Another gem from my personal collection!
Unless you were a punk living on the west coast in the early 80's, at first glance you'd think this was just another obscure band t-shirt from days gone by. How wrong you'd be. In reality this is an extremely rare piece of music history from one of the early pioneers of the L.A. punk scene. As budgets were small to non-existent in those days I'm sure only a very limited number of these tees were printed in 1983 by Restless Records to promote 45 Grave's one and only full-length studio album. Safe to say only a handful have survived after 27 years.
45 Grave were born from the ashes of the Los Angeles punk subculture and ground zero, The Masque club between 1977 and 1979. By 1980 they were at the forefront of L.A.'s second wave of punk rock. The band included members from some of L.A.'s earliest and most infamous DIY collaborations such as; The Gun Club, The Screamers, The Bags and The Germs.
Along with bands like Social Distortion, Bad Religion, The Circle Jerks, Black Flag and T.S.O.L., 45 Grave helped established a west coast punk scene in the early 80's that rivaled that of London and New York. 30 years later these artists and their band's contributions to the punk lineage are of mythic and legendary proportion.
Unless you were a punk living on the west coast in the early 80's, at first glance you'd think this was just another obscure band t-shirt from days gone by. How wrong you'd be. In reality this is an extremely rare piece of music history from one of the early pioneers of the L.A. punk scene. As budgets were small to non-existent in those days I'm sure only a very limited number of these tees were printed in 1983 by Restless Records to promote 45 Grave's one and only full-length studio album. Safe to say only a handful have survived after 27 years.
45 Grave were born from the ashes of the Los Angeles punk subculture and ground zero, The Masque club between 1977 and 1979. By 1980 they were at the forefront of L.A.'s second wave of punk rock. The band included members from some of L.A.'s earliest and most infamous DIY collaborations such as; The Gun Club, The Screamers, The Bags and The Germs.
Along with bands like Social Distortion, Bad Religion, The Circle Jerks, Black Flag and T.S.O.L., 45 Grave helped established a west coast punk scene in the early 80's that rivaled that of London and New York. 30 years later these artists and their band's contributions to the punk lineage are of mythic and legendary proportion.
45 Grave promo shot.
"Sleep in Safety" promo tee graphic.
1983 "Sleep in Safety" album artwork.
The lovely Dinah Cancer of 45 Grave.
Great memories of gigs at the Whiskey A Go Go!
The band on stage early 80's.
This flyer hung on my wall for a long time back-in-the-day.
love that record- reblogged ya :
ReplyDeletehttp://savevsdeath.tumblr.com/
Frank from bulldogvintage.com
Thanks Frank!
ReplyDeleteI didn't see your comment before but stumbled onto your tumblr reblog last night. Very cool.