Logo #118: The Beat

1980 was a great year for logos: Bad Religion, Hüsker Dü, White Spirit, and so on. This lovely lady was drawn for The Beat by Hunt Emerson that year. Emerson: "You know the story about the old '60s photo I spotted in a newspaper of Prince Buster dancing with the Beat Girl. I don't know who she was - she was never identified by us. I wonder where she is now - probably fat with six kids... The Beat wanted a logo and I wanted to do something to rival Jerry Dammers' Walt Jabsco; I was so envious of that perfect bit of design and marketing. Well, the Beat got their logo, which is still very much recognised, but I don't think she was as good as The Specials...but of course, not many were as good as the Specials, were they?" Dave Wakeling of The Beat, speaking to Positive Energy of Madness, remarks on the trouble with skinheads, "That’s why The Beat invented the Beat Girl. When we used to see a lot of the skinhead fights, I said it is because the Two-Tone Man hasn’t got no one to show off to other than his skinhead's mates. You know what it is like, when you’ve got a room full of blokes showing off to each other, you end up with a broken nose contest. But if you’ve got a nice-looking girl in the room, you’ll be so busy showing off to the girl, you won’t have time to break each other’s noses. Within 3 months of inventing The Beat Girl, we got loads of girls in Beat Girl costumes at our gigs. With all the skinheads showing off like crazy to the girls, we hardly had any fights after that." Emerson's much wilder, slightly less Nobel Peace Prizeworthy work these days appears in the always entertaining pages of the terminally worthwhile Fortean Times.

Logo #117: Amebix

This stylized version of an Austin Osman Spare painting was appropriated by Amebix founder Rob "The Baron" Baron in 1983. Noted Osman Spare expert Robert Ansell: "The title of the picture is "The Vampires are Coming" and it was most probably item no.152 in Spare's exhibition at the White Bear Tavern in 1953. That show was not successful and the picture reappeared as item 132 in his final exhibition at the Archer Gallery in 1955. Spare usually worked through the summer for a winter show, so yes, I would suggest 1953 is the likely date it was produced. It is currently in the private collection of Kenneth and Steffi Grant."

Logo #116: Kraftwerk

Created in 1970 by Kraftwerk founder Ralf Hütter, the traffic cone appeared on "Kraftwerk 1," "Kraftwerk 2," and countless bootlegs. Well, you could probably count them if you really wanted to. Kraftwerk occupy a rare, precious space in global pop culture consciousness in terms of popularity, influence, legacy and singularity of vision. Frank Sinatra, The Sex Pistols, Beethoven, Neil Young and The Carter Family inhabit that same space - but beyond that, it's an extortionately short list. Speaking of which, Kraftwerk only speak of desire in "The Model"; practically everything else is an abstract. But they make such beautiful concrete abstract music that no one notices. And they're just really square German guys who ride bicycles and go to the discotheque and drink coffee and make incredibly soulful, relevant and human music that just gets better with age. Their recent "Elektrokardiogramm," performed on their recent series of tours, is gorgeous, ironic (the song ends in a visual flat-line), and downright funky. They're also hugely influential on the Literalist style of composition, but that may be because they're rather literal about the things they present (cf. the musique concrète stylings of "Autobahn"). The first time I saw them live, at the Palladium in Los Angeles in the late '90s, the line stretched double around the block. It was so crowded that when they did "The Man-Machine," this guy gently and rhythmically pushed people out of the way who were obstructing his view. That guy was Ernie Sabella, a noted character actor who played Leah Remini's dad on that episode of "Saved by the Bell" where Slater and Preppie and the rest of the gang went to summer camp. Kraftwerk! The great equalizer! I shall love them always; they make me happy and they make me cry and they are my spiritual and aesthetic godfathers.

Logo #115: MxPx

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

Logo #114: Dream Theater

Created for Dream Theater by Charlie Dominici in 1989.

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 #112: Atari Teenage Riot

Nic Endo: "Alec Empire designed the logo with graphic designer Henni Hell in 1991 in Berlin. It morphed over the years. When it first appeared on the ATR DJ releases, it looked more like a mix between a socialist symbol and corporate design logo. This was Alec's concept: a left-wing political unit in the capitalist music industry. Later on, the logo changed into a more Asian-looking throwing star, which symbolized a weapon.

Carl Crack's birthday was on the 5th of May, 1971."

One of the better songs to come out of the DHR stable was Shizuo's cover of The Cramps' "New Kick."