I’ll never forget the first time I discovered who Charles Peterson was. It was 1996 and I was the Sub Pop shop in Seattle, falling wildly in love with a poster of Green River on stage. It was the kind of poster that made you feel like you were front row at that show. Mark Arm, all limbs and hair in a black and white blitz. I didn’t know at the time just how instrumental Peterson was in creating that gritty, underground, visual Sub Pop frenzy. That poster and subsequent images have managed to stay firmly in my head, accompanying the sounds of the bands he befriended and made look dirty and cool.
In the 90’s I dabbled with photography, but I was by far a bigger music lover. Peterson took photos of the bands I was crazy for. Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Hole, Green River, L7, Mother Love Bone, Melvins, Nirvana. I started going to shows in 1994 and dreamed of the day I’d see as many of those bands that were still together. Hole being one of the first shortly after Kurt’s death. Peterson took hundreds of iconic photos of Nirvana, particularly when they played to less than 100 people. Those pictures are a sweaty, frenetic mess and Kurt looks content in his underground fuzzy, grungey trio. Peterson was obviously trusted – no doubt a massive music fan and friend to these musicians.
There was one thing that made Peterson’s pictures stand out more than many other photographer at that time – he made me want to be behind the camera and understand how he created those gorgeous trails of light, and passionate fandom moments of people lost in the glory of it all.
In 2003, Peterson released a book called ‘touch me i’m sick’. I’d wanted it since then, but waited and waited until my friend Julia bought it for my birthday this year. I think I screamed that she remembered, and I couldn’t think of the words to thank her. I know I could’ve bought the book at any time, but these photos were in my head and not going anywhere. The music was in my head. The many articles of bands I love from magazines with these photos next to them are still in my head. That photo of Eddie Vedder sat on the back seat of a bus will forever be in my head. Man, if only I’d taken that photo. Eddie Vedder introduces the book with two lines that make the book for me:
‘I love Charles Peterson…
I hate getting my picture taken’
I still have that Green River poster from Sub Pop with 13 year old blu-tac stuck to the back of it.

Soundgarden by Charles Peterson