Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

[Daniel Selzer <danselzer AT yahoo.com>]

Fucked Up and Photocopied is essential, but it's very
much an American book. And even in that context, it
focuses as much or more on the kind of raw hardcore
flyers then the more artful punk/no-wave type flyers I
tend to like. Not to say it isn't great, or those
flyers aren't great, and there are definitely things
up my alley, particularly the Gary Panter type stuff
and Sonic Youth/Swans type things. But I'd probably
rather see a book of Neville Brody/Peter
Saville/Malcolm Garrett type posters/sleeves, but
that's just what I dig. That book exists by the way,
the Oberlin Art Library had it. But generally, I'd
like a book with more of that Rough Trade/Fast/Pop
Aural aesthetic. Bob Last's own design work for
Fast/Pop Aural is probably the most influential and
underrated stuff of the era.

http://discog.lesdisquesducertain.com/fastpop/
http://discog.lesdisquesducertain.com/fastpop/fastproduct/fast09c/earcom3front.jpg

The coolest collection of LA punk flyers I ever saw
was in volume 1 of the Love and Rockets Sketchbook
(L+R the comic book, not the band, of course!) Both
Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez did fun punk flyers in the
early early 80s and it's awesome to see them drawing
members of X or whatever.

Anyway, regarding Rip It Up, I didn't find it
stuck-up, if anything the punks and post-punks and
no-wavers could probably complain that Simon's
interest in "new pop" paid too much attention to the
fact that ABC and Scritti Pollitti topping the charts
was the ultimate goal of the Rough Trade/Industrial
Records revolution. Not sure I get the point the
blogger is making maybe.

Anyway, in Acute Records news...still working on the
website and our new direction, which involves killing
the CD and focusing on online sales only. It may even
happen! The web-site should be up within a week or 4,
I swear, to be followed first by the Acute Blog, then
by Acute Digital. Meanwhile we're working on at least
4 or so CDs...perhaps our last CDs, so check out the
website, sign up for the mailing list, be our myspace
friend and keep it touch...BFF!

-dan
http://www.acuterecords.com