How London’s punk scene made the front pages | Derek Ridgers

Thanks very much for coming everybody. My name's Derek Ridges. This is the cover of my latest book. Um my story really begins uh 52 53 years ago um when I was a 22 year old art director working in Camden Town for an agency called Macy Mukaji Russell. Um, I had a account. Uh, it was a Spanish National Tourist Board and this was um the first time I had a photograph in print. And this is a a rough uh the um whole page ad uh for Spanish tourist board. um when it actually came down to it, they weren't full pages in color um because they didn't have the budget. So that's why it's a quarter of a page in um black and white. Um at the time I wasn't a photographer. Um in fact, I didn't own a camera. Um, but one of my other accounts that I worked on was the um, Manulta and Miranda um, uh, camera account. And my boss at the time, the creative director, um, told me to take one of the cameras home with me, learn how to use it, and so I could, um, produce some better ads. And um this might look a bit odd uh to young people now, but in those days in back in the 70s, we had to draw out all the um ads first. And this was one of the ads that I drew out for um Manola cameras. And um this was how it turned out in the end. Anyway, um when I was uh I taking my uh camera or the agency's camera around with me, I started to take photographs of um all kinds of things that people used to amateur photographers used to photograph in those days. This is an abandoned pub somewhere in Soduk. Um, I was just doing the same sorts of things that most um, amateur photographers did back then. Sunsets, kids, holidays, that sort of thing. Um, rusty cars and everything like that. But I was I'd always been a lover of music. So, I used to take my camera to um gigs and things. I went uh once to see um I've got my notes here. I went to see uh Eric Clapton, Pete Townsen, Ron Wood, and Steve Winwood Super Group at the Rainbow. And um when I got there, I was with my girlfriend, now wife Joanne, and we were in the very back row. And I thought, well, I've got a camera. I could run down the front and pretend to be a photographer, uh which is what I did. And um but this is one of the photographs I took then. In those days, it wasn't like now. Um there was very little security at gigs so you could you know go down the front and there is really no one to chuck you out. Um so I started to do this sort of thing more and more. Um this is another one from the Nashville in West London. Um that they that was the Hammersmith Gorillas and this was um I think from 7576 Rolling Stones at El's Gort. Um I just happen to have a seat quite near the front for that one. people who are seen as genuinely iconic nowadays seem to be playing every week um in London back then and very often you could turn up on the day sometimes um you know you didn't really even have to queue up for a ticket it was um quite different in those days how it is now uh this was my photograph from the first time I got a commission and um at this time I didn't own a camera. I didn't even have a portfolio. I don't even think at that time I had any photographs to show anyone. But I rang up Ireland Records and um asked them if they'd mind commissioning me to photograph uh Betty

Davis at Ronnie Scots and they said okay. So I did and um that was I got 30 quid plus expenses for that shoot. And this was yeah this was about the first time I was ever commissioned. Uh something uh happened though towards the end of 76. Um beginning of 77 it's when punk happened and punk was um you know quite a big deal really. Um it wasn't just music. It was about art, graphics. Um it was influenced the whole um of popular culture. And um one of the great things about punk was it wasn't just about the bands, it was also about the audience as well. So um this was um Debbie Harry from Blondie. I photographed her from the um audience. I think uh that was at Hammersmith Odon. And um eventually I started to swing my camera around and photograph um the punks in the audience as well. This was taken at the Roxy in Covent Garden in 77. This was from the vortex. another one from the vortex. And yeah, I had some of my um photographs published in a couple of photographic magazines and the editor of one of the magazines um introduced me to the woman that was um running the shows at the A. So, this was when uh a flyer for my first um show. Uh it wasn't in one of the galleries at the A. Uh, it was actually in the restaurant. Sometimes I scoot over that part. Anyway, this is the flyer for that. Um, some years later, in fact, just recently, I noticed someone had a tote bag with this uh pungan chips um on it without any sort of explanation at all. So, I wonder if people buy buying those tote bags actually knows what it refers to. Anyway, this is my um the slits. Um this was from 78. This was my first studio shoot. And um how I how this was arranged, I rang up Vivian Albertine, the um lead guitarist of the Slits, and asked her if she'd mind coming down to a studio so I could um take some photographs. Obviously, she must have asked me, "Well, what do you want the photographs for? " And to be perfectly honest, at the moment, I can't really remember what I told her, but I must have been very persuasive because they came along and I managed to persuade a professional photographer friend of mine to allow me to use his studio to do the shooting. And um also I borrowed his assistant so he could set up the lights for me because at still at that point I knew absolutely nothing about anything. Um anyway he was a nice bloke so he allowed me to do it. Um after which I started to take myself a little bit more seriously as a photographer. Um this I started photographing the tents after the punks. This was from um Southoun and a bank holiday. And there's another one from the George, which was a very rough pub in Hammersmith. I would never have dreamt about going in there unless I had a camera. Um it's now a Belushi. and after which I started to photograph uh the new romantics first at Billy's Club and then in um Blitz in Coven Garden. Uh this is from Billy's. Uh this is Martin Degville who went on to sing in the band Cat Sputnik, Boy George before he was known as Boy George when he whilst he was still George. And this was a spread that I had in um the Sunday Times um supplement in um April 1980. After this um spread in the Sunday Times, they started letting me in the clubs free. And uh this was taken in Billy's as well. I ran into um a bunch of skin heads one night. Um, I thought they were art school revivalists, but it turned out they

were the genuine thing. And they said, "Why are you photographing those people? Why don't you come and photograph us? " And um so I spent a few well maybe 18 months following the skin heads around and I did a series of interviews with them as well which led to my next show in um yeah 1980 just called Skin Head. It was in um in Chelsea in a little gallery called Chanel Studio Gallery. Anyway, I got quite a decent amount of publicity for that um show and I was still working in a um as an art director in an advertising agency and I got in the lift at the agency one day and the managing director, a bloke that I don't think I'd ever spoken to before said to me um well he complimented me on the you know getting a show and um it didn't stop him sacking me a few weeks later. And a after that I thought, well, I was 30 at the time and I wasn't really getting anywhere as an art director and I thought, well, maybe I could switch over to being a um photographer. So, yes, that's what I started to take myself a bit more seriously. um photographing there social documentary portraiture really. This is Liz Hurley at the Batcave when she was a goth. It is definitely her. Uh anyway, somehow my subcultural work um led to me working fairly regularly with um magazines like NME and the Face and also Timeout. And for a while um I became a rock photographer more or less full-time rock photographer for the next 20 25 years. And I was flying around the world. This is 66 Sputnik with um Martin Deville on the left. It was a lot of fun. Beasty Boys photographed in New York. This was taken at the top of what used to be known as the Riot House in West Hollywood. It used to be the Hyatt Hotel and it was the same pool that features in the film um This is Spinal Tap. Um anyway, this brings me on to what I'm doing uh what I've done really more recently. Um, I've become uh more of a fashion photographer and um, also my focus has really switched on to now as I I'm all getting older. Um, I don't know if you anyone's noticed. Um, and um, I'm I've switched over to u making books and also uh, photo zenes as well. Um, still doing a bit of advertising as well. [snorts] This one for the futon company that was done at the 100 club. Yeah, this was the book that I did um before last. It was done um early last year. And this is one of um my photo zenes from a series of 10 that I did in a box called Uncovered. And which brings me back round to um photographs from my latest book, Hello, I Love You, which uh the name I took from um the song by the Doors, of course, that was done during Pride. That's from Dove House Greening Chelsea. So that's about it from me. Um. Yes. Okay. Thank [cheering] Thank you very much.