When I was in Chicago last weekend I spent the bulk of my time photographing the Cobra Fest after parties, but since they were after parties for the Pitchfork Music Festival I figured I would check that out as well. I got my media pass and decided to give it a go on Friday but it was pouring rain so I decided not to. A little bit later it cleared up and I realized I could make it down in time to see A$AP Rocky so I did that, but then it started raining again and I got soaked, which was kinda fun.  I went over and shot Big K.R.I.T. and then the Dirty Projectors and Japandroids before it was time to head to Cobra Fest. I had to shoot Exxxotica on Saturday but I figured I would come back on Sunday and really put in work and try to cover the fest properly.

On my way back from Exxxotica I was early for Cobra Fest thanks to a ride from a friend and I decided to stop by Pitchfork for about 30 minutes. I shot one song of Hot Chip and then ran over to the stage with Danny Brown because I really wanted to shoot him. Unfortunately he didn’t end up going on stage until 8pm and I had to be at Cobra Fest at 8 so I shot one half a song and then ran over to Cobra Lounge.

Sunday I looked at the schedule and realized I didn’t really want to see any of the bands and I would rather sleep and edit photos from the weekend so I skipped Pitchfork all together. In total I photographed six bands and got a handful of crowd shots and managed to bring to you the most half assed festival coverage of all time. But I guess that’s what happens when it’s raining and I am not really getting paid (Although the Village Voice did end up buying the pictures).

The one thing Pitchfork did do was inspire me to write an article about how much festivals suck for Photographers because their media set up was impressively unimpressive and I had to fight with kids with iPhones who have no business being in a photo pit.  Sigh. The highlight of the festival might have been watching kids try to sneak into what someone described as “the easiest festival to sneak into in the country”. I saw a ton of kids sneak in and get away, but just as many get tackled by security. Good times.

Anyway, enjoy the photos from Pitchfork that I did manage to take. I like some of the rain shots and the A$AP Rocky photos are good if you are fans of A$AP Mob and not Rocky himself because he didn’t come out until song four right as they kicked all the photographers out of the pit.

Click here to see all my photos from the 2012 Pitchfork Music Festival at Union Park in Chicago, IL.

Cobrafest was a three day after party for the Pitchfork Music Fest at Cobra Lounge in Chicago. Sailor Jerry was a sponsor and you can see pictures from Friday here and Saturday here. Now let’s do Sunday quickly so I can get on a plane!

Day three of Cobrafest was pretty awesome but I was pretty wrecked from the weekend so I moved a little slower and took a few less photos but had fun just the same. Day three was full of great rock and roll bands but headlined by King Tuff. Natural Child, Jaill and local rockers Slushy. Nick Collela passed tattooing duties to Frank Williams (also of the Chicago Tattooing Company) and he did a ton of tattoos including an amazing duck on me and a “Chow Hound” tattoo on professional eater Tim “Gravy” Brown. Let’s get to the pictures already!

Click here for Sunday’s pictures from Cobrafest at Cobra Lounge in Chicago, IL.

Cobrafest at Cobra Lounge continues! If you want to find out more about the Pitchfork Fest after party check out my last post about Cobrafest Day 1. No time for a recap we gotta get these Chicago pics up before I get on a plane back to NYC! Let’s do this!

Cobrafest day two was my favorite day and I was psyched about it as soon as I saw the bill. White Mystery were playing and they have become pretty good friends and they are an amazing rock and roll band from Detroit. Habibi was opening up the night and they are this sick rock and roll band full of hot babes that is from Brooklyn and played with my punk band Fucking Bullshit at White Mystery’s record release party back in April. I was psyched to see them both. It was no coincidence that 5 out of the 6 members of Habibi and White Mystery were of the female sex because Saturday night at Cobrafest was ladies night. As soon as I walked into the Sailor Jerry airstream it was filled with hot rock and roll babes. I got to meet the Coathangers and Heavy Cream and they all became my new best friends. Keeping with the theme they are both epic rock and roll bands filled with rad girls who I want to hang out with all the time.

Nick Colella of Chicago Tattooing Company tattooed hot girls (plus Dirty Beaches and Youth Lagoon) all day and I sat around and took pictures in between running back to the stage to listen to amazing bands. It was a pretty epic night. I was on very little sleep but I didn’t even notice until I sat down at 4am to edit pictures. Long live rock and roll.

Click here to check out all the pictures from Saturday night at Cobrafest at Cobra Lounge in Chicago, IL.

I spent the weekend in Chicago out shooting Pitchfork Music Fest, Chicago Exxxotica and primarily a Sailor Jerry sponsored three day party called Cobrafest. Cobrafest is a Pitchfork after party that takes place at Cobra Lounge. Cobra Lounge is less than a block from Pitchfork so it’s a pretty ideal place for an after party. Each night a bunch of bands played and Sailor Jerry gave out rum and tattoos to the bands. The Chicago Tattooing Company provided the ink with Nick Colella doing the tattoos on Friday and Saturday and Frank William took over on Sunday.

I am gonna try to bang out all three days before I get on a plane today so I am going to make these quick. There are a lot of photos to get to!

Friday night featured Far-Out Fangtooth, Stagnant Pools and Psychic Paramount opening for the really amazing Human Eye. Human Eye pretty much killed it and their front man, Timmy Vulgar invited me to Detroit to eat tacos. Clearly, I should not pass this opportunity up. A bunch of people got tattooed and fun was had by all. Let’s get to the pictures!

Click here to see all the pictures from day one of Cobrafest at Cobra Lounge in Chicago, IL!

Childish Gambino played the Prospect Park Bandshell yesterday. It was the second of two huge outdoor NYC gigs. Monday’s show was in Central Park. Over the last year or so have become pretty good friends with Donald Glover and the whole Childish crew and they are honestly all really rad dudes. Seeing them kill it in front of such a huge crowd was really awesome. Plus I had great access to the show so I got some nice live shots and some pretty fun backstage stuff.

When I walked in fellow photographer and Donald’s right hand man Ibra Ake was trying to get the proper credentials to bring me and two other girls backstage. The three of us ended up in this little VIP area for a bit and I ended up hanging out with them most of the night. One of those girls happened to be Gabourey Sidibe who you might know from her Academy Award nominated starring role in the movie Precious. Her and her friend were rad people. Actually pretty much everyone hanging out in the Childish dressing room seemed to be good peoples. No rockstar bullshit in that crowd.

Anyway, the show was a lot of fun and I got some rad pictures. Kilo Kish and Donald’s brother Steve G. Lover came out during the encore and killed it. Evidently they had some more fun stuff planned but their set went over and they got cut short. After the dressing room got really wild with fresh pomegranate seeds and working out with medicine balls. Crazy shit.

Click here to see all the pictures from the Childish Gambino show at the Prospect Park Bandshell.

Ps. If you look closely in one of the pictures you can see Ibra & Donald working on the cover to the Royalty mix tape that drops next week. How’s that for some secret exclusive shit…

Friday was a mess. It was like 100 degrees out and then it started fucking raining. I had walked all over NYC with my back pack on cause I new I was gonna hit up 99 Attorney St. for the Already Famous Go Skateboarding Everyday party. When I finally got there it was so hot and humid that I thought I was going to die. Luckily Vitamin Water was one of the sponsors and two drinks later I was feeling a lot better. Plus my Sailor Jerry crew was there giving out rum so I dropped by back pack off in their amazing airconditioned airstream and jumped into the crowd of sweat and madness with my camera.

The party was seriously wild. It was hot and sticky and crazy and people were skateboarding between music sets all on a half pipe/stage thing. This rap group Gospels opened up and started fucking shit up and then Flatbush Zombies got on and the place got pretty out of control. They had half the crowd on the half pipe with them and it was raining so everyone was just packed in this small space whiling out. Love seeing mosh pits break out to hip hop.

Punk rockers Cerebral Ballzy headlined and really destroyed the place. 100 Spongebob Squarepants balloons fell from the ceiling during their set and the mosh pit was pretty violent. Around their third or fourth song I decided I had taken enough pictures, I put down my camera and ran up the side of the half pipe and jumped off into a crowd of people who had backed the fuck away from the pit. They were not exactly psyched about a 185lb man jumping 10 feet on to them so they quickly dropped me onto my back. Two songs later I got one of the pointiest shoulders I have ever felt to my eye and during the last song an extremely large man tackled me for really no reason.  It was a lot of fucking fun but days later I still hurt. Still, it was nothing compared to how I feel the day after a Fucking Bullshit show, so I guess I did okay.

These pictures are nuts and there was actually that topless photographer girl who shows up to events from time to time so you even get some unexpected boobs. The rest is just really sweaty people whiling out and skating the fuck out of a makeshift stage. Good times, good times.

Click here to see all the pictures from the Airwalk Already Famous Go Skateboarding Everyday party at 99 Attorney St.

Ps. Shout out to my girl Jasmine Solano who hosted/DJd and the Harold Hunter Foundation who took all the proceeds from the door. RIP HH.

When Steve Aoki asked me to come shoot his show at Terminal 5 I was not quite prepared for the weirdness that was his show Wednesday night. Trident gum sponsored an event called “See What Unfolds Live” with Steve Aoki and a “special guest” which turned out to be Duran Duran for some reason. I guess Trident has this multi-flavored gum so bringing Aoki in to do a live remix of “Hungry Like The Wolf” somehow makes sense. All I know is that the whole thing was pretty awesome.

Aoki did his thing and as per all his shows everyone went nuts. Very few DJ’s know how to turn what they do into a good performance and Steve is probably my favorite DJ to shoot cause he puts on a show. I haven’t seen him DJ since he started throwing cakes at people and crowd rafting people all over the place so this is some other level shit now. Unfortunately I got the wrong pass and they would only let me shoot a few minutes of his set. Luckily right at the end of his set I saw someone from his team and finally got back into the photo pit for Duran Duran live remix. Aoki brought on Duran Duran and they performed a mashed up version of Hungry Like The Wolf which you can download for free here. The whole thing lasted about 10 minutes and was intensely surreal. Finally Steve left and Duran Duran closed out the night with a short set.

I think the best part about these photos is trying to pick out who the Duran Duran fans are and who the Steve Aoki fans are. Whatever the case I hope some of these 16 year old ravers came with their Duran Duran loving parents cause someone should be looking after these kids…

Click here to see all the photos from the See What Unfolds Live Steve Aoki/Duran Duran concert at Terminal 5.

The Brooklyn Zombie Crawl after party at Public Assembly is always total madness so when I saw a Misfits cover band play last year and kill it I knew that my punk cover band Fucking Bullshit had to play this years. I begged king of the zombies Doug Sakmann to let us play and then I had to beg my band not to go out of town for Memorial Day. The whole thing was worth it as we played the best show of our short career. Of course I didn’t take any pictures of our set but Coach Mike did. You can see his shots here. I can proudly say we were the highlight of the evening even if we may not be ever asked back. It was a real shit show.

Before we played Andy Shaw’s awesome punk band Bikini Carwash opened up the night. They are fronted by this hot lady who sings in a bikini which is appropriate given the name and I fully support. Pretty sure I attacked her during our set.  Sorry.

After my band played things were a little questionable photographically. I hit my head badly during a stage dive and I was properly concussed. I also was pretty drunk on Sailor Jerry rum. They were a sponsor and it was my birthday and they kept pouring it in my face. I managed to shoot some of the rest of the festivities even though I was ruined and I managed to break my flash. I shot my pal Scarlett Storm get naked on stage. She is a Bombshell Brat and a member of the burlesque troupe Rigor Mortis Revue. I was too messed up to document the Smut Cave talk show or the Zombie Gilbert Gottfried but I did manage to shoot the insane Strip For Pain which as always involves naked Burning Angel girls beating the shit out of dudes. The guy who won was possible the best I have ever seen at taking the pain.  There was also a “Hot Zombie Contest” but it devolved pretty quickly into Scarlett getting naked and making out with some other girl who emailed me asking me not to post her tits on the internet so I did what I could. Either way the whole gallery is properly NSFW no matter what.  Enjoy.

Click here to see all the pics of the 2012 Brooklyn Zombie Crawl After Party.

Bonus Links: 2012 Brooklyn Zombie Crawl Pics and pics from last years Brooklyn Zombie Crawl after party.

Clearly I have no idea what is going on in the world of pop music because when I was asked by the Village Voice to photograph a band called One Direction I had to google them. If you are as out of touch with the Glee generation as I evidently am, One Direction is a boy band from Ireland and 13 year old girls fucking love them.  Never in my life have I ever been to a show where the audience was louder than the band.  Seriously, the constant screams from teen girls were deafening as I had to cover my ears to block out the sound. I’ve shot Mototorhead several times and never even considered wearing earplugs but if I had to shoot One Direction again I would stock up on ear protection.

I honestly don’t even know what One Direction sounded like but they seemed pretty adorable and the crowd seemed to love them. I felt a little creepy photographing tween girls but these crazy girls were the most interesting thing about the show. I just wish I had brought my flash or came earlier so I could have photographed more of the kids waiting outside. I feel like there is a fantastic photo documentary that could be made following One Direction fans. I am just probably not the guy for that job.

Anyway, the whole thing was a really weird experience which is exactly why I took the assignment. So yeah, well worth it to trek all the way up to 74th st. to the Beacon Theater for a matinee show even if it didn’t seem like it at noon on a Saturday.

Click here to see all the shots of One Direction at The Beacon Theater.