Support Rockabilly Model!!!
Oct 25th
Exciting news! Coming in spring of 2010 vintage lifestyle artists, aspiring models, photogs, car clubs.
There will be a social networking section added to RockabillyModel.com so you can post your own portfolio, create a group and network with others right here on the site.
In an effort for Rockabilly Model to produce and practice the art of vintage your support is always appreciated. All contributions will help us in our efforts to produce photo shoots, public relations events and fashion shows.
Please support Thou Art Grand by contributing through Paypal.
For those able to offer any sort of personal support, please contact Joe@Rockabillymodel.com. Thank you for your support.
Time, Place and Energy
Nov 5th
I was on the ground floor of the vintage lifestyle/retro art movement in San Jose,California during the early 1980’s. There was a pod of about thirty people or so, mostly punks, skaters and allies of mine who routinely shopped the goodwills and thrift stores in search of the coolest items and clothes from the 50’s,60’s and 70’s.
I remember walking down the street in my plaid Bermuda shorts, sporting a white T-shirt under a cool olive green cardigan sweater, that I scored for fifty cents, with some Chuck Taylor low cut white tennis shoes and a freshly mowed flat-top hair cut, hand and hand with my girlfriend Beth wearing a 1950’s cocktail dress and heels with a Marilyn Monroe platinum blond, tease-up hair-do and smeared make-up for that just molested look, the general public looked at us like we were aliens. That kind of reaction resonated with me.
When the 1990’s roll around and retro for the most part wasn’t cool anymore, I kept practicing the art of vintage. I was always interested in taking a special time, place and energy, a fashion, an art, an architecture, a certain verbiage or even a morality from one time and putting into another time.
The Rebel Yell
America is a young country and a throw away society. We are so ready to discard our fashion, art and sometimes our own souls when moving forward on the fast track to the next big thing, never taking much time or consideration to look back, define and hold onto what is genuinely classic Americana. Rockabilly is one of the retro movements that has remained a constant over the years, preserving the birth of the rebel yell and holding on and never letting go to one of America’s great gift’s to the world: “Rock n’ Roll”.
Today we see vintage in our daily contemporary lives, from the guy down the street working on his ‘57 chevy and the re-birth of car clubs, the preservation and restorations of turn of the century Victorian homes, to professional sport teams wearing their throw-back jerseys. Retro is certainly the new paradigm when defining American art, fashion, culture and architecture.
Remember, it’s easier to know where you’re going when you know where you came from.
Welcome Home America.
Until next time,
Peace and Love, Joe
1970’s Fashion Photo Shoot
Nov 2nd
I’m very excited about our early 1970’s pre-disco fashion photo shoot. I have a direct connect to that period. I was a teenager and in high school at the time. The early 70’s was an absolute window of freedom on many social awareness fronts, from Billie Jean King and her liberationists tennis match with self proclaimed male chauvinist pig Bobby Riggs to women entering the work force in huge numbers, busing and integration, interracial dating, and the counter culture was claiming victory with troops being pulled from Vietnam.
Probably never again will young Americans have so much freedom in the fashion they wore. Girls wore everything from granny dresses to hot pants, mini’s to maxi’s, high waist pants with halter tops that started more than halted. Boys wore flared pants with large cuffs and brightly colored collared shirts and everybody seem to have at least one burgundy sweater vest and both sexes wore their hair long.
I guess the fashion reflected the crazy times, Nixon-Agnew, Watergate, gas shortage, energy crisis and streaking had become the national pastime. To this day I still don’t know what image is scarier, Linda Blair’s portrayal of the devil in the movie “The Exorcist” or poor little rich girl Patty Hearst armed with an assault rifle robbing the Hibernia bank in San Francisco, you decide.
Society didn’t adhere to the norms that came with structure any longer. We were optimistic and a little frighten about the possibilities of experiencing actual freedom for the first time. Freedom to buy a foreign car or go to a different college than your old man did. New -age religions, enlightenment and the sexual revolution. We also had a sound track that co-conspired along with us. The top three Pop-Rock acts of the 1970’s were “Elton John” “Paul McCartney and Wings” and “The Carpenters” not to mention great Soul acts like “Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes” and the “Dramatics”. It was all happening in the freedom-fest of the early 1970’s.
Before I go I would like to quote a line from one of my favorite songs from that precious time. It’s the 1973 classic “Free Ride” by “The Edgar Winter Group”. It goes like this:
“The mountain is high, the valley is low,and your confused on which way to go, so I flew in to lend you a hand and lead you into the promised land,so go on and take a free ride”.
Until next time,
Peace and Love,
Joe
Upcoming Photoshoots
Oct 25th
Nov.18th-1970’s Pre-Disco: A look at fashion in the early 70’s
TBA – Blue Jean Baby Queen: Do you remember the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen?
TBA – Lowrider: Nobody on the face of the planet is cooler than the Lowriders.