Manchester-born Kevin Cummins’s photography had a major influence on the iconography of the British music scene. He was given his first commission by the renowned music magazine New Musical Express (NME). For an article by NME journalist Paul Morley, he photographed a large number of aspiring post-punk bands in his hometown of Manchester. Industrial ruins as symbols of a failing economic sector were the backdrops for his shooting sessions with up-and-coming independent stars: Cummins setting placed Morrissey from The Smiths on Rochdale Canal; the band James poses in the scenery of the closed central railway station, which was converted into the G-MEX (Greater Manchester Exhibition Centre) beginning in the mid-1980s and served as a venue for major rock concerts. The flier for the album Bummed by the Happy Mondays shows the office building that houses the famous record label Factory Records.