Contributor – Damien Crocker

Contributor – Damien Crocker

Damien first became involved in local music hosting RTRFM’s Critical Mass program in the late ’90s and early ’00s. This led to many gigs and late nights at some of Perths dingiest venues, as well as music reviews, interviews and meeting all sorts of interesting characters. After an extended hiatus his musical revival started with a call up to RTRFM’s new ’90s-focused show Siamese Dream in 2013, which coincided with his growing photography addiction.

The first gig he shot was Fear Factory in 1997 at Metropolis Fremantle – he went in with a press pass, a borrowed film SLR and absolutely no idea how to use it. Looking through the viewfinder every shot was amazing, a magazine cover worthy masterpiece… until he got the film developed the next day and found he had 36 prints of blurred nothingness. He quickly realised there was a little more to this photography thing than he’d bargained.

Instagram: @damien_crocker

Top 10 Musical Moments:

Getting a bootleg tape of Appetite for Destruction as a kid. It was all downhill from there.
Sepultura at the Fremantle Passenger terminal, 1994. Crazy, wild night, most insane pit and most painful stage dive I have ever seen.
Fear Factory recording their Cyberwaste video clip at the abandoned South Fremantle power station. Well before the days of Facebook, a few emails and word of mouth saw a huge crowd turn up and somehow they managed to get the thing setup and done before the police turned up and shut down the show.
Seeing Barney Greenway from Napalm Death on stage singing backup vocals on Fear the Bad Boy with local metal legends Choke.
The first big venue gigs I can remember at the Entertainment Centre – Metallica touring the Black album in 1993 with Kyuss and Pantera on the Far Beyond Driven tour in 1994.
Interviewing Kerry King from Slayer (and making him laugh).
David Bowie live.
A very strange, late, mid-week night spent in with Finnish extreme metallers Impaled Nazarene at the Dollhouse – interesting guys….
Getting strangled by Clown (#6) from Slipknot.
Any Cosmic Psychos gig.