So Tuesday was a weird night.  I was just sitting around my house when I got a text from my friend Andie (Dj Cassette) who was DJing Disco Down at Happy Ending later in the night.  I told her I would go.  A few minutes later I get a text from my friend Brendan (DJ VH1) who told me I needed to get up to the Royalton Hotel because Lady Starlight was doing a party and Justin from Semi Precious Weapons was hosting and it was a weird scene with all these old downtown kids hanging out in Midtown.  It seemed weird and I haven’t seen Justin since SPW’s video shoot, so I jumped in a cab and was in Midtown in 20 minutes.  When I got there the mood had changed because Lady Gaga had shown up.  I was given a place to stay in Miami two years ago if I would shoot her birthday party so I figured I could probably take some photos there.  Clearly I was mistaken.  I wasn’t even allowed to point my camera in her direction even if I was across the room.  I took a few pictures outside and then I got some shots of Starlight and Justin by the DJ booth. I took a photo of VH1 her old DJ down stairs and I got yelled at it because the bouncer said “she will flip out if there’s any pictures being taken near her”.  He seemed to understand his request was silly.  The whole thing was funny because her and I have a ton of mutual friends and they were all at Justin’s table with her.  And so I was over there with them and then there was a whole ring of people around us, and then a whole ring of people around them.  I felt like I was in a Greek auditorium and she was Socrates speaking to her super weird looking pupils. I tweeted something to that effect and the rest of the night I was bombarded with Tweets from Gaga fans all over the world who were just trying to get another peek into her life.  The whole thing is tremendously weird. She did eventually pose for one of the photos from Guest of a Guest but I didn’t try to get a shot because a) I don’t care that much and b) I am not a fucking paparazzi.  I only want to take pics of people who want their photo taken.

Anyway, that was all pretty funny, but because of it I didn’t get to shoot many photos at what was a pretty fun party, but my night was far from done.  I headed down to Happy Ending and I never even got inside the place because while I was talking to friends outside my friend Annika came running outside.  She had been punched in the face by some dude because he was grabbing her friend and she pushed him off of her. The cops came and she had to get looked at by EMT’s and such. It was crazy fucked up. They got the guy on film doing it, so hopefully they catch him.  She handled it like a champ and kept partying.  While all this was happening DJ Cassette came out and was heading over to Lauren Flax’s party at Home Sweet Home.  I was at Happy Ending just to see her so I went with her over to Lauren’s party.  Lauren had already left so I hung out with Andie and some rad lesbian chicks and then when Andie went home headed back over to Happy Ending for my friend Eden’s birthday.  Twig gave her a bunch of mustaches for a present so that was entertaining for a while.

The whole night was pretty fun and I took a few pictures of it. You should look at them by clicking here. It would be the right thing to do. See you guys tomorrow with the final updates from SXSW.  I hope.

Okay, and we are back with pictures of all the bands that played the party.  If you want to see who they all are, check out the list of set times.  Highlights for me were VV Brown, Alphabeat and Marina and the Diamonds.  VV Brown was crazy playing some funk fusion madness, dressed totally insane and just being amazing.  Alphabeat were total pop goodness and a lot of fun to watch.  And before they played everyone told me that Marina and the Diamonds would be awesome and they were.  That chick is so rad.  You guys probably all know about all these bands already, but if you don’t you might want to check them out asap. But that was the unexpected highlights.

The reason I went to the party in the first place was for Snoop and Hole.  If this concert took place in 1994 I would have lost my mind, but it was still pretty awesome to see it.  I only got to see one song of Snoop’s as I mentioned before but it was fucking awesome.  I really wish I saw the rest of it, I mean just look at this set list!  Amazing.  I had the biggest crush on Courtney Love when I was obsessed with Nirvana and although I don’t really listen to her music anymore, I would still go on just tons of dates with Courtney (or her daughter, whatever..). I got to watch all of her show from the crowd once I told the press people I was leaving. I might have missed photos of Courtney backstage, but I was very sick of being held in a press pen.

I split the photos into three galleries so click below to see the photos you need to see:

Click here to see the photos of Snoop.

Click here to see the photos of Courtney Love & Hole.

And click here to see the rest of the bands who played at Perez Hilton’s One Night In Austin at SXSW.

So Perez Hilton did his big party in Austin and a ton of bands played and there was an insane crowd of people trying to get in and total madness and all that.  I just sort of shoved my way through until I was somehow over a barrier and the security grabbed me and I started yelling shit about the Village Voice and they brought me to some table at which point they let me in without even asking my name or to see any ID. Then again, as media you didn’t really get to actually enjoy the party.  They sort of ran us around like sheep, keeping us in this caged off back area. At one point before Snoop came in we had to all stay in one room that was about 100 degrees and all of the photographers missed shooting Estelle because of it. We also didn’t get to see more than one song of Snoops set.  I was pretty annoyed.  So I did get out a little bit to shoot the crowd but I had to keep coming back to get lined up for shooting the bands.  But it was much better set up last year, which is why most of these crowd shots are actually back stage shots, with just a handful of actual crowd pictures.  I’ll be back with the band photos in a few minutes, until then…

…Click here to see all the crowd and backstage photos from Perez Hilton’s One Night In Austin party at SXSW 2010.

Finally, we have reached the end of the epic Mog.com SXSW party at Mohawk.  All the band photos are up so all we have left is the crowd shots.  I don’t have a lot to say that I haven’t said yet. There are some shots of the bands and stuff in here, plus you know, the kids, always with the kids. My editors boss at the Village Voice came, and brought his boss.  So there are pics of my boss’ boss’ boss, who is the CEO of Village Voice media. He was cool to meet, and he told me he was a fan of my work.  So that’s something. Also Mary Louise Parker from Weeds was there. She is obviously a babe.  Lastly, if you are wondering why everyone is wearing coats inside in March in Texas, it’s because it was fucking 40 degrees and raining out. Boo.

Anyway, click here to see all the crowd shots from the Mog party at Mohawk at SXSW. Peace.

To take a break from all the photo galleries I just wanted to show you a few things I have in print right now.  I sold a pic of Lady Gaga on her birthday to NY Magazine. Its the one in the left corner.  It was in last weeks issue as part of the cover story.  The only copy I have is pretty beat up so if anyone has a copy they wanna give me I would appreciate it. I also shot the holiday party for XXL magazine.  For some reason the pictures are in the April issue. The pics from that include shots of the Jersey Shore cast, football players Eddie George and Darrelle Revis, and a giant photo of a bucket of Heineken.  The funniest part of the night was when I ran into the Manhattan rep for PBR right after the party and he asked me why I missed the PBR holiday party. When I told him it was because I was shooting a Heineken sponsored party. His response without even a second of hesitation: “Heineken? Fuck that shit.  Pabst Blue Ribbon!” Amazing.

Aside from doing these film portraits, I signed up for some red carpets.  I sort of hate doing step and repeat stuff, but it’s a good thing to have in my portfolio when trying to get jobs at Sundance.  Plus knew the Voice would run it and I quickly found out that it was a great way to get into movies without having to wait in line.  I mean, I had to wait in the press area taking photos for the same amount of time, but at least I was being productive, getting paid and shooting the shit with other pro photographers which is always fun.  Complaining about light and step and repeat walls is one of my favorite things to do.

Cool stuff was getting to shoot Chloe Sevigny who I have had a crush on for 15 years and have never spoken to despite being in the same room with her several times.  I didn’t get to speak with her this time either, but I did shout “look right here!” at her a few times. Clearly the Get Low carpet was amazing. I had met the crew earlier in the day as per my last post, but it was still great.  Robert Duvall flicked off all the camera guys when we weren’t paying attention as a joke.  Not one person got the shot, that guy is a pro.  Sissy hugging me as per the last post was amazing too.  MacGruber was the only one of these films I didn’t attend because I think SNL is horrible. It was cool to see Val Kilmer despite him posing for less than 10 seconds.  Fortunately there was a lot of him to shoot… Of all the celebs who did the red carpet, Will Forte from SNL was the most generous.  After his time on the carpet, he left the ropes and went into the crowds of screaming girls and posed for pictures and signed autographs for another 5 minutes. It was a really classy move.

I shot the red carpets for Barry Munday, Cryus, Lemmy, MacGruber, and Get Low. If you want to see who everyone is, check the Voice gallery for captions.

Click here for the 2010 SXSW Film Red Carpet gallery.

When I got a pretty decent gig working SXSW Music I realized that I could afford to spend another week in Austin and check out the film festival.  To do that I would need to get a film badge.  I asked the Village Voice if they would hire me to shoot SXSW Film and Interactive for them and they agreed. Originally I thought I could just shoot a film party or two and just watch a bunch of movies, but then I got all these press junket invites and realized I could do a pretty cool portrait gallery for the Voice.  The odd thing is that the Voice still hasn’t run these portrait yet, although they tell me they are going to.  A lot of the people in the gallery you might not have any idea who are, and frankly I don’t want to explain it all, but I will link the Voice gallery when it’s up and it will have all the captions.  Also if you mouse over the photos below it will give credits for my favorite shots.

The highlight of course was shooting the Get Low junket.  I got there late due to the cabs in Austin being the worst things ever so I was worried I was going to miss my chance to shoot Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek.  Luckily they squeezed me in, unluckily I only had 2 minutes with them and they weren’t so excited about posing for me.  Bill Murray made fun of me, Robert Duvall was mostly trying to just eat lunch and Sissy Spacek was worried about me shooting with a wide angel.  But when I showed Sissy the photo on my camera and she loved it and later on the red carpet for her movie she came over and hugged me and told all the other photographers that I was amazing. Speaking of amazing, while I was waiting to shoot the cast of Get Low I got to shoot Sissys daughter Schuyler Fisk, who is a musician, actress and totally rad girl, not to mention absolutely stunning.

The other thing really worth mentioning was that I went down to shoot portraits at the Tiny Furniture premiere.  Tiny Furniture was directed, written and starred in by my friend Lena Dunham and my boy Teddy Blanks did the score. Their film won best narrative feature and I was so excited for them.  I am going to do a full review of it right before it screens in NYC so you will get to hear more about it, but it was amazing and I am so proud of those kids.

Anyway, I shot people from the movies Get Low, Tiny Furniture, MARS, Monsters, Helena At The Wedding, and fucking Lemmy from the movie Lemmy.  Amazing.  Click here to see all the portraits from SXSW Film 2010.

Two years ago yesterday I was in Miami like I am now.  I had no place to stay like right now.  I ran into my friend Brendan, aka DJ VH1, and he told me I could crash with him and the chick he was DJing for if I took pictures of them at some gay bar called Score that night.  I ended up waiting much longer than I planned and was really bored all night.  Finally the girl he was DJing went on with her two back up dancers and made those gay dudes go nuts.  Afterwards we celebrated her birthday and I took pictures of her blowing out a disco ball cake. Almost exactly two years later I sold a couple of those photos to New York Magazine.

The artist? It was Lady Gaga.

Click here to see the pictures from that night.

So many months ago I shot the XXL Magazine holiday party. I wasn’t able to post the photos until XXL published them.  I haven’t actually seen the issue with my photos, but I have got to assume they published them already, I mean it was more three months ago.  I am still on this crazy trip of course, so I figure it’s a good time to post old stuff, since I don’t have time to get you new stuff.  Anyway the highlight of this party at Marquee was the Jersey Shore cast showing up five minutes after the club opened.  I got to talk to a few of them and take some pretty funny photos. Also there were some football players like Eddie George and the hated Jet, Darrelle Revis. I was glad I didn’t know who he was until after I took his photo because I might have had to fight him. Anyway, when the party finally got good the club made me stop taking photos because of all the football players so I went home.

Click here to see all the pictures from the XXL Mag holiday party at Marquee including photos of the Jersey Shore.