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Art of Punk

  • An American Idiot Renounces His Citizenship
    Art of Punk

    An American Idiot Renounces His Citizenship

    ByMark Vallen June 29, 2022January 2, 2024

    On June 24, 2022, Green Day’s lead singer and guitarist Billy Joe Armstrong, shouted out an expletive laden proclamation to a fawning crowd at the group’s concert at London Stadium. The bombast was meant to protest the US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Billy yowled and blubbered: “F*ck America. I’m f*cking renouncing my citizenship. I’m f*cking coming…

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  • Toppling Rock Icons like Confederate Statues
    Art of Punk | War on art

    Toppling Rock Icons like Confederate Statues

    ByMark Vallen November 12, 2021March 18, 2023

    On Nov. 3, 2021 the New York Times published Can We Separate the Art From the Artist?, an opinion piece by their regular columnist Jennifer Finney Boylan. It compared classic rock performers like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis to the statues of Confederate generals, implying it was time to topple classic rockers for their politically incorrect behavior. Boylan put…

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  • Art of Punk

    The Avengers Open Your Eyes

    ByMark Vallen September 19, 2021December 4, 2024

    Wild-eyed and frantic as she dressed for work early in the morning, my wife Jeannine caught me stumbling out of the bedroom sleepy-eyed, scratching my head and trying to remember a dream. She flung herself at me, grabbed me by my arms, and staring me square in the face, excitedly yelped: “What’s that punk song where the girl sings ‘Open…

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  • CRIME: San Francisco’s doomed—just like L.A.
    Art of Punk

    CRIME: San Francisco’s doomed—just like L.A.

    ByMark Vallen September 19, 2019December 1, 2023

    It was 1976 when they took the stage costumed as policemen in black uniforms. The sound of pre-recorded police sirens wailed as they began their aural assault, a clamorous, frenzied skirmish of jangly guitars, rumbling bass, and bone crunching drums. Half-snarling, the lead singer howled: “Baby you’re so repulsive, honey you’re so sick.” Welcome to the world of CRIME, the…

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  • Gang of Four—They Fail Us Now
    Art of Punk

    Gang of Four—They Fail Us Now

    ByMark Vallen April 15, 2018March 1, 2024

    This essay is a contradictory tale of brilliance and entropy, inspiration and disillusionment. It is a story about a once dazzling rock band I discovered in 1978, a group I formerly thought to be indispensable. My commentary refers to the punk, funk, political, rhythm machine from the UK known as Gang of Four. Politically speaking, what I loved most about…

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  • Revisiting Slash: Two Punk Requiems
    Art of Punk

    Revisiting Slash: Two Punk Requiems

    ByMark Vallen November 9, 2017March 18, 2023

    This essay concerns Revisiting Slash: The Five Best OC Punk Articles From One of LA’s Original Punk Zines, written by reporter Frank John Tristan and published in the OC Weekly on October 3, 2017. The alleged subject of the article was how SLASH Magazine covered the early punk bands of the beachside Southern California community of Orange County. I happened…

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  • Exhibit of “Hollywood Blvd., We’re Doomed.”
    Art of Punk | Social Realism

    Exhibit of “Hollywood Blvd., We’re Doomed.”

    ByMark Vallen March 7, 2016March 21, 2023

    Starting March 12, 2016 and running through April 2, 2016, I will show two of my social realist drawings at Mi Ciudad of Los Angeles, a group exhibition at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park, LA California. Created in 1980, my drawings Hollywood Blvd., We’re Doomed and Hollywood Blvd., Punk Rules, portray the decaying urban landscape of Tinseltown in the…

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  • Art of Punk | Chicanarte-Chicano art

    Moody Park: An Untold Story

    ByMark Vallen March 14, 2015

    As an active participant in the original punk rock underground of 1977 Los Angeles, I created my fair share of subversive graphics designed to provoke the wider society. One arena of intervention I was involved with was the anonymous production of leaflets for mass distribution; some flyers promoted concerts, others were a “poke in the eye” aimed at an increasingly…

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