In association with Los Angeles-based photographer Michael Grecco’s touring multimedia exhibition “DAYS OF PUNK” – which opened at MOAH:CEDAR earlier this month – there will be a free punk concert in the adjacent MOAH: CEDAR Memorial Hall on February 25. Doors open at 6PM and music begins at 7PM. The event is part of the MOAH:CEDAR Concert Series and is specially programmed to happen during the run of “Days of Punk.” The headliner is veteran O.C.-based band T.S.O.L., and continuing MOAH’s support of Antelope Valley music artists, two local bands will open: Shiiva and The Downsides.
The exhibition “DAYS OF PUNK” can be viewed during MOAH:CEDAR’s regular Saturday hours, 11AM-8PM.
Celebrating punk music and culture, the photographs featured in DAYS OF PUNK date back to the late ‘70s through the early ‘90s, when Grecco documented the nightclub and concert scenes in New York and Boston as punk roared into the U.S. He was working as an Associated Press photographer, lensman for legendary rock station WBCN-FM, and was a self-described “club kid” who had a unique opportunity to embed himself into this revolutionary scene as both a chronicler and a participant. Grecco captured for posterity a riotously outspoken time in pop culture history, with all its raw energy and outrageous antics.
On view at MOAH:CEDAR will be Grecco’s photographs of artists including Adam Ant, B-52s, Billy Idol, Bow Bow Wow, The Clash, Dead Kennedys, Devo, Human League, Human Sexual Response, Aimee Mann, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics), and more. In addition to the photographs, visitors to the exhibition will experience soundscapes specially created for “Days of Punk” in collaboration with Roger Miller and Peter Prescott of the cult band Mission of Burma. The video component was put together in collaboration with Jeremy Troy, and includes archival footage that Grecco himself shot during the punk era.
Additionally, posters, magazines and other memorabilia from back in the day – all from Grecco’s personal collection – will be displayed. These notably include concert posters created by Dini Lamott, a photographer, artist, and member of the punk rock band Human Sexual Response, who are featured in both the book and the MOAH:CEDAR exhibition. The museum is also making special wallpaper collaging magazine covers and Lamott’s images to hang in the bathrooms and back hallway to harken people back to dates in rock clubs with punk posters and flyers plastering the walls.
Image: Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys, Boston, Massachusetts, 1981
(from the exhibition)
