A photo taken by Clay Geerdes of author and Cockette Fayette Hauser wearing a homemade grass skirt ensemble.

The catastrophic effect of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has hit anyone working in the gig economy incredibly hard. Book tours over the years have become big business for authors and independent bookstores hosting author events in support of newly released literature. Many authors, set to embark on Spring/Summer book tours, have had to scrap their plans, with some publishers even holding back on releasing their books. Thankfully, this was not the path chosen by drag trailblazer Fayette Hauser, she of the pioneering gender-bending performance troupe The Cockettes. It is my great privilege to be able to share a bit about her glittery, LSD-drenched book, The Cockettes: Acid Drag & Sexual Anarchy—a magnificent 352-page volume detailing the three-years the Cockettes conquered San Francisco and turned the drag community on its magnificently wigged head.

As Hauser recounts in the book, she was “rendered speechless” by a hit of strong acid at a party and soon found herself sitting on the floor only able to sit upright with help from the wall behind her. During this voyage, Hauser became acutely aware of the individuality of the people surrounding her to the point where she was not able to recognize their gender or her own. The year was 1968, and the Summer of Love had led masses of people to detach themselves from modern conformity, liberating their ability to express themselves freely. Eventually, The Cockettes would pave the way for others, whether gay, straight, bisexual, or pansexual, with their provocative performances and their communal way of life by living by the term “Gender Fuck.” And if you’re wondering what exactly is “Gender Fuck,” it made sense to go directly to the source, Hauser herself, to help define this very direct description of a person not identifying as exclusively male or female:

“The term Gender Fuck emerged as many of our descriptive phrases did, in an Acid flash! This term, gender fuck, became a way of describing our look, which was highly personalized, very conceptual, and without gender boundaries. We wanted to mystify the public so that the onlooker would declare, ‘What Is that? Is that a boy or a girl?’ We wanted to open people’s minds to the terrain between the tired gender binary models, which were much too mentally binding and boring as well. We unleashed that open space in between. We explored the fluid nature of the Self, which led to the term Gender Fluid. I think we succeeded in opening that Pandora’s Box of multi-dimensional, organic self-expression through body decor.”

In 1968, after graduating with a BFA in painting from Boston University, Hauser, a New Jersey native, moved out to San Francisco. Soon she would form a collective with like-minded, free-spirited people, and the Cockettes would officially begin their reign in 1969—specifically on the stage of the Palace Theater in North Beach on New Year’s Eve. The ever-growing troupe would first communally inhabit a grand Victorian-style home on 2788 Bush Street and then, after a fire rendered the home uninhabitable, a building on Haight—one of San Francisco’s most notorious streets. There was also a home known as The Chateau on 1965 Oak Street, where members of The Cockettes spent their time devising their next performance, creating costumes and personas, and tripping on LSD. The Cockettes took so much acid that they would often become non-verbal. This would lead to other forms of communication by way of personal adornment using makeup, clothing, and anything else that would convey the silent message emanating by the troupes’ diverse members, including 22-year-old Los Angeles native Sylvester James Jr., soon to become R&B disco queen Sylvester. Before his short stint with The Cockettes, Sylvester was a part of a group called The Disquotays—a performance collective comprised of black crossdressers and transgender women.
 

Sylvester during his short time with The Cockettes. Photo by Clay Geerdes. Unless otherwise noted, all photos provided to Dangerous Minds are for exclusive use.
 
The Cockettes’ performances were the be-there affair for all the counterculture chicks, dicks, and everyone in between. When director John Waters touched down in San Francisco to show off his 1969 film Mondo Trasho, the screening landed the director in jail for conspiracy to commit indecent exposure. The film made its debut at the Palace Theater where The Cockettes performed their knock-out drag shows on the regular. At the time, Waters was not aware of The Cockettes, but that would quickly change for the director as Divine would end up performing with the Cockettes as “Lady Divine”—one of the first times would be in the first annual Miss de Meanor Beauty Pageant at the Palace, where Divine played the pageant host, Miss de Meanor. In addition to confessing to the Tate/LaBianca murders, Divine would lead the other participants in the show (Miss Conception, Miss Shapen, Miss Used, and Miss Carriage) in a tournament to the death, where the queens had to fight with their fists for the coveted crown.

Divine would go on to win the ‘The Miss de Meanor Beauty Pageant’ in 1971. The following year, during The Cockettes’ last official show (another ‘Miss de Meanor Beauty Pageant’) at the House of Good, John Waters wrote a speech for her to read onstage, described by Cockette Scrumbly as “brilliant”. As the idea of Divine reading a speech written by John Waters is everything, I asked the director if he was willing to share any memory he had of this drag-tastic moment, and he very kindly responded with the following:

“To be honest, I’m not sure a written copy of that speech even exists in my film archive at Wesleyan Archive, and if it did, it would be word-slash-words that only I could understand. I do remember it was punk-ish (before the word) in a hippy venue that was bizarrely the Peoples Temple church, that was rented for the occasion after Jim Jones and gang had moved out. Divine ranted about following hippies home, eating sugar and killing their pets, or some such lunacy. I do still have the poster hanging in my SF apartment. I’m glad Scrumbly remembered it because I always did too. Quite a night in San Francisco.”

 

A flier advertising The Cockettes’ last show featuring Lady Divine.
 
The Cockettes intermingled with, as you might imagine, lots of famous people who were intrigued by the troupes’ anything-goes take on drag and life. Author Truman Capote called the Cockettes shows “the only true theater.” Alice Cooper, who once jumped out of a cake surrounded by The Cockettes for a PR stunt dubbed “The Coming Out Party for Miss Alice Cooper,” was a frequent guest at the Haight-Ashbury house. And then there was Iggy Pop. When Iggy and The Stooges were recording Fun House in 1970, the then 23-year-old Iggy would start each studio session by dropping a tab of acid (as noted in the book Open Up and Bleed). The band decided to take a break and head to San Francisco for a weekend, playing a couple of shows at the Fillmore with Alice Cooper and Flamin’ Groovies. The first show on May 15th was attended by most of The Cockettes, who bore witness to Iggy on stage clad in the tightest jeans possible and long silver lamé gloves. Iggy was already a sweetheart of the gay community, and as Cockette Rumi Missabu recalls, Iggy distinctly gave them the impression he was “playing just for them.” Following the show, Iggy would become a regular guest of The Cockettes.

In the 2002 film, The Cockettes, Cockette Sweet Pam confessed that the collective “almost brushed their teeth with LSD,” to which Fayette would add, “contributed to the emphasis of flashy costumes.” Although the use of acid was the norm for the Cockettes, their art, sexual autonomy, and fierce expressions of individuality all contributed to the creation of High Drag. And, thankfully, the world would never be the same.

 

Cockette Wally in full regalia. Photo by Clay Geerdes.
 

Cockette John Rothermel Photo by Clay Geerdes.
 

Cockettes’ Dusty Dawn and Wally in pearls. Photo by Clay Geerdes.
 
Much more after the jump…

A very happy looking Frank Zappa, age fifteen, posing next to his winning illustration for the California Division of Forestry in 1955.
 

“The most important thing in art is the frame. For painting, literally, for other arts, figuratively—because, without this humble appliance, you can know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to but a “box” around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?”

—Frank Zappa quoted in The Real Frank Zappa Book (page 140).

Before he illustrated the winning entry for an annual poster contest held by the California Division of Forestry, the then fourteen-year-old Frank Zappa, a 9th grader at Grossmont High School in San Diego, had spent some good portion of his youth drawing. The story behind Zappa becoming interested in drawing is about as Frank Zappa as you might imagine. Here’s more from Frank on that:

“I had some basic interests in art, and since I was a kid, I was able to draw things. So I saw a piece of music, and I drew a piece of music. I had no idea what it would sound like or what was going on in it, but I knew what an eighth note looked like – I didn’t know it was an eighth note. I started drawing music and that was it.”

Zappa kept a sketch scrapbook as a teenager and also enjoyed entertaining his younger sister Candy by creating illustrations for her. Three years after winning the poster contest, Zappa would win another state-wide art contest for his abstract painting “Family Room,” this time sponsored by the California Federation of Women, and the Hallmark Greeting Card company. In the press clip announcing Zappa’s win (featured in the book Cosmic Debris: The Collected History and Improvisations of Frank Zappa), he was described as a “highly versatile” young person who had no plans to “confine” his artistic interests to painting. It was also noted that the young Zappa was writing a book. When asked if either art or literature were in the cards for his future, his answer was “music.” Zappa was now seventeen and already playing in a band called the Blackouts and was fully engaged in music lessons and musical composition. Before his graduation from high school, Frank was given the opportunity to conduct the Antelope Valley Junior College orchestra, who performed two of Zappa’s original compositions, “Sleeping In A Jar,” and “A Pound For A Brown On A Bus” (noted in the book, Frank Zappa FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Father of Invention).

Getting back to Zappa’s art, the majority of images in this post are of work Zappa created from the mid-‘50s to the mid-60s. If you’re a fan of Zappa, you’re likely aware he created early collage-style showbills for Mothers of Invention gigs. The very cool artwork of a young Frank Vincent Zappa follows.
 

A sketch from Zappa’s high school scrapbook.
 

An illustration by Zappa for his kid sister Candy, “A Day at the Beach.” This image was published in her 2011 book, ‘My Brother Was a Mother: Take 2.’
 
Much more of Frank Zappa’s youthful artwork, after the jump…

Self-portrait by Patti Smith, 1969.
 

“The first time I saw art was when my father took us on a trip when I was 12. My father worked in a factory, he had four sickly children, my parents had a lot of money problems, and we didn’t go on excursions often. But there was a Salvador Dali show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that included the painting “The Persistence of Memory,” and my father found Dali’s draftsmanship just astounding, so he wanted to see the show in person. So he dragged us all to the museum. I had never seen art in person before. And seeing paintings - seeing work by Picasso, John Singer Sargent - I was completely smitten, I totally fell in love with Picasso, and I dreamed of being a painter.”

—Patti Smith on her first exposure to art.

The sublime Patti Smith once described her drawings as the “merging of calligraphy with geometric planes, poetry, and mathematics.” While in her early 20s and living with artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe at the Chelsea Hotel, the inseparable lovers would draw together side-by-side for long periods. Mapplethorpe would be a constant stream of encouragement to Smith, empowering her to keep creating despite the noise in her head telling her she wasn’t good enough. She would draw images of Mapplethorpe as well as his gorgeously aggressive X-rated photographs. In 1978, Smith and Mapplethorpe would sign on with New York art dealer Robert Miller who had just opened his art gallery on Fifth Avenue a year earlier. 1978 would mark the first time, at the age of 32, that Smith would show her original works of art alongside Mapplethorpe’s photographs—including a variety of his portraits of Patti. As I will never tire of hearing stories told by Patti Smith, here’s a bit more from the high priestess of punk on the wonderful thing that is “creative impulse”:

“The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can’t give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work. And that continuous exchange—whether it’s with a rock and roll song where you’re communing with Bo Diddley or Little Richard, or it’s with a painting, where you’re communing with Rembrandt or Pollock—is a great thing.”

Her artwork has been exhibited everywhere from New York to Munich, and in 2008 a large retrospective of Smith’s artwork (produced between 1967 and 2007) was shown at the Fondation Cartier pour I’Art Contemporain in Paris. In 2019, Smith’s illustrations were used for the album, The Peyote Dance, a collaboration with Smith and Soundwalk Collective (Stephan Crasneanscki, Simone Merli). So, without further adieu, let’s spend some time perusing a few of Patti’s illustrations produced over the last four decades.
 

Self-portrait, 1974.
 

“Ohne Titel,” 1968.
 

Portrait of Rimbaud, 1973.
 
More after the jump…

Actor Peter Cushing in a contemplative moment playing his war games with his minature models.
 

“Television is a rather frightening business. But I get all the relaxation I want from my collection of model soldiers.”

—veteran actor Peter Cushing explaining his love of model soldiers in 1958.

The 2004 biography about his life, In All Sincerity, Peter Cushing, is a revealing read about the actor who, by all accounts, was one of the most gracious and kind people to ever work in film. Regarded as one of the UK’s finest actors, Cushing cut his remarkable acting chops early in life and, at the same time, pursued his love of drawing and art. While Cushing was still trying to make his name in cinema, he sold scarfs he hand-painted himself. In addition to painting watercolors, Cushing held on to a part of his childhood, collecting and painting model soldiers and trains. His love of miniature models would last his entire life, during which the actor would amass over 5,000 individual models (not toys mind you) of soldiers, trains, trees and landscape, horses, castles, historically accurate battle gear and more. All of which he painted by hand.

A proud member of the British Model Soldier Society, Cushing used his models for formal gameplay in accordance with H.G. Wells as outlined in his book Little Wars (1913), and its companion, Floor Games, published in 1911. Known as “hobby war games,” the games would take hours to complete, and (according to Cushing) if played to the letter, approximately nine hours would be consumed by one war game. The British Model Soldier society was formed in 1935 by a group of fifteen, all-male members (Wells denoted in his book that the games were to be played by boys between the ages of twelve to one hundred), who would meet up at a pub. Cushing was so serious about his therapeutic pastime he engaged the services of Frederick Ping—a pioneer of model soldier art. Considered a master of the medium, nearly all of Ping’s figures were forged from scratch, and in addition to Cushing, his figures were revered by aristocrats and the well-to-do. Cushing would commission Ping to create soldiers for him, which he would, in turn, paint meticulously by hand. The only thing more intriguing than the man who played Dr. Van Helsing, Victor Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Who and Grand Moff Tarkin are the photos and television footage of Cushing with his massive model collection.
 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Footage of Peter Cushing showing off his miniature models and soldiers.

A now all-too-relatable painting by Gertrude Abercrombie, “Woman in a crumbling cell,” 1949.
 
By the time she was five, Gertrude Abercrombie had already lived in Austin, Texas (her birthplace), Berlin, Germany, and then Aledo, Illinois. Two short years later, the family of three would finally settle down in Chicago, a place Gertrude would spend the majority of her life.

Though still quite young, Abercrombie developed a keen interest in linguistics during the family’s time in Berlin, where Gertrude had become fluent in German. Additionally, Abercrombie’s parents were part of a traveling opera company, and Gertrude would also develop her musical chops as a vocalist with a penchant for jazz. Her formal education included earning a degree in Romance Languages from the University of Illinois (1925), then later exploring her artistic yearnings with commercial art courses at the School of the Art Institute and a brief stint at American Academy for Art in Chicago. She would then pursue a career in art after finding a job as a department store commercial artist. These endeavors would convince Abercrombie she should focus full time on developing her painting skills, which she did starting in 1932 at the age of 22. One year later, she became a part of the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP). The PWAP was launched during the Great Depression as a way to help support artists by engaging their services to decorate public dwellings. Paid anywhere between $38-$46.50 a week, Abercrombie was one of nearly four thousand artists that collectively created 15,663 pieces of artwork based on images associated with the “American scene” (think Grant Wood’s 1930 painting “American Gothic”). Gertrude was empowered by her inclusion in the PWAP, and this sense of inclusion with her peers would help inspire the young artist to further develop her style.

Success would come reasonably quickly for Abercrombie, and by the early 40s, she was the toast of New York after her first solo show in the city. Gertrude would return to Chicago and hold a show at the Art Institute’s Chicago Room, after which she would be referred to as “the queen of the bohemian artists” and the “Queen of Chicago.” Her solitary style of surrealism often included lonely self-portraits and nocturnal images of cats and owls. A quote attributed to Abercrombie shed some light on the starkly beautiful visions of the artist and how she came to create them:

“I am not interested in complicated things nor in the commonplace, I like to paint simple things that are a little strange. My work comes directly from my inner consciousness, and it must come easily.”

When Abercrombie wasn’t painting, she was busy hanging out with luminaries of the jazz scene like Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughn, and Sonny Rollins. To say the least, her life was busy, if not chaotic, and she would struggle with vice – like many of her famous friends—specifically alcohol. In contrast to her life, her paintings depict calming, isolating scenes, many of which were conjured from her memories as a child growing up surrounded by the landscape of Aledo, Illinois. As we are all spending a lot more time alone right now, I found Abercrombie’s paintings somewhat comforting and very relatable. I hope you do too.
 

“Strange Shadows (Shadow and Substance),” 1950.
 

“Flight,” 1946.
 

“The Stroll,” 1943.
 
More after the jump…

Mark Wilkinson’s artwork for the cover of Marillion’s 1983 album, “He Knows You Know.”
 
After leaving art school, Mark Wilkinson found a nine-to-five office job drawing illustrations used for heating and ventilation companies. Realizing this was not exactly what he had in mind for a career, he started freelancing for comic books and magazines catering to fantasy and science fiction fans. This was fine for a while and kept Wilkinson busy while he searched for gigs in the realm of album art. His first would be a concept he executed for an executive at RCA who envisioned the cover art for a 1982 heavy metal compilation called Hot Shower, featuring a Tron-like image of a guy in an asbestos suit and helmet wielding a Stratocaster spewing neon flames. Wilkinson’s next album cover would mark the beginning of a long relationship between the artist and English prog-rock band Marillion to the tune of nineteen of the band’s studio albums, as well as records for the group’s original vocalist Fish.

Wilkinson came by the job after overhearing a conversation about a company called Torchlight and their need for new artistic talent while at a pub in London. He then phoned Torchlight inquiring about work and was invited to come in and meet the art director, who told him the job was creating album artwork for Marillion. In an interview for a Bulgarian Iron Maiden fan site, Wilkinson would call this point in his still-young career as his “big break.” Another turn of good luck for Wilkinson was scoring the job of creating posters for the Monsters of Rock festival held at Castle Donnington. This would lead to requests for his master-airbrush services by mega-metal acts playing the festival, specifically Judas Priest, who the artist has also had a long relationship with. Others would follow, such as the Scorpions, Iron Maiden and Swedish band Europe.

His air-brush work, while most closely associated with the 80s, was inspired by the psychedelic 60s British graphic design duo of Michael English and Nigel Waymouth, known as Hapshash and the Coloured Coat. He also credits underground Zap Comix hero and psychedelic poster artist Rick Griffin with helping guide his artistic style. His work with Iron Maiden would begin after the band decided to give a little makeover to the most famous heavy metal mascot of all time, Eddie (created by Derek Riggs). Iron Maiden’s co-manager Rod Smallwood appreciated Wilkinson’s approach to his images of Eddie as he believed the artist clearly saw that Ed was much more than “just a skull.” His work with Maiden has appeared on various albums and other Maiden merchandise. Wilkinson would return to comics, creating incredible artwork for the Judge Dredd series on several occasions in the 1990s and beyond. In 2000, Wilkinson released the now hard-to-come-by book, Masque: The Graphic World of Mark Wilkinson, Fish and Marillion, a 180-page volume full of color images of his work. You can also purchase prints and more from Wilkinson on his official site.

Examples of Wilkinson’s work follow.
 

Marillion, ‘Misplaced Childhood’ (1985).
 

1984.
 
Many more after the jump…

A painting by Les Edwards commissioned by KHBB advertising to be used as a poster to promote the UK release of Stephen King’s film ‘Graveyard Shift.’

 
While artist Les Edwards was a student at the Hornsey College of Art from 1968 until he graduated in 1972, he was told on more than one occasion he would never find work in his chosen profession, illustration. Edwards would ignore the advice of his peers and teachers and become a freelance artist shortly after leaving school. During his four decades as an artist, he would work with director John Carpenter and authors Stephen King and Clive Barker. Edwards’ work has appeared on books and in magazines since the late 60s, catering to the science-fiction/fantasy/horror genre, and if you are familiar with Edwards’ work, you might even be a metalhead, as his credits include a few notable album covers such as the 1983 single from Metallica, “Jump in the Fire.” An interview with Edwards from 2016 rightfully touted him as an artist that should need “no introduction.” Still, it seems Edwards’ prolific genre-specific artwork has not received the credit it clearly deserves.

Let’s try to fix that.

While he was beginning his education at Hornsey College of Art, the school was in the midst of student protests and sit-ins, unhappy with the physical state of the school and lack of funding to improve the conditions or curriculum. This would evolve into a six-week situation during which students and faculty occupied the Crouch End building on campus, best described by those there as almost “festival-like” and “empowering.” Given the general displeasure of the student body during Edwards’ time at Hornsey, it’s reasonable to believe the “advice” he received meant to deter him from his desired profession was bunk, and his early acceptance into the Young Artists agency is proof of that. Run by author and songwriter John B Spencer, the Young Artists agency represented the brightest talent in art and illustration in the UK. But, according to Edwards, none of the artists on Young Artists’ roster understood how influential their collective work would become, including future master-airbrush artist Chris Foss, and Edwards himself. Here’s a bit from Edwards reflecting on his time at school and what it actually taught him:

“There’s a lot to learn about painting, and one thing I did learn at art school was that you pretty much have to teach yourself. Also, if you’re painting day after day, you have to make it interesting and challenging, or you just become a machine.”

Looking at the kind of work Edwards put out during his career clearly demonstrates how influential his work has been. In part, we all have Edwards to thank for our modern-day preoccupation with zombies and vampires, as well as his muscle-bound Conan-esque conquerors popularized most recently in Game of Thrones. When the show became a worldwide obsession, Edwards openly speculated his younger self would “laughed” at the idea that such a show could ever exist. These days, Edwards paints more often under the name Edward Miller, illustrating and painting subjects unrelated to his award-winning “Red Period” and has been the recipient of the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist seven times. If you kept all your old heavy metal records, such as Krokus’ Alive and Screaming (1986) or Uriah Heep’s nearly perfect record, Abominog, you own artwork created by the talented Mr. Edwards. His work spanning the years 1968-1988 was compiled into the 1989 book, Blood & Iron, the only publication featuring his work to date. If you’d like to own a piece of Edwards art yourself, a large variety (including originals) can be purchased on his website. For now, please take a look at some of his work from the last few decades (and trust me, I’m just slicing through the surface here)—some are NSFW.
 

“The Monsters Escape” (private commission).
 

A portrait of author Robert Bloch for the cover of the book ‘Psychomania’ (2013). Bloch’s 1959 book ‘Psycho’ was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock’s film.
 

An image of actress and Hammer Films star Ingrid Pitt painted by Edwards for ‘The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories By Women’ (2001).
 
More after the jump…

Brian Jonestown Massacre.
 
A small act of kindness can change everything. Alain Bibal was gifted a camera for his fiftieth birthday. It changed his life.

He started taking photographs of the thing he was passionate about—music. His first outing with his camera was to an Arctic Monkeys concert. He took a picture of lead singer Alex Turner. The image featured the singer’s head projected onto one of the screens at the side of the stage. The photograph was different. Eye-catching. It was picked up by the press. Alain Bibal was now a rock photographer.

But being a rock photographer (or just a photographer) is never that easy. It is something one has to work at constantly. Bibal started taking photographs of the bands who visited his home city Paris. Brian Jonestown Massacre, Tess Parks, Jarvis Cocker, the Limiñanas, Angel Olsen, and the Lemon Twigs. He traveled to England where he photographed Sleaford Mods, Suggs, Dandy Warhols, and Nick Cave. His work appeared in magazines, newspapers, and websites.

Bibal started taking pictures in his teens and twenties, then drifted into the world of work. Getting a Leica camera for his fiftieth changed everything. It reignited his talent and long held desires to be creative. He had always loved the work of rock photographers like Pennie Smith and Kevin Cummins. Photographs that were gritty, real and captured an unguarded moment of truth.

Bibal works on film, digital doesn’t interest him, working on film is more disciplined, demands more concentration. When embedded with bands at concerts or on tour, Bibal uses only two rolls of film to capture that perfect image. It means he has to stay focussed on telling a story with his camera that connects with an audience. His resulting pictures are brilliant, powerful, and iconic.

The moral of the story: be kind, you might just change someone’s life.
 

Tess Parks.
 

Pete Doherty.
 

Jarvis Cocker.
 

Jason Williamson—Sleaford Mods.
 
More of Alain Bibal’s brilliant work, after the jump…
 

Album art by Enzo Mombrini for the 1984 album ‘Turbo Diesel’ by Italian DJ, producer and vocalist Albert One, aka Alberto Carpani.
 
Flemming Dalum was born and raised approximately 1000 miles away from Italy in Denmark. Starting in 1983—Dalum, considered to be one of the world’s leading authorities of Italo disco—would make eleven trips to Italy in search of records. Italo disco came into favor in the 1980s, and Dalum became recognized as an expert on the genre as it rose to prominence not only in Italy but in Germany and other parts of Europe. Since immersing himself in the music, Dalum, a self-proclaimed “Italo freak” is able to instantly identify an authentic Italo disco song. Italo disco is probably on your radar, whether you realize it or not. Do you dig Italo pioneer Giorgio Moroder or the synth jams of director and composer John Carpenter? Then it’s safe to say disco Italo style might be right up your alley. While I’d love to jaw more about the ear candy that is Italo disco, the artwork created for the records is as lit up as the music pressed deep into the vinyl inside. 

The variety of album art produced during the decade of Italo disco’s height had one foot firmly planted in the realm of futuristic fantasy, often composed in an airbrush style. That’s what we’re going to focus on for this post. Airbrush art was such a huge part of the 80s, and several artists used this style for their contributions to Italo disco records such as Giampaolo Cecchini, a giant of the Italian advertising world. Italian sci-fi and comic artist Franco Storchi also successfully used this technique for Italo disco trio Time, as did Enzo Mombrini to create his provocative images for Italo disco acts, many which slipped into obscurity, as a fondness for Italo disco started to wain toward the end of the decade. If this topic has got you thinking about fog machines and neon lighting, the 2018 documentary Italo Disco Legacy traces the origins of Italo disco and includes facts and reflections from Flemming Dalum and other curators of Italo disco history. Covers by Cecchini, Storchi, Mombrini and a few others follow. Many are NSFW.
 

Franco Storchi’s cover for Italian superstar George Aaron’s (Giorgio Aldighieri) single “She’s a Devil” (1984). More by Storchi follows. 
 

1982.
 

1984.
 
More after the jump…

One of the entries for Punk magazine’s “Patti Smith Graffiti Contest” from 1976.
 
One of my very favorite possessions in my home library is the massive 2012 coffee table book Punk: The Best of Punk Magazine, gifted to me by a punk rock pal of mine. If you don’t already own a copy of it, find a way to part with $20 (or so), buy the book, and I promise you won’t ever regret it. Every so often, I pick it up and start reading from a random entry point and am taken back to the magazine’s heyday and its gritty yet comical approach to covering the punks of the scene when it began its glorious print run in 1975.

Core components of Punk were the comic strips based on the fictional exploits of the punk elite, the photo pictorials used for “The Legend of Nick Detroit” (starring Richard Hell) and another epic punk rock tale, “Mutant Monster Beach Party.” Both pictorial “movies” featured appearances by, well, everybody involved in the New York City punk scene and beyond, like David Byrne, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol and Joey Ramone. Punk marched to the beat of its own high-hat-loving drum kit, but they also did regular magazine stuff like running contests.

In 1979 Punk solicited submissions from readers for their Patti Smith Graffiti Contest, requesting that they deface a press photo of Patti. When Volume I, Issue #5 published in August of 1976, the magazine noted it was still receiving entries commenting they “maybe” might print more, but they “doubt it.” Eight Graffiti-inspired press photos of Patti were chosen for the three-page, black and white layout and run the gamut from Patti looking a bit like Alice Cooper (pictured at the top of this post), to a topless collage of Patti (with her name spelled “Paty”) with tattooed boobs. It would take three more years for Punk to launch the Shaun Cassidy Graffiti Contest, announcing it in Punk #17 in 1979. Submissions were strong, but sadly, Issue #19 was scrapped, Da-Doo-Womp-Womp. Lucky for us, Punk’s John Holstrom included nine of the brutal illustrations of Cassidy, sent to Punk in Punk: The Best Of Punk Magazine. What a time to be alive. Some of the images that follow are NSFW.
 

Scribbles announcing the winners of the Patti Smith contest. The photo below is the one mentioned, sent in by Bimbo.
 

 

 
More after the jump…