Jason Pettigrew

I only found out 10 days ago that rock photographer Brian Garrity had passed away. A bestie from an Ohio-centric text thread sent me a link to a story that ran in The Minneapolis Star Tribune announcing a Celebration Of Life event at The Hook & Ladder this past Sunday, Feb. 1. The story revealed that Brian was grappling with alcohol and that he was homeless and had been found under a bridge in November.

Mark Notermann was the art director/designer of Garrity's first collection of music photography, Pushed Beyond All Reasonable Limits for DiWulf Publishing. In the early Spring of 2023, he approached me to see if I was interested in contributing a back cover blurb for the book. I agreed immediately: I think I wrote back something absurdly snarky about how I demand $100 for each consonant and $150 for each vowel, but I'd do it for a copy of the book. Notermann sensed he was dealing with a goofball wiseguy, so he sent me a PDF of the book and told me to get back to him.

What you need to know about Brian Garrity is that he was a lifer who loved art, period. Words on paper, images projected on screens, vinyl records, the treasures of viewfinders of those before him... He loved the muse in all her myriad forms. It was only natural that he would gravitate toward the Minneapolis underground photographing local heroes and forever unknowns. His amazing skill in capturing both personalities and happy accidents (along with deep extensive knowledge of the next-school rockers AltPress would be covering sooner than later) impressed the hell out of former AP photo director Norman Wonderly. Brian was on his short list of cyclops warriors. 

Garrity didn't remain a secret for too long: Rolling Stone, SPIN, Raygun and other mags courted and hired him. And then he started getting corporate gigs with places like Target. But when the turn of the century came and digital photography was becoming de rigueur, Garrity walked. He had invested in himself and his methods and idiosyncratic tricks. He wasn't going to throw that away and start from scratch all over again. He sold his gear and did everything from writing books to building furniture to organizing his negatives and getting his archives in order. The offer to compile a book of his work for DiWolf Publishing threw him back into it. 

And what did your favorite rock journo say on the back cover of Brian's book? "Don't kid yourself: Pushed Beyond Reasonable Limits isn't about fuzzy warm nostalgia. It's a reminder that Brian Garrity was there getting the best shots, the happiest accidents and putting the sweat equity into live photography with the implicit understanding that sometimes it could be a full-contact endeavor. His mythology is about capturing energy, magic and presence in an era before corporatism and cell-phone technology dumbe...uh.. democratized photography into something positively meh-jestic. This book is not a stroll down Memory Lane—it's a fuk'n mic-drop."

If you want to learn more about Brian Garrity's contributions to rock history, photography techniques or some insane war stories from the trenches of culture wars, you should acquire Pushed at once. Don't trust any big media outlet who doesn't license his work in any of their myriad Stupor-Stars Of The '90s Alternative Nation, Yeah! specials. I truly pity the great bands of the future who won't get emulsified in Garrity's unique visual sorcery.

[webmistress note: photo credit to Craig Perman for the above photo of Brian Garrity]

Wishing all of you a climate-controlled life! As of January 20th, I was dealing with frozen pipes and computer malfeasance and getting grumpier by the nanosecond.

Fortunately, Frank Zummo was out into the world chatting up people about our book, Unbreakable Rhythm. In the clip below, Frank chats up Spout's Nick Major about making the book, supporting School Of Rock, joining Electric Callboy and so much more. I appreciate Nick's enthusiasm for the book; I haven't seen him since our days at the culture factory and it's great seeing him behind a microphone again. If your life is so incredibly jam-packed between work, school, family, cooking, and saving Gotham City, Frank shouts out our process at 1:52 and 26:15. Thanks, Nick.

In addition to Spout, Frank also warmed the furniture on the set of Joe Vulpis' podcast as well as discussing his fitness and wellness regimen with noted alternative medicine and nutrition advocate Darin Olien on Superlife. And you can order Unbreakable Rhythm directly from Frank right here, be it analog pages, digital download or audio book action. 

That's all for now. More things should reveal themselves at the beginning of February. I'll be sequestered in my house enjoying all the hot water I can before big blizzards and ice storms wall me in. Please send special Italian hoagies from Jim's in Philly or an antipasto (hold the olives) from Rizzo's in Crabtree. Or better yet, let me use you as a heat shield...