Part two of my Sturgis trip is going to be a bit shorter of an update. If you didn’t check out Part One, do that first. Part One consisted of the first two days I was working ofr Sailor Jerry at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, while Part Two is just day three. That being said, the last day was my favorite and has some of my best photos from the trip so this should be a good one, even if there are less photos and less of me rambling. Speaking of less rambling, let’s get into it. 

Day two started with a surprise. I was told I was gonna have to work pretty much non stop from 1pm until 9pm so I decided to sleep in. Luckily I didn’t sleep too late because I woke up to a text offering me a helicopter ride. South Dakota seems to be the helicopter tourism capital of the world because everywhere I went I saw helicopter flights being advertised, I just didn’t expect to go up in one. It’s at this point I should mention that at sometime in my 30s I developed a crippling fear of heights. I can’t stand on a railing a few flights up without my palms getting sweaty. But the interesting thing about that is that I am not at all afraid of flying, and I thought maybe the same thing would be true about helicopters. Luckily I was right. It was legitimately an amazing experience and I think I got some cool shots of the Buffalo Chip campgrounds. I would love to do it again with a longer lens, less for the photos and more for just the fun of being in a helicopter. It was just really great even if we were only in the air for about twenty minutes.

After the helicopter ride we went over to an event at Camp Zero at Buffalo Chip. Not sure what the official party was but there was a bunch of mini bikes and drag races and everyone was young and wearing Hawaiian shirts and seemed like they could be from Brooklyn or Austin and less of the hard right senior bikers that seemed to be everywhere. I actually ran into a woman I had photographed in LA many years ago. This was way more my speed. The International Bikini Team girls were back in their Sailor Jerry finest and we took some fun photos as well. It was a blast.

Next on the agenda was the Sailor Jerry tattoo happy hour. The tattoo artist Shaun Kama was hosting a pop up tattoo shop on the Buffalo Chip campgrounds and Sailor Jerry of course had to sponsor it. They also did two events where you could come by and get free Sailor Jerry tattoo flash. I was only in town for one of them, but five people ended up with Sailor Jerry tattoos during the happy hour. I have done so many of these tattoo events with Sailor Jerry and I love doing them because it’s a lot of hanging out with tattoo artists and bullshitting while taking the occasional photo. It’s very low stress and a good time for everyone. 

The happy hour ran late so I actually missed most of the VIP event that Sailor Jerry hosted backstage. I did end up there just in time for the Sailor crew to go up on stage and toss out SJ merch. That was a nightly thing and not the most exciting of photos, but always fun to try and shoot t-shirt cannons. After that Styx and REO Speedwagon played which admittedly aren’t really for me, but the crowd ate it up and I enjoyed the hits. Part of me wanted to stay out late that last night, but I was exhausted after a few days of sleeping in an uncomfortable RV with motorcycles driving by every few minutes so I crashed early and got my only good night sleep of the whole event which made my 13 hour travel day way more chill than I was expecting. 

So that’s it! That’s a wrap on Sturgis. Thanks again to Sailor Jerry having me out. Was really glad to cross that one off my bucket list. I’m also down to just three continental US states that I haven’t traveled to. I got a road trip planned to hit Idaho and Montana and then I will just have North Dakota left. Lastly I should mention, that there a handful of very moderately NSFW photos over here, just because I am still using Flickr to host my galleries and I don’t want to get in trouble with them for posting a bikini model in a thong or whatever nonsense is against their TOS because we live in a country governed by puritans and cowards. Okay, go look at photos now. I gotta get back to enjoying my vacation.

Click here to see all the photos from day three of my Sturgis Buffalo Chip adventure! 

Hey it’s Monday and after I spent 3 days at the NY Art Book Fair and yesterday dealing with the pain that is my Miami Dolphins fandom it’s time to start fresh with a new week. It’s possible I ate two entire pizzas last night and today it’s time to catch up on a bunch of work and perhaps force myself to eat a salad.

With that in mind, let’s drop a bunch of stuff on you real quick.  Got some new naked photos, some weird music and of course I gotta try and sell you some zines again. Let’s start with the zines…

I spent Thursday night and most of Friday and Saturday at the New York Art Book Fair. As both a creator and consumer of photo books the NY Art Book Fair is pretty much my favorite thing ever. I get to look at so much rad shit, buy a bunch of rare books and zines and hopefully make more money than I spend. It’s also a good networking opportunity. Last year I met Mike Krim who runs Paper Work NYC and this year he let me sell my stuff at his booth. Last year I met fucked up illustrators Matt Crabe and Wizard Skull and this year I am just finishing a zine collaboration with them and a bunch of other artists many of whom I ran into at the book fair. Oh, did I mention that there are so many real cute girls there who also make really cool shit? What could be better than that?

The zine fair went pretty awesome and I actually stayed real close to my budget a picked up some stuff that I am really happy with. I also think I sold a bunch of stuff, I don’t have the exact totals but I think I made more than I spent so high five. But I do know I have some copies of my new zine Same Old City left still so they are now for sale in my Etsy store and will ship pretty much right away. I just mailed off all the pre orders. So get you copy now!

Click here to get Same Old City regular edition!

Click here to get Same Old City limited edition with print!

Next up, let’s talk babes. A really long time ago I shot my friend Caitlin. She had done some modeling for her roommates art projects but I was the first person to photograph her professionally. We took a bunch of photos and even though she’s kinda awkward it was a good kinda awkward and I think we got some really pretty photos. I posted a few to my Tumblr and stuff and then totally forgot about the set. Last week I found the set and realized I had never posted it. It had been a while so I hit her up about the photos and she didn’t really want them on my website which is totally fair. I love shooting new models, but there’s always a risk that they are gonna change their mind about the photos and I always respect that even though it can be really disappointing. Luckily we came to a compromise. I told her I wouldn’t post any more of the nude ones on my site, but she said I could publish them to Girls of Driven By Boredom. That way the images aren’t just floating about the internet for free and you gotta at least spend some money to see them. Seems like a reasonable compromise.

Click here to sign up for Girls Of Driven By Boredom to see an exclusive set of Caitlin.

The last thing in this way too long post is a weird one. I got a bunch of my Miami Dolphins vinyl collection online. The Dolphins may have been embarrassed yesterday but I will never be embarrassed by my collection of some of the weirdest records to ever be released. I have what I assume is the world’s largest collection of Miami Dolphins themed vinyl and my plan is to eventually build a website with all of my collection on it but for now I started a Sound Cloud with just the singles. If you are a fan of football, record collecting or just absurd 70s and 80s nostalgia you need to check this out.

Click here to listen to a bunch of my weird Miami Dolphins record collection.

Just when you thought you were finally finished with my Insane Clown Posse blog posts this happens….

I had a few people hit me up today already asking what I think of the news of the new Jack White produced Insane Clown Posse track “Leck Mich Im Arsch” which samples a Mozart song of the same name.

I am not really sure why any on is surprised about this. Both Jack White and ICP are from Detroit and rep their city really fucking hard and they both enjoy doing collaborations with people you would never expect them to work with. ICP has worked with Alice Cooper, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Snoop, Kid Rock and a lot more while Jack White has done stuff with Loretta Lynn, Electric Six, Alicia Keys and as part of this same Blue 7″ Series Stephen Colbert.

The real thing here is that Jack White knows two things. 1) This record will generate an insane amount of media attention for him, his record label and his singles collection and 2) he has so much fucking street cred that not even ICP can fuck that shit up. Jack White is one of the last rockstars in this country and producing a single for ICP isn’t going to do much to fuck up his image. Personally I think it’s kinda hilarious and I bet most people feel the same way.

Also this record is about promoting his real Third Man Records artists to a bigger audience. In this case JEFF The Brotherhood who appear as the backing band. On the Stephen Colbert single he was backed by The Black Belles who have their own solo song on the B-Side.

And lastly this record is about promoting Third Man Records on a local level. The release is tied to The MI Fest in Michigan where Third Man Records has their own stage and a mobile record store.  The actual record store in Detroit will no doubt get a shit load of new juggalo visitors who might be interested in other things Third Man has to offer. As people like Tech N9ne, the Dayton Family and Coolio know… there is money to be made marketing yourself to juggalos.

Now the one problem I have with this collaboration is that the song is pretty fucking awful. I know most of you think that everything ICP does is fucking awful but as someone who as recently as yesterday was willingly listening to ICP in their car I can tell you that this is not ICP’s best work. The track is a one note gag which is pretty much just the idea that Mozart actually wrote a song called Lick My Ass, which admittedly is hilarious, but there isn’t really much there for a song. Jack White’s production on it is questionable as well, maybe it’s just the digital release but it sounds really muddy and the guitars seem high in the mix, almost peaking.  But then again Jack White knows a shit load more about music than I do so maybe I will just shut the fuck up and buy the record anyway…

Check out the teaser and the track below…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyzjVL5tFn0[/youtube]

Let’s get this out of the way right now. I am a terrible singer and I have no business singing in the shower much less recording a song. You may have heard me mention this punk band I started and I am in fact the singer of that, but I decided to front a punk band specifically because my terrible singing can be overcome by intentionally hurting myself on stage and entertaining angry kids with mohawks. I am honestly completely without any musical talent what so ever.  Fortunately for me I have some very talented friends.

When my friend Ross Harman killed himself last September I kept thinking about how many amazing musicians showed up to his memorial.  An hour into the service I knew what I had to do.  I manged Ross’ band The Gaskets for five years and it was time once again to put on my managerial hat and get to work.  I started asking all his musician friends at the memorial if they would be interested in contributing a track to a tribute album in his honor. Everyone there could not have been more into the idea.

Six months later I was wrapping up the CD and making sure everyone was getting in their music.  I think in total the CD is going to contain 18 tracks and I was very impressed with all the music.  As happy as I was to be working on this album I suddenly had the great desire to be a part of it but I wasn’t exactly sure how. I was going to ask one of my friends if I could record some back up vocals or something to a song but most people had pretty much finished already. Luckily I had another idea.

I reached out to my friend Patrick Albertson to see if he would be interested in helping me cover the song Posture which Ross wrote for his solo project Ballpoint Pens. It only had a few lines of vocals in it and I figured I could get throug them.  Patrick was honored to be part of the album and quickly recorded the full song complete with his own vocals.  It sounded amazing and I hated that I was going to have to ruin it with my voice.

Patrick sent his music over to Teddy Blanks who was Ross’ band mate and one of my closest friends. Teddy patiently helped me record my vocals over and over again until he thought I had given him enough takes. They all sounded terrible on their own but Teddy went through each take pulling a word here and a word there until he assembled several vocal tracks that sounded okay and he put them on top of each other and then added Patrick’s falsettos underneath.  He also added some hand claps and mixed the whole thing together into and almost listenable song.

I am really proud of this album, but I am also very proud that I got to contribute to the actual music on the CD.  I am going to be blogging about this album again once it is complete but I wanted to give you a little preview now and let you hear my contribution to the Ross Harman tribute album. So listen to my song below and then head on over to TheGaskets.com where you can download nearly every song Ross or The Gaskets ever recorded for free including the original version of Posture which is taken from the album Calcutta.

Thanks for humoring me I hope you like the song or at least the idea of it. I would love to hear what you think…

Igor & Patrick Albertson – Posture

I turned 30 last May and I realized something. In my life I have worked in the music industry in nearly every imaginable way except one.  I stared a record label when I was 15. I ran a zine about punk for 3 years. I have written and blogged about music. I have booked shows and dance parties. I have booked tours for bands. I have managed bands including one for 5 years. I have photographed bands and DJs both live shots and portraits.  I have been in a half dozen music videos. I haven’t actually recorded any bands but I have been in recording studios with bands helping out in whatever ways I could for countless hours. I have made flyers, stickers and album covers. I have promoted, built websites for and done everything you could imagine for a number of bands.  Music was my life for so long but one thing I have never done was play in a band.

I have no musical talent, but that hasn’t stopped me from fucking around with bands.  I was in a band in high school that I played random things like washboards and kazoos in but we never played a show. I have even made some really awful music more or less as a joke. I once sang background gang vocals on a Camper Van Beethoven track.  I even once filled in for a band that was missing a bassist at a show.  I stood there holding a bass that was plugged into a cardboard box that had the word AMP written on it. One of the dudes from PCP Roadblock stood in the back of the room and yelled “TURN UP THE BASS” as the guitarist and drummer played three songs while I stood there banging on strings.  Other than that the closest I have ever come to playing a show was singing Elvis at my friends post elopement wedding party.

Now, one thing I have to say is that I cannot sing for shit. I have no voice and no timing.  All that being said, I am a fucking lunatic and I have a pretty good feeling can thrash around on stage with the best of them. So when I turned 30 I decided to try to start a punk band. After months of talking about it we are finally going to have our first practice on Tuesday.  This band is pretty much going to be a joke.  The guys in the band are all in other bands and they are going to practice with me once a week until we get our shit together to play a few shows for fun.  If I could play three real shows I would cross a huge item off my bucket list.  So we are going to probably just be a cover band.  At least to start with. I sent everyone three of my favorite punk songs to learn and hopefully we can get them down on Tuesday. I guess the ultimate goal would be maybe 5 covers and 5 originals which seems like a pretty good 20 minute set. I’ll let you guys know how it goes although I probably won’t be promoting the shows too much if they ever do happen because 95% don’t give a fuck about punk and wouldn’t enjoy the show even if I could sing.

Now the meat of this post is going to be the 3 covers we are going to end up practicing on Tuesday:

The first is Girl Problems by State Of Alert.  S.O.A. was Henry Rollins first band and he is really dismissive of them.  But their only record, the No Policy EP, is my favorite punk album of all time. Girl Problems is my favorite song on it even though when I was 15 and listning to it the only girl problems I had were that they wouldn’t talk to me.

SOA – Girl Problems

The second song is Drink, Fight & Fuck by G.G. Allin.  I plan on naming my first photo book Drink Fight Fuck and this song is sort of what violent punk is all about.  The irony here is of course that I don’t drink, but I think I might make an exception if we ever play a show. I got in a lot of fights growing up but having a $3000 camera in your hand makes it a lot harder to decide to throw a punch so I have been pretty fortunate not to have done extremely stupid in a few years. And as far as the Fuck part goes… no comment.

GG Allin – Drink Fight Fuck

The last song is Depression by Black Flag.  The Keith Morris version of this song is great but it’s really the live version from Decline of Western Civilization version that I hope to be channeling when I sing it. Black Flag is the band that got me into punk and really changed my life. The DIY mentality of punk is probably the only reason I have been able to run my own business. If it weren’t for Black Flag I would probably be working at a bank or something.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wizKUrUgFOw&feature=related[/youtube]

So I haven’t updated since Christmas.  Bad form, but fuck it, everyone else was on vacation… I guess I was too.  Really I just didn’t have internet for a few days but I’ll pretend I was vacationing. I finally made it back to NYC today.  I am pretty jealous that I missed some serious photo opportunities in the blizzard.  Today my cab got stuck in the snow a block away from my apartment. Somehow snow came through my air conditioner and I made a snow ball in my bedroom. It was nuts. None of that matters… It’s time to get back to work.

I am going to start this week off in a totally weird and random way… with songs written by professional wrestlers.  I want to do more Mp3 blog posts on Driven By Boredom and I felt like today would be perfect for one since I haven’t slept yet and I need to crash for a bit and then try to catch up on life.  I almost thought about not posting at all again today but I need to get some stuff cooking for you guys.  I haven’t shot any parties in a while so I need to get back to work. I have a bunch of nude stuff that I shot over the holidays but I might wait until after New Years for most of it.  We shall see.  I got on another trip on the 6th of January but I am going to do a better job of keeping DBB up to date while I am on the West Coast.

Anyway, this post keeps getting more rambly and incoherent as I type so let’s start talking about this music so I can go to sleep…

For some reason I have two full albums of rap songs written by pro wrestlers on my computer. I am not sure when I downloaded these but they are fucking hilarious.  The first one, Hulk Hogan’s is called “Hulk Rules” and is credited to him AND “The Wrestling Boot Band”.  This 1995 album is a classic and is filled with song about Hulk Hogan and eating vitamins.  The most mocked song on the album is probably “Hulkster in Heaven” which is about one of his fans dying and he sings a sentimental tribute to him. It’s absolutely horrifying. That being said, I chose for you a more uptempo jamming hit called “Hulkster’s Back” because I love you.

Hulk Hogan – Hulkster’s Back

The next track is off “Macho Man” Randy Savage’s classic “Be A Man“.  This rap album feels like a response to Hulk’s album only it came 8 years later.  While Hulk’s is cheesy in that early 90’s celebrities rapping kinda way, “Be A Man” is actually trying to be some sort of actual rap album. I feel like Randy Savage really thought that this was going to give him some serious street cred.  He hired what appears to be actual black people to help him with his album.  They rap with him and hype him up throughout the record. (As a side note whatever rap careers those rappers had ended the day this record dropped.) The whole thing is substantially more embarrassing due to the earnestness of Savage’s attempt to become a rapper. And while this album is absolutely full of hits I really had no choice but to drop you guys with the title track “Be A Man”. It is a homophobic diss at the Hulkster himself.  He calls out the Hulk and his movie rolls, while praising his own cameo in Spiderman. It’s all very adorable. You just wanna hug him.

Macho Man Randy Savage – Be a Man

I wanted to give you one more Mp3 because it seemed like that would be the reasonable thing to do, so I googled Pro Wrestling Musicians and found out that John Cena has a rap album too… but I don’t give a fuck about that guy because he didn’t wrestle in the 1980’s so I dug a bit deeper into google and found this amazing Rowdy Roddy Piper song called “I’m Your Man”.  It’s actually kinda awesome and since I couldn’t find a good Mp3 I am going to hook you up with this sweet video of it. I mean seriously, it’s no “They Live” but it’s pretty fucking amazing.

See you guys tomorrow…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa1Q6xpoM8c[/youtube]

Even though I don’t drink and have never actually had a Four Loko before, the beverage has gained a spot in my heart and I am going to miss it.  I will never miss it as much as Radical Outing‘s Anton Glamb who has pretty much dedicated his life to the Loko. He has recorded and entire album of Four Loko song including the classic R&B hit “Girl I Wanna Buy You A Can Of Four Loko”.  I heard him working on this stuff a while ago but I had no idea he had so many songs.  He has also accompanied the album with some offensive September 11th themed artwork and a note which could be the beginning of a Four Loko manifesto about how the government taking away the Loko is an affront to civil liberties.

In light of the recent Four Loko bans, this is Radical Outing’s response, 8 tracks of songs influenced by Four Loko produced under the influence of Four Loko. The EP features contributions from Anton Glamb, Chad Dubz, Santhya, Pink Cash and Johnny on the Rocks of Rocky Business. All tracks are original with the exception of Beautiful Problems, a rap/remix of an original song by Jade<3. We at Radical Outing drank a lot of Four Loko and feel that these recent bans are an attack on our freedom and way of life. We feel that it is our civic duty to respond stand up for our basic American right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

All I know is that this album is pretty fucking hilarious and I almost wish I drank so I could “Drink Four Loko’s In The Rain”.  Seriously. That shit is amazing and poetic. You need to listen to this shit right away. It will change your life.

Click here to listen to Anton Glamb & Radical Outing’s Never Forget – An Attack On Our Freedom & Way Of Life.

My attempt at doing a weekly, or at least semi-weekly Mp3 post continues today with a few selections from the Every Which Way But Loose soundtrack.  I have been talking about getting the poster art for Every Which Way But Loose on me forever. It features Clint Eastwood looking like a total bad ass while being hugged by an orangutan. We don’t even have to talk about how awesome that is. I mean, it is life changing and you know how much I love dumb tattoos of old conservative white guys who have starred in movies with apes. But even though I have wanted the tattoo for several years I didn’t actually watch the movie until a few months ago.

I loved it even more than I thought I would. Clint Eastwood plays a street fighter who goes from town to town fighting for money and trying to rescue a girl who doesn’t want to be rescued. Totally unrelated to the plot is his pet orangutan Clyde who spends the movie getting drunk and looking cute. The movie would be barely changed at all if you removed the ape, but the movie poster would probably only have been 1/10th as awesome.

One thing about watching Every Which Way But Loose is that you will finish it with Eddie Rabbit’s title track stuck in your head.  For me it was probably a week before I stopped singing it aloud to strangers on the subway. I knew I needed the album so I went on eBay and picked it up on vinyl and after some desperate searching found a download of it online.  The soundtrack is pretty amazing. I am not even really a country music guy, but there are a bunch of really amazing songs on it.  There are also a bunch of random instrumental songs that I don’t really care for, but luckily we live in a world where you can just delete those from your iTunes library.

For your listening pleasure today I am going to pull three of my favorite tracks. The first is the previously mentioned title track, Eddie Rabbit’s “Every Which Way But Loose”. It is super slow and twanggy but somehow it is the most catchy damn song on earth. It will probably be in my head from now till Christmas.

Eddie Rabbit – Every Which Way But Loose

My second choice is “A “Six Pack To Go” by Hank Thompson.  I have loved this song ever since my friends punk band in covered it nearly a decade ago. It’s a rocking country tune about getting wasted instead of paying rent. How can you not love that?

Hank Thompson – A Six Pack to Go

My third choice was a bit harder to make. I wanted to go with a Charlie Rich song because he is actually in the movie playing live at one of the country-western bars in the film. I also considered Mel Tillis song “Coca Cola Cowboy” because it is fucking awesome but I figured I should figure a lady since Sondra Locke is one of the stars of the film and has two songs on the soundtrack, but her character is sort of a bitch, so fuck her. I went with the Carol Chase song “I Can’t Say No To A Truck Driving Man”. It is a fantastic little ditty and super catchy.

Carol Chase – Can’t Say No to a Truck Drivin’ Man

Anyway, this write up is not super coherent so I am going to go, but you should probably watch the movie as soon as you can and do what you can to track down the damn soundtrack. Have a good day.

I have been thinking for a while about doing a weekly Mp3 post where I put up three related songs when I don’t have any photos to post.  I worked in some form of the music industry for a decade and I feel like I have some epic jams to offer you guys.  One day when I was about 27 I woke up and realized I don’t really listen to new music any more. Part of it was moving to NYC and not having a car to listen to music in anymore and part of it has to do with the fact that I am too damn old for this shit.  That being said, I still listen all my old shit and I just recently found a ton of my old Mp3s includings some really weird shit, so get prepared to have your minds blown by novelty hits by professional wrestlers and the like.

But today we are going to start with the real shit.  I keep telling everyone I want to start a punk band so recently I have been listening to nothing but punk. I want to start the band by doing some covers until we are slightly tight and then write some new songs. I have been thinking a lot about the covers I wanted to do and I have come up with a list of about 10 songs I would want to do. I think we are going to try to learn 5 and I am going to post three of them here for you. Get fucking excited.

The first track is GG Allin’s “Drink Fight Fuck”. The irony is that I don’t actually drink and I haven’t been in a fight in a few years. I used to fight a lot when I was younger, but again… too old for that shit. I never really drank and was straight edge when I was younger. That did not stop me from fucking loving GG Allin and this song is pretty much perfect.

GG Allin – Drink Fight Fuck

The second track is “Fuck You Up And Get High” by the Dwarves.  They are pretty much my favorite band that is still playing and one of my favorite punk bands. Again, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that I want to cover a song about getting fucked up when I don’t do that, but fuck you. This is punk rock, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.  I also might do “Fucked ’em All” or “Rock and Roll”. I’ll let the band decide…

Ps. This version of the song is off “Blood, Guts and Pussy” which is a late 2000’s album where they did new recordings of a bunch of their old songs.

Dwarves – Fuck You Up and Get High

The final track is “Girl Problems” by SOA. SOA is a DC area punk band that existed for about a year in 1981. It was fronted by Henry Rollins who left the band when he joined Black Flag. They released one 7″ record called the No Policy EP and it is pretty much song for song my favorite piece of music of all time. Rollins has dismissed the band but they meant so much to me when I was 15. If my punk band could sound half as good as SOA does I would be fucking ecstatic. Girl Problems was by far my favorite song which again was ironic because at the time my only “Girl Problem” was that girls wouldn’t give me the time of day. Me covering this song might be a little bit more appropriate now.

SOA – Girl Problems

So that’s it. Let me know if you like this format for posts and want to see more of them. Clearly they won’t all be punk but I will try to thematically link them and tell stories of it’s importance in my life or some bullshit like that.  Speaking of bullshit, I think my punk band is going to be called “Fucking Bullshit”. How do we feel about that?