FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
The Beautiful & The Damned: Photos of LA punk rock 1978-84

image
 
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become way overfamiliar, but this is certainly not the case with Summa’s work, as much of the work here is previously unpublished.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

The Beautiful & the Damned website

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.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
12.16.2010
01:42 pm
|
Discussion

 

 

comments powered by Disqus