I am back from my insane road trip! If you somehow aren’t aware I spent 31 days on the road driving from Detroit to Chicago and then taking Route 66 from there all the way to LA. From there I drove up to San Francisco and then drove back across the country to Chicago where I spent several days photographing Sailor Jerry’s Pitchfork Music Festival after parties AKA Cobrafest. I finally drove back to Detroit and then flew home on Tuesday. I spent a couple days sleeping and recovering and trying to catch up on emails.

I have mostly recovered and although I might take another couple days off this weekend, I am ready to get back to work. We are going to start things off getting all the Cobrafest photos up. Keith Underwood and Jason Hoodrich from Taylor Street Tattoos gave out Sailor Jerry flash tattoos all three days. Tons of bands played and DJs spun outside.

I already did mini updates on the road trip blog about all three days of Cobrafest at Cobra Lounge if you want to know more about the events, but I will give you quick break downs right now.

Cobrafest Friday: The Bronx headlined and absolutely destroyed the place and my friends in Habibi were awesome as well. The People’s Temple and Thing played as well and there was a pretty sweet dance party outside. All of Habibi got tattooed and I got a tattoo as well. My dad raised me on Jimmy Buffett so I got a dead parrot head tattoo as a secret homage to that upbringing.  Click here for photos from Cobrafest Friday.

Cobrafest Saturday: The night featured The Growlers headlining with Toxie, Heavy Times and Denney & The Jets all performing as well. Most of the Growlers got tattooed as did Denney and his girlfriend. Saturday seemed like the most chill of the days probably because there was so much other shit going on that night but the Growlers and local favorites Heavy Times still brought out a pretty packed crowd. Click here for photos from Cobrafest Saturday.

Cobrafest Sunday: Sunday was my favorite day specifically because there was a Yacht Rock party with a water slide that made for awesome photos and a lot of cute tattooed girls in bikinis and a lot of Hall and Oates being played outside. My pals White Mystery played and opened up for King Dude and Chicago’s own Hollywood Holt spun outside. Nones and Rainbow Gun Show opened the night and it ended with two cute girls driving me to the place I was crashing. Nothing but awesomeness all night. Click here for photos from Cobrafest Sunday.

Another Brooklyn Zombie Crawl? You know what that means… Another insane Brooklyn Zombie Crawl after party! Last year the party was held at Public Assembly and my band played and it was a ton of fun. This year our drummer was out of town, but it was still a hell of a time. A half Misfits cover band called Skeletal Life played and that was awesome and later Bikini Carwash played and they were awesome and late night a singing pirate named Voltaire played and in between the bands there was just total madness.

My friend Lunchbox hosted the Disgraceland Family Freak show and the Disgraceland Hook Squad did some terrifying flesh pulls including one where Lunchbox attached a hook through his balls and my friend Sewer Sprite attached hooks to her throat and right above her vagina and it was extremely brutal.

Two things we learned from that: 1) Yes this gallery is extremely NSFW and 2) My friends have absurd names.

Scarlett Storm and Smurfasaur Suicide from the Rigormortis Review did burlesque and got naked a lot and Smurf was involved in the Disgraceland stuff and pretty much all of it was awesome. You can see them naked in places like Bombshell Brats and Suicide Girls if you are into that sort of thing. Personally I hope to shoot them for real for this site soon, but I have been saying that for a while now…

And to end the night Doug Sakmann hosted his infamous Strip for Pain which involved Scarlett and Smurf torturing guys and getting naked. Good times.

Anyway, it was totally insane and you need to look at the damn photos already…

Click here to see all the photos from the Brooklyn Zombie Crawl After party at Public Assembly!

First of all, today is my birthday. I am far too old and grumpy to be having a real party but I am going to be drinking booze and trying to ruin lives at The DL. My homie Prince Terry is Djing and there is a Patricia Field thing going on too. If you want to come to that I will be there and we can fight or make out or cry or arm wrestle or something. Also, if you want to buy me something awesome, I need 35mm film for an upcoming road trip.

Now, more importantly I got back from the Indianapolis 500 yesterday and I have pictures to prove it. A friend in Indy hit me up a few days ago and was like, “You should come to the Indy 500, it’s insane.” At first I kinda laughed it off but then I realized I was borrowing a car and it was only a 12 hour drive so  I hit up a the Village Voice and they wanted the pictures so I had my gas and hotels paid for so I was on the way to Indianapolis.

So I don’t know anything about car racing. Evidently the Indy 500 is Indycar racing and not Nascar. I have been told that Indycar is somehow less rednecky and they don’t have roofs on their cars. I couldn’t tell you any more than that because I was in the middle of this MASSIVE race track that had a golf cart and a rave inside it so I didn’t actually see any racing and I have never watched a race in my life except for the Sports Center highlights when stuff explodes.

Anyway, back to the rave inside the tack… It’s called “The Snake Pit” and it was kinda like a mini EDC or something inside the track except with less music, more patriotism, less drugs and more booze. It was like a frat party, meets a rave, meets a tailgate. Diplo and Afro Jack DJ’d on either side of an awkward bikini contest and there was a slide and a mechanical pig.

Have you ever seen Diplo DJ at 10am? Cause now I have. I’ve seen that dude DJ probably close to 30 times but never before noon. Luckily people were black out drunk by 9am so no one seemed to notice that Afrojack went on at lunch time. The party was totally fucking madness but I didn’t see any cars crash (I didn’t really see any cars) and no one got naked. While this is tragic I did take a ton of photos and I think you will enjoy them no matter what you look for in one of my photo galleries.

So click here for the massive, insane gallery from the Snake Pit at the Indy 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Oliver Peck is not only a bad ass tattoo artist and host of TV’s Ink Master, he  also happens to be one of the only Republicans that I get along with. After spending the last seven weeks in NYC filming season three of Ink Master Oliver is headed back home to Dallas. Last night with the help of Sailor Jerry he threw an insane going away party at Arlene’s Grocery.

Back in Dallas, Oliver and his friend Josh Hammertimez host Good Luck Karaoke, which is pretty much like regular karaoke except Josh and Oliver cause a ruckus on stage while you are performing your song. They brought the party to NYC last night and did karaoke until everyone was too drunk to sing anymore. I have seen a lot of karaoke in my life but never as out of control as last night. The Alkaline Trio showed up and Matt Skiba got wasted on Sailor Jerry and decided to play the drums during about ten people’s karaoke sets. It was pretty amazing/ hilarious.

Oliver also brought his friend and co-worker at Elm Street Tattoo, Carl Hallowell, to tattoo Sailor Jerry flash on people while the karaoke madness was going on in the other room. Skiba got a death head moth on his hand, my dude AK Murda got a hinge, Steve Lewis got a pin up, etc. Lot of rad tattoos all around.

Oh, I should probably mention that everyone was wearing wigs all night. Why you ask? I have no idea actually, but it probably has something to do with Oliver’s drag queen Ramones tribute band The Ramonahs. They played a set in the middle of the karaoke party and it was fucking awesome. Oliver does a pretty good Joey Ramone impression only with a mustache and fake tits. Seriously it was wild.

Enough with the story let’s get to some pictures. It was a wild night…

Click here to see all the pictures from Oliver Peck’s Wig Party at Arlene’s Grocery featuring Good Luck Karoke and The Ramonahs!

Last night I went out to the Roseland Ballroom with almost no idea what I was going to see. I knew my friends from Trouble & Bass were DJing and I knew it was part of the massive month long Red Bull Music Academy. Other than that I didn’t know much, I really just wanted to get out of the house and shoot some photos. I’ve been so busy working on a bunch of random project that I haven’t had  much time to do any actual work.

So it turns out the event was “Culture Clash” a battle between four NYC DJ crews hosted by Miss Info. Trouble & Bass were squaring off against the reggae  crew Federation Sound, the “Global Bass” duo Que Bajo and hip hop producers/djs Just Blaze and Young Guru. I am not gonna lie, I was pretty psyched for Just Blaze and Young Guru even though I was rooting for my T&B fam.

The contest works like this: There are four rounds and the winning team gets a point for rounds two and three and two points for round four. The first round is just 15 min to do whatever you like to get the crowd hyped and no one wins. The second round is more of the same but it the crowd votes on it. In the third round each crew has to play another team’s type of music and the fourth round is all originals and live performances.

I am not gonna talk a ton about Federation Sound or Que Bajo too much because this post is going to be way too long as it is and they don’t really play music I am into. I am a massive Jimmy Cliff fan and I fuck with some other reggae stuff but dub reggae is just not my jam. Que Bajo plays some sort of mix of reggaeton, moombahton and other latin and island stuff that is pretty interesting but again, not really what I am feeling.  I will say that Federation Sound really brought it to the competition, handing out whistles and noisemakers, doing a ton of original stuff written just for the Culture Clash and as you can see in the photos basically went to war with the other groups. Que Bajo put on a fun show with dancers and MC’s and some funny disses but their photo pit was way too small so I didn’t focus on them as much as the other groups.

Just Blaze and Young Guru killed it all night. They have produced for everyone in hip hop and brought most of them on stage with them at some point in the night. They had guest appearances by Raekwon, 2 Chainz, Wale, Jadakiss, Memphis Bleek, Pharoahe Monch, Syles P and a ton of others. It was pretty wild. Just Blaze brought a t-shirt cannon and was giving away stuff all night. At one point he filled it with money and made it rain on the audience. Unfortunately I was on the other side of the room taking to a friend and I left the event just as broke as when I walked in. They killed it all night and I am a way bigger hip hop fan than I am any of the other genres so I was psyched for their sets.

But as awesome as Blaze and Guru were, Trouble & Bass brought it even harder. They were a late edition and had only a few days to get ready. Despite this they had really dumb/funny signs and Ninja Turtles prepared. They won every single round and walked off stage Culture Clash champs after calling their shot with fake NY Posts that declared them the winners after the third round. Speaking of the third round, they were the only ones who did a great job DJing another genre, but they had a ringer. They had to imitate Que Bajo, so they brought out Dave Nada who actually invented moombathon and he clearly killed it. They had some awesome special guests as well. Aside from their host all night Teli from Ninjasonik they also had Flatbush Zombies and Nina Sky perform. They brought out the big guns in the last round with an amazing performance by Robin S doing her early 90’s hit Show Me Love. Everyone lost their minds instantly. She killed it so hard. They ended their set with a great dis, bringing out Cam’Ron doing tracks that Just Blaze produced. It was amazing and they deserved the win. I jumped on stage and hung out with them while they DJ’d everyone out of Roseland. It was a special moment. So proud of those dudes.

I took SO many damn photos so if you want to get into it there are nearly 400 images in this gallery. It’s gonna be hard to pull my favorites below but I am gonna try my best.

Click here to see the HUGE gallery of pictures from the Red Bull Music Academy Culture Clash.

Hi kids. I am out in LA hanging out with my brother who turns 30 this month. I am pretty much just vacationing and eating food and not working too much (although I did shoot Alysha Nett again today). I wanted to get SOMETHING up for you guys and I just happened to have some photos ready to go from when I was in Austin for SXSW.

One of my really good friends Mike lives in Austin and he told me he would drive me to the airport if I took some photos of his band New Noys. I kinda hate shooting band portraits but I really like his band and he had some really dumb/hilarious ideas for the shoot so I was down. We shot in this warehouse that he works out of he shocked the shit out of himself with a Telsa Coil that was just hanging out and he shot off a fire extinguisher and had a crazy old man throw confetti on his band. It was a quick, weird photo shoot but I had fun and got some funny photos. The one with the confetti is pretty much the greatest band photo of all time. That old guy looks like a Scooby Doo villain. Amazing.

New Noys just recorded three songs so go listen to them right now. They are seriously awesome.

Now click here and see all the other photos I took of New Noys!

Trying to take it easy today given that nothing is open and no one responds to email on Easter but I had to get up these photos from last night. I got hired to shoot this super weird party at Spike Hill called Famous Hill II. I didn’t go to the first Famous Hill but I heard good things so I was looking forward to the party. When I walked in this punk-rap group named Animal House was fucking up shit and the hosts were dressed up like low budget Game of Thrones characters and there were gold spray painted “dragon eggs” hanging from the ceiling. It only got weirder from there with a super melodic pretty band named Redfoot playing in between DJ’s B-Tips and Longarms. Longarms actually did a Game of Thrones remix and then these rad Canadian women named Diamond Bones played some rock and roll.

Nothing made sense and there were some technical difficulties which host/rapper MH The Verb blamed on them “getting high and painting dragon eggs” but the party was still fun and I got to talk to cute girls about punk rock. Speaking of MH The Verb, he and B-Tips at one point beat boxed which only added to the “what the hell is going on here” vibe.

And speaking of punk rock, my punk cover band Fucking Bullshit is playing tomorrow at the Flat and you should go. (More on that tomorrow.) Now where was I? Oh right, the party also had live painting by Jason Borbay and I missed  the last band Empty Chairs because I had to run to another thing but I am sure they were awesome anyway.

So yeah! Happy Easter and party forever!

Click here to check out all the pictures from Famous Hill II at Spike Hill!

In the last of my SXSW posts I bring you The Black Lips live from Hotel Vegas. Their show was packed but I managed to get in the back. I have photographed the Black Lips a few times and it’s always a crazy show but the combination of dust and silly string and beer led to an extra wild show. At one point I tried to photograph Cole crowd surfing only to get trapped with my legs smashed between bodies and the stage while my back actually lay on the stage and I just shot looking straight up at Jared while he played. The light was so harsh and weird that it didn’t make for great photos but there is some pretty awesome stuff here anyway. Fun show.

And that’s it! SXSW photos are done. We get back to your regularly scheduled Driven By Boredom program tomorrow! But until then…

Check out all the pictures from the Black Lips at Hotel Vegas at SXSW.

Vice’s Andy Capper went to Jamaica and filmed a documentary called “Reincarnated” about Snoop Dogg’s transition into Snoop Lion. Snoop got in touch with his Rasta side and spent a lot of time in the islands and recorded a Reggae album with Diplo. To promote the release of the film Snoop Lion played at Vice’s pop up SXSW party “Viceland”. He did an all reggae set including many of his old hits with a new reggae vibe.

The show was so packed and I couldn’t get any where near the stage despite having a press pass, but on my way out I ran into Snoop’s publicist and she delivered me to the most packed photo pit I have ever seen. It was crazy. We were packed in like lobsters and somehow had to get great shots in two songs. I think I managed to get some okay stuff anyway. It was the third time I have photographed Snoop and it’s always a good time (check the old photos here and here).

So check out these Snoop Lion photos and I will be back in 30 with a bunch of Black Lips photos that will end my SXSW photos for 2013 and we can get back to naked girls and New York madness!

Click here to see the Snoop Lion photos from Lion Fest at Viceland!