Destroy All Monsters Magazine 1975-1979
Formed in 1973, the Detroit band Destroy All Monsters was a wild and reckless synthesis of psychedelia, proto-punk, heavy metal, noise and performance art. The collective hailed from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and consisted of Cary Loren, Mike Kelley, Niagara and Jim Shaw (with later members including Ron Asheton of the Stooges and Michael Davis of the MC5). Later emerging as extremely distinctive individual artists, collectively the group forged new terrain in art, music, performance, theater and video. Destroy All Monsters released very little recorded music until Thurston Moore issued a three-CD compilation in 1994, but they published six issues of a now legendary and much sought-after zine, also titled Destroy All Monsters. This publication collects those six zines, released between 1976 and 1979, and also includes parts of a lost seventh issue that never saw publication. The Destroy All Monsters zines comprise a vibrant array of collage, writing, photography and other miscellanea by Kelley, Loren, Niagara and Shaw, and together provide insight into the collective’s kaleidoscopic vision of the dystopian values of their time.
“The new reprint volume lacks any introductory or explanatory text; true to Destroy All Monsters’ anarchic spirit, it plunges the reader straight into a frenzied dystopic world. Détourned comic strips, images pulled from pulp magazines, film stills, and tabloid news clippings clash with saccharine greeting cards, family Polaroids, and children’s coloring-book pages, while Op-art backgrounds, scrawled doodles, stickers, and rubber stamps compound the visual pandemonium. All of this is faithfully reproduced in the new facsimile, which is hand-bound and printed on paper of different weights, colors, and finishes—from coated stock to copy paper in elementary-school pastels. Each copy also includes a unique original spray painting by Loren, giving this lavish reproduction an authentically DIY accent.” –Gwen Allen, Bookforum review
Primary Information, 2011. Soft Cover. New. 4to – over 9¾ – 12″ tall. Edition of 3000, new copy uncirculated, signed by editor Cary Loren.
$ 195.00
