Dante Ross: What led you to take photos of these punk rock bands in the late 70s and early 80s?

Glen E. Friedman: First of all, some of my friends were in bands and I could get physically close to them to shoot them. Before this bands played in arenas and big concert halls. I wasn’t old enough to go to nightclubs yet. All of a sudden these bands that were more exciting and energetic, more vital than anything else that was happening at the time, were playing and I had access to them. I could touch the stage. I felt there was an energy that had to be shared in a quality way.

What were you listening to prior to punk in the late 70s?

As much as you hate to admit it, Ted Nugent Double Live Gonzo! was the major shit for me, I can’t front. It was one of my favorite albums of all time. Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Hendrix. I wasn’t cool enough to know about the MC5 or The Stooges yet. Nugent was the pinnacle for me. I thought he was cool cause he was always anti-drugs; this was years before straight edge was invented. I saw some of my best friends waste whatever they had on getting wasted and I thought that was lame. By the time I was 15 I knew I never wanted to do any of that.

Who was the first punk band you ever shot?

The Stimulators, 1980

That would be The Stimulators. They were a band from downtown Manhattan. They were a 2nd generation New York punk band. Everyone knows about the first wave punk bands like Blondie, Television and The Ramones etc. That was an older scene to me, a junkie scene, kind of scary. The Stimulators were before hardcore. It wasn’t even thought of yet.

The drummer Harley Flanagan was 12 years old at the time. I met him pogo-ing at a Buzzcocks show and later went to see his band. There were 15 people there. They were colorful and fun. They later on played with bands like The Mad and the Bad Brains.

When did you first get turned on to punk rock?

It was in L.A. I was turned on to punk by Steve Olson and this guy Terry Nails. He was a scary-looking dude that wore black leather and make up, but he was actually really nice. He was the first skate punk ever. The first group I ever got into was Devo in 1977. They were on SNL that year.

I saw that. It was epic. I heard Devo before I heard the Pistols.

I did as well, a lot of people did. Very soon thereafter my cousin, who did sound for various punk bands in New York, took me to Bleecker Bobs when it was on MacDougal and 8th Street and I bought import LP versions of The Ramones It’s Alive and the first Buzzcocks record. I loved the Ramones right away. He turned me on to the Pistols and the Ramones at the same time, prior to us going Bleecker Bobs. The Pistols was a little too screamy, too wild for me at first.

When I first heard the Pistols they sounded like Black Sabbath on glue to me

I thought they were just a very good rock band.

So what was the main band in L.A. where you grew up?

For a lot of us it was The Germs, they were kind of a cult band. I only shot pics of Darby Crash in the Darby Crash Band and at The Germs reunion show. I can’t front, I didn’t see them in 1977, I saw them a little later.

I remember seeing X at The Starwood and seeing Michael aka X Head doing what became known as slamming. He was walking around psycho on the dance floor. He was a scary dude, an ex-marine. If you bumped into him you got pulverized. It was called the HB strut at first. It became very fast and aggressive, it became my favorite thing to do.

John Watson and James Contra brought it to New York

No Glen E. Friedman did. I’ll tell you the story if you want to hear it.

OK this I gotta hear…

I was the one who imported it to New York. I was living in L.A. starting college just after finishing my last two high school years back east, seeing X and all these bands out west, and I came back East to visit family for the holidays. I went to see the Bad Brains and Even Worse at the Botany Talk lounge on 6th Ave in 1980, around Christmas. Harley Flanagan (later of the Cro-Mags) was there, so was my high school best friend Rob “Crypt Crasher.” There was like 40 people there max, all pogoing. The Bad Brains were playing so fast you couldn’t just pogo that fast… I had learned out west when the BPMs are that fast, you just start running around the dance floor, crashing into people, backwards, whatever, totally wild, with your arms going in spinning like windmills. I was like a bowling ball, everyone else were the pins; I just started knocking people over. All of a sudden Harley and Rob started slamming too. That’s when it came to New York, anyone says different they are just exhibiting their ignorance of the facts. After the show a few bigger dudes asked me if I had beef with them, all 140 pounds of me. I just let them know “I was just dancing to the music.”

Crazy.

I come back in summer of ‘81 at Irving Plaza, Circle Jerks are playing and everyone’s slamming. There were a lot of D.C. kids at the show too. Everyone was just fighting, they weren’t even slamming really, the D.C. kids and the New York kids. The music stopped and they were all still fighting/slamming. Just six months earlier no one outside of L.A. was slamming. It was kind of a bummer to see what it had developed into.