White Glove Test

Clipped, collaged, and photocopied, meticulously hand-painted and lettered, or designed on a glowing computer screen in the early days of desktop publishing, these flyers were outsider broadcasts stuck to phone poles and storefronts, a makeshift gallery installed with staple guns and wheat paste. As a lavishly detailed document of Louisville’s vibrant and diverse music scene, this book offers an insider’s view of one seminal community’s rise from bold beginnings to eminent, international status. The images also chart the thriving, interconnected underground that extended well beyond New York and Los Angeles, offering a parallax view of American punk from an influential yet removed location. Assiduously assembled from rare originals, sure to appeal to any fan of independent music in Louisville and beyond, White Glove Test uncovers a previously hidden history of prodigious do-it-yourself production, illustrating a national phenomenon in microcosm and illuminating a vital style of pre-Internet social media.