The Legend of Gregory Nolan, Rock Photographer.
by Nukki Lankston.

A small bunch of years ago, Gregory Nolan was drawn to the dusty hills of Mexico in the hope of rekindling a long lost love with a local ice queen. Excited, he packed a camera so he could capture this time forever and show his pals back home. The trip though, was a foolish move by all accounts and Gregory suffered badly at the hands of that tempestuous maiden. He found himself lost and wandering in those dusty hills with nothing but his camera and a half bottle of some local booze with a maggot in it. Spurned by his Mexican ice maiden and made foolish, Gregory looked to the stars and wondered, “Who Am I?” Low and behold, when Gregory returned his eyes to earth, they met the gaze of the wandering spirit of an Aztec shaman, sent from the past to make good the name of this ancient land. “You came here to look for love and did not find it” said the Shaman, “I will give you vision so you can capture the light of spirit through that camera”. So there, at a crossroads deep in those dusty hills, the Shaman gave Gregory the gift of vision. The Shaman left a whisp of his spirit to guide Gregory at every other crossroads in his future so that this vision would find a voice.

Gregory returned to the UK leaving those dusty hills and its ice bitches far behind. At first he saw no signs of the vision. He used his camera time and time again, and for sure, he did enjoy it. Yet, there was little to show for the encounter at the crossroads deep in those dusty hills. “The whisp” he said, “was nothing but a fib”. Gregory decided that the whole of Mexico, past and present, was destined to make him foolish and swore he’d never as much as eat a Tortilla chip for the rest of his life.

Then one night, deep in a basement in WC1, Greg met a Man In A Foam Trucker’s Cap who he told of his love of the camera. That Man In A Foam Trucker’s Cap told him he would like to show Gregory’s pictographs on the walls of his tavern in North London. That Man In A Foam Trucker’s hat wore cloths of pure Rock n Roll and had a posse of Boho likeminds shacked up with guitars, drums and even some decks. The more Gregory met the posse the more Gregory realised this was the world the Shaman prepared him for, and that the whisp was with him all along. He immediately ran out and bought a burrito.

Over time Gregory soon joined the posse of Boho Likeminds and through the Man In A Foam Trucker’s Cap began to capture the spirits of the poets and troubadours who wandered from stage to stage with other likeminds playing guitars and banging drums with all the beauty of rock n roll. Guided by the whisp, Gregory found himself in front of some of the most wondrous stages across that vast city – and soon landed at the stage of KOKO – a place that would become his home. The whisp of the Shaman’s spirit must have had great power because Gregory found himself with his camera capturing the light and spirit of many the more renowned poets, troubadours, and vagabonds, strumming and plucking their stories into the halls and spaces with a voice of rock n roll. While all these performers shone, Gregory’s pictographs caught their light – and they too spoke in rock n roll.

And true it was, because Gregory, along with his trusty pictograph, soon found himself catching the spirits of that Rock n’ Roll posse and other rock posse’s all around the mighty rock bastion of London City.

For the last three years he has been posted as the house photographer at London’s KOKO nightclub and venue.
He has a myspace page where you can contact him: www.myspace.com/gregorynolan.