Alex Ogg – författare

The definitive illustrated chronicle on the graphic art of punk style, from period concert posters and flyers to fanzines and record sleeves, and much more, with over 900 images Celebrating a wide range of punk design in vinyl cover art, posters, flyers, fanzines, and other ephemera, The Art of Punk highlights the movement primarily within graphic design and print, while also considering its impact on wider popular culture. Punk was based on immediacy—an often-inspired amateurism and underground, close-knit communities that burned brightly but were not intended to extend beyond the gig, the event, the scene, the moment. Punk songs by such legendary bands as the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Damned, the New York Dolls, the Germs, and the Clash tended to be short, fast, and aggressive, and the oft-repeated credo “If it can’t be said in three minutes, it’s not worth saying” was adopted as standard practice, extending in turn to an entire ethos for the whole subculture. The Art of Punk is arranged chronologically, and by genre, and features more than 900 visual examples both by uncredited artists and internationally renowned designers and design groups, alongside interviews with, and commentary by, many of the artists concerned.

The Def Jam label gave America hip hop. But who gave America Def Jam? Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin did.The Men Behind Def Jam examines the most unlikely history of the legendary label that started life in a student dorm and went on to introduce the world to LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, DMX and Jay-Z. Hustler-incarnate Russell Simmons and ex-punk Rick Rubin, the odd couple, fought and triumphed against all predictions to change the course of popular music forever.Here is an honest appraisal of these rival personalities, the quarrels, the successes and the failures of the spectacular Def Jam adventure. With Rubin and Simmons now pursuing other interests, the label continues with others at the helm, but the story of Def Jam’s birth and coming of age makes for one of pop music’s most feisty and fascinating legends.

Dead Kennedys routinely top both critic and fan polls as the greatest punk band of their generation. Their debut, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, in particular, is regularly voted among the top albums in the genre. The book uses dozens of first-hand interviews, photos and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group who would become mired in controversy almost from the get-go. It applauds the band's key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening - and enormously funny.