Customer Reviews

Touch Me I'm Sick

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think of Charles Peterson as the best war photographer who never had a war to go to. Instead, he settled for documenting the chaos and insanity of the Seattle music scene as it progressed from a drunken neighborhood loser's club to the worldwide rock phenomenon of the early 90's, and back again. Charles was on the front line with his camera loaded for the whole thing. All of Charles' trademarks are in this book ... flying hair, blurred limbs, and gallons of sweat and beer. There's also a level of insight in this collection of photos that's only possible when the era is viewed from a safe distance. These photos are indifferent to the shifting priorities of Hollywood. Everyone included in this book is there because they're interesting ... and it shows that some dude who just got off a late shift at Kinko's can be just as fascinating as the biggest stars in the world. In fact, in this book, they're often the same person snapped by Charles a year apart.

Unlike the other reviewers of this work, I was not there. I just love the artful quality photos in a book that is a collection item. The detail of the photos and the quality of the printing make this a work to savor. This is a forever book, should be on all shelves of collectors of fine photography.

When I close my eyes and think about the early 90's rock scene, I see Charles Peterson's photographs. I remember going to record stores and buying albums solely on his cover shot - blurred arms, swooshing lights, flailing hair. The cover photographs were so powerful that I could almost feel the greatness of the music inside the sleeve. Nirvana, Mudhoney, L7... fantastic bands captured live in amazing black and white.

In "Touch Me I'm Sick" you get some of the famous photos we all know and also tons that have never been released. These are the ones that had me in awe. Seeing ten year old photos for the first time of bands I love, it's like a treasure trove!

I am so happy that Charles Peterson took these photos and that he continues to share them with us. If I could give this book higher than 5 stars, I certainly would.

This book is so much more than a photographic history of "grunge." It transcends rock photography. The book doesn't document pose -- it documents release. It's a book about youth, about passion, and about rebellion. Remember them?

Probably not. There's more genuine passion on each page of this book than I've seen in the last five years of live shows and clubs. Now that we're in the dog days of another dark presidency, maybe the kids will get pissed off again, and start making a racket. Pill-popping techno is fun and all, but it just doesn't have the intensity that this book documents.

There are photos of some of the luminaries of the period, sure, but to me the unending fascination is with the audiences. Whether it's a large, seething, sweating mass or the huddled few at a loft show, there's kinetic energy jumping off the page. You can feel it. There's a timelessness that adds a sense of possibility, that brings a smile as you turn the pages.

Buy the book, write a song, play a show. Beats the hell out of sitting around and reminiscing.

A divine marriage of vision, design and subject matter. Peterson's wild, free and spontaneous shooting style provides the perfect visual metaphor for the beer-stained and adrenaline-stoked Seattle grunge era. His pictures look like the music sounds - reckless, courageous, and always threatening to spin completely out of control.

An aggresive book design and a minimum of text keeps the emphasis where it belongs - on the music's energy and the exhilarating, ritual co-dependence of performers and fans. You can't slam out power chords on a Leica M6 - but Peterson comes closer than any other "Rock" photographer at pulling it off.

DSR

Charles Peterson's latest offering of photos is nothing short of brilliance. His is the sort of brilliance that comes from living in and loving the world that he is capturing on film. Charles is a master at capturing a moment in time, a moment so fleeting that even if you were standing next to him you might miss it yourself... But Charles captures the moment with such precision that from simply viewing the photos you can feel the power of the music, smell the cigarette smoke in the air, hear the roar of the crowd, and expreience the crush of the most pit 10, 15, even 20 years later. Punk, Rock, Metal... If you are a fan of music this book is not to be missed.

As Charles said at his book release party, "This is your story, too," and it is. It's not just Nirvana and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, it's the audiences and the energy and the feeling. This is the real story of "grunge," or rather what the media slapped a big fat label on and tried to shove it down the world's throat. It is big and beautiful and full of all the energy of what it was like, is like, to be THERE at a show. No photographer's pit for him, no three-songs-and-you're-out. Mark Arm's All-Star clad feet on the dashboard of a van, Ed Vedder looking bored and lonely in the back of a bus somewhere in Europe, Fastbacks fans in Japan, Chris Cornell not looking like that guy who sings with Audioslave, Thurston Moore looking like someone you do NOT want to p*ss off, Pearl Jam walking to their plane looking all the world like the Rolling Stones in 1975. Mosh pits when they still meant something (well, maybe), Carrie Brownstein lookin a little bit like a guitar heroine (which she is). Oh, and let's not forget those terrifically embarassing photos of Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament when they were somewhere between heavy metal and new wave. This is a piece of history. Buy it. Own it. Love it.

"Touch Me I'm Sick" not only has an incredible visual impact - it tells the important story of a monumental movement in the history of rock music through the eyes of Charles Peterson as a participant in the Seattle music scene and as an artist. In the early days before the world caught on to "grunge", he not only found himself at the core of this groundbreaking new change in rock n' roll, but in a position to communicate it visually for everyone outside of his home city.

In the years since the grunge revolution there has not been an unequivocal youth culture movement on this scale and Peterson not only helped to define it, but captured it forever on film. Part of the whole hysterical attraction and one of the aspects that drew an entire generation to Seattle beyond the music is that Peterson's photographs did not just articulate the sound, but expressed the feeling of raw excitement of being at a rock n' roll show in a club. Peterson compelled - and still compels -the viewer to share his experience of the music rather than simply look at a photograph of a musician on stage.

I think it is interesting as a reader/viewer of "Touch Me" that it also tells the story of Peterson's photography over 17 years as a kind of visual notebook during this period in his life. Simply put, there is no pretension or unnecessary commentary here, Charles and his work are the real deal.

As Charles said at his book release party, "This is your book, too," and it is. It's not just Nirvana and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, it's the audiences and the energy and the feeling. This is the real story of "grunge," or rather what the media slapped a big fat label on and tried to shove it down the world's throat. It is big and beautiful and full of all the energy of what it was like, is like, to be THERE at a show. No photographer's pit for him, no three-songs-and-you're-out. Mark Arm's All-Star clad feet on the dashboard of a van, Ed Vedder looking bored and lonely in the back of a bus somewhere in Europe, Fastbacks fans in Japan, Chris Cornell not looking like that guy who sings with Audioslave, Thurston Moore looking like someone you do NOT want to p*ss off, Pearl Jam walking to their plane looking all the world like the Rolling Stones in 1975. Mosh pits when they still meant something (well, maybe), Carrie Brownstein lookin a little bit like a guitar heroine (which she is). Oh, and let's not forget those terrifically embarassing photos of Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament when they were somewhere between heavy metal and new wave. This is a piece of history. Buy it. Own it. Love it.

I was there - in Seattle - in the 80s - in that scene... The book does capture some of the mood and the angst of the times, however, once you glance through the book, your done. No desire to pick it up again. Get 'Grunge" instead; More evocative shots of the key musicians of the time. You will want to keep that one handy just to walk down memory alley once in awhile...