Michael Grecco: Re-Opening the Book on Punk and New Wave

This feature appears in FLOOD 13: The Tenth Anniversary Issue. You can purchase this deluxe, 252-page commemorative edition—a collectible, coffee-table-style volume in a 12" x 12" format—featuring Gorillaz, Magdalena Bay, Mac DeMarco, Lord Huron, Bootsy Collins, Wolf Alice, and much more here.

Michael Grecco discovered the meaning of life in the Rathskellar. That was Boston’s infamous 300-capacity rock dive, also known as “The Rat,” where the young photographer first became immersed in a new sound and culture called punk rock at the end of the ’70s. He was a serious photojournalist then, by day shooting news events for the Associated Press and, eventually, the Boston Herald. But by night Grecco soon found himself in the company of cultural revolutionaries of punk and new wave. Among them were the Ramones, Devo, Dead Kennedys, Public Image Ltd., The Clash, Mission of Burma, Adam Ant, Bow Wow Wow, and The Slits, a parade of deconstructed fashion and crazy haircuts passing through Boston’s clubs and concert halls.

Grecco has collected that work into a dense book of photos, Punk, Post Punk, New Wave: Onstage, Backstage, In Your Face, 1978-1991, published by Abrams. The pictures are raw and mostly in black-and-white, shot on the run with a 35mm film camera, and still feel freshly torn from life. Which might come as a shock to anyone who only knows Grecco’s later work as a meticulous celebrity portrait photographer for glossy magazines.

By 1980, he was moonlighting for the magazine Boston Rock, where he provided vivid pictures of artists and bands onstage and backstage. While the book includes pictures that date up until the early ’90s, the bulk of the work here is centered on his time immersed in punk and new wave at ground level, from a 1978 Devo performance to Grecco’s final live shows in 1984. On the cover of Punk, Post Punk, New Wave is fireball Wendy O. Williams, singer-instigator of the punk band the Plasmatics, taking a sledgehammer to a television screen. Inside are crisp, inky pictures of The Cramps backstage, including transgressive frontman Lux Interior holding his penis in a hotdog bun. There are a few pictures of Grecco himself, tall and wiry, and looking a little bit like Richard Hell.

Michael Grecco, self-portrait

In between, Grecco—now 67—offers captions and personal reflections of his time witnessing so much chaos and creativity, and becoming friends with local scene-makers and touring musicians. In the first wave of punk, everyone believed their city had the most important punk scene; Grecco is no different, but he’s at least got some photographic proof behind his claim for Boston. “We had, like, 20 clubs going every night,” he says. And with all those musicians in front of his camera, he shot a lot of dressing room portraits, an experience that inevitably fed into the photographer he later became, as an acolyte of heroes like Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon. “I was steeped in the history of photography and loved photography and would play off of that stuff. But it had to be very improvised, because you never knew where you’d be with the band or what would be around.”

At the moment, Grecco is eating lunch at an Italian restaurant near his home in Santa Monica. On his arm is a tattoo of Julie Newmar as the ’60s-era Catwoman, a souvenir from a long-ago trip to London. He’s married to another gifted photographer, Elizabeth Waterman, but he now shoots less often himself. These days, Grecco is focused on digging into his vast archive and remains as excited as ever to discuss his punk rock photographs, which are currently touring museums and galleries around the world.

Ramones

Your punk rock work touches a nerve with some people, including many who weren’t even born when this was happening. Why do you think that is? 

This was a period of time that didn’t exist before and hasn’t existed after—when Lux Interior drops his pants while performing on stage, and then you take his portrait backstage and he puts his dick in a hotdog bun. It was a don’t-give-a shit kind of age. So it’s not only the music that people are curious about. I realized that it was a rebellion that they maybe wish they were a part of. 

I tell people, I didn’t know I’d be here today talking about this. I didn’t know that people would remember. This wasn’t played on commercial radio. We didn’t care if it had longevity. The fact that it was new was what interested us. And we didn’t care if people would remember The Clash or Billy Idol or the Ramones or The Cramps or the Dead Kennedys 40-odd years later. We liked the music.

These pictures allow people to visit a very specific time and place.

For me personally, it was really interesting because I worked for the Associated Press during the day, and I was being trained by guys that were ex-Navy SEALs who were photographers on how to shoot. And then at night, I was a club kid. I still contend that Boston had the biggest punk scene in the world because of all the colleges and universities. We had [DJ] Oedipus, who had the first punk radio show in the world in ’75. The MIT station had an all-punk radio show, The Late Risers Club. We had a great scene and it was amazing to be a part of it. 

The Clash

Joe Strummer, The Clash

Mick Jones, The Clash

"I didn’t know I’d be here today talking about this. We didn’t care if people would remember The Clash or Billy Idol or the Ramones or The Cramps or the Dead Kennedys 40-odd years later. We liked the music."

Lux Interior, The Cramps

Jello Biafra, Dead Kennedys

Are you from Boston originally?

No, I grew up in New York and thought pop music sucked. I was into The Velvet Underground, Roxy Music—which I thought was light years ahead of their time—and Bowie. And I was a jazz snob. I would go see the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Ornette Coleman, Stan Getz, Mingus, Monk. I saw Miles in the park. I was really into that creativity that jazz had. So when I heard the AOR [Album Oriented Rock] radio, I thought it sucked [laughs]. I mean, Journey, Styx, Kansas, Boston—they sucked. 

Well, punk happened for a reason, and that was the reason.

I was happy to be part of the scene, hung out with Billy Idol every time he came to town, would be up all night with musicians and take Tina [Weymouth] and Chris [Frantz] from the Talking Heads to an afterparty, and I set up an afterparty for the Buzzcocks. This was not about photography. This was me being a part of this culture.

Billy Idol

Talking Heads

The Specials

Buzzcocks

Would you have been there with or without a camera?

Yes. Now, doing the book, there are many times I was like, “Oh man, I saw The Smiths, I should’ve photographed them. I saw The Psychedelic Furs, I should’ve photographed them. I saw Echo & the Bunnymen, I should’ve photographed them.” I really only photographed when I had an assignment. I didn’t want it to just be about me taking pictures. I had relationships with a lot of these people.

But the camera did also give me access. I loved the music, I loved the scene, but the camera enabled me to be backstage and hang out all day with Adam and the Ants. A friend of mine had the first portable video cameras, so I would then maybe shoot the Buzzcocks show. And then [Buzzcocks singer] Pete Shelley’s like, “What are we doing afterwards?” All right, let me wrestle you up an afterparty. It was a scene where many were accepted and there was very little judgment. 

At the Associated Press, you were surrounded by a lot of other photographers. Were you the only one that was interested in this stuff?

Oh, they didn’t even know what I was doing at night! No, no, no, no, no. They didn’t show up at these shows [laughs]. 

Poison Ivy, The Cramps

"I can come up with the best concept in the world, but if there’s no engagement with the subject, the pictures fall flat. That doesn’t happen when you have someone like Poison Ivy of The Cramps playing to the camera."

Martha Davis, The Motels

Adam Ant

Annabella Lwin, Bow Wow Wow

Siouxsie and the Banshees

One picture that stands out in the book is a portrait of Siouxsie and the Banshees. There’s a lot of personality, a lot of attitude, a lot of energy in the frame. Did shooting subjects like that help lead to your work as a portrait photographer?

Oh, yeah. But it’s true even today. I can come up with the best concept in the world, but if there’s no engagement with the subject, the pictures fall flat. That doesn’t happen when you have someone like Poison Ivy of The Cramps playing to the camera, or just engagement with the talent.

You also shot David Byrne of the Talking Heads.

I’ve shot him twice. And the first time I went up to his room at the Copley Plaza [hotel]. He’s sitting on the bed with a tape recorder listening to Pygmy music, like a school boy that was told, “Don’t move.” 

How about Lene Lovich?

I loved her, and that pop-punk/new-wave sensibility. I still listen to Lene Lovich’s music. She was great to photograph. She’s got that Eastern European peasant style, but it was very colorful and fun.  

The B-52s

The Human League

Lene Lovich

The English Beat

A lot of the bands you met were a little bit older than you at the time. Did they see you as a peer or as a kid coming around to take some pictures?

I think they saw me as a peer. Billy [Idol] would call me every time he was in town, and we’d be up all night drinking, doing blow in his hotel room at the Howard Johnson’s in Kenmore Square. I was so naive in some ways. I was like, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But to a certain extent, naive to the fact that all night at the afterparty, Pete Shelley kept giving me his address and phone number. It took me 20 years to realize he was hitting on me [laughs]. When I had dinner later with [Buzzcocks singer-guitarist] Steve Diggle in London, he was like, “Oh, Pete loved everything: oysters, men, women, drinking, smoking. He loved to indulge in everything.”

How long were you focused on shooting punk rock?

The majority of the work was from ’78 with Devo at The Paradise to about ’84 when I couldn’t get to work in the morning. I had the Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., shift at the paper [Boston Herald]. And I couldn’t be up all night anymore. I tried it for a little while and it didn’t work out well for me.

Billy’s road manager calls: “Billy wants you here, blah, blah, blah, blah. There’s two tickets and two backstage passes.” I was dating this girl that I wasn’t into, and we go out to the show and we’re hanging out with Billy backstage. Billy’s like, “Come on, mate, let’s go back to my hotel and let’s party.” By the time we left the space, it was already 1 a.m. And I was like, “Billy, I gotta go to work in the morning. You guys party.” It’s the last time I saw him. 

Devo

John Lydon and Keith Levene, Public Image Ltd.

"It was a don’t-give-a shit kind of age. So it’s not only the music that people are curious about. I realized that it was a rebellion that they maybe wish they were a part of."

Human Sexual Response

New Order

You’re still shooting, right?

Hardly. It’s mostly personal stuff. My creative projects have moved into a different direction. 

I’m focusing my creative energy into bigger projects. At this point in my career, I’m legacy building. I have 10 four-drawer file cabinets, 40 drawers stuffed to the gills with film. I’m into this big project of editing the archive and looking at new books to do.

Over the years, did you ever run into any of the people you once knew from the punk scene?

When the book came out, Chris and Tina were gracious enough to do a podcast with me. And I kept trying to remind them about a couple of after-hours parties we set up for them. And they were both like, “We don’t remember a thing from that period” [laughs]. It’s like, “All right, Chris, I hear you.” I have three kids, on my third marriage, I moved into the magazine and advertising world and sort of left [punk rock] behind. And the nice thing about it now is the connections I’m remaking. FL

Wendy O. Williams, Plasmatics