Last Gasp of San Francisco

I am the editor of Hail Murray, a photography monograph of the artist Murray Bowles. Hail Murray! is the first book-length compendium of Bowles’ work. It is a book of San Francisco Bay Area punk photography chronicling the art and activism of 1980s-90s punk rock. The images it contains--originally distributed at shows for 25 cents per print--helped propel the East Bay punk scene to legendary status and remain indispensable to its collective memory. For anyone who did not experience this era first hand, the book is a unique window into the Bay Area’s vibrant creativity during its golden years. The release of Hail Murray! is a major contribution to the genre of punk photo books, standing alongside collections by Edward Colver, Ruby Ray, and Glen E. Friedman.
Readers of Hail Murray! will come away with a deep appreciation for the ineffable quality of Bowles’ photographic eye and recognition that these pictures could not have been shot by an outsider. Only someone who belonged and was truly in the thick of it could have captured the rare intimacy and youthful exuberance of this world.