THE BALLROOM The Melbourne Punk and Post-Punk Scene (2011); Paperback
Australian/Little Band Scene/Post Punk/Documentary 244 pages, Used
The Ballroom is a brutally frank memoir of what has become known as one of the most pivotal, fascinating and influential periods of Australian musical and cultural history. The story is illustrated with original flyers and candid photos, some never before seen or published. The scene: St. Kilda, Melbourne in the late 70s. It was here amongst the prostitutes, drunks and junkies that a music venue was born, a venue that would soon become the pulse of punk and new wave music in Australia. Melbourne's most famous and infamous musicians, artists, filmmakers and fashion designers such as Nick Cave, Hunters and Collectors, Richard Lowenstein, Sam Sejavka, Howard Arkley and Alannah Hill gathered on a weekly basis during their formative years. Internationally acclaimed acts such as Iggy Pop, The Cure, INXS and Johnny Rotten also performed there.
A LITTLE HISTORY Nick Cave and Cohorts, 1981-2013; Hardcover
Music/Little Band Scene/Nick Cave/Post Punk - Hardcover, New
When Bleddyn Butcher first saw The Birthday Party play, back in 1981, he was astonished. And then enthralled. He set about trying to catch their lightning in his Nikon F2AS. That quixotic impulse became a lifelong quest. A little history got made on the way. Collected here for the first time are the fruits of his labour. A Little History is an extraordinary document, tracking Nick Cave's creative career from the apoplectic extravagance of The Birthday Party to the calmer disquiet of 2013's Push The Sky Away via snapshots, spotlit visions and sumptuous, theatrical portraits. It mixes the candid and uncanny, the spontaneous and the patiently staged, and includes eyeball encounters with Cave's baddest lieutenants, men for the most part who long since burned their own bridges down. Butcher's Nikonic eye defines moment after arresting moment in Cave's glorious, sprawling story: it's a splendid testament to two brilliant careers.
BOHEMIAN GROVER / CONSPIRITUS MUPPETUS Glenno Smith (2014); Paperback
Art/Design/Street Art, Used
Sydney artist Glenno Smith has drawn and written all about esoteric cults, conspiracies and weird history, shoved it all in the (72) pages of a book and is offering it up, like it's some sort of... thing!
LOCALS ONLY California Skateboarding 1975-1978; Hardcover
Skateboarding/Photography/70's/Documentary 84 pages (2012 edition), Used
One afternoon in 1975, a young photographer named Hugh Holland drove up Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Los Angeles and encountered skateboarders carving up the drainage ditches along the side of the canyon. Immediately transfixed by their grace and athleticism, he knew he had found an amazing subject. Although not a skateboarder himself, for the next three years Holland never tired of documenting skateboarders surfing the streets of Los Angeles, parts of the San Fernando Valley, Venice Beach, and as far away as San Francisco and Baja California, Mexico. During the mid-1970s, Southern California was experiencing a serious drought, leaving an abundance of empty swimming pools available for trespassing skateboarders to practice their tricks. From these suburban backyard haunts to the asphalt streets that connected them, this was the place that created the legendary Dogtown and Z-Boys skateboarders. With their requisite bleached blonde hair, tanned bodies, tube socks and Vans, these young outsiders are masterfully captured against a sometimes harsh but always sunny Southern California landscape in LOCALS ONLY. LOCALS ONLY features more than 120 beautiful color images plus a Q+A format interview with the artist.
MONDO LUCHA A GO-GO (2007); Hardcover
272 pages Mexican Wrestling/Luchadore/Lucha Libre/Art Hardcover, New
Lucha Libre wrestling is nothing short of a phenomenon. Its inescapable visuals have completely permeated the mainstream, and its popularity grows exponentially every year, expanding out from Latin America to hold the entire world in its vise–grip. Dan Madigan will provide the ultimate guide for Lucha fans, in an awesome four–color book that will be undoubtedly informative and incredibly entertaining. Posters, photos, wrestling cards, handbills, mementos will be featured throughout the book. Personal recollections, quotes, stories and memories of Luchador's lives and experiences will provide the backdrop for a completely unique experience in sports.
MEXICAN GRAPHICS: Grafica Mexicana; Hardcover
256 pages Lucha Libre/Dia Del Los Muertos/Art Hardcover, New
Lucha Libre, Santa Muerte and Dia del Los Muertos – Mexican graphics are everywhere. The 256 pages of this brilliant hardback tome are jam-packed with amazing visual invention and inspiration from over 40 superb artists, including Dr. Lakra, Dr. Alderete, Sergio Mora, Palehorse and Pooch. This is the essential follow-up to Kustom Graphics I and II and The Day of the Dead. Specially commissioned embossed cover by Dr. Alderete and Julio Carrasco.
LUCHA LOCO: The free wrestlers of Mexico (2012), Paperback
272 pages, Lucha Libre/Luchadores/Mexican Wrestling Book, New
Malcolm Venville’s rare deluxe Mexican wrestling volume, now available in an accessible, popular format. Lucha Libre, or "free wrestling," is a cultural phenomenon—renowned not only for the wrestler’s high-flying moves, but also for the mythology of their personas. These masked figures (a ritual dating back to Aztec culture) treat their masks—and the identities they embody—as sacred. El Santo, the first luchador pop star, rarely took off his mask even in retirement, and was eventually buried in it. It is such a significant part of the sport (and the performance) that the removal of an opponent’s mask in the ring is grounds for disqualification. Malcolm Venville fell in love with the sport after catching a show in Mexico and spent several weeks photographing and interviewing wrestlers outside the ring in a small portrait studio. Alongside each portrait is the wrestler’s fighting name and a signature quote from these interviews. Among the subjects are an accountant and a doctor by day—but Super Pinocchio and Astro Boy by night. They offer such gems as: "American wrestling is more about the lighting," "My character is the fastest in Mexico, but not when I’m making love," and "I combine wrestling with stripping but wrestling’s my passion." The result is an even more hilarious and colorful look at this already entertaining spectacle—part sport, part soap opera—as well as a window into the life of a luchador, a world normally shrouded in mystery.
BANANAFISH Number 16; Magazine + CD
Avant-garde/Noise/Experimental/Music/Zine Magazine, Used
Issue 16 of San Francisco’s cult influential and idiosyncratic noise zine 'Bananafish'. Over the years, Bananafish’s compelling taste in obscure music, art and performance, as well as the amusingly irreverent tone and content, elevated it from a well-produced amateur fanzine to a renowned scene figure in its own right. Some of its subjects, like Dylan Nyoukis of Prick Decay and Bruce Russell of the Dead C, became contributors, and others were avid readers. Wolf Eyes’ John Olson, who appeared in Issue #13 in 1999, wrote via email that he had followed it from beginning to end, and Australian drone guitarist Oren Ambarchi sought out every issue after he first found it in a Sydney record shop in the late 1980s. “It was a very important resource for me, being in Australia without much ‘literature’ on the noise underground – and it was hoot,” recalled Ambarchi, who was interviewed in Issue #16 in 2002. “It shaped what I did as a young musician, as I would search for releases of the artists that Bananafish covered,” he said, describing a search for Bananafish’s hardly-known subjects. “I would pore over it to find more clues about this mysterious underground music/culture.”
BANANAFISH Number 17; Magazine
Zine/Noise/Avant-garde/Experimental/Cult Magazine + free noise/experimental CD, Used
Issue 17 of San Francisco’s cult influential and idiosyncratic noise zine 'Bananafish'. Over the years, Bananafish’s compelling taste in obscure music, art and performance, as well as the amusingly irreverent tone and content, elevated it from a well-produced amateur fanzine to a renowned scene figure in its own right. Some of its subjects, like Dylan Nyoukis of Prick Decay and Bruce Russell of the Dead C, became contributors, and others were avid readers. Wolf Eyes’ John Olson, who appeared in Issue #13 in 1999, wrote via email that he had followed it from beginning to end, and Australian drone guitarist Oren Ambarchi sought out every issue after he first found it in a Sydney record shop in the late 1980s. “It was a very important resource for me, being in Australia without much ‘literature’ on the noise underground – and it was hoot,” recalled Ambarchi, who was interviewed in Issue #16 in 2002. “It shaped what I did as a young musician, as I would search for releases of the artists that Bananafish covered,” he said, describing a search for Bananafish’s hardly-known subjects. “I would pore over it to find more clues about this mysterious underground music/culture.”
WEIRDO Number 24 (1987)(Robert Crumb); Comic
44pgs B&W Comic; Used
Cover by Robert Crumb. Harvey Sez column; Harvey Pekar advises aspiring writers and illustrators on how to get published and questions the competence of editors and publishers. "Daily Strip," script and art by Bill Griffith; Ahead on his syndicated strip, Bill Griffith takes a vacation. "Gary's Birthday Present," script and art by Dori Seda and Don Donahue; Dori and Don clean Gary's house. "The Adventures of 'Wichita' the Rat Dancer," script and art by Robert Crumb; Soap opera with sexual content. "40," script and art by Aline Kominsky-Crumb; Aline turns 40 and remembers a visit to a weight-reducing camp during childhood. "Mrs. Holla and the Magic Ring!", script and art by Kim Deitch; Buster has an alcoholic hallucination.
WEIRDO Number 5 (Robert Crumb) 1982; Comic
(Unsung heroes in the history of humor) VG+
Synopsis: Picking up where Zap stopped, Weirdo, under three different editors, defined a new aesthetic for the '80s, opening the way for a whole new comics literacy for a new generation of readers. R. Crumb, P. Bagge and Aline Kominsky edited three phases of Weirdo, respectively the "Personal Confessions", The "Coming of the Bad Boys", the "Twisted Sisters". Each phase produced a crop of new cartoonists. Issue 5 features the works of R. Crumb, Drew Friedman, Harry S. Robins, Terry Boyce, Tom-n-Craig and more.
