![\"\"](\"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/DSC01661-copy-300x224.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976\u20131986
\nApril 9th – August 18th, 2019
\nThe Museum of Arts and Design
\n2 Columbus Circle
\nNY, NY 10019
\n(212) 299-7777<\/p>\n
When he emerged on the scene in 1975 as Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of the Sex Pistols, John Lydon became the face of Punk Rock and a crucial game-changer. Through that band and as the founder\/lead singer of post-punk\u2019s Public Image Limited (PiL), he proved that his efforts were not only NOT a fluke but that he has been a serious creator who consciously and intentionally fashioned unique music with a profound and powerfully sense of style. Expressed through his look and attitude, Lydon\u2019s visual finesse spawned oodles of imitative fashion statements and poses that shocked the culture and enshrined him in the rebels\u2019 hall of fame (and the Rock Hall of Fame for that matter).<\/p>\n
With the Pistols, he penned singles such as “Anarchy in the U.K.,” “God Save the Queen,” and “Holidays in the Sun\u201d and caused a nationwide uproar; he was viewed as a figurehead for the burgeoning punk movement. Despite, or thanks to, their controversial lyrics and attitude, they defined a generation and are now regarded as one of the most influential acts in popular music history.<\/p>\n
After they first disbanded, Lydon\u2019s more experimental Public Image Ltd clearly proved that he was no one\u2019s invention \u2014 as Sex Pistols late manager Malcom McLaren once claimed. After eight albums, a string of singles \u2014 “Public Image”, “Death Disco” and “Rise” \u2014 and personnel changes, the band went on hiatus in 1993, then reformed in 2009. In subsequent years, Lydon has hosted television shows in the UK, US, and Belgium, appeared on \u201cI\u2019m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!\u201d in the UK, promoted a brand of British butter in advertisements on TV, wrote two autobiographies (1993\u2019s \u201cRotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs\u201d and \u201cAnger is an Energy\u201d in 2014). He also did a solo album — 1997\u2019s \u201cPsycho’s Path\u201d — and in 2005, released a compilation album, \u201cThe Best of British \u00a31 Notes.\u201d<\/p>\n
In doing so, his followers and\/or imitators created a whole look and feel that spread across England and the world finding its coefficient or competition in the burgeoning genre emerging in the States as well. For lack of ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/lydon-2018_Summer_Summer-Press-Tour_0006-241x300.jpg\")
a better word, punk took hold and offer a reaction to all things mainstream, conventional, standard and etc.<\/p>\n
Nearly 40 years ago, I found myself in Paris, another refugee from NYC seeking redemption or resurrection in the City of Lights. Under its sway, I joined the punk parade, then making its presence felt on the city\u2019s hallowed streets and luckily attended whatever cool concert I could get into. That also included an appearance of Public Image Ltd in Le Palace, one that later became a live album. There I met Lydon, the band and captured them on SX-70 Polaroid [as you can see here]. Punk\u2019s energy had coalesced into a powerful sub-cultural expression that transcended music affecting other fields, especially fashion, graphic design and photography.<\/p>\n
More than 40 years after it exploded onto the New York and London music scenes, it still impacts on the larger culture. Now, at the Museum of Art and Design is a new exhibition, \u201cToo Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986\u201d which explores punk\u2019s visual language through hundreds of its most memorable graphics, including shocking remixes of expropriated images and texts, to the DIY zines and flyers that challenged mainstream media\u2019s commercial slickness. Organized by the Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and curated by its Director, Andrew Blauvelt, the objects in this exhibition are mostly from the collection of Andrew Krivine.<\/p>\n
Which leads to this aggressively amiable punk provocateur\u2019s appearance at MAD \u2014 and when appropriately abbreviated, it perfectly serves as a place for the now portly punker as well as a place for modern hipsters to celebrate all things punk from band posters to album covers to photograp![\"\"](\"http:\/\/irishexaminerusa.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/DSC01604-copy-248x300.jpg\")
hs.<\/p>\n
Introduced by MAD Director Chris Scoates, this 63-year old emperor of aggravation and aggression conducted an entertaining Q&A before an small set of journos \u2014 yours truly included. Thankfully, most of them were either too timid or terrified to challenge Mr. Lydon with piercing queries, leaving it to me to do the job and get a lot of voice time. What follows is much of that dialogue.<\/p>\n
JL: \u2018Ello, me name\u2019s John. That\u2019s a good place to begin. I\u2019ve only seen one floor [of the show] because there’s been so many of you to talk to, I\u2019ve almost run out of words. Hard to believe with me. I look at the posters and it\u2019s a thrill to go back to that time. As the Pistols we really really really kept our artwork in house. That was not, not one separate talent outside of the band.<\/p>\n
We formed the Pistols and from that day forward we spurred all this. None of this would be a movement if not for the Pistols, and you must never forget that, that\u2019s an absolute fact. You would not be hearing of any other band here were it not for the fact that we spurred them on. Many of them got record deals before us but they watched us first. That\u2019s alright, because like all movements there are going to be those people that want to be the first pop star through the door.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m to accept [the moniker of] King of Punk, which I never would \u2014 thank you [English journalist\/artist and fellow punker] Caroline Coon \u2014 no, that\u2019s not a nice title. I mean, here I am, mocking the royal family, and I\u2019m calling myself a king. There\u2019s a duality in it. The point is I never did this for money and none of us ever did. We never thought it would ever work. Telling the truth was a really novel idea at the time. The closest I could think of [who was] telling the truth at the time was John Lennon, Working Class Hero. Things like that. The Kinks, I love Ray Davies\u2019 writing. For me the written word is an absolute must, it\u2019s the most important. The voice is the first instrument, that\u2019s what hooks you in, that\u2019s the story. We can all have lead guitar solos up the wazoo, but if there isn\u2019t a word in there I don\u2019t want it, and that is the word. So anyone got a question?<\/p>\n
Q: What\u2019s the difference in aesthetic between the stuff from the UK and the stuff from New York?<\/p>\n
JL: What I\u2019m doing, and always have done, is represent my culture. Where I come from, the society I grew up in, and all the anxieties that entails. It\u2019s a very serious culture, the British one. It\u2019s a class culture, a class divide. If you were born on the poorer side of town you\u2019re trash from here on in, you don\u2019t really stand a chance any way of climbing up the social ladder, no matter how firmly you educate yourself. The Pistols did quite a lot there. Some of them words changed people\u2019s attitudes, opened doors.<\/p>\n
You [have to] realize, it was dangerous times to be openly seen as insulting the concept of the monarchy. That was pure treason and I following that with \u201cAnarchy in the UK.\u201d It\u2019s a song that\u2019s done holds a sense of truth, but it\u2019s done with a sense of humor. It\u2019s musical in our way, it\u2019s not openly violent, aggressive, and hateful. That\u2019s never gonna wash because it causes division. You want to unite people and humor is the way to do it. The savagery and the content is there, but you must be able to laugh with it, not against it.<\/p>\n
Q: Do you think that shows up more in the British artwork, but not so much the New York stuff?<\/p>\n
JL: A lot of content holds relevance to the social situations going on around. You just got over Vietnam, I was expecting more out from the New york scene. What you got really was manufactured bands featuring Beatle wigs and matching leather jackets, just to pick one of the bunch. But which one was that? Sounds like a lot of them. The New York Dolls were great fun, but we had glam rock in England. Look at the musical background I had, my influences. The Kinks, the Stones had three or four good songs, The Who, all of that, and the audacity of those bands too. They challenged the norms. That\u2019s Britain, that\u2019s what we are. We\u2019re a youth culture by nature. We\u2019re always coming from the youth upwards.<\/p>\n
Q: How were you involved with the graphics?<\/p>\n
JL: Right up until that \u201cRock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Swindle\u201d crap because that\u2019s where I drew the line. It was nonsense and bollocks really going the wrong way. That was small testicles. That was Malcolm fiddling around in there. There was a great deal of jealousy from Malcolm. I don\u2019t want to sound like a knocking shop, I\u2019m not trying to knock him, but he really resented me for being the singer. He thought it was good for a laugh to have someone wearing a \u201cI hate Pink Floyd\u201d t shirt, something vacuous and inoffensive as that, but he couldn\u2019t take it when he [heard] the full content of the songs. So he started taking singing lessons. That wasn\u2019t gonna work.<\/p>\n
We fell apart on the American tour as you well imagine; the management was appalling. It was setup in such a way to dissipate our energy and keep up separate. It never should have ended that dismally, but it did. In time I realized that was a really healthy thing because I got to start PiL, which was where I got into a more serious side of my life and analyzed myself and criticized myself rather than just institutions which is just what the Pistols did.<\/p>\n
Q: You did some things that were so piss-taking with PiL like that \u201cperformance\u201d at the Roxy In New York in 1980 or \u201981.<\/p>\n
JL: That wasn\u2019t piss taking, that was humor. Music Hall will always be part of our culture, we\u2019re not deadpan intellectuals.<\/p>\n
Q: PiL was great because it had that humor.<\/p>\n
JL: You\u2019ve got to. Sometimes things go horribly wrong on stage and don\u2019t run ever. Stand up, take it, and make it part of it, because indeed it is. As they say in anything, the journey is part of the adventure, not just getting to where you\u2019re going.<\/p>\n
That reminds me of something somebody asked me earlier, because there’s been this nonsense that The Ramones influenced the Pistols. Here\u2019s the difference between The Ramones and the Pistols. What did The Ramones do? They go to Phil Spector and The Wall of Sound, which is muffled, nothing really clear, there\u2019s no real intent in the lyrics. It\u2019s all rather meandering and muffled. Sex Pistols, we go for Roxy Music\u2019s sound, please. Every single note, word, fart, inflection, hiccup, and yawn being picked up completely clear. Clarity, there it is.<\/p>\n
Q: But since we\u2019re here to address this show, what were you a part of in terms of the graphics?<\/p>\n
JL: Art is one of the things [I was interested in] when I was young. But I [became seriously ill] so that put me in a coma and I had a year in hospital. And the only thing that brought me really around to being a civilized human being was the local library. Not the Catholic school, they were into torture because I was left handed and the Nuns said that\u2019s a sign of the devil. At the library I learned to draw and paint and to re-write and read. That was really important to me and I\u2019ve always said all my life that the best education is completely free, it\u2019s there, it\u2019s called a library. Use it. Just unravel yourself in other people\u2019s thoughts. It\u2019s a wonderful thing to do because you find your vision in that. Well except for half the modern wankers out there that all want to be Hemingway, or a lot of the New York lot that you see cross legged on a Persian carpet with a book of poetry, the thinking lot.<\/p>\n
When I first came to New York I couldn\u2019t believe it. I was expecting a vibrant music scene. That\u2019s not what I got. Got to remind you there was no internet then yet, no computers to help you make art work or anything really. It all had to be done by hand. Drawn, stenciled, planned, painted, printed. The same with hearing what New York bands were because there was no way of transferring music across the ocean. So everything was guesswork and second hand gossip. I\u2019ll never listen to gossip ever again.<\/p>\n
Q: You have created a bit of the gossip yourself.<\/p>\n
JL: I can\u2019t help that, can I? I was born with two left shoes and trouble just seems to attract me. It\u2019s no deliberate intent on my part. I\u2019m glad for it because I think it makes me a better person. It\u2019d just be awkward, it really is fun.<\/p>\n
Q: What happened after the disaster of the the Pistols America tour; did you go to New York after?<\/p>\n
JL: No, I was stuck in San Francisco for a while and I had no money. Malcolm buggered off after all that and the band, and left me there on me own. It was [NME photographer] Joe Stevens, who was a friend of Malcolm’s, that raised the money to get me to New York and I stayed at his place; that\u2019s how I found out what the New York scene was.<\/p>\n
When we first came to tour America we avoided the North completely. We wanted the South, and all its apparent ugliness and [thought] it\u2019d be wonderful. We played the maddest places, like Gilley\u2019s [Club in Texas]. Real rodeo hangouts with tough old cowboys and us sexy young Pistols and the t-shirts we had on. One of the Burning Roads\/Malcolm combination of things I thought was hilarious was the two cowboys with their pants down and their willies touching. How\u2019d you think that went down in Texas? That sense of devil-may-care fun, that\u2019s important to do and challenging but at the same time it\u2019s deeply humorous and not meant to hurt.<\/p>\n
Q: How did your Irish background \u2014 having both parents from \u2014 affect your being an outlier?<\/p>\n
JL: The Irish are famous for their storytelling but also telling the truth in the most audacious and fun way. I can\u2019t help it, it\u2019s in my blood. The way of communicating, this is before the days of TV — can you imagine that, any of you? This is how far back this stuff goes. You sit around and you start telling stories. Ghost stories, any kind of stories. Then there would come a true story and that would be the one you paid the most attention to because it would tell you something about yourself and the surroundings you\u2019re in, and I\u2019ve never forgotten them. It\u2019s very, very important and I love the Irish for that. It\u2019s [also about] being brought up in England because the Irish weren\u2019t accepted. The Irish won\u2019t accept you \u2018cause you\u2019re seen as English and the English won\u2019t accept you \u2018cause you\u2019re seen as Irish, so you bugger off and live in California, and I\u2019m not happy about that.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m all three things at once. If I had my way I\u2019d live in every country all around the world and keep traveling. The gypsy in me is a vital part of me. I get bored with the overly familiar, and that\u2019s been my approach to music and artwork and film making and anything you involve me with. I don\u2019t like it completely perfectly finished, I like frayed edges.<\/p>\n
As the manufacturers of Persian carpets will tell you — the fine fellows they are — they\u2019ll tell you that they use [that] as their guide, but there\u2019s more to it than that. I say there should never be any such thing as a perfect carpet. Always leave one knot undone, because it leaves space for other human beings to improve on. It\u2019s the most generous thing you can do. Sometimes that generosity backfires, [but I have] a sense of humor.<\/p>\n
MADactivates: Series Related to this Exhibition
\nGlobal Punk
\nApril 25, 2019 to July 11, 2019
\nIn conjunction with the exhibition Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976\u20131986, the Museum of Arts and Design showcases films centered on punk\u2019s global influence.<\/p>\n
MADactivates: Events Related to this Exhibition
\nRock Against Racism at 40
\nThursday, May 2, 2019 – 6:30 pm
\nMarking the 40th anniversary of the concert in Central Park, NYU\u2019s Colloquium for Unpopular Culture and MAD present a multi-media talk about punk activism.<\/p>\n
American Punk Graphics: Glenn Cummings, Steven Heller, and Andrew Blauvelt
\nThursday, May 9, 2019 – 6:30 pm
\nPresented with AIGA NY, a discussion of the lasting impact of punk graphic arts on American design.<\/p>\n
Punk: Crashing into Being
\nSaturday, May 11, 2019 – 2:00 pm
\nSelections from the archive of underground documentarian Beth Lasch, featuring never before seen interviews, images, and performance footage of Iggy Pop, Joe Strummer and more<\/p>\n
Person Place Thing featuring Chip Kidd
\nThursday, June 20, 2019 – 6:30 pm
\nPerson Place Thing host Randy Cohen interviews the award-winning graphic designer, writer, and punk graphics fan in a live broadcast from MAD.<\/p>\n