There’s something about photos of bands in their prime...
A gallery of shots that give me the chills.
I was thinking about the band Pavement the other day after recording a clip for my YouTube channel about bands I hated and then grew to love. As always, when I reflect on Pavement and their place in music history, I always come back to the picture above, which will forever be fused in my memory with the AllMusicGuide entry on the band that begins with the following:
Pavement is perhaps the defining American indie rock band of the 1990s, the group that captured the slacker zeitgeist of the alt-rock era.
and:
Their fractured songwriting and defiant low fidelity made them the most influential, distinctive band in the alternative underground of [that era].
The picture is no longer displayed on their AllMusic page, but it was like that for years. Sure, AMG contributor Heather Phares’ choice of words frames the band against the backdrop of what was going on at the time. But there’s something about that photo that, for me, epitomizes the way we remember bands not only for their own work, but as frozen-in-amber snapshots of the “moment” that unfolded around them. It’s hard to put my finger on it, but I feel like you could almost reach into that picture and touch what the world was like in that exact moment.
I often get the chills looking at photos of bands taken at the peak of their powers — or the peak of when they were resonating with “the moment.” I don’t think my reaction stems solely from our culture-wide fascination with youth. For me, bands are entities that go through a period where their inspiration is in such plentiful supply that it’s almost spilling out of them. I feel like I can actually see that charge of inspiration in old photos.
I once read a quote from Pavement leader Stephen Malkmus, where he talked about how relevance eventually fades for every artist. He was talking about how one of his biggest influences, Mark E. Smith of The Fall, was putting out some of his most vital work late in his career, but that the majority of the public was still focused on Smith’s past glories. Malkmus pointed out, without much apparent regret, that he was basically in the same boat too.
“You have your moment,” he said — the implication being: “you have your moment and then it passes.”
But it’s not like that moment actually dies. Sure, it slips into the rearview in a temporal sense — culture always moves on — but our sense of that moment lives on in the memory and heart of everyone who lived through it. And the aura of inspiration that charges pictures of bands taken at their creative peak, I think, helps keep those moments alive.
For your enjoyment, I dug up a bunch of photos that give me that tingly sense of something really special being captured for all time. There are countless groups I didn’t think to include because I searched for people off the top of my head. There’s no real order, rhyme, or reason but I did try to span a bunch of different time periods.
I could do this all day… I’d love to see some of YOUR favorite pics in the comments!
<3 SRK