Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Daniel Novak
Dept. of History of Art and Architecture
For: Prof. Laurie Monahan
Winter 2005 to Spring 2006
1
Harmful to Minors
In 1986, the LAPD raided the home of Jello Biafra, lead singer of the Punk
band The Dead Kennedys 1. The County of Los Angeles charged the band with dis-
stemmed from the inclusion of H.R. Giger's Landscape #20: Where Are We Coming
From (Penis Landscape) in the liner notes of the band's 1985 album Frankenchrist.
Why did Biafra (who produced and marketed the album) choose such a
disturbing image for his album jacket? The answer involves Giger's painting it-
self. Though not directly related to the Punk movement, Landscape #20 shares
certain visual qualities with Punk art. Consider the piece’s ability to upset some
viewers with its graphic depictions of sex. The work’s composition requires that
the viewer discern each coupled penis and vagina from an endlessly repeating
pattern. The painting confronts the viewer with its repetition of sexual imagery.
This forces the viewer to somehow reconcile themselves with a painting that
might offend them viscerally. This negative, gut reaction on the part of the
viewer is, in fact, shock. This desire to shock and offend the viewer has a long-
standing tradition in the Punk movement and explains Biafra’s inclusion of the
painting in the album art. Biafra asserted that “…shock is a way of ungluing the
insides of people’s heads,” 2 and, at this point in American history, Punks felt that
1
Band names (with the exception of individuals such as Elvis and Country Joe) in this essay appear in ital-
ics to avoid confusion.
2
Belsito, Peter and Bob Davis. Hardcore California: A History of Punk and New Wave. New York:
Last Gasp. 1983. 93.
2
More Than Shock
While shock played a significant role in the ideology and symbolic repre-
sentation of the Punk movement, it does not explain all of Punk’s appeal. Shock
merely served as a method of transmission for Punk’s larger goal: the reassertion
of the value of the individual within American society. Punk culture, unlike its
values. On the contrary, the Punk movement attempted to revitalize the asser-
tural movements. These responses are most obvious in the relationships be-
tween the visual culture of the Punk movement and the visual culture of three
overt, shaped the direction of Punk music and art. Thus, we will gain a better
the Rock and Roll Establishment, the Hippie movement, and the Yuppies as ex-
These three cultural entities served as foils for the movement. Each pos-
sesses a trait or trajectory that Punks found lacking and attempted to rectify.
3
First, Punk artists developed a photographic aesthetic that emphasized the close
interactions of performer and audience. This came as a response to the parity be-
tween the gulfs that separated the government and the governed and rock and
roll bands and their fans. Second, as memory of the Hippie movement faded in
the late 1970s, Punks began to question the communal attitudes of the move-
ment, finally opting for a more individual-centered culture. This break is evident
in the poster art of the respective movements. Third, young Punks found them-
selves at odds with what they saw as the conformity of the product of post-
World War II capitalism: Yuppies and Jocks. Punks set themselves in opposition
foster individual opinions and thought among the members of the movement.
Evidence of this practice appears in the diverse and idiosyncratic graphic repre-
Punk graphic arts, represent a shift towards a type of individualism that Punks
Why Individualism?
This paper will also use the concept of individualism in a slightly different
mores, the Punk strain of individualism is an existential state. This state of being
with a way to declare their personhood. This property appears to arise from his-
4
torical circumstances. As Walter Capps, a congressman and professor of reli-
In the aftermath [of the Vietnam War], with ideological assurances up for
grabs what Robert Lifton calls “the crisis in authority and mentorship” be-
came monumental. No one could be quite certain of being able to find the
“real America” until a certain segment of the populace, later called the
New Right, produced “I have found it” bumper stickers more than a dec-
ade later…It was in military terms, and with evangelical zeal, that the re-
discovered patriotism was expressed. 3
Most Punks grew up in the extended ideological conflict instigated by the Viet-
nam War in the 1960s. By the time they came of age in the mid- and late-1970s,
the Hippie counterculture had fallen away. This left the many young and unsa-
tisfied Americans with a desire to change their lives and their country, but with
expression. Punk individualism thus gave Punks a frame for their rebellion and
Punks created a ‘scene’ (a social sphere) with common mores and accept-
their group affiliations, will work to impose their own desires on their world, of-
ten in accordance with an ethical code. The Punk belief in social change and the
importance of unity within the Punk movement come from this belief in an indi-
3
Walter H. Capps. The Unfinished War: Vietnam and the American Conscience. Boston: Beacon Press,
1990. 53
5
vidual’s ability to reshape the world. Thus, Punk represents an individual’s as-
sertion of existence as a rebel and the individual’s concerted desire to change the
world.
“[Punk is an idea…] And what is this idea? Think for yourself, be yourself, don’t just
take what society gives you, create your own rules, live your own life.” 4 – Mark Ander-
son, Positive Force.
phenomenon. How did the rich and uneasy environment of social protest and
Dick Hebdige’s Subcultures: The Meaning of Style grapples with this ques-
Punk scene. The book traces English Punk’s evolution in the diverse streets of
adopting attitudes, clothing, and music from different ethnic groups and creating
a new subculture that stood in opposition to the larger British culture. One of
the earliest scholarly texts to deal with Punk, the book dissects the symbolic inte-
2
O’Hara, Craig. The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! San Francisco: AK Press, 1999. Mark Ander-
son, Positive Force handout, 1985. Quoted on 36.
6
raction of Punk as it relates to other subcultural movements. It also addresses
Much of the available space in the book will therefore be taken up with a
description of the process whereby objects are made to mean and mean
again as ‘style’ in subculture. 5
Hebdige does an excellent job of tracing the origins of the look of Lon-
don’s Punk subculture, but the look itself does not reveal everything. Though
render all of the meaning contained within Punk. Style, as a concept, is at the
whim of the market. People buy and sell it, mold it and package it. While the
study yields an excellent analysis of the symbolic choices that individuals made
within the British Punk subculture, the study of style cannot move beyond a de-
Sociologists such as Curry Malott and Milagros Peña have moved in a dif-
ferent direction. Their book Punk Rockers’ Revolution: A Pedagogy of Race, Class,
and Gender posits that Punk reflects a deeper social drive. The study characteriz-
consensus. They sum up their central model for describing Punk as follows:
…through dissensus punk rock created and continues to create a space for
social discourse excluded by society’s expectations in giving in to consen-
sus and conformity. 6
Malott and Peña then create a matrix for gauging the degree of sexism, homo-
phobia, racism, and class conflict in Punk lyrics. The study’s most intriguing ideas
5
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1979. 3
6
Malott, Curry and Milagros Peña. Punk Rockers’ Revolution: A Pedagogy of Race, Class, and Gender.
New York: Peter Lang Publishing. 2004. 35.
7
also become its faults. Classifying Punk as a separate space for social discourse
removes it from its cultural context. If Punk exists as a ‘social place’ apart from
the “consensus and conformity” of the larger culture, then it cannot directly en-
gage the larger culture or even other subcultures. While the idea fits many of
Punk’s qualities excellently, it fails to explain the movement for the opposite rea-
son of Hebdige’s study. If Subcultures’s ‘style’ is time- and place- specific, then
Punk Rockers’ Revolution’s ‘cultural space’ removes Punk from any cultural con-
text.
Craig O’Hara’s The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise takes a third ap-
proach to Punk. O’Hara, like Malott, spent many years participating in the Punk
scene. He wrote the text as response to the changes he observed in the Punk life-
style in the late 1980s. Like Hebdige, O’Hara treats Punk as a living culture
O’Hara maintains an interest in a ‘perfect type’ description of the Punk social or-
der. That is, O’Hara recognizes that Punk appeals to many people with varying
attitudes and ideals, yet he still attempts to describe the larger cultural ideas and
concerns that spawn these attitudes. The result has little nuance, but provides
bird’s eye view of Punk that allows the reader to begin to understand the worm’s
eye view.
This paper relies more on Hebdige and O’Hara’s methods more than
those of Malott and Peña. Hebdige’s study of the symbolic meaning of Punk
8
O’Hara’s work allows us to examine the beliefs that drive Punk art. Malott and
Peña’s more Marxist text removes the cultural context from their study to such a
great degree that it loses its ability to describe the individual’s role in the move-
ment. After all, individuals (not movements) produce art based on their ideas
and emotions.
most of the examples from the West Coast part of the Punk movement. Though
West Coast bands tended to produce large bodies of coherent work. The Dead
Kennedys and Black Flag, for example, produced five and six major albums and
many volumes of spoken word from 1978 to 1985. These albums outline the
bands’ political and social philosophy as well as their thoughts on American so-
ciety. This differs significantly from the histories of East Coast and English
Punk, where bands often maintained shorter careers and spoke less seriously
about their socio-political leanings. West Coast Punk’s social concern and vocal
anger carry over into the photography and graphic arts that accompanied the
music. These arts demonstrate a painful rebirth of individualism that did not oc-
cur in elsewhere. Through the examination of these arts we will gain a better
understanding of the context and the origin of West Coast Punk’s place in Amer-
9
No Authority: The Punk Scene and the American Music Establishment
begins with the rise of Rock and Roll in the 1950s and 1960s. Two decades before
The Ramones appeared on stage, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and
country and folk rock to create new sounds and a new musical identity. Young
people across America consumed this music with fervor, despite the stigma at-
tached to it. As historian David Farber points out, “Rock ‘n’ Roll, to a degree,
broke down the wall that monitors of conventional morality had raised between
Farber also describes the emergence of a ‘youth culture’ during the 1960s
that had not existed in the previous generation. The baby-boom generation, he
asserts, had greater access to money, cars, and entertainment than any generation
before. Also, the delay in entering the work force (caused by the completion of
high school and increased college attendance) allowed young Americans more
leisure time among people their own age. High schools and universities bred a
new age cohort that partied together, listened to the same music, watched the
same television shows, and saw the same movies. This cohort also did not expe-
rience the Great Depression, and so knew only affluence. This affluence, howev-
er, had a dark and unfulfilling side that young people began to question.
7
Farber, David. The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994.)
10
The youth culture of the 1960s adopted Rock and Roll as a mode of ex-
pressing its concerns about the direction of American culture. The Hippie
movement, for example, idolized performers such as Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Air-
plane, and The Doors for their rejection of cultural norms in favor of greater artis-
Some of these performers even used their music to confront social issues.
For example, The Mothers of Invention, on their album Freak Out!, sang about so-
In addition to decrying the ubiquity of racism in the country, the song’s lyrics
show a profound distrust of the media and its perceived falsities. The album also
makes itself clear with an urgent (if ironic and comedic) reminder: “This is the
voice of your conscience, baby… Suzy Creamcheese, honey, what’s got into
you?” Though much of the album relies on irony and humor, it also raises some
important questions about the priorities of the young and the old in America.
8
One should also note that these performers became millionaires in the process of creating music.
9
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. Freak Out! Rykodisc. Copyright Frank Zappa, 1966.
11
Musicians such as Country Joe and the Fish used more aggressive language
to demonstrate this divide. According to these bands, the ‘old’ (such as Presi-
dent Lyndon Johnson) had lost touch with America’s core values and promoted
only self-interest. A severe cynicism developed in Rock and Roll after years of
governmental promises that the United States only sought to protect nations
such as South Vietnam from Communist threats. Country Joe and the Fish ex-
tock in 1969, attributes the War to military ambition (“Well, c’mon generals…”),
business interests (“Well, c’mon Wall Street), and jingoism (“Well, c’mon moth-
ers…”). Their lyrics aggressively and directly confront the issue of the Vietnam
War’s purpose. Rock and Roll fully adopted the drive for social change that gal-
Yet, by the late 1970s, many music fans felt the drive towards social revolt
that existed within Rock and Roll had disappeared. The perceived spirit of rebel-
lion and the passion of Rock and Roll gave way to excess and commercialization.
Rock and Roll icons became saleable commodities, and the LA clubs that once
housed concerts gave way to massive stadium shows. At these shows bands
stood on stages far from their fans. That physical distance demonstrated the dis-
Punk bands in the 1970s challenged this distance. The differences be-
tween bands and fans became a subject of debate in the following decade. Mark
12
Perry, who published an early, influential fanzine called Sniffin’ Glue, expressed
…I’d always had this feeling that there was a gap between us, the fans,
and them, the bands, that you couldn’t cross. It was like a special club
that had The Beatles and the Stones as founders, and the only way to be-
come a member was to sit for years alone in your bedroom learning how
to play guitar. People in bands seemed somehow special, in so much as I
thought of myself as ordinary. 10
One might think it unusual that a rebel counterculture such as Rock and
enormous influence of power and money in the music industry and the divisions
caused by these elements. For Punks, all traces of mainstream Rock and Roll’s
rebel attitudes had disappeared. The Beatles, much maligned by parents as a bad
influence after their debut, became part of a larger cultural establishment that
represented a lack of concern for the individual. The broad business interests
that controlled the music industry came to represent the same types of interests
that controlled the government. In a few short years, powerful Rock bands had
transformed into a subject of the same type of scorn that young people heaped
on the US government.
In the late 1970s, Punks began to see the breaks between fan and band,
government and governed, as artificial divides between those with power and
those without. Thus, at the same moment that Punks rejected the authority of
record labels and bands, they began to reject the authority of the government. In
California, Punks began to express their desire to reduce the role of authority
10
Mark Perry. Sniffin’ Glue: The Essential Punk Accessory. London: Sanctuary Publishing, 2000. 11
The quote refers to a period around 1974.
13
figures in the political arena. In 1979, Jello Biafra of The Dead Kennedys publicly
to office, legalized squatting, and using vagrants to collect money to replace the
funds lost through the state’s Proposition 13.11 These promises, although ton-
found in popular Rock and Roll concerts and the government. Biafra collected
6,591 votes during the election, taking enough votes away from the two front-
pendent candidate) proved that many citizens during this period felt removed
This feeling of alienation and suspicion of the powerful (be they musician
an intense desire to have their voices heard by the government, a force that
seemed both remote and unreachable (as with Richard Nixon and Ronald Regan)
and oppressively close (as with the police) as well as by their fans. Punk, espe-
cially in West Coast cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, demanded a
11
Belsito and Davis, 194. California voters approved Proposition 13 in 1978. The proposition capped and
reduced property taxes in the state. This caused an enormous budget shortfall in all cities and counties that
relied on the property taxes from land that appreciates in value (such as housing, corporate offices, and
shopping centers).
14
Some members of the movement even subscribed to anarchy as a social
doctrine, hoping that such a system would increase the level of equality in the
country. Anarchy, as a social system that lacks a central power, challenges the
rights of powerful institutions to supersede the will and thought of the individu-
al. Many Punks, like Jello Biafra, sought to reform Rock and Roll, society, and
promoted the direct access of the individual to the band at their shows as well as
in their photography.
between an elect (of sorts) and the rest of society. Some Punk bands encouraged
their audiences to start their own bands so that fans could express themselves
and enlarge the scene. This desire also appears prominently in the capturing of
medium for understanding the interactions between Punks and Punk bands be-
cause the photograph forces the photographer to include only the essential in-
frame that can never include everything that was there to be, as we say, ‘tak-
12
W.J.T. Mitchell. Picture Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. 289
15
scribe a social sphere where the crowd asserts its existence in a bodily manner to
the musicians.
cosmic version of the changes that Punks wanted to see in all of American socie-
ty. Bands experimented with the dissolution of power structures during their
shows by allowing their crowds to approach them, touch them, and even fight
with them. For example, Henry Rollins, the lead singer of the band Black Flag in
the 1980s, became famous for jumping off the stage and fighting with fans during
concerts. The other members of the band continued playing the song and Rollins
would return to the stage, often covered in blood to continue singing. These
come so close during this period, especially those with mainstream popularity.
In this brief survey of rock and roll concert photography, the differences fostered
by the decreased power distance in the Punk subculture will become clear.
First, consider the qualities of rock and roll photography before Punk. In
traditional rock and roll concerts, the relationship between the audience and the
performer is simple. The band entertains the crowd, and, in turn, the crowd
showers the band with affection and praise (or, conversely, with taunts and
boos). While the crowd creates the demand for the show, it maintains a relative-
16
This passivity made photographing traditional performers such as The
Beatles or Elvis relatively simple: a photographer simply had to show up, take
pictures of the performer in action, and select the most exciting ones for publica-
tion. The photographer did not have to consider the audience, as audiences were
interchangeable and notable only for the amount of noise they produced and
their animation. For example, most people recall televised images of girls
screaming and reaching out to touch the Beatles during their famous 1964 appear-
ance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The show seems less exciting when one examines
the still photographs taken by the press photographers during the broadcast.
Nearly all of the famous images from the show capture The Beatles frontally or
from slightly below. While the television cameras and many of the photographs
lead the viewer to believe that the band was addressing an audience that stands
somewhere in front of them, this formal quality actually comes from a the physi-
cal relationships of the photographers and the musicians. The television studio
only allowed press photographers and producers onto the ground floor of the
stage. All of the photographers at the Ed Sullivan Show stood in front of the band,
unobstructed by crowds. What space, then, did the fans occupy? As Figure 1
demonstrates, the theater’s crowd was situated on a second floor balcony, well
Television, through its magic, has convinced most viewers that The Beatles
actually had some sort of relationship to the crowd at the famous show. The still
photographs tell a completely different story about the relationship between the
17
band and the audience. The connection seems quite staid compared to the highly
This, of course, does not mean that musicians never interacted with their
audiences. In one famous photo, Elvis reaches from the stage to touch the hands
of the audience members in the front row (Fig. 2). 13 However, the image shows
Elvis reaching down from above, like some sort of benevolent visitor from the
heavens. To further emphasize this idea, the photographer burned the edges
around Elvis’s dark clothes to increase his contrast with the sky. This creates a
halo effect around Elvis. Thus, despite the fact that Elvis actually interacts with
his audience, the photographer has separated him from the crowd through a
photographic process.
Between the roots of Rock and Roll and Punk lies a period now known as
“Classic Rock 14.” This era, now remembered for its extravagance and largesse,
saw a change in the kinds of venues played by Rock and Roll bands. Mega-
bands such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and KISS played primarily stadium
shows. The stadium, as a venue, increases the physical distances between bands
and their fans to an absurd degree. Stadiums typically hold between 30,000 and
100,000 people, and bands usually play on raised platforms in the center, re-
moved from the audience itself. Thus, the physical arrangement and the size of
the audiences precluded any meaningful interaction with or reaction to the band.
13
Photo taken from the Graceland Archives.
14
“Classic Rock” is primarily a commercial term used by radio stations to identify a period that predates
contemporary Pop Rock. Unfortunately, the dates for “Classic Rock” change from station to station. For
the purposes of this paper, the term will refer to the period from 1965 to 1975.
18
The physical separation of band and fan during this period manifests itself
clearly in the photos of Classic Rock mega-bands. The Photographers who shot
concerts for bands the band Led Zeppelin often took the pictures from the au-
dience’s perspective. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (the band’s singer and the
guitarist) (Figs. 3 and 4) were often photographed from below, removed several
feet from the audience. These images portray the musicians as something greater
than the norm, elevating them to the level of idol. Here, Jimmy Page appears
backlit in blue with his hair covering his eyes and obscuring his face. The photo-
grapher has also waited for Page to complete the stroke of his guitar, indicating
song. As he belts out the song, Plant makes a gesture of effort and force, demon-
strating his passion for the music and a kind of internal power. Though the for-
mal properties of these portraits seem quite different, they come from a similar
source.
The Classic Rock era shows a distinct interest in the differences between
critic point out in his essay Rock and Roll as Cultural Practice:
15
DeCurtis, Anthony, ed., David Shumway. Present Tense: Rock & Roll and Culture. Durham: Duke Uni-
versity Press, 1992. 123.
19
This relationship, however, did not manifest itself physically. Shumway de-
scribes a Rock show as a time when audiences “sing along, shout, whistle, stomp,
and clap regarding it as much their right to be heard as the performers.” 16 The
musicians, though, retained their station, removed physically from the audience
In the mid-1970s and 1980s, the Punk movement destroyed this hands-off
relationship between the audience and the performer. Tricia Henry, a scholar
These complete changes in the relationship between bands and their crowds
The Dead Kennedys, who would eventually dominate the Punk scene, en-
couraged the involvement of the audience in their shows. Belsito and Davis re-
call that “In the early days, Jello [Biafra, the lead singer] would spice up the act
by letting the crowd shred his clothing, leaving him naked in their midst.” 18 Bia-
fra regularly put himself in harm’s way to engage the audience and demonstrate
16
Ibid. 15.
17
Tricia Henry, Break All Rules! Punk Rock and the Making of a Style. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Re-
search Press, 1989.), 4.
18
Belsito and Davis, 89.
20
Ed Colver (who covered the LA Punk scene) took a great interest in Bia-
fra’s interactions with the audience. Colver’s images have a spontaneous and
chaotic composition that come directly from the audience’s desire for closer, less
or rock-stars, photographing a Dead Kennedy’s show did not require press passes,
or any meaningful security clearance. 19 One simply needed a camera and a fan-
zine that would buy the images. The movement’s reduced power distances
by the interactions of bands and fans signified more, and held greater value, than
formal excellence.
stands on the stage as the crowd returns Biafra after a bout of crowd surfing (Fig.
5). Biafra looks drained by his experiences in the crowd, but the audience seems
reactions as the audience claws at him from the edge of the stage (Fig. 6). Several
audience members have jumped onto the stage in an effort to start crowd surf-
ing, and a security guard throws another off the stage. Biafra, either feigning
fear or actually scared, crawls away from the audience as they pull at his legs.
19
A photographer for a Santa Barbara, CA newspaper recently once described the process of photographing
Christina Aguilera to a photographic history class at UC Santa Barbara. His contract stipulated that he
could take pictures only during even numbered songs, from the third row. Older bands, such as U2, re-
quired that he stand further back, so as to obscure the signs of aging. Needless to say, no Punk band in the
1970s or 1980s would enforce such stipulations.
21
The crowd itself takes on a central role in the photos. The accessibility of
the band to the audience changed the whole dynamic of the community. Both of
Colver’s photos draw attention to the wildness of the crowd, pictured as a con-
fused sea of people pushing one another around. The audience seems close to
riot in both pictures, spurred on by the band’s performance and Jello’s stage di-
ving. This excitement comes from the prospect of connecting to their heroes, a
feat impossible with presidents, movie stars, and traditional rock bands. Punk
crowds craved this physical and mental connection to the band. It allowed
Punks to feel connected to the larger movement through access to the Punks with
By blurring the distinctions between fans and bands, Punks created a so-
the Punk subculture did not keep secrets, or keep officials out of the public
sphere. Instead, Punks such as Jello Biafra forged close relationships with other
Punks, creating small, tightly knit communities. These relationships filled the
ty and attention. They resembled the lower power distance societies of early,
pre-Cold War America: a time, Punks may have perceived, when the govern-
ment and the primary culture taught the powerful to work for and with the less
powerful.
22
The Mantra is “Disharmony”: The Punk Scene and the Hippie movement
At the same time that the Punk subculture blurred the distinctions be-
tween the fan and the band, Punks began to position themselves in terms of their
Punk foil. Punks did not associate the Hippies with the Days of Rage, the civil
rights riots, or the violence associated with the radical anti-war groups. Rather,
remarks,
The other utopia that swooped into popular music at the same time was
that of the hippie as a communard: the ideal of a social bond that could
bring all hurt, yearning souls into sweet collectivity, beyond the realm of
scarcity and the resulting pettiness and aggression.20Punks believed that
these values gravitated to the communal and the harmonious, the oppo-
site of the aggressive and individual-centric qualities that are often asso-
ciated with America. The Hippie community emphasized togetherness,
cooperation, and nurturing.
Punks developed a special hatred for what they perceived as a series of impotent,
20
Gitlin, 203
23
For example, in Penelope Spheeris’ famous documentary The Decline of
Western Civilization, one young Punk rants about his dislike for Hippies. When
asked why he hates them, the young man replied that Hippies only did drugs.
They wanted to change the world, but they never accomplished anything at all.
This perception, more than any reality, affected the individualistic values of the
Punk movement. Punks asserted that the Hippie’s movement’s inability to effect
Punks did not hate drugs, world peace, or the ideas associated with the Hippies.
Rather they hated what they precieved as the movement’s homogenizing effects.
Thus, the individual’s concrete goals, desires, and identity became more
important to Punks than any abstract desire for harmony and peace. Thus,
lued their selves and self-identity more than the communal values that they be-
Punk graphic arts offer visual proof of this emphasis on ego-centric val-
ues, especially when compared to Hippie graphic arts. In Punk graphics, the art-
ists used collage to combine different individual elements into a larger whole.
These elements, however, never fit together perfectly and always maintain a de-
gree of autonomy within the larger image. This method of combining materials
24
coalesce into a meaningful social unit. From this belief in the fundamentally in-
The taste for disharmonious graphics that differentiates Punk and Hippie
art stems from the two movements’ differing views about the nature of commu-
another and to the rest of the world, as demonstrated by their desire to end the
Donald once sang, “Gonna tell ya ‘bout some new times a-comin’/’bout all us
together." 21 In the same song, Country Joe calls on all Americans to aim towards
dangers, the song possesses an optimism about the ability of all people to live
together. This desire for harmony is thus expressed formally in Hippie art but
That is, the visual interest in the movement’s graphic arts comes from the con-
21
Country Joe and the Fish, Talking Non-Violence. 1967.
25
trasting elements arranged over a single, continuous frame. For example, the
cover of the seventh issue of Oz magazine 22 features a large drawing of Bob Dy-
lan (Fig. 7). Dylan’s face appears in the center of the frame, covered in a splash
of yellow. Inside the right circular frame of his glasses appears the phrase “Blo-
win’ in the Mind.” The artist has filled the left frame of his glasses with repeat-
ing black and white circles. Even Dylan’s face, streaked with yellow lines, is
covered with dots that continue the larger pattern. Circles echo the circled-
square shape of his glasses, but also repeat across the entire frame. The circles
unite the frame into a larger whole, contrasting with one another, but never
creating any jarring changes in pattern. Although some appear closer to the fo-
They simply suggest an ample depth and space that all circles equally inhabit.
They also hint at a larger pattern that continues off the page and into infinity.
The seamlessness of the work (as well as the relationships of the circles in
this particular work) reflects the desire for unity and harmony within the Hippie
culture. The desire for a unified world, where no individual dominates or dis-
rupts the field, exists both as the organizing principle and underlying message of
much of Hippie art. Thus, no individual part of the work disrupts the plane’s
harmony.
This even visual flow over a single frame often appears as the guiding de-
sign principle in psychedelic posters and artworks. Artists such as Wes Wilson,
22
Found via the internet. The issue apparently dates from October 1967.
26
who produced posters for The Grateful Dead in the 1960s and 1970s, composed
their images to avoid conflict between the textual, figural, and psychedelic ele-
ments. In a poster from 1967, Wilson has warped the text to create the frame’s
contours. He then composed the figures within the contours so that they would
appear to flow together. Some of the figures’ lines, such as the three faces on the
bottom right, require lines from the rest of the poster to make sense. The poster‘s
This relates to the idea, as identified by Country Joe, Bob Dylan, and countless
others, that human strength comes from unity and an obligation to every other
person.
arts rely heavily on collage as a means of formal organization, and collage by its
nature negates the smooth-lined integration that appears in planar art. The crea-
tion of art through the integration of disparate objects implies a completely dif-
ferent method of envisioning the poster. Whereas Wilson’s posters imply an in-
terest in how lines integrate smoothly with one another, posters for Punk bands
use collage to show their interest in how uneasy and fractured the picture plane
can appear.
Adults concert uses collaged elements to create a ruthlessly absurd image (Fig. 8).
In the image, a skeleton (possibly a reference to fellow San Francisco natives The
Grateful Dead) with comically long arms and lungs still intact stands in front of a
27
dehorned rhinoceros.23 The artist has pieced the band names together from vari-
ous sources (in different sizes and fonts), referencing the intentional confusion of
ransom notes. The textures of the black and white images overlap and imply dif-
ference, as in the juxtaposition of the bones and the rhino’s flesh. Every contrast
within the image sets the viewer’s teeth on edge, refusing to allow the viewer a
moment of comfort.
the graphic plane is composed of many parts that the artist has joined together.
Every individual element within the plane takes on an importance and asserts its
difference even as it conforms to a larger whole. The graphic plane itself comes
to represent the fractured social fabric, the friction, and the disharmony that
Much of this disharmony created by the work comes from the competition
of individual elements within the image. The artist has arranged the text, for ex-
ample, to conflict with the image in several places. The words “Dead” and
“Kennedys” (taken from three separate sources) block out the neck portion of the
rhinoceros. Unlike the more balanced interactions of the circles in Blowin’ in the
Mind, the text and the rhinoceros vie for viewer’s focus. This comes from a deli-
berate tension created by the artist through the arrangement of the elements. De-
spite their presence and juxtaposition on the same page, the elements assembled
23
One should not that The Dead Kennedys
28
by the artist never appear to belong together. Rather, they act like the Punk ex-
perience itself.
At first glance, Punks look like a unified group of people, perhaps like the
recognizes the individual nature of each Punk. As with the elements assembled
for the collage, the similarities between each Punk underscore the differences.
Thus, major differences in Punk art and Hippie art stem from different
creation of harmonious images comes from the movement’s emphasis on the uni-
as a free entity within a group. Each individual retains their own style (within a
groups within the Punk scene, and their ability to directly engage other groups
and individuals within the subculture. This contrasts in degree and importance
with the qualities espoused by many leaders, artists, and musicians within the
Hippie movement. As such, the formal qualities of the graphic arts of the two
Though they both fall under the label of “counterculture,” the two cul-
tures attempted to create two different visions of the future. The Hippie move-
ment envisioned a future where all people joined together into a seamless socie-
ty, whereas the Punk movement saw a future full of individuals bound together
29
by common purpose and simultaneously embraced the idea of inter- and intra-
cultural conflict. Punks felt that a coalescence of individuals need not lead to
harmony, and that individual elements must still emerge from a larger pattern.
30
Be Who You Are: Jocks and Punk Art
Ever since I can remember, the fight to maintain individuality has been the driving force
of my existence…High School was a major lesson in social retardation. The only escape
from that banality was music and art. - Dez Cadena, original lead singer of Black Flag 24
Make your whole life revolve around sports/Walk tough-don't act too smart
Be a mean machine/Then we'll let you get ahead…
Pep rally in the holy temple/And you're forced to go
Masturbate en masse/With the favored religious cult
Cheerleaders yell-"Ra Ra Team"/From the locker room parades the prime beef
-Jock-o-Rama, The Dead Kennedys
While the Jock culture of the 1970s and 1980s did not leave behind a cohe-
rent body of visual art, we can infer its impression on Punk culture from the mu-
sic and writings from the time. In fact, the idea of this idealized, ‘all-American’
culture as an enemy owes much to the Punk perspective. Whereas Punks re-
garded themselves as individuals who came together of their own free will to
create a new cultural movement, Punk culture portrays Jocks culture in the op-
posite light.
Most accounts of Jocks (usually in song lyrics) portray them as highly con-
describe a culture of coerced support for the school and the system of conformity
that the school represents. Jocks, they say, represent a dampening of individual
spirit and agency. In essence, Jock culture aimed to produce more Jocks who
24
Brian Ray Turcotte and Christopher T. Miller. Fucked Up + Photocopied: Instant Art of the Punk Rock
Movement. Hong Kong: Kill Your Idols, 2002. 90. Cadena sang for Black Flag from 1980 to 1983.
31
could further support the system in an endless and (to Punks) inane-seeming
system.
with the outside world. For example, this youth-oriented culture based its social
es his social status when he loses his job at a Carl’s Jr. and becomes a social out-
cast. Many popular Jock characters spend their hours planning school events,
spirit days, and attending Associated Student Body meetings. While all social
hierarchies are a bit arbitrary, Punks refused to allow the institution to determine
their worth. In a strange irony, LA Punks responded to this not by changing the
system but by reacting against it. If Jocks wear immaculate clothes, Punks must
then wear torn clothes; if Jocks avoid piercing, Punks must pierce their noses,
This opposition and reaction led Punks to feel ‘otherized’ by Jock culture,
and to a degree they were justified in this feeling. Bret Easton Ellis’ book Less
Than Zero, for example, tells the story of a disaffected Jock named Clay who re-
turns from the East Coast to LA for winter vacation. Much of the book paints a
bleak picture of the drug abuse and the lack of direction that many Jocks, now
out of high school, feel without the social structure and hierarchy imposed by the
school system.
25
Crowe, Cameron. Fast Times at Ridgemont High. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.
32
The book also depicts the LA Punk subculture of the mid-1980s as a popu-
lation that existed outside of the rich and pathetic world of the Jock. A minor
character, Spit, shows the ‘otherness’ of Punks as perceived by Jocks. Spit, a to-
ken Punk invited to all the Jock parties because of his connection to the band
Fear, never connects with the Jocks. In one scene, the narrator gives us his first
impression of Spit: “…and Spit has really pale skin…and short greasy hair and a
skull earring and dark circles under his eyes…” 26 This description of the charac-
ter shows that the narrator’s first thoughts turn to the Punk’s the obvious differ-
ences in appearance. By virtue of his style, Spit consciously places himself out-
side the Jock world. Though the cycle is self-inflicted, Punks never the less felt
Fig. 9 27 illustrates the Punk view of the Jock culture. According to the
poster, Jock men wear iZod shirts and boat shoes, and Jock women wear too
much makeup and jewelry. The fact that Punks could identify these elements as
to other Jocks. This method of communicating with one’s in-group and out-
26
Ellis, Bret Easton. Less Than Zero. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1985. 79
27
Apparantly a poster for a band called Justified Hate, produced in 1980.
33
Of course, most students who played sports during that time were not
drug abusers, failures, or mindless conformists as Ellis and The Dead Kennedys
suggest. However, this ‘reality’ has little to do with the way Punks perceived
Jocks. Whatever the accuracy of the Punk accounts of Jock life, the idea of the
Jock (much more than the actuality) influenced Punk culture and art. Many
Punks remembered, above all else, the boredom and unhappiness of their high
Brian Brannon, of the Arizona group JFA, recalls that his high school’s en-
tire football team stood in line to beat him up for wearing a shirt that said
‘JOCKS SUCK.’ “By third period, they had gathered in roving packs which I ca-
sually avoided contact with….The ruckus finally subsided when the shirt was
ripped completely off my back.” 28 This kind of antagonism and social stratifica-
tion left its mark on the Punk visual arts. One can trace the intense desire to ex-
press the individuality of a band through graphic arts directly to the impact of
Jock culture on the young Punks. This section will examine the reactionary indi-
It Feels Good To Say What I Want: Punk and the Creation of Individuals
During the 1970s and 1980s, Punks saw the primary American culture as
an engine of conformity. Pressed to dress and act a certain way, but compelled
28
Turcotte and Miller, 149.
29
Turcotte and Miller, 9.
34
to adopt their own styles, Punks took their subculture underground. As Nathan
The only time Punk was even mentioned in the media was Mike Wallace
commenting sardonically on some footage of pasty, nail headed British
Punks sneering, dripping blood from the huge safety pin through their
cheek and spitting out teeth. 30
(such as the date, time, location, etc.), but even more, Punks used these posters to
communicate the attitude of the band. Each individual poster became a unique
expression of the band’s criticism of politics, religion, and society. This ability
streak in Punk culture. A collectivist culture, such as Jock culture, would insist
Punk posters thus featured many different themes, each designed to at-
tract a different type of audience with different tastes and opinions. Bands such
as The Misfits, The Necros, and The Mad had a penchant for featuring skulls and
morbid scenes on their posters. The posters reflected the type of lyrical content
or image that the band wanted to portray. This attracted a particular segment of
the movement that leaned towards more violent, energetic music. Smaller bands
such as San Francisco’s Regan Youth and Special Forces contracted a company
30
Turcotte and Miller, 160.
35
called D.M.R Productions to create hand-drawn posters that put the bands’ per-
bands that played for “a love of the music scene.” 31 For these fans, poorly drawn
and photocopied posters symbolized a freedom from the glossy New-Wave and
Many Punk bands, however, used their posters to inspire critical thought
in their fans. Raymond Pettibon, for example, did much of the graphic work for
Black Flag during the late 1970s and early 1980s. His flyers not only communi-
cated the necessary information about the coming show, they also served as the
call frantically driving down empty Californian and Midwestern streets, stapling
their posters to telephone poles. The band used Pettibon’s distinctive posters to
announce the band’s arrival in town and energize the local fans. Every fan knew
what a Black Flag poster looked like, and that a new one signified a coming show.
might place Pettibon’s style within the modern “graphic novel” genre. However,
Kristina McKenna, an art critic who specializes in Pettibon’s work, offers another
posely crude, pen-drawn comic book imagery with startling text. On many occa-
sions, Pettibon appropriated the images directly from the comic books of his
youth and inserted text that would recontextualize the image. This juxtaposition
31
Carol Cross, journalist, quoted in Turcotte and Miller, 45.
32
Claude Bessy, Ed Colver, et al. Forming: The Early Days of LA Punk. New York: Smart Art Press,
1999. 36
36
forces the viewer to confront the meaning of the work, the viewer’s relationship
to the implicit and explicit messages embedded in the work, and the band’s rela-
tionship to that meaning. The carefully chosen images require the viewer to per-
sonally interpret the meaning of each poster and hold an opinion on the meaning
of its content.
and image. This challenge, and the growth of critical opinion that it inspires, be-
comes Pettibon’s and Black Flag’s main interest. The act of deciphering one of
Every reader will bring different information to their interpretation, and thus one
must digest and understand the posters from a personal stance. In essence, Pet-
tibon causes the viewer to exercise their agency by creating works that force the
His posters accomplish this by creating ambiguities that compel the view-
er to have their own ideas about the work’s meaning or subject, thus increasing
the diversity and complexity of the individual’s own thought. On one poster, for
example, Pettibon appears to have drawn an image from a romance comic. The
poster features the phrase “One of the best things about war is…LOVE” at the
top, and shows a cartoon navy serviceman about to passionately kiss a woman.
(Fig. 10). The drawing and text force the viewer to question the image in a num-
37
ber of ways. Based on the degree of ambiguity between the text and image, a
group of viewers might differ entirely on their meanings. First, one viewer
might contemplate the relationship between the text and the image. They might
ask if there really are “best things” about war, or if love and war are directly re-
lated. Another viewer might wonder about the source of the image. Did the im-
age come from a comic, or did Pettibon create the image from his own memory?
Did they see the same image in a comic book, or do they simply remember see-
ing the image? Another viewer can ask whether the poster is actually serious, or
whether it makes an ironic statement about the romance of war. Any of these
ride the opinions of others, and no one can lay claim to the authoritative interpre-
Pettibon designed the poster to refuse to yield any clues about his in-
tended message, as this would preclude discussion and inhibit the creation of the
viewer’s opinion. If one knew how the artist felt about the piece, one might de-
fault to their interpretation instead of creating one’s own. The questions raised
by this poster allow the individual to exercise their ability to form opinions, a
38
Conclusion
The Punk subculture during the 1970s and 1980s was large, diverse, con-
flicted, and riddled with irony. In a larger sense, though, the movement con-
lull between the end of Nixon’s time as President and the start of Ronald Regan’s
second term, the people who participated in this movement asserted themselves
as individuals. Their reactions against Rock and Roll mega-bands, Hippies, and
Jocks represent the struggle of a group to identify their place in history, or even
embrace their lack of location in history. In either case, their subculture and vis-
39