Interview: Julia Gorton — No Wave, ‘Beat It!’, ‘Nowhere New York’ and Starting Your Own Scene

"Just start your own scene and support your creative friends with your money."

— Julia Gorton, October 2026

Julia Gorton arrived in New York from Wilmington, Delaware in 1976 to study at Parsons School of Design, and ended up documenting the punk and No Wave scenes of downtown Manhattan from the inside. She started with a Polaroid camera, moved on to a traditional film camera, and photographed Lydia Lunch, James Chance, DNA, Devo and The Dead Boys in the city's clubs. In 1977 she and Rick Brown, today a member of 75 Dollar Bill, started the fanzine 'Beat It!', and she was its photographer, designer and publisher.

The 'Beat It!' anthology by Julia Gorton and Rick Brown. Image from Julia Gorton's official website, juliagorton.com

The first edition of 'Beat It!', with Stiv Bators on the cover. Image from Julia Gorton's official website, juliagorton.com

'Beat It!' mixed high-contrast photographs with DIY lettering and collage, and she went on to contribute photographs and designs to record sleeves for labels including Ork, Lust/Unlust and ZE. Her photographs appeared in New York Rocker and in Thurston Moore and Byron Coley's 2008 book on No Wave. Then, in the early 1980s, she moved into a career in design, working at National Lampoon and Condé Nast, illustrating children's books and eventually teaching at Parsons, where she was also program director.

In 2012 she started photographing again and posting on Tumblr, and from 2016 her archive found a new audience on Instagram. Her work has been shown at the International Center of Photography, the Museum of the City of New York and MoMA, among other places. She self-published 'Nowhere New York: Dark, Insulting + Unmelodic', a book that took around ten years to put together, with 170 black and white photographs taken between 1976 and 1980, ephemera, and essays from people who were there, including an introduction by Lydia Lunch and pieces by Thurston Moore and Lucy Sante. The issues of 'Beat It!' have also been collected in an anthology by Julia Gorton and Rick Brown.

'Nowhere New York: Dark, Insulting + Unmelodic', with Anya Phillips on the cover. Image from Julia Gorton's official website, juliagorton.com

Her answers below are short, direct and unsentimental. What runs through them is the same instinct that made 'Beat It!' possible in the first place: getting down to work and figuring it out as you go. She also pushes back on the premise of one of my questions, and closes with advice that works for any scene, past or present.

Background details draw in part on Lee Shook's 2022 interview with Julia for The Audiovore.

Q&A Interview: October 2026 by Alejandro De Luna

My sincere thanks to Julia Gorton for doing this interview.

1. You've said you didn't know double sided photocopying existed when you put together the first issue of 'Beat It!' in 1977. Looking back, how much of your visual style, the layouts, the collage instinct, actually came out of just not knowing the “right” way to do something?

Not knowing how to do things, where to get things, who to ask, what things “should look like,” set up a situation where I had to figure things out my own way. Exploration and experimentation, as well as just getting down to work and figuring it out is why things looked the way they did.

2. 'Beat It!' partly existed because photocopiers, scissors and glue were suddenly accessible to anyone. Now anyone with a phone can generate or manipulate an image in seconds. Does that feel like the same kind of democratization you lived through in 1977, or something completely different?

We always had scissors and paste. The photocopier made editioning work faster and cheaper. Acquiring a phone is expensive and is not democratic.

3. If somebody wanted to understand that downtown New York scene of the late 1970s without hearing any of the music, what single photograph, object, place or piece of ephemera would you show them?

I'd recommend picking up a copy of Artforum or 'Beat It!'

4. It's been a few years since 'Nowhere New York' came out, after a decade of work. Now that it's out in the world, is there anything in it you'd do differently, or a photograph you left out that you wish you'd included?

I would have included Lee Shook's interview with me that happened after the book went to print. I ended up using his text and some other images to create a limited edition zine which I included with the book for a while.

A quick note from me here: you can read Lee Shook's interview with Julia on The Audiovore here.

5. Anya Phillips is on the cover of 'Nowhere New York', and she tends to get left out of how that scene gets remembered, overshadowed by the artists she styled and managed. Why her, specifically, for the cover?

Anya was an important part of the scene who died too young. She's not a famous name or face but should be. The scene was made of interesting outsiders and I didn't want to promote someone who didn't need it. It's not a cult of celebrity.

6. Five bands or artists you could never get tired of. Who makes the list?

Mars, Dark Day, Pat Irwin, Eno and Darling Black.

7. Is there something you've always wanted to talk about, or a question you wish interviewers would ask you, but nobody ever does?

Not really. Just start your own scene and support your creative friends with your money. Stop throwing dollars at Taylor Swift and Harry Styles.

Visit Julia Gorton's site here.

Buy 'Nowhere New York' and the 'Beat It!' anthology here.

Follow Julia Gorton on Instagram here.

Cover photo: Hunter Morrison / WUWF Public Media

For anyone drawn to New York's music, my New York Music History Map traces the city's sound from punk to hip hop, 1967–1997.

Alejandro De Luna single-handedly runs The Sense of Doubt, an independent music and culture site exploring music history, post-punk, art and cultural heritage through limited prints and features. This interview is part of an ongoing series.