Steve Gullick: Tenebrous January 18, 2008

British photographer Steve Gullick has been shooting musicians for years. This January, he will unveil photos of ’90s icons such as Nirvana, Jeff Buckley, and Radiohead that have never been shown formally. This will be Mr. Gullick’s first exhibit in America.

Steve Gullick is the one and only punk savant photographer left working in the music business. The London based family man and principled reprobate started taking band shots for a mate’s fanzine in the early 90s and was swiftly spotted and recruited by the then weekly music paper Sounds. He was commissioned to shoot Sub Pop band The Screaming Trees at the Fulham Greyhound and was thereafter inducted into the chaos of US grunge rock. Moving to rival weekly Melody Maker he worked hectically through the early 90s and took a particularly notable series of Nirvana shots. His first collection of photographs, ‘Pop Book Number One’, came out in 95, and Gullick survived the Britpop years continuing to turn the raw stuff of blokes in bands into gripping, eye fooling images.

The Prodigy liked him so much he became their ‘official’ photographer. He liked one features editor so little that he resigned to him twice, as he moved back and forth between Melody Maker and the NME. By the end of the decade he had travelled the world, flitting stylishly and sometimes drunkenly from East London, through tango bars in Buenos Aries and up to the lava slopes of Mount Etna, while clicking off enough film to occupy half of ‘Nirvana’ book plus his own feisty showcase ‘Showtime’.

In 2002 he created the music magazine ‘careless talk costs lives’ which intended to produce 12 bi-monthly issues. 2004 saw the launch of ‘loose lips sink ships’ magazine which steve still continues www.llss.tv Anyone who still thinks Anton Corbjin is the cool rock photographer should meet this man and his work.

Official Website: http://www.foundla.com/sys/shows/steve-gullick/