Reviews
" [White Glove Test] offers a narrative of the city's evolving do-it-yourself scene, a tight-knit corner of the U.S. underground that's trajectory is both unique and universal. While the book paints a picture of the artists, venues, and music culture of Louisville, it also speaks more broadly to the ways like-minded folks used primitive forms of social media to connect in a pre-internet underground." --Liz Pelly, senior editor, Impose Magazine, " White Glove Test is a celebration of a lost art form. Though Louisville is the focal point, the flyers--along with the timeframe which they document--tell a larger story about what these scenes meant to a generation of people in this country; truth is, Louisville was just one of many." - Minju Pak, managing editor, T Magazine, " [White Glove Test] offers a narrative of the city's evolving do-it-yourself scene, a tight-knit corner of the U.S. underground that's trajectory is both unique and universal. While the book paints a picture of the artists, venues, and music culture of Louisville, it also speaks more broadly to the ways like-minded folks used primitive forms of social media to connect in a pre-internet underground." --Liz Pelly, senior editor, Impose Magazine
Synopsis
More than 700 flyers are compiled in this rich visual history of the Do-It-Yourself concert poster. Documenting Louisville's vibrant and diverse music scene, this collection of beautiful, funny, and profane pieces represents the golden age of a fugitive street art and revives a neglected facet of punk's expressive force. Clipped, collaged, and photocopied, meticulously hand-painted and lettered, or designed on a glowing computer screen in the early days of desktop publishing, these flyers were outsider broadcasts stuck to phone poles and storefronts, a makeshift gallery installed with staple guns and wheat paste. Offering a parallax view of American punk, this book takes the reader through Louisville's rise of bold beginnings and eminent international status to the thriving interconnected underground that extended beyond New York and Los Angeles. Assiduously assembled from rare originals each poster illustrates a national phenomenon in microcosm and illuminates a vital style of pre-Internet social media that is sure to appeal to any fan of independent music in Louisville and beyond., More than 700 flyers are compiled in this rich visual history of the Do-It-Yourself concert poster. Documenting Louisville s vibrant and diverse music scene, this collection of beautiful, funny, and profane pieces represents the golden age of a fugitive street art and revives a neglected facet of punk s expressive force. Clipped, collaged, and photocopied, meticulously hand-painted and lettered, or designed on a glowing computer screen in the early days of desktop publishing, these flyers were outsider broadcasts stuck to phone poles and storefronts, a makeshift gallery installed with staple guns and wheat paste. Offering a parallax view of American punk, this book takes the reader through Louisville s rise of bold beginnings and eminent international status to the thriving interconnected underground that extended beyond New York and Los Angeles. Assiduously assembled from rare originals each poster illustrates a national phenomenon in microcosm and illuminates a vital style of pre-Internet social media that is sure to appeal to any fan of independent music in Louisville and beyond.", White Glove Test: Louisville Punk Flyers 1978-1994 is a rich visual history of an ephemeral and overlooked art form: the DIY concert poster. Beautiful, funny and profane, the collection of more than 700 flyers compiled here vividly represent the golden age of this fugitive street art, revealing a neglected facet of punk's expressive force. As a lavishly detailed document of Louisville's vibrant and diverse music scene, this book offers an insider's view of one seminal community's rise from bold beginnings to eminent, international status.