David Belcher talks to snapper extraordinaire Linder Sterling
IF you're searching for symbols of a creative genesis, then they don't
come much more symbolic than in an instance of violent theft juxtaposed
with the very act of nativity itself. Bloodshed, loss, shock and pain
leading to the birth of two lives; one real, one artistic. OK, OK . . .
this is, I admit, a somewhat melodramatic and fanciful interpretation,
but at least it's one way of making sense of the imperatives that have
framed the photographic career of Linder Sterling.
Linder's vocation as a lensperson has newly borne fruit with the
publication of a volume of photographs featuring one of her oldest,
closest friends . . . Britain's most archly-glorious pop miserabilist,
Morrissey*.
Ignoring the cringeworthy foreword by primping young fogey Michael
Bracewell (hailed as a nascent novelist in London lit-crit circles,
apparently), the book walks its metaphysical tightrope with great
aplomb: its subject is demystified yet simultaneously made more distant
and awe-inspiring. It's a book both honest and revelatory; perceptive
without being cruel; adoring but never blindly so. Gaze upon it and ye
shall feel what a burden and a joy it is to be Morrissey.
It was Linder's son, Max, now aged three, who rekindled her interest
in photography. Thus as Linder and I sit talking in our agreed
meeting-place, the foyer of Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre, there's
a symmetry in the fact that Max sits next to us solemnly regarding his
crisps and orange juice, occasionally testing the foyer's possibilities
as an echo-chamber.
''I was nine months pregnant when I thought 'I must have pictures of
my child,' '' says Linder. Having bought the best camera she could
afford, a Canon EOS-600, all was set for the hospital delivery-suite.
You surely didn't manage to take photographs yourself, though?
''No, I had other things to think about. I handed it over to someone
else and we've got these fantastic pictures of Max as he emerged, bit by
bit. I don't look so brilliant, but he does.''
What Linder had already done on her own -- fired by the D-I-Y spirit
of punk -- was re-invent herself. She'd left her home town, Liverpool,
in the mid-seventies for Manchester Poly and a course in graphic design.
By 23, she'd evolved from Linda-plus-an-Irish-surname into Pamela
Sterling (''I went body-building a lot, and the name came over the
tannoy at the gym . . . it sounded strong and anonymous''). Then she
became Pamela (''but not for long''), thence to Linder (''one word,
German and mysterious''), and Linder Sterling. A new name; a new life.
She created the covers for such icons of Mancunian punkitude as Spiral
Scratch, by the Buzzcocks, and Magazine's Real Life, having met their
creators, Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, at the Sex Pistols'
apocalyptic gig in Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in summer of
1976.
There was photography, too, ''wandering around Manchester's Electric
Garden, capturing punk live, the Pistols, the Heartbreakers, the
Buzzcocks''. Later that same year, however, as she headed home after a
Damned gig, she was mugged and her camera was stolen. ''I decided 'no
more photographs'. After this promising beginning, I stopped. In
spiteful resentment at the universe, I think.''
A little way prior to her forced forswearing of photography, Linder
had met one Stephen Patrick Morrissey, proto-journalist. ''It would be
at the end of 1976. I was wearing fully-fledged bondage stuff by then,
short hair. Somehow Morrissey had got into a soundcheck, and he
introduced himself as a writer for a New York paper . . . for New York
Rocker, I think. It was an instant connection, in a way that was
brotherly, but more than that. It's hard to define, but there was a
immediate chemistry between us. He looked great, in a large white shirt
and old jeans, and he was very funny.''
In time, the ''Stephen'' and the ''Patrick'' fell away, leaving the
starkly self-defined Morrissey. Writing about music became secondary to
creating it with guitarist Johnny Marr in the Smiths, Brit-pop's finest
blossoming. At this stage, according to the South Bank Show's Smiths'
edition, the Linder-Morrissey friendship was based on bouts of wispy
introspection in Manchester's vast Southern Cemetery.
''Journalists always mention that. We didn't live in a graveyard. It's
more that Manchester doesn't have that many places to wander around in,
so set off for a walk and you'll inevitably end up in a graveyard.''
As the Smiths trilled and soared, Linder also fronted a band, Ludus.
For the band's
label, Factory, she created an intriguing and little-seen work that
received the catalogue number Fac 8 and a bare description: menstrual
art. ''It was actually an eggtimer thing, an abacus for marking off the
days, to make people aware of fertilisation.''
So to the book's conception last year. The Smiths having disintegrated
in 1986, Morrissey set out on a vinyl solo career. ''One night a huge
penny dropped about my photography: Morrissey! I phoned him and he said
'shoot me'. He didn't have a band at the time, but within weeks he'd
found his musicians, rehearsed them, and begun touring. Synchronicity. I
was in at the deep end, fans leaping on top of me in the narrow pit
before the stage, shooting as much film as I could.
''I had 24-hour access, but I had to temper it as I was a friend.
Someone else would have been freer, but the book does capture his
essence. We argued, but there was no big conflict. It has tested our
friendship, but there is truth in the book.''
In the immediate future, Linder awaits the results of her New York
shoot last month with Morrissey and David Bowie, following Bowie's
recent on-stage presence at Stateside Morrissey shows. ''We were invited
into the studio to listen to Bowie's new LP. He's done a track off
Morrissey's Your Arsenal album, I Know It's Going To Happen Some Day.''
The original plan was to shoot the holy trinity of British
pop-theatricality -- Morrissey, Bowie, and Bryan Ferry, ''but it was
Thanksgiving and while America closed down for the week, we lost
telephonic track of Bryan Ferry.
''I got Bowie and Morrissey backstage at Morrissey's show in New York.
With Bowie, you get seconds for your shots. I've not developed the film
yet. We'll have to see.''
Beyond that ''there's a huge question mark'', says Linder. ''I
honestly don't know, but I do know that the Morrissey exorcism isn't yet
complete.''
Exorcism?
''There's generally no cause for us to examine our relationship,
especially when it's so pleasurable. When we're together, we rarely talk
about music, or the Smiths. It's usually more personal, about emotions.
But being with him on tour, I saw him as the Singer, the Messiah, the
Star. It was important for me, and for our friendship, that I recognise
and acknowledge that side of him.
''It's made the bond between us deeper, my appreciating the odd, deep
split in his life. I've seen 20,000 people begging him for as much as he
can possibly give them, and I've seen him giving 20,000 people as much
as he possibly can . . . and yet he's off the stage and into a car and
away before the applause has stopped, and then suddenly he's completely
alone in a hotel room.
''The scale of it shocked me into a realisation of the irony of
Morrissey's isolation. He's said it himself, and I saw it was true . . .
he is totally alone. Professionally, he's ecstatic, selling out Madison
Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl, and singing with Bowie.
''But then your personal life becomes a mockery . . . the barrenness,
the sterility.''
Are you worried for him?
''I'm not worried, I'm concerned. There's a sadness for him.''
By now Max's commendable patience has worn thin; Linder must depart,
leaving me to reflect that in Linder our Morrissey has a splendid,
sensible, accomplished, funny, generous friend. One of Morrissey's
customarily camp and detached song titles floats free in my mind. We
Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful. This is not his song for
Linder. All of us, and Morrissey, love them all the more when our
friends stay good and true.
* Morrissey Shot, by Linder Sterling, is published by Secker and
Warburg (#12.99); Morrissey appears at Glasgow's Barrowland next
Wednesday.
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