What’s the missing link between Ricky Gervais and Kurt Cobain? The answer is Martyn Goodacre. In 1989, he was skint, a wannabe music photographer working in a stationery shop at the University of London where the Student Union’s Entertainments Officer began giving him passes for shows. Within just months, he’d prepared his portfolio, and though it took persistence – not to mention pockets of small change so he could pester their offices from his local phone box – he soon landed his first NME,/i> commissions.
Working out of a darkroom in his Elephant and Castle flat – once bluntly described by Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield as “a dump”– Goodacre threw himself into the job. Legging it most nights from one gig to another, he then developed his prints in beer-stained clothes before delivering them to the paper the next morning. A decade later, that smartarse Ents Officer became known as The Office’s David Brent, but Shaky – as Goodacre was soon known by certain colleagues – had moved faster. In less than a year, he was pointing his camera at Cobain.
Goodacre’s poignant portrait of the eyelinered Nirvana singer is immediately recognisable, and NME chose it for their cover the week of his death. For the Malvern born lensman, however, it’s just one of a vast catalogue of pictures amassed over a decade. Now he’s gathered some of these for his first book, Working For The NME, and if the Cobain image is absent – at least until Volume 2 – that’s because few people during the 1990s documented Britain’s thriving musical scene in such impressive detail. Notable for his quick ability to put subjects at ease, Goodacre’s photos are distinguished by an endearing intimacy, spontaneity and humour, whether it’s Jarvis Cocker in front of his Hillman Imp, Beth Gibbons excelling at keepie-uppies, or members of The Prodigy fooling around in the beloved black cab he’d bought off Miranda Sawyer.
The epoch marked indie’s last stand before the word was hijacked by major labels. Despite conventional wisdom, however, it was about far more than mere Britpop. Goodacre charts a chaotic path through shoegaze, riot grrrl, trip hop, New Wave of New Wave, baggy and dance music, plus most points in-between. By the end of the decade, the internet had killed the weekly music press, but Goodacre’s images help chronicle a golden era in witty, eye-catching style.
WORKING FOR THE NME is available from Rough Trade Records in the UK and worldwide from Goodwill Records.
Sarah Cracknell (Saint Etienne)
This was for one of those NME features where they get people together. It was Sarah, Mark Lamarr, Richey Manic and Damon Albarn, so that was a bit of an odd mix. Sarah was very friendly, and Mark was fine, he’s a professional. But Damon was going through his ‘I’m a Londoner going down the dogs’ period after Blur had reinvented themselves from a baggy band. Richey was in a T-shirt and had burn marks all over his arms. He’d obviously been putting cigarettes out on them, which should have been a major warning sign for everybody. The best bit about the photo – apart from Sarah, of course – is the NME office. I’m sure that was Steve Lamacq’s desk. There are some computers in there somewhere too. They definitely existed.
The KLF
NME did these Christmas stories, and one was when musicians went around HMV on Oxford Street in two minutes to grab as much as they could. The KLF did it with Clint Boon and Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. So I turn up and go, “Oh, you’re the KLF,” because I didn’t have a clue what they looked like. And they could have had what they wanted, but they just took blank tapes – which admittedly were perfect for The KLF – and some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirts. I think they felt like they could be doing better things than this. Personally I’d have grabbed some picture discs or something…
Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher (My Bloody Valentine)
I think this was in Greenock, but I can’t find any record of a gig there anywhere! It was when that Andy Weatherall remix of ‘Soon’ came out. I should really have written down a lot more details. I just wrote ‘MBV’. I had pictures with ‘POD’ on them, too, but it was only when I met (singer) Craig Walker in Berlin, where I live, that I realised that meant Power Of Dreams. Anyway, I think I did three nights on the road with Dele Fadele, and it was loud. It was probably louder then because they probably didn’t have as many restrictions, and there were no earplugs on offer either. This was backstage and he’s showing the chords to a song, which she must have found funny. I think they were really stoned. I mean they look it, don’t they?! I remember seeing them at a party at London Zoo only a few days after this tour and I don’t think they even recognised me. Something fantastic came out of these pictures, too, when Fender contacted me and said they wanted to use my pictures on the Kevin Shields Fender Blender pedal, so I got one of those and a Jazzmaster guitar…
Damon Albarn and Noel Gallagher
This was at some awards ceremony or party in 1994. I was into the idea of getting people together, and Damon was being his usual sort of awkward, but still playing along, and Noel was quite happy to have his photo taken. I got a lot of pictures of Damon over the years, including a load at Stephen Sweet’s house with Stephen’s kids. I gave him a lift home afterwards. They’d just had that big hit album, Parklife, and he kept sliding down the seats in my shitty Ford Escort so nobody could see him in traffic jams. He seemed like he was under a lot of stress.
Joe Strummer and Shaun Ryder
This was at Real World Studios in Box for ‘England’s Irie’ with Black Grape and Keith Allen. I remember Joe hanging around Shaun and saying, “He’s a genius, he’s a genius!” At one point Shaun got his notebook out to write something and Joe’s going, “Leave him alone, he’s having a flash of genius! Let him be.” I’d met Joe before at Camden Palace when he walked in with the Cut The Crap Clash line-up. We’d thrown a joint at him thinking he might smoke it. He didn’t pick it up and we forgot about it, but later he came over to us and said “Alright, lads? Why’d you throw that cigarette at me?” And we said, “It was a joint!” He said, “Oh, I don’t do that stuff. I thought you were being nice and violent!” That’s what he said! I’ve also got a picture I took later of Shaun with that Coronation Street guy who recorded a song, Curly Watts [Kevin Kennedy]….
Bobby Gillespie, Denise Johnson and George Clinton
This was Primal Scream at the Brixton Academy, around the time of Give Out But Don’t Give Up. It was just after Kurt Cobain had died, which Bobby mentioned on stage, so there was a bit of a weird vibe, but the band were at their peak. This was a hard picture to get, though. They let me back into the photographer’s pit when George Clinton was coming on, and I wanted to get them all together, but they’re quite far away. It was a very lucky shot! I’m surprised Bobby hasn’t bought a print…!
Manic Street Preachers
This was in Soho when it was still a bit barrow boy, “a little bit wooh, a little bit waaay“. I haven’t been for ages, but the characters used to be great around there, and all those little alleys down where the Raymond Revuebar was. I think this was for ‘You Love Us’, so we’d probably come down from Sony’s old offices on Great Malborough Street. You can see James is in the front now. The first time I photographed them they left him at the back, but now he’s got more confidence. Richey was really lovely, but he was wearing one of those see-through mesh shirts. You’d think everybody would just be stopping and staring, but no one did. And then you’ve got this scene with the police in the background which I saw happening and slipped in. For a while I thought that was Dan Treacy from the Television Personalities on the left!
Beth Gibbons
I was very, very nervous to meet them. I think the first album was out, and we were somewhere by the Thames, maybe Greenwich, and Geoff Barrow was there too, a little bit more chatty than Beth was. I was surprised she had a football with her. I was getting her to boot it straight at me so I’d get this action shot. She was very, very lovely, not what I expected. I’d heard that song, ‘Glory Box’ – “Give me a reason to be a woman” – and she’s knocking a football around. She really loved that football! I found another picture the other day of her on a yellow climbing frame. Her hair was really orange in those days. Later on I saw her at Glastonbury. She was lying on the bonnet of a sports car. I wish I’d got a picture of that!
Dieter Meier and Boris Blank (Yello)
This may have been the best trip I ever did, certainly the most unusual. Dieter picked us up on his own private Learjet with a dog, this beautiful Golden Retriever, that he’d bought. It was the smallest plane I’d ever been in, only six seats, and [journalist] Roger Morton was shitting himself. Then Dieter says, “Excuse me, gentlemen, I’m just going to take the plane off!” He comes back with a Magnum of champagne and announces, “Here’s to Rock ‘n’ Roll, gentlemen!” Then we get into a Rolls Royce and go straight to Boris’ house, where they have their studio, and Boris cooked us ‘Beef Boris’. We drank a lot of wine, and Dieter’s last words before we went to the hotel were “Drink the mini bar dry, guys!” Total gentlemen! They look so young here, too. That’s the thing with the book, how young people were… and how old we are now! It really doesn’t seem that long ago!
Jarvis Cocker
I photographed Pulp a few times, and this time – I think they were recording in Islington – I just went around and Jarvis came out. He mentioned his car was parked over the road and I asked what he had. He said a Hillman Imp, which is 100% the kind I’d imagine Jarvis having, but for such a long man it’s a very short car! He’d be doubled up like an accordion. He was really proud of it, and when I photographed him later, he told me it had died in the fast lane of the M-whatever, so I asked what the hell it was doing in the fast lane. He just looked at me, like, “How dare you insult my Hillman Imp?!”
Eventually it got crushed into a cube and the Pulp People fan club had a competition to win it. So this lump of metal was delivered to Conisbrough on the back of a lorry by two Pulp roadies, then it sat in some woman’s parent’s back garden for years. It was still yellow, although rusty by then. I think her parents must have got sick of it in the end because Paul Burgess, who wrote Hardcore: The Technicolour World Of Pulp, told me that the chairman of The Imp Club, the Hillman Imp Appreciation Society, now has it in his back yard.
