THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
"Artists have the power to change lives, and provide salvation…because as we know, we were all Saved by Rock-n-Roll!"-Jay Blakesberg
5-ish Questions for Jay Blakesberg, Mighty San Franciscan Rock Photographer
I started using my brother’s ID to get into underground rock shows in San Francisco when I was 15. Being at shows, seeing great music: that was the natural environment for me whether it was Wacky Wednesdays at the VIS Club, weekends at The Farm, anytime Buck Naked and the Bare Bottom Boys played The Nightbreak…and then right across the street: new music Mondays at the I-Beam. It might have been there that I met Jay Blakesberg. To be honest, I don’t remember actually meeting Jay…I feel like he, along with a handful of people still around from those days: it feels like I have just known him forever. Jay always had a camera in his hand, he was always kind, and he was always at the best shows in town.
And we stayed in touch all these years, catching up at shows…every now and again connecting outside the club environment…all while Jay was building a legacy of literally thousands of caught moments of time centered around the greatest music and musicians of our day. He agreed (thank you, Jay) to answer a few questions for me….
DK: Do you have a favorite photo you have ever taken? An image that is so special to you that it pops into your head every time you are asked a question like that?
JB: Do you have a favorite child? (well if you only have one…)…there are many photos I have taken that mean a lot to me, and mean a lot to music fans.
Jerry Garcia close up, Tom Waits portraits, Neil Young, Carlos Santana, Joni Mitchell, David Byrne, Iggy Pop…AND there are photos I have taken of bands that WILL be iconic. My first portrait session with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, the image of Tom Petty that was used on the cover of Rolling Stone after we lost Tom. Derek Trucks and Trey Anastasio onstage together playing Layla at LOCKN’ Festival (when is the last time you cried hearing Layla!! - I did that night - and I have the photos to prove how mind blowing this was!). Photos of Deadheads dancing ecstatically in 1987 in Monterey - because it captured a time and space never to happen again - THERE ARE NO CELL PHONES IN THE PHOTOS!! So yes, there are a few hundred easily, maybe in the low thousands that are my favorite photo ever taken!!!
DK: What is the greatest photo you wish you had gotten?
JB: Well, I wish I could have been there to capture Dylan going Electric (David Gahr), or Hendrix burning his guitar at Monterey Pop (Jim Marshall), or the Beatles on the rooftop (Ethan Russell), or the Stones on the 72 tour (Marshall, Russell, Annie Leibovitz). Woodstock, Monterey Pop (Marshall, Henry Diltz), first CSNY tour (Joel Bernstein), Doors at Morrison Hotel in LA for the album shoot (Henry Diltz)…so many amazing photographs.
DK: Actually, when I was asking about a photo you wish you had gotten, I meant: was there a time you didn’t have your camera or ran out of film…and missed a great moment?
JB: Yes, always, many times. Decades ago it became impossible for me to go and see live music without bringing a camera…it happened for sure (going to shows without a camera), and all I can feel and see were pictures that had to be made! It wasn’t fun. But the mind is good at "moving on”. I would quickly forget those shots that saw and I missed. Shooting live shows is like capturing lighting in a bottle. You are actually working in fractions of seconds. When we shot film, we had no autofocus, it was magic! We also didn’t have a viewfinder on the back of the camera to check and see if we “got the shot”, we had to wait till we got our film developed. There were many shots I missed, a smile, a smirk, a jump, a flourish with an arm, but you can’t obsess or you will go insane. All I have are the shots that I did get, the smile, the smirk, the jump, the flourish…those are the shots I remember.
DK: You and I share a deep love of the Flaming Lips. As a photographer that has taken their pictures for decades, what insights do you have on the band...how they have evolved over time?
JB: Wayne Coyne has been the most real rock star I have ever met…all of them in the band, really. I first shot the Lips in 1989. Did 2 photo sessions with them for PR pics. First as a trio, then when they added Jonathan Donahue on guitar. Didn’t see Wayne for about 4.5 years after that, and had an assignment from Rolling Stone to shoot them at Lollapalooza in 1994 in Kansas City. Walked up to Wayne, and he was immediately warm and welcoming! I was on the Lips bus from there on out. Never missed them when they were in town, traveled to see them when on assignment, and was always (and still am) friends with all of them! We did a historical photo book on the LIPS which everyone in the band contributed to. Steven Drozd is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to the LIPS. I can remember being at a festival somewhere and a young photographer timidly approaching Wayne to ask if it was ok if he shot the band…Wayne invited the kid on stage to shoot! It is things like that, that change people’s lives forever! When Rick Gershon (long time Lips Publicist) sent me the advance copy of The Soft Bulletin, I actually thought it was a different band and the cassette was labeled wrong…It was that different and that groundbreaking. It is still one of my all-time favorite records. And then Rick asked me to do the PR photo shoot for the record.
The first time they performed those songs in SF was the day before the shoot at The Fillmore - July 1999, and there was NO DRUMMER - Steven was playing Keys and guitar!! WHAT!!! They were back supporting the record in November 2000 at the Maritime Hall in SF, and that might have been the greatest Lips show I ever saw…The Soft Bulletin had fully permeated the psyche of rock and roll…Wayne is 11 months older than me, and he just had his first kid a few years ago. My kids are 25 and 27 and grew up listening to the Lips. The summer before Covid my daughter met his son at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester NY…The Lips blew our minds just 2 years ago- AGAIN! - it never gets old!!! Pretty sure the Flaming Lips in Oakland was the first time my son took psychedelics at a concert (at the end of the show he called me to see where I was and I was on stage talking to Wayne and handed Wayne the phone which pretty much made my son’s head explode), and a huge hi-light for me was when both my kids danced on stage wearing giant animal heads at the Yahoo Christmas party in December 2003. When they played Yoshimi my then 7-year-old daughter walked right up next to Wayne and in perfect synch did the Hi-YA karate chop to the cheering crowd! Proud father moment! Artists have the power to change lives, and provide salvation…because as we know, we were all Saved by Rock-n-Roll!! And Wayne has been sending me baby pictures regularly by text! I LOVE IT! and him!
DK: My favorite formative music club was the I-Beam in San Francisco, which I still think was one of the greatest live music venues of all time and where I THINK we met. It is amazing that while only having shows on Monday Nights, the club managed to book the greatest of the underground bands happening at the time. When you think of the I-Beam, what do you think about? When is the I-Beam photo book coming?
JB: In 1986 I approached Cathy Cohn who was the talent buyer for the I-Beam on Haight St. - yes Monday nights - Live Music only - and said, hey, can I be the house photographer? There was no money involved, there was no internet, there was only RAW rock and roll on Monday nights (it was a Gay Disco the other nights of the week). I was shooting a lot of Grateful Dead, but the mainstream media didn’t care about the Grateful Dead, only this new music that was exploding everywhere! I photographed Jane’s Addiction there just before “Ritual de lo Habitual” came out. Soundgarden, Faith No More, The Chills, Soul Asylum, Butthole Surfers, Meat Puppets, The Dickies, Throwing Muses, Fire Hose, The Pixies, The Godfathers…it was an epic time in live music, something new was brewing, and I was able to capture that zeitgeist also happening on Haight St just 2 decades after the Summer of Love!
DK: Of all your iconic pictures, your close up of Jerry Garcia and your John Lee Hooker with guitar pics are ones that I think about immediately when I think of your work. It is obvious your reverence for both musicians. What was it like working with such legends? Were they easy subjects?
JB: Garcia was incredible since that is where it all really began for me…Easy?? HA! Any musician that has been photographed for 20,30,40 years at this point is SO, SO over the photo shoot! They want to get out as quickly as possible. So my job is to be quick, efficient, AND CREATIVE…because if I don’t come back with a great, or something bordering great - photograph, why would that photo editor or art director hire me again? Hooker lived here in the Bay Area, so I was able to photograph him many, many times…one on one portraits, with other legendary artists like Santana or Keith Richards, on stage…I loved photographing him!!! His face showed the life of a Blues Artist! So many great stories…
DK: What is your next big project?
JB: Working on a few books. My daughter started a second Instagram page for me during Quarantine. It is called Retroblakesberg and she curates it 100% (I have very little say about it - she is the boss!). The premise of this page is ONLY photos I have shot on film…no digital allowed! She is curating a book called Retroblakesberg - Volume 1. I am working on a book of Psychedelic Icons I have photographed. And I am producing a doc film that my son is directing. And of course every single band we love is hitting the road, so I am preparing for a busy summer which kicks off for me the first week in June with 5 speaking gigs on the East Coast. I do a 90 minute slideshow/storytelling presentation about my experience photographing the Grateful Dead! There are a few dozen other things brewing in my head! The Wheel is turning and you can’t slow it down, you can’t let go, and you can’t hold on. You can’t go back and you can’t stand still…if the Thunder don’t get you then the lightning will!!!!
