Oh So Pretty is a presentation of Toby Mott’s collection of punk ephemera. There are over 500 fanzines, posters and flyers from the emergence of 1970s punk. The presentation is eye-catching and the book is overflowing with cut-and-paste graphics, ransom-note lettering and innovative designs. Published by Phaidon to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the birth of punk, the coffee-table sized book is, unusually, in paperback format. The 512 pages are high quality scans and there is an introduction from the editor and curator Rick Poynor, as well as an introduction by Mott himself detailing what the new wave meant to kids like him at the time.

Mott lists records labels that released punk records; Step Forward, Stiff and Polydor. From this distance in time it is hard to imagine Polydor as an indie, let alone at the forefront of musical revolution. Nevertheless, punk has now been appropriated in British heritage. The year long celebration of the 40th anniversary of punk sponsored by the London Mayor's office and various corporations is not the first instance of those punks rebelled against using the scene for their own ends.

The chronological sequencing of the images in the book shows the cultural appropriation and assimilation of the new media by the mainstream labels. The sanitised presentation of punk-like images that began quickly has become little more than another marketing device and is mostly shunned by modern punk bands. You are unlikely to find a punk musician nowadays with spiked hair and torn trousers. It is tantamount to carrying a sign declaring your ignorance of their genesis and explains the distrust of Green Day and their ilk by modern punks. It is also interesting to see that most contemporaneous bands and fans referred to themselves as ‘new wave’ rather than ‘punk’.

The appropriation has provoked a reaction in some quarters. Joe Corré is the son of the late Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and pioneering designer Vivienne Westwood. His collection of punk memorabilia is estimated to be worth around £5m and he is scheduled to publicly burn it on 26 November in Camden. In an act of minor defiance worthy of the new wave themselves, Corré’s conflagration is being promoted by the very people he is subverting and it will coincide with the 40th anniversary of ‘Anarchy In The UK’.

Hopping on the punk bandwagon is nothing new. Julie Davis published a punk book in 1977 and the first punk novel The Punk by Gideon Sams was published by Corgi the same year, both of which appear in Oh So Pretty. There are also posters for Don Letts’ film that documented the scene; The Punk Rock Movie.

Throughout the entries by skilled designers and enthusiastic amateurs, the Sex Pistols iconic artwork by Jamie Reid stands out. Other notable pictures include the ad for The Damned’s tour which reads “The Damned can now play three chords/ The Adverts can play one/ Hear all four of them at...”, and possibly the most exciting piece is the “Play’in In The Band” (sic) feature from the first issue of Sideburns that famously reads “This is a chord/ This is another/ This a third/ Now form a band”. That picture also appears on the back cover. Poynor contextualises the music with features on the Queen’s silver jubilee, Rock Against Racism, the Anti Nazi League, and the National Front; the punk movement attracted the attention of the extreme right and the extreme left.

It is incredible to see flyers for the Sex Pistols tour with support from The Clash, Buzzcocks and Johnny & The Heartbreakers. Even more so, a poster for the Roxy showing a Siouxsie And The Banshees gig with support from Iron Maiden and X-ray Spex. There is a flyer for a week of gigs at Leeds Polytechnic featuring The Clash, Ramones, Talking Heads and The Heartbreakers.

Like the music itself, the images get less interesting with the progression of time and, prior to the arrival of Adam & The Ants‘ bondage themes, things get repetitive and staid in 1978. Nonetheless, the DIY spirit and readily identifiable aesthetic are still relevant today and the ideals these artefacts represent still influence musicians and labels 40 years on. All of which make Oh So Pretty a must-have for any fans of punk and also for aspiring designers.

512 pp, 550 Illustrations, ISBN: 9780714872759

Oh So Pretty is available from amazon.

Best Kept Secret festival kicks off in Tilburg in eight weeks time. We’ll be building up to the festival with features on some of the bands involved. 

Californian garage punks Audacity will be playing on Saturday 18th June. The band formed in 2001 and have just released their fifth album, Hyper Vessels, through Seattle’s Suicide Squeeze Records. We spoke to guitarist Matt Schmalfeld about their current tour and their new album, which was recently reviewed on Musos' Guide and can be read here.

Matt, you've been together for 15 years now, did you get together in school?

Yeah, me and Kyle Gibson went to the same elementary school and we were best friends from 1st through to 5th grade. When we were 10 or 11 years old we started playing guitar and formed a band shortly after that with another couple of classmates and just kept going from there. It’s been a long time. We're just starting to be able to rent cars and stuff like that.

You have a real influence of old school punk.

Yeah, definitely. We started listening to punk when we were in seventh grade, maybe the end of sixth grade. Ramones and The Clash and all of that. We like that stuff.

You're doing a UK tour in June?

Yeah we'll be there the end of June. We were there in the fall of 2014 so it’s been almost two years. It was great the first time. I ended up having to come back and hang out more in London because I had so much fun.

You'll be doing the festivals too; you're playing Best Kept Secret with Beck.

Yeah, I still haven’t wrapped my head around it. I’m just thrilled. Beck is the best guitar based act in the world right now. Best album too.

It sounds like there are a number of songwriters in the band?

Yeah, we arrange everything together. So in the songs, maybe I’ll write the layout, or Kyle, the other guitar player. Then we'll write down lyrics but it will always get put together at a practice, for the most part. With a couple of songs on this record they were pretty much all the way done by the time we jammed them. But it’s a collaborative effort.

Do you take the lead vocal on each of your songs?

No, a couple of songs like ‘Not Like You’ and ‘Dirty Boy’, we both sing pretty much the whole time. A lot of the songs like ‘Fire’ or ‘Riot Train’ or ‘Hypo’, Kyle sings those. He wrote the body of those songs. We're blessed and very lucky to be in a good songwriting partnership. We can bounce ideas off each other. You know sometimes it doesn’t go that way. People don't like being told what to do, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but you need to be able to work on stuff together. 

It's hard enough to find someone who will accept criticism and be critical of you as well.

Yeah, I think a lot of it goes back to how long we've known each other, bouncing ideas and criticism. We don’t mind if that hurts someone’s feelings. It’s all part of the greater good of the band. 

‘Previous Cast’, is that one of yours?

That's Kyle’s song. It's my favourite song on the record. I think we did the vocals on that once. Then Kyle redid them. I think I told him “This is the best song and you’re singing it so good, we’ve got to stick with it like you have it.” Kyle could probably speak more about it but that's probably my favourite song on the record because it’s so…, it’s got more feeling to it. It'll make you cry!

And you're in the middle of a big tour now.

Right now we’re in beautiful Chattanooga, Tennessee and heading to Atlanta tonight. We’ve about a week left on a month long tour. Everything has been great fun this time round. We haven’t been on a US tour in about a year and a half so it's good to not be working six days a week and be able to do what you actually want to do. It’s like being on vacation.

When you're doing something you love it doesn’t feel like work.

That's right. And we get to try different cuisines and different beers. Our van is very comfortable. It looks like R2-D2. Things are good for Audacity these days.

Have you a message for your fans over here?

Just let people know that sacrifice is very important. Sacrifice is a big part of life. That’s our mantra that we live by. If that doesn’t sound too weird?! Life is full of little sacrifices but sometimes they lead you to a pot of gold, whether it’s a literal or metaphorical pot of gold.