“They’re always there high in the skies Pretty as a picture in the generals’ eyes They’ve done it once, and they’ll do it again They’ll shower us all in their deadly rain.” – Nagasaki Nightmare. Crass. August 6, 2011 marks the 66th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. detonated an Atomic bomb over the…
In early 1979 I carved a linoleum block portrait of Pat Bag, the enchantingly sinister-looking bass player for The Bags, one of the first and most notorious late 70s punk rock bands in Los Angeles. At their earliest performances band members wore bags over their heads, and each was assured anonymity by taking “Bag” as a last name. It was…
Artist Ray Lowry passed away this past October 14, 2008, at the age of 64. While touring America with The Clash in 1979, Lowry was nicknamed the “War Artist” by the band’s front man, Joe Strummer. The Clash had invited Lowry to tour with them as an official artist when the group made its first incursion into the land of…
Mostly known for the remarkable graphics she produced for the late 70’s British anarchist punk band Crass, Gee Vaucher continues to create extraordinarily insightful imagery that strips away society’s veneer to reveal hidden truths. Introspective, her current exhibition at the Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco, gives further evidence of her importance as a socially conscious artist for our time….
La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Hollywood hosts a Photo Exhibit, Book Signing and Live Performance for Punk 365, the latest book from music writer Holly George-Warren. With a foreword by L’enfant terrible Richard Hell, the encyclopedic volume traces punk from forerunners like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, on through originators like the Ramones, Sex Pistols and the Clash,…
I make a short appearance on one of the special features appearing on the 30th Anniversary DVD edition of Sid & Nancy, Alex Cox’s 1986 movie about British punk rocker Sid Vicious and his American girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. In May of 2007, I was asked to appear in the special feature for the MGM movie re-release and contribute my thoughts…
Vivienne Westwood is one of today’s biggest names in the world of fashion design, and her creations have been considered so significant that England’s Victoria & Albert Museum mounted a retrospective of her career in 2004. Westwood began her career as a fashionista in 1971 when she teamed up with Malcolm McLaren, the vainglorious manager of the Sex Pistols, to…
Punk Portraits is the title I’ve given to an early body of my work documenting the original punk rock explosion in Los Angeles as it happened. Now that punk is fast approaching the 30th anniversary of its 1977 detonation, I’ve uploaded some additional artworks to my online gallery that serves as a portfolio of artworks from that period. These latest…
