JOAN JETT LOS ANGELES, 1976. Then in the Runaways, Jett “came over to my hotel room (at the Sunset Marquis) for the shoot. It was exciting to have Joan Jett on your bed.” Gruen was impressed that she was wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt that she had made herself, at a time when the band had yet to record an album, and even the photographer barely knew who they were. “It was very hip of her.” (Bob Gruen / http://www.bobgruen.com)
THE RAMONES NYC Subway, 1975. Gruen was doing a “day in the life” feature for Rock Scene magazine, following the punk rockers from their home in Forest Hills to a gig at CBGBs. Their ripped jeans “were not a common look at the time,” Gruen says, and they got looked down on everywhere they traveled. Last fall, Gruen says, a woman came up to him at an exhibit and said that the couple across from the band were her grandparents. “They were the kind of people who dressed up to go to the grocery store,” Gruen says. “I love the contrast of the old-school style.”
DEBBIE HARRY West 50th Street at Sixth Avenue, NYC, 1976. Blondie was recording at Radio City Music Hall, and Gruen had noticed the overturned car nearby. “Most bands would just pose in front of it,” Gruen says. Instead, Chris Stein put his guitar in the trunk, “and Debbie made it her car wreck.” One big difference between the city today and the New York of the 1970s? That car was left on the street for several days. “they’s clean it up a lot quicker now,” Gruen says.
KISS Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, 1974. Part of a “comic book” for Creem magazine that had the band saving a rock crowd from a John Denver lookalike–the celebrating backstage with groupies. Gruen had found many of the girls in the audience. The woman with Ace Frehley (top), Cindy, remained friends with Gruen, and he introduced her to Chris Difford of Squeeze, whom she later married. “He would cheat on her, and every time he was caught, he’d write a million-selling hit single (‘Tempted,’ ‘Black Coffee in Bed’),” Gruen says. (¬© Bob Gruen / http://www.bobgruen.com)
Bob Gruen is perhaps best known as John Lennon’s “personal photographer,” invited by Lennon and Yoko Ono to take the now-iconic shots of the Beatle here in New York City. But Gruen had a front-row seat to the rise of many rock legends, from Elton John to Green Day. In his new collection, “Rock Seen” (Abrams), he shares some of his famous pictures (Lennon flashing the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty) and lesser-seen shots (Sid Vicious chomping on a hot dog). Gruen, 65 and still snapping away, says musicians are his preferred subjects, “because rock ’n’ roll is the freedom to express yourself — loudly.”
Gruen’s pictures will be on display at the Marc Jacobs store at 403 Bleecker St. later this month, and he will be conducting a Q&A at the 92YTribeca on Sept. 26.