Photog sets 'Great Day' for L.A. punk scenesters
Photog sets 'Great Day' for L.A. punk scenesters
July 21, 2005
On Sept. 4, photographer Gary Leonard plans to shoot a musical class picture -- of a class that was assigned to detention.
Leonard, who vigorously documented the Los Angeles punk rock scene of the late '70s and early '80s, wants to assemble "a gathering of the tribes" -- vets of the original punk crew -- at Barnsdall Art Park for a group photo during the ArthurFest music gathering (HR 7/14).
He's calling the shoot "A Great Day in L.A.," in homage to lensman Art Kane's "A Great Day in Harlem," a celebrated 1958 photo that captured nearly 60 jazz greats en masse on a Harlem street. (Jean Bach's 1995 film about the picture received a best documentary Oscar nomination.) Leonard says he also was inspired by a group shot of Liverpool's rock musicians in a mid-'60s Merseyside pose. He finds the L.A. punks no less important.
"This is an L.A. scene that went by relatively unknown by the mainstream," Leonard says. "There was something important that happened, and it should be recognized."
If you hung out on the L.A. club scene during the '70s and '80s, the chances are good you encountered Leonard, with a couple of cameras dangling from his neck, at one gig or another. "I was out every night," he says. "I'd go to at least two or three clubs a night."
Leonard's dedication to his work was humbling. In 1982, the photographer and I went on the road to document the Blasters' tour stops in New York and Chicago for the Los Angeles Reader. During a show at My Father's Place on Long Island, he fell off a table and broke his foot. Nevertheless, he insisted on being wheeled onto a flight to Chicago, where he limped around a TV studio for two days, shooting it all. The foot never really healed; the pictures were great.
Leonard has thousands of shots of the L.A. punk scene dating as far back as 1977. Some of the best of them were published in the out-of-print 1997 book "Make the Music Go Bang!" (which also contained a chapter by this writer).
Leonard's friend Paul Body -- formerly the doorman at the Troubadour and a member of the attitudinous '70s blues unit the Sheiks of Shake -- suggested the "Great Day in L.A." shoot to Leonard after attending a benefit last year for Gil T., the ailing bassist for the legendary punk club band Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs.
"I said, 'Somebody should really start taking pictures of these people while they're still here,' " Body says. "Plus, make sure L.A. gets its props. ... We always get the short end of the stick."
Indeed, the mortality rate among L.A. punk scenesters has been high, and the city has always taken a back seat to New York and London in the standard punk histories.
For his group shot, Leonard wants to recruit not just musicians but all the others who were essential to the scene as well -- doormen, bartenders, crew members, club habitues, even journalists.
"It was a creative culture," Leonard says. "It wasn't just musicians. If you were there, you knew it."
The invite to the shoot being distributed by the photographer and Body bears the line, "Be there or be square."
Leonard, who vigorously documented the Los Angeles punk rock scene of the late '70s and early '80s, wants to assemble "a gathering of the tribes" -- vets of the original punk crew -- at Barnsdall Art Park for a group photo during the ArthurFest music gathering (HR 7/14).
He's calling the shoot "A Great Day in L.A.," in homage to lensman Art Kane's "A Great Day in Harlem," a celebrated 1958 photo that captured nearly 60 jazz greats en masse on a Harlem street. (Jean Bach's 1995 film about the picture received a best documentary Oscar nomination.) Leonard says he also was inspired by a group shot of Liverpool's rock musicians in a mid-'60s Merseyside pose. He finds the L.A. punks no less important.
"This is an L.A. scene that went by relatively unknown by the mainstream," Leonard says. "There was something important that happened, and it should be recognized."
If you hung out on the L.A. club scene during the '70s and '80s, the chances are good you encountered Leonard, with a couple of cameras dangling from his neck, at one gig or another. "I was out every night," he says. "I'd go to at least two or three clubs a night."
Leonard's dedication to his work was humbling. In 1982, the photographer and I went on the road to document the Blasters' tour stops in New York and Chicago for the Los Angeles Reader. During a show at My Father's Place on Long Island, he fell off a table and broke his foot. Nevertheless, he insisted on being wheeled onto a flight to Chicago, where he limped around a TV studio for two days, shooting it all. The foot never really healed; the pictures were great.
Leonard has thousands of shots of the L.A. punk scene dating as far back as 1977. Some of the best of them were published in the out-of-print 1997 book "Make the Music Go Bang!" (which also contained a chapter by this writer).
Leonard's friend Paul Body -- formerly the doorman at the Troubadour and a member of the attitudinous '70s blues unit the Sheiks of Shake -- suggested the "Great Day in L.A." shoot to Leonard after attending a benefit last year for Gil T., the ailing bassist for the legendary punk club band Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs.
"I said, 'Somebody should really start taking pictures of these people while they're still here,' " Body says. "Plus, make sure L.A. gets its props. ... We always get the short end of the stick."
Indeed, the mortality rate among L.A. punk scenesters has been high, and the city has always taken a back seat to New York and London in the standard punk histories.
For his group shot, Leonard wants to recruit not just musicians but all the others who were essential to the scene as well -- doormen, bartenders, crew members, club habitues, even journalists.
"It was a creative culture," Leonard says. "It wasn't just musicians. If you were there, you knew it."
The invite to the shoot being distributed by the photographer and Body bears the line, "Be there or be square."
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