2021 – Sticker Shock
(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on August 5, 2021)
GOTTA start with a ridiculous sticker, right? I think this one from 1977 qualifies.
Continuing in the mammals-with-nice-racks vein, I give you these two bumper stickers from Roslyn Heights, NY in 1979 – big moose country on Long Island:
NO idea why I have these:
Big surprise: the rest of these stickers are music-related, beginning with radio stations.
I got this one when I was in Fort Myers, FL in 1979:
Since I used to shoot for NEW, I have a bunch of these:
All the rest: WPLJ was in NYC, WPLR is in New Haven, CT, WFMU was a college radio station originally out of Upsala College in East Orange, NJ, and I must have picked up the 95YNF sticker when I was on the road with a band in Tampa, FL in 1990:
I don’t recall where I got this unopened R’n’R sticker:
I DID shoot for MTV for a while, so I guess that’s why I have this:
I also used to shoot for:
Faces magazine, based in River Edge, NJ:
The Uncle Floyd Show (for a long time) – lots of music and laughs:
Mega-promoter John Scher (for an even longer time) – unparalleled music excellence in LOTS of venues, including the two below. You can read about all that if you hit the red whowhatwhy link at the top of this post:
And – of course – here are a few bands’ stickers that I don’t recall picking up.
Kill Van Kull is a metal band from Staten Island, NY. It’s also the name of a 3-mile strait between Staten Island and Bayonne, NJ. I’ve never seen or photographed either one, so I have NO idea where I got this:
I remember the Michael Stanley Band, but no particulars, so I had to go digging. Turns out I photographed them opening for Jeff Beck in 1980 and I also shot Michael on the Robert Klein Radio Hour in 1981. Both shoots occurred on October 7 in consecutive years (I didn’t realize that until today):
Either I got this from a counter-protester at a Defund the Police rally that I didn’t go to or A&M Records gave it to me (most likely):
Not sure where I got these three, but Hunter/Ronson tours were always something to look forward to:
CREEM OF THE STICKER CROP
Ever read CREEM magazine? If you were ANY sort of rocker back in the day, you did. Remember the back page where you would ALWAYS see some well-known musician imbibing a “Boy Howdy!” beer?
Hey – I got Uncle Floyd in there! (he happens to be an excellent musician)
How come you could never find that brand in any liquor store when you wanted to be as cool as those guys in CREEM?
BECAUSE IT NEVER EXISTED! THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A CAN OR BOTTLE OF “BOY HOWDY!” BEER! CREEM, ROCK STARS AND THOSE SHADY ROCK PHOTOGRAPHERS CONSPIRED TO DECEIVE YOU!!
You’ve heard of a flat beer? Well, “Boy Howdy!” was literally flat! How do I know? I happen to have one right here:
In fact, I happen to have a whole bunch of them:
They’re stickers, but not for your bumper. If you took the backing off, you could stick it around a soda or beer can: instant “Boy Howdy!” beer can!
CREEM would send me a few periodically, but I never removed the backing. It was easier just to have the subject hold it wrapped around the can and then use it over and over. I kept a few in my camera bag in case I wound up shooting a whole band of guzzlers.
Here’s another Uncle Floyd shot from that shoot:
If you look closely in this blowup, you can see the bottom edge of the sticker below the can………..bad wrapping!
Here’s another much-more-mellow subject:
Anybody remember this guy’s “name”? (same as his band) – Guess in the comments section.
I’ve got one more lucky subject: old pal Stiv Bators from the Dead Boys and Lords of the New Church, whom I did a funny shoot with about 4 years earlier when I got him together with the Runaways (it’s on my site):
He showed up one day at an Uncle Floyd Show taping in Newark, NJ. We devised this “Boy Howdy!” shot in the bathroom down the hall. It could be an ad for recycling:
Surprisingly, CREEM didn’t print it.
But Trouser Press did, superimposing a big TP on the sticker:
Sometime after that, I got another package of stickers from CREEM, but there was something different about these. The design was exactly the same, but the gray background was a lot less reflective…………and they came with a note from the art director:
She hated them, but I liked them. If you look at the first Stiv shot, you can see a strong flash reflection top-to-bottom in the middle of the can. That wouldn’t be a problem with the duller, flatter backgrounds on these stickers.
Too bad I never got a chance to try them out (actually, I was hoarding this rare version).
CREEM was a lot of fun. Too bad they weren’t based in NYC (they were located in Birmingham, MI).
Here’s their 1981 Christmas card with an added “Boy Howdy!” cancellation mark:
Though they weren’t based in NYC, I DID make my initial connection to the magazine at an NYC event – a 1977 (I think) rock and roll flea market where I was selling pix. My table was next to the table of the legendary (and highly-troubled) CREEM editor, Lester Bangs. He saw my work and gave me this:
I found all these stickers standing together in the front of a dresser drawer because their size and shape made it easy to accumulate them that way as time went on.
Mixed-in with them was something else of a similar size and shape: a 15” x 3.5” drawing on cardboard by my mid-1970s teenage girlfriend:
The “Just for you” message on the back seemed strikingly similar to the one on the last bumper sticker that I’ve been saving for just this moment:
I hope THAT one didn’t come from an ex-girlfriend!
I ran into your old girlfriend Debbie and she did say that she was the one who sent that last sticker to you!
Such a great collection! LOVE all the Creem stuff!