rigby@mail.ru
Главная Дискография Интервью Книги Журналы Аккорды Заметки Видео Фото Рок-посевы Викторина Новое

   CLUB SANDWICH 63

страницы


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

EXHIBIT ‘B’
BRINGING ON BACK THE GOOD TIMES

The publication of Linda's new book of Sixties rock photographs is the focus of a major, travelling exhibition of its highlights, as Geoff Baker notes
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LINDA MCCARTNEY
THE PHOTOGRAPH OF PAUL ON THE COVER ALSO FEATURES IN THE EXHIBITION

            When I worked on Fleet Street I wanted to be a showbiz photographer.
            Principally because they seemed to spend more time in the pub than I could, being a hack.
            I could do that, I thought. I could butt in on interviews with some fatuous opinion just as the interviewee is about to make his first interesting remark in 40 minutes.
            And I could shout "lovee" at stars and ask them to pose in an embarrassing position that no human being ever naturally adopts (usually the one with both arms extended, palms facing the camera, like some idiot gambler grinningly estimating the one that got away).
            Actually, I couldn't. It was all that crap to girls about "let's go into my darkroom and see what develops" that stuck in my throat.
            More recently, while on a ten-month holiday around the world, that old "I could do that" niggle returned. Nightly during this holiday (which was taken for my health) I used to watch snappers take the odd picture of this bloke singing.
            Setting their powerwind-motordrives on 300-frames-per-second, they'd aim their lenses at this bloke and whack off about 18 reels during his first song, which I think was called 'Pieces Of Eight'.
            The next morning, wherever I was, I'd buy the local papers and see pictures of this same bloke. "Who's that?", I'd say. "Doesn't look anything like him...it doesn't capture him...why can't these guys get any character in there?"
            Anyway, one night I'm at Wembley and this bird says "I wanna take your picture".
            "No way," I said, "I've seen what snappers do: snap, snap, snap and I come out looking like I've had a week with Michael Jackson's dermatologist."
            "YOU...
are going to have your picture taken, Geoffrey," commands this blonde.
            You're wasting your time, I thought. It won't look anything like me, won't say anything about me, might just as well get Blind Pew to paint me.
            Anyway, she takes this snap and gives me a print and I give it to my mother.
            And my mother cried. She did. She looked at it and wept.
            "It's not that bad," I muttered.
            "It's not bad, it's so sad, she snuffled. "But it's yow."
            Now the way I figure it is this; if a picture of her son can make a mother cry then that's pretty powerful.
            So I'm a bit of fan of Linda for that. I'm a bit of a fan because I look at these pictures she's done of the late and the great of The Sixties and I understand.
            I wasn't around in The Sixties, you see. Well, I was. But the only acid I was dropping were those Trebor acid drops that you bought for l0d a quarter at Mrs Dale's at the bottom of our lane. I was 11 and getting stoned was something prophets had happen to them in the Bible.
            And I've always wondered "What was it like?" (The Sixties, not the acid.) And there was no one to tell me. It was no use asking those who were there because, as they're fond of quoting, they can't remember (on account of the Trebor).
            But these pictures said it. Lookee here and I see the innocence and the awkward first steps of a generation blessed with unlimited rebellion.
            And these are the very pictures which will be displayed come 9 October when Linda gets hung at the Royal Photographic Society in Bath.
            This is the big time, this. None of your nip down to Boots and stick up the best snaps with Blu-Tac. To have an exhibition at the RPS is so prestigious they call it eclat or succes d'estime. This isn't an honour, tins is lionisation.
            To have a postcard exhibited here you've got to have the izzat of Shahanshah, and Linda's got 92 prints hanging here for a month.
            Goddamit ('cos I don't think you've got the point yet), this is where they invented photography, at the RPS in 1853. They were the first people in the world ever Co say "cheese".
            And for a month in Bath it's going to be wall-to-wall rock and roll as all the grandeur and venerable antiquity of the RPS is invested with Linda's images of the era - Brian Jones getting elegantly wasted years before Keef caught the vibe, Jim Morrison uncertainly discovering sex appeal, Hendrix in mid-explosion, the Beatles pollinating the birth of a time and then fragmenting at its end; all superhuman life is here.
            If you can't remember the Sixties (because you weren't there or because you were), you can now buy the book Linda McCartney - Sixties, see the show and bring on back the good times.

            ♦ Linda's Exhibition of The Sixties: Portrait Of An Era can be seen at The Royal Photographic Society, Bath, from 9 October; at the David Fancy Gallery, Los Angeles, from 3 December; at Hamiltons Gallery, London, from 26 January 1993; and in Australia in the spring. Each exhibition runs for approximately a month.

Club Sandwich 63

Mama Cass and John Phillips