Scott "Rock Action" Asheton and Scott Morgan of Sonic's Rendezvous Band, backstage at the Second Chance, Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 26, 1977. Photo by Sue Rynski and courtesy of Sensitive Skin.
David Thomas of Pere Ubu caught in a pensive moment backstage before a show? Niagara applying makeup? Fred and Patti Smith caught posing in a way that might not even be a pose? All that, plus an appreciation by (and with rare poem from) Iggy Pop?
Yes, all you have to do to see these things is click right here. These sixteen terrific photos were just published today in Sensitive Skin, Bernard Meisler's magazine that's the heir to such classic arts journals as the Portable Lower East Side and Between C and D.
Rynski was friends with Destroy All Monsters at the height of their snarling, Asheton-induced badassery and hung around the scene then— going to shows, and taking tremendous photos. "These pics are horny and bad. Fuck if you were a normal person from a normal place you would look at this shit and say what the fuck are these people trying to do," as Pop writes.
Fred "Sonic" Smith and Patti Smith backstage at the Second Chance in Ann Arbor, Michigan on February 8, 1978. The occasion was a gig shared by Sonic's Rendezvous Band and the Patti Smith Group. Patti Smith later married Fred "Sonic" Smith. "Sonic" Smith was formerly a guitarist with the MC5. Photo by Sue Rynski and courtesy of Sensitive Skin.
