a Postcard record, as planned, but the label disintegrated, with Aztec Camera moving on to Rough Trade and Orange Juice to Polydor in 1981. But, at least, thanks to Harry’s photos, we look as though we could have been on Postcard: we had the right shirts and we ditched the Johnny Rotten footwear. David Belcher, Glasgow music journalist and Partick Thistle supporter, captures this notion of sartorial style in a piece specially commissioned for the brochure that accompanied Harry’s exhibition at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow in December 2011: Throughout this period, Harry’s photos regularly supported another of Glasgow’s great newsprint champions, Sounds writer Dave McCullough . . . McCullough was especially taken with the fact that, like the equally anti-macho Orange Juice, Aztec Camera had set their youthful, un-razor-slashed faces against all the old Glaswegian hard-man stereotypes: “Aztec Camera are a welcome feminisation of a rock band,” McCullough wrote, praising the band for wearing sensible good-boy shoes and the kind of down-home plaid shirts favoured by TV’s nicest family, The Waltons. As Harry’s photos attest, this look was a do-it-yourself Glasgow band trademark in 1980, happily combining assorted urges: thrift, a desire for unaffectedness, the disavowal of rock bombast and glitz. Harry thus records the elfin Clare Grogan emphasising her status as a kooky pop pixie by swaddling herself in an old man’s outsize jacket. Edwyn Collins, Alan Horne and Aztec Camera ape their elders – but not betters – by co-opting the uniform of the middle-aged drone: trilby, tweed, cast-off suits from Paddy’s Market, winter overcoats. Billy MacKenzie waxes tongue-in-cheek cherubic in a school jumper from the fashion shop that he ran at the time. Edwyn relives adventurous boyhood playtimes in a Davy Crockett fur-tailed hat. Elsewhere, captured against a variety of slightly ratty real-life public backdrops, other musicians favour army surplus trenchcoats, Fair Isle jumpers, stout outdoor wear from Black’s of Greenock, and in Peter Capaldi’s case the tanktop of contemporary TV comedy supernerd Frank Spencer (with something of a tad of irony). The overall effect might have been both twee and fey, but it was also loud and vigorous. Glasgow’s New Pop wimps were at heart street-wise city kids, after all. With the music press championing this scene, it wasn’t long before Harry was invited to become a full-time photographer at Sounds. As his workload increased, Harry decamped to London. His flat in Willesden soon became a home-from-home for Scottish acts who were recording John Peel sessions or performing at the Victoria Venue, Le Beat Route, the Rock Garden or the ICA. Harry’s back garden and front room provide
the setting for several photos collected here. The moped forever parked outside Harry’s front door became a handy prop. As a touring popster in the early 1980s, I personally enjoyed the hospitality, accommodation and humour offered by Harry and his many friends on countless occasions. I have an especially fond memory of a raucous celebration in Harry’s flat as the famous David Narey ‘toepoke’ goal for Scotland went in against Brazil in the 1982 World Cup. On a quieter note, I’d spend long periods watching in fascination as Harry developed rolls of film in his small darkroom, once receiving expert technical commentary as he deftly superimposed a picture of his parents’ wedding on to a New York skyline. Following his productive days at Sounds, Harry enjoyed a successful career as an editor for Marvel comics, working with somewhat unlikely titles such as Care Bears, The Flintstones and Star Trek magazines. However, in August 2002, Harry suffered a brain aneurysm, the effects of which left him in need of full-time care and rehabilitation. He returned to Glasgow in February 2006. By chance, shortly after his return, I met Harry’s younger brother, Jimmy. He invited me to visit Harry, who was recuperating in his Maryhill flat. It was great to see him again but it was obvious that his illness had had a profound impact. Nevertheless, Harry eagerly pulled out contact sheets and photographs by the dozen, whereupon it was immediately obvious that this huge body of work was in urgent need of physical preservation and cataloguing. The challenge became a labour of love for me as I spent evenings digitising thousands of Harry’s negatives with a basic scanner. (In some cases, because the negatives were unlabelled, we have had to make a best guess at dates and venues.) Here, I must take the opportunity to thank my long-suffering partner Fiona and our children Eugene and Stella for their tolerance and support during this period. What to do next to ensure that the photos found the wider audience they deserved? On the advice of a good friend, artist Mark Campbell, I took a selection of the photographs to Glasgow’s Street Level Photoworks Gallery where I showed them to Malcolm Dickson. Gallery Director Malcolm Dickson later wrote: “It was clear within minutes that our intentions for this body of work represented an enormous task. But it was one that had a personal resonance and a raison d’être for Street Level. This was definitely a substantial exhibition in the making, covering a critically important, still relevant time for music production and creation. “On the subject of personal resonance, much of Harry’s output was photo assignments with bands and artists for Sounds, which was without fail delivered by the paperboy through my mother’s letterbox from the age of fourteen (1976) and continued for four years after I left home for art school.
“More than NME, or Record Mirror, Sounds was an inspiration, and its writers were totally engaged with their subjects, whether complimentary or otherwise. It inspired me to write in my school fanzine on subjects such as Rock Against Racism: a real high-point was when a letter of mine was published in Sounds in the late 1970s – the fact that it kicked off a ‘Rat Brain of the Week’ award for the most ridiculous reader’s letter for several issues didn’t matter. From Sounds I ordered ‘How to be a Rock Journalist’, a booklet that, with weird coincidence, resurfaced in one of Harry’s folders that Ken dropped in.” It took over two years to get the exhibition up and running, but with much hard work and goodwill from the gallery and Harry’s family, it finally graced the walls of the Street Level Photoworks Gallery from 17 December 2011 to 25 February 2012. The well-attended exhibition
attracted positive press reviews, and also featured memorabilia, discussion panels illuminated by several key movers‘n’groovers from the era, and live musical performances. Harry’s magnificent body of work has now been saved, and the exhibition is on tour. After a spell in Dunoon it moves to Dundee’s McManus Gallery in May 2013, and there are plans for it to tour to other galleries in the UK and elsewhere to reach as wide an audience as possible. The collection gathered here in this book will hopefully reach a wider international audience and be treasured for years to come. KEN McCLUSKEY Co-curator of What Presence! The Rock Photography of Harry Papadopoulos exhibition
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