{"id":4450,"date":"2017-12-15T02:04:10","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T07:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=4450"},"modified":"2017-12-26T08:53:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T13:53:27","slug":"gonson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2017\/12\/15\/gonson\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They Were Both Lonely\u2019\u2014JJ Gonson\u2019s Photos Of Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith And The Birth of Grunge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romantic notions often eddy around rock stars who die too young. But then there\u2019s how it feels when they were people you hung around with.<\/p>\n

The first images you see when you visit JJ Gonson\u2019s exhibition of her rock and roll photos\u00a0<\/a>at Somerville\u2019s Diesel Caf\u00e9 are Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who died at age 27 in 1994, and Elliott Smith, who died at age 34 in 2003.<\/p>\n

Gonson\u2014the proprietor of the catering firm Cuisine En Locale<\/a> and the Somerville nightclub Once<\/a>\u2014began photographing rock shows in 1985. The Cambridge artist had been waiting to get into a H\u00fcsker D\u00fc concert at the Paradise, when she struck up a conversation with a guy named Mike who had just started a punk rock and hardcore fanzine called xXx: Triple X. He needed photographers. She had recently enrolled at Boston\u2019s Museum School to study photography, so she volunteered.<\/p>\n

Over the next five years, Gonson tagged along with Mike, photographing bands in Boston, Maine, Rhode Island, New York, and landing her pictures in Thrasher Magazine, Rip, Spin, Creem and Rolling Stone.<\/p>\n

And so these two photos at the start of her exhibition. \u201cThese,\u201d Gonson says, \u201care my two friends that are dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kurt Cobain (not pictured here) sits in the passenger seat of a van, a Melvins sticker above the window, dressed in the grunge uniform of blue jeans and a plaid shirt. \u201cThat\u2019s actually a really, really early photo. I took it one of the first times they came to Boston. It was \u201988 or \u201989. I was in the driver seat of their van. I don\u2019t know why. I think we were in Harvard Square. He was holding up the cross and taking pictures of it superimposed,\u201d Gonson says. \u201cVery young and very not doing drugs yet. Very okay. Very not messed up yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019d been photographing bands play for a while then. And had hosted some Seattle bands at her Watertown apartment when they were touring. Which led to her getting a call asking her to host a band by the name of Nirvana.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey played Green St. Station in Jamaica Plain and there were 11 people there,\u201d Gonson remembers. (This may be a recording of the show<\/a>.) \u201cAnd I didn\u2019t have a camera because I went with my boyfriend and it was a date.\u201d If she brought her camera, she feared she\u2019d focus on taking photos and neglect her date. \u201cWe lived in Watertown. So they stayed with us that night. The next morning I took the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking at the photos of Cobain and Smith, Gonson says, \u201cI really love both of these photos and I think they have a lot of similarities. There\u2019s something private about both photos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonson says, \u201cI\u2019ve always thought the one of Elliott had a lot of sadness to it. Even though I don\u2019t think he was sad at that moment. He was lonely. They were both lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of Elliott Smith in Los Angeles, c. 1994.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second photo shows Elliott Smith some time around 1994 \u201cback stage in Los Angeles. Maybe The Viper Room.\u201d He sits on a skanky couch in front of a green and black wall decorated with a painting of an eclipse. He seems focused on his guitar to the exclusion of everything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s tuning his guitar backstage. I think Heatmiser was probably over at that point,\u201d Gonson says. Heatmiser was the band that Smith was in and Gonson managed before Smith went solo. She and he had been a couple for a time. (She’s said,\u201cHe was the love of my life in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/a>) \u201cI think I wasn\u2019t working for him anymore. So I was sort of visiting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had worked really hard [on Heatmiser], so it was sort of heartbreaking when it fell apart,\u201d Gonson says. \u201cThe odds are against a band staying together. They don\u2019t really have a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonson says, \u201cI was far closer to Elliott than I ever was to Kurt. I feel a lot of sadness about both of them. I feel they were both remarkably gifted. I think they had celiac disease. That\u2019s my theory. They were both in pain a lot. \u2026 There were a lot of similarities. \u2026 They were both haunted. So bad that they couldn\u2019t live with it. Lots of people have demons. Their demons were pretty bad demons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the other bands featured in the 26 photos in the exhibition are The Bosstones (\u201cThe Bosstones\u2019 second show. Before they were Mighty, Mighty. Before they were even Mighty.\u201d), Jane\u2019s Addiction at T.T. the Bear\u2019s, Mot\u00f6rhead (\u201cThis is at the Orpheum. Slayer played on the same bill as Mot\u00f6rhead and their fans got in a big fight outside.\u201d), Megadeth (They\u2019re in a hotel room doing an interview. \u2026 I like that one. I like the hair. I think the hair is really funny.\u201d), Henry Rollins of Black Flag (\u201cHe always looked to me like he was going to eat the audience. H was real aggressive.\u201d), and members of Lazy Susan posing at Mount Auburn Cemetery (three of them, including Gonson\u2019s sister Claudia Gonson, went on to play in The Magnetic Fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere aren\u2019t a lot of women in the photos. There were mostly men,\u201d Gonson says. \u201cI think that\u2019s still true. There are very few women in music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the photos, Gonson says, have \u201cto do with a moment when heavy metal was mixing with punk rock and becoming grunge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of the mosh pit at the Boston club The Rat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the icons of the era\u2014roughly the late 1980s and early \u201890s\u2014was the mosh pit, which Gonson defines as \u201chardcore dancing with wild abandon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the mosh pit is a place you can do things. You can kind of let your energy out that you can\u2019t do in other places. There\u2019s this feeling when you\u2019re listening to music when you just kind of want to let go,\u201d Gonson says. \u201cIt\u2019s still dancing, your body being involved in the music. And I think that\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonson says, \u201cIt was a real commitment to carry your camera into these situations. You only had so much film. You were always at risk of getting hit and having all your equipment broken. There was this thing that the punks would protect me. Because if my camera got broken they wouldn\u2019t get any photos. So they would form a ring around me. \u2026 They would put their bodies between me and the mosh pit. So I could get right up close to the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one I\u2019m on top of a speaker,\u201d she says of one shot. \u201cBecause I used to climb to get above. \u2026 That was my way to not get killed in these mosh pits, but still get right in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were all these bands that helped create this sound that was more melodic than hardcore punk and less bangy and hairy than metal,\u201d Gonson says. \u201cThe metal bands were a lot of screaming guitars and hair. The punk bands were fast, but not very melodic. \u2026 Grunge took the melodies of metal, but combined them with the independent culture of hardcore. But then what really matters, ultimately the bands that gleaned from both areas and they made it pop. They made it palatable in a way.\u201d Bands like Jane\u2019s Addiction and Nirvana. \u201cI\u2019m not sure they did it intentionally. Their songs have melodies you can sign along.\u201d<\/p>\n

JJ Gonson\u2019s \u201cFirst Edit,\u201d<\/a> Diesel Caf\u00e9, Somerville, December 2017 to February 2018. Free reception<\/a> 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Monday, Dec. 18, 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of Sonic Youth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of used for the cover of Elliott Smith’s 1994 album “Roman Candle.” It shows a New York Street market. “It\u2019s not him or me. I still don\u2019t like it. I don\u2019t get it at all. I still don\u2019t understand why he chose that photo.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of Megadeth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of Lazy Susan posing at Mount Auburn Cemetery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of Jane’s Addiction performing at T.T. the Bear’s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"JJ<\/a>
JJ Gonson’s photo of Greg Sage of Wipers performing at the Paradise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romantic notions often eddy around rock stars who die too young. But then there\u2019s how it feels when they were people you hung around with. The first images you see when you visit JJ Gonson\u2019s exhibition of her rock and roll photos\u00a0at Somerville\u2019s Diesel Caf\u00e9 are Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, who died at age 27 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,101],"tags":[37,151,152,154,153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4450"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4485,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4450\/revisions\/4485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}