Logo #145: Blanks '77

Blanks '77's clawlike logo (there's that pesky unifying circle again) was created in 1996 by singer Bones DeLarge of Austin punk band and "A Clockwork Orange" fetishists Lower Class Brats. Here's Blanks '77 now, performing "I Wanna Be A Punk." Theoretically, this should have been at #177 but as the New Man I felt it was paramount to reject sentimental hogwash in 2008 - except for this, of course.

Logo #137: Bad Brains

Designed by David Lee "Dave Ratcage" Parsons - a.k.a. Mir - for the cover of Bad Brains' self-titled debut 1982 LP on ROIR, the concept of which was suggested by ROIR label boss Neil S. Cooper (June 15, 1930 - August 13, 2001). Crystallizing the feelings of a lot of people for whom wealth had yet to trickle down, it's a logo that these days could be seen at the very least as incitement to terror for those peace officers who haven't familiarized themselves with '80s hardcore punk rock apart from that one "CHiPS" episode. If you got hit with a sudden frisson of recognition on seeing this logo, you know way more about Bad Brains than do I. I never "got" reggae, although I do rather like that one reggae song where they talk about "Jah" and "rasta" and "Africa" and "ganja." Which song is that? In an ideal world, we would've had vastly more speed-reggae-dub offspring from Bad Brains' example but instead of course we got 311 and Sublime - speaking of which, am I really the only music critic who found the lyrics for Sublime's "Caress Me Down" to be vile and repellent on multiple levels?

"You hate me 'cause I got what you need / a pretty little daughter that we call Mexie / and if you wanna get beat physically / it will be over in a minute if you...when I kiss Mexie it makes me feel horny / 'cause I'm the type of lover with the sensitivity / when she kiss my neck and tickle me fancy / she give me the right kind of love on Sunday morning..."

Logo #136: Coheed and Cambria

This "keywork" was created by graphic designer Wes Abbot in 2004 for the American prog band's debut CD "The Second Stage Turbine Blade." There's also a comic book that reveals what you may have missed had you not been listening to the record as intently as theoretically you should have. A saga of the Universe in reverse, it's somewhat lost on us dinosaurs who still have wax cylinders and telephones and get our milk in bottles and have far less time to watch four hours of DVD extras than once we use to.

Logo #115: MxPx

The cartoon punk kid mascot was drawn by John Nissen in 1994.

Logo #113: Gogol Bordello

Created for Gogol Bordello's "Gypsy Punks" meme (the slingshot is the "y" in "Gypsy") by Cindy Heller in 2005.

Logo #90: Screeching Weasel

Illustration by Paul Russel for Screeching Weasel's sophomorically sophomore 1988 LP "Boogada Boogada Boogada." Their attitude can be crystallized up quite eloquently in a lyric from the album's track "Nicaragua": "I hate your problems / I hate your politics / and I hate the way you smell / 2-3-4!" They break up and reform more times than The Blob. The most recent reformation (apart from the Protestant one) happened in 2004. Screeching Weasel was one of the lone sweet smells in the grunge-stained garbage pit that was the whiny '90s. Bandmember John "Jughead" Pierson's 2005 book, "Weasels in a Box," was about the vague vagaries of the pop-punk world - which, it turns out, was a microcosmic comment on the vicissitudes of fame itself. Ben Weasel remains Ben Weasel.

Logo #88: Adhesive

Micke Claesson (later Micke Fritz), singer and guitarist for Sweden politcal hardcore unit Adhesive, explains, "Our drummer, Robert Samsonowitz, designed the logo. It's based on an old Nothern Soul symbol. It first appeared in 1999." While the band only lasted from 1994 - 2002, this potent symbol - the fist inside the usually welcoming circle - has a long and storied history as a catalyst for agitation. Sprinters Tommie Smith's and John Carlos' Black Power salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, for example, or any number of political movements - American Indian Movement, Earth First!, Food Not Bombs, the United Farm Workers of America, and the Weather Underground - all using the simple gesture that can be replicated anywhere and just as quickly explained away by saying "I was stretching!"

Logo #80: The Dickies

Dickies guitarist Stan Lee reveals, "A girl named Lori McAdams did that for us in '77 or '78. Very early on. Awesome logo, isn't it? Like the Monkees' guitar logo or the Milwaukee Brewers catcher's mitt, it's great as well." A friend of the band, McAdams was one of legions of friends who have, since the twilight of pop, been drafted into service crafting the public image of a band based on whether or not they could draw a straight line. Or, in this case of Holism lying limp, wouldn't. The Dickies use to have a keyboard player in Chuck Wagon (born Robert Elliott Davis, August 11, 1956 - June 6, 1981) until his untimely suicide, reportedly spurred by a messy break-up. They haven't used keyboards since. Somewhat relatedly, the day before he died, five men in Los Angeles were announced by the CDC to have a rare disease that would ultimately become known as AIDS.

In some respects, maybe Chuck was the lucky one.

Logo #64: GISM

Designed by GISM mainman Sakevi Yokoyama in 1985. Yokoyama, in a recent e-mail: "AK-47 T-SHIRTS FIRST USED IN 1985 MAY 30TH AT NAKANO PUBLIC HALL." Right! Just as SPK stood for SepPuKu, Surgical Penis Klinik, Socialistisches Patienten Kollektiv and System Planning Korporation, GISM had many bombs in its arsenal of acronyms: General Imperialism Social Murder, Gnostic Idiosyncrasy Sonic Militant, and God In the Schizoid Mind. This video footage from 1982 leaves a clue as to how wild and free their initial appearances were. Sakevi is in the beret and the studded leather jacket; he steals the microphone from the late Edo Akemi, lead singer of the band Jagatara. The fight rolls on as the mostly oblivious band just keeps playing. More fun: one press account, corroborated to this reporter by artist and composer John Duncan, maintains that Sakevi attacked a salaryman (white-collar worker) on a Tokyo commuter train for staring at him by using a can of hairspray and a lighter as a makeshift flamethrower.

It's curious how many people, even in this postmodernist day and/or age, make apologies for the quality of, say, their film footage. If any lesson was learned from the House of Sex, it would be Malcolm McLaren's truism, "Don't play, don't give the game away." You'd be surprised how many creative people argue away the power of their art by apologizing for anything from objectively imperceptible flaws to practically invisible mistakes. A corollary to the McLaren Edict is that of Pee-Wee Herman: "I meant to do that." GISM's smash hit "Nuclear Armed Hogs" can be heard here. After guitarist Randy Uchida died at the age of 45 on February 10, 2001 of cancer, the band effectively dissolved, with Yokoyama immersing himself in more art and design. At least Uchida wasn't around to see all the bad stuff happen that autumn - but he'd had a good full life, and there was nothing left about which to be sorry.

Shattered Faith: Logo #19

Designed by Shattered Faith lead vocalist Spencer Alston Bartsch around 1978 or 1979. The (abstract) cross, the communal circle, even the abstract halo à la da Vinci's "The Last Supper" - it's all there. An Orange County punk band that started around the same time as T.S.O.L. and Social Distortion, their later logo - that of a skull casting the shadow of a crucifix - further illustrated themes of doubt and longing both political and religious. Religion in punk rock is always a dicey opera, if only because punk's dedication to rebellion and libertinism makes the appearance of religion at best intrusive, and at worst, violently unnecessary. Possibly the solace that the church takes is that if the China White and the Stoli doesn't get to them, reformation and religion ultimately might. When they weren't overturning the tables of the money-lenders, Shattered Faith occasionally showed up on interesting things like their Spot-produced tracks on the brilliantly titled New Underground "Life Is Boring So Why Not Steal This Record" compilation LP, alongside Germs, Zurich 1916, Carl Stone, and L.A. Free Music Society's The Doo-Dooettes.

Anti-Nowhere League: Logo #16

Created by Nick "Animal" Kulmer in 1980, it...well, let's just let Nick crystallize this one eloquently, shall we? "I designed it, mate - and it first appeared on my arm (as a tattoo) in 1980...eazy...". I LIKE that. Just...easy. It subsequently became the cover star of the 1981 "Streets of London" LP; the logo for NWOBHM band Streetfighter is somewhat similar but it appeared in 1982 and since when do heavy metal bands rip off their punk brethren and/ or sestren? Hovering somewhere between Jack Kirby and Jack Chick in its level of folk art panache, it's a symbol of a punk rock band that delivers, in its grooves, what the mace and fist promise physically. Indeed, after their first live action in Tunbridge Wells, the local press called it a "cacophony of noise" - no mean feat in the wake of melody's faded dream, spit up and reversed by noise and nihilism as it was in 1981. Anti-Nowhere League drummer Michael Bettell (February 26, 1962 - September 9, 2003) is now fêted with the annual Drumming Up Hope event, which raises money for local Essex hospitals. No word on how many people are treated each year for mace wounds, though.