Carpet Bombing Culture – Banksy and Punk in London
In the realm of counter culture, there is no shortage of publishers pumping out the good word with the best of intentions.
However, when it comes to offering more than the barren message and an added layer of aesthetically pleasing attention to detail and a tad bit of eye candy, pickings are slim.
Enter Carpet Bombing Culture.
Essentially, Carpet Bombing Culture is a publishing house that thoroughly understood early on that the delivery of premium quality art does not have to compromise the intensity of the messaging that is meant to be conveyed – au contraire, with their premium offerings and meticulous attention to detail, they infiltrate the mainstream and capitalise on en vogue topics to leap in with maximum input without ever diluting the tenets of them pursuing the guerrilla warfare that is 21st century everyday life.
Carpet Bombing Culture has accomplished a business model which enables them to be agile, affordable and relevant without running danger of being less compelling than any of its mainstream competitors, with the added bonus of Carpet Bombing Culture having its focus firmly set on being a catalyst to ignite action and provoke thoughts.
An example par excellence for Carpet Bombing Culture’s approach is the book on a street artist that has been covered a myriad times before by both mainstream and independent media, i.e. Banksy.
CBC’s “You Are An Acceptable Level Of Threat” clocks in at two-hundred and forty pages and not only comprises the depiction of Banksy’s street work from the late 1990s to the present day via five hundred photographs, but embeds it in contextualising commentary, descriptions to help the uninitiated understand and illuminating essays.
In a sea of books on Banksy, this definitely constitutes a highlight and the essential one to have in your library.
Let’s enter the time machine and head back to examine the genesis of punk rock in a photographic manner, shan’t we?
Carpet Bombing Culture’sPunk London 1977 zeroes in on the epicentre of where punk rock emanated from, i.e., the venue known as the Roxy situated in the middle of a derelict slum called Covent Garden via the photography of Derek Ridgers.
The result is a collection of over one hundred and fifty photographs, which expertly and opulently document how birth was given to one of the most significant subcultural phenomena of the twentieth century.
No matter if you have been there and done that or joined the movement when it became more palatable in the mid-1990s, this book will engage your senses as it captures the spirit, youthful energy and uniqueness of the first wave of protagonists shaping a movement for which there was no blueprint at the time. The result is a raw and beautifully intense depiction of what rebellion looked like when it was in its most original state, long before it became commodified.
Highlights include photographs that I have not seen in this form before, e.g. Adam performing before Adam & The Ants formed; a very early incarnation of The Slits fronted by Ari; Debbie Harry channelling her exuberance at the Hammersmith Odeon and a youthful Dave Vanian of The Damned.
Given the quality of the abovementioned release, if you got a modicum of appreciation for underground culture, checking out Carpet Bombing Culture’s catalogue of releases is a mandatory exercise.
