[Photographs]: 1970s New York Punk

New York, 1970. Unbound. Fine. A collection of vintage prints by *Soho News* photographer Michael Uffer of the downtown New York punk scene of the end of the 1970s. 21 vintage black and white prints Signed and stamped by the photographer, some dated, each measuring 11" x 22". All the prints are about fine. An archive of unseen photographs documenting the late '70s downtown punk scene taken at various venues, most notably at Max's Kansas City. The collection depicts the musicians and artists of the scene at their most unvarnished including Johnny Thunders with the Heartbreakers; Tomata du Plenty of The Screamers; Ari Up, Viv Albertine, and Tessa Pollitt of The Slits; Lydia Lunch; Wendy O. Williams; Edith Massey with Edie and the Eggs; the Dead Boys; Jerry Only; James Chance and the Contortions; and Middle Class, among others. New York indisputably (well, disputably, but in that case wrong-headedly) created punk's first home with musicians like David Johansen and Johnny Thunders creating a new sound based on the trash culture of the late 1960s. *All Music Guide* describes, "Their sound was basic (two-minute, three-chord rockers) and stripped-down (just guitar, bass, and drums), and their attitude, bringing a sense of dumb fun back to rock & roll, stood in sharp contrast to nearly every prevailing musical trend of the '70s." Meanwhile the likes of Lydia Lunch of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, who was inspired to run away to New York because of the New York Dolls, and Wendy O. Williams, forged ahead creating a new image of women in music. These photographs show gigs candidly with cornflakes being strewn over the fans, James Chance of the Contortions collapsed on stage, Wendy O. with black electrical tape over her nipples screaming into a microphone, an anonymous fan covered in what appears to be blood laying on stage during a Middle Class set while a girl spastically dances in the foreground, and Ari Up of the Slits in a dingy hotel room. The raw power of punk can be seen in this assemblage of vintage early Downtown Scene images.