Second Life: Light Bulb, 1977-81
Edited by Chip Chapman
Published by East of Borneo in cooperation with the Los Angeles Free Music Society
62 pages + 4 stickers, looseleaf / 8.75 x 11.25 x 1 in., held together with duct tape
Our sort of beloved LAFMS was a semi-loose aggreg.
of like-minded individuals who commonly felt an inclination toward hearing and creating music
and sometimes visual art that was out-of-the-ordinary, not the same-old, basically the kind
of music they'd like to hear and the weird art they'd like to see. Scratch that "weird" part, that's
too limiting. This was all about artistic expression in a time and place in which deviation from
the commercial norms and expectations was frowned upon or laughed at or, worse, totally
ignored. (Talking about the late '70s, early '80s.) LAFMS included mainstay pals Joseph
Hammer, Smegma, Tom Recchion, and Joe and Rick Potts, who published the Light Bulb
mag from time to time between 1977 and '81. This beautiful boxed version collects 62
looseleaf pages from the, in retrospect [settles back in BarcaLounger, lights pipe, ruminates],
enlightened likes of Chip Chapman, Susan Farthing Chapman, Dennis Duck, Ace Farren Ford,
Juan Gomez, Ju Suk Reet Meate, Fredrik Nilsen, Joe Potts, Rick Potts, Tom Potts and Tom
Recchion, among loads of idiosyncratically gifted others. These people found that, within
the pages of Light Bulb, they were free to express themselves like artistes, by
contributing drawings, texts poetic/informative/sexually depraved/freeform; you had
your abstract collage and photography both cracked-lens-effect and hi-fine-art style;
and there were ads for other LAFMS records and cassettes and etc. The tone? A bit "ironic"
and sardonic, who could blame them, but who couldn't, deep down, relate? The "thing" is,
Light Bulb was like a treasure chest piled high with neatstuff for all or let's say many
of us hungering for something different, at very least some kind of validation for our own
assumed and terribly lonely sense of vastly superior aesthetics.
ÐÐ John Payne
http://www.eastofborneo.org/books/lightbulb
LAFMS info: http://www.lafms.com
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