So I posted all the band photos from the Mog SXSW Showcase already and I talked about the show so this should be a quick one.  This is all the crowd shots and party pictures from the 6 hour Mog.com event. Lot’s of photos and some cool stuff. A bunch of cute girls and bands and good times. Gotta give a shout out to my boy Roofeeo who is drumming for TV On The Radio and they played a great show. I took some funny shots of him video taping me for whatever reason. I also got to talk to Kyp Malone from TVOTR about a BBQ he invited me to at SXSW in 2004 or 2005. I never made it but he drew The Gaskets and I a little map and then those guys got HUGE a few months later. He said the BBQ was a blast.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling for one day. Click here to see all the crowd shots for Mog’s SXSW Showcase at Mohawk.

I shot all of SXSW for the Mog.com blog last year.  This year Mog has cut back on their blog, mostly using it as an aggrigator of content and not providing as much original stuff as they had in the past.  So I didn’t think they would have any work for me this year.  Luckily, I was wrong.  Mog threw a crazy party last year and this year they might have topped it.  They had a ton of amazing bands and lines around the block.  They had both TV On The Radio AND Big Boi headlining. It was pretty impressive.  I was really lucky this year to get asked to shoot so many amazing events. I always hate having to work a specific event at SXSW because that means I might be missing 10 other things I want to see, but this year most of the parties I shot were my first choices and the Mog party on Saturday was obviously no exception.

Along with TVOTR and Big Boi the show featured Okkervil River, Smith  Westerns, Yuck, Tune-Yards, the super buzzy Twin Shadow, DBB regular Theophilus London and Carrie Brownstein’s new band Wild Flag.  Everyone was great but I don’t want to spend too long on this update because I am sure everyone is sick of my SXSW stuff by now and I have another update from this same show. I took so many photos that I had to break it down into three galleries. One of which is a gallery just of Big Boi’s set because I took an unreasonable amount pictures of him for some reason.

So this update has two galleries attached to it. One of just Big Boi and one of all the other bands.  Unfortunately I somehow missed the Smith Westerns so you won’t find them in here. I have no idea how I missed them since they were the opening act and I was there an hour before the show started but I was really really tired.  So yeah, let’s get on with it.

Click here to see the photos of Big Boi live at the Mog SXSW party at Mohawk.

Click here to see all of the other bands performing at the Mog SXSW party including TV On The Radio.

And then come back in a little bit to check out all the crowd shots from the party!

As my South By Southwest coverage keeps trucking I bring you one of the crazier parties of my SXSW trip.  We have the Moodswing360 showcase. This thing lasted for 7 hours and featured so many acts that it would take me half that time just to write it up properly.  I took so many photos that my serious flash battery that I only use when shooting all day kicked out on me. So instead of doing a proper write up I am just going to give you a run down of the acts and a few of the highlights.  So let’s go…

It was an official SXSW event held at The Phoenix presented by Moodswing and Oakley and featured just a ton of artists. In alphabetical order we got The Cataracs, CurT@!N$, Das Racist, Dev, DJ PS1, Gilbere Forte, Kelley James, Mann, Ninjasonik, Outasight, Shwazye & Cisco Adler, and Sky Blu of LMFAO.  That list might not be entirely accurate cause Maluca was on that list and I know I didn’t see her but I do know that it was total madness.

Ninjasonik killed it as always, but they played a bunch of new shit that I hadn’t heard before that I was really digging. My girl Jasmine Solano was DJing for them and did a song with the boys as well. The Cataracs have made a ton of hit songs and brought a bunch of people out while they were doing their thing including Dev who got everyone going. Das Racist seemed totally burned out by SXSW but put on an almost better performance just sort of getting into the audiences face, half assing it and having some equipment issues. It was pretty brilliant.  The headliners were Shwazye & Cisco who I have known for years. Shwazye has even talked about bringing me on the road with him a few times so let’s hope that actually happens.  They came out with Sky Blu DJing and he even did some tracks with them as a vocalist. They started out just destroying the crowd but as their set got longer the sound got worse, and they got drunker and the whole thing just sort of devolved into chaos. It was really amazing. They brought a ton of people on stage to do tracks with them including a girl who clearly had no musical talent and it just got weird. Shwazye started karate kicking the drums and I was losing my mind from lack of sleep and the whole thing was the perfect ending to an insane show.

So check out the photos from the Moodswing360 SXSW Showcase at The Phoenix by clicking here. And keep in mind I shot this with a real flash, with my on camera flash and without a flash at all so it looks like 3 different photographers shot this stuff. The pictures are almost as eclectic as the show.

On the last night of South By Southwest a mini riot broke out at the not-so-secret Death From Above 1979 reunion show. It was the last thing I shot at SXSW and it seemed like something Vice would want.  Before I went to Austin they told me they wanted SXSW coverage but they didn’t want bands or music stuff. They wanted weirder more interesting non traditional stuff and this seemed right up their alley. They ran a bunch of my photos and a story about the whole thing last week.  I am just going to reprint the whole thing here so I have an archive of it on my site plus there are some images I loved that Vice didn’t run that I will.  Check out the original article here on Vice or just keep reading…

During the last time slot of the last night of South By Southwest, Death From Above 1979 reunited for the first time in several years. They were playing the Undocumented Management showcase at Beauty Bar in Austin. I knew I couldn’t make it there in time for their 1am set, but the owners of Beauty Bar NYC were in town and I knew they could sneak me in the show, even if just for the last few songs. I texted Jessie Keeler from DFA about trying to make it and his foreboding response was simply “Gonna be a shitshow.” He was not wrong.

By the time I made it down to Beauty Bar, DFA was well into their set. I was coming down an alley that leads to the back stage at Beauty Bar and I could hear them playing. When I got closer, I saw hundreds of people just standing outside pressed up to the gate trying to watch the show. These kids were clapping and dancing and moshing and having a party in the alley behind the club. As I tried to push my way towards the gate, someone suddenly tried to climb the fence. There were security guards waiting for him so he didn’t get very far, but as he climbed a few other people attempted the same move and the fence came down. Several off duty cops were standing on the other side of the fence armed with TASERs and pepper spray. I was about 10 feet away at this point and I could hear the sound of TASERs zapping the shit out of people. I got closer despite the SXSW staff trying to keep me away.

I pulled out my camera and started shooting. So did 100 other people armed with camera phones and video cameras. Unfortunately, I had been shooting for more than 12 hours and my flash batteries were almost completely kicked. I fired off a few underexposed shots of people getting hit in the face with pepper spray and sparked by the stun gun type TASERs the off-duties were using liberally. I saw at least one zapper get shot randomly into the crowd, but the sound was a more effective deterrent than anything else. Meanwhile the band just kept playing.

Eventually the fence was put back up and held in place by Beauty Bar staff and security guards. The kids outside were even more riled up by this point and just started moshing in the alley. After a few minutes two uniformed cops finally showed up, a bit taken aback at the shit show they had just walked in to. As the police moved through the crowd people cursed and threw shit at them. The two officers warned us that crowd control horses were not far behind.

When the riot cops on horseback came through the alley, the DFA fans just moved out of the way. People started throwing empty beer cans at the horses, which caused them to start spinning around and freaking out. I can’t imagine the Austin Mounties get a lot of practice. As the horses passed, everyone in the alley just went back to the fence and started dancing.

By this point I had given up on my flash and started shooting portraits of the crowd, the horses, and the police with natural light. The cops finally got DFA to stop playing long enough to tell everyone that the band couldn’t finish their set until the alley party dispersed. Then the cops sort of huddled in front of the gate for a while as the crowd stood their ground waiting to see what would happen. Then, out of nowhere, the cops left, the show started back up, and the crowd started dancing like the police were never there.

When they finished playing everyone left peacefully and without any problems. The only trace of the mini-riot/party was a few beer cans and the thousands of camera phone pictures and videos that were already on YouTube by the time I got back to my hotel.

Click here to see all the photos from The Death From Above 1979 riot at Beauty Bar Austin.

So my dudes The Death Set finally released their new album Michel Poiccard. It’s pretty sick. I am listening to it right now. You should be too.

To celebrate Michel Poiccard’s release the boys put on one hell of a show at the Williamsburg Hall of Music.  They sold the place out, dropped balloons from the celling like they nominated a presidential candidate and caused a huge fucking ruckus. They had Ninjasonik and Spankrock open for them. Those guys don’t do a lot of opening so obviously it was an epic fucking party. Hood Chef opened but I missed them and C-Lo spun some just completely absurd tracks between bands.  I was seen dancing on stage to Will Smith’s “Gettin Jiggy With It.”

Speaking of me and stages there are some crazy photos in this gallery of my foot about to kick The Death Set in the face. I jumped off the stage during Ninjasonik’s set when they brought out The Set for Negative Thinking About Tight Pants. And unlike most people who were crowd surfing at the show I had more than $4000 worth of camera equipment in my hand when I took the stage dive.  So when you see the  photos of the Nike Dunk about to hit Roofeeo in the face, that is my shoe.  During the Death Set’s Nirvana cover encore I took another pretty decent dive but I put my camera down for that one. My homie Brock Fetch caught me in the act as you can see here. I haven’t stage dived since I busted my ass during Semi Precious Weapons video shoot and they didn’t even use the footage so I was pretty happy to have some much more successful attempts at the Death Set show.

But yeah, this party was fucking sick. All the bands put on crazy performances, tons of crowd surfing and just total madness. The dressing rooms back stage were just as crazy and I had the best time I’ve had in Brooklyn (outside of my bedroom) in a long fucking time. So yeah, go buy their album already and then fucking click here to see all the shots of The Death Set, Spankrock and Ninjasonik celebrating the release of Michel Poiccard at the Williamsburg Hall Of Music.

Ps. I got someshit spilled on my lens and I didn’t notice until I got home and looked at the pics so theres some little blur spots but fuck you that’s punk rock… right?

This is now the 5th post about the epic Village Voice/ Frank 151 SXSW Showcase and it’s finally the last one.  I covered the crowd shots and the two stand out performances of the night the surprising Rocky Business and the headliners Wu-Tang, but now I am gonna give you a quick run down of all the other fantastic sets from the night. And since I broke this down into a bunch of smaller galleries we are going to do this a bit differently.

I got to the show a little late so I missed Ume and Wild Flag.  (I did catch Wild Flag at the Mog party a few days later but I will get to that next week. I got a lot more SXSW shots to get up.) I came in right before Trouble Andrew’s set.  I had just shot Trouble Andrew when they opened for Rocky Business at the Rocky Business mix tape release party (Rocky Business repaid the favor by opening Trouble Andrew’s release party on Thursday) and thought the guys were a lot of fun.  Prince Terrance drummed for them at the SXSW show and I got some great shots of the band. These dudes are killing it.

Click here to see all the shots of Trouble Andrew.

Next up was Rocky Business which I already covered.  Following them was the stunning Marz Lovejoy.  This girl was fucking awesome. She can sing, she can rap and she is unreasonably adorable.  I just wanna take her picture all day. She is totally muse worthy.  Plus after killing it at the VVM/Frank showcase I saw her the next day with her (also babelicious) mom putting up stickers all over the place. That is the type of commitment I appreciate coming from a dude who gets up everywhere. I feel like you are going to be hearing a lot more from Marz Lovejoy in the future.

Click here to see all the shots of Marz Lovejoy.

Next up was Trea Tha Truth.  This Houston rapper came out with about a dozen dudes, half of which were just hype men. One guy was actually just video taping the whole thing. It was pretty intense.  I had never heard of him but clearly in Texas they know who the fuck he has. The almost local crowd got completely live when he performed and they got one hell of a show from the dozen guys on stage. Also according to his Wikipedia Trea once got into a fight with Mike Jones at something called the Ozone Awards which I find hilarious.

Click here to see all the shots of Trea Tha Truth.

One of the acts I was really excited to see was Yelawolf. I actually haven’t heard a lot of his music before but there was an amazing photo essay on Yelawolf in the October ‘1o Fader photo issue. I had never really picked up a Fader before but I shot an event they did and the photography blew me away but the cover story on Yelawolf was really something. The photographer spent a lot of time just hanging out rural Alabama with Yelawolf and his friends and family and came away with some amazing shots. It was like an old Life magazine story and made me really want to shoot for Fader. I was not really prepared for the show that Yelawolf put on. He came out full blast and just destroyed the crowd at 100 miles an hour. He moved so fast that he was actually really hard to photograph. He got progressively more naked as the show went on and Bam Margera came out in the middle of his set. It was a pretty epic performance. I need to catch him again ASAP so I can do a better job shooting him.

Click here to see all the shots of Yelawolf.

Right before Fishbone went on comedian Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino made a surprise appearance. The Village Voice was working on a story on Donald and I guess they asked him to do a quick set before the headliners. I had met him the day before to get some shots for the story and I had quickly listened to his free EP but I gotta say I was not expecting him to be as good as he was. He killed it both as a rapper an as a performer. I love his TV show Community, but now I am a fan of the dudes music and just a fan of the guy himself. He is a rad dude, funny as hell and great fucking rapper. Plus he really digs my photography so I am in full support of the guy. I think you should be too.

Click here to see all the shots of Childish Gambino.

Lastly we had your co-headliners Fishbone.  Honestly I had no idea that Fishbone was even still around.  I saw their frontman back stage doing like somersaults and shit and was just sort of wondering who the hell the 50 year old in the wig just completely losing it was.  I probably should have guessed. For a bunch of kinda old dudes they had so much fucking energy and intensity. I saw Bad Brains a few days earlier and they are sort of from the same era and they just sort of stood there. I mean Bad Brains rocked my face off but Fishbone were electric. People were knocking over the barricades during their set. At this point in the night I realized that if I left the back stage area I might not get back in so I only shot them from the side of the stage so the shots aren’t as good as some of my others, but I think you can get a good idea of the show these guys put on.  Plus they covered Sublime’s “Date Rape” which was pretty hilarious and one of the guys was wearing a 9:30 Club T-shirt. The 9:30 Club is a legendary spot in DC that I grew up with so that was pretty great for me.  Afte Fishbone Wu-Tang fucked everyone’s life up and Erykah Badu DJ’d to end the set. It was truly and epic fucking show.

Click here to see all the shots of Fishbone.

If you don’t know about Rocky Business by now I am pretty sure you will soon.  Rocky Business are Brooklyn locals and they played the show of their lives at the Village Voice/ Frank 151 SXSW showcase at Austin Music Hall. They played in between their boys Trouble Andrew and Marz Lovejoy and while both acts put on great shows Rocky Business brought down the house.  I am pretty sure that 95% of the couple thousand people watching their set had never even heard of Rocky Business but by the time RB finished their set 95% of those people will never forget them. They seriously fucking rocked the place.  We all ran backstage after and everyone was talking about how amazing their set was.  It was seriously epic.  Luckily I have some great photos from the show and their boy Tone was on the road with them video taping everything they did and he got some great footage of the show.

Check out Tone’s stuff and then click here to see all my photos from Rocky Business’ game changing set at the Village Voice/ Frank 151 SXSW Showcase at Austin Music Hall.

I think we should just skip straight ahead to the main event. As you read in my last update Wu-Tang were the headliners of the Village Voice Media/ Frank 151 SXSW showcase at the Austin Music Hall. I was a huge Wu-Tang fan for exacly one album but by the time Wu-Tang Forever finally came out four years after 36 Chambers I was listening to pretty much only punk rock and sort of let that shit slip. Other than a couple Ghostface albums I never really got back on board. Still I was pretty fucking excited to see the legendary Staten Island group.  Yeah they were missing RZA and Method and of course Ol’ Dirty (RIP), but it was still pretty fucking awesome to see them fuck up a stage. Plus they brought Erykah Badu out with them at one point and then she just sat behind the DJ booth drinking tea. They were having tons of issues with the sound and yelling at the sound guy and it was all pretty entertaining and I just hung out on the side of the stage sort of amazed by the whole thing. I am sure a few years ago I never thought I would be hanging out on stage with fucking Wu Tang. And seriously, Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

Click here to see all the pictures of Wu-Tang Clan at the Village Voice Media/ Frank 151 SXSW Showcase at Austin Music Hall.

As I mentioned before the Village Voice and Frank 151 showcase at Austin Music Hall was one of the best shows at South By Southwest. With headliners Wu-Tang, Fishbone and Yelawolf with a stand out performance by Rocky Business and a surprise performance by Childish Gambino this was the show to beat of the festival.  I took 1100 photos at the event so I am going to be breaking this down into four posts and ten galleries. WuTang and Rocky Business are going to get their own posts and then all the rest of the photos are going to be broken up into two posts, this being the first.

This first post we are going to focus on the party photos and not so much the bands.  I shot a bunch of random crowd shots earlier in the night, but at some point I convinced the bouncers that it was a good idea that I had backstage access despite me not having any legitimate credentials.  So I broke that stuff down into two galleries, crowd shots and backstage photos.  The crowd shots are pretty self explanitory although I guess I should remind you that it was St. Patricks Day which might explain some of the drunks wearing green.  The back stage shots probably require some commentary.

Ultimately I probably should have had backstage credentials since I was working for the Village Voice at their showcase, but my editor told me I couldn’t get them.  Fortunately for me I am pretty good at getting past bouncers and after showing him my Village Voice SXSW badge and pointing up to the big Village Voice banner I was let back stage. I hung out mostly in Rocky Business dressing room and used my access to shoot the bands from on stage. But right before Childish Gambino played I left the back stage area and was told that since the headliners were going on they were kicking everyone out of the back stage area and I couldn’t get back in. Meanwhile I watched someone bribe a bouncer as he was telling me to fuck off.  I quickly ran up two flights and convinced another bouncer to let me onto the VIP side balcony and then I worked my way down to the back stage area.

By this time Childish Gambino AKA comedian Donald Glover was off stage and hanging out. I had met him a day or two earlier because my editor was working on a story on Donald/Childish for the Voice. I took a few photos of him, but while I was setting up he checked out a bunch of my photos on my iPad. He loved the shots and told me he might want to buy one of them. So when I saw him back stage we started talking and I broke out my iPad again. Donald was with his Community co-star Danny Pudi and the two of them just sat there checking out my photos for about 20 minutes.  While they were looking at the photos one of Wu-Tang’s entourage told them he was a big Community fan and brought the back to the Wu-Tang dressing room.  Donald still had my iPad so I went with them.  The whole thing was pretty surreal.  Later I got stuck in a small stairwell for about 10 minutes with Erykah Badu while security tried to lock shit down before Wu-Tang. On top of that Bam Margera was back stage and there was an insane amount of weed being smoked back there. It was a pretty good party back there.

So yeah, you should take a look at all these pictures.  Start by checking out the general crowd shots from the VV Media/Frank 151 SXSW showcase by clicking here. And then if you want to take a look at all the back stage happenings from the party you should probably click here.  And then come back soon for more pics from the event.