Idol, it's Concept and Creation
The creation of the image I entitled “IDOL” comes from my having grown up in 1950s Oklahoma (aka the “Bible Belt”). Like a lot of people during that era, I grew up in a very strict family. Lots of rules and regulations. My folks would drag me off to their Calvinist church every Sunday and to keep me quiet during the sermon they gave me paper and pencil to keep myself amused since I was too young to follow the preacher’s rap. When I got bored of drawing dinosaurs and Popeye or Mickey the Mouse they’s give me a nickel or a quarter to draw. Even a dollar bill (with all those weird Masonic Symbols surrounding the Great Seal on the back. (Very Mysterious and enigmatic.) I was, of course, directed to put that cash into the collection plate once it was passed round. (Boo hoo. I didn’t get to spend it on candy…)
So, over time, I began to equate Religion with Money. It’s not really much of a stretch if you think about it. And I’ve never really much changed my mind about the connection since then. Since 1956 or '57 I’ve only seen that connection become stronger and more defined. Just look at all the TV Preachers on the air and their mega churches all over L.A., Texas, throughout Middle America and the South. Not to mention the ugly so-called “Christian Nationalists wanting to trade in their their Halos for red MAGA hats and AR-15s. Like the late, great John Prine wrote: “Your Flag Decal won’t get you into Heaven Anymore."
So with the imagery of money and “filthy lucre” the idea developed in my head of money equaling religion and the obvious conclusion was to create a cross of dollars. This was formulating just after I returned from approximately 7 years of my having lived back in Italy while studying Renaissance Art. (1969 to 1976) Living there (when Italy was still super cheap) I was thoroughly Immersed in a culture of religious iconography, Crosses, Madonnas, Angels, etc. (And everything dripping with gold.) The U.S. Dollar was a stand-in for gold, but that was alright. I still got my point across.
Since this was a concept that I thought was obvious to Everybody I didn’t think it was all that shocking. In 1977 I found an old metal crucifix at a thrift store and redecorated it with dollars to come full circle from my childhood conclusion that religion was hopelessly intertwined with Money and Profit and false prophets pulling the wool over the eyes of gullible true believers. It was my way of sounding a warning. Believe whatever you like or need to believe but just don’t fall for the gag that devout obedience will result in worldly success and monetary enrichment.
I made several versions of the 3-D metal cross as paper collages and the 2-D graphic seemed to be enhanced as a symbolic Image. By 1978 and ’79 I was volunteering my artwork for a group called Rock Against Racism. It had started in the United Kingdom a few years earlier and there were several chapters throughout the U.S. and Canada. In our group we tried to raise awareness with an underground ‘zine called “Itel Times”, I believe. In San Francisco we promoted punk shows at the venerable “Temple Beautiful” next door to Bill Graham’s Fillmore Auditorium. The punkers showing up to this elegant, deconsecrated synagogue was in high contrast to the older generation and over-the-hill hippies and Operatic Rock show fans filing in and out of the Fillmore. That was a sight to behold. We had some amazing shows there—then the place “mysteriously” burnt down. Hmmm…
In the meantime I had produced a portfolio of penetrating collage pieces that I flashed on Biafra one night after a gig at the Mabuhay Gardens. We were introduced by a mutural friend I worked with for RAR. We were too late to catch the show so we wound up foraging for food at an all night dinner around 4 in the morning. Biafra was pouring over the selection I showed him, giggling with delight at certain key pieces but when he got to the IDOL he said “THAT! THAT’S what I want on our next Album!” So I knew I had hit a nerve. After working together on the double sided insert poster for the first Dead Kennedy’s album “Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables” I set to work designing the front cover for the EP “In God We Trust, Inc.”
As normal and non-threatening as I thought IDOL was when the record was released (circa 1981) there was a flurry of Police raids on record shops back in England and even several in the United States (mostly back East due to old and obsolete “Blue Laws” still on the books in certain communities). At the same time Great Britain still had their own Blue Laws on the books from centuries ago (“Blasphemy, Denigrating the Deity, etc.)
At first Biafra was annoyed by this development but, like they say, "there’s no such thing as bad publicity”. I told him he should send the cops a cheque. At one point they were a scruffy, rasty little Bay Area underground band and almost overnight they became a notorious punk band with a LOT to say.
An odd side note that I didn’t realize at the time was: Biafra didn’t actually HAVE any material yet prepared for a new record when he first saw my collage composition “IDOL". So he had to set to work to line up some tracks for the new project to ever see the light of day. (Usually the music for a record comes first and then the performers go in search of an image for the album cover. In this case it was the other way round.) And— fortunately, people actually DO judge a book by it’s cover.
As controversial as the old IDOL (“Cross of Dollars") image was at the time, it seems to have only grown more shocking and notorious over the yers. Conceived in the mid 1970’s it and the several variations on the theme have lasted over the years to be embraced by a whole new generation and in a whole new Millennium.
