POP ART 1955 - 70; Paperback
(1985) 199 pages, Used
Australian print of this excellent overview of the culture of POP ART. Pop art started with the New York artists Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Claes Oldenberg, all of whom drew on popular imagery and were actually part of an international phenomenon. Following the popularity of the Abstract Expressionists, Pop's reintroduction of identifiable imagery (drawn from mass media and popular culture) was a major shift for the direction of modernism. The subject matter became far from traditional "high art" themes of morality, mythology, and classic history; rather, Pop artists celebrated commonplace objects and people of everyday life, in this way seeking to elevate popular culture to the level of fine art. Perhaps owing to the incorporation of commercial images, Pop art has become one of the most recognizable styles of modern art.
THE INTERNATIONAL CULTIVATORS HANDBOOK Coca, Opium and Hashish; Paperback
William Daniel Drake (1974) 139 pages, Used
"Bill is an expert incredibly versed in the uses and cultivation, both historically and in modernity in a myriad of other entheogenic plants and substances. Take for example his recently revised manual: The International Cultivators Handbook: Hashish, Coca, and Opium. One quick look at this book will reveal to you the breadth of Bill's valuable Shamanic knowledge and how it can be adapted the times of crisis that are soon and sure to come to our country. Throughout the book Bill places a deep emphasis on focusing solely on the raw product of these historic "Third Eye Opening" plants as opposed to the highly concentrated derivatives or low quality drug dealer/government cartel supply derived thereof, and for good reason; it's time that both the laws were changed via the flow of information and time we realize just where the cartels make their connections. Bill also does a fantastic job of highlighting historical texts in each chapter discussing the legitimate medical research and medical uses of each substance on the list with information which will absolutely blow your mind!." Now with the International Cultivators Handbook, the seeds are flung much much further in both time and space. Drawing from his great respect for the ancient traditions surrounding these three great therapeutic medicinal plants, Bill Drake offers the reader broad, bold insights into worldwide traditional cultivation practices and medicinal uses of Coca, Opium and Hashish that they will find nowhere else.
DRUGS ARE NICE: A Post-Punk Memoir Lisa Crystal Carver (Lisa Suckdog), Paperback
(2005) 220 pages, New
In this eye-opening memoir, Lisa Crystal Carver recalls her extraordinary youth and charts the late-80s, early-90s punk subculture that she helped shape. She recounts how her band Suckdog was born in 1987 and the wild events that followed: leaving small-town New Hampshire to tour Europe at 18, becoming a teen publisher of fanzines, a teen bride, and a teen prostitute. Spin has called Suckdog's album Drugs Are Nice one of the best of the '90s, and the book includes photos of infamous European shows. Yet the book also tells of how Lisa saw the need for change in 1994, when her baby was born with a chromosomal deletion and his father became violent. With lasting lightness and surprising gravity, Drugs Are Nice is a definitive account of the generation that wanted to break every rule, but also a story of an artist and a mother becoming an adult on her own terms.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW WAVE (2012); Hardcover
Daniel Bukszpan 304 pages, New
"This colorful and wildly entertaining look at the Punk and New Wave era in pop music (roughly, late 1970s through the end of the 1980s and defined within as “a straightforward songwriting approach relying heavily on synthesizers and other electronic equipment”) covers more than 150 artists and bands. Influential music-related personalities of the era, including Malcolm McClaren and Brian Eno, are featured. A foreword by Gerald Casale, of the band Devo, and the introduction by the author serve to define New Wave and explain who was included as well as what was left out. Entries range from one column to three page spreads. The longer entries are made up of many photographs, with larger, well-known bands getting more coverage. The text is highly subjective and meant to be more for entertainment than research. A snarky-but amusing-tone is found throughout. The eye-popping graphics-featuring a massive amount of photographs-will delight any fan of the music and the time period. Interesting sidebars are peppered throughout the text, such as 'Gender-Bending,' 'NY Clubs,' 'Heartthrobs,' 'Men's Fashion,' 'The Many Sounds of New Wave,' 'Music Videos,' 'Female Sex Symbols,' and 'Movies.' Appendixes include several 'Best of New Wave' lists, including 'Fifty Most Essential New Wave Singles,' 'Top Ten New Wave Bands with the Most Ridiculous Hair,' 'New Wave Timeline,' 'Ten Weirdest New Wave Singles,' and 'Top Twenty Essential New Wave Albums.' A bibliography and an index of artists and song titles round out the book..Cheeky yet incredibly informative, this is an inexpensive must-have for any music collection and will do especially well in circulation."
Radio Silence: A Selected Visual History of American Hardcore Music; Hardcover
224 pages (2008), Used
Hardcore music emerged just after the first wave of punk rock in the late 1970s. American punk kids who loved the speed and attitude of punk took hold of its spirit, got rid of the “live fast, die young” mind-set and made a brilliant revision: hardcore. The dividing line between punk and hardcore music was in the delivery: less pretense, less melody, and more aggression. This urgency seeped its way from the music into the look of hardcore. There wasn’t time to mold your liberty spikes or shine your Docs, it was jeans and T-shirts, Chuck Taylors and Vans. The skull and safety-pin punk costume was replaced by hi-tops and hooded sweatshirts. Jamie Reid’s ransom note record cover aesthetic gave way to black-and-white photographs of packed shows accompanied by bold and simple typography declaring things like: "The Kids Will Have Their Say", and "You’re Only Young Once." Radio Silence documents the ignored space between the Ramones and Nirvana through the words and images of the pre-Internet era where this community built on do-it-yourself ethics thrived. Authors Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo have cataloged private collections of unseen images, personal letters, original artwork, and various ephemera from the hardcore scene circa 1978-1993. Unseen photos lay next to hand-made t-shirts and original artwork brought to life by the words of their creators and fans. Radio Silence includes over 500 images of unseen photographs, illustrations, rare records, t-shirts, and fanzines presented in a manner that abandons the aesthetic clichés normally employed to depict the genre and lets the subject matter speak for itself. Contributions by Jeff Nelson, Dave Smalley, Walter Schreifels, Cynthia Connolly, Pat Dubar, Gus Peña, Rusty Moore, and Gavin Ogelsby with an essay by Mark Owens.
THE LEATHER NUN and Other Incredibly Strange Comics; Hardcover
(2008) 128 pages, Used
Entertaining, erotic, and utterly surreal, this eclectic collection is a delirious collage of the 50 most weird and wonderful comics ever published. From leather nuns, surreal Japanese baseball dramas, gigantic alien monsters in swimming trunks, hip-hop superheroes fighting street crime, and peasant girls worshipping the swastika, this amazing collection is the result of a trawl of the strangest comics worldwide. Containing titles such as Barnyard of Fear, Chaplains at War, Amputee Love, and Cannibal Romance, these bizarre tales are not for the faint of heart. Alongside each comic is a colorful double-page spread and an informative introduction that places the comics in context. This is the perfect quirky gift for collectors of curiosities, anyone with a taste for offbeat humor, and comic fans who think they've seen it all.
DESIGN FOR DYING: Timothy Leary; Hardcover
256 pages (1997), Used
As the fringe guru himself put it, "Mademoiselle Cancer moved in to share [his] body." But in the days before he died, Leary -- never one to miss an opportunity for a party -- used his approaching death to create an exuberant new vision of what dying can be. Optimism, courage, joy and spirituality were central to Leary's final days and his death. Design for Dying -- Leary's last book -- shows us how we too can make dying the high point of life. Irreverent, thought-provoking and hilarious, Leary's parting shot pioneers new ways to die and new ways for the living to think about death. Urging us to take control of our deaths (and even to determine when and how we will die), Leary relates his own plan for "directed dying," a death we plan and orchestrate to reflect our own lives and values. And the psychedelic prophet flings open a whole new range of beyond-death possibilites for the wired generation. From downloading consciousness onto the Net -- so that our souls can outlive our bodies -- to the way technology can enhance the final days of the dying to the far-out promises of cryogenics, Leary provides fascinating insights into how technology may eventually help us improve, and even sidestep, death. A thorough guide to death and dying resources and to online tools and further reading lists completes this surprising, funny and totally original look at the new frontiers of death. Speaking to everyone who has ever wondered if there's more to death - -if there's life beyond the final frontier, if death really means the end, if dirges and hearses and funeral flowers are really how we want to be remembered -- Leary's flamboyant final statement reveals revolutionary ways to die and redefines, with Leary's trademark creativity and joy, how the living can think about death.
NASTY TALES: Sex, Drugs, Rock 'N Roll & Violence in the British Underground; Paperback
David Huxley (2002) 192 pages, Used
Though never on the scale of its American counterpart, there was indeed a comics underground in Great Britain. Many of these comics were obscure limited print run productions and few were financially successful. But with subject matter that was anarchic and sexually unrestrained, this political pornography' did indeed have an impact-and invariably caught the wary eye of the law, resulting in several landmark Obscenity cases. From their origins in the 1960s, Nasty Tales covers the turbulent history of these comics and the cultural instability from which they emerged.
LIVE.....SUBURBIA!; Paperback
(2011) 240 pages, Used
Live...Suburbia! is a collection of stories and images of the post-1960s subcultures that define America. It’s kids taking their urethane wheels to empty pools, picking British Punk in broad downstrokes and creating Hardcore, it’s skinheads wearing sneakers and moshing in Connecticut warehouses. Live...Suburbia! is dedicated to denim devils twirling butterfly knives and hasty tags thrown down with Rust-Oleum touch-up paint stolen from your parent’s garage. Most importantly Live...Suburbia! is a new approach in compiling a book. We have Tumblr, Facebook, Flickr and thousands of blogs documenting subcultures, but we’re interested in the other side: real people’s archives and memories, the ones that haven’t been passed around so many times that we have no idea where they came from. The book begins with Kiss. From there Live...Suburbia! rushes through years packed with ninjas, long metal hair, BMX dirt jumps, karate, seven-ply skateboards, bathroom mohawks, skinheads, jockey hardcore kids, basement DJs, graffiti murals behind supermarkets, and finally we arrive in the 1990s where it all collides. This is just fucking awesome!!
CAN: Tago Mago (33 1/3); Paperback
151 pages (2014), Used
A brilliant exploration of the German rock band Can's 1971 album Tago Mago. This hugely unique and influential album deserves close analysis from a fan, rather than a musicologist. Novelist Alan Warner details the concrete music we hear on the album, how it was composed, executed and recorded--including the history of the album in terms of its release, promotion and art work. This tale of Tago Mago is also the tale of a young man obsessed with record collecting in the dark and mysterious period of pop music before Google. Warner includes a backtracking of the history of the band up to that point and also some description of Can's unique recording approach taking into account their home studio set up. Interviews with the two surviving members: drummer Jaki Liebezeit, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt and bassist Holger Czukay make this a hilariously personal and illuminating picture of Can.
SUPER 7: International Toy Pirates (2007), Hardcover
Brian Flynn, 288 pages, Used
The term mook has long been used to describe printed material that is neither a book, nor a magazine, but the ultimate fusion of the two. Super 7 has elevated this form to the highest possible pinnacle with the new redesign of their magazine as a deluxe twice a year release. Elegant to the extreme in a slip cased black and silver Flexi-bound, this beautifully designed and immaculately photographed title is a museum quality catalogue for collectors, aficionados or self proclaimed toy geeks . Super 7 International Toy Pirates takes you on a nostalgic journey to the endless days of youth and summers spent watching Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan battle for world supremacy. Contains features and interviews of the quality we have come to expect from the editors of Super 7.
