Tag: Blitzkrieg Bop

Mixed Feelings and a Wall of Sound

Recently I’ve been thinking and writing about the importance of leaving spaces in between stuff, of leaving room for things to grow – particularly when thinking about change.

And talking with Heather Bussing this week she reminded me that dealing with change is about mixed feelings. It’s not about good or bad, right or wrong, happy or sad, nothing is absolute. It’s about good and bad, right and wrong, happy and sad. Being able to hold these conflicting positions together in our heads is part of what makes being human so exciting and scary.

So to counter the spaces in between I want to finish what has been an outstanding first week of our fifth year for What Goes Around with a little something that has absolutely no spaces in between. One of my very favourite songs and two minutes of the finest noise ever to emerge from the USA. ‘It’s good to be back in England and it’s good to see y’all again’:

Hey Ho – Let’s Go. R.I.P. Arturo Vega

The Ramones Logo

Arturo Vega: 1948 – 2013

Arturo Vega has died, aged 65. Pretty much everyone with even a passing interest in punk knows of Arturo Vega’s work. He was the man who designed the iconic Ramones logo, and many of their album covers. As much as The Ramones were at the vanguard of full on live and loud three chord punk, so too was the logo, representative of the US presidential seal, with the American Eagle sporting an apple branch and a baseball bat.

In 2011, Carole, Keira and I, along with a few others were fortunate to spend a morning with Arturo Vega watching him work. He was screen printing a design of his for the art installation Never Records, which in turn was part of the Better Bankside festival that year. Only around 20 or so items were printed by him with the Never Records logo. Keira and I each have one and so too does Neil Usher, who at the time I thought would appreciate a t shirt as a gift.

Arturo Vega
Me and Arturo – him looking cool, me looking geeked

 

Keira's Never Records T Shirt
Keira’s Never Records T Shirt

This is not one of those cringing ‘What can HR learn from Vega’s artistic approach?’ or ‘How can HR be more like The Ramones?’ type posts. It’s simply an acknowledgment of the death of an artist.  I’ll leave you with – what else but The Ramones kicking the ass out of Blitzkrieg Bop at The Rainbow Theatre in 1977, with ‘that logo’ as the backdrop. Hey ho, let’s go.