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At no other time in history has there been a more exciting collision of art, music, and fashion than at Max’s Kansas City from the 1960s to the early 80s. Max’s was the place where you could stare at Andy Warhol, argue about art with Willem de Kooning or John Chamberlain, discuss literature with William S. Burroughs, and get a record deal just by showing up. If downstairs the artists were paying their tabs with original art, upstairs was home to the iconoclastic New York music scene, with performances by Max’s house band, the Velvet Underground; the irreverent New York Dolls; and undiscovered musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, Blondie, Iggy Pop, and Madonna.
A luminous collection of photographs that captures the exuberance and decadence of the coolest club of all time, as well as essays by Lou Reed, Lenny Kaye, Danny Fields, and Steven Watson, Max’s Kansas City is a stunning souvenir of one of New York City’s most important cultural landmarks.
Praise for Max's Kansas City:
"a raucous photo book with reminiscences of the club" --The New York Times
"a brilliant photographic tribute to New York City's hippest hangout, long regarded the crossroads of music and fashion" --Harper's Bazaar
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I am Roberta Bayley, and I am not featured in this book nor am I mentioned, which is absolutely 100% fine with me.
Leee Black Childers IS mentioned, as one of the four great Max's photographers, along with Anton Perich, Danny Fields and Brigid Berlin, and a photo OF Leee appears. However, NONE of Leee's photographs are included in either the book or the show about it at Steven Kasher Gallery. Leee is alive and well, and still an active photographer with many recent and upcoming shows. So why is he missing here? Absurd.
Every one of the Cockettes ( a very famous drag troupe from San Francisco with many documentaries and books about them extant) are identified only as "a Cockette" except for Pristine Condition. As if they didn't all have names! It's like showing a photo of Mick Jagger and John Lennon and captioning it "Mick Jagger and a Beatle".
Dee Dee's Ramone's wife, Vera, who recently published her own memoirs, is "unidentified"!!! Couldn't anyone make phone call? (Actually I learned that someone from Abrams, the publisher, DID make a phone call, to Lenny Kaye, who told them the "blonde in the photo" was Vera, Dee Dee's wife.) Many quite famous people are "unidentified" in this book. Where oh where were the research people on this? Talking to "editor" Steven Kasher? The "unidentified" chimp at Max's was the World's Most Famous trained chimp, J. Fred Muggs! (Do you think Mickey would let just ANY chimp into Max's?)
I also have to say I was appalled when the New York Times article about this book and show gave Steven Kasher credit for having "helped discover previously unknown pictures of Max's from insiders like music producer and writer Danny Fields." (BTW Danny Fields is not a music producer....)
As co-curator with Bobby Grossman of a show entitled "The Cool & The Crazy" in 1996 (which travelled to the Candice Perich Gallery in Conneticut, Govinda Galley in Washington D.C. and the Earl McGrath Gallery in Manhattan), Danny was included as a photographer, with his photos of Max's from 1973, including his contact sheets. An aborted mish mosh of different photographers who are NOT Danny adorn the cover of this poorly conceived book. In other words, it looks like a contact sheet, but isn't really because many different photographers are pasted in. That's the exact opposite of a contact sheet.
Danny Fields was also included in a book and show I curated in 2004 called "Bande a part: New York Underground 60s, 70s, 80s" (the book is still in print in the U.S. from Gingko Press). This book includes many of Danny's photos, including his Max's contact sheets. Some years ago, I proposed the "Bande a part" show to Steven Kasher for his gallery but he passed. He saw the book a long time ago (before it was published in the U.S.) and was well aware of Danny's so-called "unknown" photos. Also included in "Bande a part" were photographers Anton Perich, Billy Name, Marcia Resnick, Godlis, and Stephanie Chernikowski, including many of the exact same images reproduced in this book.
So much for the originality and accuracy of this book. It is a joke. We all look forward to books by Danny Fields, Leee Black Childers, Brigid Berlin and many more photos (and books!) by the great Anton Perich.
Save your money, this book will be remaindered soon. Try to find Yvonne Sewall (Ruskin)'s Max's book instead. Or buy "Bande a part"!
Had I not owned the book "High On Rebellion: Inside the Underground At Max's Kansas City" by Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin (former wife of Max's owner, Mickey Ruskin), I may have given this a higher rating. "Max's Kansas City: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll" is glossier in packaging (although it has 12 years on "High On Rebellion", so that isn't surprising), in that, the pictures are bigger, there are more color pictures, etc, but that's about the only thing it can boast over the other. As a 24-year-old girl with a passionate for rock n' roll, but who obviously wasn't around back in the early 70's when the back room at Max's was the hottest place to be, I learned of the famed nightclub mostly from collecting issues of Rock Scene magazine, a New York-based music mag that heavily featured bands like the New York Dolls and the Stooges, and they were always reporting about Max's. And although I am in no way an aficionado or expert on the era, I thought the research done for "Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll" was lazy to say the least. As pointed out by photographer Roberta Bayley, several recognizable people are heinously labeled as "unidentified". There isn't much text in the book either, but as I was purchasing it for the photos, that part didn't really bother me (but if you're looking for an introduction to Max's, I wouldn't look to this as the answer). If you are buying this book as a complement to High On Rebellion, I would say go for it. Although some of the same photos are featured, there are plenty of different ones, although most aren't rare, and I was a bit disappointed that there was but one photo of Cyrinda Foxe (former wife of David Johansen and Steven Tyler, a Warhol darling, and a back room staple), and it was one I'd already seen many times before.... Still, if you are looking for the usual suspects (Iggy, David Johansen, Patti Smith, Gerard Malanga, Lou Reed, Candy Darling) you can find them here. Other books not strictly about Max's but that put this book to shame are "Bande A'part: New York Underground 60s, 70s, 80s", Patti Smith's prizing winning "Just Kids", and even "New York In The 70s" isn't bad.Read more ›
This book is an authentic historical document of debauched glamour at it's height! Looking at it makes me a little melancholy longing for the days when people weren't drug-phobic and actually had fun experimenting with life.
I hope there will be lots of books about this time period and especially Max's Kansas City. I'm sure there are so many photos and stories that it will take more than just the two that are out there now. Lots of great photos in "MKC: Art, Glamour, Rock and Roll"- just the tip of the iceberg one would assume. More please. Instead of bickering about what is not in this book, why not focus on another book with more? I'll buy this one, that one and the other one. Peace!
I owned max's after Mickey Ruskin, 1975 thru 1982 I am in contact with Lee and others through a close friend Bob Gruen. There will be a screen play about the people who help make max's II a fun place for everyone not just the incrowd.
This book is not only expansive & gorgeous but it perfectly captures the sentiment and moments from the Max's era. Stunning photos of: Debbie Harry, New York Dolls, John Waters, Tim Buckley, Janis Joplin (just to name a few) are my favorites. NY Press and LA times wrote fabulous reviews as well. Makes me wish I was there to experience it!
