Field Leathers

[MrProper]

Absolutely. Though a different kind of custome than the ones we wear and upload photos of here.
I mean that an outsider to this forum would probably use the exact same words if he came across your or my photos here.

Very likely.
I had recently seen a video on Instagram where several rugged people went into a rugged shop. Each individual would have gone somehow, but in the group it seemed like a costume party.

 

[dudewuttheheck]

Horse riding outfit.

Exactly

Absolutely. Though a different kind of custome than the ones we wear and upload photos of here.
I mean that an outsider to this forum would probably use the exact same words if he came across your or my photos here.

My point is that the boots look horribly proportioned on him in that outfit. It doesn't look good. I should have clarified. A costume can actually look good even if it's out of place and/or anachronistic. He looks like he's wearing an ill fitting Halloween costume.

 

[Harris HTM]

I

Exactly

My point is that the boots look horribly proportioned on him in that outfit. It doesn't look good. I should have clarified. A costume can actually look good even if it's out of place and/or anachronistic. He looks like he's wearing an ill fitting Halloween costume.

I understand. Keep in mind however that this guy pretty much invented the punk look, which focused on wearing everything that went against the grain.

 

[Canuck Panda]

One of those hides will be used for my jacket which Greg will start working on next week.

View attachment 490006

There are three different hides there. The top one looks too small to be cowhide, the bottom two are but looks like they're tanned differently with a different colored core. Which one did you go with?

He needs a space heater in the shop.

 

[Marc mndt]

There are three different hides there. The top the one looks too small to be cowhide, the bottom two are but looks like they're tanned differently with a different colored core. Which one did you go with?

He needs a space heater in the shop.

I asked whether I could pick a hide. I was told they already selected the largest hide for my jacket as mine requires more leather than the other jackets they're cutting from this batch.

 

[Aloysius]

I

I understand. Keep in mind however that this guy pretty much invented the punk look, which focused on wearing everything that went against the grain.

This is complete misconception, albeit a widely believed one today. Any honest British punk enthusiast will admit it.

The Sex Pistols look was developed by Malcolm McLaren based on things he had seen observing the New York punk scene, especially during his failed bid managing the New York Dolls.

Their core look was copied from Richard Hell, who Malcolm McLaren observed when he was in New York. This is where things like the safety pinned shirt came from (incidentally, Hell didn’t do that as a fashion statement; rather a junkie had literally cut up his shirt so he had to safety pin it together.)

Then they wore English rocker clothes (Sid wore a Dominator from Lewis) while wanting to look like the Ramones. When they did their bizarre US tour, they went into a leather shop and Sid got a Perfecto so that he could look like Dee Dee Ramone, whom he idolised. This is why he wore the eagle pin, as a nod to Joey’s pin.

It absolutely was a costume, and a conscious one at that.

 

[Harris HTM]

This is complete misconception, albeit a widely believed one today. Any honest British punk enthusiast will admit it.

The Sex Pistols look was developed by Malcolm McLaren based on things he had seen observing the New York punk scene, especially during his failed bid managing the New York Dolls.

Their core look was copied from Richard Hell, who Malcolm McLaren observed when he was in New York. This is where things like the safety pinned shirt came from (incidentally, Hell didn’t do that as a fashion statement; rather a junkie had literally cut up his shirt so he had to safety pin it together.)

Then they wore English rocker clothes (Sid wore a Dominator from Lewis) while wanting to look like the Ramones. When they did their bizarre US tour, they went into a leather shop and Sid got a Perfecto so that he could look like Dee Dee Ramone, whom he idolised. This is why he wore the eagle pin, as a nod to Joey’s pin.

It absolutely was a costume, and a conscious one at that.

My bad, thanks for enlightening and correcting me. Never been a punk fan myself.

 

[Aloysius]

My point is that the boots look horribly proportioned on him in that outfit. It doesn't look good. I should have clarified. A costume can actually look good even if it's out of place and/or anachronistic. He looks like he's wearing an ill fitting Halloween costume.

This is who he was trying to look like:

 

[dudewuttheheck]

This is complete misconception, albeit a widely believed one today. Any honest British punk enthusiast will admit it.

The Sex Pistols look was developed by Malcolm McLaren based on things he had seen observing the New York punk scene, especially during his failed bid managing the New York Dolls.

Their core look was copied from Richard Hell, who Malcolm McLaren observed when he was in New York. This is where things like the safety pinned shirt came from (incidentally, Hell didn’t do that as a fashion statement; rather a junkie had literally cut up his shirt so he had to safety pin it together.)

Then they wore English rocker clothes (Sid wore a Dominator from Lewis) while wanting to look like the Ramones. When they did their bizarre US tour, they went into a leather shop and Sid got a Perfecto so that he could look like Dee Dee Ramone, whom he idolised. This is why he wore the eagle pin, as a nod to Joey’s pin.

It absolutely was a costume, and a conscious one at that.

Thank you for this. I knew Sid was all fake, but I couldn't properly cite evidence as you have. Sid was trash as an icon, bass player, and obviously as a human. Also he clearly had no idea how to wear engineers.

 

[Aloysius]

My bad, thanks for enlightening and correcting me. Never been a punk fan myself.

Not to worry. It shows how good McLaren’s marketing was that I most Americans I meet today think the British bands invented punk, or the bands the Pistols copied were actually copying them, etc.

 

[Aloysius]

Thank you for this. I knew Sid was all fake, but I couldn't properly cite evidence as you have. Sid was trash as an icon, bass player, and obviously as a human. Also he clearly had no idea how to wear engineers.

If you watch 80s interviews with Johnny and Joey Ramone, they’re clearly (and understandably) still bitter that right when they were starting to build up momentum, a copycat band came in on tour from Britain and did crazy antics like vomiting on people, and then radio stations then refused to play the Ramones because they assumed they were going to do stuff like that.

The head of their label tried to relabel New York punk as “new wave” to escape the bad publicity the Pistols had created, but it didn’t work for all of the bands, just Blondie and maybe Television.

And then now you get people who try to insist Blondie wasn’t punk or even that the Ramones weren’t, despite those being two of the main original bands in the punk scene, because they think the genre always was just crazy antics. When the recent remaster of the first few Blondie albums came out, I saw a European commenting online that he didn’t understand why the album producer was calling it punk, because the music was way too high quality so it couldn’t be true punk. Insert facepalm.

 

[Harris HTM]

Not to worry. It shows how good McLaren’s marketing was that I most Americans I meet today think the British bands invented punk, or the bands the Pistols copied were actually copying them, etc.

For some reason I thought that bands like Discharge, GBH and Crass were responsible for the punk scene (I know that Pistols were the "pop" version of punk) but again my only connection to this scene is the fact that they influenced the thrash scene, dedicated fan of which I am for the last 34 years.

 

[Aloysius]

For some reason I thought that bands like Discharge, GBH and Crass were responsible for the punk scene (I know that Pistols were the "pop" version of punk) but again my only connection to this scene is the fact that they influenced the thrash scene, dedicated fan of which I am for the last 34 years.

The roots of punk differ depending on how you define it, but the ‘main’ root was definitely 50s Rock N Roll, as well as its revivals through bands like The Who, The Beatles, the Stones, the Beach Boys. Basically it was a rebellion against the “stadium rock” of the 70s, with its self-indulgent solos, 20 minutes songs, etc.

As its own scene, it originated with Andy Warhol’s circle in New York, particularly Velvet Underground, which then crossed over with the Detroit scene of people like The Stooges and MC5, especially when Iggy came to New York. David Bowie caught onto it early too (he wasn’t even a star yet himself) and got involved. Essentially you can call it a stripped-down back-to-basics rock. This doesn’t meant a lack of musicianship–after all, minimalism is one of the hardest things to do well–but it had a certain attitude. Then you get bands like the New York Dolls and others emerging. The Ramones are sort of where it crystallises as the “ideal” of punk that everyone else followed.

And of course a lot of the culture and aesthetic is distinctively New York, which is why the “uniform” that punk rockers aspired to, for quite a while, was the Perfecto jacket. But it was a far more diverse scene in its original form. The British spinoff sort of took one aspect of the Ramones as a model then ran with that exclusively.

 

[Aloysius]

A great example of the difference in perception between punk when it was actually happening and punk that people think of today is to be found in the game Cyberpunk, actually.

When the original paper-and-pencil/board game was written in the 80s, the creator based the rock star character on David Bowie. A few years ago, when it was made into a video game, they got a Swedish hardcore band to make the music for that character… For modern audiences, they probably thought "yeah that's what it's supposed to be!"

For me as a punk and Bowie fan it was just painful to hear, lol. Hardcore isn't even inherently bad but it's a completely different genre from what the character was conceived as.

 

[Harris HTM]

bass player,

Lemmy in his autobiography actually said that he had tried to teach him the basics of bass playing but he was “hopeless”.

 

[Aloysius]

Lemmy in his autobiography actually said that he had tried to teach him the basics of bass playing but he was “hopeless”.

Incidentally, Lemmy is a great counter-proof to the British punk narrative, because in his tribute to the Ramones he credits them for setting the "black leather" look and "fuzz tone" guitar.

Bonus story:

“I had to interview Lemmy one evening years ago,” reports journalist Mark Spivey, “almost immediately after Motorhead had played at Rock City. It was less than 10 minutes after the show finished that Lemmy came in for the interview, sweat-soaked, and asked what I’d thought. “ ‘Let’s face it, you’ll never be the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world, will you?’ I replied.

“Lemmy wasn’t best pleased. So I waited and said nothing more, hoping he’d ask what I meant before smacking me. I’d like to say something about rage being etched into his face, blood vessels bursting through pure anger, steam rising, and all that shit, but all I remember clearly is hoping I’d played this right or else I was fucked. I’m pretty sure his anger was tempered by curiosity and simple disbelief, but maybe that’s because I know something must have stopped him losing it. “ ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

“ ‘Well, the Ramones exist,’ I said, still not sure how it would go down, ‘so you can only ever hope to be the second best.’ “ ‘Fair enough,’ said Lemmy, before adding, ‘that’s the only answer you could have possibly got away with …’ ”

 

[Harris HTM]

Incidentally, Lemmy is a great counter-proof to the British punk narrative, because in his tribute to the Ramones he credits them for setting the "black leather" look and "fuzz tone" guitar.

Bonus story:

Big Motörhead fan, I know he loved Ramones and he praised them often live. It had always been a pleasure watching him playing live, rip.

 

[Will Zach]

^^
This thread meandered, but this is fascinating stuff. Thx @Aloysius . I am going to put on my CBGB t-shirt now (no, not original, lol)

 

[dudewuttheheck]

Lemmy in his autobiography actually said that he had tried to teach him the basics of bass playing but he was “hopeless”.

Yeah I remember seeing that quoted many places. Lemmy is a legend.

 

[Aloysius]

^^
This thread meandered, but this is fascinating stuff. Thx @Aloysius . I am going to put on my CBGB t-shirt now (no, not original, lol)

There was someone here years ago who used to hang out at CBGB's and Max's (when Debbie Harry was a waitress there!)

EDIT: I'll also add that I don't think any of this is off topic because Ramones probably deserve credit for making 50s style leather jackets a trend again, and most people who are into leather jackets are either interested in midcentury style, punk, or both.