EMP's
Skate Punk
Event
| "It's fun to see skateboarding get the recognition it deserves in association with punk rock and hardcore." |
Capturing Our History: Glen E. Friedman
In the era when skate met punk Glen E. Friedman was there to capture it all on film. Dogtown, Alva, Jay Adams, Black Flag, and Bad Brains are just a few of the subjects captured by his lens. We sat down right before the TSOL show at EMP to talk about skating and punk.
By Steve Pingelton (Ping) and Michael Cornelius (MC)
Ping: How did you get
started in photography?
I don't know exactly how
I got started but as soon as I had a camera I liked what I was doing, felt
good. I think the first time I took pictures I was 10 years old with
a Polaroid camera and it came out really good. And then all of a
sudden I'm in Jr.' High school and all my friends, the guys I'm hanging
out with or seeing all the time, are becoming kinda well known for skating.
Not only in the local area but around the world because of Skateboarder
Magazine and the photos that were getting published by Craig Stecyk III.
But for some reason I thought I could do better than what other people
were doing at the time photography-wise and I was a skater. So, I
was like, I'm gonna just start taking pictures of my friends. I started
doing that because typing class was really full and so I took photography.
I switched to photography with a pocket instamatic and started shooting
pictures of Tony (Alva) and Jay (Adams) with my pocket camera. They
would come by with other people like Stacy (Peralta). I was taking
photography 1 and got a "D" and had my first picture published six months
later.
Ping: With a polaroid?
No, not with the polaroid. The first published photo was a borrowed camera. I borrowed someone's camera, we found a really good pool and I took Jay to it and took this photo that became a full page subscription ad. I was 14 and got a $30 check in the mail, freaked me out, I was stoked.
MC: I think maybe getting paid when you were 14 gave you a whole different perspective on what you can do with photography.
The money was crazy but the real crazy, incredible, beautiful thing was having my name in the magazine on a full page picture. That was kinda mind boggling. And it was a subscription ad. The magazine at that time was a bi-monthly. The subscription ad is one of the most important pages in the magazine in a lot of ways. That's what they use to get people to buy their magazine and they are using my photo to represent themselves. I realized that when I was young and I even realized when I sent them the photos what a big deal it was. I knew I was taking good photos; I didn't give a fuck what anyone else said. I had a lot of confidence. I showed them to Peralta and Jay, people like that saw them and they were like "These are good". I just sent them on in. I think that is how it started.
MC: What do you think
of this whole exhibit here at EMP. What do you think of the museum
putting up a permanent display of when skateboarding met punk?
I think that it's pretty
good. It validates a lot of what I did in a big way I think personally.
Not just for my own ego but because I know that it is what inspired me
so I'm actually kinda happy about it. The exhibit itself is pretty
good, it's really good though and it is very interesting. Everything
could be improved upon I guess but it's very very good and very cool.
I saw punk rock blow up incredibly after I broke my ass to get it into
Skateboarder Magazine and then into Action Now. Then later on people
like Thrasher got credit for it but anyone who was around then knows it
wasn't them; they just took of on a good thing that other people started
to build. They brought it back to the streets for sure and they deserve
some credit but a lot of their stuff that they brought out was a lot of
wannabe fucking crap, you know what I'm saying, as far as people wanting
to control their own industry. People not being down with skateboarders
and wanting to pretend like they were the real carriers of the flag. The
reality there was no industry to support a color magazine at the time.
So they (Action Now) had to diversify and I don't think we did a good job
but I was there doing what I can. We had the Black Flag bars on the
cover with Niel Blender, you can't be too mad at that but people want to
complain and rewrite history.
But we were talking about
the whole display here. I think some people will think it is legitimate
and some people won't. Look at interviews Chuck Dukowski did in '81
and '82 and he would directly credit the surfing and skateboarding magazines
with the spread of punk rock besides the band traveling around so much.
All of a sudden bands like
the Germs and Crass were being mentioned in magazines that were being read
by a half a million kids in the United States. That wasn't happening
in any other magazine. It was because of Action Now.
It's fun to see skateboarding
get the recognition it deserves in association with punk rock and hardcore.
MC: In the Phoenix scene it was a blue haired college kid scene where people would pogo genteelly and they were into dressing really expressively and had arty bands. And then JFA came in and brought all the skaters into the scene and it was totally different.
The great thing about JFA too though is just the record. The name of the record was Blatant Localism; it has nothing to do with punk rock at all in a way. And it was really the first blatant skaterock band. Other bands had skaters in the bands but most of them actually didn't want people to know that they skated. Even when Tony was in The Scoundrels his skating was on the back burner; he wanted to be know as being in a band. People were there and they remember. Duane still skated pretty hard though but he was way more into the band than he was into his skating at the time; although they were all skaters and surfers at heart. But JFA was like proud of it. They were the first punk rock era band to have a skate photo on the cover of the record. I remember just for that I lived them; I thought that was cool as shit.
Ping: What are your favorite bands now?
I listen to a lot of old records. Listen to some corny stuff but lately I have been listening to a lot of Fela Kuti. It doesn't have anything to do with any hardcore stuff but I was turned on to them recently by some friends.
MC: Aren't there a lot of Fela re-issues out now?
Yes, it all just got re-issued
and I just saw Femi Kuti play and I took photos the other day just because
I was so inspired by his dads stuff and it was awesome. 
The
show was incredible. So, that was fun because I don't go to shows that
much. I listen to Rage, I listen to System of a Down, Nine Inch Nails.
I don't listen to Deftones or those Fred Durst type bands and all that
ya know, I listen to The Stooges, Black Flag, all kinds of old stuff.
Fugazi is probably my favorite band of all time, they still inspire me
and there are few things that inspire me now days on such an all-around
level like Fugazi does. The Makeup is also a great band from D.C.
Ping: Last night you mentioned your working with Peralta on the Dogtown video
Yeah, it's gonna be like a feature length documentary-movie and hopefully it will be released in theaters and if not it'll go to video. The soonest it'll be out is the spring but it's coming out quite phenomenally. I've dug up out of my archives probably 400 photos from Dogtown era that have never been seen by anybody other than editors of Skateboarder. My stuff is not even half of what's going to be in the movie. Jay's dad has found photos, theres Stecyk's old photos that are just phenomonal. A lot of stuff that was in Skateboarder. A lot of footage; 16 millimeter, super 8, 35, video everything that people have dug up. Like, they have footage from that Del Mar contest on 16 mm where the Z-boys come out and just stomp everybody and blew everyone away. They have footage of the first time people were getting over the light at the canyon pool... The footage is just remarkable. The interviews are good, you know...
MC: I think think in some ways it is hard for people to relate to how radical that was. Because they are so used to seeing big airs on TV comercials...
The way the movie is put together it really shows were these guys came from; the neighborhood, the situation, the surf shop and the connection of style and skating and then where it went from there.
MC: I remember when I first saw someone carving tile in a pool it blew my mind.
When you see this movie you
are going to fucking shit when you see this stuff.
This is where it all changed.
This movie is going to show where all that stuff came from. They
are getting it ready, hopefully, for the Sundance Film Festival this fall
but the movie itself probably won't be released until the spring.
MC: Do you still shoot skating?
Very rarely, only if I'm really inspired. There is a great shot in new Super X magazine, the one that is coming out next, that I took of Tom Groholski last fall. It's awesome. It's on a ramp in N.Y.C. I have known Tom forever and I just wanted to get this beautiful shot. I feel like in skating I have shot everything that needs to be shot, personally. Tom Groholski, doing a backside air at this ramp, was inspiring to me because of the background and the location and Tom is an old friend. For a lot of the new tricks video magazines are really the best thing for skateboarding now days. Everything is so technical. So technical and so quick. People think that people have style now but when they see the Dogtown (Z-Boys) movie they will learn about what style is about.
Ping: I think it is great that you are bringing the message to the new school kids that style is important and roots are important.
I think if people look at my book, particularly Fuck You Heros, you learn a lot of it from that. You learn that a lot of it is all attached. That skatboarding, punk rock and hip hop is all about attitude and skateboarding, to me, was all about style.
Check out Glen E. Friedman's web site at BurningFlags.com then buy his books Fuck You Heros, Fuck You Too and The Idealist.