Kool Thing
Today marks the 31st anniversary of this portrait of Sonic Youth.
I’ve been revisiting this band recently and with it the pleasure and pain associated with my dealings with them. When giving a slideshow about my photography career I will cite Sonic Youth as the lesson learned on why you shouldn’t try to be friends with your subjects.
I started listening to Sonic Youth in 1986, while working long hours in the darkroom. “Evol” had just come out and I regarded Sonic Youth as the promise fulfilled on the potential of the Velvet Underground. Dark, with rich soundscapes and provocative lyrics, plus hints at a catchy hooks. Sophisticated noisy pop, this was what the future of Rock music looked like to me.
In early 1987 their album “Sister” was released and I would cross paths with the band multiple times. Approaching them at shows to take their picture, and well, just wanting to hang out; it was an awkward affair. My skill set to avoid session failures was not well developed yet and my first sitting with them was a disaster, with everything underexposed by over a stop.
On top of that I was not good at being “cool,” and that was the default setting for the post-hardcore scene that I was drawn to. I didn’t smoke or drink (yet) so I didn’t have that to hide behind, I was just eager young Chris Buck, visibly overjoyed at being in the same room with his favorite band.
The members of Sonic Youth were sometimes polite (Thurston), sometimes nice (Steve), often mean (Kim), but mostly indifferent (Lee).
As much as I wanted it (and boy, did I want it!), I never quite got the portrait of the group that I’d hoped for. The closest I got was from this session on November 3rd, 1988 in the hallway at the Diamond Club in Toronto.
Photographer colleagues assure me that this band were particularly difficult to wrangle but I suspect that my biggest obstacle was my need to be liked by them.
This was an upsetting lesson for me, at a time when I needed that kind of validation, but over the coming months and years I developed my approach to subjects that has served me well. My mantra became, “I’m here to make pictures, not friends,” and allowed to me remarkable portraits for my clients, the viewers, and sometimes even the sitters.