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Punks, Dunks and Free Beer at the Opening of This Photo Show

November 12, 2014 By Kaitlyn Mitchell

Henry Rollins from Black Flag.

Before Pete Kuhns became the Village Voice’s sports photographer, he covered Seattle’s punk scene during the ’80s for the biweekly Seattle music newspaper The Rocket. The difference between documenting Black Flag and yellow flags isn’t as big as you’d think: Kuhns’s high-endorphin action shots of The Clash, X, Dead Kennedys, and Public Image Ltd are all printed in black-and-white for maximum drama, and there are plenty of fit, bare-chested men, if you’re into that.
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Tags: black flag, dead kennedys, henry rollins, iggy pop, pete kuhns, punk rock, sage bar, Williamsburg

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Nightclubbing | The Offs

February 1, 2013 By Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers

Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library.

LP cover.

Looking back at the cover of the L.P. that The Offs released in 1984, we didn’t remember that Jean-Michel Basquiat had designed it. But the image of their lead singer, Don Vinyl, face down, his bicep glistening with the tattoo of a .45 pistol — that we had not forgotten.

We recall Don coming to our apartment the day he got the ink, his arm still red and a little bloody. “Paul Simonon is getting the same one!” he told us, excitedly. It was the summer of 1981 and everyone in the East Village was getting tats, even The Clash. Bob Roberts, The Offs’ saxophonist — and also a tattooist — had done the work for both.
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Tags: alejandro escovedo, bill hawk, bob roberts, bob steeler, boston, danny degorio, dead kennedys, don vinyl, electric hot tuna, fenway park, frank zappa, jean-michel basquiat, jello biafra, mabuhay gardens, nightclubbing, paul simonon, punk rock, ratt, san francisco, the clash, the offs, true believers

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Nightclubbing | Dead Kennedys

July 13, 2012 By Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers

Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong continue sorting through their archives of punk-era concert footage as it’s digitized for the Downtown Collection at N.Y.U.’s Fales Library. Today, they look back on the N.Y.C. debut of the Dead Kennedys.

Jello Biafra (Credit: Emily Armstrong)

For die-hard NYC punks, the West Coast seemed a little daunting. It was so bright! But in the fall of 1979, we went to Los Angeles to be on a panel at an early MTV music video conference. We stayed at the Tropicana Hotel, which was the preferred accommodation for traveling rockers. Jim Morrison and Tom Waits had lived there – on this trip, it was Nina Hagen and The Slits hanging at the pool. More →

Tags: Arts + Culture, dead kennedys, East Village, geek maggot bingo, hurrah's, jello biafra, mabuhay gardens, mtv, nick zedd, nightclubbing, scumbalina, tropicana hotel