In the recent Kid Sister & Death Set posts you may have noticed I spelled the word “Carnival” like “Carniville”.  This was intentional, and completely not my fault. I blame the fine folks at IHeartComix, Jelly NYC and Mad Decent for this spelling error, because that’s what they named their amazing three day music fest during SXSW.  At the Mexican American Cultural Center, just a few blocks from downtown Austin they threw an epic party full of carnival rides, cotton candy, funnel cake and free booze.  They had tons of bands and DJ’s and the whole thing was free.  So many of my friends played there so I had to check it out.  As you saw I shot Kid Sister and The Death Set, but I also shot a few pics couple other bands that may show up on here eventually.  I also shot everyone hanging out as per always.

You can click here to see crowd shots of the whole thing. It was a lot of fun as you can probably tell.

PS. Sorry there are so many damn shots of the Gravitron, but it was awesome.  (At least until I got off and I instantly wanted to puke.)

I saw the Death Set ages ago, but I haven’t seen them since I became friends with the guys.  I was pretty excited for SXSW to see them but unfortunately the only chance I got to see them was out doors. Not that they weren’t awesome, they actually pretty much dismantled the Austin Carniville crowd, but day time shows are always so fucking weird.  On top of that I spent 90% of my picture taking life in doors at night, so shooting bands during the day is always so weird to me. I think I got some good shots anyway, you should check them out, and then head over to Fat Baby because Death Set drummer Roofeeo is debuting his new mix tape tonight. See you there.

Click here to see the shots of the Death Set at The IHeart Comix/ Jelly NYC/ Mad Decent Austin Carniville during SXSW.

Friday night was the first night I have taken photos in NYC in about a month.  Almost exactly a month.  I got a late start on the night and got to Webster Hall midway through Kid Sister’s set. Two songs later I got a text and ended up having to leave about 15 minutes after I got there. Webster was completely bumping and I felt like it was going to be a great night, but I unfortunately had to take care of some stuff.

I have now photographed Kid Sister four times over the last two or so years and every time I see her I like her more and more. At SXSW a few weeks ago I caught her set at the IHeartComix/Jelly NYC/Mad Decent Austin Carniville and it was awesome.  Even during the day she killed it. Plus, she’s a total babe. I feel like I could fall in love. How could you not?

I feel like this blog is poorly organized, but I wanted to mention that out of the four times I have photographed her I have still never gotten “the shot”.  I always try to get one shot I really love from an artist, but I never seem to get it from her.  I have no idea why she is so hard to shoot.  But I guess that is good, because it means I have to keep seeing her play until I get it.

Anyway, since I have two sets of Kid Sister to put up, and both of them are under 20 images each, I decided to make today Kid Sister day and give you two galleries in one post. Exciting.

First, you can click here to see Kid Sister at Webster Hall on 4.9.10.  Then you can go ahead and click here to see Kid Sister at Austin Carniville at SXSW on 3.18.10.

And lastly, I just wanted to mention that the site might be down for a few hours today. I haven’t talked to my webmaster in a few days, but originally we had planned to take the site offline for a few hours to do some minor upgrades to the site. So we shall see. Until then…

PS. Only 5000 more SXSW/WMC images to get up….

So I had heard about this crazy party at the end of SXSW called Skull By Skull Now. It is a yearly house party thrown by a bike gang called the Skidmarxxx. I mentioned them before when I was talking about them getting in a fight at the Pure Volume house.  I got invited by the Skidmarxxx, by one of my favorite photographers Sucka Pants, by my intern who was crashing there, and by Cerebral Ballzy who was playing the party.  I had been warned by several people that I should be really careful at SXSN. There are always lots of fights, fireworks and shit getting thrown at people.  They had a huge skull filled with paint cans and explosives and when I got there people were throwing paint at everyone.  There were fireworks everywhere and $10 tattoos.  I saw a guy get a swastika made out of dicks tattooed to his knee.  It seemed like the party had a lot of potential but when I was waiting in line to get a tattoo of a skull wearing a party hat, the cops showed up and the party pretty much ended. They blew up the skull, but ultimately, like the party it was a bit of a dissapointed.  No fights, no sex, no one even got hurt.  The only thing that happened was some people got covered in paint and some guy had his bike put 20 feet up in a tree.

So really, the highlight for me was Cerebral Ballzy.  I know Honor and Mel from the band for over a year but I had never seen them play before. Weird things kept happening and I kept missing them.  Shows got cancled, I showed up late, I had to change plans and all sorts of shit kept me from seeing this band. Finally I did, and they were pretty fucking awesome. You should check them out if you get a chance.

Click here to see the pictures of the madness that is Skull By Skull Now and Cerebral Ballzy.

To take a break from all the photo galleries I just wanted to show you a few things I have in print right now.  I sold a pic of Lady Gaga on her birthday to NY Magazine. Its the one in the left corner.  It was in last weeks issue as part of the cover story.  The only copy I have is pretty beat up so if anyone has a copy they wanna give me I would appreciate it. I also shot the holiday party for XXL magazine.  For some reason the pictures are in the April issue. The pics from that include shots of the Jersey Shore cast, football players Eddie George and Darrelle Revis, and a giant photo of a bucket of Heineken.  The funniest part of the night was when I ran into the Manhattan rep for PBR right after the party and he asked me why I missed the PBR holiday party. When I told him it was because I was shooting a Heineken sponsored party. His response without even a second of hesitation: “Heineken? Fuck that shit.  Pabst Blue Ribbon!” Amazing.

I have been putting up all these spring trip photos all out of order and today will be no exception. I haven’t put up anything from SXSW Music yet, so today I am going to put up the very first SXSW Music pictures I took and the very last.  But for the sake of some sort of delusional organization, let’s begin with the first.

I planned on making it an early night.  I had photographed the film awards and had to be up early to photograph Bill Murray.  I was ready to go home around one AM.  I met the guys I was staying with in Austin over at Pure Volume and they wanted to go to this club Mohawk and I had no choice but to tag along with them.  On the way there I ran in the The Death Set and they demanded I go to Beauty Bar with them.  Who the fuck am I to say no to that? So I told my friends I would meet them at 2 and headed off to Beauty Bar.

At closing time my friends weren’t picking up their phones and I was once again dragged to this music co-op space called the Music Gym. The only time I ever DJ’d in my life was there last November.  I just played YouTube videos while people mingled. Anyway, evendently Franki Chan was doing something with Flosstradamus there and a bunch of us rolled over.  Somehow it cost like $15 or something but Flosstradamus managed to drag most of us in with him.

The party was hot and my friends finally met up with us.  As locals they knew the door guy and got in for $2 which is hilarious.  Why not just get them in for free? $2 just seems really weird. Whatever, I’m ranting.  I wasn’t really planning on shooting because I had so much shit to do allready but things were cooking up pretty good and a lot of my NYC friends were there so I had to take some shots. I had been in Austin for a week with only a handful of friends in town, so when everyone started showing up for the music week, I was ready to party.  I even kissed this cute local girl, but she tragically never called me.

I feel like there are some okay shots here, and probably a few less than okay ones.  I was getting warmed up. Just click here and look at the fucking photos already. I have more work to do…

New York in the building!

Ten days after the Pure Volume Party at SXSW, I attended the DJ’s Are Not Rockstars/ Spider-Pussy event at Klutch during WMC in Miami. What is interesting about this party was that half the bill was New Yorkers and more than half the crowd were New Yorkers. It was good hanging out with everyone.  It’s always awesome to see Lauren Flax and it was great to see fellow DolfanNYC member (and DANR Founder) Alexander Technique in Miami. I haven’t seen my dear old friend DJ Krames in ages so it was great to see his smiling, facial hair free face.  Roxy Cottontail and all her bunnies were out, and their asses were hanging out… (I unfortunately never got to see Luther’s ass)  They hired me to work that weekend so it was FANTASTIC to see them. Larry Tee, Mark Kamins & Arthur Baker are NYC legends so running into them was of course epic. I had never met New Yorker Princess Superstar before, but she brought my homey Bad Brilliance out to back her up so that was mint.  I missed the worlds biggest (fattest) Mets fan Fat Jew and Team Facelift perform, but they were hanging out. I did catch The Fire and Reason play and they were awesome. I hadn’t seen them before but everyone knows that Bella is a babe. I didn’t see Maluca or Junior Sanchez, but those guys hold NYC down like nobodies business.  Subdrive Records was in the house and even Maggie Horn got on the mic for a few minutes.  It was a NYC party and everyone had a blast.

In non-NYC news I met Farrington from Last Rights who makes this t-shirt, which I need in my life asap.  I also met maybe the hottest girl I have ever seen before and her boyfriend who both happened to be wearing said t-shirt and happened to be a fucking rad dude. Oh yeah, and the only people who weren’t New Yorkers were from my old home town of DC or Hollywood Holt who as far as I am concerned has been given honorary New Yorker status by Ninjasonik. So that’s legit.

Okay, now I don’t know what else to say but look at the fucking insane pictures from the night by clicking here.

So I just wanted to address an Insane Clown Posse video that just came out for their song Miracles. It seems that Twitter is a buzz mocking what might easily be one of the worst videos of all time. The combination of horrible production values with some of the dumbest lyrics ever written are impressive but I think what is making this video so much fun to mock is that this video about the wonders of creation is written by a band who has made a career out of making violent rednecks more violent.

So first, let me tell you a secret.  I was once a Juggalo.  When I was in high school I met this girl named Shanna. She was the first person I ever kissed and I was pretty much in love with her and eventually lost my best friend over her. Losing my best friend in that way is the biggest regret in my life, but the biggest musical regret in my life was being an ICP fan.  I can thank Shanna for that too.  She loved ICP and somehow, despite the fact that I only listened to punk rock and rockabilly my entire high school career she got me into the Carnival.  I was a fucking jugglao. I went to at least 3 ICP shows in face paint. I even used to tag WICKED CLOWNS when I did bullshit like that. To this day I still like their third album a lot.  I like it in the way you might like a cheesy horror film (Killer Klowns From Outer Space for example…) but I still like it.  So when I mock of ICP, let it be known that it comes from the heart.

Now the video speaks for itself. You just need to watch it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-agl0pOQfs[/youtube]

DJ Jubilee described the video as “The Rainbow Connection with curse words.” Nuff said.  It’s frankly too easy to make fun of. No need.  What I wanted to tell you guys about is the fact that ICP have been a Christian rap group for some time. Seriously. Christian Rap.

ICP built a mythology around murdering and clowns and fucking fat bitches that some how centers around Christian theology.  ICP’s entire catalogue is basically a horrible modern version of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses only somehow less confrontational.  ICP seem pretty inclusive they pitch a big tent as long as you are willing to spend your tithing on clown action figures and ICP wrestling DVDs.  Amazingly They spent 5.9 albums preaching about murdering people before on the last song on their supposed last album they broke the news that all along they were all about the G-O-D.  More impressive is that somehow even after the big reveal they managed to keep their fan base mostly intact. What kinda ICP fan would just accept that their favorite band is now all about Christs Love… Oh wait, anyone cultish enough to follow ICP is certainly cult enough to follow Jesus.

So yeah, the point of this post is really just to show you guys this song called Thy Unveiling, which is the last track on their album the Wraith. It is the final Jokers Card which they had been putting off releasing for years because they said when it came out the world would end.  Clearly it didn’t but I actually went out and bought the album even though I hadn’t listened to ICP in years so in a way, my world sort of ended.  When I put the CD in my car I just started laughing when I heard Thy Unveiling.  If you thought the Miracles video was funny, just watch this until about the 3:20 mark.  It will make you piss your fucking pants.

Ps. I’m down with the clown till Im dead in the ground… or at least I was until I lost my virginity. Woop Woop.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iniW8RcYkbA[/youtube]

With the first pictures to go up from WMC 2010 I am giving you two galleries in one.  Roxy Cottontail actually hired me to shoot two parties on the roof of The Clevelander hotel on Ocean Drive.  The first night was a pretty big success with DJ SEGA doing his birthday party there, Luther, Excel, Tim Dolla and Tittsworth killed it all night and Jackie Chain did a suprise performance.

I met Jackie Chain in the lobby before we went up to the roof and we were talking about how we had both been at SXSW and how exausted we were.  I told him “I haven’t slept in weeks!” He told me that was what his song was about, but until I saw him play I didn’t realize that was pretty much the exact hook of his song.  Pretty spooky…

The party was full of cute girls and I met two of them that I hung out with all day the next day.  We took some sexy pictures of them which should be up later in the week.  Get excited about that.  The party went all night but I had to leave by 4 so I could meet up with The Overthrow guys because they were giving me a place to sleep.  I am sure you will hear more about that later in the week too…

The next day, I woke up and was ready to head over to Roxy’s day party, when I got a call that it was getting postponed because of rain.  I got over there and just hung out waiting to hear what was going on.  In the end the party got canceled and in the end it never even rained. The big problem with the party was that they had all this free shit to give out to DJ’s and friends and the sponsors wanted that to happen, so Tweets were sent out and we set up a makeshift gifting suite in the lobby.  Now normally gifting suites are pretty boring, but only on this blog do you find product sponsors pulling out their boobs and people moon walking.

Speaking of sponsors thanks to Red Bull, Karma Loop TV, Scion, Socialight, Vain Magazine, Native and Hellz for making sure I got paid and for throwing a great party.

So we have two galleries for you, the main one where most of the pictures below are from was the Roxy Gives You Ears Party.  You can click right here to see all the pictures from that.  The other gallery is a relatively boring gifting suite.  You can click over here to see all those pictures.  I will be back soon with more galleries!

Oh, I forgot, there might be boobs in these galleries! NSFW.