Tony Davis
When Rave kicked off in the late 80’s Tony got it. His own youth had him moving through the Northern Soul scene and small town clubs, so nightlife was where he always felt at home. But for Tony and his images it’s always more than the main event, it’s what was going on around it that really allows us to get a sense of the scene. A lot happens on the coach to a rave or the parade to the stadium, it’s where community is built. “It’s strange really how you get a sense of the club or the rave through a group of people in a service station. In a way it was a lucky periphery of the time.”
Picking up a camera as an adult learner at college, Tony discussed with us his journey through Northern Soul, Raving and Football Terraces. A journey with his back to the driver and camera on the passengers. The music was amazing but it was the shared experience that kept everyone coming back.
Interview and text by Esta Maffrett | 11.11.21
Firstly…. When did you first pick up a camera and get into photography?
It was in two phases really. I picked up a camera when I was a young kid, a little plastic Kodak Instamatic thing and I took maybe two to lots of film. And then nothing really until like the late 80s. As a kid I took some pictures around the estate and tried some experimental stuff so I had a taste for photography. My dad had cameras and stuff like that, but then it wasn't until I got disillusioned with the world at work, that I went to college in 1989. I studied photography and a little bit of video, and it was then that I actually took photography seriously. Originally I left school and went into engineering, but didn't know what I wanted to do. I was good at art but rubbish at everything else and didn't get the exams and stuff to do anything else. I went into factory work for quite a long time on and off. Then in the early 80s did loads of shit and just went travelling and all sorts but ended up doing factory work again. I wanted to be a filmmaker. I wanted to be a cinema photographer in the 80s. But the access to college had a lot of fees involved. So I ended up doing moving images that don't move. Photography probably wasn't something I yearned after, it was something that just came about from wanting to do something creative. And the thing is, being a dyslexic, I used to look at images more than read so I was kind of aware of a lot of photographers. I would go to the library in the early 80s and instead of getting like lots of famous authors and stuff like that I'd just get photography books out and lay them all on the table just to look at lots of imagery.
When we were in bands, sort of post punk days, I was in charge of visuals. I would do lots of copy stand stuff, images for backdrops for bands and stuff like that. So there's a bit of visual imagery interest, but not necessarily directed to becoming a photographer until probably late 89.
I missed opportunities to photograph lots of youth culture stuff, punk bands Northern soul, I went to Wigan Casino, went to lots of bands like Joy Division, The Clash and didn't take a single picture because I wasn't a photographer. But the thing is, I enjoyed them. I enjoyed being there, enjoyed the experience. I think if I was recording it would have become more work like. I enjoyed it in a different way.
What was your journey from Northern Soul into raving?
There is a relationship between them. It's young kids traveling around the country, listening to music, passionately dancing to it, obviously taking lots of drugs. In a way, it was a parallel to my youth 10 years previous. When the rave thing kicked off in the late 80s, I'd been to Ibiza and I'd seen it and I went to all the clubs in Nottingham through the 80s, which were house music clubs. So I was almost part of what was happening, but not necessarily of the sort of all night rave scene. I was part of the club culture more than the rave scene. And so when I went to college I was just thinking of things to photograph that were things that I was interested in and excited by. People would ask about bands and stuff like that, but one of the initial things with bands is getting access to them. Also I wasn't excited about any of the bands that were around at the time. I was more aware that DJs were becoming the superstars. And the crowds at raves were the stars as well, they were the participants that were just as big as what was happening there.
There were a couple of raves in the college and a rave in Nottingham. I went to it and grabbed the camera with a couple of rolls of film. The guys that ran that were the DiY crew, and they said ‘We're doing another one in the Marcus Garvey do you want to come to that?’ I said yeah. There was a listings magazine in Nottingham called After Dark, very small, like almost a photocopy thing. Somebody said to me speak to the guy that runs that and then he starts giving me pay for my film. It all came from stuff like that, it kind of snowballed. We mocked up a little press pass so I started going around the clubs saying I'm doing it for After Dark. But pretty soon after that I was submitting to ID, Mix Mag, The Face, current music magazines. I think my relationship with nightlife as a youth and also the relationship with house music in the mid to late 80’s led me. So for a period of about two or three years, I photographed a few raves and various different things. And then I got bored and wanted to club more than photograph, I kept going on the guestlist and stopped taking the cameras. The nature of clubbing changed as well around about 92 to 93. I did Ibiza in 94. But again that was a holiday and I was using the cameras just to get into clubs. Although there's some quite celebrated pictures now of Cafe Del Mar and stuff like that I took, I wasn't out there photographing seriously, I was just taking a few pictures in each club just to get me and my girlfriend in the clubs. It was a bit of a cheeky one, but actually I'm glad I did.
A lot of magazines that used the pictures wanted me to submit the originals and then it was really hard to get the originals back or they’d post back an envelope of just bits all cut out and the ones they used in the magazine missing off the sheet. So it wasn't something where I thought I was documenting this scene and I needed to restore and keep this archive and protect it. It was just something I was getting paid a little bit of money for and getting into clubs. I never thought I'm going to be this guy that documents the Midlands, the rave scene and stuff like that. I'm a nightlife person and I'd already been to lots of different music scenes so it was quite an easy thing to drop into. Visually It was interesting, once i’d shot a few pictures it was apparent that this was something quite special.
So you were more interested in the other people entering into long nights of escapism than needing an escape yourself?
I think so in the early days, I was just exploring things to photograph and kept photographing and photographing and photographing. Because I went to college as a mature student, I was pretty driven. They would give us loads of boring studio objects and portraits and pack shots and exercises to do because it was a generic photography course. It wasn't about photojournalism, or reportage, it was just using lots of different photographic equipment, doing lots of units in different areas. All I kept saying is ‘Can I use the darkroom? Can I use the room?’ It almost became more a facility to me than an actual course. I didn't learn that much, a few basics of camera craft and printing stuff and then I was just out doing my own stuff. Even when we were supposed to be doing studio stuff I'd be out doing clubs, raves, football, terraces, whatever, different stuff. I’d already found the way I wanted to be. I'd sit down with the teacher and say this is what I'm doing and they just told me what to fulfill to get the units for the course which I would do but it slowed me down. Portraits of a pair of gloves with roses coming out, it's just not for me all that. Grolsch bottles and jazz album covers specially lit with filters. So I think the rave thing kind of was a little bit of escapism. It got me into places, I was always more of a club person than a festival or rave with 20,000 people in a field. So yeah, I think there was a bit of indulgence and a bit of escapism, but I'd lived a lifetime of clubbing already before then you know, so it wasn't my teens, my youth. You know, it was somebody else's I was kind of looking into.
"You were living a very alternative lifestyle, very different to what anybody else was. That was your identity, you weren't one of them, you were doing something far more committed and far more fulfilling. When you came across somebody from Leeds or Sheffield or Newcastle or Cornwall or whatever, you had this thing in common. That's where the community was. You were travelling around to join up with this group of people to experience this amazing high and this amazing music."
Rave saw people from all different subcultures coming together in a new way. Football sees people moving tribally. Did you feel at the time that community was an important part of your work?
I could see there was a lot of love between people whereas football terraces there was a lot of hatred so it was a real juxtaposition of that. With football there’s a lot of suffering, a lot of anxiety stress and masculine tension. Whereas rave was just like a pure relief. It was just pure joy. Yeah it was induced to some extent or to a lot but everybody kind of got on and was loving.It was very similar to the Northern Soul scene, the biggest parallel is that people would travel around the country for the love of that music and for the experience of joining that community to enjoy it outside of the normal. With Northern Soul at Wigan Casino, it didn't start till 2 in the morning. By the time you got there all the pissheads, all the drunk, all the cheesy people had gone home as you'd be going into clubs. You were living a very alternative lifestyle, very different to what anybody else was. That was your identity, you weren't one of them, you were doing something far more committed and far more fulfilling. When you came across somebody from Leeds or Sheffield or Newcastle or Cornwall or whatever, you had this thing in common. That's where the community was. You were traveling around to join up with this group of people to experience this amazing high and this amazing music.
The council estate I grew up on there was two of us going to all nighters but by the end there was about twenty or thirty. We would know people from the other estate or a place in Darby or a place in Sheffield, rather than having hundreds of friends from our estate we had two from each town or area and that was the community. We were the people that got up late at night to travel across the country and then come back, absolutely done in but having hit a real peak. An experience that most people just wouldn't understand, and you wouldn't want them to understand because it was yours. A band's following is a community again isn't it? You get it, it's about you getting it. Joy Division comes on stage, you get it, they get it, you're all part of it. It's great when you get something. I think that's what the ravers felt.
Your photos explore the scene beyond the main event. It’s also the car journey to the party, fans on their way to the game and the service station afters. Why do you capture the ceremony surrounding the event just as much as the event itself?
The kids at the service station was requested by ID magazine. Some guy said there were kids hanging out at the service station we’ve got to go up and write a piece, do you want to take some photographs? I went to Shelley’s the club and hardly took any pictures because I saved my film rolls for the service station. Nobody wanted the club pictures, I got maybe half a roll that I cross processed as well so they look shit. I was saving myself for the service station, because it's three or four in the morning. I needed my energy for that to focus and get paid, probably only 40 quid or something but it was a little bit of money and to get published.
With football I probably saw it more. Going to the match, being outside the ground, traveling on buses and coaches, fans walking streets hours before matches and stuff like that. It’s almost more interesting than inside the stadium where it’s all trapped in. It’s just an extension of the documentary really. I did a whole project on the guardian angels on the London Underground. I guess that had an influence, people traveling and people moving around and people not staying in one place. It's always been interesting for me because you're traveling with them. Often you've got your back to the traveling and you focus on the people that are traveling, you can look out the window and think I don't even know what station this is. It's an interesting thing traveling around with all kinds of modes of transportation because It links to that thing that it's almost like a religious experience. Rather than traveling to experience something it’s traveling around to focus on something. There’s excitement and anticipation when they're traveling there and it’s the build up to it. Often that journey is just as exciting as the event you know, because you’re feeling all the excitement build. So I also try to photograph people coming out of events where they've lost or things have gone wrong or stuff like that. There’s one picture on the house train where the guys obviously come down off a high, looking completely hollow and empty. While the guy on the platform who got up in the morning looks like he’s got the joys of spring on him. So it's like the people experiencing what they're experiencing whilst traveling, I think and also the anticipation of what they're going to go and see. So it was partly accidental, partly intentional in that it was commissioned. Partly that as I was traveling somewhere, I would get the cameras out way, way before the events and I’d be looking for interesting pictures. I've done some FA Cup finals where I've just been outside, people have got mini TVs and people are wandering around picking up drinks and stuff. There would be quite a few characters outside the Cup final, which would almost be more interesting than what was inside. A lot of reportage documentary photographers want to photograph behind the scenes. But what's just as interesting is not behind the scenes but outside the scene. I did the World Cup in 1990 and 1994 and most of the pictures were outside. Argintinian fans with cardboard cutouts of Maradona and all sorts of stuff. I found that all sorts of parties were going on in the parade before and were equally as interesting as anything that was going off inside. It’s the same with the rave thing really, looking for what’s in the shadows. Most of my pictures that were in that service station are quoted as Shelley’s but there’s no sight of it. I think that people that were there and people that weren’t there get the whole sense of what raving was about through that. It’s the community thing, the driving around in a car in the middle of the night. It’s strange really how you get a sense of the club or the rave through a group of people in a service station. In a way it was a lucky periphery of the time. Every time I post the car picture people always comment on it saying ‘that sums up raving in one picture’. It doesn't really, it’s just some people in a car, but it does in another way. There's no DJ’s there, no lasers, there's no field, there's no club, none of that. It’s just three guys in a car, the driver completely off his head.
You’ve travelled around the world and met many groups with your photos. What have you learnt from watching people come together for different reasons?
I've seen Brazilian football matches and ravers in England. In general I think it’s just all humanity. People drop their guard and become part of something and share experiences. It's a big part of humanity, whether it's experiencing sport, music or whatever. I think it’s a communal experience that brings out what being human is about. Getting in touch with yourself and getting in touch with other people so you're sharing what being a human is about. Seeing people when their focus is on other people and not on themselves, the focus is on what you’re travelling to do. I think I’ve seen that all around the world and expressed differently.
Especially people who come from countries where there's not a lot of money or not a lot of wealth, they use everything to get to that thing that they're going to do. I’ve found it in Global Football, whereas obviously club football is very tribal but Global Football isn't. You can walk around with people from different countries, there’s a lot of piss taking and banter and stuff like that but there's not a raging war. People talk about strange things, rather than just talking about football. You meet other people from other cultures and backgrounds, you’re learning and growing as a human being. Rather than narrowing and becoming insular and very nationalistic, very self contained.
If you could put one object into the Museum of Youth Culture what would it be and why?
From my youth there's probably two things. One is a Wigan Casino badge or patch. The first time I went to Casino and I went to the counter and bought a patch, bought two actually. So it'd be those two patches I bought on that night, and the other would be the Joy Division ticket. When I first saw Joy Division play they were supporting the Buzzcocks so the ticket actually says Buzzcocks plus guests, Joy Division is not on the ticket but that’s a story in itself, isn’t it? They only had one album, had just transformed from Warsaw to Joy Division, and went on a big tour as a support for the Buzzcocks. I stood right underneath the mic stand knowing what this guy's about and I was just completely memorized, hypnotized.
