Rubin Recommends

(Part of The Weekly Check In series)

I’ve been in touch with photographer Pat Graham for many years. I think it all started with the feature I did on him back in the Paper Brigade days. I don’t remember how I found him but he was shooting tons of bands I was into at the time. Now Pat Graham is on tour with Modest Mouse photographing them daily, releasing photozines, and working on other photo projects. He’s an awesome guy and fun to keep up with.

Learn and see more at http://www.patgraham.org.
Check out the Modest Mouse photoblog here.

Rubin: What are you currently working on or just finished that you’re excited about?

Graham: I Just finished working on the second of my Modest Mouse photozine series I teamed up with RAEN optics/Libre Design to create an old school punk photozine with modern standards. They are like mini books. The zines represent what I like best music and photography. I used to love the old tour books you could buy way back in the day. My first was Iron Maiden in 1982.  All the zines have captions/stories about the places and photos. I really dig Wim Wenders book Once, the zines I would hope have that feel. Me and Isaac first bonded over a photo project back in 1992, I’m really happy to be working with him again on photo stuff. He has a great eye himself and really knows how to edit my work.

I’m now working on number three. this one is tapping my archive of Polaroids going back to 1997. This was the first Modest Mouse tour and my first as well. Since then I have been documenting the band. This has been a incredible journey that started out with 4 guys in a van…now its 18 guys and two buses. I tend to take a polaroid everyday when I’m on tour doing this I now have hundreds. It has been really exciting to go back and pull the best of this collection.

I’m also deep into my second book which is going to be called Instrument. Being a music photographer I have always been into the instruments that people have. I always tried to make a point in my live photos to get as much instrument in the shot as possible. I started shooting abstracts of instruments back in 96 as a side project. Around 1999 I did a feature on Ian Mackaye for guitar world and spent a lot of time shooting his cream SG. The shot ended up in my first book Silent Pictures, and seemed to get a lot of attention. Johnny Marr was really into it and i ended up shooting his Jaguar on stage of the Grand Ole Opry. This kicked off me getting more focused on the project. Currently I have around 30 done: they include: Ian Curtis (Joy Division), Flaming Lips, REM,The Shins etc, etc I will be shootin a ton this summer while on the road with Modest Mouse. (see info in next question)

Rubin: Where have you traveled so far this month?

Graham: This month we went to South Wales to visit Melanies 96 year old granny. We went to the beach it was amazing lots of rocks and 3 cliffs. Before that I was out on the road photographing Modest Mouse. I’m the band photographer and have created a photoblog for Modest Mouse that I update everyday. The tour was all over the USA. I will be going out again on the next tour that kicks off in Halifax Canada mid August.  I’m excited about this tour because we will be going to a lot of cities we have never been to before.

Rubin: What’s your favorite music right now?

Graham: I really like Jim Fairchild’s All Smiles record. I can’t stop listening to that at the moment. It’s like a the best mix of Elliot Smith, Beach Boys and the Shins. Very catchy, and it puts my 9 month old son into a mellow sleep mood.

Rubin: Best food you’ve had in your neighborhood lately or while you were traveling?

Graham: Nothing comes to mind accept this red mole sauce from Mexico I recently found at our local health food store. We live in London and Mexican food is hard to find so you have to make your own. Which can be challenging as well to find ingredients. Anyhow i have been making these veggie enchiladas with the sauce its great. Also Melanie has been making a lot of amazing food from the Ottolenghi cook book. Its from a restaurant thats near our place. It was opened by two chefs one Palestinian and a Jew who met in London.

Rubin: Anything else you want to mention?

Graham: For the next Modest Mouse tour I’m collaborating with Rich Jacobs on a Limited edition Modest Mouse poster. Rich is going to do some drawing and painting over my photos. I love Rich’s work and look forward to much more than this.