Danny Clinch, The Tangiers Blues Band, and Vanity Fair

Another musical highlight from my recent trip to New York was the Tangiers Blues Band at the legendary Iridium Jazz club, musical home of Les Paul. My friend and Govinda photographer Danny Clinch plays harmonica in the Tangiers Blue Band and their recent set of blues tunes at the Iridium was brilliant.

Govinda Gallery is proud to have had Danny Clinch’s first ever exhibition of his photographs in September of 2001. It was a wonderful show and so many collectors appreciated the opportunity to be able to get Danny’s photos. We also featured his book of photographs When the Iron Bird Flies, from the 1996-1999 Tibetan Freedom Concerts. Vanity Fair’s David Friend wrote a wonderful piece on Danny’s exhibition at Govinda. You can read an expert from that piece below.

Danny’s photographs were recently featured in the Sound and Vision: Monumental Rock & Roll Photography touring museum exhibition organized by Govinda Gallery with the Columbus Museum. If you’re in Washington DC go see Danny’s monumental portrait of Tupac Shakur at the Hamilton Live.

Danny Clinch’s photographs are available through Govinda Gallery.

Danny Clinch, rock photographer, is on a roll. For a decade now, magazine spreads and CD covers have carried his gritty, off kilter pictures reinforcing the raw personae of bands such as Public Enemy and Urge Overkill. But Clinch, never one to chill, has been cranking it up to 11 lately.

This summer he went on tour with Sting, Radiohead, and the Dave Matthews Band. This fall he mounts his first ever solo exhibition at Washington, D.C.’s hippest photo venue, the Govinda Gallery. Raised in the streetwise school of Robert Frank and Danny Lyon, Clinch, 37, is known for his high-impact black-and-white studies of musicians. At the Govinda show, his portraits of Junior Wells, Tupac Shakur, and Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus have the resonance of power chords; a fringe of Clinch snapshots, thumbtacked along each wall provides a snaky bass line. Together, the pictures exhilarated like the speedy blur out a tour bus window. Next up: the photographer’s debut as director. Premiering early next year in college-town theatres and on Virgin DVD is Pleasure and Pain, Clinch’s feature-length biographical film on Ben Harper, rock shaman of the Innocent Criminals. Zip down to D.C. – or your local DVD dealer – and catch the buss.

– David Friend

Excerpt from Vanity Fair
November 2001 issue