This has been one of my weirder South By Southwest experiences. After 14 of these things in a row I am very used to working 20 hour days and not sleeping for a week straight and shooting thousands of images a day. This year? Not so much.

I have a few jobs this week but mostly I have been just hanging out, seeing friends and eating food. I was pretty upset when the jobs I thought I had lined up fell through (especially because I didn’t bother to get a press pass or RSVP for anything) but honestly it’s been a lot of fun and super stress free which is not something I ever thought I would say about SXSW.

I even had time to do this update while I am in Austin, so let’s catch you guys up…

On Tuesday I did my first ever shoot Playboy which was kinda great. I’ve wanted to shoot for Playboy forever so it was kinda a dream come true. In my high school year book they did one of those “In 20 years…” things and mine was “Playboy photographer” which I beat by a few years but shout out to whoever on the yearbook staff came up with that.

On Wednesday I went down to Fader Fort with my Playboy editor and she interviewed Playboi Carti because how could she not and we did a thing for Playboy’s social with Lil Yachty. I shot photos for that stuff and shot them performing live as well. I will get that stuff up later.

Anyway, on Wednesday night I hit the IHeartComix showcase at Clearport ATX because my friends and current favorite live band Ho99o9 were playing. They are one of the most insane bands around and they have a new album dropping soon so I had to go hang and shoot them. When I got to the party Sad13 were playing and I got a few shots of them.

Pomo was next and they played super smooth dance music. I dug it but I couldn’t imagine what people were going to think of Ho99o9 after grooving to Pomo. Sweater Beats was DJing after them so it was a really weird idea to put an insane punk band in between that stuff but shout out to Franki Chan for booking it. I love shows like that.

When Ho99o9 got on the place exploded. A mosh pit broke out even before they started playing. It was fucking wonderful and it lasted for all of two songs before a fight broke out and a bunch of kids rushed past the bouncers working the door and suddenly it was complete chaos. The club had no idea how to deal with any of it so they just cut the music as club security dealt with a mosh pit like people were rioting.

So the show got shut down after 5 amazing minutes and when we got out side kids just started tearing down all the Ho99o9 posters and took them all home before the cops even  showed up. Good times.

I didn’t shoot a ton of photos because I was mostly there to see Ho99o9 and they only played for a second, but the photos are probably worth looking at anyway. I mean if you read this far down the page you probably care enough to spend a few more minutes looking at 30 photos right?

So click here to see the pictures of Ho99o9 and more from the 2017 IHeartComix SXSW Showcase.

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