CHRIS SAUNDERS

 

I first learned how to play the guitar back in my mid teens, I was really into heavy metal back then and spent most of my time trying to imitate Eddie Van Halen and all those other wibbly wibbly speed merchants. I was never really that good at all, and whilst I had a fun time in the bands that I later joined, once I picked up a camera in my early 20's the guitar was pretty much discarded.

About ten years ago, after borrowing an acoustic for a few months I decided I'd have an electric again, got a cheap Fender Squier Telecaster & then about five years later got a Gretsch for my birthday. By that point I had gotten really into Duane Eddy (hence the choice of the Gretsch, his favoured guitar make). I loved his deceptively simple style and his ability to come up with so many evocative melodies on the bottom 3 strings & I'd also gotten into Link Wray as well after hearing Richard Hawley play one of his tunes whilst photographing him during a recording session.

I've started playing in bands again over the last couple of years and my sound & approach is *directly* pilfered from these two guitarists, though unfortunately I'll never be fit to lick either of their boots ability wise. I'm obsessed with their big, reverb-y, echo-y, shimmering sound, a sound that will always get the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention.

 

 

At the end of last year I got a phone call from Graham Wrench, Richard's manager...

"What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?".  I probably had an afternoon of playing Xbox planned or some nonsense but I chose not to mention this.

"Nothing at the moment, why?"

"Duane Eddy's recording his new album with Richard in town, I need some photos taking, can you do them?"

There was a momentary silence at my end. I had heard through the grapevine that Richard was going to be doing something with Duane as I knew that Graham had also become Duane's manager, but I had no idea it was happening at that moment. I can't recall exactly what I said in response but I think it was along the lines of a brief & enthusiastic outburst of Tourette's Syndrome style language followed a positive answer.

The next day I turn up at Yellow Arch Studios, go up the stairs, & open the front door to the main recording rooms. Directly ahead is the door to the live room, to the right is the door to the control room. Coming from the live room is the sound that over the last few years I'd become obsessed with.  The door to that room is open & I could see there's no-one in there so it's obvious Duane is playing in the control room & there isn't any recording going on. I walk in & stand right next to the huge amplifier & listen for probably a good five minutes until my trance-like state is disturbed by Colin Elliott, Richard's bassist & co producer. "Duane Eddy!" I say, pointing enthusiastically at the amp.  He laughs at me as if to say he'd been there as well. Or he's probably just laughing at me.

So I go into the control room and Richard introduces me to Duane.

 

"This is Chris, the photographer I told you about, he plays guitar as well" is the first thing Richard says.

 

Inwardly I roll my eyes. "Not very well actually" I cringe as we shake hands.

 

"Well you can sure take pictures, Richard showed me your work earlier".

 

I thank him with a beaming smile & say I'll try my best today.  I sit down on the sofa & fiddle about with my camera gear & Duane sits down on the chair opposite & starts playing.  His guitar is an object of great beauty so I ask him a few things about it & as he answers he, very unexpectedly, passes it over to me....

"Oh....shit" I think. "Duane Eddy wants me to play his guitar in front of him".

*Thankfully* Colin starts playing one of the recordings back and the guitar is now no longer amplified, though as the playback is pretty quiet what I begin to play is still audible as the guitar is a semi acoustic.  I couldn't think of a thing to play though.  "HONK!"... "TWONK!".... my fingers had turned to jelly,  I can feel Duane's eyes on me, and I'm thanking God for Colin's merciful actions. Eventually I rustle up a few riffs and a passable attempt at a Chet Atkins tune, say it's a lovely guitar, and hand it back to him before I embarrass myself any further. He smiles and says Gretsch had had it made especially for him (I think he may have said it was a prototype and therefore not even in production yet).

Part of me wishes I had a photo of that moment with his guitar, I could've asked Richard to take one on his phone but I was so flummoxed by the episode it didn't cross my mind.

 

Anyway I got my camera out, photographed him for a few minutes & this is some of what I got...

 

 

 

About six months later I bump into Simon Webster, the manager at Thornbridge Brewery, a company I've done quite a bit of work for over the last couple of years. Thornbridge have recently taken over and renovated my local pub, The Greystones, and have quickly become very good at putting on live music. He's looking a bit giddy. "You're not going away next month are you?" he asks. "I think we've got Duane Eddy playing at the pub..."  Had I been going away I would no longer have been. Duane Eddy playing my local would be something I would not be missing.

 

So Duane played the gig a few days ago, one of the most enjoyable gigs I've ever been to & I took a few photos..

 

 

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The album, 'Road Trip' has now been released & the shots from the studio have been used quite extensively in magazines & online. The album is a belter.

 

I've only photographed two magicians before (and one of them is more often described as a "mentalist"  rather than as a magician, which sounds like something Alan Partridge would come out with) and would really like to photograph more. I'm not really all that keen on the kind of magic that uses props & the large scale illusions that don't rely wholly on the physical & mental skill of the magician, it's more the close up, sleight of hand tricks & (apparent) mind reading that amazes me when it's done really well.

This man is a genius...



I photographed Looch recently who's very good at this kind of stuff. I have actually photographed him a few times before both in his previous guise as a DJ, and as a magician (or 'mind reader' as he prefers to be known as). This time he wanted some pictures for use on his new website which illustrates some of the tricks he performs, rather than straight portraits.

A quick Google search for photos of magicians revealed some horrific examples of how I didn't want to approach this task so once I'd come up with a location (upstairs at Bungalows & Bears in Sheffield, a spot I had long ago logged as a potential spot for a shoot) and an assistant, Laura, who'd help out with both the shooting and be in the shots, we set about it.

I wanted the shots to look dark & stylish, with a good colour scheme & this is what I came up with. Looch actually guessed Laura's drawing (which ended up being a skull & crossbones, not the easily guessable house, cat, car etc) in the picture...

 

 

 

Many thanks to Bungalows & Bears for the space & to Laura Kennedy for assisting.

 

Last week I had the bittersweet experience of photographing my old band Black Cat White Cat from whom I had to very reluctantly depart for various reasons recently.  Happily they now have a new guitarist, Bryan Day, who'll have a hell of a job filling my boots (just kidding Bryan). He's a hell of a mean rockabilly player and will fit in perfectly.  Look out for them at Tramlines and the upcoming single release on the awesome Club 60 record label.

 

 

I've always been a fan of great opening credit sequences in films & TV shows. While I like all the ones with fancy typography & great graphics like the stuff Saul Bass did for Hitchcock and others & more recently Mad Men etc, it's the ones that really give a vivid impression of what's to come, or sum up a theme in the piece, using both great music and great visuals that do it for me rather than the aforementioned stylistic exercises. Apocalypse Now takes some beating. There's been a few brilliant ones on rubbish films as well, check out the one for the crap Nicolas Cage film Lord of War.

 

Out of the recent glut of brilliant TV shows there's been superb intros in The Sopranos, Dexter, & The Wire but it's been the one for True Blood that has really stood out personally. Vampires have never really done a thing for me in the scare stakes so I was pretty sceptical about it as I sat down to watch the first episode - then the guitar riff kicked in, the camera rises up from the swamp & over the next minute & a half there's a brilliant montage of footage of the area the show its set in, clips from the 60's civil rights protests (interspersed with the only direct allusion to the show, a shot of a billboard saying "God Hates Fangs"), corruption of innocence, predators & prey, scenes of religious fervour, straight & gay sex, and a shot of what looks like an orgy, all increasing in intensity until the ambiguous final shot of a woman being baptised (it's not quite clear if she's a willing baptee or not, plus the scene is, unusually for these activities I imagine, set at night).  It's an incredible piece of work neatly incorporating all the elements of the show that I think occasionally it struggled to live up to in the third season after the brilliant first two. But anyway, I've clearly watched this intro too much...

 

 

What really ties the sequence up is the music used.  It's hard to imagine a more appropriate song to play over these images and for the show itself, even though the song's performer Jace Everett wrote the song years before the show.

"When you came in the air went out
And every shadow filled up with doubt
I don't know who you think you are
But before the night is through
I wanna do bad things with you"

Taken in the context of the show this could be either from a vampire's point of view or equally someone who hates vampires.  Or seeing as many of the characters are frequently seen getting it on it could also obviously be read as a simple statement of desire. But musically it's perfect as well, the absolutely demonic guitar riff, the sinister lap steel, the blistering guitar solo, and Everett's deep Southern drawl make not only a perfect fit for the show but what has also become easily one of my favourite songs in recent years.  

So I was pretty happy to get to photograph Jace when he played my local, The Greystones, a couple of days ago.  I had an idea of how to do the shots beforehand that would have been a heavily backlit, noirish kind of thing, with him playing his beautiful red Gretsch guitar as seen on his last album cover. That had to be jettisoned when I discovered one of my lights wasn't working (later revealed to be a blown fuse which I could've checked & replaced there & then but didn't want to piss about as time was a bit short). Plus he didn't have the guitar with him ("No way does that come on the road with me, it cost more than my car") so I pretty much had to wing it with one light, a reflector and his black acoustic.  The venue, whilst great for live music, is a nightmare to photograph in due to the many distracting elements that are in the background no matter which way you look (and which, annoyingly in this scenario, includes a few of my own shots blown up to about ten feet) so these shots have had many things on the walls retouched away by necessity to keep a nicer feel. I'm fairly pleased with them for a quick job, I think I prefer them to the initial idea, & the man himself couldn't have been a nicer bloke. Excellent gig as well later on with a bunch of other great tunes in his set.