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Vice Blog

JONNIE CRAIG TALKS TO GAVIN WATSON ABOUT THE RAVING '89 EXHIBITION OPENING TONIGHT

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by SE

As a little warm-up for Gavin Watson's

Raving '89

exhibition opening at Färgfabriken during our fifth anniversary party tonight, we asked our UK staff photographer Jonnie Craig to have a chat with Gavin. Also, Gavin will hold a guided tour and

book signing tomorrow at 2 PM

. Here's what photographers talk about when they discuss photography.

Vice: Raving '89 is a nice progression from the skinhead stuff. How come you haven't published these images until now, 20 years later?

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Gavin Watson: I did publish some rave photos back at the time with the photo agency Camera Press that can still be found if you dig deep in their archives, and, funnily enough there's a picture in the first Skins book of us at a rave. It's called "the acid skins." I knew the rave book would be different and it was really scary for me because I know I could get love for those skinhead pictures for the rest of my life. The reason why I did

Raving '89

now is that when Vice did the Skins & Punks book I thought, "I could be doing this forever man" and I knew I had those rave pictures. Whenever I was interviewed, I'd mention it. I'd be like, ''yep I'm doing a rave book'' even though I didn't even have a publisher. I wanted it published so I could come in from left field and blow away that perception of me only being a skinhead photographer. A lot of people just couldn't fucking believe it so I think it's done its job.

Were you consciously hunting down these scenes?

That's not the way I work. If somebody knocked on my door and said, ''oh, you're quite quaint, can I hang around you for five days and photograph you because you're really interesting?'' I'd say, "go fuck yourself."

I guess that's what gives your photos such an intimate feel and credibility, because they're of your real friends in their environment and they don't mind you shooting them. Instead of an outsider's view of something "interesting." Are there any subcultures now that you'd consider immersing yourself in and shooting?

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I think we'll never see a new youth culture spreading across the world again. Youth culture started in the 40s and more or less ended in the 80s. But whenever I go to the Vice offices I always photograph everyone and in 20 years that's going to become important.

At the time of Skins you've told me how, at first, you were just shooting for fun. How long did it take you to become aware of the scenes that you were photographing?

I was very much conscious that something incredible was happening, but at the time I thought that was just me. You know how I am, I think everything's brilliant. I just knew when the skinhead thing came along that it was important and it was exactly the same thing with the rave scene. I was like, ''this is fucking incredible'' but why is no one documenting it? It seems like it was so out there that people couldn't see it and those who weren't involved totally ignored it. Then again, we didn't want other people to know about it.

One of the pictures is of an invite saying you could only go if you were invited. Was it an exclusive thing, how did you get invited?

It was exclusive in the small places, but at the bigger raves there were always massive connections between the gangs of people so you'd have maybe 15 girls in charge of phones. It was the rise of the mobile phone. We would find out because we were connected to the main guys but everybody else had to go down to the pub, find the numbers, phone the numbers and then set off in a convoy to find the rave. Invites were given out in the pub that night, never before hand. You gave them your money and you got your ticket. I love that. I think that flyer in the book says it all: just get to a party and no fancy frills. It was all drugs and dancing but, sadly, it only lasted for a year. I was surprised by how fast the Swedes were on the rave culture; by 1990 they were doing their own raves.

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How did your work turn into books, like Skins that came out in '94?

Well, I guess it all started with Camera Press. They were building up a library of images and asked me if I had any more skinhead pictures. I said, "I think I've got about 50 more'' so they told me I could come down to the lab at the weekend and start printing. I started printing and it just didn't stop, I ended up with 2500 pictures when I thought I only had 50.

A bit of a miscalculation on your part?

A bit of a shock.

And then what?

Years later, when I'd given up photography to do counselling, I got a call from a guy called Rodger Burton who was doing a big exhibition on youth culture. He was the first person to see something incredible in my pictures and he told me about an exhibition at the V&A by a guy called Ted Polhemus. I took my box with pictures and went down there to show them to him and he went fucking mental. I was just like, "Hold on a minute, something's going on here" and phoned up my mate George Marshal. I'd worked with the band Madness and he'd put their album cover, shot by me, on the front cover of Skinhead Times. I basically just phoned up and said, ''George, I've got loads of these pictures here, do you fancy doing a book with them?'' He flew down from Scotland, spent an afternoon in my flat going through 5000 pictures and that's how Skins was born. The rest is fucking history, as they say.

Back to Raving '89, out of the photos in the book, do you have any particular favourites?

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The guy standing with his hands in the air by the disco ball in a cow shed is my favourite because six months earlier, all those guys went to the top London clubs and suddenly they were in a fucking cow shed. I look at that and think that if ever one picture was to historically sum up raves, it'd be that one.

What did you think of acid house at first?

When dance music came a long I loved it, I've always been into electronic music. I wasn't sitting there listening to fucking Oi! 24/7 you know, that wasn't the music of my choice, but I liked the energy of it. All these people weren't just "rave rave rave," they listened to old Pink Floyd and all kinds of stuff. It was a fantastic time and new colours had come into the spectrum as well, all those fluorescent flyers hadn't really been around before.

What is influencing your work right now?

I think about that a lot and as a matter of fact I only ever look at my own pictures, haha. I've got so many of them in so many different styles and, whenever I have to look for stuff, there are just too many, so I haven't got time to look at anyone else's work. I do try to look at fashion photographers but they all look the same and crap to me. I can't say I'm particularly influenced by anything at the moment. I play a lot of video games. Maybe that's what's influencing me.

So are you excited for this exhibition?

There was a time when it felt like I was in Sweden every couple of days. It's been a few years since all that so I'm really looking forward to it. Meeting up with some mates and just being there again. I always have a great time out there. I'm very fortunate because not a lot of photographers transgress over to these places.

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Excited about the rave?

Come on, I'm fucking 44…a fucking noisy rave…I'll have fun but get me some weed out there. I don't want to be stuck there until 4 AM without a spliff.

Ok then… I'll see you tonight with some weed.

Great.

Bye

Bye

BY JONNIE CRAIG