Photography
By GREG COOK | September 19, 2012
Since 2007, Rhona Bitner has traveled across the country photographing the hallowed halls of rock and roll — from drums and mics set up in the Electric Lady Studios that Jimi Hendrix built in New York to LA's Whisky A Go Go, where the Doors were once the house band.
The New York– and Paris-based photographer's "Images from the Series 'Listen' " features seven of the more than 200 venues she's documented. She photographs the joints empty, deadpan style. The stage at Randy's Rodeo in San Antonio is just one more dull shithole, but here's where the Sex Pistols played their infamous 1978 concert. Sid Vicious called the disagreeable crowd of Texans "faggots" and then bashed those who objected with his bass guitar.
In other words, the photos are okay, but the backstories are platinum. One photo stands out: Detroit's Grande Ballroom (below). You may or may not know that this was where the MC5 and Stooges defined Motor City rock. Once an ornate dancehall, the site has a fallen-in ceiling and a floor in shambles. Detroit is sick of the rest of us focusing on the bad news, but how can you not be astonished by such magnificent ruins?
"IMAGES FROM THE SERIES 'LISTEN' " | HOWARD YEZERSKI GALLERY, 460 HARRISON AVE, BOSTON THROUGH OCTOBER 23
Related:
Shots seen 'round the world, Frank Gohlke's New Topographics, Crazy lids, More 
- Shots seen 'round the world
"Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation," the Worcester Art Museum's riveting survey of iconic news photos from the election of John F. Kennedy to the resignation of Richard Nixon, is one of the most depressing shows I've ever seen.
- Frank Gohlke's New Topographics
"When that show was created, as odd as it seems now, it was extremely controversial," Frank Gohlke says of being featured in the landmark 1975 exhibit of deadpan photography, "New Topographics: Photographs of the Man-Altered Landscape" at New York's George Eastman House.
- Crazy lids
Except for winter knit hats and baseball caps, it can seem like hardly anybody wears hats any more.
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Pin-up photography has served so many purposes — outlet for male desire; outlet for feminist ire; retro kitsch emblem — that it has barely been talked about as photography.
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- Elsa at 75: The Cambridge photographer looks back
Elsa Dorfman, now 75, is the most unassuming of Cambridge literary/art-world legends.
- SLIDESHOW: Mario Testino's ''In Your Face'' exhibit at the MFA
October 21, 2012 – February 3, 2013
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Photos from Elsa Dorfman's 1974 book, featuring portraits of Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, and Elsa herself.
- Lar Lubovitch dance company at the Citi Shubert Theatre
Originally a visual artist, choreographer Lar Lubovitch "paints the music in space" so that the stage acts as a vibrant canvas and his ensemble often coheres in a single robust or mesmerizing gesture.
- Sequence 8: Out of the Box
When acrobat Colin Davis appears at the beginning of Sequence 8 in the role of a suit-and-tie-wearing radio announcer, a kind of Ira-without-Glasses, he is introducing acrobatics with a meta-narrative.
- Girl's life
It's hard being a girl.
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Photography, music history, venues, More
, Photography, music history, venues, arts features, Less
