This stunning assemblage of never-before-seen photos is a worthy addition to any rock fan’s library.
A large collection of concert photographs portrays a who’s who of 1980s rock ’n’ roll.
In 1983, budding photographer Stone (The Strange Birth, Short Life, and Sudden Death of Justice Girl, 2013) showed up at a Ramones concert intent on capturing the legendary punk band on film. When a security guard told him his equipment wasn’t welcome in the venue, he improvised, hiding his lens and camera body in his socks. Thus, a career as an “Outlaw Rock and Roll Photographer” was born. Over the next several years, he surreptitiously snapped photos of the B-52s, Duran Duran, R.E.M., and other iconic artists. A selection of that work is displayed in this impressive coffee-table book. The images—shot in both black and white and color—show musicians in the heat of performance. There’s a snarling, sweaty Joan Jett, a joyous Tom Petty, and Prince, soaring in the air midsplit. While some photos show an entire band on stage, the best (and majority) are surprisingly intimate images of a single performer, often isolated in a sea of black. A close-up of a shirtless Sting shows the Police frontman gazing out at the crowd like a Grecian god. In another, a pink-suited David Bowie performs, seemingly alone, on stage. While familiar pop stars dominate the work, Stone has included a few lesser-known acts, like Chequered Past, made up of ex-members of Blondie and the Sex Pistols, and Haven, “a perfectly fine band that never made it past the 8:00 p.m. slot on a Tuesday night at the Troubadour.” The author didn’t set out to document a particular scene, nor did he concentrate on a specific genre. In this pleasingly diverse collection, New Wavers Talking Heads share space with ’60s stalwarts the Grateful Dead and heavy-metal rockers like Ratt. A few brief essays from Stone provide context for some of the shots and explain his decision to give up rock photography. But for the most part, he wisely lets his powerful images speak for themselves.
This stunning assemblage of never-before-seen photos is a worthy addition to any rock fan’s library.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9898315-1-2
Page Count: 252
Publisher: For the Duration Press
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.
A revealing biography of the fabled Manhattan hotel, in which generations of artists and writers found a haven.
Turn-of-the century New York did not lack either hotels or apartment buildings, writes Tippins (February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America, 2005). But the Chelsea Hotel, from its very inception, was different. Architect Philip Hubert intended the elegantly designed Chelsea Association Building to reflect the utopian ideals of Charles Fourier, offering every amenity conducive to cooperative living: public spaces and gardens, a dining room, artists’ studios, and 80 apartments suitable for an economically diverse population of single workers, young couples, small families and wealthy residents who otherwise might choose to live in a private brownstone. Hubert especially wanted to attract creative types and made sure the building’s walls were extra thick so that each apartment was quiet enough for concentration. William Dean Howells, Edgar Lee Masters and artist John Sloan were early residents. Their friends (Mark Twain, for one) greeted one another in eight-foot-wide hallways intended for conversations. In its early years, the Chelsea quickly became legendary. By the 1930s, though, financial straits resulted in a “down-at-heel, bohemian atmosphere.” Later, with hard-drinking residents like Dylan Thomas and Brendan Behan, the ambience could be raucous. Arthur Miller scorned his free-wheeling, drug-taking, boozy neighbors, admitting, though, that the “great advantage” to living there “was that no one gave a damn what anyone else chose to do sexually.” No one passed judgment on creativity, either. But the art was not what made the Chelsea famous; its residents did. Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Robert Mapplethorpe, Phil Ochs and Sid Vicious are only a few of the figures populating this entertaining book.
A zesty, energetic history, not only of a building, but of more than a century of American culture.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-618-72634-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.
Photographer and author Stanton returns with a companion volume to Humans of New York (2013), this one with similarly affecting photographs of New Yorkers but also with some tales from his subjects’ mouths.
Readers of the first volume—and followers of the related site on Facebook and elsewhere—will feel immediately at home. The author has continued to photograph the human zoo: folks out in the streets and in the parks, in moods ranging from parade-happy to deep despair. He includes one running feature—“Today in Microfashion,” which shows images of little children dressed up in various arresting ways. He also provides some juxtapositions, images and/or stories that are related somehow. These range from surprising to forced to barely tolerable. One shows a man with a cat on his head and a woman with a large flowered headpiece, another a construction worker proud of his body and, on the facing page, a man in a wheelchair. The emotions course along the entire continuum of human passion: love, broken love, elation, depression, playfulness, argumentativeness, madness, arrogance, humility, pride, frustration, and confusion. We see varieties of the human costume, as well, from formalwear to homeless-wear. A few celebrities appear, President Barack Obama among them. The “stories” range from single-sentence comments and quips and complaints to more lengthy tales (none longer than a couple of pages). People talk about abusive parents, exes, struggles to succeed, addiction and recovery, dramatic failures, and lifelong happiness. Some deliver minirants (a neuroscientist is especially curmudgeonly), and the children often provide the most (often unintended) humor. One little boy with a fishing pole talks about a monster fish. Toward the end, the images seem to lead us toward hope. But then…a final photograph turns the light out once again.
A wondrous mix of races, ages, genders, and social classes, and on virtually every page is a surprise.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05890-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015
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