On Friday and Saturday I shot a total of five events. Four of them were CMJ parties that Brooklyn Vegan threw. Since I am out of town and I want to get all these really fun pictures up we are going to simplify things. First, I am going to post all four parties in just two posts. One post today for Friday and one post (hopefully) Tomorrow with all the pictures from Saturday. Secondly I am going to link you to the flyer so you can figure out what the hell you are looking at instead of me telling you about it. But, I am going to give you a little paragraph breaking stuff down.

Friday started at noon at Public Assembly and people got their drink on early with open bars from Sailor Jerry and PBR. Tons of bands played all day on two stages and the event wrapped up at six. After that we headed over to St. Vitus at 8pm for an “Un-CMJ” after party the highlight of which featured Infinity Spaceship’s live band punk rock karaoke which was pretty much the highlight of my week. Good times. Other Day 1 highlights included Metz, Savages, Toys That Kill and Deap Vally. Also Sky Ferreira is really really hot…

So click here for all the pictures from Friday’s Brooklyn Vegan CMJ Day Party at Public Assembly.

And click here for all the pictures from Brooklyn Vegan’s Un-CMJ after party at St. Vitus.

Moodswing360 held their 4th annual showcase at The Studio at Webster Hall and it was ladies night and I was psyched. Three of my favorite ladies in nightlife Maluca, Roxy Cottontail and Jane Bang were all going to be there so I was pretty happy to be getting paid to hang out with them. On top of that the super hot babes that are Nina Sky were headlining and I was really curious to see Chippy Nonstop do whatever the hell she does. Lisa D’Amato was hosting and it was cool to run into her for the first time since hanging out with her at SXSW way back in 2008. Lady Starlight is a fucking awesome rock and roll DJ and she played a Sparks track which was amazing. Sparks are one of my favorite bands of all time but I don’t think I have ever heard anyone play them ever. She also dressed like a crazy person which I totally support. The only acts I didn’t know about before the show were Anjulie They Bobby Effect and they were both pretty fantastic.

Long story short Maluca was amazing, Chippy was insane, Jane & Roxy held it down on the turntables, Nina Sky gave everyone boners, Starlight headbanged to Bohemian Rhapsody, Anjulie and The Bobby Effect were impressive as hell and Lisa has life changing side boob. Good party, good times. CMJ continues…

Click here to see all the pictures from the Moodswing360 CMJ Showcase at the Studio at Webster Hall.

CMJ is upon us and I have already shot two parties with a lot more to go Tomorrow and Saturday. On Tuesday I headed over to the Box to shoot Benzi’s Get Right Records party. I have been to the Box many times but they mostly don’t let photographers shoot in there so it was cool to get to bring my camera for once although there were no naked acrobats or anything during the party.

The party started off slow and I think it was because of the presidential debates because thirty minutes after they were over the party was fucking bumping and there was a line out the door. Benzi DJd of course but there were also DJ sets from Jason Smith and Solidisco. Master Shortie showed up from London to perform and Silver Medallion fucked the crowd up as well. My homie Shwazye came through as a surprise guest and did one song and my girl Roxy Cottontail hosted and did a couple songs too. It was a good time despite being on a handful of Benadryl after an allergy attack nearly took my life. That might be a slight exaggeration…

Lastly I want to give a shout out to Moodswing360 who sponsored the party and asked me to come shoot it. I shot their CMJ Showcase for them last night too and I should have those pictures up tomorrow so come back!

In the mean time, click here to see all the pictures from the Get Right Records CMJ showcase at the Box.

Holy shit. If the NYC Zombie Crawl wasn’t enough there was an insane after party at The Studio at Webster Hall. A lot of the thousand plus zombies went home and missed out on total insanity. It was a little too empty all night for some reason but the couple hundred people who stuck around were in for a treat. There was a Nine Inch Nails cover band fronted by an Elvis impersonator (Nine Inch Elvis), there was an all girl metal cover band (Thunder Box) who blew people away from their opener Ace of Spades all the way to their closer Run To The Hills. Troma’s Lloyd Kaufman showed up and played a sneak peak of his new Class of Nuke Em High remake. Lots of the cast were there and were causing all sorts of trouble. My girl Scarlett Storm showed up with her friend Smurf and they did horror themed burlesque. At the end of the night there was some sort of sexy zombie contest where the only person not dressed up was the only person to get naked. But there was vomiting and sexy dancing. Also there were human flesh pulls, I mean obviously. Honestly the whole night was a fucking blur. I wasn’t drinking but I felt drunk (There was a lot of cheap Sailor Jerry and PBR though) and got a bunch of girls naked in the back room and in the bathroom. It was like an old school DBB night. Lot’s of fun, total weirdness and tons of wild NSFW pictures. Look at them!

Click here to see all the pictures from the 2012 NYC Zombie Crawl after party at The Studio at Webster Hall.

I am going to make this quick because my girlfriend is on her way to NYC and I need to get a bunch of stuff done before I am unproductive for the week she is here. Long story short… last night was a lot of fun. Sailor Jerry puts on a lot of rock shows as you might have noticed from reading this blog and last night Sailor Jerry Presents brought the rock and roll stylings of Nobunny to the East Village tiki/dive bar Otto’s Shrunken Head. I saw Nobunny at Fun Fun Fun last year and he was awesome so I was pretty psyched for this show.

His back up band for this tour, Bad Sports, opened up and they were pretty awesome and the packed crowd at Otto’s was really into them. But when Nobunny came out, shit went to another level. It was like 1000 degrees in the little back room of Otto’s and I stuck around for the whole set sweating my ass off. Add to that all the cute babes and weird drinks at Otto’s and last night was just a really good time. I also shot a bunch of video for Sailor Jerry that you might see one of these days somewhere… Good times.

Click here to see all the photos from the Sailor Jerry Presents: Nobunny show at Otto’s Shrunken Head.

Ps. If you are wondering why Nobunny was not wearing his creepy bunny mask… he lost it.

One of the main differences between this years Gathering of the Juggalos coverage and years past is that I was actually working for the festival as their photographer. After covering it for the last two years I convinced them that it would be a good idea to have an in house guy and I was that guy. My all access pass got me backstage so I got a lot of shots that no one else had. The problem was that on the main stage the backstage is just a field with trailers in it so there is almost no light back there so every photo taken at night had to be just shot with flash with no fill light in the background or anything. I still got a lot of cool shots but they probably aren’t as nice as they could have been if we weren’t standing in pitch black darkness. Just saying…

Highlights for me were shooting the Geto Boys in clown make up with ICP, meeting Onxy and  The Pharcyde, getting to shoot George Clinton and having Bushwick Bill spray me with spray paint. Okay, that last one might not have exactly been a highlight but it was at least really weird. Anyway, there is a bunch of cool stuff in this gallery and you should check it out.

Click here to see all the backstage photos from the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos.

The Gathering of the Juggalos is a yearly music festival in Cave In Rock, IL created by the Insane Clown Posse that I have now photographed three times. Every year it produces some of the best photos I have ever taken. To see my complete GOTJ archives please click here.

Even if you hate the Insane Clown Posse you have to admit the Gathering of the Juggalos is a pretty cool thing of them to do for their fans. Juggalos get five days of their favorite bands, mixed with a ton of huge nationally touring acts, comedy, nudity and a BBQ all for $175. It seems like a pretty good deal. How often does your favorite band feed you hot dogs and hamburgers?

By day five nothing at the Gathering of the Juggalos is surprising but if you take a minute to realize what is happening at Violent  J’s Beach Boy BBQ Blowout Bash it’s pretty surreal. You have this hugely famous musician in full clown make up wearing a god damned lei with his Air Jordans serving free food to half naked juggalos while DJ Clay spins a mix of Beach Boys songs and Psychopathic Records hits all leading up to a Michael Jackson cover band.

Seriously, there is a Michael Jackson cover band who played called Who’s Bad?  That’s not a question, that’s just the name of the band… and they were bad ass. Violent J claimed they were his favorite Michael Jackson cover band which I would imagine is not a huge stretch, although I also wouldn’t be surprised if Violent J runs a Michael Jackson tribute band review blog on the side. At this point nothing about ICP surprises me.  So yeah, let’s recap… Michael Jackson cover band, clown rapper serving hot dogs, Beach Boys and “wicked” juggalo music being spun by a DJ and topless girls on stage being sprayed with water guns full of Faygo. Oh, I didn’t mention that last part yet? Yeah we can safely mark this gallery NSFW.  Moving on…

Click here to see all the mildly surreal photos of Violent J’s Beach Boy BBQ Blowout Blast Bash at the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos.

The Gathering of the Juggalos is a yearly music festival in Cave In Rock, IL created by the Insane Clown Posse that I have now photographed three times. Every year it produces some of the best photos I have ever taken. To see my complete GOTJ archives please click here.

There were a massive amount of bands at the Gathering of the Juggalos and I think I photographed every single band or rapper to play the main stage. When I was doing my edit any band that had less than 15 photos went into a “Other Bands” folder and that’s what you are getting in this last gallery of photos. Now that I have posted everything else, here is the rest in one final music post. Starting tomorrow you are going to get rocked by the rest of the Gathering madness now that all the live music photos are out of the way… Get excited.

Personal highlights from the left over stuff include Kool Keith and Mack 10. I love Kool Keith but he’s pretty boring to photograph live and I have covered him before so I didn’t shoot much of his set. I used to listen to a lot of West Side Connection so I fuck with Mack 10 a little bit. I almost had a full gallery of the Kottonmouth Kings because they are pretty much jugglaos favorite non-Psychopathic Records act. Tech N9ne gives them a run for their money but I made sure to get a number of shots because they are so popular in this world.

On Tursday night DMX and The Game got scared of juggalos and canceled so they were replaced by Soul Fly for some reason. Imagine buying tickets for The Game and DMX and showing up and it’s Soulfly and Fear Factory. That would be mind blowing. Speaking of Fear Factory they might be the worst band I have heard in three years of the Gathering of the Juggalos. Jesus christ. The should always open for Soulfly because they made Soulfly sound so fucking good in comparison.

This dude Big B played before the Kottomouth Kings unannounced. I am pretty sure he is on their label and Mack 10 was running late. I jokingly said to one of the bouncers in the photo pit “I don’t think this is Mack 10.” and the bouncer replied “That’s actually Mack 7.” That shit was funny.

The only bands left in this folder are Static X and POD. Everyone was really psyched about both of them and I don’t really get it but I am just not into shit like that. That being said they both put on really good live shows. The front man for POD is actually pretty fucking awesome at being a front man and Static X are super weird looking so that makes them fun to shoot. So yeah. Good times.

Now let’s get this shit over with and get on to all the photos of juggalos and naked juggalettes that you came here to see.

Click here to see all the pictures of all the musicians that I didn’t take enough photos of to warrant their own section at the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos.

The Gathering of the Juggalos is a yearly music festival in Cave In Rock, IL created by the Insane Clown Posse that I have now photographed three times. Every year it produces some of the best photos I have ever taken. To see my complete GOTJ archives please click here.

I got two more band updates from The Gathering of the Juggalos left. We are gonna get them done today and then start hitting you with the good shit tomorrow. I have a wet t-shirt contest, juggalo portraits, backstage stuff, wrestling and MMA and everybody’s favorite yearly GOTJ update… naked juggalettes. In the mean time let’s get this band stuff out of the way.

First up we have the Psychopathic Records artists (Except ICP who I already posted). I know all my normal fans who are just interested in crazy photos of juggalos don’t give a shit about this stuff, but juggalos care about these bands more than any of the other shit I post so we gotta do this update for all my ‘los and ‘lettes out there.

Let’s break this shit down for those not in the know. Wednesday night the ICP/Twiztid super group Dark Lotus performed. They rarely play outside the Gathering so it’s a pretty big deal. Also on Wednesday night The Psychopathic Rydas played but it was at fucking 4am and I was exhausted after traveling all day so I missed that. On Thursday night Anybody Killa AKA ABK played. He is some sort of Native American clown with a lisp. I honestly don’t get it but the kids love it. On Friday Twiztid did their thing. They are like ICP’s little brothers and a lot of juggalos actually prefer them to ICP. They are undeniably better rappers. On Saturday night ICP headlined but both Blaze Ya Dead Homie and Cold 187um opened for them. Blaze is beloved by juggalos but Cold 187um, a new artist on the label, is fucking hated. ICP brought this legit rapper (who has worked with Eazy E, Dr. Dre and 2Pac) onto their label to do a mix tape using old Psychopathic beats and people hate him for either stepping on their classic shit, or just not wearing clown make up. I can’t figure it out.

On Sunday night, the very last thing at the Gathering is called the Deadly Medley and it features every Psychopathic artist doing songs one after another on the Bomb House stage which is the fucking hardest stage to photograph. Once again Cold 187um got shit thrown at him and dudes with Psychopathic Records tattoos were flicking him off. If you have a label’s logo tattooed to your arm you would think you would want to respect the artists on that label, especially when they have by far the most street cred of anyone on your label… but no clown make up = juggalo hate. This one guy next to me was booing Cold 187 so hard and then when all the artists came out at the end Cold 187um threw that juggalo a t-shirt. During the Deadly Medley Violent J’s brother Jumpsteady came out, and while he is one of the nicer people I have met in the Pyschopathic family he is not very good at rapping. But the kids love him cause he is J’s brother. I have no idea why this anti-Cold 187um shit rubs me the wrong way but it really fucking does. A dude who was on fucking Ruthless Records in 1989 should get more respect than an Indian clown with a lisp god damnit!

Enough of my bitching, click here to see all the photos of Psychopathic Records artists at the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos. Click the photos below to get taken to the individual artist gallery pages.

The Gathering of the Juggalos is a yearly music festival in Cave In Rock, IL created by the Insane Clown Posse that I have now photographed three times. Every year it produces some of the best photos I have ever taken. To see my complete GOTJ archives please click here.