................. PUNKS
&
PROVOCATEURS .................. Photography & text copyright Linda Dawn Hammond 1976/2008. 1970s, 80s, 90s Punk, alt, hardcore & gay music ... Club scenes in Montreal, Toronto, NYC & Europe.
.... PERDU? LOST?
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LOST? Go to the PUNKS & PROVOCATEURS BLOG INDEX . List of 250 BANDS and SUBJECTS on this site BY NAME with DIRECT LINKS. Sheila Urbanowski’s apartment on Ontario St., near the corner of St.Laurent. Another friend, Velcro Ripper, lived downstairs. Site of many good parties!
You may know this man from the Fouf...!!
"Poodles" on St.Laurent (same spot where Saphir is now!) Patrice and Sheila were cavorting in children's wading pools filled with popcorn and jello- it may have been linked to the Nouveau film Festival- one possible explanation!!
Shane McGowan of THE POGUES with Joe Strummer at the Spectrum, Montreal 1987
RHYTHM ACTIVISM , Norman Nawrocki and Sylvain Cote perform at Aids benefit ,Poodles, Montreal 1987 Nathalie Dion de NITROGLYCERINE, Montreal 1987 Patricia Maurice de NITROGLYCERINE, Montreal 1987
The Plateau neighbourhood in Montreal. I’ve been working on a series of documentary photos, cataloguing the closing of the older stores on St. Laurence since 1982, which I plan to exhibit as a future project. The above photo was taken on Blvd. St.Laurent, known to anglos as "The Main". It used to be the dividing line between the French East and English West (though in Montreal, South is really East and North is really West) , but happily the linguistic divisions have since blurred somewhat. I moved onto the street in '82 and held on to my wonderful 2 floor 8 1/2 on St.Laurent and Pins until I was finally ousted after 13 years by my money grubbing landlord. A familiar story, and it’s repeating itself again for me on Ave. du Parc. Always the same scenario- artists move into a depressed neighbourhood, the area becomes "hip", then gentrification encroaches and we are put out on the street under some pretext, but the bottom line is $$$.
"Bar Business" had a pretty wild and infamous gay night I used to frequent on occasion in the early 90s. I photographed the opening for Montreal Calendar Magazine, which used to send me to cover Montreal’s alternative events. Business was owned by the Holder twins, who still run Swimming. Denise Robin Gubby, Marc Gagne, Holder twins w. Jacques Rousseau, Robbie Jackson, Bruno Daigle Spiky, Lisa, Martin, Arnick Amegan, Carl Gagno and artist Pierre Pepin
ZILON demonstrated his considerable graffiti skills for crowds at the launch of Pepsee - which proved to be the club’s definitive event as, oddly enough, when it closed its doors that night it never reopened.
The guy on the receiving end with the lapping tongue is none other than Zak of the ALLEY DUKES at age 15! He said the DKs was the first show he ever paid money to see! I'm so happy to have immortalized the moment for him! Two decades on, at a recent ALLEY DUKES gig in Toronto at the Silver Dollar, we recreated it- replacing the Jello shot with BLOODSHOT BILL ! ALLEY DUKES photos (2005) will appear on the Indyfoto site soon.
LOST? Go to the PUNKS & PROVOCATEURS BLOG INDEX . List of 250 BANDS and SUBJECTS on this site BY NAME with DIRECT LINKS. Pyramid Club, NYC The Pyramid club was located in the lower East Side between A & B (Alphabet City) - a fairly nasty area in terms of crime, but a literal magnet for artistic and talented people. The Pyramid was sister club to a place I used to frequent in Montreal called "Poodles". Poodles consisted of an eclectic mix of club kids, gays, straights, punks and trannies. Like the Pyramid. The only fault I ever found with Poodles was the music- I HATE DISCO. Always did, still do. My roommate Denise and I occasionally went on the Poodle dance floor and thrashed to it! Amazing no-one ever kicked us out.
Visiting the Pyramid in 80s NYC usually became a Montreal reunion. Many of us flitted back and forth between the 2 cities, as it was only a 9 hour drive away. I remember the first time I went for an Aids test in Montreal, circa 1985. I was pregnant and had to literally force the Doctor to do it. He couldn't understand why I thought I needed it. He said, as I was a woman and it was primarily a gay man's disease, and furthermore, mostly centered in places like New York, NOT Montreal, then why was I worried? I couldn't believe that I had to explain to the one institution in Montreal which was testing HIV at the time that New York was only a short drive away- most of the Montreal gays I knew actually travelled to New York on occasion, and some probably even had SEX while there! I told him that if he thought the virus would remain incubated, he was dreaming. I finally convinced him that my own extra curricular activities warranted the test, and at that his nurse looked at me skeptically and put on the rubber gloves to take my blood. The paranoia surrounding the disease was disconcerting. I was so relieved when it came back negative. I became friends with an amazing graffiti artist in '84- Michael Roman, whose work covered the walls of the Pyramid as well as the streets of NYC- you can see his signature skeletons scaling buildings and flying angel cats in the backgrounds of these portraits. I met him on the street somewhere in the village or Soho. I was wearing what appears now a ridiculous looking outfit but was cutting edge then- a spray painted crinoline, Docs, topped off with my spiky red hair. I looked like an out of control fairy. Michael had a Mohawk and New York street sense- something I was lacking. He took me on an incredible odyssey through the lower East Side, on a white night I will never forget. It was like an ominous yet compelling dream. I felt safe with him, as if in a protective bubble, as we travelled street by street through different worlds- all dangerous and so beautiful it hurt inside. I kept my camera for once hidden and only have my memories. One street was like a scene out of Weegee, filled with homeless people crisscrossing our path, their gaze elsewhere and no-where. We kept to the center of the road, and the air seemed filled with vapours. Another street, and we were suddenly alone. White sheeted motorbikes emerged like precious ghosts on the sidewalks, and the street was illuminated with amber light. Michael told me it was the safest street in NY, owned by the Hell's Angels, who patrolled the rooftops. No-one would dare touch those bikes, or cause any disturbances. A headless body had been found on one of those rooftops a couple of months ago. We finally went back to his room, where we exchanged art and ideas until dawn. I only saw him once again, but some people remain etched in your heart forever, while others invest more time but are forgotten. Michael Roman was "discovered", if you will, by Santana, who spirited him away to SF where he apparently now lives and continues to paint and engage in community activism. Michael did the cover artwork on one of the DOUGHBOYS albums as well as one for SANTANA.
The photo below predates my Three Part Bodyseries, but the germ of the idea was already there. In that series, (1989-1994) I took the same people who were part of my milieu and seen in this documentary work, and brought them into my studio to be photographed. It consists of over 50 portraits, some of which can be seen on my Three Part Bodyseries site.
I went back to NYC in Aug. 2007 and visited the lower east side after a 19 year absence- I was amazed to discover the Pyramid was still open, and has 80s nights!! Wish I lived in New York... Photos at Pyramid Club August 2007
LOST? Go to the PUNKS & PROVOCATEURS BLOG INDEX . List of 250 BANDS and SUBJECTS on this site BY NAME with DIRECT LINKS. The following photos were taken with B&W infrared film, shot with a dark red filter over the flash. They were then colourized and manipulated in Photoshop. I have posted both the original B&W (already a strange enough effect) and the Photoshop version! These were taken in a club called Danceteria in the early summer of '84. I also shot regular film in Danceteria, including photos of a UK band- SHRIEKBACK . LA LOORA, a German band also played there that summer- there's an odd story behind that one too. Later.
Linda Dawn Hammond,MFA, AKA Dawn One, is a photographer and journalist. As a teenager in 1976, she began covering music events for various magazines. During the late 70s she became involved in punk, documenting an insider's perspective of the music, political and social scenes in Montreal, Toronto, NYC, the UK and Europe, included in this blog as photographs and commentary. Linda Dawn Hammond continues to work as a photojournalist, specializing in music, cinema, art and politics. As a fine arts photographer, she has exhibited in galleries in North America and the UK, and published widely.
