Saturday, April 30, 2016

Marian Anderson: Wrapped in Records


I cannot discuss the work I did for Tower Records back in the 9T's without sharing a few shots from the photo shoot I did with the incredible Marian Anderson. Her sweet, good natured personality and her tough as nails attitude intrigued me. She was the lead singer for The Insaints, a local Bay Area punk band that were known for their outrageous live shows. 

I asked her to pose for me for a promotional postcard for Tower and she didn't hesitate to jump in. Styled by the amazing Rosalie Jacques of Gypsy Rosalie's Wigs and Vintage, I asked Marian to "wear" the Tower Record bags as a dress. She didn't miss a beat and easily slipped into the less than comfortable plastic making it look glamours and stylish.

Looking back on the day we shot this ad, I remember no one batting an eye while Marian posed for me. I supposed that's what I loved most of all about San Francisco. It was a place where a 6 foot tall goddess with an outrageous wig dressed in plastic bags is nothing that unusual, just another person on the street.

Marian passed away in 2001 but what she left behind was an indelible mark on all that met and knew her. She is now forever immortalize in the documentary film "The Last Fast Ride: The Life, Love and Death of a Punk Goddess" directed by Lilly Scourtis Ayers and produced by the amazing Danielle Bernal, Marian's girlfriend.

It is with great pleasure that I present to you these outtakes in memoriam to the late, great Marian Anderson.

Julie Green
April 30, 2016

















Saturday, April 23, 2016

When Hot Dogs and Records Collide



Back in the 9T's my friend Wendy Powell, who at the time was drumming for The Groovie Ghoulies, got me a job shooting for Tower Records. For a few years I supplied them with a steady stream of images to illustrate Pulse! their monthly in-store magazine.

I don't normally post images I have shot commercially for this blog but since this particular collection of images met at the corner of Capsers Famous Hot Dogs Way and Tower Record Road, I couldn't resist. On top of that, this set of images feature the amazing Danielle Pimm from The Trashwomen dressed up as Catwoman! These images have never been seen before, as they never ran in the magazine.

I had been using the Tower Record bag as a prop for several illustrations and ended up using it here as a makeup band and tail storage! The interior of this Caspers still had all of its vintage charm and was a perfect foil for the graphics and color of the iconic Tower bag.

Tower Records ceased to exits and filed for bankruptcy back in 2006. But luckily several Bay Area Capsers are still standing. Perhaps they didn't have quite as much competition as Tower did. This set of images has now become a time capsule of sorts and one I hope to add to the Tower Records Archive Project.

Snap, crackle and bark!

Julie Green
April 22, 2016











Saturday, April 16, 2016

Caspers Famous Hot Dogs - Oakland

"Caspers, Oakland No. 1"

Nothing makes me think of home more than the graphics of a Caspers Famous Hot Dogs ® sign. The black outline around the dog, buns and condiments are a perfect accent around the three dimensional visuals that physically pop out of the plastic. And the bratwurst Deutsch Gothic type font without a possessive apostrophe makes this a perfect visual for me.

The logo reminds me of the work of Paul Rand, David Weidman or James Flora - three of my favorite mid-century graphic designers and illustrators. The visual message is no nonsense. When you come to Caspers, this is what you get. Although I only take my dog with relish and mustard with the occasional addition of sauerkraut, the round tomatoes and onion slice balance out the horizontal lines of the dog and buns.

This 6T's graphic was a staple of my childhood. I grew up a few blocks aways from this Caspers on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland and went to nursery school down the street. I'm glad to see that the building and it's respective sign is still standing in the quickly changing demographics of Oakland and I look forward to presenting to you the remaining Caspers locations in future blog posts.

Enjoy a "snap" in every bite,

Julie Green
April 16, 2016


"Caspers, Oakland No. 4"

"Caspers, Oakland No. 6"

"Caspers, Oakland No. 7"

"Caspers, Oakland No. 8"

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Johnny Bartlett on the History of Wig Torture


I sat down with the amazing and talented surf guitar legend Johnny Bartlett a few weeks ago. We had a chance to talk about a band called Wig Torture I had blogged about last year. Johnny told me all about the conception of the band and allowed me a peek into his man cave. It is with great pleasure that I am able to round out the history of a great local Bay Area band and present to you the following interview with one of the nicest guys I know, Mr. Johnny Bartlett.

"It's the wig torture!"

Julie Green
April 9, 2016



Soon after me and Dale started the band, Phil said “Hey I’ll play drums because my brother has a set of drums”, his brother is the drummer of The Mermen. Dale said “I’ll play bass because that only has four strings”. And that left me with guitar, so we all learned our instruments and then we met (thee) Michael Lucas.


Phils’s brother was playing drums in Michael’s band “Mal”, which I later joined and am on the 2nd album, which came out when I was still in high school.  My first band before Wig Torture was The Dangling Genitals! We played Mike’s 18th birthday at his house in Hillsborough.


We said “Hey can you manage us? But you have to change your name.” So Phil had a budgie (parakeet) and they had a lamp that had tassels hanging down and they used to put the budgie under the tassels and they used to say “It’s the wig torture!” with their British accent. So he said “What about Wig Torture”? and we said “sure”.



We played shows as Wig Torture for years, like The On Broadway and The Mab and The Sound of Music was our first gig. We opened for bands like GBH and The Circle Jerks. The great thing happened at The On Broadway, Faith No More opened for us and each band received $2! And about six months later they were huge.


Then I started getting into surf music and those guys, Wig Torture, started getting into marijuana and I was moving to go to college in Santa Cruz, so I bowed out. Aaron Nudelman was playing drums for us at the last stage of my involvement with the band and took my place on guitar when I left.


We met when we were 15 and had lunch everyday as the outcasts at Hillsdale High, I named my record label Hillsdale Records even though I hated high school. I didn’t go away to college right away, I went to CSM for 2 ½ years, so I was 21 when I quite that band, maybe 22 years old.


So when I went to college, I started writing all these surf instrumentals. I kept in touch with Michael Lucas who said we should start a surf band. So I went up to the City one day for our very first practice. We got a call from, I wanna say David Nudelman or maybe Aaron, and they said “Hey Wig Torture is supposed to play at Sluggos Pizza at UCSC, we can’t do it. Do you guys wanna play?”, the day we formed The Phantom Surfers , we didn’t even have a name. And we said “Hell Ya!”. So drove after like jamming basically, we took the place of Wig Torture on this bill. So that’s the end of my Wig Torture story and the beginning of my Phantom Surfer’s story.




Saturday, April 2, 2016

Altar De Fey


Music transcends all. I've always been very open to experiencing different types of music. There is always something that catches my ear, something I can relate with. So when I heard that my friend Jake Hout was singing with the legendary Deathrockers Altar De Fey, I couldn't wait to see how the darker side of the musical spectrum would wash over me.

The lineup that night at The Stork Club in Oakland was a fantastic introduction for me into the midnight hues of this genre which I found in the experimental shavings of "Spirit Before A Fall", the phantasmagorical duo "V.E.X" (Ventriloquist Ectoplasmold Xanaxax), the mythical line up of the legendary Goddess and Gods found in "The Gitane Demone Quartet" and San Francisco's own dark matter, "Altar De Fey".

Newly reformed after having been part of the burgeoning Deathrock scene in SF back in the early 80's, Altar De Fey sounded powerful and brooding. I couldn't believe how some of the old songs sounded just as fresh and relevant as the new ones they have recently been crafting. I captured "Veil of Death" which you can see here.

At one point in their set, Rikk Agnew (The Detours, Adolescents, Christian Death, Social Distortion, Gitane Demone Quartet) jumped on stage with ADF and did an amazing cover of "Stairs - Uncertain Journey" which can be found here.

It is with great pleasure that I wandered into this ghastly parade of raconteur's who widened my appreciation for their late night circadian rhythms.

Through the veil darkly,

Julie Green
April 2, 2016


HOW DID ALTAR DE FEY FORM?

Kent: Back in 1983, Rick Tanner, Craig Muzio and I moved to SF.  We had been playing in a punk band called the Lutz Bros. We were all horror movie fiends and came up with the name Altar De Fey, which basically means the mass burning of witches. I became the main songwriter at this point and our sound drifted into darker territory... Deathrock.


HOW WAS THE DEATHROCK SCENE IN SAN FRANCISCO BACK IN THE EARLY 8T’S DIFFERENT FROM THE SCENE TODAY?

Aleph: I'm not doing Amphetamines anymore.

Jake: HAHA! Yeah we take herbal supplements backstage before the gig you know? For memory and shit. -Fast living! Haha But for real the scene in the bay is strong right now. Lots of venues, bands, dance nights etc. Lots of great music coming out. Crimson Scarlet, Alaric, VEX, So many bands!


WHERE DOES THE BAND NAME COME FROM?

Aleph: It's an altered version of "Auto de Fe" which during the Inquisition was what they called the public burnings of "Heretics". Heresy merely meaning a belief or opinion contrary to the orthodox (primarily Christian at the time) doctrine. "Auto de Fe" in medieval Spanish means "act of faith". We were stopped in the street once by a guy who insisted that Altar De Fey meant "Altar of Light", which works for me too.)

Jake

 WHAT IS THE BANDS DISCOGRAPHY?

Aleph: So far it's just the cassette release “ORIGINAL SIN: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE EARLY YEARS”, and the “ECHOES IN THE CORRIDOR” LP. We're going back into the studio to start recording for our next album in a few weeks.

Kent

YOU RECENTLY ADDED JAKE HOUT AND SKOT BROWN TO THE ROSTER BACK IN 2012. DO YOU FEEL THE NEW MUSIC YOU ARE NOW CREATING IS MORE GOTH PUNK OR MORE DEATHROCK?

Jake: I’d say we’re Deathrock. Goth Punk has come to mean some of the newer bands like Arctic Flowers, Spectres, etc. -Dark Punk. We love these bands! We play gigs with them all the time but musically we’re not doing that exactly. There are songs where Kent doesn’t play any chords at all -All melody. Also we’re not explicitly political. When I write about ghosts it’s not intended as an allegory for society, it’s about some fuckin’ ghosts I saw. -Haha!

Aleph: Well we called it Deathrock back then, so I'm sticking with that.

Kent: Definitely Deathrock.

Skot

TELL US A STORY ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR NEW LP “ECHOES
IN THE CORRIDOR”.

Jake: It was an interesting collaboration across time. The album is a mix of songs from the old days and some brand new ones, and some of it was written from practice tapes we found of the original band. It’d be some verses but no structure and like a hand full of lyrics. 

Much of this album was written with Butch Manson in like '85. Butch passed you see? So It was a sensitive thing to be collaborating with a dead man. “Death To My Enemies” was one such song. Then there are brand new songs: "1975" and "Wraith".

There is a nice diversity in the writing with so many minds putting in the pieces over so much time. It's a challenge now to keep the feeling going with the new songs. I go into writing like OK for this I'll be someone else entirely. The thoughts that catch my ear are the ones least 'like me', you know? To keep the dynamism going.


WHAT OTHER BANDS HAVE YOU BEEN IN?

Aleph: Chrome, Helios Creed, F-Space, SMARTYR.

Kent: Omnivorous Sincillium, Headless, Nuclear Death Wish, M22.

Jake: Everything Must Go & The Divvys

HOW HAVE THOSE BANDS AFFECTED WHAT YOU CREATE WITH ALTAR DE FEY NOW?

Aleph: The've kept me in practice over the years so that now I can actually play the ADF drum parts that I wrote all of those years ago.

Kent: being in the other projects has changed the way I write music now. In the early 90's I was  playing experimental /electronics /noise,  unstructured music.  I had stopped playing guitar for a long time until we Resurrected the current ADF.  Coming back to writing songs again, all the previous music has its cumulative effect on the way music flows out of me now.

Jake: I approach this completely differently than my other bands, and they where completely different from each other. It’s an entirely different way of singing. Different emotions and subjects completely.


HAIRSPRAY OR EGGWHITES?

Jake: Hairspray! Backcombing is the key.

Aleph: Hairspray. Although, I've have to switch from Aquanet Extra Super Hold, to Big Sexy Hair.

Kent: Aquanet was the shit ! They just don't make it like they used too!

WHAT WAS THE CRAZIEST GIG YOU HAVE EVER PLAYED AND WHY?

Aleph: I don't know about craziest but I guess the time we opened up for Christian Death at The Farm in SF. By the time we'd finished playing, somebody had stolen my shirt. It was pretty memorable.

Kent: Halloween shows at The Mab. Our friend Ju from Pagan Ritual Productions always decked the place out, made it look real spookie.


WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ALTAR DE FEY SONG AND WHY?

Jake: For me it’s ‘Veil Of Death’. I had been at Jason from Alaric’s house listening to their stuff that wasn’t out yet, that Skot Brown had produced. I was like ‘shit I wanna work with Skot Brown!’ So Jealous! –HAHA Then amazingly that week Skot emailed to ask if I’d try out for a Deathrock band he recently joined, with a link to "Veil Of Death" and an amazing picture of Kent in the old days. Just so fuckin …Real Deal. I got about 30 seconds into it and replied something like “Holyshit?! YES! PLEASE!” I still feel that way when that pick scrape comes in. 

Aleph: Of the newer songs I think that "Wraith" is my favorite to play, and maybe "Crimson Sin” or “Demons" from the older ones.

Kent: I can't really pick one. I like them all for different reasons.


THE AMAZING “ORIGINAL SIN: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE EARLY YEARS”
WAS RELEASE LAST YEAR. IS THIS THE FIRST TIME THESE SONGS HAVE BEEN
RELEASED?

Aleph: Yes. The entire thing was culled and compiled from demos, live recordings, and rehearsal cassettes.

Kent: Yes, we only recorded 4 songs back in 1985, and they were never released.

YOUR 2013 RELEASE “I SEE DEMONS” IS AMAZING. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE
FOR THE INCREDIBLE PRODUCTION?

Jake: Skot Brown! At Kempton House Studio. It’s great to have a killer engineer in the band!


YOU RECENTLY PLAYED WITH GITANE DEMONE QUARTET AT THE STORK IN OAKLAND AND RIKK AGNEW JUMPED ON STAGE. WHAT SONG DID YOU PLAY AND WHY DID THE CROWD GO WILD?

Aleph: We booked a show last year on November 6th, and realized that it was Rozz Williams' birthday, and decided to learn "Stairs - Uncertain Journey" to celebrate.  At the GDQ show we asked Rikk if he wanted to get up and play it with us, and fortunately he did! 

As far as I can figure, the crowd went wild because he's fucking Rikk Agnew!

Kent: Yea, that was great playing with Rikk Agnew. We kinda thought of playing that last minute. Thankfully we all remembered how to play it! 

WHERE CAN WE SEE YOU GUYS PLAY NEXT?

Kent: Our next show is May 13th at the Oakland Metro with Alaric and Cardinal Wyrm