Forty-two years ago, Brad Elterman skipped school, drove to a recording studio in LA, and tried to photograph David Bowie. He got the shot, which led to a spread in Creem Magazine and the start to a whirlwind career that would redefine rock 'n' roll photography. Instead of typical concert shots, Elterman took his camera backstage and elsewhere to snap candids of some of the era's greats, riding in cars, eating french fries, exiting port-a-johns—in general, being like anybody else. Nearly half a century later, Elterman (an occasional VICE contributor ) found a bunch of his old negatives being sold on eBay, and bought them back for a trip down memory lane.

VICE: How did these photographs get on eBay in the first place? Brad Elterman: Back in the 70s, when I was super prolific with my camera, I would mail my color slides and black-and-white prints to magazines all over the world—I did keep and file my black-and-white negatives. A few years ago, I was in Tokyo and went back to Shinko Music, which published the glossy Music Life and Rock Show magazines. They published everything I sent them, and I became their Los Angeles correspondent. When I got there, everyone was gone except for an elderly security guard who told me that everyone left years ago and that he had no idea what happened to their archives. This wasn't an isolated phenomenon. Every single one of the publications I had sent to in the 70s folded, and their archives vanished. Thousands of analog photos were tossed and left for dumpster divers. I'm not just an idiot who lost his negatives.

How much were they being sold for, and how much did you buy them for?

I bought back some of my color slides for $20, and the proof sheet was $70. It meant more to me than anyone else out there bidding, so I wasn't too bothered to have to pay for them. I considered it a finder's fee. Some of the photos were miscaptioned on the listing; the seller had no idea what they had. I bought back all my negatives of Neil Young in concert from '76. These photos were not just another dime-a-dozen performance shot. Stephen Stills came up onstage and performed and encored, and they shook hands. It was iconic. I had to get those negatives back.

Where were you in your life when you were taking these photographs?

I was still a kid. That first photograph of David Bowie really changed my life. Before I took the photo, a little bird in the back of my head said, "You may burn bridges, and it may be frowned upon," but I had the balls to do it. As a teenage kid, you just hold your breath and go for it. After I got that photograph into Creem, my inbox was full. From there, I finished high school, went to junior college, and transferred to Cal State Northridge. I ended up dropping out because the amount of work I was churning out was overwhelming, and I couldn't keep up.

"I wasn't a traditional rock 'n' roll photographer because I didn't give a shit about taking a photograph of someone holding a guitar. I photographed backstage."

What surprises you most about seeing these pictures?

They remind me of how all over the place I was as a kid—I was like a machine. There was so much work put into making these pictures. Taking the photos was the easy part. The night started off with researching where the bands were going to be—the Rainbow, the Roxy, the Starwood, Carlos and Charlie's, the Sugar Shack, etc. At the end of the concert, while everyone was partying it up or passed out at 2 AM, I would head home and develop and print everything before I went to bed. The adrenaline rush of the evening was so intoxicating that I couldn't sleep. My mom was a painter, so I turned part of her basement studio into a darkroom. In the morning, my mom would come down and be like, "Yuck, who is that person?" But she would aways support me and give some sort of critique on my work.