Let me start by saying this is a really dumb post.  I can’t express how stupid it is, but hopefully some of you creeps will enjoy it any way and the rest of you will at least find it slightly amusing.

More than two years ago I was on YouTube and I noticed that all the videos of girls making out had between 30,000 views and 2,000,000 views. This seemed insane to me but I kept checking around and they really all had just tons of hits.  As a guy who watches girls make out nearly every day of his life I actually avoid taking photos of that shit because half the time it’s just girls doing it to get me to take their photo and it is sort of embarassing and shitty to my actual lesbian friends.

All that being said, one night I was at Trash, it was actually the 10th year anniversary of me losing my virginity now that I think about it… and I ran into two friends of mine who both happened to have amazing lips.  Like really rad lips and they were in the same place at the same time and I had just seen this YouTube phenomina of girls making out getting tons of hits… AND I had my video camera on me which never happens. It seemed like fate. I asked the girls if they wanted to make out on cam, and for whatever reason they thought that was a really good idea. Probably because they both are super cute and have dope lips. Even straight girls gotta love rad lips.  So they made out for a few minutes and we taped this video and then I never did anything with it and totally forgot about it.

Two years later there have been many, many people who got the same idea I had and now there are a billion videos of girls making out on youtube and none of them have any hits.  So it seems totally pointless to upload this video now, but my friend Trev from The New Pop offered to edit something for me since I did him a favor recently. I couldn’t really think of anything but I searched old video files and found this.  So I gave it to him and he edited out some bullshit and slapped the Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco remix of Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” over it and called it a day.

So now, a few weeks later I have nothing to post today and I am feeling a little bit sick and I think it is a perfect time to unleash to the world this video of two hot girls, with really amazing lips making out at a party. So I hope you enjoy… either the girls, or the stupidity of the whole thing. Merry Xmas.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kro2BDKQnXo[/youtube]

First of all, can we make a decision about the word afterparty? Is it one word or two? This drives me crazy.  I typed after party as two words three different times in my last post and now I get to this post and look up the flyer for the Gorillaz thing and they have it as one word. Spell check tells me that it’s two words, but I have never been one to use spell check… I just need to make a choice and stick to it.

Moving on… Friday night after Semi Precious Weapons at Iriving Plaza I headed over to Spin New York, which is a Ping Pong spot that The Fader turned into an after party for the Gorillaz Madison Square Garden’s show.  They are in town promoting their newish album Plastic Beach. When I got there the party was a total clusterfuck of people trying to get in and evidently I wasn’t on the list.  I was shooting it for the Voice, but when they confirmed the PR woman never got back to them, and I never got back to the Voice so they didn’t follow up and the whole thing got forgotten about and when I got there I got yelled at by reasonably helpful bouncers who were totally fucking stressed out. Luckily Cornerstone was doing the PR for it and my boy Nick the Duke works there so I got him to start texting people and by the time I found the PR woman she had been texted by 5 different people about me. So I finally got in and she hooked me up with a VIP thing for free Red Stripe & Bushmills for my troubles. I don’t actually drink but I appreciate it anyway.  So yeah, big thanks to Nick and Sonia from Cornerstone.

Anyway, the party was very cool and really hard to shoot.  I am still not used to my new camera and I really need a mid zoom, but I gotta stop bitching about that already.  Even though the party had a big line outside they kept it intimate which made it actually possible to play ping pong and pretty much everyone was.  I didn’t get a chance to play myself, but everyone else was having a ton of fun. Wally Green is a pro ping pong player I met at an equally hard to shoot ping pong related event a few years ago and he was MCing and playing pong.  Rezoud DJd and I heard Juda Friedlander was playing people before I got there.  He was actually walking out when I was walking in.  The Gorillaz guys were all there but I don’t know who was who because they don’t look like cartoons.  I think that Damon Albarn from the Gorillaz was actually playing ping pong with his Blur guitarist Graham Coxon at some point but I am not %100 sure on that.  All I know is someone told me not to take photos of it when it was happening. I took a couple anyway on the sly but they sucked.  I was also not allowed to shoot in the VIP room which I respected. All and all it was sort of hectic but it was a very cool event and I am pretty sure everyone had an awesome time.

Click here to check out all the photos from the Official Gorillaz Afterparty at Spin New York.

UPDATE: Read the comments for some info on who is who….

So I got a bit behind this weekend, but it was Columbus Day and normal people don’t have to work so I don’t see why I should have to… But we will get caught up fast. I got a bunch of rad shit for you guys over the next day starting with my boys Semi Precious Weapons with two updates in one post!

SPW are back in NYC (they have been touring with Lady Gaga forever) and we are glad to have them back. The last time I saw them live they were playing in the basement of Webster Hall so seeing them headline Irving Plaza was pretty cool.  At least from a “I’m proud of you guys” prospective.  Having to stand in the photo pit with a bunch of random kids, shooting the first three songs, and not being able to use flash was less cool.  But whatever, I have shot them a million times, so I am just glad to see them doing well. Their lighting show is not exactly camera friendly and I am working without any zoom lenes right now so these photos aren’t exactly my favorite shots of them ever.  That being said, I feel like I give you guys more excuses than I do pictures, so I will shut the fuck up and just let you enjoy the shots I got.  There are some shots of Breedlove opening for them as well.  Lady Starlight opened too, but she was ending right as I got there.

So click here to see all the pictures of Semi Precious Weapons (and Breedlove) live at Irving Plaza.

After Irving Plaza I headed over to the Gorillaz after party (which I will get to in my next update) but after shooting that for a couple hours I headed over to Trash at Webster for the Semi Precious after party.  I got there pretty late and I left a little bit early, but I actually had a lot of fun. There were some cool looking kids and although I wasn’t super happy with the photos I got some fun stuff.  Redfoo from LMFAO was Djing upstairs and there were drug dogs outside. Total weirdness. There was even a girl dancing topless at one point and some sexy go-go dancers so you get some NSFW on top of all the rest of the madness.  I mean, you can’t beat that right? Fucking good times man…

So yeah, click here to see the Not Safe For Work shots of the Semi Precious Weapons after part at Trash at the Studio at Webster Hall and the come back soon!

Ps. For those fans of Semi Precious Weapons and/or naked ladies, check back this week for some super hot pictures of Precious Empire member Alex Magnetic.

The Death Set wanted to do new press photos to go with their new upcoming album and they wanted the pictures to be with some naked tattooed babes.  Clearly they knew the right guy to ask to do the shoot.  I introduced the guys to former Suicide Girl and current Gods Girl Jasper Trash and Burning Angel and Driven By Boredom favorite Jessie Lee.  Let’s just say we all had a lot of fun.

The guys had two ideas for a shoot.  They wanted pictures of themselves under a girls legs, and they wanted to shoot some random hanging out shots on the roof.  It was all pretty easy and Jessie Lee has kinda an epic butt so she was perfect for the first shoot and the homies had a great roof to shoot on and we took pictures until the sun set.

This gallery is the edit I pulled for the guys so they could pick their best shots so I could do proper edits to the photos for their press kit, so there are a lot of the same photos over and over again.  Get over it. There are also some photos of a quality that I wouldn’t normally post, but I know I could fix them in PhotoShop if they loved the shot. The darker ones on the roof where the boys have tape over their eyes for example.  We didn’t really have enough light to shoot without flash but I know I could fix those if I wanted to spend the time on it so I threw them in the batch even though they are too dark. I think you can deal with that…

Anyway, these shots are really funny and pretty awesome and very NSFW.  And of course, you should click here to see pictures of The Death Set with two hot naked tattooed girls.

Ps. I have been posting outtakes from this and other fun shoots on my Tumblr and of course my Twitter. Get on that shit.

The All My Friends Are In Bands series continues. Every time three of my friends have a new music video out I post them up here for you bastards to enjoy.  This week I was sitting on two videos that I wanted to post but I didn’t have a third so I reached out to my Twitter account for a third video.  I got a few suggestions but they weren’t exactly what I needed so I picked a special video for the third one. You should check out those suggestions anyway.  Check out BST’s band live, check out some insane thing Dan Baxter is working on and check out a video for a band that my friend Brian produced. (He produced the music not the video. Anyway, let’s move on to the videos….

We start with a video that my friend Trev directed. I don’t actually know Ralphy Boy, but I don’t hate him at all. Trev runs The New Pop and wrote and directed the movie epically I starred in. Ralphy Boy’s song is called “Get It” and the whole thing reminds me a little bit of “What’s Up Fat Lip“. So check it out already.

Next up we got the new video from my boy Shwazye.  He just came out with a solo album under his real name “Aaron Smith”.  It’s called Love Stoned and you can get it completely free online.  The album is pretty killer even if it’s a little California for my tastes. That hasn’t stopped me from listening to it a bunch.  I met Shwazye at Sundance a few years ago because we have the same watch.  Dude is always fun to hang out with.  You should read this story about the time I went to Beatrice with him. Crazy night.  Anyway, check out his video for “Said It All Before” right now.

And lastly, this video is not new but clearly very important. As you probably are sick of hearing about by now, my friend Ross Harman died last Monday. His memorial service is this Sunday so tomorrow I am going out of town for it. I will be back Monday or Tuesday. I miss the kid so fucking much but I hope that once I properly grieve with friends and family I can start to move on and get back to my life. Anyway, this is Ross’ band The Gaskets’s video for a song called “Eiffel Tower. It was directed by our friend Grier Dill. It got accepted into the SXSW Film Fest and stars yours truly as the Hitleresque villain Hell bent on destroying pop music. I hope you like it, it’s pretty fucking amazing. And remember all The Gaskets music is available completely free now on TheGaskets.com.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xiyL52TbeU&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14941623[/vimeo]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdwEhWxLp10[/youtube]

Teddy Blanks was Ross Harman’s bandmate and  best friend.  In 2007 Teddy compiled an album of Ross’ solo work (aka Ballpoint Pens) called Calcutta. When Ross died Teddy went to work immediately putting together Ross’ work into a second album called Symphony. Teddy then took down the website for their band and put up a brand new site that has free downloadable versions of Calcutta and Symphony as well as nearly every Gaskets release. Pretty soon their feature length concert movie Loose Change Live will be available for free download as well. I also have a pretty obsessively organized scrap book of Gaskets flyers, press clippings and photos that I hope to scan and get online as well. Hopefully the site will become a pretty good archive of the history of The Gaskets.

Anyway, you should click here to download Symphony. It features 17 tracks including his song for my brothers film “Cows on a Popemobile” which was used for the credits of a featurette on the Snakes on a Plane DVD.

Here are two sample songs from the album and make sure to check out The Gaskets website for much more free music.

Ballpoint Pens – I Don’t Need Your Symphony:
Ballpoint Pens – I Don’t Need Your Symphony

Ballpoint Pens – My Lord:
Ballpoint Pens – My Lord

PS. For those wondering who I have not talked to, Ross’ funeral was today in Louisiana and was just a small family only affair. We will be celebrating his life on Sunday September 19th at Cous Cous in Richmond, VA. Any of Ross’ friends are invited. Contact me for more details.

From 2003 to 2008 I managed a band called The Gaskets. They were my entire life during that time period and the two members, Teddy Blanks and Ross Harman, became my closest friends. The Gaskets were one of the best live acts I had ever seen and are one of my favorite bands of all time. The two members had been friends since they were kids and had an amazing chemistry and made amazing music together. They were very different people but worked very well together. I know the Gaskets would have been a hugely successful band if not for Ross’ troubles with depression and alcohol.

On Monday morning was found dead on his roof after taking a bottle of pills in order to end his own life.

Many times in my life I have said that I hated Ross and I probably did. He caused me more pain that pretty much anyone I have ever met. But one thing I have found in life is that the only people who can hurt you like that are the people you love the most. The last two fist fights I have had were both with Ross andI have screamed and yelled at that kid more times than I can count, but I fucking loved that kid and I am just so glad that he and I were back on good terms after several months of not speaking to each other.

I have tried several times to write this post but I haven’t been able to do it. Every time I try I just start to cry. Even now tears are rolling down my cheeks. It’s so much easier to think of all the bullshit he and I went through than to think of the good times because whenever I think about the Ross I loved it makes my chest seize up. I have had a lot of friends die in my life but no one anywhere near as close to me as Ross and I don’t know how to deal with it. Even before Ross died I couldn’t listen to some of his old music without getting tears in my eyes thinking about the kid I knew before the drinking really took hold of his life.

Ross was a brilliant musician but he was also just an amazing guy. He was so fucking charming and when he was on point everyone loved him. I think that is why it was so hard for everyone to deal with the other Ross. He was so fucking smart and knew as much about music and film as anyone I have ever met. He was funny and so much fucking fun. Probably too fun. When Ross was happy everything was a party and no one ever wanted to stop partying with him.  And when people started to worry about him he could always find a whole new group of people who were ready to party with him.

I haven’t really been a big part of his life the last two years but I thought he seemed a lot better. When I would talk to him he actually seemed happy and had been working the same job for years. He had a lot of people around him that loved him. But I knew he would never really be happy. He had too many demons in him and I know there is nothing anyone could have done to help him. I know, because Teddy and I tried fucking everything.

Right befoe Ross died he sent Teddy a text message telling him he loved him and I know Ross loved me too and I really hope he knows I loved him. Of all my friends Ross is one person I know would have always had my back and even if I couldn’t count on him for a lof of things I know he would be there for me if I really needed him. I just wish I could have been there more for him in the last few years.

I have so much more to say about Ross but I gotta stop crying. I haven’t cried like this in probably five years, the last time I though Ross killed himself. He managed to pull through that time but I guess it was just a matter of time before he finally followed through.

I am going to end this now with one of the last photos I took of Ross, a music video Ross directed and my favorite one of Ross’ solo songs. The video is for a Gaskets song called Left Hand. Teddy wrote it about Ross, their friendship and Ross’ drinking problem. Ross was really upset at first when Teddy wrote the song but grew to love it. Ross was an amazing painter and created this video completely himself by hand. My little brother put the video together, but everything else was all Ross.  The song I am posting is called Nine Times Out Of Ten. It is not only my favorite song by him but so appropriate. It’s about his drinking problems and even though it is written to a girl, I think it is a little bit of an apology to his friends for what he put us all through.  At the end he asks us to celebrate with him. And I guess from here on out I will try to celebrate with Ross and celebrate the life of a kid that meant fucking everything to me. I will be posting more of his music soon so you can enjoy just a little bit of what I did in the 7 years I knew my friend Ross Harman.

I will miss you forever you fucking selfish asshole. I love you with everything I have.

Ross Harman – Nine Times Out Of Ten: Ross Harman – Nine Times Out Of Ten

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

Two of my favorite local band The Death Set and Hussle Club both played Lit on Friday night. I brought one of my best friends from LA who had been drinking since 3pm and he managed to almost get in a fight with about a dozen of my friends so I had to end my night right after the The Death Set played but at elast I got to see the bands. They were awesome as always and the show was fun as hell. But it’s fucking Labor Day weekend and you guys are all out enjoying your summer so I am going to do the same so I will just shut up and  you can look at the pictures and be pisssed off you weren’t there. Unless you were there…

Just fucking click here to see photos from the Hussle Club/Death Set show at Lit Lounge on Friday.

So we got a slow day over here at Driven By Boredom and what better a time to give away some free stuff.  One of my friends is promoting Jimmy Edgar’s CD release party next Wednesday at Le Poisson Rouge and asked me if I wanted to give away some free tickets.  I figured why the hell not right? I get to go to all sorts of shit for free, you guys might as well get to go to some free stuff too. I mean, I am just that nice of a guy. The party also features sets from Cassette NYC and The Elder Jepson. Tickets are $10 but if you email me a note asking to be in the contest I will randomly pick someone to win two tickets. Should be fun.

Heres more info:

Jimmy Edgar is a Detroit-based electronic music artist, (formerly) signed to Warp Records and now on !K7. Influenced mostly by Jazz, funk, street beat and r&b in these early years, he began his musical pursuit by playing the drums in experimental bands and by making tape recordings. Most of these recordings, consisting mainly of pitch bended tape loops, cut edits, field recordings, and noise tracks, were the beginning of his experimentation with the technical aspects of production.

Previously, Jimmy has toured and played with Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Chris Cunningham, Juan Atkins, Boys Noize, Jaime Lidell, and more.

We will also have free giveaways complimentary of KILL SHOP KILL!

Wednesday – September 8th
Le Poisson Rouge :: 158 Bleecker Street
$10 Advanced :: $12 At The Door
10PM-4AM :: 21+