BORN TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
No heroes, no leaders, no artists, no gods - I'm a worker, you're a worker, wouldn't you like to be a worker too?
ART IS JUST A JOB
Or is it? Who knows really - doesn’t matter. Or maybe it does, anyway I’ve been thinking a lot about the glory that was the New Bomb Turks in the early 90s. Just raw, primitive, full bore rocknroll that sonically shared more with the original vision of hardcore than the sluggish mosh metal and tepid indie rock that took that took up that mantle in the 90s.
Living in both Athens and Columbus Ohio for the majority of the 90s I saw them at least a dozen times - each instance being a total manic sweat box where I returned home reeking of stale beer and cigarettes despite being decidedly straight edge.
I spent a lot of time in the early 90s looking for the sort of hardcore that made me fall in love with the thing in the first place. Those who lived through that time recall how few and far between the bright spots were - Los Crudos, Copout, Failure Face, Devoid of Faith, Fit For Abuse, Ottawa, John Henry West, etc. Sure it was cool to see bands doing cool things with the classic form, deconstructing it, playing with elements of speed, time signatures, turning into just a cacophony of noise and rhythm - bands like Honeywell, Mohinder, Heroin, Hatchetface, Uranus, etc. But there was always something about people taking the classic, stripped down form, cranking the rage and speed to 100 and just going for it. I lived and still live for it.
Despite my complete affection for those early years of the New Bomb Turks, they were always a frustration for me - while I totally agreed that the atmosphere of much of what passed for DIY hardcore punk in the Midwest could be described as country club-esque at best, the feeling that they were were completely dismissive of doing gigs outside of bars was annoying. I remember Jen Angel asking them to play some early shows at the Legion of Doom in an effort to meld the two worlds only to be shrugged off. It was such a bummer at the time though 25 plus years on, I totally get it. They had their thing, we had ours - it just always felt like a missed opportunity to do something cool. They probably have their own perception of the time thats just as valid while being completely different but such is life.
By the time they released their first record on Epitaph, I was sort of over New Bomb Turks - the speed had been turned down while the more rock elements had been cranked up. They shifted, they ‘evolved’ so to speak, and it just wasn’t for me any more. I mean they were still outstanding live but it was 1996 and I had moved on to other things. I just wanted nothing more than shorter songs that were pure blasts of adrenaline.
Listening to Destroy-Oh-Boy today I’m still floored by it - the buzzsaw guitars alone are worth the price of admission and the lockstep rhythm team playing off Eric Davidson’s snotty yet cerebral lyrics just seals the deal. If you’ve not spent much time with it, I encourage you do so. It’s truly a classic punk record on par with anything that came out ten years prior or thirty years since.
You don’t go into it thinking ‘my lens is gonna get broken in the first song, I’m gonna watch the person next to me get their head split open and have to help them, my teeth are gonna get smashed and my mouth is gonna be full of blood, my flash batteries are gonna get spilled on the floor of the pit…’
Photographer Keith Marlowe
Every time I find myself stumbling across Keith’s photos, be it online or in the real world, I’m always struck by just how much emotion, energy, and unbridled rocknroll fueled joy and mayhem there is to be found in them. He truly captures so much about the experience of being right there, in the moment, soaked in sweat, blood and other miscellaneous fluids just taking it all in. It is the photography of someone truly part of the thing their capturing - a true testament to high octane rocknroll. Here’s my chat with him that ran issue fifteen of Razorblades & Aspirin…
How did you get into punk?
I grew up listening to my parents rock records so I guess I’ve always been into it. I mostly listen to rock’n’roll, except instead of ‘garage rock’ I affectionately call it ‘garbage rock.’ The bands I care about would be hard pressed to argue otherwise. I’m not a very mature person, most of what entertains me is juvenile, but also pretty clever. Turbonegro, the Dwarves, Candy Snatchers, New Bomb Turks, the Spits, Gluecifer, you get the idea. I don’t listen to music to think about love or politics, I just want a cheap laugh while I get hit in the head. Life is too hard and short for me to listen to serious music.
How did you get into photography?
I honestly don’t remember. When I was 13 I came home one day and begged my dad to buy me a camera. Its kinda been my entire life after that day. What the exact catalyst was I don’t remember, I’ve often wondered about that. My first camera was a Ricoh KR-30. I shot it for around five years, the body got cracked when I caught a guitar in the face at a Quadrajets show.
I still have it, twenty years later. It still mechanically functions but its got a serious light leak so its unusable. When I die I want be cremated with that camera body. Not joking.
Do you shoot film, digital or a mix? Do you have a preference and why?
I pretty much only shoot shows digital now. Everything else I shoot is film, I just don’t have the time to get band film developed, scanned and edited in a timely fashion anymore. I shoot a lot of medium and large format negs (not bands), 4x5 view cameras and a Fuji 6x17, I love them but its just such a huge time suck. I’m friends with a lot of the bands I shoot, I just wanna get them good photos asap, if it was film it would take me weeks to months to turn it around. Everything with shows now is immediacy, I’m in this for the long run. I want my photos to be around way after I’m gone. I shoot a ton so its the easier way to speed up my workflow.
Why did you start shooting shows?
I was just going to lotsa shows and I carry a camera most places I go. It wasn’t a conscious decision when I started but the band photos were coming out great and I got addicted to the feeling of seeing the shots I got on the wet film after I developed it. I felt like I had discovered part of myself I didn’t know was there before, it simultaneously allowed me to look outward and inward. So much of who I am now is because of that first year I started really shooting shows. I got good fast and things started changing for me. There’s an amazing Cleveland artist, Derek Hess, he booked shows at this place called the Euclid Tavern. It all started there. This was when East Cleveland was rivaling Gary, Indiana for the murder capital of America. It was an intense place, the danger and desperation were palpably real. It was no joke there. I think that came thru in my photos.
Are you interested in photography beyond music?
Yah that’s basically all I do. One way or another everything I do revolves around photography, that and rock’n’roll is how I’m friends with basically every person I know. In Brooklyn I have my own scanning and printing shop Borough Photo and I helped build and teach classes at the Bushwick Community Darkroom.
In school I had a photo teacher named Andrew Borowiec, he helped me figure out photography and how to make it work for me, how to make photos that looked like MINE. He really seemed like he gave a shit about me as as photographer, made this lightbulb go on over my head, I’ll never forget how that felt, to really understand a medium, and I’ve tried to pay that forward to other people. I don’t think he has any idea how much he meant to me, but his effort made a huge difference.
Photography changed my life, there’s no doubt about it. I wouldn’t be the person I am now without a camera in my hand. I don’t even know who I’d be or how I’d see the world. Its strange to think about. Between all the classes I’ve taught and all the people that come thru my shop it’s no exaggeration to say I’ve made hundreds of people better photographers, that makes me feel like I’ve done something with my life.
What do you look for when you are taking photographs?
When it’s bands I mostly look out for things that are gonna break my camera and/or face. Everything else is secondary. I’ve learned that the hard way. Over and over and over. I’ve got some teeth that are just gonna be loose forever until they fall out. Fun stuff!
What are you trying to convey? What is your edit process like?
I want to take photos that look like how the music I love sounds. I know it when I see it, if it works, you know, it’s hard for me to describe art using words. If you get killed by something cracking your skull open and smashing your brain into mush, does it matter if it was a brick or a rock? Hell no. Thats what I want my work to be, a blunt object to the brain.
My editing process involves extreme procrastination. I love shooting, editing is an endless chore. There’s a great Douglas Adams quote ‘I love deadlines. I love the sound they make when they go whooshing by.’ That’s my editing process. As far as selecting the photos I usually know which ones are gonna work when I take them. Sometimes I get pleasantly surprised, but usually when I get a photo I love I know when it happens.
Do you prefer your final images to be in black & white or color or a mix and why? If a mix, how do you decide if an image should be in one or the other?
That depends on how much blood is in the photo. Haha, but not really. I shot primarily black and white film from like 1998-2004, but there was so much blood that just didn’t translate I brought color into the mix. Then digital happened. Realistically, the older you get the more people you care about die and you realize worrying about whether things are film/digital, black&white/color, anything like that is just a waste of time. I make my decision based on how I feel in the moment, and then I stick with that. The closer you are to the moment as it happens the clearer your decision. Believe in what you feel, shoot hard, and don’t second guess yourself. There’s always another shoot until there isn’t, appreciate the opportunity you have in front of you.
Mike Tyson said ‘everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face,’ when you shoot the kinda shows we do there’s no point in trying too hard to make a plan. You don’t go into it thinking ‘my lens is gonna get broken in the first song, ’m gonna watch the person next to me get their head split open and have to help them, my teeth are gonna get smashed and my mouth is gonna be full of blood, my flash batteries are gonna get spilled on the floor of the pit,’ etc. You know how it goes. I show up and let the night make my decisions for me.
And not just blood but the color red also, it’s just visceral in the rock’n’roll setting.
Which image of yours is your favorite and why? What makes it a successful image?
That’s kinda an impossible question. It’s like what’s your favorite song? It’s a fluid answer depending how I feel in the moment. The easy answer is the next good photo I take, because it means I’m still working. I shoot for myself, you know, nobody else. I take the photos I want to see of things I care about. If everyone in the entire world were gone when I woke up tomorrow morning like some kind of The Stand scenario, I’d grab my cameras and keep taking photos. What else would I do? I’d miss people, but I’d be paying a lot less for film too, haha. I’d also have to go back to developing color film by hand, and I hate that. So I guess I hope the human race doesn’t disappear.
HAVING SAID THAT……this is my favorite photo. Basically if I show this to someone and they get repulsed it saves me a lot of time because I know in the long run we probably aren’t gonna get along.
Also, HeWhoCannotBeNamed’s mask matches his guitar. Do you realize HOW DIFFICULT it is to successfully accessorize when you’re completely naked?
Plenty of bands play up the working man/blue collar schtick, but when you can walk up and just grab the guitar players complete package and give it a good tug, you know that band doesn’t think they’re better than you. Even though the Dwarves are, for sure, better than you.
I also put in a Valient Thorr photo that means something to me. I had been on tour with Thorr for a few weeks, really dialed in. I walked thru the club door at soundcheck in the afternoon, saw that picture on the wall and thought ‘I’m gonna put a face on that pig tonight.’ Just something to do for myself, nobody else would ever know if I didnt make it happen. When the bands started playing I held my position in the pit and waited to get my shot. I’ve always thought hunting was for cowards, ‘you shot an animal that didnt even know you were there with a gun, you’re such a tough guy’. Killing something takes a life, making photos creates something that wasn’t there before, an idea that you had and used a camera to bring into reality. Taking a moment that is disappearing into time forever and ‘turning it back the other way, so other people see it, remember it and pass it along. Creation is the opposite of death.
So that Thorr photo is definitely not one of my best, but it’s one of my favorites. Bringing an idea to life with a camera is extremely satisfying for me. Speaking of which, let’s go to the next question!
What photographers do you admire the most (not just music photographers)? What is it about their work that appeals to you?
One of my most important photographers is Garry Winogrand, and specifically his shots in the zoo. One photo, in the foreground there’s a man with his arm around a young woman, behind them is a wolf stalking up behind the girl, symbolizing the guys intentions towards her. Many things in my life have already disappeared into the mists of time, but I’ll never forget the way my head exploded when I first UNDERSTOOD that photo. I was like “FUCK THATS HOW YOU HAVE TO THINK!” Using the camera to get an idea across like that. A door opened for me when that photo clicked.
And at the time, he was going thru a divorce and taking his kids to the zoo WITH HIM while he was taking those photos. You have to be so dialed in to think like that. Robert Frank had his family in the car while he was making The Americans. That always stuck with me. The thing with photography is that it’s JUST YOU, gotta focus, gotta stay true to your thoughts no matter what is happening around you. If your work isn’t good enough, it’s on YOU. You need to figure out what you wanna say and work harder. No excuses. I’ve definitely been jealous of the band dynamic where the work is shared by multiple people, that camaraderie is one reason I was attracted to shooting bands. Photography can be lonely business, especially when darkrooms are involved. And more especially if the photos aren’t coming, just standing there alone kicking yourself for missing shots.
It’s crazy how you learn about photography now, it’s EVERYWHERE. When I was learning it was only from zines and photo books. I’d go to the library or bookstore and look at them over and over. Pick out a photographer for an afternoon and learn their life and work in chunks, stand up and leave with a new part of my brain that wasn’t there before. One of my favorite parts of NYC is the photo book corner of the Strand at Union Square. I’ve spent many afternoons sitting there, thinking about what camera and film someone was using when they shot. How/why they got the idea to shoot what they did, why they picked the camera/film, how they knew they were done, etc.
One of my favorite music photographers is Jay Brown, btw. If you don’t know his work check out jfotoman01 on Instagram.
Have you had your work published (self or by others)? A photoshow?
Yah, I’ve been shooting for over 25 years now, I’ve had photos many places. I have some stuff in the works now I’m excited about…
There’s a St. Vitus 10th Anniversary book for one of my favorite bars in Brooklyn, or anywhere really. It’s put together by my friend and great photographer Nathaniel Shannon both have a bunch of photos in it. Check their website, it’ll be out next year.
There’s a book about the history of Estrus Records, who put out a bunch of bands I love. I have photos in that. Also out next year.
I’ve shot some stuff for the relaunch of Creem magazine, check those as they come out. Thanks Fred!
The big thing is I’m working on a book of my black and white rock stuff I shot when I lived in Ohio, beginning in 1998 until I moved to NYC in 2004. I’m in the final editing process now but it’s a hugely personal project for me. All the stuff was shot, developed and printed by hand in darkrooms I made myself. My friend Jonathan is putting it out on his label Aqualamb Records.
All of the black and white photos here are gonna be in my book. Check out my website for more information.
What would be your top three goals with your work?
One goal really. Immortality. I want people still looking at my work long after I’m gone. There are photographers that died long before I was born that have had a huge influence on me. I’d like to think a hundred years from now people will still be looking at my photos. I would also like to become fantastically wealthy and have the ability to grind the people I despise into dust. Here’s looking at you Tucker Carlson.
Anything to add?
Look out for other people. It’s so easy to help someone else out, give them a compliment, encouragement, an opportunity. We’re trapped in a predatory capitalist system that sucks worth and creativity from artists. It made me feel good when you asked me to do this interview and show my photos, that my work is valuable. I’m gonna try to make someone else feel that way.
