Skip to main content

What Presence? - The Rock Photography of Harry Papadopoulos

Street Level, Glasgow, December 17th 2011- February 2th 2012
5 stars
Harry Papadopoulos is the great unsung documenter of post-punk, who,
between 1978 and 1984, captured a crucial era in pop history in all its
geeky glory. Having started out taking snaps for Bobby Bluebell’s
fanzine, The Ten Commandments, and orbiting around Postcard Records’
extended family of jangular mavericks who would go on to define
themselves as The Sound of Young Scotland, Papadopoulos became a staff
photographer on music paper Sounds. Where contemporaries on NME such as
Anton Corbijn and Kevin Cummins have been rightly lionised for their
work, Papadopoulos’ canon has been all but airbrushed from history. The
significance of this major excavation of a huge body of work, then,
cannot be understated.

With more than three hundred images on show, the fertile Scot-pop scene
inevitably dominates. A gangly and giggly Orange Juice era Edwyn
Collins skates on thin ice. Josef K vocalist Paul Haig poses like a
nouvelle vague matinee idol. A tweedy-looking Aztec Camera chew on
pipes like elderly uncles before their time. A demented looking Davy
Henderson of Fire Engines roars into a microphone, his face taut with
urgent, sinewy contortions. A fragrant Claire Grogan perches on a park
bench looking, well, lovely. Co-curator Ken McLuskey’s band The
Bluebells pack into an open-topped sports car.

There’s a wonderfully gawky naturalness to this fabulous archive that
pre-dates celebrity culture during a time when politics and pop were
inseparable. A striking portrait of Gil Scott-Heron is set next to one
of Tom Robinson, Bronski Beat’s Jimmy Somerville and future Erasure
vocalist Andy Bell line up for a gay rights march. Jerry Dammers and
The Specials AKA squeeze into frame at the bottom of a stairwell. The
Clash are captured in full barricade-manning flight. With a series of
events to accompany the show, What Presence! is an unmissable history
lesson from a major artist. Publication of a bumper-size coffee-table
book would be even more essential.

The List, December 2011

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL