Lemon Twigs Live Shots

Serendipity at its finest. I magically swung tickets to a sold out show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg to see one of The Lemon Twigs first major gigs in the wake of their debut album release Do Hollywood. Bumped into photographer Andy DeLuca there, and after a beer- and classic-rock-fueled editing session at the East Village Social, we came up with the below bad boys.

Truth is, there was no editing necessary. The Addario brothers are just as photogenic on stage as they are shockingly talented for their teenage years. But having their live performance still fresh in our minds — the Pete Townshend-like stage antics and their retro art rock and roll sound — we couldn’t help but get a little carried away with filters reminiscent of the times the Lemon Twigs music so expertly channels.

The Lemon Twigs, NYC 2016 © Andy DeLuca

The Lemon Twigs, NYC 2016 © Andy DeLuca

The Lemon Twigs, NYC 2016 © Andy DeLuca

The Lemon Twigs, NYC 2016 © Andy DeLuca

The Lemon Twigs, NYC 2016 © Andy DeLuca

Lessons from an Iconic Harper’s Bazaar Photographer

Artists tend to be elusive with the press. Like magicians, they can be wary of revealing their tricks. One in particular, Harper’s Bazaar photographer Melvin Sokolsky, confessed he felt burned by the press and swore against interviews for good. But all that changed in the days leading up to his show at SoHo’s Staley Wise Gallery. In discussion was much more than just the creative process behind his legendary “Bubble” series that popped onto the pages of Harpers in the early 1960s. Here are five life lessons distilled down from our conversation.

New York Doll Baby

Fuji Instax with a soft glam rock glow…

 

 

 

Sardinian Desert Love

Why are certain memories stronger than others? Years made up of days that run together, creating a muddy backdrop in your mind. A wash of events like the colors in an impressionist painting. And then, all of sudden, crystal clarity. A memory that seems to be distilled down with time to its purest state like an ancient crystal buried deep within a rock.

Sardinia was like that for me. Even three years later, this desert sea landscape continues to reveal itself in my thoughts like an ancient rock on the ocean floor as the tide of my life ebbs and flows.

Dennis Stock: American Cool

This piece is a reaction. An impression. A reverberation of a powerful artistic wave set in motion by the photographer Dennis Stock that I felt viscerally when I picked up a dusty volume of his work in a roadside bar in Cesena, Italy.

Believe it or not, I’d never even heard of the photographer, and there was no captivating image on the cover to draw me in. The small, faded volume was sandwiched in a disorganized, sideways leaning array of books on topics ranging from travel to Buddhism to Etruscan Art, all in Italian.

It must have been something about the age, the condition, or the font on the slim binding and the iconic sounding name that made me reach for it. I reverently wiped dust off the cover, as if handling some sort of relic, and listened to the binding crack as I looked inside. It was a time warp.

I sat transfixed for about an hour while my boyfriend finished up his business with the owner of the neighboring music venue. Somehow, my interest in how he handled concert booking and the potential this new venue had for his business completely faded. When I eventually did have to put the book down and walk over to the club next door, I was in another world.

As I stared up at the rafters of the empty space, the mega lighting and sound equipment, I couldn’t help but think about how Stock would play with the light in his black and white compositions until the gritty place took on a legendary tone. I pondered how he might find the absurd in the space and mix it with a sense of minimalism and sophistication like he did in so many photographs I was cycling through in my head.

USA. Los Angeles, California. 1960. Wilshire Boulevard. Used car lot. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. 1954. Marlon BRANDO as NAPOLEON during the filming of “Desiree” directed by Henry KOSTER. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. American actor John WAYNE on set of “The Alamo.” 1959. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA, 1971. Bikers making “it”. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA, 1968. California. Venice Beach Rock Festival. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. 1959. John WAYNE on the set of the film “The Alamo.” © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. 1959. Comedian Lenny Bruce. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. NYC. 1961. Fashion at First National Bank. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. NYC. 1961. Folk singers demonstrate in Washington Square Park. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. NYC. 1955. James DEAN in Times Square. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

California, 1968. Sacramento State Fair, military display. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA, 1967. Film “Planet of the Apes.” © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA, 1968. California. Man holding a surfboard on beach steps in Corona del Mar. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA, 1971. A biker in a popular “mongol” look. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. 1958. Philadelphia, PA. Louis Armstrong. Last minute of concentration in the wings before appearing in public. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

1960. The MAGNUM photographer Inge MORATH. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. NYC. 1958. Miles DAVIS. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

USA. NYC. 1958. Residence above Carnegie Hall. © Dennis Stock/Magnum Photos

I’d realized from looking through the book that I had seen Stock’s photographs before. I’d seen his notable snapshots of James Dean whom he befriended on his rise to fame and photographed just before his death. I’d seen the dreamy picture of Audrey Hepburn leaning out of a reflective limo on the brink of fame. I’d seen his stunning portraits of jazz greats like Miles Davis where he seems to distill the whole soul of that musical movement down to a single photo frame. For those handful of shots alone he deserves to go down in history.

And yet, I’m more transfixed by the weird I see in his work. The absurdly Americana, like in his Planet of the Apes set photography, or the hippies and bikers he encountered on his cross-California counter culture voyage documented in California Trip (Penguin, 1970).

To catch more of the lesser known Stock, check out American Cool, published by Reel Art Press in 2013. This very latest release of his work offers an even deeper look into the strange trips of the photographer, from glamorous celebrity encounters to weird, sometimes dark, forays into american counter culture and middle american life.