Been out on business for a bit. I typically don’t touch a computer when I’m gone. When I got back, I discovered my hard drive had died taking all of my digitized art with it. It was one of these.
So I’ve decide to put a few fliers up. Mainly because of this. Take a look. On the page linked you’ll find graphic artist Mike Joyce’s treatment of fliers from actual punk shows that have already happened, some as far back as 40 years ago. I did, and I thought about how utterly unrelated his treatment was to the real article, ie: the fliers, the people involved, and the shows themselves.
Not that that’s a bad thing. Who am I to say?
Still, Punk, or whatever you want to call it, at least where I come from, was a mess. A series of embarrassments, failures, and the rare small success. The shows ended in disaster, the music was a tantrum. You were surrounded by idiots who were off the leash, some for the first time, and you were one of them or at least you were with one of them. Nobody knew what they were doing, they just did things. It was the only way to express yourself that was worthwhile at all.
I was inspired to post a few of the fliers I had in my plastic storage box. For balance. A few of the fliers pictured below were done by myself, others by my friends, some by people I know of, and some by people I don’t know anything about. Regardless, they are probably all crap as far as anybody with any real graphic arts training is concerned. I can’t disagree, I have none. These are not the classic images you think of when you think about Punk fliers - they’re local shit, but they are not without merit. After taking them out, holding them, looking at them, I was struck by how beautiful and personal they were. I thought about the humanity wrapped up in them. They’re loaded with the crummy sarcasm of a stupid kid who has seen nothing of the world, but who is right nonetheless. Because we were right. We just didn’t have any taste.
