August 26, 2022 • 49 mins
Jay Blakesberg, one of THE US’s most accomplished live music and pop culture photographer’s has released another self published book called RETRO BLAKESBERG: Volume One: The Film Archives (SEE THE LINK IN THE SHOW NOTES)....the book features highlights spanning the years from the 70’s into the early 2000’s when film was king, before the digital age, when a photographer WAS A PHOTOGRAPHER - from the first photograph he ever sold for $15 thru tours with Phish, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones
Tons of Grateful Dead - enough so that he’s made a couple books
Green Day, The Flaming Lips, Snoop Dog, Primus
If you want to purchase a copy of Jay’s amazing book or to have a look at his other published books and photo gallery, find him on Instagram at @JayBlakesberg and @RetroBlakesberg, or on his website at https://www.rockoutbooks.com/
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Thom Dharma Pollard
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Thom Pollard (00:04):
So you want to be a rock and roll star. We'll grab
a camera and find your way tothe front of the stage. Take
your best shot. This is thehappiness quotient. On that
wisdom Kay. From the tough dancetoday. I never learned a thing
be unhappy. Jay Blake's Berg oneof the US is most accomplished
(00:26):
live music and pop culturephotographer has released
another self published bookcalled retro Blacksburg Volume
One the film archives. See thelink in the show notes how you
can get to it. The book featureshighlights spanning the years
from the 70s into the early2000s When film was King, before
(00:47):
the digital age when aphotographer was a photographer
from the first photograph heever sold for $15 through tours
with fish, filming Led ZeppelinRolling Stones, tons of the
Grateful Dead enough so thathe's made a couple of books
about it. Green Day The FlamingLips Snoop Dogg Primus. You
know, I never asked him if he'sbeen to a wood brothers show,
(01:10):
giving the requisite nod to myfriends who have generously
given permission for me to usetheir music for this podcasts
theme song. Happiness.
I got to happiness. Anyway, youget the picture, Jay has seen a
lot of live music and taken1000s and 10s and 10s of 1000s
(01:34):
of photographs of just aboutevery band you could possibly
imagine. And I have them heretoday on the happiness quotient.
What an honor as he releases hisnew book.
I'd seen Jays photographs beforebut first became acquainted with
his unique style and artistictalents in February of 2022. At
(01:56):
Mohegan Sun Arena inConnecticut, on stage with a
band I've grown pretty damn fondof named goose there, he was
mixing right in with themusicians taking photos right on
stage, I thought to myselfexactly the way I'd like to see
myself doing it if I were a rockand roll photographer. As it
(02:17):
turns out, Jay was there tocapture the drummer then Atkins
proposing to his girlfriend onstage after the second set in
front of 10,000 fans. I filmedit on my camera from not too far
from the stage. And there I sawJay, getting the perfect shot. I
thought I gotta reach out tothat guy. I wonder what his name
(02:39):
is. Comes to find out Jay and Iare about the exact same age
grew up and graduated from highschool in the same year,
sometime in the 70s 79 long timeago. Here's my interview with
the talented, gifted, outgoing JBlake's Berg from his studio in
(02:59):
San Francisco, talking about hisbeginnings and development as a
professional live music and popculture photographer. And about
his just released book, retroBlacksburg Volume One, the film
yours
Jay Blakesberg (03:14):
that goose Miss where you first saw me which was
a holiday show that waspostponed because of COVID from
the holidays to the spring of2022. I was there. If you
remember Ben the drummer,proposed to his girlfriend now
his fiancee onstage at the endof it, I think the first set or
(03:35):
the second set. And Ben and Ihad become friends over the last
couple of years. And he saidwill you come out to Connecticut
and get the shot for a get getthat shot of me proposing to Sam
and Sam has also become a dearfriend. And you know, before
they got engaged when they werereally early in their
relationship, the three of ushad gone out to dinner once and
you know, just love those guysto pieces. I said of course I'd
(03:58):
love to be there for that momentfor you. And that's and I'm a
big goose fan also. I mean,since I've been seeing them, you
know, a couple years back, I waslike, wow, I get to shoot, you
know, Ben proposing to Sam and Iget to see goose goose mess. So
it was really, you know, for meit was great. And because I was
really only doing you know, myassignment so to speak was
(04:19):
banned. Like I turned thosephotos around quick because they
want to do it but goose hastheir own photographer that is
working with them and they gettheir stuff to the band right
away. But yeah, that's the norm.
You know, it's funny becausewhen we used to shoot film or a
social media didn't exist.
(05:00):
camera I think around 2003 2004.
But it wasn't till 2008 that Iwent fully digital. And for
those first three or four years,while I was still shooting film,
we were still delivering ourjobs digitally. So we were
shooting film, I might get theproof sheets back and send them
to my client overnight, youknow, using whatever FedEx UPS
overnight whenever it was, andthen
(05:23):
they would give me an order ofwhat images they want from the
proof sheets. And then we wouldscan those and send them to that
to the client, you know,digitally, the magazine, the
record company, whatever it was,but that's not what we came to
talk about. We can talk aboutretro Blake's Burg, which is my
book. And all this film talkingdigital talk is because retro
Blake's berg is based on anInstagram page that my daughter
(05:45):
started during the pandemiccalled retro Blake's Berg. And
she said came to me one day andsaid can we do a book called
retro Blacksburg and the premiseis that everything in that book
and everything on that Instagrampage is shot on film. And
whereas I have my own Instagrampage called J Blake's Berg and I
post goose that I shot lastmonth and you know, whatever it
(06:06):
might be, but that's, you know,I post things I shot on film, I
post things that I shotdigitally. I post things that I
shoot with my phone, you know,whatever it might be, it's just
sort of like my ongoing blog.
Whereas retro Blake's burgerscurated by my daughter. I don't
have much say into what sheposts or when she posts or how
she posts and and then we starton the book, she curated the
book, you know, she said no, I'mnot putting that I'm not putting
(06:29):
that stupid fucking image inthere. What are you fucking
crazy, you know, like that kindof stuff. And so, okay, you're
the boss. Leave me alone.
Thom Pollard (06:37):
Yeah, you you raised a strong willed,
confident young woman is
Jay Blakesberg (06:43):
yes. Yeah. So Ricky is very much involved in
in all of my projects right nowretro Blacksburg and and then on
top of the retro Blake's burnbook, which is even more
exciting, is I have my actualactually have my first solo
museum exhibition. And it'scoming up in October, and that's
called retro Blake's Burgcaptured on film 1978 2008. And
(07:08):
again, it's all things that areshot only on film. And that's at
the Morris Museum in Morristown,New Jersey. And that's a
Smithsonian affiliate Museum,the only only Smithsonian
affiliate news Museum in NewJersey. And it's 20 miles away
from where I grew up, and wheresome of these early photos that
are in the retro Blacksburg bookwere taken. So it's pretty a big
honor for me to have been askedto do this museum exhibit. And
(07:33):
so the book and the mat and themuseum exhibit are all sort of
tied together. And in one bigoffering of you know, what I've
been doing for the last 44years, you know, taking
pictures, although it stops in2008. So really of 78 to 2008.
So it's really 30 years of my 44years, but I have my 44 years of
(07:54):
eyes and experience helpingcurate that stuff with my
daughter and working on that andmaking sure that those film
images are scanned properly andretouch properly and, you know,
proper exposure and color andall that and getting it out
there. So
Thom Pollard (08:08):
beautiful, Jay. So you know, in your book retro
Blake's for again, I almost wentoff on a tangent about going to
a place 20 miles from where yougrew up. I was wondering if any
of your old buddies might play atrick on you and hand you a cup
of juice or something and sitback and see if old Jay can
handle it the way he used toback in the day drugs.
Jay Blakesberg (08:29):
You're talking about some juice that's got some
psychedelics in it? Yeah, it waslike cars, we can you know,
like, you can't quit the mob.
So, but ya know, I'm excited formy friends from high school and
from New Jersey, to you know,come to this exhibit and
Morristown in October, it openson October 14, goes through into
early February 2023. So ifyou're in the New York, New
(08:53):
Jersey, Connecticut area,Pennsylvania, you know, put it
on your calendar to come visitmy solo museum exhibit,
Thom Pollard (09:02):
you know, Jay, in terms of that, that one of the
things that I'm constantly drawnto when I talk to somebody that
I've never met before, evenpeople I know is what sparked
the passion in them and what gotthem to pursue their craft. And,
and I love that that moment intime. And it might be several
(09:25):
moments when somebody feels aspark and they realize I don't
care how many couches I have tosleep on or how long it takes me
but I want to be Jay BlacksburgI want to be a rock and roll
photographer. And you found alove of that really early. So
you're 16 years old, youpublished your first photograph.
(09:47):
So you had this spark and videoyou just honed in on it. And
that's a beautiful story and Ijust kind of talk a little bit
about that about findingsomething you loved and sticking
with Nope, not gonna get a joband do the normal thing,
Jay Blakesberg (10:03):
right? Well, you hit the nail on the head in a
lot of different places. So I dopublic speaking also, and I do a
couple of different slideshowsand talk about you know, I do a
Grateful Dead slideshow, I do amore broad slideshow, I'm going
to create a new one for retroBlacksburg. And one of the
things that I talked about in myslideshow is really what you
were just saying, which is that,you know, when you're 15, or 16
(10:25):
years old, 17 years old, really,all you have are your hopes and
your dreams, right. And youdon't even know what they are,
what they mean, how to achievethem, how to tap into them. And
so when I started takingphotographs with a camera that I
borrowed from my dad, it turnedme on, and it did, it did ignite
a spark. And I did have somepassion for it, right. But I
(10:49):
didn't know how to harness thatpassion. I didn't know how to
harness that spark. But allthese little things happen that
sort of take that spark and turnit into a little flame and a
bigger flame and a bigger flame.
And so, you know, for me, someof the key things were in May of
78. We followed your MS.
Limousine from New Jersey to NewYork City after a yarmulke
concert at the Capitol theater.
Thom Pollard (11:11):
The Yama that Jay is referring to here is your cow
cannon Rock and Roll Hall ofFame inductee of the Jefferson
Airplane, and Hot Tuna fame.
Jay Blakesberg (11:21):
And I got a photograph of him that I sent to
the letters of the letters tothe editor of relics magazine,
and they published it. And youknow, back then, you know,
getting published in print, letalone a magazine that you read
cover to cover every issue waslike pretty mega for 16 years
old, 16 year old. And then whenI was 17, the Aquarian weekly,
which is a free weekly newspaperin New Jersey, published two
(11:43):
photos of mine and a review of adead show. I was 17 years old,
and I got paid $15 for twophotos, and it takes that spark
and it makes it a little bitbigger and flame gets a little
bit bigger. And you know,there's just different things
that happen. But I remember onetime I was up in upstate New
York and there's in the retroBlake's for book, there's a
whole bunch of photos that weretaken and are in the book that
(12:04):
are from upstate New York, oneof my best friends from high
school moved away. So at the endof sophomore year, and we used
to drive up there the three,four hours on some weekends, a
few weekends in the fall in thespring. And you know, do stupid
things like because we live bythe creative adolescence,
stupidity, how much dumb stuffcan you do to try and kill
yourself without reallyrealizing we were trying to kill
(12:25):
ourselves. But we're lucky we'restill alive, as are many people
we know from that era. And Iremember getting having a roll
of film that was developedeither in a lab or my basement
or whatever it was. And Iremember showing it to my friend
Tommy, I'm like, Look at thisnegative Look at this cool shot.
And he's looking at thisnegative and his eyeballs are
rolling around in his head andhe couldn't process it. Like it
(12:47):
meant nothing to him. It wasjust like a piece of film that
had things on it dyes and colorsor, you know, silver or whatever
it was. And to me I was like allspun out and how fucking cool it
was right? And I remember thatday like he's, he's like he just
couldn't like and most peopledon't feel like, don't feel that
way. So when we used to shootfilm, when we got our film back
(13:08):
from the lab, it turned us onman, like turned me on, like, I
mean, when I got my jobs backfrom the lab, and I was like, oh
my god, this is this is killer.
This is great. It's in focus,it's exposed properly. It's,
it's a great emotion. It's agreat shot. It's great, you
know, image of a dead head ofJerry of, of David Bowie of, you
know, Soundgarden of Pearl, jam,Nirvana, whatever it might be,
(13:30):
you know, like I was turned on,and I still get turned on when I
take these photographs. And Ilook them up on the back of my
camera on the viewfinder, whichis a terrible habit. And I'm
like, Ooh, cool. But when Ibring them into my computer, and
I see them on this 27 inchmonitor, I'm like, yeah, man,
like, I dig this shit. Like, itstill turns me on. And really
(13:51):
what it comes down to are thoseis that what you said is the
passion. But there's anotherreally, really key element to
all of that. And that's theinspiration, right, and the
inspiration for me happens withwhat's in front of my lens. So
if I'm shooting deadheadsdancing, or hippies dancing, you
know, I was just recently at theOregon Country Fair. And I was
shooting these, you know,hippies having fun. And these
(14:12):
are people, some of these peopleI've known for 30 and 40 years,
you know, so they're my friends,and they were still grooving
together. And I'm stilldocumenting it, and it still
turns me on to like, import thisstuff. And I'm like, I can't
wait to edit it and process itin the computer and export it
and put it on Instagram orsocial media and share it
because, you know, there's alsothat whole dopamine rush of
(14:34):
people looking at it andcommenting on it and having it
relate to their lives. And so,you know, essentially, you know,
these people and theseexperiences and these scenarios
that I put myself in, are mymuse, right, whether it's a
hippie chick dancing, or a guy,hippie dude dancing, or a band
playing on stage or traveling toMorocco, like I did a couple of
(14:58):
months ago. Go and shootingstreet photography, you know, in
a foreign country. And so all ofthose things, they still fucking
turn me on and they they inspireme and, and it creates that
burning passion and so it's allof those things combined. You
know that spark turned into aninferno long ago, you know doing
(15:18):
assignments for Rolling Stonemagazine I shot shot regular
assignments for them for 30years. You know, so shooting for
Rolling Stone and shootingcovers for Guitar Player
magazine and relics magazine andworking with art directors and
working with models and workingwith bands and working with
record companies. You know, Imean, there's a new Neil Young
(15:39):
album coming out in August Ihave the cover photo, right, you
know, just found this out likeabout a week ago i No, they told
me and announced it. And it's alive shot in Neil taken at the
Greek theatre here in Berkeley afew years ago that it's a live
record that he played with theLukas Nelson promise of the
real. And that's still like tome, I'm like, Fuck, yeah, man, I
(15:59):
got a cover of the fucking NeilYoung record, like, you know. So
there still is like, all of thatpush that drive that
inspiration.
Thom Pollard (16:09):
It doesn't get any better than that. That is
awesome. I'm picking up thatalbum. And I love and I've seen
promise of the real with NeilYoung and yeah, you know, I'm
like, Well, at first time I sawhim was 1980 something and he
was rock. And then and then youfigure ooh, I think it was 2019
when we saw the promise of thereal
Jay Blakesberg (16:28):
Yeah. 2018 or 2019. I
Thom Pollard (16:30):
think Willie Nelson tour like, yeah, outlawed
tour. Yeah.
Jay Blakesberg (16:35):
And I saw him in 1978. For the first time. You
know, I mean, we, you know, wegrew up listening to Neil Young
and suburban New Jersey. I mean,that was one of our favorite
artists and, you know, harvest,and, you know, all of those, you
know, CSNY came out, you know,for Wall Street in 1974. And, I
mean, I was in eighth grade. Butyou know, within two years, I
was listening to that on aregular basis. So all of that
(16:56):
music has informed our lives,you know, we listened to the
songs, and they, they bring usback to those times in those
places, when we were when wewere younger, when we had, you
know, different experiences withdifferent people than let's say,
our spouses or our children, orpeople that are our age now,
like it brings you back. And,you know, it's the song, the
lyrics and the music that thatput us in a time and a place in
(17:19):
our life. And so, you know, Ifirst started listening to Neil
Young, probably in 1976 7576.
Song for the first time in 1978,I saw back to back shows at
Madison Square Garden, Bob Dylanand Neil Young two nights in a
row. going into my senior yearhigh school I just started my
senior year is the third week inSeptember, the fourth week in
September, the 27th, the 28th,or 28th and 29th of September
(17:42):
1978. Right, just starting mysenior year, and you know, I'm
seeing these legends, andphotographing them. Here we are
4050 years later, 45 yearslater, and I've got the cover of
the Neil Young record. And I'veshot Neil Young for numerous
magazine covers, and I've shotNeil Young, 50 or 60 times now,
you know, so it's like one ofthose weird things that that,
(18:06):
again, becomes part of theinspiration becomes part of the
passion, part of the excitement.
And part of the history of, youknow, the body of work that I'm
creating.
Thom Pollard (18:18):
So in that like you in the book, you break your
book down into decades,essentially 70s. And it's really
easy for me to read, becausewe're we grew up, went to high
school, graduated high school,the same year, northeast, I'm a
New England guy, but followingprobably the same bands and
(18:39):
everything,
Jay Blakesberg (18:39):
and having similar experiences. And the you
know, the one thing is, isneither of us had cell phones,
we didn't have the internet. Wejust had our turntables in the
radio, and our friends.
Thom Pollard (18:49):
That's what it was the idea of going up into my
bedroom at the end of the day orafter school, putting on tunes.
So you talk about that idea of,of cars, you, you could have
picked up a guitar and said I'mgoing to start a rock and roll
band, I suppose here
Jay Blakesberg (19:05):
but I just couldn't make my fingers work on
a guitar made just my braindidn't work that way. My brain
and my fingers are not able.
They're not in the same, same.
They're not in sync with aninstrument.
Thom Pollard (19:17):
But I guess you got the next best thing in a
way. So you're right there,you're feeling the rush.
Jay Blakesberg (19:21):
Well, that's the other. That's the other big
thing is that I'm always in thefront row. That I love that.
Because you want to be close toyour heroes. You want to be
close. And it's not even amatter of being close to your
heroes or touching your heroesor, you know, it's about being
it's about feeling the powerthat comes off that stage. When
(19:42):
those people are singing thesongs and playing those songs.
And when you're closer, theexperience is amplified. Right?
I guess that's upon becausethey're amplifying their sound
but experience is also amplifiedAnd, and I liked that feeling. I
like that loud music. I likethat pulsing bass, you know,
(20:06):
pushing against my chest. Youknow, it's exhilarating,
exhilarating and inspirationalagain, which is makes, you know,
and because I've been doing thisfor so long, I can't go to a
show and not take pictures,because all they see is pictures
that need to be taken. Yeah.
Thom Pollard (20:24):
So that said, What is your when you go to a show? I
don't know if you have anysignature J. Blake bird kind of
shots, you know, and I'venoticed you you are behind the
guy in the middle of the stagelooking essentially through him,
and people adoring him in thecrowd. But do you have a plan or
(20:46):
do you just go with the feel isa different
Jay Blakesberg (20:49):
flow. So the best advice I ever got for
taking a photo at a concert wasfrom my little league coach when
I was 10 years old. And hebasically said, anticipate the
play, no matter where you are inthe outfield. So if you're a
baseball person, you'llunderstand this, right. So if
you're playing second base inthe field, and there's a man on
(21:11):
first and a ground ball is hitto you, you throw the ball to
second base to get the lead out,maybe get a double play. But if
you're the left fielder, andthere's a drop line drive hit to
you that then there's a man onfirst you get it, you throw to
the shortstop to cut off therunner from going to third. So
no matter where you are in thefield, everybody has a different
(21:32):
play that they have to make ifthe play comes to them. So you
have to anticipate the play,right. And that works for when
you're shooting rock and roll.
Right, you know, the music, youknow, the peaks, you know, the
valleys, you know, the lyrics,you know, the moments. And so
you, you've gotta be, you gottawait for it right. Now, I'm very
fortunate because for the mostpart, not with every band, but
(21:54):
for the most part, you know,most of the artists that I work
with, I can shoot a whole show Ican shoot from in the photo pit,
I can shoot from onstage and theside of the stage, behind the
band behind the drummer. Youknow, I've I've earned that,
that access over the years,whereas a lot of photographers
get three songs in the pit, andthey gotta go, right. So a lot
of times, you might be in a bigrush to try and get one decent
(22:16):
shot, but I have the freedom orcall it to, you know, wait
things out a little bit more andwait for those moments to come.
And, and capture somethingthat's hopefully, you know, more
unique and epic than you knowwhat you might be able to get if
you're just shooting threesongs. So you know, anticipate
(22:37):
the play really is the key andbe ready and not have a beer or
a cigarette or a joint in yourhand and have your camera close
by and ready to fucking rock androll, man.
Thom Pollard (22:51):
So just bring me back to that moment of film
disappearing when you what wasit like to take that leap?
Because you said you said no wayI'm gonna stay with the with the
film because these digitalimages wouldn't even be looked
very good on Instagram today.
Jay Blakesberg (23:07):
Right? Yeah. So you know, even the first few
years, even the first three orso years of, you know, when I
went full time digital in thelast row of film I shot was in
August of 2008, I believe it wasJack Johnson. So late 2008, I go
full time digital, you know,we're still shooting with, you
(23:31):
know, not full frame full sensorcameras. So even those first
three years or so we have smallfiles, they're not as great as
you know what we shoot with now.
But, you know, I'm 60 years old,I had to learn a whole new set
of skills, right, you know, Iwas used to a workflow that
involves, you know, shootingfilm, having certain technical
(23:52):
and creative skills that workedwith film and then translating
that to a new technology. Youknow, I have kids that are 26
and 28 years old, and they grewup with, you know, with a cell
phone in their hand as apacifier and iPads to play games
on and, you know, they they areable to navigate that
(24:13):
technological world. But youknow, for us, and you'll
understand this, you're my sameage, like we said, you know, we
watched Star Trek and, and acell phone, which is essentially
a supercomputer in our hands.
You know, it was the tricorderback then on Star Trek that
could heal somebody or take areading or whatever it might be.
(24:34):
It was just a science fictionfantasy, right. And so, you
know, for us to, you know,figure all of this technology
out and figure out that learningcurve. It was big, it was huge.
I mean, one of the things thatbenefited me is that when I
started making that bigtransition from film to digital,
I had a young kid that wasworking for me. He started
(24:55):
working for me when he was 18years old, or nine to 18 or 19.
And he worked for me For 11years ago, he was in his early
30s. And, you know, and hetaught me a lot he grew up with,
he grew up coding computers,and, you know, writing programs
and, you know, even I grew up onthe farm in Kansas, that's what
he did. So he taught me a lotand brought me up to speed in a
(25:18):
big way. And, and I've grown inincrements, and, you know,
different people that haveworked with me since then have
taught me things and I taughtthem things. And you know, you
have the internet to teach youanything, right? If you can't
figure something out, there's aYouTube channel that will tell
you how to do it. Right. Theworld Whoa. So I made that
transition. And it was not easy.
And also, you know, not onlyfrom a technical standpoint, but
(25:39):
from a creative standpoint, theearly digital cameras, I didn't
like the way it looked. That'swhy I was never a filmmaker in
the early days of video, becauseI hated the way it looked, you
know, early video that look likeyou know what it looks like when
you watch the soap opera. Yeah,on TV was that very flat, very
pixelated, you know, pixellooking, flat, lit. Video style,
I didn't like that. So I didn'treally do any filmmaking until
(26:04):
you could get things to happenthat looked a little bit more
film like, and so early on. As adigital shooter, I spent six
months with my digital guy, theyoung kid, and we tried to
figure out ways to make ourdigital photographs look a
little bit more like film, weadded noise and grain and
filters, and created a filterpack that sort of gave it its
(26:28):
own unique look. And I wasn'tnot the only one that was doing
it. But I found something that Iliked. And then within 234
years, those were just all basicsliders in Lightroom. You know,
they were they were idiot.
Effects, right? We spent monthsand months and months in
(26:50):
Photoshop, developing this onour own. But of course,
technology is the great, youknow, the disrupter it is that.
And so the young kids now cancome in and slide a couple of
levers in a program and, and geta look. And so we were trying to
figure out what our place in thescript was? And how did how did
(27:14):
our work my work? How can it beoriginal and unique moment now
we're all at the same cameraswith the same sensors with the
same three lenses. Whereas whenwe shot film, we could shoot
black and white film color film,fast speed film, slow speed
film, high grain film, 35millimeter, two and a quarter
six by seven, four by fivepanoramic, right all of these
(27:35):
different formats and films andstyles and looks and feels. And
that's how we developed our ourAR AR style. You know who we are
like a year I see you have aguitar behind you. You figured
out what your style is byplaying around with it right.
And so we did the same thing.
And but you got to continue toevolve as the technology
(27:55):
changes, because now you canplay that guitar without ever
touching a string. You'd lay iton a computer with a plugin and
whatever, right? Yeah,virtually. So
you know, we always we alwaystried to come up with a
different look and feel thanwhat people were doing. I tried
(28:17):
to be original. Sometimes I wentover overboard and over the top
a little bit. And there'sphotographs that I took early on
in my career with a digitalcamera that are essentially
garbage today. They're two threemegabyte files. And they're not
somebody saw and said, Oh, can Iget a 16 by 20 prints, I can't
really do it because it doesn'thave the resolution. So those
first three years even Well, thefirst three 2003 Four or 567 I
(28:43):
would say that 90% of thatstuff, but I was also shooting
digital film at the same if itwas important I would shoot
film. Yeah. But if I needed toturn something in quickly, I
would shoot digital and film orjust maybe digital on some
stuff. And a lot of that wedidn't know what a raw file was
we didn't know what anuncompressed file was back then
we had there was the learningcurve. So there's a lot of stuff
(29:03):
that I shot that's essentiallyworthless. And we also didn't
know how to store it. We didn'tknow how to keep track of it. We
didn't know how to back it up.
And so you know, we've lost1000s of early files to computer
illiteracy, stupidityuncertainty.
Thom Pollard (29:23):
Yeah, I've I've read that you had lost or you
said early before we hit recordabout losing a hard drive or
something and I've lost morehard drives than I care to admit
and I remember the conversionstill shooting on either really
good tape or 16 millimeter filmand just not buying into the
digital world. And now of courseit would be almost impossible
(29:46):
for me not to dance andeverything but on that so did
you keep all your old gear? Wereyou a wide angle lens guy in
that you've got let's say on agood day if you if you thread
the film, right? You got 34exposures or 36 exposures. And
you go click, click, click,click now on a digital, you can
(30:07):
just hold the button down andshoot 100 in about two seconds.
So it's a diff. It's reallydifferent. Did that change your
style?
Jay Blakesberg (30:19):
Yes and no. So a couple of things. Yes, I am a
wide angle guy. Yeah, always,always happen. And the reason
for that is, in order to get agood picture, and you got to be
right next to the person you'reshooting, I have a photographer
friend who used to always shootwith a 300 millimeter lens when
he was allowed in the photo pit.
And he would go back a littlebit further, and he liked that
(30:39):
compression. And he liked thatshallow depth of field. And I
was right on top of that personwith a 24 millimeter lens or a
35 millimeter lens because Iliked to be in their face. I
mean, I remember Fish's managerback in the day, saying you're
taking too many pictures withyour fisheye lens, take less
fisheye lens photos, and I thinkI put my fisheye lens down right
(30:59):
around that time and just neverpicked it up again. Because I
had shots. That's what I wasknown for. That was my style. I
shot so many bad portraits witha fisheye lens. Yeah, up until
about 99 2000. And Jason, themanager of fish was like enough
with the fisheye lens. And Ijust stopped, I was like, Okay,
that's all I needed to hear. Andit forces you to be creative in
(31:20):
other ways and come up withother solutions and play around
with different things. But I'vealways been a wide lens guy, I
like the look, I like the feel Ilike when you're vertical, how
it stretches people. So when Iwas a film shooter, I was always
a way heavier shooter than mostother people. Like I can
remember back in the day when Ionly got three songs in a photo
pit. And we'd walk out at theend of three songs. And, you
(31:43):
know, somebody said, how manyrolls of film to shoot, I'd be
like, 10, they'd be like, what?
And then I'd be like, how didyou get there, like one and a
half. And so this is myphilosophy is that if I'm at the
Fillmore in 1996, in SanFrancisco, and I'm shooting the
Foo Fighters on December11 1996, I don't know if that's
(32:04):
the date, I will never, for therest of time, be at the Fillmore
on December 11 1996, shootingthe Foo Fighters. So if I can
shoot 10 rolls of film, I'mgoing to shoot 10 rolls of film.
That was my philosophy. And thatis done me very, very well. And
I'm not saying that it's becauseI have quantity, but it's a
(32:25):
combination of quantity andquality. And so, you know,
there's somebody that might justbe like, Hey, I got one good
shot, you know, but I might get10 good shots or 20 good shots,
because I'm shooting 10 times asmuch as the person next to me is
shooting. And and the otherthing is, is that 99% of the
time, I was on assignment from amagazine or a record company,
(32:46):
and they were paying for myfilming processing anyway, and I
owned it so I could shoot asmuch as I want and then keep it
you know, so that's why I wasalways a heavy film shooter. And
then digital came along. Youthink I was a heavy film
shooter, I might shoot three or400 rolls 300 or 400 frames at a
concert. You know, most concertsnow that I'm shooting, and
that's in three songs. Mostconcerts now that I'm shooting a
(33:08):
whole show. I'm shootinganywhere from 2500 to 3500
images. And I look at every oneof them and it drives me insane.
And I don't know how to stop. Ican't figure it out. The still
heavy shooter. Yeah,
Thom Pollard (33:24):
I agree with that.
That tactic. J so you said thatyou know when you are at Radio
City Music Hall you were in townso you probably just called
somebody you knew at goose andsay, Hey, dude, I'm gonna be in
town, give me the pass and youkind of do your own thing. And
then again on at goose miss withBen. But nowadays do you saw you
called up or people solicitingyou like we need Jay here for
(33:48):
this.
Jay Blakesberg (33:51):
I mean, I get hired for festivals and shows.
And you know, it's a differentit's a different market than it
was because a there's a fractionof the number of magazines out
there, that there were when wewere growing up and the
magazines were numbered in thehundreds and 1000s. And I was
published in magazines on aweekly basis around the world.
You know, my work was syndicatedby different agencies in
(34:12):
different countries. And, youknow, I have pictures that would
be in Tokyo and Germany andItaly and the United States and
Canada and Mexico and blah,blah. And so yeah, so I was
getting commissioned. Yeah,bands still hire me management
companies still hire me.
Festivals still hire me recordcompanies still hire me. Oddly
(34:32):
enough, I'm still somewhatrelevant, I guess, as a
photographer. So I feelfortunate that I still get to do
what I do. And I feel fortunatethat I actually believe that I'm
still taking good photographs,and I'm still I haven't I
haven't lost it yet. Couldhappen any moment now. So you
know, we never know. But I thinkpart of that is going back to
(34:54):
our first conversation, which isthe inspiration and the passion
that's just all encompassedsaying, that gives me that drive
to create, you know, the, thebest photographs that I can. You
know, and jokingly I've, youknow, been around young kids
sitting next to me and I'd belike, they're like, you know,
you're working so hard. I'mlike, Well, I got to figure out
(35:14):
a way to smokey, somehow, youknow, your 25 year old kid. And
of course, it's just a joke, youknow, but I'm still holding my
own, and then still coming upwith interesting good images, I
don't think I've quite, youknow, we should autofocus. Like,
I don't think if we were stillshooting film, I'd be able to
keep you know, with manualfocus. I mean, I was shooting
people jumping on stage manualfocus, you know, catching these
gravel moments, like, you know,focus exposure, you know,
(35:37):
exposure without looking at aviewfinder, right, knowing what
you're, you know, just, youknow, moving at the speed of
light to capture lightning in abottle. And so all that training
has come in handy. And I can, Ican move pretty quickly with my
gear and have good agility andwhatnot. But yeah, that's it's
it's always a shift, you know,that shift from film to digital?
(36:00):
For sure. Yeah.
Thom Pollard (36:03):
Jay, thank you.
Oh, by the way, the on thoseolder shots as somebody jumping
on the stage and not having thepleasure or the the benefit of
focus, I actually like those. Ilike that movement, the oh, it
just looks like it's a blurryalmost I, it's a great
Jay Blakesberg (36:25):
people get too caught up in blur. And you know,
motion blur is very differentthan a photograph that's out of
focus, right? Yes. No motionblurs, you know, and again, it
comes down to messing aroundwith shutter speed, and
aperture, and ISO, and all ofthose things that sort of
combined give you the magic ofusing your camera as a creative
tool, right. So like, I alwayssay, you know, learn the rules,
(36:47):
learn them thoroughly understandthem completely, and then break
them. Right, no risk, no reward,you got to take chances, you're
just gonna end up with the samestuff that everybody else does.
So but you know, going back tothe book, retro Blake's, where
you can sort of sort of also seean evolution, like you said, at
70s 80s 90s 2000s. And there'san essay that I wrote at the
(37:09):
beginning of each chapter thatsort of talks about what I was
working on. And you know, wheremy mindset was, and how I worked
as a creative person, and who Iwas working with. So all of
those things are talked about inthis book. And you can sort of
see the evolution of me, goingfrom a kid with a camera, to a
flash on my camera, doingsnapshots, to actually creating
(37:32):
interesting photographs tolearning how to develop my
craft, and develop my style andmy vibe to you know, making it
work for me on a commerciallevel. And, you know, moving
forward creatively, to createinteresting photographs that
hopefully inspire other peopleand other photographers, and
(37:57):
even just the people that arelooking at them in the book, to
walk away with something, youknow, I get a lot of comments,
you know, the cover of the bookas a picture of a woman taken at
the rainbow gathering in 1984.
And looking at this particularphotograph, and the way that
everybody's dressed, thisprobably could be
1974 684 94 2004 2014. You know,and so, I'm trying to create
(38:27):
images that are timeless, butalso photographs that take you
back to that time. So you'relooking at the book, and if
you're our age, and you look atthese photographs from the
1970s, you're most likely goingto think that was my life. I
hung out with that dude with abandana on his head, like that's
who you know, those were mypeople, we smoked weed, we did
bong hits, we got fucked up onalcohol and weed and, and
(38:48):
stumbled around our parentshouses to hide it from them so
that they didn't, you know, putus in the mental institution
because we smoked pot becauseback then that's what people
thought you're smokingmarijuana, you must go to the
mental institution. And so, Ithink the book, I like to call
my the new book, retroBlacksburg in a visual
(39:09):
autobiography, right? You know,people have asked me, When are
you going to tell your story?
And I did. You know, there'sabout I wrote about 40
I wrote about, there's fouressays I wrote about 10,000
words in the book. There's about10,000 words in this book that I
wrote. So that's like a reallycouple of long long magazine
(39:30):
articles, but I you know, I wastrying to I was trying to share
how I how I felt what I wasdoing what was inspiring me
where I was the trials andtribulations of being a kid
trying to figure out his placein the script and growing up and
seeing the Grateful Dead and youknow, and then getting a chance
to work with the Grateful Deadand seeing Santana and getting
to work with Santana. You know,things like that. So I've been
(39:54):
very blessed. And there's, youknow, there's photographs in
there of Nirvana and Pearl jamin the chili peppers in Jane's
Addiction and the ButtholeSurfers, but there's also
pictures of Neil Young and JoniMitchell and Radiohead and The
Flaming Lips. And speaking ofThe Flaming Lips, you know Wayne
Coyne, the lead singer of TheFlaming Lips, he wrote the
foreword for the book andMichael frog day and from the
(40:17):
band spearhead, dear friend forover 30 years now, both of them
Wayne and Michael I, I firstshot Wayne Coyne in The Flaming
Lips in 1989. And I first shotMichael Franti in his band back
then, the beat MiGs in 1987. SoI've got a 35 year relationship
with Michael in a 30 to 33 yearrelationship with Wayne. And so
(40:41):
Michael wrote the introduction,Wayne wrote the foreword, and I
love what they wrote, you know,and then there's my essay, and
then my daughter who curated itwrote a short essay. And I think
there's a lot of informationboth visually and in the written
word. And it's not somethingthat you get bogged down with,
you know, you can probably readthe whole entire thing in one
sitting of, you know, an hour ortwo. And, and I want people to
(41:05):
see how my career evolved, howmy life evolved, how I got from
point A to point B to point C,and how I ended up here and so I
you know, this is not a bookabout the Grateful Dead. It's
not a book about one particularartists, it's about my
experience, and photographingall of those artists because
they're all in the book, right?
It's not just a Jerry Garciabook, which is my last book and
(41:26):
for those you guys looking tobuy a book, if you want to order
a signed copy directly from me,you can just go to rock out
books.com And and that is,that's where you can find retro
Blake's Burg and some of theother books that I've done. This
is my 16th Coffee Table Book ofMy Music, Pop Culture
photography. Oh, yeah. So I'vedone books on The Flaming Lips.
(41:50):
And I've done books on theGrateful Dead and I've done
books, you know, withcompilation books and some
festival books and the ban on aband called The mother hips. And
I did a book called guitars thatjam, I did a book called jam, I
did a book called hippie chicks.
So there's, you know, I've got abunch of stuff that I've done.
(42:10):
And so this is, and I selfpublish all these books, I don't
have a publisher, I do itmyself. You know, again, sweat,
blood equity, you know,you know, sweat hard, hard work,
hard labor, long hours, and myown money. I'm putting my own
money up into this, you know,like, I I've done a couple of
books with a publisher. And Ifound that self publishing was
(42:31):
the route that I wanted to take.
And so I learned how to makebooks. I learned how to promote
books, I learned how to getbooks into bookstores and on
Amazon, and my daughter run thatcompany. It's called Rocket
books. And that's the websiterocket books.com. You can check
out retro Blacksburg and andactually, the, you'll see if the
(42:53):
if a book is sold out, it's noton there anymore, like jam is
sold out. Right? I did a book onthe 50th anniversary, the
Grateful Dead at the fairly wellconcerts in Santa Clara and
Chicago. And we are down toabout our last 75 copies of that
book. And that's it, it's gone.
Now never be reprinted. I did abook a couple years ago, four or
five years ago called eyes ofthe world. Grateful Dead
(43:15):
photographs. 1965 1995. It has60 different photographers in
it. I published it through mycompany. I had the most photos
in the book, about 25% of themin the book were mine. But we
had people like Jim Marshall andBaron Wallman and Annie
Leibovitz. And that book is 100%sold out, you cannot find it
anywhere, but used, you know, onthe on the US black market. And
(43:36):
so that looks no longer on thewebsite. But you know, the ones
that we still have available,check out at Rock ebooks.com
And, you know, support smallindependent book publishers. I
mean, we're like a smallindependent record label, right.
You know, we make boutiqueproducts, we put out maybe one
or two things, you know, everytwo or three years. We try and
help other people get theirmaterial out. I'm working on a
(43:59):
book project with David Ganz,who's a author, photographer and
deadhead. I'm working on a bookon Grateful Dead tattoos with a
tattoo artists here in SanFrancisco. And so we do this
with with you know, with ourpublishing company, we're gonna
book a street photography of SanFrancisco street photographs
with a photographer here in SanFrancisco 73 years old and was
(44:21):
brilliant in the 70s and 80swhen this camera on the streets
and that will come out in 2023 Ibelieve at the end of the year.
And so you know, we live eat andbreathe photography here in the
studio and love every minute ofit. It's all inspiring, you
know, sometimes a little bitoverwhelming, but it's, it's, I
love it. I'm happy that I get todo it. I feel very fortunate
(44:44):
that this is my life that Icreated. I took that little tiny
spark and turn it into a littleflame and a bigger flame and
and, you know, a fire a forestfire without hurting anybody,
you know, no trees No trees wereharmed in this in this forest
fire.
Thom Pollard (45:05):
Jay, thank you see you at the next gig. If you want
to purchase a copy of Jaysamazing book or have a look at
his other published books andhis photo galleries find him on
Instagram at che Blake's Burg.
He spells that de la KESBERG andretro Blacksburg or at Rock out
books.com For more informationabout me to inquire about
(45:30):
personal coaching or publicspeaking in person or online,
visit eyes open productions.comor join my mailing list Tom dot
dharma.pollard@gmail.com Thankyou wood brothers for the use of
your amazing song happinessJones and to Kevin Calabro,
their publicist for making ithappen and thank you for
(45:51):
visiting the happiness quotientcome back soon and I will see
you all real soon.
The Wood Brothers (45:59):
All of my answers came in say dragon
attained again happy peace andquiet to get happy dragon when
(46:21):
it comes back to happiness joyhappiness Happy Happy, Happy
(46:47):
happy happy Happiness
So you want to be a rock and roll star. We'll grab
a camera and find your way tothe front of the stage. Take
your best shot. This is thehappiness quotient. On that
wisdom Kay. From the tough dancetoday. I never learned a thing
be unhappy. Jay Blake's Berg oneof the US is most accomplished
(00:26):
live music and pop culturephotographer has released
another self published bookcalled retro Blacksburg Volume
One the film archives. See thelink in the show notes how you
can get to it. The book featureshighlights spanning the years
from the 70s into the early2000s When film was King, before
(00:47):
the digital age when aphotographer was a photographer
from the first photograph heever sold for $15 through tours
with fish, filming Led ZeppelinRolling Stones, tons of the
Grateful Dead enough so thathe's made a couple of books
about it. Green Day The FlamingLips Snoop Dogg Primus. You
know, I never asked him if he'sbeen to a wood brothers show,
(01:10):
giving the requisite nod to myfriends who have generously
given permission for me to usetheir music for this podcasts
theme song. Happiness.
I got to happiness. Anyway, youget the picture, Jay has seen a
lot of live music and taken1000s and 10s and 10s of 1000s
(01:34):
of photographs of just aboutevery band you could possibly
imagine. And I have them heretoday on the happiness quotient.
What an honor as he releases hisnew book.
I'd seen Jays photographs beforebut first became acquainted with
his unique style and artistictalents in February of 2022. At
(01:56):
Mohegan Sun Arena inConnecticut, on stage with a
band I've grown pretty damn fondof named goose there, he was
mixing right in with themusicians taking photos right on
stage, I thought to myselfexactly the way I'd like to see
myself doing it if I were a rockand roll photographer. As it
(02:17):
turns out, Jay was there tocapture the drummer then Atkins
proposing to his girlfriend onstage after the second set in
front of 10,000 fans. I filmedit on my camera from not too far
from the stage. And there I sawJay, getting the perfect shot. I
thought I gotta reach out tothat guy. I wonder what his name
(02:39):
is. Comes to find out Jay and Iare about the exact same age
grew up and graduated from highschool in the same year,
sometime in the 70s 79 long timeago. Here's my interview with
the talented, gifted, outgoing JBlake's Berg from his studio in
(02:59):
San Francisco, talking about hisbeginnings and development as a
professional live music and popculture photographer. And about
his just released book, retroBlacksburg Volume One, the film
yours
Jay Blakesberg (03:14):
that goose Miss where you first saw me which was
a holiday show that waspostponed because of COVID from
the holidays to the spring of2022. I was there. If you
remember Ben the drummer,proposed to his girlfriend now
his fiancee onstage at the endof it, I think the first set or
(03:35):
the second set. And Ben and Ihad become friends over the last
couple of years. And he saidwill you come out to Connecticut
and get the shot for a get getthat shot of me proposing to Sam
and Sam has also become a dearfriend. And you know, before
they got engaged when they werereally early in their
relationship, the three of ushad gone out to dinner once and
you know, just love those guysto pieces. I said of course I'd
(03:58):
love to be there for that momentfor you. And that's and I'm a
big goose fan also. I mean,since I've been seeing them, you
know, a couple years back, I waslike, wow, I get to shoot, you
know, Ben proposing to Sam and Iget to see goose goose mess. So
it was really, you know, for meit was great. And because I was
really only doing you know, myassignment so to speak was
(04:19):
banned. Like I turned thosephotos around quick because they
want to do it but goose hastheir own photographer that is
working with them and they gettheir stuff to the band right
away. But yeah, that's the norm.
You know, it's funny becausewhen we used to shoot film or a
social media didn't exist.
(05:00):
camera I think around 2003 2004.
But it wasn't till 2008 that Iwent fully digital. And for
those first three or four years,while I was still shooting film,
we were still delivering ourjobs digitally. So we were
shooting film, I might get theproof sheets back and send them
to my client overnight, youknow, using whatever FedEx UPS
overnight whenever it was, andthen
(05:23):
they would give me an order ofwhat images they want from the
proof sheets. And then we wouldscan those and send them to that
to the client, you know,digitally, the magazine, the
record company, whatever it was,but that's not what we came to
talk about. We can talk aboutretro Blake's Burg, which is my
book. And all this film talkingdigital talk is because retro
Blake's berg is based on anInstagram page that my daughter
(05:45):
started during the pandemiccalled retro Blake's Berg. And
she said came to me one day andsaid can we do a book called
retro Blacksburg and the premiseis that everything in that book
and everything on that Instagrampage is shot on film. And
whereas I have my own Instagrampage called J Blake's Berg and I
post goose that I shot lastmonth and you know, whatever it
(06:06):
might be, but that's, you know,I post things I shot on film, I
post things that I shotdigitally. I post things that I
shoot with my phone, you know,whatever it might be, it's just
sort of like my ongoing blog.
Whereas retro Blake's burgerscurated by my daughter. I don't
have much say into what sheposts or when she posts or how
she posts and and then we starton the book, she curated the
book, you know, she said no, I'mnot putting that I'm not putting
(06:29):
that stupid fucking image inthere. What are you fucking
crazy, you know, like that kindof stuff. And so, okay, you're
the boss. Leave me alone.
Thom Pollard (06:37):
Yeah, you you raised a strong willed,
confident young woman is
Jay Blakesberg (06:43):
yes. Yeah. So Ricky is very much involved in
in all of my projects right nowretro Blacksburg and and then on
top of the retro Blake's burnbook, which is even more
exciting, is I have my actualactually have my first solo
museum exhibition. And it'scoming up in October, and that's
called retro Blake's Burgcaptured on film 1978 2008. And
(07:08):
again, it's all things that areshot only on film. And that's at
the Morris Museum in Morristown,New Jersey. And that's a
Smithsonian affiliate Museum,the only only Smithsonian
affiliate news Museum in NewJersey. And it's 20 miles away
from where I grew up, and wheresome of these early photos that
are in the retro Blacksburg bookwere taken. So it's pretty a big
honor for me to have been askedto do this museum exhibit. And
(07:33):
so the book and the mat and themuseum exhibit are all sort of
tied together. And in one bigoffering of you know, what I've
been doing for the last 44years, you know, taking
pictures, although it stops in2008. So really of 78 to 2008.
So it's really 30 years of my 44years, but I have my 44 years of
(07:54):
eyes and experience helpingcurate that stuff with my
daughter and working on that andmaking sure that those film
images are scanned properly andretouch properly and, you know,
proper exposure and color andall that and getting it out
there. So
Thom Pollard (08:08):
beautiful, Jay. So you know, in your book retro
Blake's for again, I almost wentoff on a tangent about going to
a place 20 miles from where yougrew up. I was wondering if any
of your old buddies might play atrick on you and hand you a cup
of juice or something and sitback and see if old Jay can
handle it the way he used toback in the day drugs.
Jay Blakesberg (08:29):
You're talking about some juice that's got some
psychedelics in it? Yeah, it waslike cars, we can you know,
like, you can't quit the mob.
So, but ya know, I'm excited formy friends from high school and
from New Jersey, to you know,come to this exhibit and
Morristown in October, it openson October 14, goes through into
early February 2023. So ifyou're in the New York, New
(08:53):
Jersey, Connecticut area,Pennsylvania, you know, put it
on your calendar to come visitmy solo museum exhibit,
Thom Pollard (09:02):
you know, Jay, in terms of that, that one of the
things that I'm constantly drawnto when I talk to somebody that
I've never met before, evenpeople I know is what sparked
the passion in them and what gotthem to pursue their craft. And,
and I love that that moment intime. And it might be several
(09:25):
moments when somebody feels aspark and they realize I don't
care how many couches I have tosleep on or how long it takes me
but I want to be Jay BlacksburgI want to be a rock and roll
photographer. And you found alove of that really early. So
you're 16 years old, youpublished your first photograph.
(09:47):
So you had this spark and videoyou just honed in on it. And
that's a beautiful story and Ijust kind of talk a little bit
about that about findingsomething you loved and sticking
with Nope, not gonna get a joband do the normal thing,
Jay Blakesberg (10:03):
right? Well, you hit the nail on the head in a
lot of different places. So I dopublic speaking also, and I do a
couple of different slideshowsand talk about you know, I do a
Grateful Dead slideshow, I do amore broad slideshow, I'm going
to create a new one for retroBlacksburg. And one of the
things that I talked about in myslideshow is really what you
were just saying, which is that,you know, when you're 15, or 16
(10:25):
years old, 17 years old, really,all you have are your hopes and
your dreams, right. And youdon't even know what they are,
what they mean, how to achievethem, how to tap into them. And
so when I started takingphotographs with a camera that I
borrowed from my dad, it turnedme on, and it did, it did ignite
a spark. And I did have somepassion for it, right. But I
(10:49):
didn't know how to harness thatpassion. I didn't know how to
harness that spark. But allthese little things happen that
sort of take that spark and turnit into a little flame and a
bigger flame and a bigger flame.
And so, you know, for me, someof the key things were in May of
78. We followed your MS.
Limousine from New Jersey to NewYork City after a yarmulke
concert at the Capitol theater.
Thom Pollard (11:11):
The Yama that Jay is referring to here is your cow
cannon Rock and Roll Hall ofFame inductee of the Jefferson
Airplane, and Hot Tuna fame.
Jay Blakesberg (11:21):
And I got a photograph of him that I sent to
the letters of the letters tothe editor of relics magazine,
and they published it. And youknow, back then, you know,
getting published in print, letalone a magazine that you read
cover to cover every issue waslike pretty mega for 16 years
old, 16 year old. And then whenI was 17, the Aquarian weekly,
which is a free weekly newspaperin New Jersey, published two
(11:43):
photos of mine and a review of adead show. I was 17 years old,
and I got paid $15 for twophotos, and it takes that spark
and it makes it a little bitbigger and flame gets a little
bit bigger. And you know,there's just different things
that happen. But I remember onetime I was up in upstate New
York and there's in the retroBlake's for book, there's a
whole bunch of photos that weretaken and are in the book that
(12:04):
are from upstate New York, oneof my best friends from high
school moved away. So at the endof sophomore year, and we used
to drive up there the three,four hours on some weekends, a
few weekends in the fall in thespring. And you know, do stupid
things like because we live bythe creative adolescence,
stupidity, how much dumb stuffcan you do to try and kill
yourself without reallyrealizing we were trying to kill
(12:25):
ourselves. But we're lucky we'restill alive, as are many people
we know from that era. And Iremember getting having a roll
of film that was developedeither in a lab or my basement
or whatever it was. And Iremember showing it to my friend
Tommy, I'm like, Look at thisnegative Look at this cool shot.
And he's looking at thisnegative and his eyeballs are
rolling around in his head andhe couldn't process it. Like it
(12:47):
meant nothing to him. It wasjust like a piece of film that
had things on it dyes and colorsor, you know, silver or whatever
it was. And to me I was like allspun out and how fucking cool it
was right? And I remember thatday like he's, he's like he just
couldn't like and most peopledon't feel like, don't feel that
way. So when we used to shootfilm, when we got our film back
(13:08):
from the lab, it turned us onman, like turned me on, like, I
mean, when I got my jobs backfrom the lab, and I was like, oh
my god, this is this is killer.
This is great. It's in focus,it's exposed properly. It's,
it's a great emotion. It's agreat shot. It's great, you
know, image of a dead head ofJerry of, of David Bowie of, you
know, Soundgarden of Pearl, jam,Nirvana, whatever it might be,
(13:30):
you know, like I was turned on,and I still get turned on when I
take these photographs. And Ilook them up on the back of my
camera on the viewfinder, whichis a terrible habit. And I'm
like, Ooh, cool. But when Ibring them into my computer, and
I see them on this 27 inchmonitor, I'm like, yeah, man,
like, I dig this shit. Like, itstill turns me on. And really
(13:51):
what it comes down to are thoseis that what you said is the
passion. But there's anotherreally, really key element to
all of that. And that's theinspiration, right, and the
inspiration for me happens withwhat's in front of my lens. So
if I'm shooting deadheadsdancing, or hippies dancing, you
know, I was just recently at theOregon Country Fair. And I was
shooting these, you know,hippies having fun. And these
(14:12):
are people, some of these peopleI've known for 30 and 40 years,
you know, so they're my friends,and they were still grooving
together. And I'm stilldocumenting it, and it still
turns me on to like, import thisstuff. And I'm like, I can't
wait to edit it and process itin the computer and export it
and put it on Instagram orsocial media and share it
because, you know, there's alsothat whole dopamine rush of
(14:34):
people looking at it andcommenting on it and having it
relate to their lives. And so,you know, essentially, you know,
these people and theseexperiences and these scenarios
that I put myself in, are mymuse, right, whether it's a
hippie chick dancing, or a guy,hippie dude dancing, or a band
playing on stage or traveling toMorocco, like I did a couple of
(14:58):
months ago. Go and shootingstreet photography, you know, in
a foreign country. And so all ofthose things, they still fucking
turn me on and they they inspireme and, and it creates that
burning passion and so it's allof those things combined. You
know that spark turned into aninferno long ago, you know doing
(15:18):
assignments for Rolling Stonemagazine I shot shot regular
assignments for them for 30years. You know, so shooting for
Rolling Stone and shootingcovers for Guitar Player
magazine and relics magazine andworking with art directors and
working with models and workingwith bands and working with
record companies. You know, Imean, there's a new Neil Young
(15:39):
album coming out in August Ihave the cover photo, right, you
know, just found this out likeabout a week ago i No, they told
me and announced it. And it's alive shot in Neil taken at the
Greek theatre here in Berkeley afew years ago that it's a live
record that he played with theLukas Nelson promise of the
real. And that's still like tome, I'm like, Fuck, yeah, man, I
(15:59):
got a cover of the fucking NeilYoung record, like, you know. So
there still is like, all of thatpush that drive that
inspiration.
Thom Pollard (16:09):
It doesn't get any better than that. That is
awesome. I'm picking up thatalbum. And I love and I've seen
promise of the real with NeilYoung and yeah, you know, I'm
like, Well, at first time I sawhim was 1980 something and he
was rock. And then and then youfigure ooh, I think it was 2019
when we saw the promise of thereal
Jay Blakesberg (16:28):
Yeah. 2018 or 2019. I
Thom Pollard (16:30):
think Willie Nelson tour like, yeah, outlawed
tour. Yeah.
Jay Blakesberg (16:35):
And I saw him in 1978. For the first time. You
know, I mean, we, you know, wegrew up listening to Neil Young
and suburban New Jersey. I mean,that was one of our favorite
artists and, you know, harvest,and, you know, all of those, you
know, CSNY came out, you know,for Wall Street in 1974. And, I
mean, I was in eighth grade. Butyou know, within two years, I
was listening to that on aregular basis. So all of that
(16:56):
music has informed our lives,you know, we listened to the
songs, and they, they bring usback to those times in those
places, when we were when wewere younger, when we had, you
know, different experiences withdifferent people than let's say,
our spouses or our children, orpeople that are our age now,
like it brings you back. And,you know, it's the song, the
lyrics and the music that thatput us in a time and a place in
(17:19):
our life. And so, you know, Ifirst started listening to Neil
Young, probably in 1976 7576.
Song for the first time in 1978,I saw back to back shows at
Madison Square Garden, Bob Dylanand Neil Young two nights in a
row. going into my senior yearhigh school I just started my
senior year is the third week inSeptember, the fourth week in
September, the 27th, the 28th,or 28th and 29th of September
(17:42):
1978. Right, just starting mysenior year, and you know, I'm
seeing these legends, andphotographing them. Here we are
4050 years later, 45 yearslater, and I've got the cover of
the Neil Young record. And I'veshot Neil Young for numerous
magazine covers, and I've shotNeil Young, 50 or 60 times now,
you know, so it's like one ofthose weird things that that,
(18:06):
again, becomes part of theinspiration becomes part of the
passion, part of the excitement.
And part of the history of, youknow, the body of work that I'm
creating.
Thom Pollard (18:18):
So in that like you in the book, you break your
book down into decades,essentially 70s. And it's really
easy for me to read, becausewe're we grew up, went to high
school, graduated high school,the same year, northeast, I'm a
New England guy, but followingprobably the same bands and
(18:39):
everything,
Jay Blakesberg (18:39):
and having similar experiences. And the you
know, the one thing is, isneither of us had cell phones,
we didn't have the internet. Wejust had our turntables in the
radio, and our friends.
Thom Pollard (18:49):
That's what it was the idea of going up into my
bedroom at the end of the day orafter school, putting on tunes.
So you talk about that idea of,of cars, you, you could have
picked up a guitar and said I'mgoing to start a rock and roll
band, I suppose here
Jay Blakesberg (19:05):
but I just couldn't make my fingers work on
a guitar made just my braindidn't work that way. My brain
and my fingers are not able.
They're not in the same, same.
They're not in sync with aninstrument.
Thom Pollard (19:17):
But I guess you got the next best thing in a
way. So you're right there,you're feeling the rush.
Jay Blakesberg (19:21):
Well, that's the other. That's the other big
thing is that I'm always in thefront row. That I love that.
Because you want to be close toyour heroes. You want to be
close. And it's not even amatter of being close to your
heroes or touching your heroesor, you know, it's about being
it's about feeling the powerthat comes off that stage. When
(19:42):
those people are singing thesongs and playing those songs.
And when you're closer, theexperience is amplified. Right?
I guess that's upon becausethey're amplifying their sound
but experience is also amplifiedAnd, and I liked that feeling. I
like that loud music. I likethat pulsing bass, you know,
(20:06):
pushing against my chest. Youknow, it's exhilarating,
exhilarating and inspirationalagain, which is makes, you know,
and because I've been doing thisfor so long, I can't go to a
show and not take pictures,because all they see is pictures
that need to be taken. Yeah.
Thom Pollard (20:24):
So that said, What is your when you go to a show? I
don't know if you have anysignature J. Blake bird kind of
shots, you know, and I'venoticed you you are behind the
guy in the middle of the stagelooking essentially through him,
and people adoring him in thecrowd. But do you have a plan or
(20:46):
do you just go with the feel isa different
Jay Blakesberg (20:49):
flow. So the best advice I ever got for
taking a photo at a concert wasfrom my little league coach when
I was 10 years old. And hebasically said, anticipate the
play, no matter where you are inthe outfield. So if you're a
baseball person, you'llunderstand this, right. So if
you're playing second base inthe field, and there's a man on
(21:11):
first and a ground ball is hitto you, you throw the ball to
second base to get the lead out,maybe get a double play. But if
you're the left fielder, andthere's a drop line drive hit to
you that then there's a man onfirst you get it, you throw to
the shortstop to cut off therunner from going to third. So
no matter where you are in thefield, everybody has a different
(21:32):
play that they have to make ifthe play comes to them. So you
have to anticipate the play,right. And that works for when
you're shooting rock and roll.
Right, you know, the music, youknow, the peaks, you know, the
valleys, you know, the lyrics,you know, the moments. And so
you, you've gotta be, you gottawait for it right. Now, I'm very
fortunate because for the mostpart, not with every band, but
(21:54):
for the most part, you know,most of the artists that I work
with, I can shoot a whole show Ican shoot from in the photo pit,
I can shoot from onstage and theside of the stage, behind the
band behind the drummer. Youknow, I've I've earned that,
that access over the years,whereas a lot of photographers
get three songs in the pit, andthey gotta go, right. So a lot
of times, you might be in a bigrush to try and get one decent
(22:16):
shot, but I have the freedom orcall it to, you know, wait
things out a little bit more andwait for those moments to come.
And, and capture somethingthat's hopefully, you know, more
unique and epic than you knowwhat you might be able to get if
you're just shooting threesongs. So you know, anticipate
(22:37):
the play really is the key andbe ready and not have a beer or
a cigarette or a joint in yourhand and have your camera close
by and ready to fucking rock androll, man.
Thom Pollard (22:51):
So just bring me back to that moment of film
disappearing when you what wasit like to take that leap?
Because you said you said no wayI'm gonna stay with the with the
film because these digitalimages wouldn't even be looked
very good on Instagram today.
Jay Blakesberg (23:07):
Right? Yeah. So you know, even the first few
years, even the first three orso years of, you know, when I
went full time digital in thelast row of film I shot was in
August of 2008, I believe it wasJack Johnson. So late 2008, I go
full time digital, you know,we're still shooting with, you
(23:31):
know, not full frame full sensorcameras. So even those first
three years or so we have smallfiles, they're not as great as
you know what we shoot with now.
But, you know, I'm 60 years old,I had to learn a whole new set
of skills, right, you know, Iwas used to a workflow that
involves, you know, shootingfilm, having certain technical
(23:52):
and creative skills that workedwith film and then translating
that to a new technology. Youknow, I have kids that are 26
and 28 years old, and they grewup with, you know, with a cell
phone in their hand as apacifier and iPads to play games
on and, you know, they they areable to navigate that
(24:13):
technological world. But youknow, for us, and you'll
understand this, you're my sameage, like we said, you know, we
watched Star Trek and, and acell phone, which is essentially
a supercomputer in our hands.
You know, it was the tricorderback then on Star Trek that
could heal somebody or take areading or whatever it might be.
(24:34):
It was just a science fictionfantasy, right. And so, you
know, for us to, you know,figure all of this technology
out and figure out that learningcurve. It was big, it was huge.
I mean, one of the things thatbenefited me is that when I
started making that bigtransition from film to digital,
I had a young kid that wasworking for me. He started
(24:55):
working for me when he was 18years old, or nine to 18 or 19.
And he worked for me For 11years ago, he was in his early
30s. And, you know, and hetaught me a lot he grew up with,
he grew up coding computers,and, you know, writing programs
and, you know, even I grew up onthe farm in Kansas, that's what
he did. So he taught me a lotand brought me up to speed in a
(25:18):
big way. And, and I've grown inincrements, and, you know,
different people that haveworked with me since then have
taught me things and I taughtthem things. And you know, you
have the internet to teach youanything, right? If you can't
figure something out, there's aYouTube channel that will tell
you how to do it. Right. Theworld Whoa. So I made that
transition. And it was not easy.
And also, you know, not onlyfrom a technical standpoint, but
(25:39):
from a creative standpoint, theearly digital cameras, I didn't
like the way it looked. That'swhy I was never a filmmaker in
the early days of video, becauseI hated the way it looked, you
know, early video that look likeyou know what it looks like when
you watch the soap opera. Yeah,on TV was that very flat, very
pixelated, you know, pixellooking, flat, lit. Video style,
I didn't like that. So I didn'treally do any filmmaking until
(26:04):
you could get things to happenthat looked a little bit more
film like, and so early on. As adigital shooter, I spent six
months with my digital guy, theyoung kid, and we tried to
figure out ways to make ourdigital photographs look a
little bit more like film, weadded noise and grain and
filters, and created a filterpack that sort of gave it its
(26:28):
own unique look. And I wasn'tnot the only one that was doing
it. But I found something that Iliked. And then within 234
years, those were just all basicsliders in Lightroom. You know,
they were they were idiot.
Effects, right? We spent monthsand months and months in
(26:50):
Photoshop, developing this onour own. But of course,
technology is the great, youknow, the disrupter it is that.
And so the young kids now cancome in and slide a couple of
levers in a program and, and geta look. And so we were trying to
figure out what our place in thescript was? And how did how did
(27:14):
our work my work? How can it beoriginal and unique moment now
we're all at the same cameraswith the same sensors with the
same three lenses. Whereas whenwe shot film, we could shoot
black and white film color film,fast speed film, slow speed
film, high grain film, 35millimeter, two and a quarter
six by seven, four by fivepanoramic, right all of these
(27:35):
different formats and films andstyles and looks and feels. And
that's how we developed our ourAR AR style. You know who we are
like a year I see you have aguitar behind you. You figured
out what your style is byplaying around with it right.
And so we did the same thing.
And but you got to continue toevolve as the technology
(27:55):
changes, because now you canplay that guitar without ever
touching a string. You'd lay iton a computer with a plugin and
whatever, right? Yeah,virtually. So
you know, we always we alwaystried to come up with a
different look and feel thanwhat people were doing. I tried
(28:17):
to be original. Sometimes I wentover overboard and over the top
a little bit. And there'sphotographs that I took early on
in my career with a digitalcamera that are essentially
garbage today. They're two threemegabyte files. And they're not
somebody saw and said, Oh, can Iget a 16 by 20 prints, I can't
really do it because it doesn'thave the resolution. So those
first three years even Well, thefirst three 2003 Four or 567 I
(28:43):
would say that 90% of thatstuff, but I was also shooting
digital film at the same if itwas important I would shoot
film. Yeah. But if I needed toturn something in quickly, I
would shoot digital and film orjust maybe digital on some
stuff. And a lot of that wedidn't know what a raw file was
we didn't know what anuncompressed file was back then
we had there was the learningcurve. So there's a lot of stuff
(29:03):
that I shot that's essentiallyworthless. And we also didn't
know how to store it. We didn'tknow how to keep track of it. We
didn't know how to back it up.
And so you know, we've lost1000s of early files to computer
illiteracy, stupidityuncertainty.
Thom Pollard (29:23):
Yeah, I've I've read that you had lost or you
said early before we hit recordabout losing a hard drive or
something and I've lost morehard drives than I care to admit
and I remember the conversionstill shooting on either really
good tape or 16 millimeter filmand just not buying into the
digital world. And now of courseit would be almost impossible
(29:46):
for me not to dance andeverything but on that so did
you keep all your old gear? Wereyou a wide angle lens guy in
that you've got let's say on agood day if you if you thread
the film, right? You got 34exposures or 36 exposures. And
you go click, click, click,click now on a digital, you can
(30:07):
just hold the button down andshoot 100 in about two seconds.
So it's a diff. It's reallydifferent. Did that change your
style?
Jay Blakesberg (30:19):
Yes and no. So a couple of things. Yes, I am a
wide angle guy. Yeah, always,always happen. And the reason
for that is, in order to get agood picture, and you got to be
right next to the person you'reshooting, I have a photographer
friend who used to always shootwith a 300 millimeter lens when
he was allowed in the photo pit.
And he would go back a littlebit further, and he liked that
(30:39):
compression. And he liked thatshallow depth of field. And I
was right on top of that personwith a 24 millimeter lens or a
35 millimeter lens because Iliked to be in their face. I
mean, I remember Fish's managerback in the day, saying you're
taking too many pictures withyour fisheye lens, take less
fisheye lens photos, and I thinkI put my fisheye lens down right
(30:59):
around that time and just neverpicked it up again. Because I
had shots. That's what I wasknown for. That was my style. I
shot so many bad portraits witha fisheye lens. Yeah, up until
about 99 2000. And Jason, themanager of fish was like enough
with the fisheye lens. And Ijust stopped, I was like, Okay,
that's all I needed to hear. Andit forces you to be creative in
(31:20):
other ways and come up withother solutions and play around
with different things. But I'vealways been a wide lens guy, I
like the look, I like the feel Ilike when you're vertical, how
it stretches people. So when Iwas a film shooter, I was always
a way heavier shooter than mostother people. Like I can
remember back in the day when Ionly got three songs in a photo
pit. And we'd walk out at theend of three songs. And, you
(31:43):
know, somebody said, how manyrolls of film to shoot, I'd be
like, 10, they'd be like, what?
And then I'd be like, how didyou get there, like one and a
half. And so this is myphilosophy is that if I'm at the
Fillmore in 1996, in SanFrancisco, and I'm shooting the
Foo Fighters on December11 1996, I don't know if that's
(32:04):
the date, I will never, for therest of time, be at the Fillmore
on December 11 1996, shootingthe Foo Fighters. So if I can
shoot 10 rolls of film, I'mgoing to shoot 10 rolls of film.
That was my philosophy. And thatis done me very, very well. And
I'm not saying that it's becauseI have quantity, but it's a
(32:25):
combination of quantity andquality. And so, you know,
there's somebody that might justbe like, Hey, I got one good
shot, you know, but I might get10 good shots or 20 good shots,
because I'm shooting 10 times asmuch as the person next to me is
shooting. And and the otherthing is, is that 99% of the
time, I was on assignment from amagazine or a record company,
(32:46):
and they were paying for myfilming processing anyway, and I
owned it so I could shoot asmuch as I want and then keep it
you know, so that's why I wasalways a heavy film shooter. And
then digital came along. Youthink I was a heavy film
shooter, I might shoot three or400 rolls 300 or 400 frames at a
concert. You know, most concertsnow that I'm shooting, and
that's in three songs. Mostconcerts now that I'm shooting a
(33:08):
whole show. I'm shootinganywhere from 2500 to 3500
images. And I look at every oneof them and it drives me insane.
And I don't know how to stop. Ican't figure it out. The still
heavy shooter. Yeah,
Thom Pollard (33:24):
I agree with that.
That tactic. J so you said thatyou know when you are at Radio
City Music Hall you were in townso you probably just called
somebody you knew at goose andsay, Hey, dude, I'm gonna be in
town, give me the pass and youkind of do your own thing. And
then again on at goose miss withBen. But nowadays do you saw you
called up or people solicitingyou like we need Jay here for
(33:48):
this.
Jay Blakesberg (33:51):
I mean, I get hired for festivals and shows.
And you know, it's a differentit's a different market than it
was because a there's a fractionof the number of magazines out
there, that there were when wewere growing up and the
magazines were numbered in thehundreds and 1000s. And I was
published in magazines on aweekly basis around the world.
You know, my work was syndicatedby different agencies in
(34:12):
different countries. And, youknow, I have pictures that would
be in Tokyo and Germany andItaly and the United States and
Canada and Mexico and blah,blah. And so yeah, so I was
getting commissioned. Yeah,bands still hire me management
companies still hire me.
Festivals still hire me recordcompanies still hire me. Oddly
(34:32):
enough, I'm still somewhatrelevant, I guess, as a
photographer. So I feelfortunate that I still get to do
what I do. And I feel fortunatethat I actually believe that I'm
still taking good photographs,and I'm still I haven't I
haven't lost it yet. Couldhappen any moment now. So you
know, we never know. But I thinkpart of that is going back to
(34:54):
our first conversation, which isthe inspiration and the passion
that's just all encompassedsaying, that gives me that drive
to create, you know, the, thebest photographs that I can. You
know, and jokingly I've, youknow, been around young kids
sitting next to me and I'd belike, they're like, you know,
you're working so hard. I'mlike, Well, I got to figure out
(35:14):
a way to smokey, somehow, youknow, your 25 year old kid. And
of course, it's just a joke, youknow, but I'm still holding my
own, and then still coming upwith interesting good images, I
don't think I've quite, youknow, we should autofocus. Like,
I don't think if we were stillshooting film, I'd be able to
keep you know, with manualfocus. I mean, I was shooting
people jumping on stage manualfocus, you know, catching these
gravel moments, like, you know,focus exposure, you know,
(35:37):
exposure without looking at aviewfinder, right, knowing what
you're, you know, just, youknow, moving at the speed of
light to capture lightning in abottle. And so all that training
has come in handy. And I can, Ican move pretty quickly with my
gear and have good agility andwhatnot. But yeah, that's it's
it's always a shift, you know,that shift from film to digital?
(36:00):
For sure. Yeah.
Thom Pollard (36:03):
Jay, thank you.
Oh, by the way, the on thoseolder shots as somebody jumping
on the stage and not having thepleasure or the the benefit of
focus, I actually like those. Ilike that movement, the oh, it
just looks like it's a blurryalmost I, it's a great
Jay Blakesberg (36:25):
people get too caught up in blur. And you know,
motion blur is very differentthan a photograph that's out of
focus, right? Yes. No motionblurs, you know, and again, it
comes down to messing aroundwith shutter speed, and
aperture, and ISO, and all ofthose things that sort of
combined give you the magic ofusing your camera as a creative
tool, right. So like, I alwayssay, you know, learn the rules,
(36:47):
learn them thoroughly understandthem completely, and then break
them. Right, no risk, no reward,you got to take chances, you're
just gonna end up with the samestuff that everybody else does.
So but you know, going back tothe book, retro Blake's, where
you can sort of sort of also seean evolution, like you said, at
70s 80s 90s 2000s. And there'san essay that I wrote at the
(37:09):
beginning of each chapter thatsort of talks about what I was
working on. And you know, wheremy mindset was, and how I worked
as a creative person, and who Iwas working with. So all of
those things are talked about inthis book. And you can sort of
see the evolution of me, goingfrom a kid with a camera, to a
flash on my camera, doingsnapshots, to actually creating
(37:32):
interesting photographs tolearning how to develop my
craft, and develop my style andmy vibe to you know, making it
work for me on a commerciallevel. And, you know, moving
forward creatively, to createinteresting photographs that
hopefully inspire other peopleand other photographers, and
(37:57):
even just the people that arelooking at them in the book, to
walk away with something, youknow, I get a lot of comments,
you know, the cover of the bookas a picture of a woman taken at
the rainbow gathering in 1984.
And looking at this particularphotograph, and the way that
everybody's dressed, thisprobably could be
1974 684 94 2004 2014. You know,and so, I'm trying to create
(38:27):
images that are timeless, butalso photographs that take you
back to that time. So you'relooking at the book, and if
you're our age, and you look atthese photographs from the
1970s, you're most likely goingto think that was my life. I
hung out with that dude with abandana on his head, like that's
who you know, those were mypeople, we smoked weed, we did
bong hits, we got fucked up onalcohol and weed and, and
(38:48):
stumbled around our parentshouses to hide it from them so
that they didn't, you know, putus in the mental institution
because we smoked pot becauseback then that's what people
thought you're smokingmarijuana, you must go to the
mental institution. And so, Ithink the book, I like to call
my the new book, retroBlacksburg in a visual
(39:09):
autobiography, right? You know,people have asked me, When are
you going to tell your story?
And I did. You know, there'sabout I wrote about 40
I wrote about, there's fouressays I wrote about 10,000
words in the book. There's about10,000 words in this book that I
wrote. So that's like a reallycouple of long long magazine
(39:30):
articles, but I you know, I wastrying to I was trying to share
how I how I felt what I wasdoing what was inspiring me
where I was the trials andtribulations of being a kid
trying to figure out his placein the script and growing up and
seeing the Grateful Dead and youknow, and then getting a chance
to work with the Grateful Deadand seeing Santana and getting
to work with Santana. You know,things like that. So I've been
(39:54):
very blessed. And there's, youknow, there's photographs in
there of Nirvana and Pearl jamin the chili peppers in Jane's
Addiction and the ButtholeSurfers, but there's also
pictures of Neil Young and JoniMitchell and Radiohead and The
Flaming Lips. And speaking ofThe Flaming Lips, you know Wayne
Coyne, the lead singer of TheFlaming Lips, he wrote the
foreword for the book andMichael frog day and from the
(40:17):
band spearhead, dear friend forover 30 years now, both of them
Wayne and Michael I, I firstshot Wayne Coyne in The Flaming
Lips in 1989. And I first shotMichael Franti in his band back
then, the beat MiGs in 1987. SoI've got a 35 year relationship
with Michael in a 30 to 33 yearrelationship with Wayne. And so
(40:41):
Michael wrote the introduction,Wayne wrote the foreword, and I
love what they wrote, you know,and then there's my essay, and
then my daughter who curated itwrote a short essay. And I think
there's a lot of informationboth visually and in the written
word. And it's not somethingthat you get bogged down with,
you know, you can probably readthe whole entire thing in one
sitting of, you know, an hour ortwo. And, and I want people to
(41:05):
see how my career evolved, howmy life evolved, how I got from
point A to point B to point C,and how I ended up here and so I
you know, this is not a bookabout the Grateful Dead. It's
not a book about one particularartists, it's about my
experience, and photographingall of those artists because
they're all in the book, right?
It's not just a Jerry Garciabook, which is my last book and
(41:26):
for those you guys looking tobuy a book, if you want to order
a signed copy directly from me,you can just go to rock out
books.com And and that is,that's where you can find retro
Blake's Burg and some of theother books that I've done. This
is my 16th Coffee Table Book ofMy Music, Pop Culture
photography. Oh, yeah. So I'vedone books on The Flaming Lips.
(41:50):
And I've done books on theGrateful Dead and I've done
books, you know, withcompilation books and some
festival books and the ban on aband called The mother hips. And
I did a book called guitars thatjam, I did a book called jam, I
did a book called hippie chicks.
So there's, you know, I've got abunch of stuff that I've done.
(42:10):
And so this is, and I selfpublish all these books, I don't
have a publisher, I do itmyself. You know, again, sweat,
blood equity, you know,you know, sweat hard, hard work,
hard labor, long hours, and myown money. I'm putting my own
money up into this, you know,like, I I've done a couple of
books with a publisher. And Ifound that self publishing was
(42:31):
the route that I wanted to take.
And so I learned how to makebooks. I learned how to promote
books, I learned how to getbooks into bookstores and on
Amazon, and my daughter run thatcompany. It's called Rocket
books. And that's the websiterocket books.com. You can check
out retro Blacksburg and andactually, the, you'll see if the
(42:53):
if a book is sold out, it's noton there anymore, like jam is
sold out. Right? I did a book onthe 50th anniversary, the
Grateful Dead at the fairly wellconcerts in Santa Clara and
Chicago. And we are down toabout our last 75 copies of that
book. And that's it, it's gone.
Now never be reprinted. I did abook a couple years ago, four or
five years ago called eyes ofthe world. Grateful Dead
(43:15):
photographs. 1965 1995. It has60 different photographers in
it. I published it through mycompany. I had the most photos
in the book, about 25% of themin the book were mine. But we
had people like Jim Marshall andBaron Wallman and Annie
Leibovitz. And that book is 100%sold out, you cannot find it
anywhere, but used, you know, onthe on the US black market. And
(43:36):
so that looks no longer on thewebsite. But you know, the ones
that we still have available,check out at Rock ebooks.com
And, you know, support smallindependent book publishers. I
mean, we're like a smallindependent record label, right.
You know, we make boutiqueproducts, we put out maybe one
or two things, you know, everytwo or three years. We try and
help other people get theirmaterial out. I'm working on a
(43:59):
book project with David Ganz,who's a author, photographer and
deadhead. I'm working on a bookon Grateful Dead tattoos with a
tattoo artists here in SanFrancisco. And so we do this
with with you know, with ourpublishing company, we're gonna
book a street photography of SanFrancisco street photographs
with a photographer here in SanFrancisco 73 years old and was
(44:21):
brilliant in the 70s and 80swhen this camera on the streets
and that will come out in 2023 Ibelieve at the end of the year.
And so you know, we live eat andbreathe photography here in the
studio and love every minute ofit. It's all inspiring, you
know, sometimes a little bitoverwhelming, but it's, it's, I
love it. I'm happy that I get todo it. I feel very fortunate
(44:44):
that this is my life that Icreated. I took that little tiny
spark and turn it into a littleflame and a bigger flame and
and, you know, a fire a forestfire without hurting anybody,
you know, no trees No trees wereharmed in this in this forest
fire.
Thom Pollard (45:05):
Jay, thank you see you at the next gig. If you want
to purchase a copy of Jaysamazing book or have a look at
his other published books andhis photo galleries find him on
Instagram at che Blake's Burg.
He spells that de la KESBERG andretro Blacksburg or at Rock out
books.com For more informationabout me to inquire about
(45:30):
personal coaching or publicspeaking in person or online,
visit eyes open productions.comor join my mailing list Tom dot
dharma.pollard@gmail.com Thankyou wood brothers for the use of
your amazing song happinessJones and to Kevin Calabro,
their publicist for making ithappen and thank you for
(45:51):
visiting the happiness quotientcome back soon and I will see
you all real soon.
The Wood Brothers (45:59):
All of my answers came in say dragon
attained again happy peace andquiet to get happy dragon when
(46:21):
it comes back to happiness joyhappiness Happy Happy, Happy
(46:47):
happy happy Happiness
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