Skip Henderson. "City Lights Print Out". spiral bound (2024)
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"City Lights Print Out" by Skip Henderson, spiral bound (2024), New Orleans, LA. "The New Journal of Civilization...Your Pathway to Cosmic Truth by Mail!"
"This is not merely a list of old guitars; it is a work of art"
We-Allll, Things ain't like they used to be, Retro-friends. In the pre-internet, non-computerized world of the 1980s and early '90s if you were addicted to hunting old guitars (especially in the NY-NJ area) you were most likely aware of City Lights Music of Elizabeth and later New Brunswick, NJ. The fevered brainchild of maverick, mercurial genius Skip Henderson the "City Lights Print Out" was the shop's mailed-out calling card/stocklist. Far beyond a mere listing of guitars for sale, this was as willfully bizarre and delightfully individual a publication as has ever traveled the US Mail. This once-every-few-months Xeroxed and stapled wonder did list a small part of the shop's (often already sold) inventory of used guitars and myriad parts, but a range of "Mojo, Religious Icons and Curios" and other items not commonly found elsewhere in the bleak Reagan-era 1980s. If you were on the mailing list, it was always an event when the Print Out arrived like a wandering prophet's screed in the mailbox, and it was essential to immediately scour it for that special item that would already be gone if you called Skip even an hour later.
Several of us here in Retrofret world were part of the carnival ride that was City Lights in the 1980s. Whether you remember, or just want a taste of what the wilder side of guitar obsession was like "back inna day" Skip's newly complied 95-page treasury is a kaleidoscopic cornucopia sure to stagger the mind. A mint '65 Jaguar for $295? '62 TV Special $399? Acres of obscure and now unobtainable parts all well under $100? Read 'em and weep, but don't forget the pink dice valve stem caps, High John the Conqueror Root Spiritual Guidance bags, original 1950s Cadillac bumpers, Nu-Nile hair pomade, stuffed frogs and rattlesnakes, Elvis prayer shawl and the occasional Human bone. AND that's not ALL folks! Each page is festooned with fevered artwork assembled with clippings from an incredible assortment of obscure random publications now lost to the modern world. Each page is a magical assembly of print and visual collage enough to trip the brain into "Mystic knowledge, Miraculous Inventions and Contact with the Space Brothers". Believe us, we were there!
WARNING: Some Political incorrectness will be encountered. Be shaken, AND stirred. Available in the NY/NJ home turf area ONLY from us at Retrofret.
Height is 8 1/2 in. (21.6 cm.), 11 in. (27.9 cm.) width. New Condition.
"This is not merely a list of old guitars; it is a work of art"
We-Allll, Things ain't like they used to be, Retro-friends. In the pre-internet, non-computerized world of the 1980s and early '90s if you were addicted to hunting old guitars (especially in the NY-NJ area) you were most likely aware of City Lights Music of Elizabeth and later New Brunswick, NJ. The fevered brainchild of maverick, mercurial genius Skip Henderson the "City Lights Print Out" was the shop's mailed-out calling card/stocklist. Far beyond a mere listing of guitars for sale, this was as willfully bizarre and delightfully individual a publication as has ever traveled the US Mail. This once-every-few-months Xeroxed and stapled wonder did list a small part of the shop's (often already sold) inventory of used guitars and myriad parts, but a range of "Mojo, Religious Icons and Curios" and other items not commonly found elsewhere in the bleak Reagan-era 1980s. If you were on the mailing list, it was always an event when the Print Out arrived like a wandering prophet's screed in the mailbox, and it was essential to immediately scour it for that special item that would already be gone if you called Skip even an hour later.
Several of us here in Retrofret world were part of the carnival ride that was City Lights in the 1980s. Whether you remember, or just want a taste of what the wilder side of guitar obsession was like "back inna day" Skip's newly complied 95-page treasury is a kaleidoscopic cornucopia sure to stagger the mind. A mint '65 Jaguar for $295? '62 TV Special $399? Acres of obscure and now unobtainable parts all well under $100? Read 'em and weep, but don't forget the pink dice valve stem caps, High John the Conqueror Root Spiritual Guidance bags, original 1950s Cadillac bumpers, Nu-Nile hair pomade, stuffed frogs and rattlesnakes, Elvis prayer shawl and the occasional Human bone. AND that's not ALL folks! Each page is festooned with fevered artwork assembled with clippings from an incredible assortment of obscure random publications now lost to the modern world. Each page is a magical assembly of print and visual collage enough to trip the brain into "Mystic knowledge, Miraculous Inventions and Contact with the Space Brothers". Believe us, we were there!
WARNING: Some Political incorrectness will be encountered. Be shaken, AND stirred. Available in the NY/NJ home turf area ONLY from us at Retrofret.
Height is 8 1/2 in. (21.6 cm.), 11 in. (27.9 cm.) width. New Condition.