Punk’s Dead

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Simon Barker

Michael Bracewell

Greil Marcus

Divus, Prague, 2011, English

Nonfiction, Art and Cultural History; Nonfiction, Photography

ISBN: 9788086450650

From the Publisher. "In 1976, when I moved into the St. James Hotel in London, I bought myself one of the cheapest pocket cameras available. Fully automatic, with no controls or settings, it just required a simple slot-in film cartridge. An idiot could use it — and I did.

I knew I didn't want to be like other photographers, so I chose never to take a black and white photograph or focus the camera. Subconsciously I concentrated on the women and artists at the heart of what would later be known as 'punk' in London.

Women such as Jordan, Siouxsie, Debbie Juvenile, Tracie O'Keefe, Ari Up, Poly Styrene and Nico
Artists and writers such as Malcolm Mclaren, Helen Wellington-Lloyd aka Helen of Troy, Bertie Marshall aka Berlin and Derek Jarman.

The book Punk’s Dead is a product of that camera and those times - my family album covering the years 1976 to 78. The photos you see in it were all unplanned, spur of the moment shots taken by myself for myself and, up until now, with never a thought given to publication. In over thirty years, they have only been seen by a handful of close friends. I used to think they weren't good enough to show people. Now I think they are almost too good." — SIX aka Simon Barker

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Anna Sui

On Anna Sui’s Book List

This is a beautiful book by Simon Barker, who worked at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s Seditionaries store in the 1970s, is full of very personal photos of everyone from that scene. Simon was a member of the Bromley Contingent (Sex Pistols followers and fans, Siouxsie Sioux, Jordan, Debbie Juvenile, Philip Salon, Tracie O’Keefe, Soo Catwoman, Steve Severin, and Billy Idol).

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