Days of Punk
| BOOK GALLERY
November 3, 2020
Previously Unseen Photographs of Punk Music’s Quintessential Artists in new Coffee Table Book - Yahoo News
In the very non-socially-distanced late 1970s, punk rock music grew and morphed into post-punk and new wave movements that prevailed into the 1990s. Back then, fine art, editorial and celebrity portrait photographer Michael Grecco – based in Los Angeles since 1988 – was a working photojournalist, shooting shows in Boston, MA and New York, NY almost nightly. His was a rare opportunity to embed himself in this revolutionary scene from the beginning, as a chronicler and participant – a self-described “club kid.” This previously unseen body of work comprises Grecco’s new book, Punk, Post Punk, New Wave: Onstage, Backstage, In Your Face, 1978–1991 (PPPNW) (Abrams Books, ISBN: 978-1-4197-4854-7, 11/10/20).
This unique coffee-table volume is a bold time-capsule featuring 162 B&W and color images of punk and post-punk’s quintessential artists, with an introduction by veteran music journalist Jim Sullivan, and foreword by Fred Schneider of the B52-S. Grecco captures the scene’s insurgent energy, onstage and off, with artists including The Clash, Elvis Costello, The Cramps, Talking Heads, Adam Ant, Joan Jett, the Ramones, and The Plasmatics, and more.
In conjunction, the website “Days of Punk” has launched: https://daysofpunk.com/. Along with a deeper dive into the book, it features an extensive image gallery and a section on “PUNK,” a series based on a concept by Grecco, who served as an executive producer (PUNK was executive produced for ePix™ by John Varvatos and Iggy Pop, aka the “Godfather of Punk”).
Grecco’s days in the trenches of punk clubs inspired his career trajectory – “It exposed me to more self-expression, and made me continue to strive for it. It was impetuous for me to leave the Associated Press, and the Boston Herald, and go off to L.A. in the late ’80s to do the portrait work I’ve been doing since, but People Magazine had invited me to be a regular contributor, and I was driven to seek creativity and authenticity. I go out every day with the intention of breaking visual rules, to make an evocative image that inspires people. Punk helped bring me to that place of creativity.”
