began to work with Fred on the film,” Ahearn says, “I felt certain that it was going to go out around the world to represent this new culture.”

On the film’s 35th Anniversary, an occasion marked by a screening at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., we talked to the director about the movie that put hip hop on the map.

Read the Full Story at Ceros Originals

Categories: 1980s, Art, Bronx, Graffiti, Music

Exclusive: Photographer Jamil GS Says Kendrick Lamar’s ‘LOVE.’ Video Copies His Work

Posted on February 13, 2018

Photo: Left: Kendrick Lamar’s ‘LOVE.’ video / Right: Jamil GS’s ‘Stick-ups’ series

About a minute and a half into the music video for Kendrick Lamar’s “LOVE.”, a scantily clad woman appears against a black backdrop, pulling pin-up poses, illuminated by a single source of light. It’s a stylish shot, and for any fans of hip hop photography, it might be familiar.

The image recalls “Outta Darkness”, a 2004-05 calendar of pin-up-style photos by Jamil GS, an influential photographer who has previously shot the likes of JAY-Z and Diddy and had his work exhibited alongside the likes of Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. As the godfather of the ‘ghetto fabulous’ style of photography that reigned supreme during the 90s and early 00s, Jamil GS pioneered a look that took hip hop culture to the next level. He was surprised when he believed he saw his signature style replicated in Kendrick’s video.

“I’m disappointed that someone whose music I respect, and with such resources, would copy my work,” Jamil GS sighs. “When another artist or peer appropriates my work, it devalues it. I have a clear signature style that has taken years to develop and situations like this, if not called out, make it harder for me to market my work.”

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Categories: Art, Dazed, Music, Photography