A fair few years ago now, along with my sister, I had a shop/gallery called The Last Chance Saloon in Waterloo, London.

It was one of the first places in the UK that sold/had exhibitions of what came to be known as lowbrow art – a kind of loose movement that amongst other things often mixed pop-art, a kind of graphic cartoonery, rock’n’roll, hotrod-esque and Cramps-esque culture into some kind of mondo swirl. The work of Robert Williams and Juxtapoz magazine would be good starting/reference points.

Along which lines, we had the first UK exhibitions by Frank Kozik and Coop but drawing from this side of the big pond we had what I think was the first ever exhibition by Vince Ray (followed by another two).

I can’t now remember which of the three exhibitions featured his Death Of The Teenage Death Song painting although it’s one of the few times that I’ve really wanted to buy a piece of original art but I didn’t quite have the money at the time I think.

The artwork here is a later version of the painting – I have a vague memory of taking some photographs of the original painting but I’m not sure I did and I’m less sure than that about where they would be if I had.

Ah well. I have the memory.

Visit Mr Vince Ray in the ether here. Visit The Last Chance Saloon here. Juxtapoz magazine is here.

If you should be interested in more along the lines of lowbrow art/graphics then The Graphic Art Of The Underground book could be a place to wander to (and you may well come across a link back to the aforementioned The Last Chance Saloon).

Now, if you’re going to be a Soho rogue, well you probably couldn’t do better than this photograph. Something of a template for such things and indeed Afterhours Sleaze and Dignity itself.

It’s the playwright/author Frank Norman, from Daniel Farson’s Soho In The Fifties book and could well sit quite nicely next to the work of that other heart of town rascal and sometimes shutterbugger John Deakin.

As an aside Frank Norman co-wrote the musical Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be, various memoirs including Bang To Rights and the Soho ‘angin’ around tome Stand On Me, alongside co-authoring Soho Night And Day with a further fellow heart of town gent/scriber Jeffrey Bernard and later writing the 1971 fictionalised memoirs of a fairground gent Dodgem Greaser – which puts me in mind of the almost similar 1973 That’ll Be The Day film, with Mr Ringo Starr doing a turn as a ted.

As a further aside, I seem to remember going to see an exhibition of/that included Dan Farson’s work in the basement of – also heart of town-esque- Mark Powell’s tailors shop a few years ago now. I think it may have been part of A Celebration of Style – Cool London Through the Photographer’s Lens (more on which can be found here).

Peruse Soho In The Fifties here and here.

Well, talking of archetypal images that seem almost too perfect to be real/that seem to exist in some other imagined world (see Florence Stonebraker and pulp fiction archetypes)…

This image of a showgirl getting ready for the Folies Bergere show at the Hotel Tropicana, Las Vegas in 1969 is something of a favourite of such things…

It puts me in mind of almost hyper-real fable like, populuxe-esque simulacras of America in the 1960s… not a million miles away from something that might tumble from Mad Men, Magic City or some of the work of Erwin Olaf.

Discovered I’m not quite sure where but rediscovered via here.

I suppose once upon a time Alfred Cheney Johnston was an accomplished commercial photographer – albeit one whose work often focused on showgirls and celebrities and who had a certain artistic flair (while also being a member of the Algonquin Round Table alongside Ms Dorothy Parker, so he kept interesting company).

His work at the time was probably often higher end smut – “artistic” erotica rather than the p word… you could probably trace a line from his work to some of the more creative photographers whose work appeared in and around the likes of Skin Two magazine in the 1990s and earlier 2000s.

…but over time, his work has come to represent a particular spirit and aesthetic and as often is the way with “saucy” pictures and artwork, has gained a respectability as the years have gone by (see also E.J. Bellocq – though his work still retains/began with more of a transgressive darkness than Johnston’s).

Now, his work seems to perfectly capture elements of the 1920s and 1930s and it has been collected in the 2006 Jazz Age Beauties: The Lost Collection of Ziegfeld Photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston, compiled by Robert Hudovernik.

…now this should be an utterly lovely, decadent feeling item but… well, the printing / image quality. A considerable number of the photographs are pixellated and have the appearance of lossy web found JPEGs that have been resized to fill the page – which contrasts with the technical ability that appears to be on display in Mr Johnston’s work.

A shame really, because the book is a labour of love and the only (easily) available printed and bound collection of his work. Still worth a look-see but a slight missed opportunity.

Anyway, if you should have a hankering after 1920s flappers and showgirls in their draped and sometimes unclad finery, look no further than here and at The Smoking Stiletto here.

Visit the books at it’s publishers Rizzoli here.

Peruse the book here.

I came across this when I was looking up The Flesh Is Weak related artwork (see Day #4/365a).

Well, apart from her name – Florence Stonebraker – this is one of those times when vintage pulp fiction covers seem almost too perfect, almost as though they have been created as part of a contemporary art project that has set up to create archetypes of such things.

I find it interesting how as the years go by what once may have been quite throwaway, utilitarian, quickie, mainstream work becomes something else, comes to represent or signify something else… this is one of those times (see also the likes of Abram Games who I was recently pointed towards – lovely stuff).

Well, talking of populuxe-esque aesthetics (see Day #71/365a)…

Erwin Olaf often seems to take the technical proficiency and some of the aesthetics / visual arrest of fashion and a certain type of high-end creative commercial photography and turns it towards his own ends – in a way that although different in immediate visual impressions and palettes, isn’t that far removed from the likes of David Lachapelle or possibly Nick Clements and his recreation / simulacra of previous eras – both of whom have also extensively worked in creative commercial fields.

It is these four photographs in particular that I am drawn to, from his Grief, Hope, Rain trilogy – they seem to be a stylised, even stylistically idealised casting back, recreation and simulacra of a previous eras aesthetics and a point in history at which a nation and individuals heard of the death of their leader (the early 1960s and the passing of Mr Kennedy in particular, which Erwin Olaf has said that he has a strong, haunting personal memory of).

Within them Erwin Olaf uses his tools of fashion or commercial aesthetics overtones to create an actuality of emotion, substantiality and reality has wandered into these imagined worlds and points in time…

Visit Erwin Olaf here and towards the fine art world here (tread gently, some of his work is a little more grown-up, shall we say).

Peruse his books here (the volumes simply titled Erwin Olaf and Erwin Olaf Volume II may well be the ones to wander towards if the Hope, Grief, Rain work catches your eye and interest).

Well, I’ve mentioned Robert Mitchum in the 1970s around these parts before (see Day #3/365a)…

…The Big Sleep from 1978 is part of what I think of as his triptych of classic world weary roles from that time.

World weary but he still looks like if he wanted to flatten you, well, you would be flattened.

The film stars amongst others a veritable A-Z of once absolute A-list stars who are possibly past their peaks in various ways – all of which suits both the updating of Mr Chandler’s hardboiled noir and the sense of society turned corrupt/gone to seed/70s grime… so we have his good self Mr Robert Mitchum, Ms Joan Collins in her best 1970s sauce mode, sometime turn of the the decade countercultural bolthole escapist hood Edward Fox, Sarah Miles, Ollie Reed (also heading towards that big tired, bear of a man point), James Stewart, John Mills…

…oh and looking it up, future él Records gent and King Of Luxembourg to be Mr Simon Fisher-Turner.

Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I was planning a rewatch of it again soon but that makes that somewhat rather more likely, just to spot that particular chap.

The image is from one of the pressbook for the film – generally a good find as they seem like scarce, precious documents of celluloid stories from a time before there was such wall-to-wall, head-to-toe, easily available merchandise for such things.

View more of such things at Ms Joan Collins site here.

I shall no doubt be returning to this particular celluloid tale at some point in the future as it seem to have taken something of a longstanding hold of my mind but in the meantime I shall but post the slightly odd, stylised glory of this particular image.

Peruse the film here.

Well, this is like looking inside my own mind… (and is a tribute to public libraries and the good folk who choose their stock, as that’s where I first came across it). In a way part of me is confused that I’ve not come across it before as it’s right up my straße.

It’s a book of photographs of even then disappearing Mississipi Delta juke joints in the 1980s and quite frankly it’s like looking into another world, you can’t believe they actually existed looking like this in all their glory.

The decoration is often very home made and reminds me in a way of what has become known as Outsider Art; all hand made and homespun. Ramshackle but beautiful at the same time and possibly a homage to a time before slick all-conquering commerce and professionalism in culture (and quite possibly subcultures)… and the colours and lighting, well, don’t get me started, I’ll be here all day.

More than touch surreal here and there (plus I love the handwritten signs telling folk the prices and not to do dope and crack on the premises).

Often the figures in the photographs appear shadowy, insubstantial, fading away, which seems to reflect something about the world and the way it was also sliding from view…

Although geographically and historically from another place, I can recognise some of the spirit of the afterhours basement hostelries where I first discovered the world that became Afterhours.

Anyways, I shall not talk about this too much. I shall just say that I heartily recommend you seeking out a copy of the book.

Birney Imes at Rose Gallery

The publishers of the book: University Press of Mississipi.

Peruse the book here.

I came across the above photograph in Patsy Kensit’s biography, Absolute Beginner*.

It’s her mum and dad at Trader Vics and for me it really captures a certain back in the day glamour.

If you’re going to be a late 1950s/early1960s glamourous dame who looks like you should be out in a nightclub with Ruby from The Long Firm, well, this could well be your archetype.

Now, not to overly glamourise the misbehaviour of certain sections of the East End’s population back then but let’s just say her dad/family knew “the chaps” – two particular twins with the nomenclature of Kray shall we say, which makes their style in the photograph make thorough sense.

Apparently, years after her parents had passed away, when Patsy Kensit asked a family friend why her dad was wearing dark glasses, the reply was “Well, Pat, he was in disguise.” That just makes me chuckle and chuckle.

As you may well know, Ms Kensit starred in the film version of Colin McInnes novel Absolute Beginners: although it’s flawed, I’m somewhat fond of the film and its almost cartoon like take on late 1950s Soho / London… and it does have Sylvia Sims (The World Ten Times Over), that fine chronicler of English tales Ray Davies looking for a quiet life and former Profumo Scandal feature performer Mandy Rice-Davies as his wife in it. Good for starters indeed.

Peruse the book here: Absolute Beginner: The Autobiography, the film here Absolute Beginners and the novel from whence it sprung here.

Trader Vic’s is still around and Ms Kensit’s folks wouldn’t look out of place today. Visit it in the ether here.

Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders photography project/book seems to be pretty much a textbook example of how to create a respectful portrait of a closely knit subculture; one viewed by Mr Lyon as a “participant observer” (to quote Martin Parr and Gerry Badger in their The Photobook series) – Danny Lyon was a member of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcyle Club that he photographed but also there is a sense of him being one step removed and of offering an objective viewpoint or recording.

In a way they remind me of Karlheinz Weinberger’s 1950s photographs of Swiss rock’n’roll/biker rebels (see Day #56/365a).

Those in Weinberger’s photographs have been said to have created their own version of rock’n’roll that made you think they had only ever experienced the original source via an out of tune radio; looking at Danny Lyon’s photographs, I can imagine them having tumbled back in time to become that source.

The Bikeriders photographs are one of those times when the past that has been captured is almost too picture perfect; I don’t mean that in any negative way – this is captured as seen, documentary photography but there’s just such a natural, striking stylishness to them and their subjects/subject matter.

It is a collection of photographs that you see the word seminal applied to and in this case it is thoroughly justified.

Writing about them just makes me want to step away and go and dig out my copy of the book again.

You can view a fair few photographs from The Bikeriders at Magnum Photos here.

An original copy of the book will cost a fair pence, pounds and dollars nowadays…. it was republished by Chronicle Books, although that’s now out of print also…

…but it has been republished relatively recently by American fine art photography group Aperture. More details on that edition here.