» Book Review: Trouble In The Camera Club – A Photographic Narrative of Toronto’s Punk History “1976-1980″, By Don Pyle ABORT Magazine™

Book Review: Trouble In The Camera Club – A Photographic Narrative of Toronto’s Punk History “1976-1980″, By Don Pyle

May 5th, 2011 Filed under: Reviews - Books by Editor in Chief

Book Review: Trouble In The Camera Club – A Photographic Narrative of Toronto’s Punk History “1976-1980″,
By Don Pyle
ECW Press

The music, style and attitude of Punk may not have come out of a vacuum, but its appearance on the Toronto scene was like a brick in a box of Timbits…

“Canada was in its earliest days of cultural transformation from colonial outpost to whatever you might describe it as today…” – this casual observation perfectly encapsulates the essence of this entire book in one succinct phrase. To anyone born in urban Canada after 1980, it might seem that this country was always a vibrant, tolerant, multicultural and urbane society, and not the backwater of mostly white, working class church-goers who made up the majority of the population even in cities. Another poignant image is the photo of the iconic CN tower, just barely completed and surrounded by the original desolate rail yards and warehouses that it displaced. As Pyle wryly comments, “There is no convention center, no domed stadium, only this new structure that couldn’t help but be closely attached to the psyche of the citizens it loomed over.”. A mad combination of phallic symbol and syringe that still defines the city, it seemed to have dropped from outer space, but the mid 1970′s in Toronto were a time of total change, to both the physical and psychic landscape.

This was a time when a mother would weep for a son coming home in a leather jacket, nevermind the subsequent tornado of hairstyles and body modification that are now commonplace. A time when “punk” still meant what it means in prison, and when those who identified with the image and lifestyle numbered in the thousands and not millions. Really, this book is Don Pyle’s coming of age story in words and pictures, as we see an awkward and recognizably universal “good Canadian kid” (as Don Cherry would say…) experience for the first time the thrill of real, live, subversive music. For those of us born in the wake of Punk’s all-encompassing influence, Pyle’s photos are a window into our own innocence, when Canadian society as a whole was first confronted with unfettered anger and youthful vitality set to music, untempered by the Hippies who the Middle Class felt they had finally gotten rid of. This was a movement that was deliberately threatening, not in a focused and intentional way but chaotic and persistent, defining itself as anti rather than pro.

Not to dwell too long on the whole social analysis aspect either, but these photos are anthropological documents as well, like Edward Curtis’ pictures of Native Americans in the 1800′s. They preserve not only the costumes and settings of the time, but the natural expressions of the subjects involved without pretense, and it is in the faces, and especially the eyes that Punk shines forth. This is not a fashion statement, and it’s not even merely Punk Rock, it is a burst of fury from the hearts, minds and bodies of a generation caught between the smugness of the 60′s and the fakeness of the 80′s. A generation that chose to define itself, at all costs, as the antithesis of all that came before and all that was to come.

From world icons like The Ramones, The Runaways, The Dead Boys and The Viletones, to Canadian heroes like Teenage Head and the Diodes, to touchingly casual portraits of various friends, musicians, and hangers on, “Trouble In The Camera Club” carefully treads the fine line of personal revelation and universal experience. These are faces anyone would recognize caught in the eye of a typical youth. Pyle’s narrative style is eminently readable, warm and nostalgic but without sentimentality, dryly dropping dimes about backstage shenanigans without gloating.

Honestly, I’m surprised that this isn’t a hardcover, as it’s a great coffee-table book for repeated viewing, the kind that draws a reader into another world, but at $29.95 US or Canada (incl. Limited Edition 7″ Vinyl), Pyle’s clearly chosen to stick to his roots. Anytime you need a dose of the pre-irony, in it for the minute, bright and briefly burning world of early Punk, step inside…just mind the broken glass.

By Dave “Corvid” McCallum

troubleinthecameraclub.com
ecwpress.com
donpyle.com

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