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‘What is it?’: Björk, Blondie & the story of the fish from Faith No More’s infamous video for ‘Epic’
09.03.2019
08:53 am
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I’m pretty sure most of us are well acquainted with one of Faith No More’s most controversial moments—the 1989 video for “Epic” directed by video visionary Ralph Ziman. The cringey, surreal video got animal rights activists riled up as it features a fish flailing around on the floor of the set seemingly in the throes of death as the song dramatically plays out. Historically, FNM’s reputation for fucking with their fans, bands they’ve toured with, and random people are well documented. They danced in the nude around Billy Idol in Seattle in 1990, and Mike Patton has told countless, wildly gross stories about the things he does with poop. Although not all the yarns were always factual, such as the rumor he took a shit in Axl Rose’s orange juice while Faith was touring with Guns N’ Roses in 1991. Now that we’ve established how members of FNM have enjoyed fabricating some of their antics let’s break down one of their greatest pranks and the video for “Epic” which started it all. 

After parting ways with original Faith No More vocalist Chuck Mosley, the band joined forces with 21-year-old Mike Patton for their third album, The Real Thing. Armed with Patton’s aggressive vocals and innovative musical arrangements “Epic” would become FNM’s first top ten hit and, with respect to Mr. Mosely, put the band on the map. The video was a massive hit with MTV viewers and FNM performed it live and unhinged at the MTV Video Music Awards show in September of 1990 and on Saturday Night Live in December of the same year. Living up to their rep as tall-tale tellers, and likely to help quell some of the negativity surrounding the fish in the video gasping for air from its gills, a story began to circulate that the fish in question was named Linear Soul Child and was formerly a pet of Icelandic chanteuse Björk. The part about Björk owning a fish called Linear Soul Child isn’t that hard to buy, but the rest of the tale is slightly fishy, and it goes like this; Björk was given the fish as a gift from a fan after her poetry reading in San Francisco. She then traveled to FNM keyboardist Roddy Bottum’s home in Berkley, California where he was throwing a party. Sometime during the evening, the fish disappeared. In another unlikely move, it was alleged during an interview with CNN (?) Björk would make the following statement about her beloved Linear Soul Child and what, if anything, the members of Faith No More had to do with its possible demise after appearing in the video:   

“I know those guys, I know they wouldn’t do anything to harm [him]. But I know, if I had gone home with MY fish, which was given to ME, none of this would have ever happened.”

 

The fish from the “Epic” video.
 
While I’m sure we’d all love to believe the fish in “Epic” belonged to Björk, it’s simply not true. Sure, it’s not hard to conceive Björk was traveling with a fish she got as a gift from a random fan in San Francisco, but it sadly never happened much like the shitty Axl Rose orange juice caper. As far as the idea for the fish to be used in the video and where it came from, there are two accounts—one from director Ralph Ziman and the other from FNM bassist Billy Gould. Gould claimed the idea to use the fish in the video was his, inspired by the ethos of director John Waters, and in Gould’s words, how to get “maximum attention for minimum money.” In an interview from 2010, Zimon debunked the Björk rumor (which he had never heard until then) and gave his version of how the fish ended up in the video: 

“It wasn’t Björk’s goldfish. But yes, I am responsible for that. And it wasn’t even a goldfish, interestingly enough. I was talking with someone about this yesterday. We made that video in 1987. I remember the band had one day off from tour, and they were in London. The record company had phoned us on very short notice and asked us to do a music video. They made it sound like a really low priority. I think it was being done for Warner Bros. at the time. I just made a list of a bunch of things I thought we could do. Exploding a piano. A fish flopping around. We literally had one day to pre-produce it. So we handed the fish off to the art department. I can’t remember what it was. If it was a carp? It was a freshwater fish. We shot that in London in some studios next to the tour venue. And we wound up letting that fish go in the river when we were finished. We had a couple of them. We would let them flop around, and then we’d swap it over, and we’d shoot another one. I don’t remember what kind of fish they were, but the animal handler had brought them in because they were so feisty.”

First of all, Zimon must have meant to say the video was made in 1989, not 1987 as that would pre-date Patton’s formal affiliation with FNM. Anyway, now that we know the fish in “Epic” was some sort of British freshwater fish, Mike Patton has also gone on the record saying the song is about sex, or more accurately, the frustration associated with not getting it on enough. Later in 2005, Patton would say his unique vocal stylings in “Epic” was his attempt to cultivate his sound to be in line with Debbie Harry’s performance on “Rapture,” a song Patton often covered in live performance during his time with Mr. Bungle. 
 

Faith No More performing “Epic” in London, 1990.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Courtney Love, then just 20, fronting Faith No More in 1984
Faith No More danced naked around Billy Idol during a Halloween gig in Seattle, 1990
Mike Patton performs in his pajamas with Faith No More on MTV’s ‘Da Show’
Patton is GOD: Faith No More channel Black Sabbath with their crushing cover of ‘War Pigs’

Posted by Cherrybomb
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09.03.2019
08:53 am
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Kids dressed up for Halloween like Prince, Adam Ant, KISS, & even a baby Björk
10.16.2017
11:32 am
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A kid version of Adam Ant in his “Prince Charming” getup. Awww.
 
Halloween is nearly upon us, and that means that it is also the only time of year that you get a pass for letting your toddler hold a bottle of Jack Daniels because it happens to be part of their “costume.” If your kid is still a baby, they, of course, have no real say in the Halloween costume decision-making process, mostly because they can’t yet express themselves verbally, which leaves you to dress your said baby like Björk when she made her famous red-carpet appearance at the 2001 Academy Awards in a dress made to look like a swan (created by designer Marjan Pejoski). You wouldn’t be the first parent to do so—and I’ve got photographic proof of that.

This post was inspired by my discovery of one of Glasgow’s coolest inhabitants, photographer, and lecturer Simon Murphy who delights in helping dress up his two daughters as various musical icons such as Janis Joplin, or the alcohol-swilling vocalist for The Pogues, Shane MacGowan. To achieve an authentic look based on MacGowan’s notorious dental problems, Murphy used cake icing that had been colored black to mimic his infamous mouth-full-of-decaying-teeth “smile.”  As a child of the 80s, I spent a lot of time dressing up like Ace Frehley from KISS along with every other kid that liked to rock and roll all night—so I had to include some choice, vintage images of the youngest members of the KISS Army all dressed up to trick or treat. Now, in honor of our Lord and savior The Great Pumpkin, check out the photos of kids looking cooler than we ever did dressed up as rock stars ranging from Angus Young, to our dearly departed Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie, that I’ve posted below.
 

Baby Björk FTW!
 

A mini-version of Prince.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.16.2017
11:32 am
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Gavin Evans’ magnificent portraits of Bowie, Björk, Iggy, and Nick Cave

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David Bowie.
 
The Monday morning mailbag arrived with its usual gifts of bills, party invites, ransom demands (which I really must get around to paying), and “Dear John” letters. I was about to tip all this largesse into the bin when I noticed a postcard from a dear friend Christopher. It was the usual greetings of “Having a lovely time” and “Wish you were here” kind of thing but what saved it from the trash was the front photograph of David Bowie by Gavin Evans.

Now we all have favorite photographers and one of mine is certainly Mr. Evans who has taken some of the most magnificent, gorgeous, and iconic images of the past two decades. The photograph of Bowie shushing with a finger to his lips like he did in the promo for “China Girl” has been used on numerous magazine covers, photospreads, TV documentaries, and pirated for Internet memes, urban graffiti, and even tattoos. Its ubiquity one would hope should have made Mr. Evans a very rich man—but somehow (sadly) I very much doubt that.

Another of Evans’ Bowie photographs—a color portrait in which he wore blue contact lenses—captured a vulnerability that I’d never seen before (see picture above). It was as if Bowie allowed his guard down for just a moment and had unknowingly (or perhaps willingly) revealed a more vulnerable and intimate side. The picture was taken in 1995 for a Time Out cover. A couple of years later, Bowie contacted Evans and asked for a print of this picture to hang in his office. Bowie explained to Evans that this was his favorite portrait.

That’s the thing I like about Evans’ work—he has an uncanny talent for capturing the very essence of his subject matter. His photographs make the gods flesh. Look at his portraits of Nick Cave which reveal something of the man behind the public persona or his series of photographs of Björk which capture a tender and humorous side sometimes lacking from more traditional photo shoots. Or just look at his portrait of John Hurt where you can see the pores of the actor’s skin and peer right into his soul.

Christopher’s Bowie postcard is now pinned to the wall. I browsed for more of Evans work and was happily surprised to find a selection of his most powerful and iconic work is currently on tour. Then something even better, a selection of Evans’ beautiful prints are availble to buy. Now every home can have a Gavin Evans on their wall.
 
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David Bowie.
 
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See more of Gavin Evans majestic photographs, after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.10.2017
11:18 am
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Skate decks with photos of Björk, Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth & more taken by Spike Jonze


The Björk skateboard deck from Girl. Part of a new series featuring photographs taken by Spike Jonze. Available here.
 
So far there are five different skate deck designs that are a part of a Photos by Spike collaboration between skateboard company Girl and director Spike Jonze. The boards feature the beyond cool shot of Björk (seen above) taken by Jonze, and another that pays homage to the Beastie Boys who appear in character as seen in the 1994 “Sabotage” video (directed by Jonze) that is forever burnt into our collective consciousness.

All of the decks in the group are quite different looking. Both the Sonic Youth and Nirvana decks utilize black and white photos, while the image of Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs lounging on the bottom of her deck is vibrantly colorful as is the yellow skate deck itself. Jonze’s relationship with Girl goes back to at least 2007 when he co-directed a film on the company, Yeah Right. However, the director’s love of skateboarding goes even further back than that as his very first film, Video Days was about, you guessed it,skateboarding. Each sweet deck will run you about $50. I’ve posted photos of all the decks below for you to see below as well as some footage from Video Days.
 

The Sabotage deck.
 

Sonic Youth.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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04.10.2017
11:21 am
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Watch this essential Björk documentary from 1997
02.05.2016
10:38 am
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In 1997 The South Bank Show produced an hour-long documentary on Björk, who of course was right in the middle of an impressive run during which she established herself as a global pop star and icon of the first order.

The program is divided up into two parts. The first half is a straightforward account of Björk’s life up to 1997, including her solo album at the age of 11, her teenage work with Tappi Tíkarrass and KUKL, her breakthrough success with the Sugarcubes, and her initial success under her own name, also covering extensively her relationship to her native Iceland.

The second half shows Björk recording her third album Homogenic in southern Spain with Eumir Deodato.
 

 
There an interesting bit on the success of the Sugarcubes, which both Einar Örn and Björk herself seem to agree was probably not such a good thing. According to Björk, it may have had an adverse effect on the literary development of Iceland:
 

Two or even three of the Sugarcubes were probably the most promising poets or writers of Iceland’s new generation. And they were finding themselves… They hadn’t written a letter for two years… because they were doing soundchecks in like Texas and Alabama and playing doing guitar solos. Which is kinda funny. I mean, it is funny. But it’s only funny for so long, you know.

 
Whoever put this together did an excellent job of showcasing what makes Björk so special. There’s a bit in the first half where she stands next to a fellow playing a harpsichord and belts out “Unravel.” Bono calls her “the Imelda Marcos of good ideas.” In Spain we see her lay down a big chunk of the vocals for “Jóga,” which is kind of amazing.
 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Down the rabbit hole with Björk’s first album, recorded at the age of eleven
KUKL: Björk’s witchy, anarcho-punk, Crass-associated pre-Sugarcubes goth band

Posted by Martin Schneider
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02.05.2016
10:38 am
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‘The Juniper Tree’: A twenty-year-old Björk stars in dark fairy tale of magic and witchcraft
09.23.2015
01:14 pm
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The Juniper Tree is an austere, black and white 1986 Icelandic art house film based on one of the grimmer of the German fairy tales collected the by Brothers Grimm. The five-member cast includes a then twenty-year-old Björk Guðmundsdóttir. The film wasn’t released until 1990, by which point, of course, the singer was an internationally known artist. It was premiered at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival where it screened for the “Grand Jury Prize.”

The Juniper Tree tells the story of two sisters who have escaped after their mother has been stoned and burned as a witch. Baby-faced Björk plays teenaged Margit, who comes along when her sister bewitches and marries a widower with a young son.

The film is plotted and paced in a manner that demands careful attention. If you just pay it half-mind, you won’t appreciate what it has to offer, but if you give it your undivided attention, it’s quite a fascinating (and skillfully made considering the obviously low budget) little film.
 

 
Thank you Linc Kinnicutt!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.23.2015
01:14 pm
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See a young Björk rocking out in ‘Rokk í Reykjavík’
06.23.2014
06:02 pm
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Rokk í Reykjavík is an Icelandic film made for local television in 1982 that seems like a cross between Penelope Spheeris’ The Decline of Western Civilization and Urgh! A Music War. Like Urgh! it’s a steady stream of band after band, nineteen total, some very good, some awful running the gamut from confrontational SoCal-style hardcore to Joy Division and Wire imitators to one group who look just like Loverboy! Like the Decline trilogy there are lots of interviews with incredibly nihilistic youngsters. (One pint-sized Darby Crash wannabe discuses how a meddling social worker made glue sniffing difficult in Reykjavik, but this led them to discover that gas huffing provided an even better high!)

Seen in Rokk í Reykjavík is Tappi Tíkarrass an incredibly tight punk/pop band led by a young (and super cute) Björk Guðmundsdóttir who have a Talking Heads meet B-52s meets ska meets Gang of Four vibe. Their name, should you be wondering, translates as “Cork the Bitch’s Ass!”
 

 
Also of note here is Purrkur Pillnikk, the punk band of Björk’s future Sugarcube bandmate Einar Örn Benediktsson. The old man chanting a poem at the start is Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson who was instrumental in forcing the Icelandic government to recognize the country’s pre-Christian Norse religion. Sveinbjörn can be heard performing Ásatrú marriage rites for Genesis and Paula P-Orridge on Psychic TV’s Live in Reykjavik double album.

For me, though, other than seeing the young (and super cute, did I mention that?) Björk in action, it’s the WTF avant garde antics of Bruni BB that steal the entire show. Directed by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.23.2014
06:02 pm
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KUKL: Björk’s witchy, anarcho-punk, Crass-associated pre-Sugarcubes goth band
09.09.2013
05:47 pm
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Considering that most Björk fans seem to know that she began her recording career at the ripe old age of 11, and that she was once a member of The Sugarcubes, it’s curious why more attention hasn’t been paid to KUKL, the group she was in prior to joining Sugarcubes, especially since much of the membership of the two bands overlaps.

KUKL (which means “witchcraft” in Medieval Icelandic) was a sort of Icelandic super-group, comprised of members of several noteworthy bands and formed, at first, to perform on the final episode of a radio program in August 1983. The following month, KUKL played on the same bill with Crass in Reykjavik, at a punk festival that was the largest crowd that Björk had performed in front of at that point, and made a lasting connection with Crass.

KUKL released both The Eye, their Georges Bataille-inspired first album and the Penny Rimbaud-produced Holidays in Europe (The Naughty Nought) through Crass Records. Although their personal politics, in the main, were sympatico with the UK anarcho-punk movement’s ethos—the Icelanders remained dedicated meat eaters—their music was dissimilar, owing more to acts like The Cure, Killing Joke or Siouxsie and The Banshees and incorporating primitivist ethnographic and free jazz-influenced elements. Like Throbbing Gristle, KUKL took to the stage infrequently, preferring to wait until the time was right and their energy was at its fullest potential, with each show having an element of magic intentionally thrown into the mix.

During 1985, KUKL occasionally played at higher profile Europe concerts, opening for the likes of Einstürzende Neubauten and Psychic TV. Along with The Virgin Prunes, The Mantis Dance Company, writer Kathy Acker and others, they performed at Psychic TV’s “Feast of the Flowering Light” event at the Hammersmith Palais, but in 1986 KUKL split with most of the members going on to reform as The Sugarcubes a few months later.

KUKL left behind a handful of fascinating music videos:

“Anna”

A very pregnant Björk and KUKL on Icelandic television for an extended live performance in 1986.

More KUKL after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.09.2013
05:47 pm
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Down the rabbit hole with Björk’s first album, recorded at the age of eleven
08.27.2013
10:35 am
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Björk
 
Most intense Björk fans will know all of this information, but it was new to me and I found it pretty interesting. In 1977, at the age of 11, Björk released a self-titled album in Iceland that achieved moderate success. For some reason Allmusic.com gave it a very dismissive review—“Novelty value can only carry an album so far ... [it] will probably not be enough to keep you laughing, or interested for the duration”—but to my ears it holds up quite well. It reminds a little bit of ABBA.

More interestingly, to a surprising degree it puts Bjork’s solo career starting in 1993 into perspective. The first song,“Arabadrengurinn (The Arab Boy),” prominently features the sitar, the four covers on the album are well chosen, and you can pretty much draw a straight line from the show-tunes-y “Himnaför” to, say, the bombast of “It’s Oh So Quiet” or the standards of Gling-Gló.

I’m not saying that Björk is a mature work or even that Björk herself had that much to do with what songs were chosen and how they were arranged. What I’m saying is that when you record a really eclectic pop album that ranges all over the map when you’re eleven, it might serve as a clue that your later eclectic pop albums that range all over the map didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. Björk has had a musical career all of her life—she never really stopped recording in her teen years—and the only point worth making here is that there is far more continuity from Björk to Debut than discontinuity.

Oh, and the songs are pretty well executed and fun to listen to. So there’s that.

Okay. Chronology. Björk got started as a musician when a teacher of hers submitted a recording in which she sang Tina Charles’s song “I Love to Love” to RÚV, the only radio station in Iceland at the time.

Here’s Björk’s version:
 


 
Tina Charles’ version, for comparison:
 

 
A few years ago someone named Thomas Rinnan decided to find out more about Björk. Here are his findings:
 

Björk Guðmundsdóttir (literally ‘Gudmund’s daughter’) was born on 21st October 1966, in Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavik. From the age of six until she was 14, she attended a local music school, where she studied the classics, and learned to play the flute and the piano. The family home was a hippy commune, with a steam of artists and musicians among the constant human traffic. Björk’s stepfather, Saevar Arnason, was himself a guitarist, and played in a band called Pops, recreating Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and “all that hippy music”. This bohemian atomsphere laid down a firm musical grounding for Björk’s future vocation, and provided a stepping stone to the first, and most remarkable, aspect of her recording career: an eponymously titled solo album, released in Iceland in 1977.

Documentation about this record is scant. Although Björk often alludes to it, precise details are hard to come by. And with the singer on a promotionaly tour of Japan and Australia at the time of writing, I turned to one of the few people with first-hand knowledge of this early release: Hildur Hauksdóttir—Björk’s mum.

“The record came about when Björk was at school,” revealed Hildur, on the phone from Reykjavik. “They used to have an open house every week where the kids had to entertain, read aloud and things like that. Björk sang a song called ‘I Love To Love’. She was born musical. She started to sing very early. She started singing melodies around seven months old.” Björk’s teachers were sufficiently impressed with her redition of Tina Charles’ U.K. No.1 from February 1976, to take the budding starlet along to Iceland’s Radio 1, then the contry’s only national broadcasting organisation, who in turn seemed only too pleased to play the song on air.

“After that she was offered a record deal by a label called Fálkkin,” continues Hildur. “I knew two musicians here, Palmi Gunnarsson, a bass player and singer, and Sigurdur Karlsson a drummer, and they had already recorded some songs with Björk. We worked on the recordat the Hljdrijinn Studios in Reykjavik. Palmi and Siggi brought in some of the best players in Iceland. After that first record with all thouse grown-ups, she only ever worked with oeioke her own age.” Among the other musicians on “Björk” was stepfather Sævar Arnason, and Björgvin Gíslason, one of Iceland’s most acclaimed guitarists. Björk would return the favour several years later when she sang on the track “Afi” on Gíslason’s 1983 LP, “Örugglega”.

The “Björk” album was released in time for Christmas 1977, with a cover designed by Hildur, and photographed at a local Reykjavik studio. In contrast to precocious recordings by singing kids like Lena Zavaroni, the tone of “Björk” mercifully falls short of the little-madam-wearing-mummy’s-make-up image(although who knows what she’s singing about!). Producers Gunnarsson and Karlsson constructed a perfect listenable, mid-70s pop album (albeit one sung by an 11-year old), which mixed a handful of standard Icelandic pop tunes, and a Björk orginal - the instrumental “Jóhannes Kjaval” (a tribute to a celebrated Icelandic painter)—with covers of Melanie’s “Christopher Robin” (with a decent approximation of Mel’s vocal growl), Stevie Wonder’s “Your Kiss Is Sweet”, Edgar Winter’s “Alta Mira” and the Beatles’ “Fool On The Hill” ( translated as “Álfur Út Úr Hól”!). Despite her tender age, Björk managed to press her personality into the grooves, and this, her real debut, is as much her own record as it is her producer’s.

Perhaps succumbing toa little of the mythmaking which is an inevitable side- effect of stardom, Björk has recently maintained that the album went platinum in Iceland, indicating that she became an instant celebrity. Her mum is not so sure. “I have no idea!” replied Hildur, when asked how many copies “Björk” sold. “It’s sold out today, I know that. And they are playing it on the radio now in Iceland! But at the time, she was not exactly what you’d call famous. In Iceland it’s different from elsewhere. It’s such a small place, everybody knows each other already. But the record didn’t separate her from school or anything.” And what became of the Fálkinn label? “They have stopped making their own records. They only sell others’ records now, and bicycles”.

 
After the jump, the ten songs off of Björk’s 1977 album and the originals of the four songs she covered…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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08.27.2013
10:35 am
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‘Punk As Fuck’: A film on the powerful & iconic photography of Steve Gullick

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‘A good photograph,’ says Steve Gullick, ‘is one that looks great, one that captures an interesting moment in time, one that tells a story, or in the case of a portrait, offers an insight into the subject.’

This is could be a description of Gullick’s own photographs—his beautiful, inky black portraits that are amongst the most recognizable and iconic images of the past twenty years.

Gullick was influenced ‘Mainly by the dark imagery of Don McCullin and Bill Brandt. I tried to infuse my photos with a similar drama—I spent all of my spare time in the darkroom working on getting good.

‘It was more difficult with color but when I started printing my own color stuff in the late 1990’s I was able to match the intensity of my black & white work.

These photographs have captured succeeding generations of artists and musicians from Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Depeche Mode, Foo Fighters, Bjork, The Prodigy, through to Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Richard Hawley

‘Photography is magic. The ability to capture something forever that looks interesting to you is magnificent.’

Now an exhibition of his work Punk as Fuck: Steve Gullick 90-93 is currently running at Indo, 133 Whitechapel Road, London, until 31st March, and is essential viewing for anyone with a serious interest in photography, music and art

To coincide with the exhibition, film-maker Joe Watson documented some of Steve’s preparation for the show, and interviewed him about the stories behind his photographs.

For more information about Punk as Fuck and a selection of Gullick’s brilliant work check his website.
 

 
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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.14.2013
09:15 pm
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Björk, the Little Golden Book
09.05.2012
05:07 pm
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image
 
This 11″x17″  Little Golden Book-style painting of Björk was done for an independent record store by Mike R. Baker. According to Baker’s site, there are prints available.

Via Hey Oscar Wilde!

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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09.05.2012
05:07 pm
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