Photos From When Music Was Good

december 31, 2009, 8:00pm

For the past 30 years, Swiss photographer Hannes Schmid has been sitting on what may be the preeminent photo archive of just about every rock musician who mattered from the late 70s to the mid-80s. They are the antithesis of today’s intrusive paparazzi snapshots and $80,000-per-day Annie Leibovitz boondoggles that look like posters for movies we’d never want to see.

Instead, Schmid’s photos reflect the close relationships he had with his subjects, who just happened to be some of the best musicians in the world. And he achieved his unrestricted access to the rich and famous the old-fashioned way: by being a genial fellow who could negate bad vibes with only his camera and his charm. Edition Patrick Frey recently asked Schmid to select his favorites from the 70,000 photos in his archive so they could compile them in a book aptly titled Rockstars, which will be released this month. Then, coy little foxes that we are, Vice caught wind of the project, and we now present to you a sampling of the excellence contained within its pages.

The Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldof, 1979