F.I.B's teenage years.....

This video is the start of a possible film by Drew Carolan about a time in NYC that is quite undocumentated. The time period AFTER all the known CBGB'S punk bands like The Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, The Talking Heads moved upwards and onwards and CBGB'S became the hangout for hoodlum teenagers like myself (I am really loving that word "hoodlum" these days!) from the 5 boroughs and the tri-state area. Popular local bands at the time were Reagan Youth, The Mob, The Abused and Cause for Alarm to name just a few.

Here is a description from the photographer Drew Carolan.

THE MATINEE PHOTOGRAPHS

The MATINEE Photographs were made between 1983 and 1985 against a white wall on Bleeker Street on the Bowery in New York City. It was there that I intercepted kids on their way to the legendary shit hole and underground music mecca, CBGB to listen to and participate in hardcore punk music on Saturday afternoons.

Hundreds of patrons were momentarily frozen in time by a twin lens rollieflex camera using black and white film. Some of them were photographed periodically over the two-year period of the matinees and others were never seen again.

During this time I was working as a photographic assistant to Richard Avedon and traveling the blue highways of the western United States to complete the book IN THE AMERICAN WEST. At the time, we were traveling all over the back roads of America, from towns like Wild Horse, Colorado, population 12 to Harlowton, Montana and Hermiston, Oregon. I had never really left the city before. As the joke went, the furthest west I had been was 4th street. After weeks on the road I would spend my weekends hanging around CBGB photographing the matinee patrons.

Before GAP ads, the Internet and the subsequent exploitation of the youth market came a fast, furious and rebellious youth who lashed out against the Reagan era and all that was upon them in 1984. These photographs serve as a documentation of a time and place; a subculture within the chaos and confusion that is synonymous with growing up uncertain about the future.

Los Angeles, CA 2006
www.drewcarolan.com