Toby Mott: I remember clearly leaving a UK Subs gig before the end, as I became disenchanted with punk and it had developed into a cliché of itself. urn:oclc:record:1392369841 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier ohsoprettypunkin0000unse Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s24p8f2s217 Invoice 1652 Isbn 9780714872759

An unrivalled collection of artefacts and ephemera... The graphic anarchy and DIY spirit that caused a seismic shift in UK culture."— i-D online Toby Mott: We would visit the record company offices in the center of London. The receptionist would give us badges and posters. Once when visiting the offices of Polydor, Jimmy Pursey from Sham 69 threw badges down at us from the office window.Broaden(s) the conversation from punk as a musical movement to an exploration of the distinctive visual art style and approach to art-making that emerged from its urgent anarchism."— i-D.Vice Punk has always been anti-establishment, and that includes the traditional design establishment. Its ethos is DIY; make do with what’s available, and figure it out. Don’t have the necessary supplies? Doesn’t matter; you can make paste from flour and use a public library’s xerox machine. Punk thumbs its nose at the polished. It embraces the messy, the handmade, and the authentic. It is a state of mind reflected both in the sound of its music and the look of its promotional graphics. Ocr tesseract 5.3.0-1-gd3a4 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.8629 Ocr_module_version 0.0.18 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-0001602 Openlibrary_edition Another featured venue is The Temple (aka Temple Beautiful) at 1839 Geary. The stunning synagogue built in 1906 turned into a music venue in the 1970s (intact architectural features like pews and Stars of David included). Adding to the anachronistic setting was the fact that The People’s Temple (of Jim Jones fame) was next door. 5 Temple Beautiful’s glory was short-lived, as ownership changed hands throughout the 1980s and the building was destroyed in a fire in 1989.

Being presented in book form doesn't take away the rawness of these simply created materials, and even the paper mirrors the designs of the originals."— It's Nice ThatUltimately, all the flyers in this collection reflect a disillusionment with the status quo, with American politics, and with everything professional, polished, and elite. The photocopied montages of type and image often reveal their roughly trimmed edges. In all their uneven lines and scrawled letters are attempts at finding the authentic, the raw, and the real. K. Friedman, Flyer for Iggy Pop and Mi Sex at Pauley Ballroom, Berkeley, 1980. Toby Mott: My favorite zine is still Sniffin’ Glue, as it got the whole thing started. Sniffin’ Glue #3½, 28 September 1976, Courtesy of The Mott Collection An unrivalled collection of rarely seen, visually fantastic ephemera from the punk era... [Toby Mott's] collection has been described as 'raw, messy and seething with life'. We couldn't agree more."— Tatler.com

Toby participated in this DIY culture by “totally immersing myself” in gigs and working on fanzines with a friend, but slowly it was the work of others he started to seek out. “I was interested in the music, but I also studied art so I started collecting all the flyers and posters and stuff.” Though this was the beginning of obsessive collecting, there was still room for some teenage rebellion. While at Pimlico Comprehensive Toby was one of the founding members of the Anarchist Street Army, one of many London-based collectives of young punks at the time. “We were delinquents, we used to bunk off school, get in trouble, that sort of thing. It was a very tightly controlled society at the time, and you would be stopped and searched by the police just for the way you looked.”Toby Mott: In 2010, I was invited to show my collection at an art museum in Spain – “Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper,” The Mott Collection at MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León. And during the process of archiving it, it became apparent how important this material was. Punks tore up the rule book and more specifically newspapers to achieve their iconic ransom note look. Graphic and social revolution on the brain."— Love magazine