Description
UK DIY legend Jowe Head’s first book of music & art is here :
ESCAPADES – Underground Music + Art (1972-2026. As a founding member of the
awe-inspiring SWELL MAPS, as well as the lurid Television
Personalities, Steve Treatment, Cult Figures, Palookas, plus
countless side projects, solo works, and collaborations, this
irrefutably intriguing figure has somehow effortlessly bridged
the gap between the blank slate of the pre-punk era to the
truly underground sound of the modern day, and is still
bursting at the seams with ideas. We’re excited to finally
unleash Jowe Head’s incredible treasure trove of photos,
artwork, and music stories from Solihull to the edge of the
world, tracking his earliest days in the SWELL MAPS circa
1972, through the early ‘80s Glasgow and London scenes,
into the ‘90s and beyond, but always influencing the next
wave of complex art-punk notoriety. From being offered a
bass slot in The Fall (it went to Marc Riley) to touring with
Kleenex and playing on a bill with the nascent Joy Division,
Jowe was right there as it was all softly exploding.
Covering every major and minor collaboration of Jowe’s life
in music & art was no easy task, and his story is full of details of
living wild in the first wave UK punk underground, from
starting Rather Records with Nikki Sudden and Epic
Soundtracks from scratch in the eye of the storm in 1977, to
squatting and running from the violence and joining a band
or two just a couple months later, every restless moment
churned out a new equally savage and sincere
band/idea/statement. His proliferation in the ’80s is
something to behold, as his multiple projects intersect and
glow with the sick color of progress, seemingly never-
endingly far down a path of creativity most fear tread.
We’re proud to present his first book collecting every
tangent of his multi-faceted and wonderfully exhaustive
artistic career so far, and it’s as vast & viscerally satisfying
as you can imagine. Stuffed with rare photos, flyers, and art
images seen nowhere else before, Jowe Head’s life through
the trenches of DIY music is a treasure to behold.
Softcover edition of 400
+ 7” EP with 4 previously unreleased tracks from Jowe
Head’s bands Infernal Contraption, Ladybug Transistor, and Olives Hairy Custard,
not available anywhere else.
