Tom Verlaine, Portobello Road, London 1984.

Monday, 28 February 2011

Of all the famous people I've ever photographed, well over 90% of them are perfectly polite and personable.  Even if they don't, as I suspect many don't, really want to spend any amount of time that day having their photo taken, they take the trouble to be fairly nice about it.  Tom Verlaine is one of the other sort.  

As soon as we met I tried to talk to him about the brief I'd been given by 'The Face' magazine but he just cut me dead.  "Lets just get it over with.  Taking a photograph is just like drinking a glass of water."  It's over 26 years ago now but I still remember his exact words.  Maybe he was in a bad mood?  I hope so.

I was always a big fan of his work and that certainly didn't change just because he was a bit short with me.  Actually, some days, I think I'd be rude to me too.

Incidentally, the fairly specific brief I got from ‘The Face’ was that they wanted the photo to cover a double page spread with the subject over on one side, so that they could run text over the photograph on the other side.  To begin with, I used to hate being given what I felt were fairly stupid layout stipulations.  Ultimately though, I came to feel that they were a help rather than a hindrance in the sense that it often forced one to look creatively in different directions than one might otherwise.  And of course, if one ever wants to shoots a magazine’s cover, layout stipulations are usually essential.

Sparky Sin Claire, Hollywood 2011.

Sunday, 20 February 2011 You may not have heard of Sparky Sin Claire.  If you have, maybe I won't ask how.  She's a 22 year old porn star from Los Angeles.

Sparky lives quite a full life.  A couple of years ago, she was invited by a man and his two bisexual girlfriends to move to Montreal and be in a relationship with them and to learn how to teach other couples how to pick up threesomes.  Apparently she was okay with this at first, whilst there was a lot of partying involved.  But after about a year and a half, as might be expected, this unusual arrangement went awry.  And Sparky discovered that the man, who she now describes as "batshit insane" was a adherent of a mysterious organisation called ideaGasms.  I'm not exactly sure how (and besides, it's really none of my business) but Sparky eventually found herself having an affair with this group's leader.

Whilst ostensibly the group seemed to combine troilism with the preaching of spirituality, unconditional love and meditation, it seemed to Sparky to have a darker side too and she found she'd become a virtual prisoner of something she now believes was a cult.   It might come as no great surprise to learn that drugs were involved in all this too.

Sparky escaped one day when her boyfriend and the rest of the group were all asleep.  Finding herself alone, in a foreign country, in -25 degrees, in the middle of winter, in order to earn money simply to live, she became a stripper.

She also says now that she took the job as a stripper in order to "to learn how move and to be sexy."

I guess this must have worked out well because she was quickly talent spotted by Joanna Angel's alt porn 'Burning Angel' film company.

So Sparky moved back to LA and she now combines being a porn star with being a student and also working as the paid PA to the transvestite actress Holly Woodlawn (the one time Andy Warhol starlet who was immortalised in Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side').

This whole story seems very complicated but there are probably hundreds of young women, in the greater Los Angeles area, who have similarly convoluted stories about how they got involved with the adult industry.

Not all of these stories seem to end well.

I'm obviously not an expert but I think Sparky's story will be different.  She may not always have made the best choices, so far, but she seems ferociously bright and her blog, when she was doing it, was funny, colourful and wonderfully written.  Across her chest she has a huge tattoo which simply says 'we the people.'  She told a recent interviewer "Besides the porn, I also enjoy constitutional law and early American history."

As I write this, Sparky's currently in San Francisco undergoing a month long 'slave training' at somewhere called the Armory.  It seems to me that she's doing a fair bit of walking on the wild side herself.  So perhaps we should all watch this space?

*I'm indebted to my good friend Toby Dammit for the introduction and also for access to his interview with Sparky.

Steven Wells (Swells) 1960 - 2009.

Tuesday, 15 February 2011 The photograph above isn't very good.  In fact it's awful (I apologise for that minor detail).  But it's the only photograph that I can find in my files of my old friend Swells, who died in 2009 at the age of 49.

The photograph shows Swells in conversation with Public Enemy's Flavor Flav in the London nightclub Raw, in 1990. Flavor Flav is not a guy known to be reticent.  Although it's impossible for me to remember anything of what was being said, Flavor Flav certainly would have met his match in Swells.

Steven Wells, better known by virtually everyone as Swells, was a British journalist, author, pop video director and a one time 'ranting' poet.  During the '80s and '90s, we both worked at the British music magazine NME.  Soon after I joined the paper, I quickly learnt, with Swells aid, why a photographer is best advised to keep his mouth shut when journalists are conducting their interviews.  If not, one is liable to see one's rambling, unthought through comments in print.   His interview with me, supported by the occasional interjection from members of Bananarama, appeared in the following weeks paper.  I learnt that everybody was fair game for Swells.

He and I worked together quite a lot after that.  I don't really know why this was.  In twenty years, there were some journalists at NME that I never worked with at all.  It may be that Swells asked to work with me or, I suppose, it may be that no other journalist could tolerate me to the degree that he was able to.  Who knows?  I do know that I got on with Swells perfectly well and I do know that some people didn't.

Swells had some very strong opinions and he could never quite see why others shouldn't have the benefit of hearing them.  Even passers by.  He was certainly no shrinking violet.  But I guess that unless you're this way, you'll never make much of a ranting poet?  The one and only time I saw Swells perform on stage, he was extremely good and I was rather surprised.  But off stage, Swells wasn't always able to turn off the performance switch.  And, although he wasn't really aggressive, his pugnacious manner and general approach might have made the casual observer think otherwise.  Which most probably suited him just fine.

He has been described as being "famously vitriolic" and this didn't just extend to when he was working.  Pretty much anyone was liable to become the subject of an explosive and sustained verbal attack and you certainly had to know how to to take him.

Yet he was always very nice to me and I considered him a good friend.

We often got paired on foreign trips and it was noticeable that when Swells was away from the UK and away from his natural environment, he was mostly fairly quiet.  Almost charming.  But certainly not always.

At his wake, all Swells friends were asked to come and give memories and recollections of him.  I'm sorry to say that I flunked that requirement.  I'm absolutely useless at such occasions and besides, I couldn't really think of anything.

In the intervening 20 months or so, I have managed to recall one odd event.

Swells and I had gone to Chicago.

I think the year was 1992 and I'm almost completely sure that the band we'd gone there to work with was the Boo Radleys.

On the first morning after we arrived, we'd arranged to meet a press man from the local office of the record company.  He came to our hotel and he'd decided that we needed to be taken to breakfast at a specific branch of McDonalds, some distance away.  God only knows why he picked a McDonalds.  I think the guy wanted to show us something quintessentially American.  And although there are plenty of McDonald's burger joints in London, we didn't argue.

The record company guy certainly did not look like a record company guy.  He was dressed from head to toe in black.  He had a long black leather coat and slicked back, black hair.  He drove a big old American muscle car and, who knows, that might even have been black too.  The guy looked exactly like he'd just stepped out of Bladerunner or The Matrix.

Soon after we got to the restaurant, Swells, who'd never been to Chicago before, started going on about it's colourful crime history.  Al Capone, the Saint Valentine's Day massacre, gangsters and all that stuff.  Pretty soon the conversation branched out to also include guns and weaponry, a subject that Swells was always at home with.

As I've said, Swells was not usually a particularly quiet man and he discussed almost everything with some degree of gusto.  His stories often involved verbal, machine gun sound effects and the like.  No one who knew Swells would have found his manner during our breakfast at all out of the ordinary.  But, I suppose, a casual observer may have thought differently.

After we'd finished our meal, we got back into the record company guy's car and were just about to drive out of the car park exit when a couple of police cars arrived at some considerable speed.  Lights flashing, sirens blaring, tyres squealing, the whole bit.  Both me and Swells shouted to the guy who was driving to hang on for a moment, so that we could see what was going on.  If there was going to be any Chicago style shoot out, both of us wanted to witness it.   But the cops jumped out of their cars, big silver guns drawn and ran over to surround us.  It seemed that we were the ones they were after.

We were pulled out of the car and made to "spread em" against it.  We were fully and not all that gently patted down and then cross questioned as to our business in the area.  They pulled the entire contents of the record companies guys trunk out, and spread it over the ground in the parking lot.  They didn't find anything and they didn't seem very happy about that either.  Swells and I were quite obviously simply loud-mouthed tourists.  The cops holstered their guns, got back in their cars and sped off again.

Swells and I thought it was great fun.  Not so the record company guy, who had gone as white as snow and was visibly shaking.  He seemed a lot more upset than appeared wholly reasonable.  Who knows, maybe he'd had something he didn't want them to find somewhere?  Most record company guys certainly did.  Or at least, they did back then.  He told us that the Chicago Police Department were notoriously trigger happy and any encounter with them seldom turned out well for civilians.

As we finally drove off, the only thing we could think of was that someone had overheard our talk about guns and thought we were three hoodlums planning a heist.  Maybe two foreign accents veiled just how benign our chatter had really been.  Who knows?  But it must have been something.

Life was certainly more interesting when one was with Swells.  He had a way of getting a reaction out of people and, I guess, that's what a good journalist often wants to do.

RIP mate.

You were a nice guy and a real one-off.

It was one of my abiding ambitions in life to find out what you'd be like when you grew old and you mellowed.  Well sadly you never did grow old.  And you certainly never, for a moment, mellowed.

Mark E. Smith, Manchester 1985.

Monday, 14 February 2011 Although he has the reputation of being cantankerous, unpredictable and difficult , I always found him to be intelligent, humorous and great company.

Actually, I rather pride myself on being cantankerous, unpredictable and difficult as well, so maybe we just cancelled each other out?

Do You Recognise This Man?

Wednesday, 2 February 2011 He's a famous actor who's twice been nominated for an Oscar.  He has several BAFTAs and a Golden Globe.  He also has a CBE.  He certainly seems popular with the ladies, although the rather effete manner in which he's holding his cigarette, might suggest otherwise.  Perhaps this is a clue?  Maybe not.

I took this photograph on the pier in front of the Carlton Hotel, Cannes during the Film Festival, I think in '92.   The film the actors were promoting was called, apparently, Starlet.   

I was at the Cannes Film Festival that year for no particular reason other than I thought it was an opportunity to have a good time, go to a few film industry parties and take some photos.

And, for some reason, the film party I decided that I most most wanted to go to that year was the one being held for the aforementioned film.  There was a lot of pre-publicity for the party and it was being written about daily in all the festival free sheets.  It would be THE party of the Festival, we were told, and it was to be held in a beautiful villa, high up in the hills overlooking Cannes.  I could hardly wait.

At the appointed date, I got myself into the smartest clothes I'd brought with me (still not particularly smart) and got a cab to take me up there.   I didn't have an invite but gate crashing film industry parties is very much a tradition at Cannes.  All the best parties have plenty of security and they're almost always very hard to get into.  But if you have a press pass or Film Festival accreditation, that will sometimes work.  Not always mind.  Sometimes one has to be more creative or pretend to be someone one isn't.  But that's seen as all part of the Festival fun.

(I once gate crashed a very high powered party at Cannes with the journalist Martin Deeson.  We went as the Troma film maker Lloyd Kaufman.  Both of us.  I should add, on his specific recommendation.  Lloyd is a bit of a comedian. And since he himself had an invite but had decided not to go, he told both of us to just “say we were him”.  Neither of us look remotely like Lloyd Kaufman and, since most of the film industry know him very well, I thought it was a ridiculous plan.  But, perhaps emboldened by a drink or two, we strode past the people at the door of the party without any sort of challenge whatsoever.)

But... one of the golden rules to gate crashing parties is that you must arrive at an appropriate time.  Not too early, when the security will be at their sharpest and your credentials liable to be checked more thoroughly.  And not too late, after the party's peaked and all the people one might wish to run into have left.

When I got out of the cab at the address I'd been given, I immediately wondered if I'd made a mistake or I'd got the wrong night.  The wide gravel drive down to the villa was completely devoid of limos and indeed any people at all.  There was also no visible security, which was a bit of a worry.  There were no lights on anywhere in the house and everything was quiet.  There was obviously no party.

Since my cab had already left and it would have been a long walk back to town, I walked up to the door of the villa and rang the bell.  Several times.  After a bit, a very attractive young woman opened the door. I thought I recognised her as one of the actors from the photo op on the pier.  She said nothing, she simply smiled, stood back and indicated that I enter.  She didn't ask me who I was or where I was from, she silently led me through the house into a large virtually empty lounge.  It had a huge picture window through which I could see the villa's lawns, the sun setting over the Mediterranean and the lights of Cannes twinkling below.

The woman poured me a drink, handed it to me and walked out of the room.  There was, at that time, only one other person in the room.  It was the actor John Hurt.  This time without the crazy wig or false moustache he'd worn for the photo opportunity on the pier.

He was laying on the couch, one foot up, talking animatedly into a phone.  He ignored me completely.  He didn't look at me or acknowledge my presence in the room at all. Not once.  He simply continued to have this loud telephone conversation.  It didn't sound like an argument but he certainly wasn't happy about something.  There was no music and the rest of the place was completely quiet.  There appeared to be no other guests at this party other than John Hurt, me and the woman.  I stood there sipping my drink, staring out of the window and trying not to listen to John Hurt's conversation, which was impossible. John Hurt has a wonderful voice and it's much in demand for voiceovers and commercials even now.  But back then it had begun to irritate me.  It was a very beautiful view but after about half an hour, it too began to pale.

I must say that I have seldom been quite so embarrassed. It was before the days when I owned a mobile phone or I would have simply called another cab and left.  I guess it served me right for turning up without an invite.  But it had been so heavily publicised that I though all the Brit media pack would be there.

After a while, the young lady who'd let me into the house, came back and freshened my drink.  Two or three other people came into the room.  They seemed very charming and friendly and, with someone to actually talk to, I started to relax a bit.  John Hurt finished his conversation, walked out of the room and I didn’t see him again.  Then someone put on some music.

After I'd been there about an hour, the whole place started to fill up.  Eventually I found myself in the kitchen talking to a group of actors from the film.  They told me that it was supposed to be a private party just for the crew and cast of the film.  But, strangely one might think, at no time did anybody ask me who I was or why I was there.  They could hardly have been more welcoming and friendly.  Maybe they thought I was one of the extras?

I spent a long time talking to a large, American actor who had a very familiar face.  He did tell me his name but I never wrote it down and in the intervening years I've forgotten it completely.  I knew I'd seen him in plenty of films but never as the star.

He was one of those actors who only ever seem to play mafia heavies.  He was an extremely talkative, amiable fellow and he told me that all his friends from school had grown up to become real life gangsters, so he was able to play those kind of roles very easily.

Eventually, after about three or four hours, I made my excuses and left.  I was slightly drunk and it was getting late.  By that time, the driveway was full of limos and the Brit media pack had started to arrive.  Another photographer I knew very well from England was just arriving and I was able to get his cab back into town.

I ended up having a great time.  I met some very nice, very amusing people and I didn't take one photo.

But I'm still slightly traumatised by the memory of that first, extremely embarrassing, half hour I'd spent listening to one side of John Hurt’s telephone conversation.

I’d love to know what happened to the film though?  I spent the best part of an hour on Google looking for mention of it, without success.  There’s no Starlet listed on John Hurt’s IMDB entry.  Maybe it was some sort of tax loss or maybe the producers ran off with all the money?

If you know, send me an email.

Colin Firth, London 1987.

Tuesday, 4 January 2011 Colin Firth had shot to fame earlier that year with his role in A Month In The Country. When the NME commissioned me to photograph him, he was in the middle of shooting his next film Tumbledown - based on the real life experiences of Lt. Richard Lawrence in the Falklands war.  Lt. Lawrence had sustained terrible head injuries in the battle of Mount Tumbledown and that’s why Colin Firth had his head shaved in this photograph. 

This photograph was taken in the front room of Colin’s flat in North London.  I was there for about four hours – three-and-three-quarter hours chatting (mostly about music) and drinking tea and about a quarter of an hour taking photos.

I must say that in all the years I've been photographing various rock stars, actors and celebrities I've never met one that was more warm, charming and friendly than Colin Firth. In my book he gets ten out of ten in that regard.  My 86 year old mother is also a big fan too.  She has all his films and particularly likes the bit in Pride and Prejudice where he gets himself all wet in the lake.  It's one of her YouTube favourites.  So his appeal goes right across  all ages too.

But getting on well with my subjects is not a pre-requisite, sometimes it can even interfere slightly.  I tend to get along perfectly well with about 98% of the people I photograph, but I’m never going to get along with all of them.

Sandy Shaw, for instance, said just three things to me during my one-and-a-half minute photo session with her. (1) “Hi, I’m Sandy.”  I was trying to think of a humorous, but not too rude, response to this opener when she came out with (2) “Ooh, you’re the most miserable photographer I’ve ever met.”  Followed shortly by (3) a curt “I’m off.” Then she stormed out.  She’s perfectly entitled to her opinion, of course.  But I flatter myself to think that my sense of humour is fairly dry and I guess it must be too dry for some.  Possibly, when stressed, it may err on the side of being more dry than humorous.  And everyone can have an off day.

N.W.A. Compton 1990.

Tuesday, 4 January 2011 Once dubbed “the world’s most dangerous group” I found them to be polite, quiet and about as compliant as you’d ever want a gangsta rap band to be (though I could have done without the hand grenade).

This photograph was taken close to their recording studio in Compton and, as I arranged them for this fairly precise composition, they were as good as gold.

Dillinger, Kingston, Jamaica 1992.

Tuesday, 14 December 2010 I ran into the dub legend that is Dillinger completely by accident. I was working on a slightly ill-conceived article for NME, about the legacy of Bob Marley in his native country. I was with the writer Ian McCann. We’d gone along to Bob Marley’s birthplace, to his old studio, around many of his old haunts, met his wife and met a couple of the Wailers. Quite naturally, we also went down to the Tuff Gong record plant (which was a bit like a couple of old garages and not like anything European). 

Whilst we were there, someone pointed to an old guy leaning against a tree and casually said “…and that’s Dillinger over there.” I was gobsmacked. I’m not a huge reggae fan or anything but I loved a lot of that late ‘70s dub. And Dillinger was really the king of that era.

So I wandered over and asked him if I could take his photo. He didn’t seem at all surprised to be asked.  It was almost like he’d been waiting for me.

Lydia Lunch, New Orleans 1992.

Wednesday, 8 December 2010 One of the really great things about being a photographer is that sometimes it can give you access to people who otherwise you might never meet.

A friend of mine, Karl Blake (of the Lemon Kittens and Shock Headed Peters fame) casually mentioned to me one day that he’d been doing some recording with Lydia Lunch. Since I was a huge fan of hers, I persuaded him to give me her phone number. At that time Lydia was living in New Orleans and I just rang her and asked her if I could come over and take some photographs of her. She was absolutely lovely about it all and agreed, possibly because she’s a keen photographer herself.

A week or two later, I flew over and spent an afternoon photographing her in her house and around the city. Which was gloomy and deserted.  It was raining heavily the whole time, which imbued the photos with a strange, but not totally unattractive, melancholy.

Damien Hirst, Holborn Studios London 1998.

Tuesday, 30 November 2010 Together with Keith Allen, Alex James and Joe Strummer, Damien Hirst was one quarter of the pop group Fat Les. Put together to record the ‘official’ World Cup song ‘Vindaloo’.

It got to number two in the UK charts but it’s fair to say but this is probably not the achievement for which any of them will be best remembered. 

For my session, they all dressed in ‘Village People’ type outfits and this is why Damien Hirst is seen here as a Native American Indian. For some reason, a few frames later, he insisted in getting his ‘old fella’ out and having me photograph that too.

He’s quite a rich guy, I believe?  Maybe I should blackmail him with it?