7-18-23 to 8-14-23

What About Gay Bob?

The First Openly Gay Doll (for everyone) Was a Trailblazer Toy
In 1977, Gay Bob came out of the closet. 
Thirteen inches tall and plastic, Gay Bob was marketed as the first openly gay doll and made his retail debut in mail-order catalogs. He was sold in a cardboard box designed to look like a closet. Gay Bob's packaging proudly (and wordily) explained what “coming out of the closet” meant:
"Hi boys, girls and grownups, I’m Gay Bob, the world’s first gay doll. I bet you are wondering why I come packed in a closet. ‘Coming out of the closet’ is an expression which means that you admit the truth about yourself and are no longer ashamed of what you are... A lot of straight people should come out of their 'straight closets' and take the risk of being honest about what they are. People who are not ashamed of what they are, are more lovable, kind, and understanding. That is why everyone should come out of “their closet" so the world will be a more loving, understanding, and fulfilling place to live. Gay people are no different than straight people. If everyone came out of their closets, there wouldn’t be so many angry, frustrated, frightened people... It’s not easy to be honest about what you are; in fact it takes a great deal of courage. But remember, if Gay Bob has the courage to come out of his closet, so can you!"
At face value, Gay Bob’s message about the merits of coming out seems earnest, espousing the values of courage, honesty, and living authentically; however, the branding and design of the Gay Bob doll are brash. Gay Bob’s story is deceptively complicated and intertwined in toy and LGBTQ+ history. 
https://nhm.org/stories/what-about-gay-bob

​How Ronald Reagan led the 1960 actors' strike – and then became an anti-union president

How Ronald Reagan led the 1960 actors' strike – and then became an anti-union president
Production on US film and television sets has ground to a halt as Hollywood actors have joined writers in walking off sets. At issue are residuals (or royalties), streaming services and the use of artificial intelligence.
The last time there was a "double strike" was 1960, when future United States President Ronald Reagan was head of the powerful Screen Actors Guild (SAG).
Reagan made his film debut in 1937. He was a quintessential B-movie star of the Hollywood Golden Age, acting in low-budget "second feature" movies.
Over his career he churned out more than 50 films, appearing in Westerns, thrillers, war films and romantic comedies, as well as famously co-starring with a monkey called Bonzo.
In the 1930s and '40s, Reagan was a self-proclaimed "New Deal Liberal" and a proud supporter of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Reagan became a SAG member within a month of moving to Hollywood. In 1941, his then-wife Jane Wyman — a member of the union's board of directors — suggested him for a vacancy on the board.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-21/ronald-reagan-led-1960s-actors-strike/102626930#

Superfly Photos From A Late, Great Master

Flared-leg pants, oversized glasses and hats. Unflinchingly proud expressions. Groovy dance moves. This was the youth culture of 1960s and 1970s Bamako, the capital city of Mali. And it was captured by Malian photographer Malick Sidibe, bringing international recognition and big deal awards. And it's being celebrated in the first major posthumous exhibit of his images, "Malick Sidibe: Mali Twist," which is at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain In Paris through February 25. Sidibe died in April 2016 at age 80. 
Sidibe's history with photography is a fascinating one. He was born in 1935, and spent his childhood "walking barefoot in the bush with the oxen," he told Brigitte Ollier, who developed the current exhibit with curator Andre Magnin, a longtime admirer of Sidibe's work. But Sidibe's father decided he should study. At school, Sidibe discovered he had a knack for drawing. His artistic ambitions shifted, however, when he landed a job working for a photographer. Before long, he opened his own place, Studio Malick, which beckoned with a neon sign — and the chance for immortality.
"I think photos are the best way of living a long time after you die," Sidibe once told Magnin. "That is why I invested my whole soul in them, my whole heart, to make my subjects more beautiful."
Visitors to the exhibit can see vintage prints as well as some made exclusively for "Mali Twist" from negatives preserved by Magnin. Here's a sampling.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/12/30/572562953/photos-malick-sidibe-shows-malis-youth-with-a-groovy-twist

Identical Twins by Diane Arbus - Story Behind the Iconic Photograph

The black and white photograph I would like to talk about today is called “Identical Twins” and was taken in Roselle, New Jersey in 1967. Arbus met the twins at a Knights of Columbus hall during a Christmas party for twins and triplets. Even though no one actually knew how she got there. The photo has been described as creepy, freakish or haunting.
Arbus was known to photograph “different” subjects, outsiders, or people on the fringes of society. The great recurring theme of her work is a sense of otherness and that is also something we see in this photograph.  The girls are the same, but different. We can see the photo was shot at a waist-level, so perhaps shot with her Rolleiflex medium format twin-lens reflex that she was using. They are both looking straight into the camera, which is also one of the signature styles for Arbus’s portraits. It was perhaps the isolation against the wall that made them look like the only two children in the room. Seven-year-old sisters Cathleen and Colleen Wade were attending a Christmas party where they met Diane Arbus. They wore almost the same clothes except their white stockings. When you look at the photograph for the first time it is pretty clear, at least for me, that the girls are identical twins. However the more you look at them more you see the small differences that make the picture so interesting. Even though they have same green clothes (which appears black in the photograph) and the same haircut, we can clearly see the difference in their facial expression and body language. The girl on the left shows no sign of emotion and looks almost bored, not caring too much, and the other is slightly smiling. We can see their individuality in their body language. The twins' father once said about the photo, "We thought it was the worst likeness of the twins we'd ever seen."
It is safe to say the photo was the most popular one of Diane Arbus. Perhaps that’s why it became an inspiration for many artists; the most famous example is probably Stanley Kubrick’s horror movie The Shining. He saw the abnormality in the sameness and their soulless gaze.
The photograph is said to be one of the most expensive photographs. It was sold in 2004 for 480 thousand dollars. It was also one of Arbus’s favourite photograph that she picked for her only portfolio called A Box of Ten Photographs which was a self-produced collection she put together with Marvin Israel. The current value is estimated at around 5 million dollars.
​https://aboutphotography.blog/blog/2019/12/9/identical-twins-by-diane-arbus-story-behind-the-iconic-photograph?format=amp

It’s Not Over: Posters and Graphics from Early AIDS Activism

It’s Not Over: Posters and Graphics from Early AIDS Activism is a temporary public art exhibit that acknowledges the longstanding fight for resources and respect for people living with HIV/AIDS. Mounted for World AIDS Day on December 1, 2020 in West Hollywood, It’s Not Over amplifies voices of AIDS activists and community organizers by featuring a curated set of activist posters and images from mid 1980s to late 1990s selected from ONE Archives at the USC Libraries. This exhibit is curated by Umi Hsu, Jaime Shearn Coan, and Saphir Davis; and organized by ONE Archives Foundation.
The exhibit includes pamphlet graphics by Keith Haring, picket signs from historic protests in Los Angeles and New York, flyers for the first ACT UP/LA meeting in 1987 and Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD), safer sex campaign posters featuring men and women of color, World AIDS Day and Day Without Art posters, and more. World AIDS Day was first observed by the World Health Organization in 1988; it continues into the present with ever-shifting emphasis. The exhibited images recall earlier periods of organizing and resistance, which can help to galvanize us in the present.
In the style of Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s protest art messaging: “War Is Over! (If You Want It),” this public art exhibit disseminates an important reminder that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is not over, with 38 million people living with HIV globally in 2019. And as we know, its ongoing impact disproportionately affects the Black community. As of 2018, 42% of new HIV cases have occurred within the Black community, which only makes up 13% of the US population. The “It’s Not Over” message, coupled with a diversity of experiences represented through the selected images, illustrates a multi-perspectival story of HIV/AIDS activism and highlights the longstanding struggle against HIV discrimination.
https://www.onearchives.org/its-not-over-posters-and-graphics-from-early-aids-activism/

20 Amazing American Women Mugshots in the 1960s

The police mugshot photograph was developed as early as the mid-nineteenth century, and it has since developed as an iconic photographic type in its own right. Formulaic and recognized the world over, it was developed at a when the Victorian fascination of labelling and categorizing of people was at its height. Remarkably, the mugshot photograph has changed little in 150 years.
Since the mid-’90s, Manhattan-based graphic designer Mark Michaelson has collected over 10,000 vintage mugshots of everyday people from all over the country. Each closeup has a detail that caught the designer’s eye, from scars and bandages to crooked teeth and bizarre haircuts.
Michaelson has also released a book of these photographs. In theory, these photographs are formulaic and regular as we would expect from a mugshot. But in reality, every single one is unique - each face telling a different story.
When looking at these photographs, you can't help but imagine what sort of situations the arrested were involved in; faces look back at the camera smiling, blinking, scowling. It's also an amazing timeline of different fashions and hairstyles.
​https://www.vintag.es/2017/03/20-amazing-american-women-mugshots-in.html?m=1

The creator of the first Black Barbie grew up in segregated South Carolina and went on to become principal designer for Mattel

The creator of the first Black Barbie grew up in segregated South Carolina and went on to become principal designer for Mattel
Kitty Black Perkins is renowned in the toy industry for designing the first-ever Black Barbie, and was a pioneer who helped diversify the mega-popular doll franchise.
Born in racially-segregated Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1948, Black Perkins grew up playing with white dolls gifted by her mother's employers. She went on to work in the fashion industry after graduating from college.
Black Perkins grew up admiring her dapper father, who was "the most spectacular dresser," she told Greenville News in 2019. 
Black Perkins bought her first Barbie doll from Toys R Us when she was 28 years old to prepare for an interview with Mattel. The company asked her to take a Barbie home and to bring it back in a week with a new wardrobe.
Black Perkins hand-sewed a floral jumpsuit with tiered legs and puff sleeves, along with a matching wide-brimmed hat for her Barbie. Though Mattel found the outfit too elaborate for mass production, they hired Black Perkins to design clothes for Barbie.
https://www.insider.com/barbie-kitty-black-perkins-designer-diversity-mattel-dolls-2023-4#in-1969-barbie-got-a-friend-talking-christie-christie-would-be-the-first-black-doll-under-the-franchise-even-if-she-wasnt-a-barbie-5

Decoding Barbie’s Radical Pose

Decoding Barbie’s Radical Pose
The “Barbie” movie glides over the history of dolls as powerful cultural objects.
By Alexandra Lange
In Barbieland, as envisioned in “Barbie,” the writer-director Greta Gerwig presents a world where positions of power are held by female dolls such as a Black President Barbie and a Filipina American Supreme Court Justice Barbie. Indeed, in the pink landscape of “Barbie,” all the jobs are held by women, and the Dreamhouses are owned by them, too; the Kens are mere decoration until one of them catches a glimpse of men’s lives in the Real World. But, by making patriarchy the villain of the story, the movie glides over the decades in which Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, waffled on racial representation and the depiction of women’s professional roles. “The Barbie world you see in the film is Malibu Barbie from 1971,” Rob Goldberg, the author of the forthcoming book “Radical Play: Revolutionizing Children’s Toys in 1960s and 1970s America,” says, “but, in reality, the racial diversity of the Barbie character wasn’t there yet.”
Goldberg’s book describes how toys became political during the sixties and seventies—from Lionel Corporation’s toy trains’ embrace of anti-violence rhetoric to wooden figurines that allowed children to assemble families more complex than a husband, wife, and two kids. American culture was convulsed by Vietnam War protests, Title IX disputes, and the Equal Rights Amendment debates, and toys were enlisted in the fights for empowerment and equity by women and people of color. Gerwig’s film builds upon, but only occasionally acknowledges, sixty years of attempts to use the popularity of Barbie to advance a more complex agenda than sun, fun, and lots of pink. That’s too bad, both for the historical record and for the new buyers of Barbie that the film’s success will attract. As Goldberg writes, the nineteen-sixties forced toy-makers “to publicly reckon with, perhaps for the first time, their status as entrepreneurs of ideology.”
Barbie’s first Dreamhouse, released in 1962, was a cardboard foldout apartment, with modern furniture and a single bed. It had no kitchen, no room for a family, and no room for Ken. Part of the original radicalism of Barbie was that girls could use her to act out fantasies of being something other than mothers. The inventor of Barbie, Ruth Handler, said she was inspired by watching girls play with paper dolls of adult women; shrewdly, she saw a hole in the toy market for a doll who could stand, however precariously, on her own two feet. Gerwig’s film opens with an homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” in which little girls clad in trad-wife aprons smash their baby dolls, liberating themselves from playing house.
​https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/decoding-barbies-radical-pose

The Ongoing Relevance of “Norma Rae”

By Naomi Fry
August 4, 2020
The other night, I found myself once again scrolling the multiple streaming services I subscribe to, and wondering, as I often do, which show or movie would allow me to relax my brain into a pleasing limpness. Should I pick the reality dating show about Indian singles looking to enter an arranged marriage with the help of an unflappable matchmaker? The documentary series about the face-off between federal agents and New York goodfellas in the seventies and eighties? The travel show in which a tetchy British comedian joins celebrities on jaunts to various international locales? All of these seemed solid options, if fairly mindless. Then I noticed that Martin Ritt’s 1979 drama, “Norma Rae,” which I hadn’t watched since high school, was on Hulu. Relaxing my brain, I decided, could wait for the night.
For those who haven’t seen the movie, or whose memory of it is hazy, a recap: Norma Rae Webster—played by a ferocious Sally Field, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress for the role, in 1980—is a Southern single mom of two who works on the dim, noisy floor of the town textile mill, where her parents, and, likely, her grandparents, have worked before her. It’s a grim, precarious, and repetitive job, which makes for a grim, precarious, and repetitive existence. Early on in the movie, we see her attempt to rouse her mother, who has gone temporarily deaf from the incessant din of the mill’s machines. The plant doctor is unimpressed: “Now, you know it happens, Norma Rae. It happens all the time!,” he says, suggesting that the older woman “can get herself another job” if this one isn’t to her liking. But in their mill town there is no other job, and no real alternative to the low-paying and dangerous work that the plant provides.
​https://www.newyorker.com/recommends/watch/the-ongoing-relevance-of-norma-rae

Jaw-Dropping Christian Ephemera From The 20th Century

Jaw-Dropping Christian Ephemera From The 20th Century
Putting the fear of God in everyone: Christian ephemera from the 20th Century. It’s not about God; it’s about the people:
https://flashbak.com/jaw-dropping-christian-ephemera-from-the-20th-century-51651/

Making its debut in 1969, the beloved children’s television show was shaped by the African-American communities in Harlem and beyond

Forty years ago, upon the tenth anniversary of the debut of “Sesame Street,” the New York Times offered an appraisal of the revolutionary children’s television program, reminding readers that the show with universal appeal initially declared its target audience, “the four-year old inner-city black youngster.” This year, as the show commemorates its 50th anniversary and is broadcast in more than 150 countries, it’s worthwhile to take a look back at how since its inception, “Sesame Street” has been rooted in African-American culture, more specifically the historically black community of Harlem. The New York City neighborhood played such an outsized role in the development of the program—from set design to casting and marketing—the answer to the question from the “Sesame Street” opening song, “Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street,” ought to be Duke Ellington’s “Take the A Train.”
“Sesame Street” arose from the Lyndon B. Johnson administration’s Great Society agenda, a series of federal programs that carried the ambitious goal of eliminating poverty and racial injustice. As part of these aspirations, Johnson, who had taught poor Mexican-American children while a student in college, created Head Start in 1965, seeking to disrupt the multi-generational cycle of poverty through early education programs for disadvantaged preschool children.
​https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unmistakable-black-roots-sesame-street-180973490/

30 Celebrities in Vintage Commercials & Advertising 145
Shares 

Yes, that’s Barbara Eden in a 1964 advert for suntan lotion, before she became Jeannie.  Indeed, vintage advertising is overflowing with celebs selling everything from toothpaste to tampons.  Let’s have a look at a sampling of 30 vintage TV commercials and magazine print ads featuring celebrities – both before and after they were famous.  Enjoy!
​​https://flashbak.com/30-celebrities-in-vintage-commercials-advertising-34021/

43 Of The Worst Sweaters From 80s That Should Never Come Back

Some things about the 80s were cool. Super Mario Brothers. Pac Man. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But let's face it, many things about the 80s sucked, and nothing sucked more than the sweaters. Anybody who lived through that particular decade will know what we're talking about, but for those of you who missed it, check out these sweaters to see how lucky you are. They come from Wit Knits, a funny Tumblr that posts pictures of sweaters taken from a real knitting pattern book from 1986. The author describes the patterns as "lively and original" - how would YOU describe them? Let us know in the comments!
https://www.boredpanda.com/80s-knitted-sweater-fashion-wit-knits/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Awesome Gay Pulp Paperback covers of the 70's

I stumbled upon these fantastic covers of “gay pulp” paperbacks from the 1970s the other day and immediately became entranced with them. I saw a few of them at the blog Knee-Deep in the Flooded Victory and immediately knew I had to find out more. It turns out that these covers date from 1974 and 1975; they are from the “RAM-10” series from Hamilton House, a company about which I have no information. It may not be apparent how unusually striking these covers are—for a nice gallery of more standard-issue gay paperback covers, you could do a lot worse than this post I did for DM a couple of years ago. You’ll see that the more usual style of gay pulp covers relies on well-nigh abstract juxtapositions of male silhouettes and that male/Mars symbol in garish colors. Not so for the RAM-10 series, which uses documentary-style photographic portraits of males dressed up as gay archetypes in front of a field of light blue or blood red, while a vertical line pierces the book’s title and author in a stately serif font. Actually, the covers remind me a bit of Gay Semiotics, the brilliantly deadpan monograph that photographer Hal Fischer published in 1977—high praise indeed. Naturally, the blandly suggestive titles also elicit a smirk. Saddle Buddy, Holler Uncle, The Big Pipe, The Meat Eaters, Jump Squad...... All of these covers were a bit small in the formats I found them—it’d be great to get better scans of these titles. Who was the designer of these covers? Who was the photographer? I was able to get all of the covers except one—the missing volume is #102, which is E-Mission, by Chad Stuart, and that’s a shame, because according to Drewey Wayne Gunn in The Gay Male Sleuth in Print and Film: A History and Annotated Bibliography, that was a good one: “I particularly recommend E-Mission (1974) by Chad Stuart (William Maltese).” 
One can safely assume that the names of the authors are psuedonyms, as Gunn’s quote above suggests. William Maltese, who wrote a few of these volumes, was formidable enough an author of gay pulp fiction that there is a bibliography dedicated to his work.
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/dig_these_awesome_gay_pulp_paperback_covers_from_the_1970s

GAY PULP PAPERBACKS OF THE EARLY 1970S

These paperbacks from the days of Stonewall are simply incredible. They elicit phrases that increasingly seem dead to us now—“the closet,” “homosexual panic”—and for that reason they make me sad. They straddle the categories of alarmism and regular ol’ enjoyment—expressing the inherently coded nature of gay life during that era. In that sense their true meaning is confusion and pain. I hope they gave their readers pleasure. One can hope, at least, that this particular facet of sexual life is dying off.
They’re all from an imprint called French Line. I admire these books because they are so deadly intent about reaching their audience. The design of these covers is sopotent—they are not kidding around. And hey—what’s Guy Fawkes doing writing Chamber of Homos, anyway? What’s up with that Nazi one? How long does it take to make a straight guy gay? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
All of the covers but one use that circle-arrow male symbol—are those symbols themselves a relic of the sixties? you don’t see them very much anymore—and everything about these covers, every word and every image, is calculated to intrigue, alarm, and arouse.
​https://dangerousminds.net/comments/gay_pulp_paperbacks_of_the_early_1970s

Why Grace Jones was the most pioneering queen of pop

By Nick Levine
22nd June 2020
She may be a style icon and all-round star. But 40 years on from her seminal LP Warm Leatherette, she should be recognised foremost as a musical trailblazer, writes Nick Levine.
It’s difficult to describe Grace Jones without using words that have been dulled into cliché, but the revered Jamaican performer really is iconic, unique and visionary. It’s equally tricky to sum up succinctly what she does: since she began flexing her creative muscles in the late 1960s, Jones has been a stage actress, high-fashion model, disco singer, photographer’s muse, new wave musician, film star and perennial trend-setter. Clearly, Jones’s chameleon-like qualities are a key part of her appeal. “She takes you to higher vibrations through her presence alone – she frees you completely because she is free herself,” says Honey Dijon, an internationally renowned DJ-producer who counts Jones as a major inspiration
At the same time, Jones’s incredible creative fluidity means her achievements in certain fields – especially music – are easy to underestimate. The dazzling, androgynous looks she’s created for photo shoots and album covers are rightly acclaimed – Vogue calls her “the ultimate fashion muse”, while Dazed has hailed her “revolutionary style moments” – but at the expense, perhaps, of her musical legacy. Warm Leatherette, the album that introduced Jones’s distinctive, reggae-flecked take on new wave, has just turned 40 years old, so it’s an apt time to reassess her contribution as a singer, songwriter and genre-blending innovator. Featuring punky covers of songs by artists as varied as Tom Petty, Smokey Robinson and Roxy Music, all sung in Jones’s majestically detached style, it’s a record as fearless and singular as Jones herself. And also like Jones, it’s strangely ageless, sounding almost as fresh today as it did in 1980.
​https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200619-why-grace-jones-was-the-most-pioneering-queen-of-pop

STRAY CAT BEAT GIRL: MEET THE ELECTRIFYING ‘ARETHA FRANKLIN’ OF JAPAN, AKIKO WADA

​The arrival of the “beat girl” archetype in Japanese culture back in the 60s came with numerous girl rockers taking the helm of bands, cranking out garage rock sounds and pop-inspired hits some of which would go on to sell more than a million copies (such as the 1965 smash sung in English by Emy Jackson “Crying in a Storm”). Of the many that were a part of this movement, one of the most notable was a woman often referred to as the “Japanese Aretha Franklin,” Akiko Wada.Born Akiko Iizuka (according to her website) to Korean parents, she soon adopted her maternal uncle’s name (Wada) and started skipping school (before dropping out of high school entierly) to enjoy the nightlife of Osaka. At the age of seventeen she had added “runaway” to her growing rebellious teenage resume after a trip to Tokyo. Wada’s “look” was perceived as “unconventional” even during her childhood. In elementary school Wada was already over five-feet tall and by the time she stopped growing she stood approximately 5’9. Not only did Wada sound more like a man she was also taller than most of her male counterparts on the hit parade. Due to her unique looks and vocal style she was often referred to as being “butch.”
It’s important to note here that being labeled as “butch” is a distinct inference of homosexuality. And being gay in Japan isn’t merely frowned upon, it is also considered an “unacceptable” lifestyle (though there has been some progress over the last two decades). Despite assumptions regarding her sexuality Wada has been married to a man (photographer Koji Iizuka) for the past 35 years.
Wada would embark on her recording career in 1968, singing on an astronomical number of records (somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 singles) since the release of her first single “Hoshizora no Kodoku” (“The Solitude of the Starry Sky”). Fast-forward to 2016 and the unstoppable Wada shows no signs of slowing down. Her latest release “All Right!!!” came out in July of this year—three months after her 66th birthday.
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/stray_cat_beat_girl_meet_the_electrifying_aretha_franklin_of_japan_akiko_wa?utm_source=Dangerous+Minds+newsletter&utm_campaign=225ff51a5c-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ecada8d328-225ff51a5c-65849849

A front-row seat to the rise of punk rock Photographs by Ruby Ray Story by Ryan Prior

In January 1978, photographer Ruby Ray was at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom sweating with the crowd and swaying to the driving rhythm of the Sex Pistols.
The band epitomized the new punk spirit in rock, injecting a new destructive energy at a time when the wider world of corporate rock was glossing over the genre’s rebellious roots. Chaos was their governing impulse.
“At the time there were only about 200 true punks in San Francisco,” Ray told CNN, but this concert drew 2,000. “It was an incredible show, a huge show,” Ray said.
It was also their last show.
The night after the Sex Pistols broke up, Ray was photographing a show at the Mabuhay Gardens club where another punk scene stalwart, the Bags, were playing a set. Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious was there. He found a piece of shattered glass and jumped up on the stage, which was only about 2 feet off the ground.
He ran the glass across his shirtless chest, drawing blood, in an attempt to seek attention and upstage the band.
Ray later raced backstage where she saw Vicious laying down with a woman and smoking a cigarette. She asked if she could photograph him, and he said, “Sure, hurry up,” Ray recalls.
Ray’s new photo book, “Kalifornia Kool,” depicts the San Francisco punk scene between 1976 and 1982. That period, when she was in her 20s, “was bold and daring and wild.”
Her book is a living record of the ‘70s punk scene, which almost by its very definition, was ephemeral.
“A lot of (the bands) didn't get recorded,” she said. “Industry didn't like punk rock.”
Punk thrived in the underground, and without the aid of corporate overlords it required a democratic do-it-yourself spirit — fiery passion overruling the need for any kind of expertise. The vibe on the scene, Ray said, was always, “Sure, you could start your punk band.”
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/entertainment/1970s-punk-california-cnnphotos/

Amazing Magazine T-Shirts from the 1970s-80s

We’ve covered the amazing 1970s T-Shirt fad in a previous article – but it’s high time for another round. Nothing brings back the pop-culture memories better than the humble tee.  That’s because it proclaimed the wearer’s identity – what he or she was “into”, no matter how obscure a niche.
Capitalizing on the fad, magazines of all varieties offered their readers an opportunity to wear their brand.  From Billboard to Screw magazine, an endless spectrum of titles were emblazoned on our chests for the world to see.  Let’s have a look…
https://flashbak.com/amazing-magazine-t-shirts-from-the-1970s-80s-377371/

​DAR RETRO: 9 UNDERRATED R&B ARTISTS FROM THE 80'S

The 80's were a classic time in music and we've discussed it a bit on the site. We recently discussed the New Jack Swing era, so I wanted to take a moment and show appreciation to the other artists during that decade that came before New Jack Swing or existed during the era but did their own thing. Some of these artists never got the full credit they deserved, as the 80's gave us stars and superstars, but some of the artists with hits and classics went slightly underappreciated and underrated. Today, we look at some of the artists from the decade who were underrated. Let's get into it.
​https://www.definearevolution.com/2018/09/dar-retro-9-underrated-r-artists-from.html?m=1

Style Queens of 1960s Saigon

I was going through a giant archive of old photographs (yes another one), mostly taken by Westerners over in Vietnam during the war, when I started to develop a very unexpected style crush. Who knew Mod fashion made it to 1960s Vietnam? As it turns out, until the early 1970s, before the fall of Saigon, street fashion in South Vietnam adopted elements of the western Mod look and put a very groovy spin on its own customary style of dress. Check these ladies out…
They were either going full Mod, with the beehive hairdos, capri pants, tartan skirts and shift dresses– or accessorising their Vietnamese national costume, the áo dài, with sassy accessories, bad girl sunnies and kitten heels.
In the 1950s, designers in Saigon had already started tightening the fit of the áo dài, an outfit that was originally worn by aristocrats at court in the 18th century and later evolved as a modern dress, inspired by Paris fashions of the 1930s.
In South Vietnam (the non-communist side during the war where individual style was welcome) brightly coloured and patterned versions called the áo dài hippy were introduced in 1968, and the áo dài mini came along too, offering a shorter, more practical design that had slits extending above the waist.
https://www.messynessychic.com/2016/06/02/style-queens-of-1960s-saigon/

Sixto Rodríguez: the Improbable Fame of an Artist

His uncertain fame and public recognition made Sixto Rodríguez confront the delicate balance between personal fortune and the authenticity of talent.
The music world is famously cruel. Throughout history, once and again we have seen cases of composers, interpreters and singers whose talent has only been recognized after their death, in that posterity which, so we are told, does justice to everything and leaves stanting only that which transcends the beating of critics and time. Such is the case of Sixto Rodríguez, an American singer born to Mexican parents who had a short music career (recording a couple albums in the 1970’s and going on a brief Australian tour), and flirted briefly with fame but soon was pushed aside by a wave of new faces and voices.
The son of migrants who left their country in the 20’s, Sixto was born in 1942 in Detroit, Michigan, to a lower middle class family who raised him in poverty and yet cultivated in him an interest in the underground culture, both of which would later be reflected in his music. Somehow, Rodríguez resolved to be a successful musician from very early in life, and in 1967 recorded his first single, “I’ll Slip Away,” with a small record company with a big name: Impact. Three years later he signed with Sussex Records, which was part of the better-known Buddha Records, with which he later recorded Cold Fact (1970) and Coming from Reality (1971); both influenced by Blues and Rock.
Before this, which he considered a failure, Sixto decided that his music career was over. His decision, however, was perhaps too hasty, as he soon gained unexpected popularity in South Africa, Zimbabwe, New Zealand and Australia, which goes to show the capricious nature of success: met with disdain on one continent and revered on a remote other.
https://www.faena.com/aleph/sixto-rodriguez-the-improbable-fame-of-an-artist

Two Teens Hitchhiked to a Concert. 50 Years Later, They Haven’t Come Home

Two Teens Hitchhiked to a Concert. 50 Years Later, They Haven’t Come Home
Mitchel Weiser and Bonnie Bickwit were never heard from again after leaving for 1973’s historic Summer Jam at Watkins Glen. Five decades on, their family and friends still want answers
ERIC J. GREENBERG
AUGUST 5, 2023 10:00AM EDTOn the morning of July 27, 1973, two Brooklyn teenagers set out for central New York to attend one of the biggest concerts in rock history.
They were never seen again.
Or were they? 
Fifty years ago last week marked the disappearance of 16-year-old Mitchel Weiser and 15-year-old Bonnie Bickwit, two gifted students who are the oldest missing-teen cases in the country. 
Initially dismissed as romantic runaways who would return home soon, the pair’s fate remains a mystery. After decades of police bungling and false leads, investigators have tracked several theories over what might have happened to them. Amid recent information about a possible suspect connected to their disappearance, Mitchel’s and Bonnie’s friends and families are now calling on federal and state officials to provide the necessary resources to solve the coldest of cold cases.
“A task force is exactly what we need to solve what happened to my brother Mitchel and his girlfriend Bonnie,” Susan Weiser Liebegott, Mitchel’s sister who has been searching for him for the past half century, tells Rolling Stone. “Quite frankly, it is the only way to solve their case.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/mitchel-weiser-bonnie-bickwit-missing-teens-summer-jam-1234798437/amp/

When Mississippi Tried to Ban Sesame Street for Showing a “Highly Integrated Cast” (1970)

On November 10, 1969, Sesame Street made its broadcast debut.
The very first lines were spoken by Gordon (Matt Robinson), a Black schoolteacher who’s showing a new kid around the neighborhood, introducing her to a couple of other kids, along with Sesame Street adult mainstays Bob, Susan, and Mr. Hooper, and Big Bird, whose appearance had yet to find its final form:
Sally, you’ve never seen a street like Sesame Street. Everything happens here. You’re gonna love it.
The milieu would have felt familiar to children growing up on New York City’s Upper West Side, or Harlem or the Bronx. While not every block was as well integrated as Sesame Street’s cheerful, deliberately multicultural, brownstone setting, any subway ride was an opportunity to rub shoulders with New Yorkers of all races, classes and creeds.
Not six months later, the all-White Mississippi State Commission for Educational Television voted 3 to 2 to remove Sesame Street from their state’s airwaves.
A disgruntled pro-Sesame commission member leaked the reason to The New York Times:
Some of the members of the commission were very much opposed to showing the series because it uses a highly integrated cast of children.
The whistleblower also intimated that those same members objected to the fact that Robinson and Loretta Long, the actor portraying Susan, were Black.
They claimed Mississippi was “not yet ready” for such a show, even though Sesame Street was an immediate hit. Professionals in the fields of psychology, education, and medicine had consulted on its content, helping it secure a significant amount of federal and private grants prior to filming. The show had been lauded for its main mission – preparing American children from low-income backgrounds for kindergarten through lively educational programming with ample representation.
Kids growing up in sheltered, all-white enclaves stood to gain, too, by being welcomed into a television neighborhood where Black and white families were shown happily coexisting, treating each other with kindness, patience and respect. (Sonia Manzano and Emilio Delgado, who played Maria and Luis, joined the cast soon after.)
​https://www.openculture.com/2023/08/when-the-mississippi-tried-to-ban-sesame-street-for-showing-a-highly-integrated-cast-1970.html

The Groovy Imitation Bands of 1960s Japanese Rock

BY MESSYNESSY
MAY 28, 2014
When the Beatles arrived in Japan in June of 1966, they caused as much pandemonium when they did when they triggered Beatlemania in the United States in 1964.  A total of 8,400 policemen were mobilized for security at a cost of 90 million yen and more than 6,500 Japanese teenagers were taken into custody. They had been in Japan for 102 hours (and were paid 60 million yen).
Japan had its very own ‘beat era’ during the 1960s that was heavily influenced by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, American hit music and psychedelic rock. It spawned an entirely new music genre known as ‘Group Sounds’ (GS), which saw over a hundred bands release vinyl records on major labels that imitated Western rock musicians. More than often, Group Sounds records did covers of the supergroups such as The Beatles, The Beegees and The Rolling Stones, translating the lyrics into Japanese. But the colourful, outfit co-ordinated bands also recorded their own Western-inspired moody ballads and syrupy pop songs. Some of it was not so good, but some of it was pretty groovy stuff with an added exotic edge of being sung in Japanese.
The best part about this is trying to imagine what exactly a shoe belt would look like.
Most Japanese musicians felt that they could not sing rock in Japanese. There were debates between bands over whether they should be singing in English or Japanese and the confrontation became known as the “Japanese-language rock controversy”. It was decided that Japanese rock music should be sung in Japanese which likely spawned the origins of modern J-Pop. 
https://www.messynessychic.com/2014/05/28/the-groovy-imitation-bands-of-1960s-japanese-rock/

​The Obscure World of Kitschy Christian Vinyl

Bob Dylan nearly crossed over to the Christian music industry in the late seventies. He had just announced his conversion to Christianity in ’79 and proceeded to release a total of three albums based on his newfound faith. He spent several years touring and preaching from stage, but was never fully accepted by Christian music fans who were suspicious of Dylan’s failure to leave behind the secular music world and become the face of the Christian sub-genre. Nor did his mainstream fans want to listen to him singing about Jesus. By the early 80s, Dylan dropped the religious references from his music and went back to being Bob Dylan. But oh, what could have been…
The contemporary Christian music industry is a funny one. Since its rise in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the Jesus Movement, it has never been short of critics claiming it “violates all that God has commanded in the Bible” and pointing out the obvious conflict between commercialisation and ministry. Nevertheless, the Jesus movement churned out a large number of bands in a very short period of time, most of which remained in music obscurity..
“Jesus music” most notably saw its emergence in hippie centres of the sixties like southern California, Seattle and Chicago. Thanks to long-haired hippie preachers who could speak in tongues while tripping on LSD, large numbers of hippies and street musicians began converting to born-again Christianity. Where many young people had been left disillusioned by a decade of free love and drugs, the Jesus Movement offered the kind of salvation the traditional church couldn’t.
Once converted, the musicians continued playing the folk and rock music they had always been playing, but began infusing lyrics with a Christian message. They played for whoever would listen, collecting money at the passing of a basket known as a “love offering”. Initially, it was a means of sharing their faith and encouraging others to convert and the music was relatively simple. Without using bible clichés, there was the basic message of salvation and the value of a Christ-centered spiritual experience. Some bands talked about the imminent Second Coming of Christ, a prominent theory amongst hippie evangelicals. Few, if any made a living from playing, but there were a few to become rock stars in their own right.
The seventies saw major music industry giants including Time Warner, ABC, CBS and MCA invest and start labels in the Christian music market. Jesus music festivals mimicking more moral interpretations of Woodstock began to emerge in the summer of the seventies, attracting large crowds. The industry began maturing and slowly transforming into a multi-million dollar enterprise committed to very un-Godly things such as increased market share, profit increases and commercial marketplace strategies. By the end of the 1970s the term “Jesus music” fell out of use as the movement was replaced by the industry.
​https://www.messynessychic.com/2017/02/16/the-obscure-world-of-kitschy-christian-vinyls/

​Did Glam Rock Wrestling Give Bowie and Elton Their Style?

BY FRANCKY KNAPP
OCTOBER 30, 2019
Before Ziggy played guitar, Adrian Street pounded the ring (and the makeup counter) in silver tights. The pro-wrestler changed the game forever in the 1960s when he decided the game needed more panache. More glitter. More glam. He emerged from his chrysalis, that of the former coal miner and man’s man that he was, like a human disco ball. Not that he was shedding his working class roots, mind you. This wasn’t about forgetting who you were, but showing the world who you could become. Today, we’re revisiting the world of glam rock wrestling, from the 1960s into the 1990s. There will be baby oil. There will be glitter. And boy oh boy, will there be some glamourous headshots – starting off with the evolution of Adrian, AKA, “The Merchant of Menace”…
It’s said that Elton John, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan all found major inspiration in this androgynous trailblazer’s wardrobe…
If it weren’t for Adrian, we would’ve never had the incoming stream of wrestling glitterati in the 1980s, which thrived in the era of hair metal (and spray). “The Rock ‘N Roll Express” was formed in Memphis, Tennessee in 1983, starring Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson. Get ready to take some style notes, my friend…
Of course, every great duo needs an opponent. Or two. But who would dare challenge the Rock ‘N Roll Express? Ladies and gents, we now welcome “the Fabulous Ones” to the ring…
They were glam rock, but definitely opted for the less-is-more look and quite frankly, we think they would’ve made excellent subjects for a kitsch painting by the artist George Quaintance.
This is Jerry Lawler, another legendary pro-wrestler, match commentator, and awkward headshot aficionado
https://www.messynessychic.com/2019/10/30/did-awkward-glam-rock-wrestling-give-bowie-and-elton-their-style/