Rock Photo Credits & the Joey Punk Meme

As long as I've been into rock and roll I've been obsessed with viewing and accumulating photos of my favorite rock stars. With today's technology and the way things are shared and spread it makes it often times difficult to identify and credit the original photographer. As an artist myself, and as someone who has had their work used without permission, I empathize with fellow creators. I have a solid commitment to keeping in links and watermarks in images. I can't imagine purposefully taking them out or purposefully un-crediting the original artist. That's just something I wouldn't do. The golden rule, and all that.

With all honesty I have posted my share of un-credited photos, only because I didn't know or couldn't find who took the photograph. If I know, or once I find out, I will edit and share this information. As the internet gets more saturated it becomes harder and harder to know who did what. I'm just a regular rock artist and I've had some of my own creations ripped off or with links cut out of graphics. I originally posted the graphic on my facebook page Bite-the-dust.com: Rock & Roll Resurrection. The meme went viral, it was shared by the Ramones official page, Joey Ramone's official page, and many others.

In Summer of 2014 I was contacted by Pat Blashill, the original photographer of the black and white Joey Ramone picture I turned into a meme. At first he was understandably upset with me, but once we chatted we were able to clear the air. I sincerely apologized, and made sure my page members knew who took the photo. I never claimed to of taken the photo, by the way, I just used the graphic paired up with my favorite Joey Ramone quote to spread my Ramones love.

The instance certainly made me more careful though, and pushed me to try to use my own photos for memes. Since it would be a picture I took... just a picture, I'm no photographer I'm not using someone else's work and can skip that potential issue all together. Since then I have been working even harder to make sure I list photo credits. I love rock photographers and adore their work, so I would never want to do anything but promote them, I'd never intentionally discredit.

Below is the old version of the meme I made and the new one with photo credit:

I urge you guys to check out Pat's website for more of his work!

Comments

The album art of Tommy by Mike McInnerney

People often ask me what my favorite album is. Without much thought I am able to answer them. The Who's 1969 album "Tommy" is my favorite record of all time. The album artwork also happens to be my favorite. Recently I was thinking about the album and how it affected me in my life. I decided to look up the Tommy album art and was surprised that I was unable to find any of it. I could find the cover, but never all the album art inside. The Tommy CD comes with a booklet with lyrics and a series of different illustrations. But they weren't on the internet. So this blog will be changing that! I just took out my CD booklet and scanned all the artwork. There are two versions of the cover, one featuring small images of their faces inserted into the gaps in the central sphere. The other is just the original work. Executives at The Who's record label insisted on having the band members pictured on the cover, so that's why there are two covers. Pete Tow...

David Bowie inspired Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has revealed that she modelled her quirky image on Brit rock legend David Bowie. The pop superstar said that when she was growing up, she would spend hours trying to recreate Bowie's own distinctive look. "I used to like sit in my apartment for hours and do his make-up on myself over and over again," she said, adding that she still collects anything to do with the rock legend. Gaga said, "What I have in common with David Bowie and with Queen and with Prince and with Madonna is the way that I combine theatrics and the visual in all of my performance. The fashion and the imagery and what I am trying to say as an artist goes much further beyond the music". She continues, "I don't like when bands compare themselves to artists from the past and try to mimic them and their music and it sounds like a copycat. The intention for me is not to sound just like Bowie or Madonna or Prince. It is to pull references from all of these different people ...

[REVISED] Eddie Vedder's voice, the most emulated voice in music history?

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder has one of the most distinct and emulated voices in contemporary rock music. I feel like I spent the entire 90's hearing alternative bands copying Eddie's singing style. Just to show you how many artists have been said to sound like Eddie Vedder throughout time; Creed's Scott Stapp, Fuel's Brett Scallions, The Stone Temple Pilot's Scott Weiland, The Calling's Alex Band, Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, Lifehouse's Jason Wade, and some say Nickelback's Chad Kroeger have a similar sounding voice (don't shoot the messenger). And probably more than I can remember. When I continued to look into this stream of vocals that sounded the same, I came upon a quite obvious realization. Whether they know it or not, they are actually emulating Jim Morrison. It also makes sense that Eddie later played with the remaining Doors members and inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This singing style wasn't just ho...

Fiberglass Jacket