Brad Pitt's Dog Is a Punk Rocker

Johan Kugelberg has historically been on the leading edge of pop culture. While the Swedish ex-pat who calls NYC home has a resume that sounds like a jack of all trades - worked in the music industry as an A&R guy (American Recordings and Matador; he was responsible for the Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments getting signed), played in a garage band or two (Union Carbide Productions, The Action Swingers), is a collector and preserver of pop culture (so much so that he was able to endow Cornell University's hip hop collection ) - he is the master of quite a LOT.

Johan has a new book entitled Brad Pitt's Dog, Essays on Fame, Death, Punk: A Punch and Judy show of intellectual diaspora making mincemeat of some pop culture sacred cows. It is published by Zero Books and available for pre-order on Amazon and is now available as an Ebook

"The book isn't about Brad Pitt, or about dogs, or about Brad Pitt's Dog. The title refers to what happens to you if you are told that the dog that you see making number one or number two on the sidewalk belongs to Brad Pitt. What's then being made by Brad Pitt's dog is number three," Johan Kugelberg said.

This is the first book of essays by a long-time renowned chronicler of underground culture. The way this book mashes up lo-bro and hi-bro is readable, funny and thought-provoking, and also downright provoking. Johan Kugelberg's essays on punk, style and pop culture have entertained readers of international publications including Dazed and Confused, Another Man, Ugly Things, Perfect Sound Forever, Spin, Hip Hop Connection, Raygun and Fact over the last couple of decades.

If you're in NYC, do stop by St. Mark's Bookshop, 31 Third Avenue (between 8th and 9th Streets)tomorrow - Tuesday, April 17th, 7 pm. There will be a reading and signing with Johan Kugelberg and Jack Womack, who contributed the afterword to Brad Pitt's Dog



Brad Pitt's Dog explores topics ranging from the psychogeography of record fairs, eulogies for Michael Jackson and Malcolm McLaren, a discussion of satire on Youtube, and essays on artists Dash Snow, Daido Moriyama, Carl Johan De Geer and Ragnar Persson, amongst other enthusiastic writings on photography, art, punk, and popular culture.

After a long career in blazing trails in music and the written word, Johan currently runs the exhibit space Boo-Hooray in New York's Chinatown. Recent exhibitions include In All Our Decadence People Die - Crass-era Fanzines, Artists' Book Not Artists' Book, Dreamweapon - The Art and Life of Angus MacLise, Ed Sanders - Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts 1962-1965.

Johan Kugelberg's previous books include Vintage Rock T-shirts, True Norwegian Black Metal, Born in the Bronx, The Velvet Underground - New York Art, Beauty is in the Street and Punk - An Aesthetic (forthcoming). His book on the early history of hip hop was nominated for the NYPL Books for the Teen Age award 2008 and his book on the Velvet Underground won the Foreword silver medal for music 2010. Beauty is in the Street is nominated for the London Design Museum 2012 Designs of the Year Awards.

Boo-Hooray is an exhibit space dedicated to 20th/21st century counter-culture ephemera, photography and book arts. They publish catalogues, books, artists' books and LPs regularly, as well as arrange readings and performances.

Boo-Hooray is located at 265 Canal St, 6th Floor, in Chinatown, NYC

boo-hooray.com