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.

Remember the All My Friends Are In Bands series of posts where I show you guys 3 music videos from my friends bands? Well it continues today.  I am in Miami for Art Basel and a Miami Dolphins game and it is going to be pretty hard to get any actual photos to you this week so I have a few updates planned that don’t involve party photos although I may try to get some party photos up too. We shall see.  Anyway, in today’s post we are going to talk about two friends videos and then one other video that I just had to share with you…

The first video is Drop The Lime’s new rockabilly track called Hot As Hell. This shit is pretty fucking awesome.  If every DJ was dropping “baseablilly” tracks I would probably hate my job a little bit less. Just kidding, I love my job, but having epic rock and roll dance jams would be the way to go. I’m just mad I am not in the video… You guys should see me with my hair up…

The second video is a track called “I’ll Show You” by my old friend Raquel Reed.  The track is pretty awesome and it features Redman doing a verse.  She lives in a house north of the city where a bunch of artists record. She said that one day she came downstairs and heard Redman working with her producer and rapping over her track. That seems pretty surreal but evidently he loved it and helped her get the video made. It’s pretty cool.

Lastly I have for you the newest viral sensation from the Insane Clown Posse. After shooting the Gathering of the Juggalos I have become the go to guy for all the important juggalo related content and I had to find a reason to post this video. This video is ICP’s toy drive. The long story short is that if you bring a toy to an ICP concert for poor kids you get a free ICP Christmas CD.  The long story short is this fucking nearly 10 minute video featuring Sugar Slam pretty much parodying the SNL skit that is parodying her. I mean it is so bad it is brilliant. It also features the line “With the tags, fag” which is so fantastic it is unbelievable. Also I met Sugar Slam and ICP so I think this can still fall into the All My Friends category in some loose way. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf4yfD_it-I&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk6KZX9I9jA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKWJvldhXpQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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?

I got a chance to cover Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear for the Village Voice… and that meant press access. I went down there with my brother and two friends and we got there more than an hour before the rally started and they couldn’t get anywhere near the stage. I on the other hand got to hang out in a press area that while still awkwardly far from the stage, was still a pretty fantastic seat to watch history.

This was an historic event. The crowds dwarfed Glenn Beck’s rally and the left’s answer to the Beck rally. People came together from every age range and every race. It was the most peaceful rally I have ever attended and back in my punk rock days living in DC I attended a lot of damn rallies. The Rally was star studded and a lot of interesting people were in the crowd but I think the most important part of the day was the message.  After all the music and the comedy Jon Stewart addressed the crowd with complete earnestness that might be the best speech I have heard since Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. If you haven’t heard it yet click here to do just that.

Anyway, the convention has been talked about ad nauseum and you can figure out who was there by checking out any national media source so I won’t bore you with the details you can find anywhere.  But I did really enjoy the Cat Stevens Vs Ozzy Osbourne Peace Train Vs Crazy Train battle.  It was really amazing to see those guys share a stage. Unfortunately the photographers were cycling to the front of the stage throughout the event so during that performance I was about 100 feet from the stage and couldn’t get the shots I wanted. That being said I got some fantastic shots throughout the event.

So without further ado, please click here to see all the pictures from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear on the National Mall in my home town of Washington, DC.

Let me start this post off by saying that I cannot find a listing anywhere on the internet of who actually preformed at this show so my apologies to the acts who I don’t know the names of because they were all pretty amazing.

The Most Interesting Show In The World was a Dos Equis sponsored event at Webster Hall last night featuring all sorts of insane circus type madness with Andrew WK playing ring leader. He performed several songs in between and sometimes during the acts.  There were burlesque acts, trapeze artists, a bubble boy, an illusionist, a death defying balance act, frankly just general madness all around.

The highlight of my night was the bubble act which in itself was not so amazing, but while this guy trapped himself into a bubble there were two girls put into giant bubbles, confetti filled balloons were dropped from the ceiling and several giant bubbles were thrown about the audience while liquid bubbles were blown everywhere. It was total pandemonium coming from every angle while this insane bubble act was going on.  It was fantastic.

Andrew WK was also fantastic. I can’t think of anyone else more suited to lead this crazy show. He is so enthusiastic and got the crowd really going at all times. I have seen a lot of burlesque in my day but few hosts could make it seem as exciting as Andrew WK.  I just wish he played “I Love New York City” at some point. I think people would have gone nuts. During his last song he got into the crowd and a mosh pit formed and there was an actual live snake in the pit as one of the performers who roamed the crowd got caught up in the pit with her giant albino boa constrictor. It was nuts.

Speaking of live animals, the illusionist Elliot Zimet was for the birds. Sorry, you didn’t deserve a pun that bad. But he did have an unreasonable amount of birds in his set producing dove after dove after giant fucking parrot. Seriously, he pulled the biggest parrot I have ever seen out of a green cloth that I think he sprayed out of a spray pant can.  Some of his act was a little cheesy, he was like the Vanilla Ice of illusion, but his act was still pretty on point.

The other main non-burlesque act was a guy who balanced on a basket ball on his head on top of a bunch of bottles and then he got on top of some blocks and held himself in the air with just his hands above a moving circular saw. Then he pushed away the blocks and fell about two feet and caught himself just inches from the saw. It was on point. If anyone knows his name let me know and I will include it here. (Update: His name is Rudi MacAggi! Thanks!)

He rest of the show was burlesque acts that the photos do justice. You don’t really need any description, although I would like to give a shout out to my friend Melody Sweets who did a pretty sexy number that has shown up on this website before… Also I should probably give a shout out to DJ Jess who kept the crowd going before the show began and Andy Shaw for having me out to the event.

Okay, that’s all I got. Be sure to check out the totally insane photos from the Most Interesting Show In The World at Webster Hall by clicking right here!

So clearly I am running a bit behind on updates but here are the photos from last Thursday’s Moodswing360 CMJ showcase at Santos Party House.  I have been sort of avoiding a lot of CMJ but I had to come out because my boy Shwazye was headlining with LMFAO and a few other friends like Dances With White Girls, Skeet Skeet and Maluca were going to be doing their thing.

Santos was totally hectic and packed all night. I think it was pretty much a good hectic though and lots of fun bands played on both levels. I finally caught Das Racist which I had been meaning to check out and I thought it would be fun to shoot LMFAO (it was until I got champagne sprayed all over my camera). There were so many California based playing that it was one of the most California parties I have ever been to and I have been to a lot of parties in California. Also due to LMFAO’s “party rock” vibe there was a weird fist pumping Jersey Shore set there as well making for an odd, but ultimately fun vibe.

I sort of half assed it on my coverage because their was so much to shoot and I knew I could do very little work and still have a ton of pictures. I took a few pics of each band and I shot a few crowd photos but I mostly just hung out with friends who I haven’t seen in ages.  I had an awkward conversation with two people who I didn’t recognize because I am an asshole and have a terrible memory and I met a cute girl who asked me if I needed an intern. In the two seconds I talked to her she seemed qualified but I haven’t heard from her, but at least it reminds me to put the word out again.  I wasn’t going to look for a new intern until it got closer to the new semester, but I’ll put this out there anyway. I am looking for a reliable intern who is in college and is NOT a photographer. I am looking for marketing, PR, or tech people who can help on the website side of things, not the photo side.  Get at me if you are interested.

Sorry for the tangent, let’s get back to the party photos.

Click here to see the photos from the Moodswing360 CMJ Showcase at Santos Party House.

On Tuesday I got to shoot Mog Music Network’s CMJ Showcase at Brooklyn Bowl.  The party was headlined by Yo La Tengo with performances by The Screaming Females and Dom and a late night DJ set by Dam Funk.  It was a pretty crazy party. There was a huge line around the block and the place was packed all night. The Yankee’s game was playing, people were bowling, the food was delicious and the bands were killing it.

For me the highlight of the night was Yo La Tengo doing Devo’s version of “It’s A Beautiful World”.  Devo’s verison of that song is one of my all time favorite songs and Yo La Tengo killed it.  I really had a lot of fun watching Dam Funk DJ.  All the Mog staffers were getting down to old school west coast hip hop and funk and Dam Funk would hold up the record between songs to let you know a) what he was playing and b) that he was actually spinning records. Oh yeah, and he had a keytar. Amazing.

Anyway, I haven’t quite got the hang of my new camera/ lens quite yet so some of the pictures aren’t quite up to par, but I am working on it and there are a few fun shots anway.  So click here to see all my pictures of the Mog Music Network Showcase at Brooklyn Bowl and then you can click over here to check out my pictures with additonal coverage on MMN.

On Wednesday Alternative Press held the opening for their 25th anniversary art show at Sloan Fine Art Gallery on the Lower East Side and I showed up to cover the event for Complex Magazine. The show featured art by a number of musicians including Marilyn Manson, Black Francis, Shirley Manson, Tim Armstrong and Travie McCoy.  The show also featured a room with art and souvenirs from the Alternative Press archives. It was a cool show with a lot of different types of art represented but I spent the most time looking at the AP archival stuff. I had no idea they started out as a little fanzine mostly dealing with local Ohio politics.  It was very cool.

While I was there I had some pretty interesting conversations. I talked to the founder of Alternative Press Mike Shea for a long time and he introduced me to the AP editor in chief who wrote a cover story on the Insane Clown Posse more than a decade ago. We had a pretty good conversation about ICP and my trip to The Gathering Of The Juggalos. The band the Plain White T’s were there and I realized I met one of them at Sundance two years ago and we talked about our mutual friend. For me though, the highlight of my evening was meeting Michael Azerrad.

Azerrad is a rock journalist who wrote two of my favorite books about music, Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana and Our Band Could Be Your Life. His book about Nirvana completely changed my life. When I was 13 I was obsessed with Nirvana. I didn’t listen to any other music.  I had pretty much memorized Come As You Are. When Kurt Cobain killed himself I realized I wouldn’t have any new music to listen to so I went though Come As You Are and picked out all the bands that Kurt mentioned listening to in the book. I bought CD’s by the Melvins, Mud Honey, the Meat Puppets and on my 14th birthday my friend Erich bought me the album My War by Black Flag. Black Flag changed my life completely. From then on I listened to nothing but punk rock. I started a punk zine, a record label and started taking photos to document my favorite punk bands. My DIY ethos, mostly straight edge lifestyle and my photography career all came from those punk rock days. Without Come As You Are my life would be completely different. On top of that when Our Band Cour Be Your Life came out I was managing The Gaskets and it is the most inspiring books I have ever read about being in a band. I made it required reading for the guys. I shoot a lot of celebrities and musicians and I rarely get excited about meeting them, but meeting Michael Azerrad was a fucking honor.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. Click here to see all the pictures from the Alternative Press 25th anniversary art show at Sloan Fine Art.