“I’ve always been an “up front” person at shows. I want to be almost literally on top of the band. I have to feel what is happening. It gives me more enjoyment. Even if I am two rows back, I get antsy,” laughs Rob Coons, a Bay Area-based photographer who exhaustively captures the grit, sweat, and intensity of the underground scene. Shooting from the brink of the stage, Coons aims either up at the band or reversed to the center of the pit. What is striking in Coons’ photography is the severity and the proximity of his images—straddling the border of enticing and discomforting—which is often the bandying emotions one endures at a punk and/or hardcore show. They are always enthralling, regardless of subject.
Coons squeezed in a Friday night call between work, personal responsibilities, and a Sunday red-eye flight to Las Vegas to witness four of his photos displayed at the Punk Rock Museum. Gigantic, ten-foot- high representations of Spy, Niis, Trash Talk, and “not a band, (but) a person slam dancing” adorn the newly opened museum.
Coons has been a resident for 30 years in the Bay Area. He was in Berkeley for a few years, but the majority of three decades, he has been in San Francisco. He was born in raised in Indiana in the ’80s. Coons notes sourly, “In the Midwest, things were really difficult being different.” As with most outcasts and weirdos, he found hardcore punk. Like many peers his age, local college radio was the conduit to hope and liberation. Tracing back his magnetic draw to the Bay Area, he says that it was not San Francisco even, just the glory and hypnotism of California. As a kid, his parents brought him to Southern California with his brother. Enamored, Coons then decided to live in California. After graduating college, he got to fulfill that goal, living in Lake Tahoe initially. He moved to Berkeley and quickly jumped into its punk scene. Coons has been an employee of MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL, acting as a reviewer, managing MRR Radio, and more.
For a story of a photographer, photography actually enters the picture late in life. Coons admits, “Seven years ago—I am also really into the outdoors—I had a little extra money. I wanted to get a nice camera and see if I could go out into nature and start photographing animals. (There was) not even an inkling of taking it to a show.”
Reflecting on his process and unrevealed inspiration, Coons explains, “When I was a kid, I remember getting MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL, and I remember getting the early zine, If Life’s A Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pit? That particular zine was put out by MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL, in, I think, like, ’86/’87. It was all photography by (legendary Bay Area photographer) Murray Bowles. The photos were incredible, the energy and excitement. They were all in black and white. And there was so much power. I looked at those photos over and over again.”
One of Coons’ signatures is turning his camera from the stage to take pit photos. They extract the same wonder and attention as his band photos. One aspect which equates them is that he mostly shoots DIY punk bands, so the subject is not some platinum-selling artist. Additionally, his perspective delivers crowd and band at the same eye level. The black-and-white format, also the dress and style of his subjects, convey the ethos and attraction of punk and hardcore: any crowd member can be in a band. This is a community where all are equals.
“The scene here, in the 30 years I have lived here, it is bigger than I have ever seen, with so much vibrant energy. People are making bands, doing zines, booking shows. One of our biggest bookers, Chemical Victim, is doing a zine and booking shows that are super popular, (with) good bands. A number of their shows are outdoors, at illegal venues, at skate parks, things of that nature, drawing 200 people. That person is 16 running their own part of the scene. I really absorb that youthful energy. There are still plenty of older people participating, but the excitement and energy will always be with the youth. I feed off that youthful energy and their huge pits.”
Photo courtesy of Jennifery Hofmann
