Rock Stars in their Underpants

YATES, PAULA

Published by Virgin Books, London, 1980

4to, 88pp. Printed wraps as issued, numerous colour and black & white plates. More images available on request. Phenomenally amusing first book from Yates. Is exactly as the title suggests, I groaned when I first saw it, but its actually very good. The amazing thing is it really is a who's who of rock i.e. Blondie, the Boomtown Rats, David Bowie, Elton John, The Knack, Macca, Ted Nugent, The Pretenders, the Rolling Stones, Sparks, Rod Stewart, Van Halen, Thin Lizzy, The Specials, Motorhead, Frank Zappa, Rob Halford (Priest) and a bewildering array of others. The mind boggles.

Erik Kessels / Paul Kooiker, Terribly awe some photo books 30 x 37 cm 64 pages news paper print edition of 1000 ISBN 9789490800093
For several years, Paul Kooiker and Erik Kessels have organized evenings for friends in which they share the strangest photo books in their collections. The books shown are rarely available in regular shops, but are picked up in thrift stores and from antiquaries. The group’s fascination for these pictorial non-fiction books comes from the need to find images that exist on the fringe of regular commercial photo books. It’s only in this area that it’s possible to find images with an uncontrived quality. What’s noticeable from these publications is that there’s a thin line between being terrible and being awesome. This constant tension makes the books interesting. It’s also worth noting that these tomes all fall within certain categories: the medical, instructional, scientific, sex, humour or propaganda. Paul Kooiker and Erik Kessels have made a selection of their finest books from within this questionable new genre.

Paula Yates, 40, British Television Host and Rock-Scene Celebrity

By SARAH LYALL
Published: September 19, 2000

Paula Yates, a British television personality known for her outrageously flirtatious interviewing style and for her relationships with the rock stars Bob Geldof and Michael Hutchence, was found dead at home here on Sunday. She was 40.

The cause was apparently a drug overdose, the authorities said.

Reared in north Wales, Ms. Yates left school at 16 and moved to London, where she joined the emerging punk scene and embarked on an extravagant -- and extravagantly public -- life. When she became enamored of Mr. Geldof, who was then the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, she followed the band on tour until Mr. Geldof became just as smitten with her, and they embarked on a relationship. They married 10 years later and had three daughters, Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches and Pixie.

Ms. Yates reveled in the spotlight, posing naked in the stuffy Reform Club for Penthouse magazine and compiling a book of photographs called ''Rock Stars in Their Underpants,'' which Andy Warhol called ''the greatest work of art in the last decade.'' She also wrote several books for children, but it was not until she started her television career as a co-presenter of ''The Tube,'' a show about music, that she became a celebrity in her own right, affecting a bubbleheaded, giggly personality that belied her sharp intelligence, friends said.

In 1992 she began presenting ''The Big Breakfast Show,'' a morning television program in which she often interviewed guests while lying on a bed in the studio. One guest was Michael Hutchence, the lead singer of the band INXS, and the two fell madly in love. She left Mr. Geldof, setting off a bitter, tabloid-fueled divorce and an equally bitter fight for custody of their three daughters. Mr. Geldof won.

Ms. Yates and Mr. Hutchence had an intensely passionate affair and one child, a daughter they named Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. But their relationship was marred by drug use and extreme behavior that ended when Mr. Hutchence was found dead, hanging by his belt, in a hotel room in Sydney, Australia, in November 1997.

Ms. Yates, who once said that Mr. Hutchence was ''God's gift to women,'' seemed never to recover from his death, spiraling into a depression that resulted in her admission to a mental hospital and at least one suicide attempt of her own.

It was hard for her to hang on, she once said in an interview. ''It's only the mothering instinct that makes you willing to suffer every day,'' she said. ''Right now, I think living is a noble gesture.''

angus young ac/dc

godley creme

emmy tay lor mo tor head

phil lynott thin lizzy

angelic upstarts "The latest in Skinhead style underpants which look much the same as everyone else's but with crew cuts like that all over the place probably feel rather prickly." Photograph by Tom Sheehan

the knack their road crew

jools hol land

richard jobson a very strapping young up-and-coming pop star his interests: getting his picture taken, spraying on hairspray till his quiff is solid

rolling stones

steve jones the professionals Photograph Brad Elterman

rick parfitt Staus Quo 3 chord undies

frank zappa

Frank is seen here after a visit to the well known Chelsea Flower Show. As a safety precaution against snake bites, Frank has kept his socks on, This is something most rock stars seem to do, mainly in case an innocent bystander passes out from the aroma which comes from wearing the same pair until they have rigor mortis.photograph by Claude Van Heye

Sparks May 1980 photograph Michael Montfort

david lee roth Rumour has it that on tour David's roadies risk a hernia every night setting up his full length mirror in the dressing room. Rumour also has it that David then does ballet exercises in front of the mirror, pouting and flinging his hair around while on points. He also has a wind machine to blow his wall-to-wall fitted pubic hair in the right direction and a gym mat to roll on. Photograph by Neil Zlozower

ted nugent demonstrating a heavy metal star wearing a pair of obviously high decibel Y-fronts and vest

daddy dearest?

SIR bob geldof Bob is seen on his way to see Liberace's show in Las Vegas. He's obviously checking to see if he's wearing suitable pants for the occasion. The dim white light in the background is a cop car having a kip outside that hot bed of iniquity, the Flamingo Hilton.

amanda lear amanda lear's knickers and their contents have been the topic of so much specu lation that i hardly know what to say but i think the pictures speak for them selves.