The Longreads Blog

How the Hand Painted Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip Came to Be

Photo by Weho City, Flickr Rock N’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip Exhibit Reception - July 30, 2013

Driving down the Sunset Strip has always felt a little like being in a magazine. The billboards loom and beckon, towering and untouchable and yet still totally in your face. Today they advertise luxury brands and new TV shows, but once upon a time—back when the Sunset Strip was at the heart and soul of rock ‘n’ roll—they were hand painted musical monoliths, larger-than-life variations on album art and psychedelic interpretations of soon-to-be hit records. As Hunter Oatman-Stanford put it, “in the 1970s, you knew you’d made it big if your record label paid for a hand-painted billboard on the Strip.” The hand painted rock billboards on the Strip were an art form specific to LA’s car culture, intended not for gallery walls but to be seen through a windshield at cruising speed, and preferably with the convertible top down.

According to the Los Angeles Times, each billboard took roughly ten days to produce, with costs ranging from $1,200 to $10,000. Craftsmen would hand paint the illustrations on individual wood panels at warehouses in Mid City, before ultimately reassembling the pieces on location in the wee hours. And they were by nature ephemeral—each was destroyed after its contract ended.

Luckily for us, a photographer named Robert Landau documented many of the billboards during their roughly decade-and-a-half heyday (from 1967 to the advent of MTV in the early 1980’s). Landau was a teenager living with his dad in the hills above the legendary Sunset Strip Tower Records when he first started documenting the fleeting masterpieces, shooting with a Nikkormat camera and Kodachrome film. A few years ago, he published a complete catalog of his photos with Angel City Press, and in a few weeks the billboards will finally grace museum walls, when an exhibit of Landau’s work opens at the LA’s Skirball Cultural Center.

Over at Collectors Weekly, Hunter Oatman-Stanford has interviewed Landau about his work and the billboards themselves. Below is a short excerpt:

Collectors Weekly: Who started the music industry’s billboard trend?

Landau: As far as I can tell, it was the Doors in 1967 for their debut album. I talked with Jac Holzman—the head of Elektra Records who signed the Doors—while writing my book. In 1967, he had just come out here from the East Coast and opened an office on La Cienega Boulevard, not far from Sunset Boulevard, and it occurred to him that billboards were being used for everything except promoting records and music. A lot of radio stations where popular disc jockeys worked were farther east on Sunset, and he knew they drove on the Strip, and that the entertainment industry in general was based there.

The Doors were really into it; the whole band even climbed up on top for a photo shoot. Jim Morrison was quoted as saying he thought it was cool he’d be hanging over the Strip like a specter. I think at that time, it cost about a thousand dollars a month, which was quite a bit of an investment then. Elektra signed on for a year, and they had several different billboards. Little by little, the other record companies caught on.

Read the story

Stories of Punctuation and Typographic Marks: A Reading List

From the now-ubiquitous hashtag (or octothorpe, hash, pound, or whatever you like to call it) to the loved, hated, and misunderstood semicolon, punctuation marks not only help us shape our stories, but also have their own origins and histories and have become part of the narratives of our lives. Here are picks about six punctuation marks, from the comma to the asterisk.

1. “Holy Writ” (Mary Norris, The New Yorker)

“The popular image of the copy editor is of someone who favors rigid consistency. I don’t usually think of myself that way. But, when pressed, I do find I have strong views about commas.” Norris describes her early days at The New Yorker, from collating to working on the copydesk — reading greats like John McPhee and Pauline Kael — and her current job, more than thirty years later, as a comma queen.

Read more…

Interview with a Torturer

S-21. Photo by lecercle

Rithy Panh with Christophe Bataille | Translated by John Cullen | The Elimination: A survivor of the Khmer Rouge confronts his past and the commandant of the killing fields | Other Press | February 2013 | 44 minutes (12,355 words)

Below is an excerpt from the book The Elimination, by Rithy Panh, as recommended by Longreads contributor Dana Snitzky. Read more…

Looking at Five Generations of a Single Dutch Family to Understand the Genetics of Violence

Photo by Pixabay

A short piece published in BBC Magazine explored the science of whether murderers are born or made. A British neurocriminologist named Adrian Raine has made a career out of studying the brains of violent criminals. Raine was the first person to conduct a brain imaging study on murderers, and has since scanned the brains of numerous homicidal individuals, looking for similarities. Raine’s brain scanning studies found two similarities in the brains of nearly all his participants: 1) reduced activity in the pre-frontal cortex, which means less emotional impulse control, and 2) over activation of the part of the brain that controls our emotions, called the amygdala. According to the BBC, Raine’s study suggests that ” that murderers have brains that make them more prone to rage and anger, while at the same time making them less able to control themselves.” Childhood abuse could be a factor because of the damage it can cause to the brain, particularly to the pre-frontal cortex. But, as the BBC put it, “only a small proportion of those who have a terrible childhood grow up to become murderers,” which brings us to the next possibility: genetics. Are there genetic factors that predispose us to crime?

A breakthrough came in 1993 with a family in the Netherlands where all the men had a history of violence. Fifteen years of painstaking research revealed that they all lacked the same gene.

This gene produces an enzyme called MAOA, which regulates the levels of neurotransmitters involved in impulse control. It turns out that if you lack the MAOA gene or have the low-activity variant you are predisposed to violence. This variant became known as the warrior gene.

About 30% of men have this so-called warrior gene, but whether the gene is triggered or not depends crucially on what happens to you in childhood.

The research in question was conducted by Han Brunner, a Dutch geneticist working out of a teaching hospital in the Netherlands’ oldest city. Brunner’s research was first published in Science in October 1993, and that same month Sarah Richardson wrote about it for Discover magazine in an article entitled “Violence in the Blood.” Richardson’s piece is fascinating, especially in its explanation of how the geneticists used different clues to determine the origin of the aggressive behavior. This is how it begins:

One day in 1978 a woman walked into University Hospital in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, with a problem: the men in her family. Many of them–including several of her brothers and a son–seemed to have some sort of mental debility. Gradually, as the clinical geneticists who counseled the woman got to know her and her family, the details of the strange behavior of the woman’s male kin emerged. One had tried to rape his sister; another had tried to run his boss down with a car; a third had forced his sisters to undress at knife point. Furthermore, the violent streak had a long history. In 1962 the woman’s granduncle had prepared a family tree that identified nine other males with the same disorder, tracing it as far back as 1870. The granduncle, who was not violent himself–he worked in an institution for the learning disabled–had apparently come to suspect that something was terribly wrong with his family.

Three decades later, and 15 years after the woman’s first office visit, geneticist Han Brunner and his colleagues at the Nijmegen hospital think they’ve figured out what that something is. Some of the men in the woman’s family, they say, suffer from a genetic defect on the X chromosome- -a defect that cripples an enzyme that may help regulate aggressive behavior. If Brunner and his colleagues are right, it would be the first time a specific gene has been linked to aggression. That means their finding cannot fail to be controversial.

See the stories:

1. “Are Murderers Born or Made?” (BBC Magazine)

2. “Violence in the Blood.” (Sarah Richardson, Discover)

 

All Comedy Will Be Canceled: How the BBC Prepares for the Eventual Death of the Queen

No one lives forever, not even monarchs. In a recent piece for Business Insider UK, Rob Price explored the slightly morbid topic but deeply fascinating topic of what will happen in Britain when 88-year-old Queen Elizabeth II’s reign comes to an end. The Queen has been on the throne for over six decades, during which time 12 different Prime Ministers have served Britain (as well as 12 US Presidents). Price posits that her eventual death will be the most disruptive event in Britain in the last 70 years, affecting all aspects of British life. In the excerpt below, he discusses how this will play out on the BBC:

Assuming the Queen’s passing was expected, the news will spread at first via the main TV channels. All BBC channels will stop their programming and show the BBC1 feed for the announcement. The other independent channels won’t be obligated to interrupt their regular programming. But they almost certainly will.

At the BBC, anchors actively practice for the eventuality of the Monarch’s passing so they won’t be caught unaware on their shifts. The BBC’s Peter Sissons was heavily criticised for wearing a red tie to announce the Queen Mother’s passing (as seen above), and the BBC now keeps black ties and suits at the ready at all times. Presenters also run drills in which they’re required to make sudden “spoof” announcements that are never broadcast.

The last death of a Monarch was in 1952, and the BBC stopped all comedy for a set period of mourning after the announcement was made. The Daily Mail reports that the BBC plans to do the same again today, cancelling all comedy until after the funeral.

Read the story

A Very Naughty Little Girl

Illustration by Kjell Reigstad

Rose George | Longreads | March 2015 | 21 minutes (5,358 words)

 

 

She was a name on a plaque and a face on a wall. I ate beneath her portrait for three years and paid it little attention except to notice that the artist had made her look square. There were other portraits of women to hold my attention on the walls of Somerville, my Oxford college: Indira Gandhi, who left without a degree, and Dorothy Hodgkin, a Nobel prize-winner in chemistry. In a room where we had our French language classes, behind glass that was rumored to be bulletproof, there was also a bust of Margaret Thatcher, a former chemistry undergraduate. Somerville was one of only two women’s colleges of the University of Oxford while I was there, from 1988 to 1992, and the walls were crowded with strong, notable women. (The college has since gone co-ed.) Read more…

Identify an Aesthetic, and Then Recreate That Aesthetic

To understand why Urban Outfitters and American Apparel have declined so spectacularly, it’s helpful to remember what it was that made them so successful in the first place. In their heyday, each made a science of identifying exactly what it was that made hipsters so attractive, then recreated that aesthetic in their stores.

They mass-marketed the counterculture by honoring art, music, and fashion of the past; rejecting traditional lifestyles and careers; and appreciating irony. “You would flip through one of their lookbooks or walk into their stores and think, I am in this world,” Brandes recalls. They made a hard-to-define bohemian lifestyle accessible to an entire generation of young people growing up in the cookie-cutter suburbs.

Urban Outfitters and American Apparel identified their target audiences, moving into neighborhoods with a high density of 18 to 25 year olds who were beginning to experiment with their personal style and values. In college towns, students looking to express their newfound interest in indie rock or ’80s nostalgia could put together an entire look in a matter of minutes at one of these stores; they didn’t need to dig through bins of old T-shirts at Goodwill anymore. Even though you weren’t technically thrift shopping, the ambiance and layout inside these stores mimicked the experience, making you feel like you were stumbling across rare, special objects.

Elizabeth Segran writing for Racked about the decline of the “hipster brand,” and why American Apparel and Urban Outfitters are struggling.

Read the story

Making Promises I Can’t Keep: On Sexual “Purity”

My friend Karla and I bought a book called And the Bride Wore White, a guide to remaining sexually pure. Three chapters of And the Bride Wore White are titled as follows: “Satan’s Big Fat Sex Lies,” “Satan’s Second Big Fat Sex Lie,” and “Satan’s Biggest, Fattest Sex Lie.” The book explained to me why condoms don’t work, why everyone isn’t “doing it,” and that oral sex is just as bad as intercourse. The author painstakingly outlined her own sexual foibles and missteps, honesty that I appreciated. I was ready to learn. I read the book steadily — during study breaks, walking through the hallways, before I went to sleep. Karla and I met at her house and talked about the different chapters while her mother brought us garden-grown beefsteak tomatoes that looked like hearts. We swore to strive for purity in every way possible. No more touching. No more being touched.

* * *

When I was 16, a new associate pastor was rotated into our parish.

His name was Sam Jones.

When he introduced himself to the church youth, I felt a kick deep in my pelvis. He was handsome — with straight sandy hair that jutted out over his forehead and a goatee. He was a little pudgy but only just. He had a wedding ring. And when he shook my hand, he looked directly into my eyes.

Turns out, I’d been waiting for that.

Sam was around a lot. He participated in youth group events, alongside his normal church duties. He gave smart, politically progressive sermons that caused grumblings amongst the older congregants, which delighted me to no end. Within days of arriving he knew my name and used it whenever we ran into one another. Sometimes, I would linger after service to speak to him about his sermon. He talked to me as if I was an adult.

I guess I’d been waiting for that, too.

— In “A Girl’s Guide to Sexual Purity,” a striking essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Carmen Maria Machado explores an adolescence steeped in “purity culture”: sexual assault, conservative youth groups, purity rings, curbed fantasies and an unusually close relationship with her youth pastor. Machado’s essay is a quiet triumph; she seeks to reconcile her current, flourishing adult life with the hurt, pain and confusion of her youth.

Trauma and Joy: Four Stories About Adoption

The stories of adoptees are not open-and-shut case files—they are complex and messy. In these particular stories, you’ll meet a young woman who fought for her three brothers, a group of stridently anti-adoption adoptees, an eager couple waiting by the phone, and another couple coping with the myth of post-racism.

1. “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” (Nishta Mehra, Guernica, March 2015)

You can feel the urgency of Nishta Mehra’s words, like she’s crafted this essay in her head so many times and now, finally, has it in writing. Here is what happens over and over again, she says. Here is our family: a white woman, an Indian woman, a black toddler son. We are full of love. We face many questions. We have much to fear. Read more…

The Inner Workings of an ID Theft Ring

Illustration by I-5 Design

New sketched out the organization. “Jackboys” were responsible for breaking into cars. They would smash up spark plugs, keeping the pieces in their mouths, then pop the windows with the fragments, cracking the glass. “They wrap something around their arm and break it,” New explained. The jackboys hit gyms and daycare centers. “They like Starbucks,” New said. “Women like to hurry and rush in and leave their purses in the car with the door open.” The jackboys were careful to use ordinary vehicles that wouldn’t draw attention. “They never use the cars with the rims. No flashy cars.”

The aim was to scoop up as much of the sensitive personal information from a victim as possible. “We want your social security card,” New explained, “’cause you’ve got to have that number to get the information from the bank. We’re going to look for credit cards that have your bank emblem on it, ’cause we’re going to know what bank you go to so we don’t have to call all the banks. Then I call all the credit cards, the numbers on the back, and put in your account number and see what your credit is on the cards. How we test them to see if they’re still on or if they’ve been reported is by going to a gas station and just slide it through. If it says ‘See Attendant,’ we know it’s burnt. And then we have to keep the ID, the social security card, and one major credit card, ’cause you need the second form of ID to do the check.”

New’s role was as a “casher.” Taking a stolen ID from one victim and a stolen check from another victim, she would write a check to the name of the person on the ID — and then dress like that person and go cash the check.

The charade involved theater-major panache. Cashers dressed up in wigs, dyed their hair, and donned makeup to pull off the scam. “I even played a black lady and a Chinese lady,” New bragged to cops in her interrogation. “The wigs make it.”

The crew had a set payment plan for cashers: If they cashed checks between $1,800 and $2,500, they walked away with $400; checks between $1,000 and $1,800 got the casher $200. Another scam had the casher walking into stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s to open new cards and immediately buy merchandise; the bill would be sent to the victim weeks later.

Kyle Swenson, writing in the Broward New Times about a ring of ID thieves known as the Felony Lane Gang.

Read the story