On a Gothenburg street, a tourist stopped two men and asked for help taking a picture of her. The men complied, and her photo was captured, smiling for friends, against a wall with some street art. Little did she know that the one who took the snap with her little camera had also shot Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode, John Foxx, Mark Stewart, and Margaret Thatcher.
Brian Griffin was one of the world’s best known photographers – and for good reason. His images were strong, distinctive, and purposeful. Whether shooting a construction site or pop stars, his eyes found the angles that invited questions or deeper responses. A theme of his work was the common worker, and he received high-profile commissions to document those who built Broadgate and the St Pancras Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
Brian’s interest in imagery involving workers led to two iconic album covers for Depeche Mode: one featuring a peasant with a sickle; the other showing a worker with a hammer. The former was so striking that it was selected by Life magazine for the cover of The World’s Best Photographs, 1980-1990.
In all, Brian shot five album covers for Depeche Mode, beginning with their debut, Speak & Spell, and ending with Black Celebration. He constructed a visual identity for the band as they were achieving worldwide fame. Later, when he moved into video, Daniel Miller commissioned him to create the promotional film for “Only When I Lose Myself.” His memories of this side of his activity were captured in the recent book, MODE.
Echo & The Bumnymen were another popular act who leaned heavily on Brian. His images featured on the covers of Crocodiles, Heaven Up Here, and Porcupine. The latter was part of his love affair with Iceland, which led to many trips to the North Atlantic rock. One such adventure was commissioned by Reykjavik Energy, which led to experimental images he called The Water People.
Brian worked in commercial and fine art, but there was no compromise in the quality of his output. Examples can be found in the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A collection. He has been recognised for his body of work by the Royal Photographic Society, which awarded him its Centenary Medal in 2013. He held an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University for his contribitions to the city. His photographs of Depeche Mode continue to find homes on posters in bedrooms around the world.
Brian was a giving and open personality. He never put on airs or closed himself off from fans who wanted to hear his stories or pick up a pointer or two. Sometimes, an obsessive music fan would stake out his street, hoping to catch him for a chat, and he gave them some of his time without reservation. Brian celebrated the craftspeople he worked with, and made sure to give credit to the printers, framers, and book designers who contributed to his projects.
A long-time resident of Rotherhithe, Brian’s flat had a view, across the Thames, of Canary Wharf. As he looked at the bankers over the river, Brian always knew which side he was on: his last exhibition showcased his work for Depeche Mode, with a worker knocking down the Matterhorn. This was one of his favourite images, for its confidence and strength. Its audacity is his legacy.
RIP Brian Griffin (1948-2024)
More than anyone else, perhaps, Brian Griffin created the image of Depeche Mode over their first five albums. At a time when they were capable of issuing an album a year, developing their style with each release, Griffin’s images were the best-known and most-distinctive features of their branding. From a plastic-wrapped lawn ornament to a monumental banner-draped building, Depeche Mode were defined by his eye and the lens of his camera.
In 1989, Robert Görl was nearly killed in a car crash. The founder of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft survived but was left in hospital with a shattered body. It could have been the end of Görl’s career in music; but, instead, it marked a kind of rebirth.
The truth is that Stevo Pearce, the founder of Some Bizarre and legendary Soft Cell manager, has more personality than his body can handle. It bursts out in moments of wildness that surprise and scare record company executives. With a love of the surreal and MDMA, Stevo (no one uses his last name other than his bank manager) took a duo from Leeds to global stardom while creating a label that gave obscure industrial acts access to major label resources.
The intersection of three lives – Cosey Fanni Tutti, Delia Derbyshire, and Margery Kempe – is explored with references to music, feminism, and marginalisation. Tutti, once denounced in Parliament as a “wrecker of civilisation,” is making a film version of her book, Art, Sex, Music, while contributing to another about Derbyshire’s complex life. At the same time, she is reading the story of the 15th century local mystic, Kempe. Similarities emerge about places, situations, and struggles.
The history of electronic body music really began with DAF. Gabi Delgado sang, while Robert Görl played drums. They used sequencers to play the bass lines and pulses that completed their sound, and the feeling was harder than their disco precedents. The approach was functional but also stylistic. In Elektronische Körpermusik, Hampejs and Schulze explore these origins but also celebrate the movement that grew from it.
Written by our Editor, Walking in Their Shoes traces the path of Depeche Mode as they played and recorded in London. It locates the venues and studios where the band developed their sound and built their audience. It also includes key locations in Mute Records’ history, such as the Decoy Avenue house where the label was founded. Pictures and public transport details help orient fans visiting the sites. It is the best way to experience London in the footsteps of the band.
If you believe the conventional history, Factory was a group of men making things. There was Tony Wilson, the hero of every story. Rob Gretton, the drug-hoovering manager. Peter Saville, the graphic designer with no sense of time. Barney and Hooky from New Order sulking or scheming like schoolboys. Mike Pickering in the booth at the Haçienda. Everywhere and always, if there was a face to the label and its spin-offs, it belonged to a man.
The use of a Yello track in the teen comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, gave the obscure Swiss act a hit. By that point the duo of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank, Yello had grown up on the same label as The Residents and were a stable in the record collections of underground DJs. The inclusion of “Oh Yeah,” with Meier’s processed intonation suggesting male lust, opened the money tap and took the band into the mainstream.
