LAVELLA-BLOG!

On my recent trip to Pittsburgh, I finally drug the huge box of flyers that I left there when I moved to California in 1988 back with me. OK, so I knew that everything in there was at least 20 years old, but what surprised me was how far back before my time it went, back to the original Pittsburgh punk era, roughly 1978 through 1982. I forgot that many of the first generation “punkers” ––Bill Bored and Reid Paley come to mind instantly–– laid their collections on me at some point, so that along with me keeping nearly everything from my own era (1983-88) it's a great collection that I ended up with.

The fact that many of us, from Tom Scott to Jeff Lamm to myself, went to art school, I humbly submit that the flyers for shows in Pittsburgh are among the best ever made. Just look at this forgotten 1984 gem by Paul Bucciarelli… I mean, no big deal, just another Cynics gig right? But look at the Goddamned flyer, it’s a freakin’ masterpiece! For years I’ve been entertaining the idea of writing a book about the Pittsburgh punk scene, and this box of 8 1/2 x 11 inch Xeroxed greatness just added a whole lot of fuel to that fire… Stay tuned, I’ll be posting a lot more in weeks to come.