The world’s first punk record label, Ork Records, emerged in 1975 as the brainchild of Terry Ork, a SoCal cinephile who, after meeting Warhol’s clique shooting a surf film, relocated to NYC in 1968 for its underground post-disco scene and The Factory. Ork led the success of the club CBGB, and his fledgling Ork Records went on to release raucous debuts by Television and Richard Hell, as well as legendary recordings from Lester Bangs, The Feelies, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Blondie and The Ramones. Ork Records underlies punk mythology as a leading story of an underdog in a world of hustlers. It is riddled with heartbreak, financial straits and raw ambition. A musical narrative, Ork Records: New York, New York is a box compilation curated and released by Numero Group, giving voice to the forgotten genesis of punk and the birth of the New York indie scene ever after.

via Numero Group

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In the 1970s and ’80s East Village punk art scene, Jimmy DeSana was among those bringing photography into conversation with his compelling and at times explicit work. In addition to his staged photos, DeSana photographed stars of downtown New York’s art and music scene, including Debbie Harry, David Byrne and Laurie Anderson. DeSana’s art graced the cover of the Talking Heads album More Songs about Buildings and Food and attracted the attention of William S. Burroughs, who penned the introduction to his Submission collection.

Jimmy DeSana: Suburban is the first print collection from his series of the same name, made throughout the late ’70s and into the ’80s. His nudes were intertwined with various everyday objects and lit with gel-covered Tungsten lights, suggesting both physical comedy and sadomasochism. “I don’t really think of [Suburban] as erotic,” DeSana said, “I think of the body as an object. I attempted to use the body but without the eroticism some photographers use frequently. I think I de-eroticized a lot of it… but that is the way the suburbs are, in a sense.” DeSana: Suburban is edited by Dan Nadel and Laurie Simmons, DeSana’s longtime roommate and friend, and offers access to an early, crucial body of DeSana’s work.

via Aperture/Salon 94

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In 1983, legendary photographer Mary Ellen Mark first photographed Erin “Tiny” Charles, a homeless 13-year-old sex worker with dreams of a horse farm, diamonds, furs and children. Tiny was just one of Mark’s eight subjects for “Streets of the Lost,” a photo series in Life magazine documenting Seattle’s homeless and troubled youth working as pimps, prostitutes, panhandlers and small-time drug dealers.

In 1984, Tiny became the main subject of Streetwise, a film directed by Mark’s husband Martin Bell. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 1985, propelling Tiny’s story into a sort of documentary cult status. In tandem with her husband’s film, Mary Ellen Mark released the accompanying photo book Streetwise. In the thirty years since, Mark has sustained her relationship with Tiny, continuing to photograph and at times interview her. Tiny, Streetwise Revisited now reveals these intimate portraits of Erin “Tiny” (née Charles) Blackwell and her 10 children along with conversations between Tiny, Mary Ellen Mark and Martin Bell. The photos speak to consistent issues of poverty, class, race and addiction against the evolving backdrop of time.

via Aperture

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California-based trio Fuzz—fronted by prolific musician Ty Segall—return with II, the awaited sequel to their eponymous 2013 debut. Segall, with longtime collaborator Charles Moothart on guitar and Roland Cosio on bass, explores the prog, proto-metal and hard-rock influences known to inform his idiosyncratic sound. II is what you get when three supremely talented musicians geek out on the stuff looping through their headphones back in high school: Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. The result is distortion-drenched and well-honed, full of indulgent noodling and virtuoso jams, managing to be both hard rock nostalgic and gratifyingly fresh.

via In The Red

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With her heavy fringe, cat-eye and simple chic, French chanteuse Françoise Hardy was not only the muse for the likes of Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan, she embodied the modishness and creativity of 1960s Paris. Hardy’s prolific career began with five LPs en français, released yearly from 1962 to 1966. These albums, each named after their hit track, showcased her evolving style, maturing talent and inevitable stardom. Often described as “a pop singer with the heart of a chanteuse,” Hardy differentiated herself from her contemporaries by writing her own music regarding love and loneliness, deftly merging the French chanteuse tradition with blues, jazz, folk and rock.

Future Days Recording, a sub-label of Light in the Attic Records, will now reissue Hardy’s five iconic albums remastered from the original tapes—1962’s Tous les garçons et les filles, 1963’s Le Premier Bonheur du jour, 1964’s Mon amie la rose, 1965’s L’Amitié and 1966’s La Maison où j’ai grandi. Hardy, now seventy-one, provides an exclusive interview for the liner notes of the collection. (Future Days Recording)

via Light in the Attic Records

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Meadowland is a gorgeous directorial debut from cinematographer-cum-auteur Reed Morano, starring Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson, with whom Morano worked on the set of last year’s Skeleton Twins. A cathartic meditation on loss and emptiness, Meadowland grips a once-happy couple in a nihilist’s New York City as they reel from the abduction of their son. The film is infused with moments of startling compositional beauty as it sifts through the deep despair of hours, days and weeks, blurring the poignancy and passage of time. Adam Taylor’s score hefts emotional weight, and the acting enhances even the slightest, quietest moments with a phenomenal supporting cast of Juno Temple and John Leguizamo.

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Helmed by critically-acclaimed writer and director Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre and True Detective) Beasts of No Nation follows Agu, a child soldier recruited by a band of guerilla fighters when civil war breaks out in his West African nation. Golden-Globe winner Idris Elba (The Wire and Luther) stars as the charismatic and cruel leader, Commandant, who enlists the nine-year-old Agu (newcomer Abraham Attah) after he is separated from his family and former life. Adapted from the 2005 best-selling novel by Nigerian-American author Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation follows an age-old and sadly modern-day story about the psychological trauma and brutal reality of indoctrination and exploitation. The film was underwritten by Netflix and will premiere online to a wide audience.

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Rarely are retrospective books collated by the person they feature. But in concurrence with her fiftieth birthday, Cindy Crawford, the Illinois-born brunette whose beauty mark punctuated fashion photography from the late ’80s to the millennium, recalls her life and career through photographs, personal comments and reflections. With chapter headings such as “The Art of Modeling,” “Cindy, Inc.” and “What I Would Tell My Younger Self,” the substantial hardback Becoming could only be about Crawford: supermodel, mother, businesswoman and health & fitness guru.

To be expected, the small selection of family photos are the most intimately telling, and her early model shots convey a sense of imminent potential. Later photographs exhibit a model at the height of her powers, delivering a performance like only a muse can. The lesser section of more mature snapshots evince a woman who has crafted a life out of a career and a career out of her life. Even the nudes make an appearance, highlighting how brazen yet wholesome Crawford could be and still is.

She’s the all-American girl/success story, and she’s happy to tell us all about it. Happy birthday, Cindy!

Barney McDonald: What made you decide to look back on the last 30 years and beyond, and is it easier to do so having such a vast body of photographic work?

Cindy Crawford: A few key people in my life have been encouraging me to do a book for some time. I knew what I didn’t want to do—a health and beauty book or a coffee table book of all pictures—but it took much longer to figure out what I did want. After doing Oprah’s Master Class, I realized I’ve learned a few universal lessons along my own life’s journey. I had the idea to marry 50 iconic images with 50 ‘lessons’ to celebrate turning 50. The format changed a bit along the way, but that was the original intention.

BM: Do you consider yourself lucky to have worked when you did as opposed to the multi-media, multi-dimensional environment we’re in today?

CC: I loved being a model in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with some of the founding fathers of fashion photography, like Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, along with other greats, like Herb Ritts and Helmut Newton. My biggest ‘fashion’ moment was walking down the Versace runway with Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell, lip-syncing the words from the “Freedom ’90” video we’d just done with David Fincher. The opportunity this new generation of models has is the ability to take more control of their own image through the use of social media. I think that direct connection with their fans is great.

BM: You say in the book that you always approached modeling as a job: “It’s what I do, not who I am.” How did you manage that separation, and do you think people understood that?

CC: I definitely think growing up in the Midwest instilled me with a good work ethic. I showed up on time, prepared and ready to work. I still do. Modeling is a great job, but it is a job.

“When I first moved to New York,
my mom and I would ‘have coffee together’
every morning over the phone.”
— Cindy Crawford

BM: You certainly transcended modeling to become a model of style, health and well-being. Professionally speaking, do you consider that your greatest accomplishment?

CC: I don’t look at my life in terms of accomplishments. There are a lot of benchmarks that stand out for me: my first Vogue cover, doing my own exercise video and skincare line, deciding to have my children at home. Modern life is so busy and I consider getting through each day an accomplishment. Balancing motherhood, marriage, health, work, friends and philanthropy can be overwhelming, and some days definitely go more smoothly than others!

BM: At what point do you think family became more important than your work, if ever?

CC: Family has always been more important than work. When I first moved to New York, my mom and I would ‘have coffee together’ every morning over the phone. I started making new friends who became like family and I’ve always treasured my friendships and tried to be a good friend. [My husband] Rande and I both hold each other and our family life as the most important thing so we don’t have to try hard to make decisions that put family first.

BM: What do you hope people see when they look through this book?

CC: I write in the dedication to my children that the pictures are a celebration of my career and what I’ve been up to for the last 30 years, but more important are the lessons contained in the words. Hopefully some of the things I learned can help them and others.

via Rizzoli

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