Frame of Mind: Punk Photos and Essays from Washington, DC, and Beyond, 1997-2017 (Hardcover)

Frame of Mind: Punk Photos and Essays from Washington, DC, and Beyond, 1997-2017 By Antonia Tricarico (By (photographer)) Cover Image

Frame of Mind: Punk Photos and Essays from Washington, DC, and Beyond, 1997-2017 (Hardcover)

By Antonia Tricarico (By (photographer))

$32.95


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A long-overdue female-centric perspective on underground rock music, featuring photos by Tricarico and essays by Joan Jett, Amy Farina, Allison Wolfe, Donita Sparks, and more!


“Whether hanging out with musicians between sets or pressing up against the stage while they play, Tricarico seeks intimacy as well as energy.” —Washington Post


“Unique and highly recommended.” —Midwest Book Review


In the late 1990s bands like Fugazi, Branch Manager, the Make-Up, Deep Lust, Quix*o*tic, Lungfish, Spirit Caravan, Scaramouche, Stinking Lizaveta, and many more were active in and around the underground music scene in Washington, DC. While those bands went on a hiatus or dissolved over the years, others inspired by them have formed, including Dead Meadow, Motorcycle Wars, the Evens, and Weird War. In Frame of Mind, all of these groups appear in over 200 powerful and evocative photos by Antonia Tricarico.


In addition to DC’s homegrown offerings, Frame of Mind also features photos of other seminal and like-minded groups that passed through the city, such as the Melvins, the Ex (from the Netherlands), Uzeda (from Italy), Joan Jett, Shellac, Babes in Toyland, the Julie Ruin, L7, and Alice Bag.


Frame of Mind captures underground music through both photos and essays. While the photos include musicians of all genders, the essays are all written by women: Joan Jett, Amy Farina, Tara Jane O’Neil, Alice Bag, Allison Wolfe, Donita Sparks, Lori Barbero, and more. If women are the underground of the underground, let this book be a wake-up call for future generations to start their own awe-inspiring bands.



Antonia Tricarico has been taking photographs for more than two decades. In recent years she has worked as an archivist for Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post photographer Lucian Perkins, and has collaborated with Dischord Records, Kill Rock Stars, Tolotta Records, and Youth Action Research Group. Her work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and the Special Collections Division of the DC Public Library. Tricarico's work also appeared in Photo Review from 2006–2013. She lives in DC with her musician husband, their bilingual daughter, and two authoritative cats.
Product Details ISBN: 9781617757198
ISBN-10: 1617757195
Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication Date: June 4th, 2019
Pages: 176
Language: English
The photos are exciting by virtue of seeming very present, and Tricarico’s decision to give some of these women a full page of their own to say something about their lives in rock ‘n’ roll is a necessary and priceless undertaking that adds tremendous value to Frame of Mind as a punk subcultural artifact . . . [Tricarico] captures not just a spirit of the times, but a spirit that is for all times. It’s a punk thing to do, to show us that these bands may go down but the spirit of the underground carries on with each musician, nonetheless.

— PopMatters

There are plenty of photo projects covering the history of DC’s underground music scene, but many of them are incomplete in one specific—and perhaps unsurprising—way. Women have been involved in this community from the start: playing in bands, making zines, shooting photos. Only recently, however, have their perspective come to the forefront. Photographer Antonia Tricarico moved to Washington DC from Italy in 1997 and quickly started documenting the underground music communities around her which included iconic bands like Fugazi, The Make Up, and Branch Manager.
— Popular Photography

Antonia Tricarico[’s] . . . female-centric new book Frame of Mind features photographs she made at punk shows in DC and beyond from 1997 to 2017 as well as essays by women such as Joan Jett, Amy Farina, Allison Wolfe, and others.

— DCist

Featuring essays by queer artists such as Joan Jett, Allison Wolfe, and Tara Jane O’Neil, among others, Frame of Mind: Punk Photos and Essays from Washington, DC, and Beyond, 1997–2017 is a cool coffee table book by Antonia Tricarico, containing pics of The Gossip, The Julie Ruin, and many others.

— Baltimore Out Loud

[Tricarico’s] ability to take a wide range of musicians in various experiences and both show their energy and their humanity really makes these pages shine. The additional focus on women musicians both in photos and essays makes this one a keeper.
— Razorcake