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Cocaine and alcohol were inseparable in the world of punk rock.

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Cocaine and alcohol were inseparable in the world of punk rock. ÑITO SALAS

Sex, drugs and punk rock at La Térmica

Photos of The Clash, The Slits, Billy Idol and The Ramones revive the wildest, music of the 70s and 80s through the lens of Michael Grecco

FRANCISCO GRIÑAN

Friday, 25 February 2022, 11:06

Lux Interior taking off all their clothes on stage, Wendy O. Williams smashing a drum kit, the Human Sexual Response snorting cocaine backstage or The Fabulous Billy Goons flipping the bird to the audience. You can almost hear a friendly 'f**k you'.

The most rebellious music of the 70s and 80s makes a comeback at La Térmica with the exhibition Days of Punk, which is exhibiting more than a hundred photographs taken by Michael Grecco, a backstage witness of the wild, nocturnal and rebellious movement that found in the cry of sex, drugs and punk rock the path to independence and success, but also of excess and self-destruction.

Black nail varnish, a shirt with bright polka dots paired with leather boots gives Michael Grecco a slight 'punk air'. He tames his outfit with a smart grey jacket, more in tune with the times. But in his memory, the photographer still has engraved each of the images of this exhibition lived in the first person.

"I worked as a photographer at Associated Press, but at night I changed my clothes and integrated myself into a world that fascinated me," explained the author at the presentation of the exhibition which portrays the explosion of punk through to new wave music at la Térmica.

Alcohol and drugs

That ability to move around backstage makes this exhibition a first-hand record of that time and that iconoclastic movement, full of shocking images. Private moments with alcohol and drugs, of friendship and debauchery, which offer an unfiltered and wilder portrayal than the one usually published in the newspapers and music magazines. "Despite being involved in that environment, I was very young and I was shocked myself".

Just a look at the exhibition puts his words in context. There's Lux Interior again after a concert making a hot dog with his own penis and Poison Ivy portrayed on her inner journey after a high, one of the author's own favorite snapshots and one that serves as the cover for the catalogue of the exhibition. "She looks sad," says a journalist to the Bostonian photographer, who replies matter-of-factly, "No, she was just high."

Explained in this way, the image is even more impressive, but Michael Grecco does not hide the fact that this was normal: "We all did it". With the conversation becoming awkward, the photographer approaches the portraits of Billy Idol, which includes a very powerful colour photo among the majority of black and white images in the exhibition, and recounts one of the most complicated moments he experienced with the singer who got angry when he was taking pictures of him with a girl.

"He threw a jug at my head and broke a camera. I asked him, 'What's wrong?' And he answered me. 'I'm tired of you taking pictures of me with your girlfriend!' So I looked at him and said: 'But I don't have a girlfriend. His apology was to give me a bag of cocaine," recalled the reporter.

Ode to the night

Punk was, above all, a "nocturnal" music linked to the clubs and youth. "All that energy and vitality is reflected in these images" said the curator of 'Days of Punk', Mario Martín Pareja, who has described the selection as an "ode to the night". The display of famous faces from the 70s and 80s includes The Clash, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, Lene Lovich, Talking Heads, The Human League, Johnny Rotten, Johnny Ramone, Jello Biafra and the queens of punk and the British band The Slits, founded by Paloma 'Palmolive' Romero, from Malaga.

The exhibition, which runs until 26 June, is being shown for the first time in Spain and includes previously unpublished images. It represents the "return to normality" for La Térmica after the restrictions of the last two years due to the pandemic.

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