Rock writers occupy a precarious position in our culture. At one moment, a writer could be covering the next big thing or the most important of those next big things and then it’s over. What to do next. Dig? Wait? Get a job waiting tables?

In some ways it’s a horribly romantic image – a person engulfed by all things music, scribbling away conceptual critiques at all hours of the night. And inextricably linked to all of that are all the photographers that need to some how either explicate through pictures what the writer is attempting to get at – or even just tell a story with images sans accompanying word play.

For nearly four decades, Bob Gruen has been doing the later – well a little of both, but we’ll focus here on just his work. Of course, overtime, he’s contributed to legendary outlets like CREEM and Rock Scene, befriended John Lennon and countless other members of the rock cognoscenti. And just as a side note, that picture with Lennon wearing the New York City shirt – that was Gruen. And I believe that was even his t-shirt.

Perhaps more important even than that iconic image, is the work that Gruen did with the emerging punk scene of the ‘70s. Before the Dolls, the Pistols, the Clash or Blondie were part of the general consciousness, Gruen befriended many of these folks, yielding candid and oft amusing insights through his photography.

During last September though, Gruen unleashed a book of work focused on none other than the New York Dolls. These glamorous smack freaks were definitely hip to the idea of being photography fodder and gave Gruen ample opportunity for capturing entertaining if not always the most flattering images. After all, they were dudes in high heels. This work, made up of over two hundred photos, includes only thirty previously un-seen shots.

What makes this book all the more enticing is that Legs McNeil lends his pen to the proceedings, adding a bit of commentary. McNeil is occasionally credited with naming punk through the publication of his own magazine by the same name during the mid ‘70s. He also notably compiled Please Kill Me, which is probably the most important historical document of the initial punk scene in the eastern portion of the United States.

Regardless of McNeil’s prowess though, New York Dolls: Photographs by Bob Gruen, has been given a sort of notoriety boost since Gruen has set up a show in Los Angeles at the Morrison Hotel Gallery.

The show doesn’t focus solely on the Dolls, although that would be interesting in and of itself. But Gruen continues to work, using the same tone for his famous subjects. Nothing too formal and nothing that would embarrass the focus of the camera’s eye – just compelling images of folks that you and I both listen to through speakers on a pretty regular basis. And I don’t believe that it’s too much to say that, if not for Gruen taking these pictures, his subjects might not have all made it into our record collections.