TIME TO REBOOT

Photo by Lars Tunbjörk.

LINKED UP 106

6 Essential Essays by Avant-Garde Critic Tom Johnson

The acclaimed critic of Downtown New York’s avant-garde, Tom Johnson, has died aged 85. (Crack)

Your Favourite Newsletter’s Favourite Newsletters

A chain-letter love note to an expanding multiverse. (Links I Would Gchat You if We Were Friends)

The Gamification of Pop Music

With the rise of streaming - and a fantasy football–style approach to chart analytics - fandoms are working the system for their favourite pop stars. (The Ringer)

Erol Alkan Marks 18 Years Since TRASH Closure With 2002 DJ Set Recording

The London DJ looks back on a decade of his iconic club night that propelled the electroclash sound to the top of the city's 2000s party scene. 

(DJ Mag)

Cold Cave’s ‘Life Magazine’: A Haunting Tribute to Nostalgia

In 2007, the band Cold Cave wrote the song ‘Life Magazine’ shortly after learning that the iconic publication had ceased printing. “The notion that something called LIFE had died, after decades of being so iconic…was just too existential.” (LIFE)

Kate Bush With Geoff Campbell - The Eleven O'Clock Number

Geoff Campbell talks about Kate Bush's music in his own videos, alongside Nick Jensen in Eleventh Hour, in the first episode of a new series about the sleeve-notes of skate video soundtracks. (Skate Bylines)

Offerings: Gino Iannucci

We are excited to start our year off in the strongest way possible by publishing an “Offerings” interview with Gino Iannucci. It was a privilege to connect with someone who has long been an inspiration to all of us. Find out more about his selection and much more… (Slam City Skates)

Warm Portraits of English Football Fans Before the Premier League

Going to the Match - In the 1991/1992 season, photographer Richard Davis set out to understand how the sport’s supporters were changing, inadvertently capturing the end of an era. (Huck)

Don’t Call It a Gym. It’s a Sporting Club

Some fitness centres are trading in the minimalist industrial aesthetic for midcentury nostalgia and country-club preppiness. (NYT)

A Japanese Oasis Grows in Brooklyn

At Chowa Library with Ray Suzuki and Yudai Kanayama, the friends behind a radical new approach to design, craft and not being on your phone. 

(Drake's)

Five Fits With: Porches, Who Likes to Express Himself “Almost Too Much”

“The clothes and the fashion and the music, they’re sort of inseparable,” says the New York–based songwriter. (Esquire)

Celebrated New Yorker Writer Enlisted as Model

How do you follow up a couple best-selling books? If you’re Patrick Radden Keefe, you star in a J.Crew ad. (NYT)

THESE AMERICANS

A selection of photographs from Will Vogt’s book These Americans (2023), a deep dive into a world of privilege and excess, spanning 1969 to 1996. More information here.

DOWNTOWN 81

In 1981, writer Glenn O’Brien, Swiss photographer Edo Bertoglio, and Jean-Michel Basquiat hit the streets of lower Manhattan to make a movie about the bombed out bohemia that they knew. Left incomplete due to money problems and assembled for release in 2000, Downtown 81 became a window on a lost world of life on the margins and crazy creative ferment. Featuring John Lurie, Fab Five Freddy, and Debbie Harry, with musical performances by DNA, James White and the Blacks, and Kid Creole and the Coconuts - and Manhattan in all its mangy glory. 

(Via Osh)

SNOWED UNDER?

Yep.

LINKED UP 105

The ALD Aesthetic

Aimé Leon Dore changed how menswear markets, but a backlash is growing. (Mensweird)

The Life and Legacy of Gianni Agnelli, 22 Years After His Death

The talismanic head of Fiat, Ferrari, Juventus FC - and a dynastic clan often labelled ‘the Kennedys of Italy’ - remains more beguiling than ever… (Gentleman's Journal)

“Every Night Was Halloween” - How One ‘Camera Girl’ Captured the Madcap Style of 80s New York

Grace Jones, David Bowie and Debbie Harry feature alongside lesser known dancers in Sharon Smith’s Polaroids of the city’s club scene, where dressing up was your passport into the creative world. (The Guardian)

Hypnotic Scenes of 90s London Nightlife

Legendary photographer Eddie Otchere looks back at this epic chapter of the capital’s story in new photobook Metalheadz, Blue Note London 1994-1996. (Huck)

Eli Zabar and Flynn McGarry Think Running an NYC Restaurant Is Worth the Pain

“I always had, and still have, a fairly low opinion of people in the restaurant business,” the New York food impresario, celebrating the 50-year anniversary of his Upper East Side café, told chef wunderkind Flynn McGarry. (Interview)

London’s Best Greasy Spoons and Traditional Caffs, From E.Pellicci to the Regency Cafe

All hail the humble fry-up and hospitality from another time. (The Standard)

How Four Elder Millennial Indie Artists Embraced Middle Age in 2024

Vampire Weekend, How to Dress Well, Bat for Lashes, and Los Campesinos! all returned with their most rewarding albums in more than a decade. (Hearing Things)

Herb Sundays - MMXXIV

A global survey of Herb faves of 2024 + the year in Ghostly, and more. (Herb Sundays)

The List of Lists 2024

Friends of the blog weigh in on another chaotic year. (No Bells)

The POW Best Rap songs of 2024 

The undisputed truth or your money back… (Passion of the Weiss)

The Things We Got Wrong in 2024

The news media is wrong all the time. (Semafor)

2025 predictions

What to expect in the year to come... (8Ball)

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR

By Matt McCormick.

JACOB ROSENBERG

Installation photos from Right Before My Eye, a powerful visual journey through the skateboarding and hip-hop scenes from 1988 to 1998 by Jacob Rosenberg. 

More information here, via HVW8 Gallery.

FACILITY STUDIO

A selection of interesting framing styles by London-based Facility Studio.

CORBIN SHAW

'Chloe' (2024) by Corbin Shaw: cross stitch thread, crushed velvet mount, and steel frame.

LINKED UP 104

Listmania 2024

The year that was, summarised in silly and occasionally insightful short-form lists. (The FADER)

The Aggressive Beauty of DMV Crank, 2024’s Most Exciting Rap Subgenre

Marked by a mix of wild samples and delirious tempos, the scene is giving rise to striving young stars including Skino, Nino Paid, and Jaeychino. (Hearing Things)

Found Sounds

Crate-digging into the canon of music history, some of the year's most exciting songwriters and musicians tell us about the music they fell for in 2024. (The Line of Best Fit)

The 8 Worst Music Trends of 2024 (Stereogum)

Julia Fox, Stow Kelly, Cash Cobain and More Share Their 2024 Camera Roll Highlights

The year in photos, as seen through the eyes of Adam Rouhana, Lengua, Molly Manning Walker, Evilgiane, Faye Webster, and more of our favourite artists. (i-D)

The SSENSE 2024 Year in Review

A selection of stories that captured an absurd and often very trippy year. (SSENSE)

2024 Was a Ravenous Year for Restaurant Merch (Vogue)

Eating Above a Pub

Charlie Teasdale on London's best place to eat and drink… the pub. (Drake’s)

“What if I Tried This?” Designer Shinsuke Nakada on Archives, Ephemera and Creating Items That Seem Unlikely

Writer W. David Marx visited designer Shinsuke Nakada at his Tokyo studio, to explore his work on a unique capsule collaboration between Carhartt WIP and INVINCIBLE®. (Carhartt WIP)

“We Can Bury Anyone”: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine

Private messages detail an alleged campaign to tarnish Blake Lively after she accused Justin Baldoni of misconduct on the set of It Ends With Us. (NYT)

The Typography Maestro Getting Calls From Greta Gerwig and Robert Eggers

Teddy Blanks, the designer behind the memorable movie titles for films like Nosferatu and Barbie, has quietly become Hollywood’s go-to guy. (NYT)

To Design for Musicians, Caleb Vanden Boom Excavates “Little Gems of Imagery” From Their Songs

Having created work for the likes of Clairo and Vampire Weekend, the designer shares why the work is never just about the musician, but the fanbase too. (It's Nice That)

Honk if You Understand This Obscure Bumper Sticker 

Gone are the days of “Coexist” or “This car climbed Mt. Washington”. Bumper stickers have lately gotten a lot weirder, and much more niche. (NYT)

On the Couch With Freud (Bella, That Is)

The fashion designer - and great-granddaughter of Sigmund - analyses Kate Moss, Zadie Smith, and Kristin Scott Thomas on her new podcast. 

(Air Mail)

TYLER, THE CREATOR - THAT GUY

THE CURE FOR CHRISTMAS

FAIRYTALE OF LAST CHRISTMAS

Christmas card, 2024 by Aiden Miller.

VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA

New York City, 1976-1978. 

“Early one morning, near my home and on my way to someplace else, I crossed paths with a Santa Claus. I wanted to know who this guy was. Where did he come from? Why was he in my neighbourhood?

Then I discovered the “Volunteers of America”. It was the organisation behind the homeless men on Fifth Avenue who dressed as Santa Claus to collect money for the shelter in my neighbourhood. Most people on the sidewalks just walked past them, some made contributions, but others had their children balance on Santa's knees, never of course imagining where these men had come from.”

- Susan Meiselas