In February of 1999, a local magazine sent me to photograph Francis Ford Coppola at the old Sonoma’s. It was my second-ever shoot for this magazine, and because Coppola is the guest of honor, I’m more than a little nervous. All of the local media got 10 minutes each to photograph and interview Coppola, and Loafing’s time was right ahead of mine. Waiting in line, Chris Radok sees me, comes over and says, “This is bullsh*t. I could be home watching cartoons right now,” and walks off. All I could do was laugh.
That, in his short, direct way was Chris. He did not care for the hoops that you often had to jump through in media, or whether one’s name was bigger than someone else. He was there to do his job, get the photo he wanted, and leave. Anything else was generally unnecessary to him, and he would tell you that.
When I started taking photos at shows in 1996, Radok was a well-established name around the region. He had been (seemingly) the only photographer at Loafing for years, along with taking photos for a few different bands. I looked up to him, though I would’ve been afraid to tell him that. Radok was always a man of few words, or often a nod and a grunt. And then, he was off to shoot something else.
Over several years, I did get to know Radok a little better. He really did love photography, and photographing musicians, but the business of music made him choosy about whom he worked with. He was proud of the work he’d done, but he would never admit it. One night at a festival, he came up and eagerly congratulated me about having photos in a record he had just picked up. The record had been released nationally, and Chris was the first person that had said something about it. I was stunned. Chris is talking to me! Chris is smiling as he’s talking to me! I walked away thinking, “Wow, that was pretty cool.”
Through whatever happened, Chris had this look at all times that could have cut steel bars. It was nearly impossible to rattle him, or throw him off his game. One time, he and I were photographing Jerry Lee Lewis at a festival, and Chris decided to use his well-known fisheye lens and get a close-up shot of The Killer. Lewis slowly looked up at Chris, and proceeded to quietly talk smack to him, all while playing a solo. Chris just shook his head as he walked off, and the photo of Lewis talking straight to the camera ran in the following week’s Loafing.
Over the years, be it with Loafing, or on his own, Chris Radok created a body of work that is becoming hard to find in this business. He shot what he wanted to shoot, he did the job that was requested of him, and he tried to live his life on his own terms. I have wanted to see a retrospective of his work for a very long time, something that made others realize just how good Chris was. Yet Chris would never admitted to such things. He would’ve shrugged his shoulders, said “It was a job,” and walked off.
Safe travels, Chris.
— Daniel Coston
January 11, 2011
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2011.
He took great photos of live music and, back when I was doing that some, he gave me some advice once on how to shoot in low light without a flash. I find him to be approachable and helpful. A retrospective would be a nice thing have someday soon.
Nicely said Dan
I feel, that in many ways Radok was Creative Loafing for alot of us. He worked there with such pride (albeit subdued) that he was capturing history as it happened and doing it in such a way that we can all understand just by looking through his lens. Even after CL changed, and he went freelance, he never ceased to stress the importance to me of never burning bridges, and keep in touch with everyone that is important to you.
Miss you brother!!
~pete
I tried a hundred times to get him to do a show, chris’s pictures spanning from space shuttles and bands to presidents and drag racing were so amazing but he never felt like it would be good enough… Good words daniel…
I remember him taking a picture of me and my girlfriend Amy after getting my nose broken at the first ever NOFX show @ the Milestone. He took with that fish bowl lense thing, it was a great picture, and I remember him giving me a copy of it. Sadly, I lost it 18 or so years ago . Wish I had it now, but I wish he was still with us more.
Whenever he showed up to take pictures when I worked at Tremont, he always took the time to stop and talk to me, say hello, see how things were. He was a good guy, and he deserved much better than this.
This tears me apart. I met Chris when I moved from Va. to Charlotte to start working for Buzzov-en. We hit it off from the start. He referred to me as Virginia Dick and I lovingly called him an old prick. He used to catch my attention when no one was looking and motion for me to come upstairs at the legendary 609 Oakland house. Pot was pretty pricey in Charlotte and we had some people under the roof that he just didn’t think earned the right to smoke his hard earned cash but for some reason he deemed me worthy of his time and weed. We would get lit and watch slides of all his work. What an amazing collection of pics early Dead Kennedys and Butthole Surfers(when Gibby glued a few hundred live crickets to his hair for a gig in NYC) and like my Friend Mr. Munsell said shuttle launching s pics presidential photo opps and so much more. Chris was such a kind and caring man in his own grouchy way. I love that “Old Prick” Chris Rest In Peace Brother.
Virginia Dick
though i only new Chris a short time, during the time at 609 oakland ave. he was a very talented artist. his photography was remarkable. a perfect fit for the young bands he worked with. you will be missed RADOK.
oakland ave crew
Chris Radok
Chris Radok was this strange, tall thin guy who took photos at CL back in the days when I didn’t have to “pitch” an art story and I was writing an art story every week. One of the great things about writing art stories is that they almost always have an illustration–either the art you are writing about–or a relevant photograph.
I was in awe of Chris. There was something mysterious about him, and the way he always wore a hat, you couldn’t always see into his face. He was usually taciturn and a good photographer. I recall the time I did a story featuring NoDa and Chris had his fish-eye lens. He was really big on that fisheye lens at that time, and he got out in the middle of N. Davidson Street, then a major truck route, and he lay down on his belly right in the middle of the street and started taking photographs.
It was scary but the pics turned out.
Hadn’t seen him in a while, but I remember him fondly. So sad and angry some scumbag took him away.
Linda Luise Brown
I’ve seen Chris Radok and hundreds of punk rock and live music shows in the Charlotte area. Chris captured our music scene with a fisheye lens and braved the mosh pits with expensive equipment. He will be sorely missed.
Very well said Dan.
Obviously Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t know who he was dealing with! Great job, Daniel.
I saw Chris hundreds of times photographing bands in the 90’s and he was just an unforgettable guy who towered over the crowd, never talked, never cracked a smile. Just snapped his pictures like no one else was there.
I never talked to Chris, and never saw anyone talk to him at a show EVER!
Then one night several years ago I bumped into him at a New Years Eve party at a Warehouse he lived in. When I saw him I just blurted out “Oh my god you are that guy from the Creative Loafing that takes the pictures of every band! I see you everywhere!” He was very grunty and short with his words but appreciative – which I expected. Then all of a sudden he and I were just hanging out all night talking about the music scene and all the bands that had come and gone in Charlotte. He was a really cool guy. And I’m glad I got to talk to him, because I always considered him inseparable from the Charlotte music scene.
Anyway, Creative Loafing & Charlotte have lost a behind the scenes kind of guy who really did a lot for the music scene and gave so much to the city with his talent.
I wouldn’t presume to say I knew him well, but I got along with him fine, and liked him. He was definitely an interesting guy — what used to be usually referred to as “a character.” He shot me and my band on a couple of occasions for CL, and while he liked to play the part of the detached curmudgeon who couldn’t possibly care less, the one conversation I had with him wherein I would say he was actually animated to the point of near-mania was about photography — the technical end of it, which I know little or nothing about. I actually had to wipe spit off my shirt. It was cool; I always like that kind of passion in people.
He took his pictures seriously, even as he pretended to remote indifference; he was no dummy, he was no slacker, and I never saw him anything close to just going through the motions. Photography might not have been his whole life and identity, but when he was doing it, he was doing it all the way. That’s a species of pride that’s all too scarce, very powerful, and stands as a stark rebuke to the boastful, chest-thumping, annoying kind.
He lived by his own set of rules and standards, and to hell with you if you didn’t like it. I like to think of myself as doing the same to some degree, and for that reason alone, I would’ve respected him. But there were others. The fact that he had his own ideas about what made a good shot and stuck to them uncompromisingly was just icing on the cake as far as I was concerned.
He wasn’t sweet, he wasn’t amiable, he wasn’t mushy; he wasn’t necessarily even consistently friendly or courteous or nice. He wasn’t somebody you’d call early on Saturday morning to cadge a ride to the airport, or drunkenly cry on his shoulder about some momentarily critical issue or other. He was prickly, self-contained, and didn’t suffer fools gladly — or at all, actually. I can’t even begin to imagine him being maudlin, or sappy, or self-pitying, even if he had good reason to be. I CAN imagine him being giggly; I saw that once too, briefly. But he’d have had a reason to be, and that reason would have been his and his alone.
Most of all, he just….WAS. He was the kind of guy nobody even dreams of replacing. He in no way deserved the hideous thing that happened to him, but then, that’s more often the case than not in this world, it seems. I’m saddened, shocked, and horrified by it.
I hope they hang the worthless waste of flesh who so brutalized a worthwhile and rare individual, for no good reason, upside down by his balls until all his bodily fluids drain out his ears, but I know they won’t. If they were going to do that, it would’ve happened a long time ago, and I wouldn’t be saying all this. There are no arguments in the world eloquent and persuasive enough to entice me to pity or empathize with such a one, or hope to see undeserved mercy extended him, or to believe that cutting him one jot or tittle more slack is the right and just thing to do.
The good, the interesting, the singular, the worthwhile get erased from our lives, often senselessly and viciously. The users and destroyers and usurpers and sundry rough beasts slouch ever on towards Gomorrah, sucking and scrabbling at our ankles, stuporously reaching out a ragged claw from the mire, without either thought or remorse, to visit their blighted barbarism on us all; to remind us that this world will always be a savage and unfair place, and to take things from us we can in no way afford to lose. That fact is far sadder to me than any childhood trauma or neglect or deficiency anyone could use to justify repeatedly unleashing such mindless ferocity on the world — giving another chance, and another, and another, to someone who didn’t merit it, and would never dream of either attempting to live up to it or making good use of it, preferring instead to exploit it, and to scorn those who provided it as weak fools.
I hope Chris is in a better place, and comfortable, and looking down here laughing about it all. I hope he can still watch the races there. I hope he can blank out completely the nightmarish last moments of his life there. He was unique — a word, like “awesome,” “brilliant,” or “genius,” that gets tossed about too promiscuously these days. But in his case, it’s really the only one that will do. We’re all poorer for his loss, whether we even know it or not. May your pain be well and truly left behind forever, buddy. May you truly rest in peace.
Thank you Mike, and the rest of you who wrote your remembrances here. Mike, you are eloquent and insightful; rock on. Chris was like my brother. I miss him a lot and always will. His light lives on in our hearts, just as his tragic, horrific passing breaks them. You taught me so much Chris, and I am grateful. Thank you bro!
Paul Stanford
dpaulstanford@gmail.com
So sorry to hear about Chris’s passing…I met him when he was working with Unknown Hinson, and he
seemed like a very nice person and I’m sure he will be missed terribly by his friends and family.