David Ferguson

David Ferguson was an American international outsider-culture impresario, activist, music producer and concert promoter. Over his career, most of which has been spent on the West Coast, he worked with musical acts such as the Avengers, John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten), Billy Bragg, Iggy Pop, Bad Brains, Black Flag, and Butthole Surfers and visual artists Vaughn Bode, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Barry McGee. Ferguson worked with multi-discipline artists such as avant-garde musician and spoken-word artist Lydia Lunch and the psychedelic drag queen performance group the Cockettes. The San Francisco Chronicle referred to Ferguson as the "godfather of the unorthodox", adding that Ferguson "...not only thinks outside the box — he crushes it, dances on top of it, reinvents it and calls it whatever he likes. He has spent his life making trouble." The East Bay Express wrote, "David Ferguson's life story reads like an encyclopedia of the underground." Ferguson founded and headed the Institute for Unpopular Culture, a San Francisco-based arts organization. Through IFUC, Ferguson has maintained his involvement in anti-war protests, an activism which dates back to his student days at the University of Miami in the 1960s. Ferguson died unexpectedly after a brief illness on July 24, 2015 at the age of 69, in San Francisco, California. Early career