All about Books
This'll probably be a long one…
Shame on me, I didn’t do a wrap up photobook haul of 2024.
From top to bottom:
why am i sad - Dana Stirling (Hi Dana!)
Seventy Two and One Half Miles Across Los Angeles - Mark Ruwedel
Evidence - Mike Mandel & Larry Sultan
In Plain Air - Irina Rozovsky
Juggling Is Easy - Peggy Nolan
Office - Lars Tunbjörk
A1 - The Great North Road - Paul Graham
Summer Days Staten Island - Christine Osinski
I try to buy as many photobooks as possible. I love them as objects, reference points regarding my work, and aspirational goals (maybe one will have my name on it someday).
It could happen, probably won’t.
But it could.
But from this haul, I want to talk about two photobooks in particular:
These have been on my most wanted list forever, but their prices on the second-hand market have prevented me from adding them to my collection. Each was running around $200-$600, more if they were signed (which is understandable, as Lars and Larry are no longer with us). Of course, these were for first-run printings, preventing many from snapping up a copy.
That is until Distributed Art Publishers[Evidence] and Joints Loose[Office] reissued these titles.
It got me thinking: Why isn’t there a reissue publisher for photobooks?
There’s probably issues surrounding copyrights of the original publishers, dealing with the estates of photographers that are no longer with us, etc.
But there still seems like there could be a potential market for something like that, if it was done right.
There’s a copyable model for it with music: reissue record labels. For almost any genre (no matter how far out there) a label will dig up and re-release the music, probably with all kinds of extras (b-sides, studio sessions, live performances).
And put it out on vinyl.
Or cassette.
Or CD.
I want to talk about one such label, called Numero Group briefly.
And one of my all-time favorite bands; Unwound.
The Numero Group, founded in 2003 in Chicago, started as a label reissuing 60’s & 70’s Funk, R&B and Soul records that didn’t get the popularity they probably should have initially (due to various reasons, we all know or have heard stories about the shadiness in the music industry…) and re-releasing them.
Numero Group Brings Forgotten Music Back from the Dead | GQ
Numero Group was founded by Ken Shipley and Rob Sevier, who are part crate-diggers, part forensic scientists who unearth long forgotten music—funk, gospel, country, metal—from decades past. And more recently they’ve been refocusing their attention on a new target: ‘80s and ‘90s punk, post-hardcore, emo and indie.
They got my attention when they turned to 80’s & 90’s Indie, emo, and Post-hardcore bands, reissuing their albums and getting them back together to play live. Bands that, if you weren’t part of some local or regional scene, you probably never knew they existed. But their music, if given the chance, probably could have been more popular.
Back during my early twenties…
I had a period when all the bands I was discovering and getting into were either long-broken up (The Replacements, The Minutemen, Husker Du) or on the verge of breaking up (Pavement, The Sundays). While I enjoyed listening to the records, I had also started getting into going to clubs and seeing live music.
And on occasion, making “bootleg” recordings:
The First time I heard them:
It was a random Saturday afternoon in 2001. I was leaving for the day from a job that I hated at the time, but looking back, it was probably the best time working I have ever had (ever had a job like that?).
Got in my car, radio pretuned to the local college radio station (shoutout UNT radio 88.1), and I heard this unusual song:
Sparse drums
This droning, repetitive bassline
Waves upon waves of guitar feedback
Then eventually some lyrics, buried into the mix
I sat in the parking lot for the whole song (10+ minutes); it was the first time a song had made me stop everything like that.
I had to know who made it.
Thankfully, the DJ came on after it had finished to let everyone know who it was and the track's name.
I went out next payday and bought the album, Leaves Turn Inside You.
They were touring and coming to Denton, TX (about an hour from my house). The show was the day before my birthday (September 22nd).
By April of the following year, they were finished, done in by tensions amongst the members plus the changes happening in the country around that time which caused lots of issues during the tour.
Then just life, they started other bands, other things happened, health issues. Around 2013 after licensing their back catalog to Numero, the label started reissuing albums, then in 2022, Unwound is announcing tour dates.
2023, I was able to see them for the second time.
Bookbinding Update!
For the past few years, I have been putting together family photo books to give to my parents and in-laws, just photos of everything my wife, son and I did that year. And it’s bookbinding practice for me.
I usually give them as Christmas presents, but as my parents were on a cruise for their 50th anniversary, I gave them their book early this month.
I used a tutorial I saw on YouTube where you use staples to create a makeshift stab binding, instead of sewing together signatures to case bind. And while I had some opportunities, I’m somewhat satisfied with certain aspects, like how the endpapers let the book lie flat:
Zine / Book Fest update:
I was accepted in the Dallas Art Book Fair, which will be happening next month, March 15-16 at Dallas Contemporary. I’m super excited, this being the first fest of the year, and I actually finished and printed some nights i can’t sleep, and will debut it there.
Always nervous the first time I show a zine in person, on how it will be received.
Currently waiting for it to come from the printer, so I don’t have anything to show other than the print on demand link (each copy sold is like donating a roll of film to me!)
This zine (I don’t know if I can still call it a zine) is 8×10 landscape, 48 pages. It should be here next week so I can flip through it in person (always the best part of a photobook / zine, that first flip through).
Check it out here, and please share with anyone you think might be interested:
https://mixam.com/print-on-demand/67b657b9fcdf4b380f5ebac9Until next time,
Laidric
Also, you can find me here: