Could your day use an extra dose of punk rock? (Note: The answer to this question is always “yes.”) If so, you’ll want to check out Teenage Wasteland, Berlin-based designer/illustrator Niklas Coskan’s fun collection of teen-outlaw character drawings. Each image features a cigarette-smoking, occasionally weapon-wielding juvenile delinquent uttering classic punk lyrics, from the Runaways fan singing, “Hey boy, you’re my good time” to the Bowie T-shirt-clad gent surrounded by Iggy Pop’s immortal words, “No fun.” Check out Teenage Wasteland after the jump, and then visit Coskan’s website to see more of his work.
The Tumblrsphere may have offered us an endless supply of time-wasting entertainment last year, but what has it done for us lately? Well, allow us to introduce you to the first Tumblr to win our undying love in 2012: LIVE! Created by Jean-Marie Delbes and Hatim El Hihi, it features classic album covers that have been Photoshopped to remove any musicians who have died. The result is surprisingly unsettling — lonely Tommy Ramone with his back against a brick wall, David Johansen and Syl Sylvain’s downcast gazes on the New York Dolls’ self-titled debut taking on a new, mournful meaning. Page through a few of our favorite edits after the jump, and visit LIVE! to see more.
While you’re combing the Internet this holiday season for the perfect nerdy t-shirt to gift someone, we thought we’d take this opportunity to invite you to look back on a few classics. The things we choose to brand our bodies with — whether it be the logos of our favorite bands, or symbols from most-loved films — are bold statements that help define who we are and what we’re feeling. Some t-shirt designs have become larger than life — absorbed into the pop culture mind grapes and resurrected in various 2.0 redesigns. Others have stayed the same and are classics for a reason. Click through to check out ten iconic pop culture t-shirts, and leave your favorites below. Read More »
Prostitutes have occupied the role of muse for innumerable artists. Writers, painters, musicians, filmmakers, and poets have alternately identified with, idealized and demonized working girls in an obsessive fixation spanning generations. From Paris’ 19th Century avant-garde to the streets of New York City in the 1970s, the disgust and awe that surrounds the working girl (and boy) continues to consume the pages and palettes of creative minds.
The Internet, alongside changing sexual and social mores, may have begun to transform the way we perceive sex workers — making the world’s oldest profession less of a clandestine operation and more of a business transaction (see: Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience). However, there will always be an artistic refuge — and planet Hollywood, of course — for the romanticization of crooked pimps and saucy streetwalkers. For every sordid, seamy expose, there’s a Pretty Woman waiting in the wings to silver-line the mythos. After the jump, check out some of our favorite “love letters” — and less flattering missives — to the women and men of the night. Which ones have always fascinated you?
One of the wonderful things about the internet is that there’s almost inevitably someone out there who’ll go to the trouble of doing something like… well, for example, scanning every single issue of iconic ’70s music magazine Rock Scene. The magazine published 54 issues from 1973 until 1982 — founded by Richard and Lisa Robinson, it also gave the world photographers Bob Gruen and Leee Black Childers, along with a heap of fascinating reportage from 1970s NYC. Austin, Texas resident Ryan Richardson has digitized every page of every issue and made them available as free, Flash-based flipbooks on his website. We’ve spent a very enjoyable morning flicking through his site, and collated a selection of our favorite moments — head over to rockscenester.com for lots, lots more.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that “Americana” music is constantly evolving, and who better to school us than Kurt Vile? The Philadelphia native took his place in the canon with 2009′s Childish Prodigy, a yawning, steely set of ballads and ambient buzz, tinged with shimmering, shameless exercises in guitar acrobatics. Today, Smoke Ring for My Halodrops on Matador, delving even deeper into contemporary, urban folktales. There’s even a harp! If you’re in New York, you can catch Kurt Vile at one of no fewer than three in-store performances: Academy Records in Brooklyn (5pm, with Bill Nace and Thurston Moore), and in Manhattan at Generation Records (7pm) or Other Music (9pm).
Without further ado, we give you Kurt Vile’s Americana video playlist, accompanied by his take on each of the songs he selected. True story: after whipping up this mix for us, he confessed he’ll be making a tape of it for the road. We just might do the same.
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.
Collecting four decades of work, James Hamilton’s You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen combines the dedication of a photojournalist with the passion of a true music fan and the eye of a fine-art photographer.
The new book, edited by longtime friend and frequent subject Thurston Moore, chronicles Hamilton’s 40 years immersed in the downtown NYC music and art scene. Lovingly culled from the artist’s vast private archive, the volume also features never-before published candid photographs of icons from Joni Mitchell to the Ramones.
Yesterday, at long last, Girl Talk released his new album, All Day. He’s even offering it for free online, at Illegal Art, although the download queues are predictably massive. When you finally get that sweet, sweet zip file onto your hard drive, you’ll notice that Girl Talk’s two-year absence hasn’t dulled his mastery of the sample. Any new Girl Talk album doubles as an unofficial “Name That Tune” challenge, a trivia quiz for those who pride themselves on their pop-music literacy. But never fear! We have a cheat sheet. Your intrepid listeners at Flavorwire have done our damnedest to compile a list of samples on the new album, in roughly chronological order, after the jump. Tell us what we missed in the comments.
