"Sundays With Von Dutch: Calabasas, 1970"
Author: Photography by Richard Karl Koch; introduction by Koch; text by Tony Thacker; published by Motorbooks
Content: A photo essay by Richard Karl Koch, a photographer commissioned to capture the image of cult legend pinstriper/artist/machinist/general madman Von Dutch. The work appeared alongside Tom Nolan's story for WEST magazine, a feature-format magazine that appeared in the May 24, 1970 issue of the Los Angeles Times.
Editorial Comments: Crude. Cantankerous. Anti-Semitic. Racist. Vulgar. Grumpy. Considering the swirl of dubious folklore regarding his abrasive public personality, what adjectives haven't been used to describe Von Dutch? Well here's one: human. In "Sundays with Von Dutch," we get to see one of the most overlooked facets in this undeniably enigmatic figure, that of a relaxed creative genius having a good time.
Either out of insecurity (he was an architectural photographer by trade) or simply due to dedication to a commission, Richard Karl Koch pressed the shutter and almost literally never let go. Even though the WEST article featured only nine of Koch's images, for example, he came away with volumes of materials based on these Sundays. This book has 180 of the photos taken those four days; 171 of them have never seen the light of day.
First, and probably most obviously, Dutch looks happy. The guy smiles-a lot. With either an Olympia bottle, cigarillo, or 'striping brush in hand, Dutch shows a side of himself that didn't exactly make its way into the folklore. Whether he's astride an old military halftrack or pointing out the finer points of a machine, he looks like the kind of guy you'd really like to know. In light of his own professed ignorance to the lore that defined Von Dutch at the time-or quite possibly due to it-these images show how Koch endeared himself to a very private person.
While these photos tell the story of the Sundays, Tony Thacker recaps Dutch's illustrious life in a broader sense. While the body copy is admittedly short (it is a photo essay after all), Thacker's background knowledge in both the automotive and American pop culture worlds build a great deal of context. Rather than just showing a neat collection of photos, this book takes us by the hand and shows us just how dynamic this highly mysterious guy really was ... and still is.
Von Dutch as the misunderstood genius has been pretty well exposed over the years, and for good reason; the guy relished his outsider status. What "Sundays with Von Dutch" gives us, however, is a counterpoint to that imagery. Through this book we get a very rare opportunity to spend a little time with a person, and not just the legend he helped create.
"Rockin' Down The Highway: The Cars And People That Made Rock Roll"
Author: Written by Paul Grushkin; foreword by Mike Ness; photography by multiple sources; published by Voyageur Press
Content: A pop-culture junkie with one foot in rock 'n' roll history and another in the car world compiled references and odes made by musicians to the automobile.
Editorial Comments: If anything like this exists, I'd put money on it that it's nothing nearly as specific and comprehensive as this book. Printed on these 230-plus card-stock pages is a body of research that rivals a doctoral thesis on the subject; accompanying this text are more than 1,000 images. The work runs the gamut from blues to punk rock, from artists we know by heart to those we've probably never heard of but should.
This is no lightweight title, both literally and figuratively. At 11 inches wide, a foot tall, and an inch thick, it'll lend considerable heft to your coffee table.
Furthermore, the information inside will lend considerable heft to your credibility as a rock 'n' roll resource-at least as it pertains to car culture. Through myriad interviews and copious research, we get to see how music shaped automotive culture and vice versa. "Rockin' Down the Highway" is packaged as something that'll impress your friends when displayed on the coffee table; however, you'll find yourself sneaking off with it, slipping off its jacket cover, and hunkering down with it in your favorite lounger for hours at a time. The romance won't end on the last page either; there's enough cross-referenced information within it to justify at least a second read, and you may find yourself leafing through it indefinitely for that snippet of information you never heard referenced anywhere else.
"Electroline Diaries"
Author: Photography by Laurent Bagnard; foreword by Mike Ness; stories by Laurent Bagnard; published by CarTech
Content: Laurent Bagnard rides shotgun with one of the preeminent traditional hot rod and custom car clubs of our time: The Burbank Choppers. While riding with these six guys-Vern Hammond, Keith Weesner, John Fisher, Deron Wright, Aaron Kahan, and Sandy Wachs-we get to see what motivates these vanguards of the traditional hot rod and custom aesthetic and philosophy.
Editorial Comments: Naturally, this book was intended for those who know who the Choppers are; however, it probably has greater importance to those who've never heard of the club. For the backstory, the Choppers was (and still is) one of the seminal groups of young guys who started reassembling or recreating hot rod and custom cars out of the genuine parts and in the same mold that our forebears once used. This club and several others like it are important for the fact that they are the ones who helped kick-start the traditional aesthetic some 15 years ago-in the very least they promoted the movement by adhering to a specific standard and showing up to meets in numbers of similarly themed cars. Make this one very important distinction, however: These are not rat rods. These are very high-quality cars assembled by very creative artists, illustrators, and builders to reflect a specific period. While some are shiny, others are either left in their historic finishes or distressed in such a way to look as if some kid found an old car in a barn, aired up the tires, and took it for a spin.
The model of a club chronicle isn't a first-time endeavor for Laurent Bagnard. Several years ago, he produced a similar book about a club called "The Cheaters," a group of very dedicated and knowledgeable guys keeping the traditional hot rod and custom car flame alive in a place very unfriendly to modified cars: Geneva, Switzerland. Simply for the fact that overseas enthusiasts of Americana are relegated to studying our culture from afar (Bagnard is French), they're very tuned in to what makes the hot rod and custom movement dynamic, and this book shows it all. Delivered in stream-of-conscious bites la Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," Bagnard's descriptions (in English) are vivid. Working with an old Nikon match-needle camera and time-honored films, he captures images of these cars, their handlers, and the environment in which they operate in a grainy way that only a photo lost to a shoebox in the back of a spare-room closet can.