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This Bloomingdale's ad appeared in the Post yesterday. According to the ad, we're in for a Punk Summer. Prepare now! His Ramones T-shirt is $48, her Pretenders T-shirt is $64.
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Also in the Post yesterday. A fashion spread in which you can "become a rebel belle with stripped-down styles inspired by priestess of punk, Patti Smith."
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James Wolcott has an essay in the May Vanity Fair titled "Punk Is in the Air," a look at the new wave of nostalgia with the Richard Hell memoir, the upcoming CBGB biopic and the the Costume Institute's Punk: Chaos To Couture exhibit.
Here then, a few of his thoughts on the CBGB film, which he hasn't seen yet.
To those of us who were there, one of the anticipations of screening CBGB once it’s released from captivity is seeing not just how it simulates the squalor, congestion, snarling sound, and cove-like sanctuary of this landlocked submarine, but how it portrays the musicians, bartenders, waitresses, and regulars without whom it would have been just another hangout.
And!
When filmmakers attempt a teeming mural like this, populated with recognizable figures, it’s easy to end up with a Mort Drucker–esque Mad-magazine spread with familiar faces packed like sardines and pressed against the glass, contorted and distorted.
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On that topic, the CBGB Facebook page posted a few more stills from the film in recent weeks...
"Hilly... Playing chess with the bikers"
And... "Blondie and Iggy on stage... nice lipstick"
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The press preview for the Costume Institute's Punk: Chaos To Couture exhibit was yesterday. Racked was there. One apparent highlight. A replica of the CBGB men's room.
That's a Merriam - Webster definition of an oxymoron. Punk & Bloomingdale's
ReplyDeleteMovie stills already look like what I would've thought. Actors dressed up in drugstore style 'punk rock' Halloween costumes. Should've left this one and just combined archival footage for a documentary.
ReplyDeleteTop picture looks lile punk Barbie & Ken. The whole thing makes me feel vaguely ill. Coming soon...punk bike racks!
ReplyDeleteThe CBGB movie stills look like outtakes from Coyote Ugly.
ReplyDeletewhat. is . this. fuckery?
ReplyDelete"When filmmakers attempt a teeming mural like this, populated with recognizable figures, it’s easy to end up with a Mort Drucker–esque Mad-magazine spread with familiar faces packed like sardines and pressed against the glass, contorted and distorted."
ReplyDeleteThat's a great line.
Heh, total Coyote Ugly.
Irked that the Met show is only about high fashion inspired by punk -- you could DO an interesting show about street-to-catwalk. To me a show about schmancy dresses that doesn't give as much attention to where they came from is only a chance to look at pretty dresses: there's no context or history. And if the show discusses the irony of high fashion coming out of punk and its REJECTION of those values, it would be much stronger if it devoted as much energy to the culture it came from as to the couture. That said, the picture of Zandra Rhodes (GODDESS) was worth clicking over to the Racked link.
Also: Only the MEN'S bathroom at CB's? SUCK MY LEFT ONE, MET.
I highly recommend Richard Hell's book. It is the opposite of nostalgic. Anything but.
ReplyDeleteI'm so confused. Punk Summer or Gatsby Summer? How about just summer!
ReplyDeleteWhat wave of punk nostalgia is this? The 5th? 6th? Last one was about 10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what's worse - the yuppie hipster crowds adopting it again or the self-styled purist brats who are now going to get into High Fidelity-style debates over the word.
As long as we all hate skateboard assholes who like suburban pop-punk, we'll all get through this together.
I prefer faux punk ANY FUCKING DAY over the fratties with their frat-boy spring kegger T-shirts, new jack cargo shorts and flip flops.
ReplyDeletethis is totally what america is today.
ReplyDeletetear it down and then build a stage-set shrine to it so you can be nostalgic and live the fantasy of your pretend memory of the past the way you want it to have been.
oh yes, and feature it at the metropolitan museum for posterity.
No comment.
ReplyDeleteThere are not enough yucks available.
Nothing new here. Shopping-mall denizens from the burbs have been sporting mohawks for a couple of decades now. The last years of CB's, the place was a museum, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI am still trying to figure out how I feel about most of this. But, um, that doesn't look like the CB's bathroom.
ReplyDeleteThe UK fashion press is all about "chic punk" looks this week -
ReplyDeletebillionaire punks, right.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2320469/Met-Ball-2013-Miley-Cyrus-Madonna-Sienna-Miller-dress-code-right-punk-chic.html
it seems like this happens every 5 to 10 years. I remember an ad in the 90s that ran on TV that had the tagline "it's like punk, only with cars" or something similar, for some economy vehicle.
ReplyDeleteI'll believe it when I can get my bathroom at home restored into CBGB dysfunction.
ReplyDeleteMeh. Punk has been co-opted again and again since 1977, and even in its original incarnation couldn't agree on much of anything except anger. What's real and incorruptible about it is the sanctuary that generations of kids out in the Styx have found in the scenes they created out of its cast-off trappings (or rather, copies of copies of copies of punk's trappings, Xeroxed half to death like an old zine, the patina of erasure creating a distinct funk all their own). It didn't all happen at CBGB's.
ReplyDeleteNY Magazine also ran an article with tons of sidebars two weeks ago:
ReplyDeletehttp://nymag.com/news/features/punk-movement-2013-4/
But this whole thing speaks to an ongoing paucity of imagination and cultural ennui that has settled over us like a miasma - there is nothing new or original out there anymore, and with each rehashing of it, the movement/item/whatever in question becomes made even more palatable for the clueless.
Oh and @Anon. 9:27, let's not forget all the stupid mini-fedoras being donned by males and females alike - what's WITH that?!?
The same thing happened in the late-70s: "punk" fashion was sold at inflated prices in places like Bloomingdale's. Capitalists appropriate other people's culture and sell it back to them. Remember afro wigs?
ReplyDeleteThe bathroom did not look at all like this! The "throne" was elevated about a foot and a half (there was only one,in the men's room, anyway) and there were no urinals. You pissed against the wall and there was something like a trough on the floor. That's how I remember it, anyway. But it seems long ago.
ReplyDeleteLandlocked submarine? WTF Chuck? By the way anyone find my phone?
ReplyDeleteSammy 9:53 - I'm with you on both points.
ReplyDeleteWaltie...originally home to one unisex bathroom..you remember right...later they built a 'womens' room too.
ReplyDeletePunk is always ripe for a good co-opting because its so much about style. IMO its always been about fashion as much as it was ethos or actual music. Maybe even more so. What do you expect. Everyone wants to feel edgy sometimes even rich bores.
ReplyDelete