If you are looking for a great Christmas present for one of your rock snob friends, you could certainly do worse than picking them up a copy of Ann Summa’s new book of classic Los Angeles punk photos, The Beautiful & The Damned. I look at a look of books like this and turn my nose up at them, usually for the fact that most punk-era photographs have become way overfamiliar, but this is certainly not the case with Summa’s work, as much of the work here is previously unpublished.

Taken from 1978 to 1984, the images are mostly of L.A.‘s original punk bands such as The Germs, The Screamers, X, the Cramps and the Gun Club, and some of the more avant garde “art stars” of that scene like the Kipper Kids and Johanna Went. Visiting groups from the UK are represented, too in Summa’s book and include The Clash, PiL. Magazine, The Fall, The Slits, Bow Wow Wow and the Pretenders. New Yorkers like Lydia Lunch, Television, James Chance, Laurie Anderson and Talking Heads are also included as well as a few “elder statesmen” who influenced the Los Angeles punk scene: Captain Beefheart, David Bowie and Iggy. What amazing work on display here.

The Beautiful & The Damned was edited and has an introduction by Kristine McKenna, a mark of quality and distinction itself in this household. You can’t go wrong with this one for certain “types” on your holiday shopping list, that’s for sure.

Buy The Beautiful & The Damned at Amazon.

A gallery of Ann Summa’s work on Boing Boing

Ann Summa website

Below, one of the greatest (and sadly unrecorded) bands of the original Los Angeles punk scene, The Screamers, performing “Vertigo,” live at Target Video.
 

 
I owned one of Honda’s flashy red scooters. It didn’t last long in Manhattan. Stolen.

The Lou Reed commercial captures a certain nitty gritty New York vibe, the kind of place where scooters disappear.
 

 
Grace and Miles after the jump…

 
That’s what I’m talking about!  A stumbling, ham-fisted stop/start beat, deep dub bass, some truly distressed guitars and just a wee lil’ hint of pretty lady singing. Voila: it’s a great new track from the newly back-from-the-dead Seefeel. This will be playing on repeat all morning in the Laner household. New album comes out on Warp in February, it says here.
 

 
via Surfing on Steam, thanks !

 
It was all over for British pre-teen David Rodigan in 1962 when he saw ska crooner Millie Smalls sing the Cadillacs’ classic “My Boy Lollipop” on Ready, Steady, Go! He was in complete and utter love with Jamaican music and would collect and spin as many great reggae records as he could in a lifetime.

Over the next 48 years, Rodigan went from DJing school dances to legendary show slots on Radio London, Capital Radio, and Kiss FM, humbly championing reggae throughout the UK and getting royal respect with every visit to Jamaica. Most famously, he’s made his name as a champion in reggae sound clashes. His dapper fashion sense, professional demeanor, and historian’s aura at clashes* worldwide have made him known variously to reggae fans as “the rude gentlemen,” “the James Bond of sound,” or simply “Fadda” (father).

Below you’ll find Rodi in action at the UK Cup sound clash a couple of years ago, playing the role of selector as his assistant operators play the actual dubplates. His mastery at hyping tunes is evident…but first, for the uninitiated…

In the reggae world, sound clashes are events in which two to five “sound systems” or “sounds” (DJ teams) battle each other by playing tunes that garner the most audience approval.
Audiences respond best to dubplate specials—popular tunes commissioned by a sound and custom re-recorded by the original singer so that he or she can name and praise that sound. These one-of-a-kind tunes can be expensive, so the more dubplates that any sound can play at a clash, the more dedicated they’re perceived to be, and the more crowd response they get.
In regular reggae dances, when a regular record gets enough crowd roar, the DJ stops and rewinds the record, lifts the needle, and plays it again. In a clash, a dubplate gets a rewind and then usually it’s on to the next tune at a frenzied pace.
 

 
After the jump: unearthed new footage of Rodigan spinning a hectic dance in 1985 at legendary producer/sound man King Jammy’s yard on St. Lucia Road in the Waterhouse district of Kingston, Jamaica…

 
Rock and roll hating Christian whackjob Pastor Gary Greenwald has been ranting about the evils of the Devil’s music for decades now. His rants about backmasking on rock records are the stuff of legend. Here he is equating the demonic Todd Rundgren with the anti-Christ. Who knew?
 

 
DJ Lobsterdust’s mashup of Pastor Gary and Queen after the jump…

 
Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp (The Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger) cover Serge Gainsbourg’s “Comic Strip” in this video shot by a fan earlier this evening in Paris.

Sean and Charlotte seem to be channeling more of Serge and Jane than John and Yoko. Though Sean has certainly inherited his Dad’s guitar playing chops.
 

 
Via

 
R.M. ceated this beautiful journey into a mandelbox.

This is my second 3d fractal animation made with Mandelbulb 3d. The formula is a simple rotated mandelbox. Audio from my drone/ambient/experimental side project called ‘Musicians With Guns’.

I feel like I’m being devoured by a giant Peyote button while tripping on DMT.
 

 
Via FF

 
Grauzone (German for “grey area”) was a Swiss group formed in 1979 who played ten concerts and recorded four singles and one album before splitting up at the end of 1982. They are most famous for their amazing 1981 song “Eisbär” (“Polar Bear”). Ladytron samples the song on “Fighting In Built Up Areas” and it was also covered by French group Nouvelle Vague.

Grauzone would be considered a classic band of the ““Neue Deutsche Welle” era. They also left behind some music videos.
 

 
More of early 80s Swiss New Wavers, Grauzone, after the jump…

 
Like Mr. Cocker, I hope one day this song will become obsolete. But until then…
 
With thanks to Suzanne Moore