Upstairs at Webster Hall, the Girls & Boys party hosted the Ed Banger 7th Anniversary afterparty. People seemed really psyched about it.  I am not a huge French electronic dance fan but the kids had a good time. My favorite part was the Ed Banger caked that looked like the flyer from the earlier Terminal 5 show.  My second favorite part was reading tweets from my friends about doing blow with Justice. Also Uffie is really cute.

Anyway, it was a long night and a good party. Click here to see all the pictures from the Ed Banger 7th Anniversary afterparty  so you can stop reading whatever bullshit I am saying.

The new Semi Precious Weapons video for their self titled song came out on Myspace yesterday.  If you recall a few weeks ago I photographed the video shoot at Webster Hall.  You should watch the video and then if you haven’t check out my shots from the shoot.  The video has all my friends in it and you can see my camera in a few times.  Unfortunately, my epic stage dive is cut out so without it’s hard to grade this video as any other than a total failure.  Okay, fine, I’ll admit it.  Even without me it’s pretty fucking awesome.

By the way, they shot this video on RED cameras which means that it is insanely high quality.  I can’t wait to see a high def version of the video. This myspace low res shit is not cutting it.  Ill tweet about it if they ever get a super sexy version up.  Until then, watch the fucking video.

[myspace]http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=102933516[/myspace]

So I am doing a little bit of work for The Fashion Spot during this fashion week and last night I was on my way to cover a Patricia Fields party in Midtown. But right before I left my house I got a text from my editor there telling me I needed to get over to the John Varvatos store because Guns and Roses were doing a private set. Yeah, that’s right, Guns and Fucking Roses were playing for like 200 people in the same location that CBGB’s used to be.  Fashion Spot was on the list and I just had to go over there and drop some names.  Of course when I got there it was at max capacity and they weren’t letting anyone in. I was cold and frustrated and about to give up when I saw that the bouncers were all wearing PBR hats.  I knew that NYC PBR rep Dan James had to be inside. I hit him up and he came out and they still wouldn’t let me in.  He wasn’t sponsoring the event but he had a bunch of PBR shwag.  One of the bouncers asked him for another hat and he traded them hats in trade for letting me in.  That was a huge move. It almost makes up for him being a Jets fan.

So after an hour of waiting packed like sardines in a 120 degree clothing store Guns and Roses made the stage… Well at least Axl did, I am pretty sure none of his backing band were actually in Guns and Roses, but I didn’t really give a fuck. I met Slash at Sundance last year so I’m all good.  Guns and Roses were pretty much all I cared about in 1991.  In the late ’80s and early ’90s all I listened to was rap and metal.  And by rap I mean shit like Young MC and Run DMC and by metal I mean Poison, Motley Crew and G’n’f’n’R.  I wanted to see Guns and Roses with Metalica in ’91 so fucking badly but my mom wouldn’t let me go with all my friends.  Well, if I had told my 11 year old self that I would be two feet from Axl Rose singing Sweet Child o’ Mine I would have lost my shit.

Now, admittedly 20 years later it’s not quite the same thing.  There were 200 people there instead of 20,000, Axl has put on a few pounds and my enthusiasm for ’80s hair metal is not quite what it once was, but I was still pretty excited.  I told a girl next to me that I was going to take off after 25 minutes, but Axl fucking brought it.  I stayed for the entire set and it was nearly 2 hours long.  Brooklyn Vegan has the set list if you care.  Speaking of set lists, I escaped with Axl’s set list, so that was pretty fan boy of me.  I think it’s probably the only set list I have ever taken.

Anyway, the show was actually really great.  They played some of the new stuff that people didn’t really care about, but they played the hits and they did an AC/DC cover which was great. Axl was much more relaxed than I imagined him to be.  He was joking around the whole time.  People waited hours to see them and actually a ton of people left before he even showed up.  Because of this people were calling him “Asshole” when he got on stage.  He was joking about how he had never heard anyone rhyme Axl with Asshole.  He just took it in stride.  He was actually really hilarious. He kept smiling the whole time. He was clearly having a blast, joking about someone had stolen his shirts. He was not nearly the Asshole Rose I assumed he would be.

I have to say it must be sort of weird for him to be playing for a bunch of people who don’t really give a fuck about being there.  There were a few serious fans but most of the people were just fashion week types and people who have the pull to get into some exclusive G’n’R show.  A lot of people sang a long to the hooks on the hits, but the bouncers didn’t really have to keep any screaming fans from tearing his clothes off.  Even when they finished their set to Paradise City the crowd just sort of started filing out instead of demanding an encore.  The band had to run band on stage before the crowd left so they could finish their set. It could have been sort of awkward and embarrassing but Axl just kept going and he fucking killed it.

It was really great seeing Guns and Roses on a $5000 PA.  By the end you could barely hear the vocals. It was like they were playing in an actual punk club.  At once point Axl excitedly screamed something about playing CBGB’s.  It was sort of epic. Again, I just wanted to say, before I finally go to sleep, that despite the sound system, and the shitty crowd and the heat and the fact that he is old as hell, Axl really put on a great show and I could not have been happier to have been there.  I figured when the entire 1990s passed without me seeing my one time favorite band that I probably was not going to get the chance, but here we are a decade later and I was shooting them live from 5 feet away.

Lastly, it was insanely hot in there and I was shooting over people’s heads and I was generally a bit disappointed with the shots I got, but none the less, there are some images here that I think really capture the night. I hope you dig them because this show is something I am going to remember for a long time.

Click here to see all my pictures of Guns and Roses at the John Varvatos fashion week party.

Ps. I forgot to mention this, but I sort of have to say something about it. On the same table where Axl kept his beer, he also had a box of tissues and he kept going over there and using them between songs.  I am not sure he would have had a box of Kleenex on stage with him 20 years ago, but if he had the sniffles you have to admire his dedication.

Ps. These were posted on TMZ.

PPs. GNR Fans… these images are available as 16″x20″ archival art prints. Contact me for details.

Hey, I just wanted to share this poorly photographed street style video with you.  I probably should blog about fashion more often than I do since I know a lot of people come here to see what the kids in NYC are rocking, but I rarely do.  This video has nothing to do with what the kids in NYC are wearing, but what the kids in Richmond, VA are getting into.  As you may know I lived in Richmond for 5 years and still have a lot of friends there.   One of those, my friend Roberto is working for the school newspaper of my alma mater (VCU) called the Commonwealth Times. He called me the other day to see if he could get a track from the band I managed called The Gaskets for one of their street style videos.  The song on the video is called Structure Fire and the band broke up before it was ever released.  However, you can hear a demo of the full song on their defunct myspace page.

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

Friday night was pretty nuts.  My boys Semi Precious Weapons are back in town doing a bunch of dates with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall. They decided to turn the weekly Trash party into a shoot for their song “Semi Precious Weapons”.  I figured the song was called “I Can’t Pay My Rent, But I Am Fucking Gorgeous” being as that is the hook, but clearly I am wrong. Evidently it’s self titled. My fault.

Anyway, after hearing the song 25 times in a row Friday night I probably should be sick of it, but it’s a pretty serious song.  They have done a video for it before, and used it as the sound track to a Beatlemaniaesque promotional video. It was also on their first album, and their EP and I guess it will be on their next album too since they are doing a video for it and all… I am sure they are sick as hell of it, but that’s how the music industry works.  You have to promote the same 5 songs for three fucking years. It’s pretty awful, but at least it’s a rad song and I am excited to see the video.

I did a pretty epic stage dive off a monitor into a crowd of 18 year old girls. Everyone moved out of the way and I landed on my back but not before putting my hand into the lovely Suicide Girl Bettina’s face. Woops. Justin from SPW announced to the crowd that I had done that the last time they played Webster Hall and informed me that I had broken his friend Krista’s wrist in the process. I felt pretty bad about that since Krista is my birhday twin (May 29th, 1980).  No one broke anything this time, but my back still hurts like hell two days later. I hope it makes it into the video, but I have my doubts…

This gallery is pretty nuts because I was kinda using my camera as a prop in the video. I took several hundred pictures without even looking in the view finder.  I was just dancing and running around taking photos of anything. Everyone got super drunk and super naked. I think there was an open bar at some point because it was out of control in there. When the video was almost over and I realized it was after 3am.  I have no idea how the night went so fast when the only song we heard all night was “Semi Precious Weapons”.  It actually made for a great night. Everyone was partying as hard as they could to get filmed. It was one of the best Trash’s in a long time.  Party for fucking ever.

Check out the massive amount of NSFW pictures from the Semi Precious Weapons music video shoot for their self titled song “Semi Precious Weapons”.

Ps. Congrats to SPW for all the successes they have had.  I have known these dudes forever and I actually like their band unlike most of my friends bands. I just hope that if they get as big as I think they will that they will take me on tour with them or something and maybe they can help me pay my rent, because I am not quite as gorgeous….

Did you guys know I was some way or another involved in the music industry for more than 10 years?

I sort of hate music now, it’s pretty amazing.  I shoot dance parties every day, and hang out with all these well known DJ’s and stuff, but I completely hate all the music.  I am like an old man. I only listen to records and mostly 70’s Soul and R&B records.  Do you know what was on my record player when Teddy Pendergrass died? Teddy Pendergrass.  I am like a 50 year old man. The only reason I know what a Vampire Weekend is is because one of them was this little fat kid everyone used to pick on in high school. He was in my brothers class and I am pretty sure they hated each other.

But I used to love music.  Seriously love it. It was the only thing in my life.  I thought I would be a 50 year old man in a mosh pit up until I tried to go into a mosh pit at 25 and was sore for two days. When I was a little kid I wanted to be in a Monkees cover band.  When I was in the 5th grade I managed a fake band called No More Freedom. In 1994 when Kurt Cobain died I carved a K into my arm with a mechanical pencil.  A month later I was given my first Black Flag album. A year later I was in high school and started a punk rock club.  We put out a little shitty zine which over the next 4 years became a pretty big shitty zine.  In 1995 I started a record label and released a record, two tapes and a CD and an unreasonable amount of random merch. In 1996 I started shooting punk bands which led to an eventual career in photography.  For the next 8 years I shot pretty much nothing but bands.  When I went to college at Penn State in 1999 I was totally disconnected from everything and my closest musical outlet was hanging out these hardcore kids who had a campus radio shot that I would help out with.  Luckily 1999 was when Napster was at it’s peak and I downloaded every song I had ever heard and thousands more. After two years of Hell at Penn State I moved to Richmond, VA where I started booking shows again and started shooting noise, punk and thrash bands.  In 2003 I was in a shitty dive bar when I witnessed two college freshman play weird pop music out of a little box.  It blew my mind and a month later I was their manager.  I managed the Gaskets from 2003 until they broke up in 2008. During that time I helped them release two records, booked hundreds of shows, sold their merch, ran their website, drove them all over the country and produced a live DVD of their first performance with a full band.  The DVD took me 18 months to put together and we spent $5000 on it. I have never put more energy into anything in my life. It is my crowning achievement. We sold less than 200 copies.  I have 500 copies of it in my kitchen. After the Gaskets broke up I realized at some point I stopped liking music.  I figured from 1994 to 2008 I probably have seen around 2000 sets of bands and probably 1500 of them have been fucking horrible. I just can’t stand in the back of a room waiting for a band to play any more.  It is really sad.  The only music I ever want to listen to is music I have already heard before.  Still, we try to move on. I try to have a socially relevant blog, and that means pretending to like hip shit that the kids are into. You crazy kids you.

So, in order to stay super relevant and “in the know” without hiring 20 year old interns (just kidding Nicky, I know you know what’s up) I am going to post some music that other people have told me I should like.

Let’s start with Hussle Club.  Fortunately Hussle Club is awesome and I love Prince Terrence.  What you should do, is just go back and read what I wrote about Hustle Club a few weeks ago, and then appreciate the fact that he finally has music out that you can download.  Seriously. This song is called “I Have High Expectations For What I Want To Be But In The Mirror I Don’t See Them Staring Back At Me” and despite the pretentious and unfortunately long title, it is really great.  The Mp3 is below, and there are remixes of it here. I am pretty excited for Terry’s album and you should be too.

hussle-club-i-have-high-expectations-for-what-i-want-to-be-but-in-the-mirror-i-dont-see-them-staring-back-at-me.mp3

Nextly, we have Enter The Magical Mystery Chambers.  Not quite as clever a title as the Grey Album but I downloaded this full length Wu-Tang/Beatles mash-up today and it is pretty fantastic.  I don’t really have any idea who Tom Caruana is, but he seems to have put together a pretty great record. I was a big 36 Chambers fan and then I sort of gave up on Wu-Tang until Ghostface’s Fishscales album and most of the Wu-Tang stuff is off their later albums, but it sort of makes me want to pick up Wu-Tang Forever again. I wish there was a bit more Beatles vocals on it as I am a life time lover of the Beatles, but when the Beatles sing back up to the Wu Tang it is fantastic.

Download the whole thing for free here. 

And lastly, just so you kids know what is up. Check out the Neurotiks.  They were my favorite band when I was 15. They were on my record label and once on the way back from a show they jumped me because they thought it would be funny. Years later the bassist very humbly apologized to me for fucking with me so much. I told everyone about it and made fun of him for trying to get his life together.  We never talked again after that. Still, they were fucking amazing.  You probably might not understand why they are amazing, and I am pretty sure everyone in this band is probably embarrassed of it, but they changed my life.  And this track was my favorite song on the record I put out when I was 15. That, my friends, is fucking history.

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

Last Tuesday I was in LA and Vegas party photog Hew hit me up and told me we were going to the Dim Mak Tuesday’s party at Cinespace. That guy is a mad man so who am I to argue.  We got a late start but ended up at Cinespace in time to see the Phenomenal Handclap Band perform.  At one point they brought up The Lady Tigra and people were going pretty crazy.  I took a few pictures, talked to a few girls and said what’s up to Aoki and a few random other heads I run into once in a while.  Then Hew and I drove over two The Room (even though it was less than 3 blocks away) for Rony’s party.  That shit was a good time.  I got to see Rony’s boy Gino who I love and talked to some more cute girls. We got there super late though, and had to leave after about 25 minutes. Bars closing at 2am is both weird and upsetting. I ended up walking back to my motel at some point, but not before seeing one of the better street fights I have had the pleasure of witnessing.  Unfortunately there were some downsides to this fight, the primary one being as it involved Gino’s cousin Frank who I just met.  My other issue was that it happened so fast that I wasn’t set up to shoot outside and ended up taking terrible photos of the whole thing.

What happened was Gino made Frank some pants.  These British dudes were asking about the pants, and Gino took that as them mocking the pants.  After Gino and the British dudes started arguing, Frank just started swinging. He was taking shots at pretty much anyone and just barely missed one of the greatest cheap shots you could imagine.  He was arguing with one guy, and out of nowhere swung on the guy next to him.  It was pretty nuts. Frank was pretty drunk and it soon became a one on one fight with a guy who had no real interest being in the fight, but did not like getting punched.  After they exchanged head shots a few times, the British guy decided to try to get away from the fight even though he was winning. As Frank chased him, the British guy turned and punched hitting Frank right in the mouth KOing him on the sidewalk.  After a second Frank got up and tried to give chase, but he couldn’t get his barrings and stumbled off in the other direction.

The British guys actually turned out to be really nice dudes and it was pretty unfortunate the whole thing happened.  I just hope Frank is okay, I never found out.  But in his defense, even though he lost the fight, he put on a hell of a show and didn’t quit until he couldn’t stand. There are no losers in this fight… except maybe the bouncer who did absolutely nothing to stop it and just stood there watching the action with the rest of us.

 Click here to see all the pictures from Cinespace, The Room, and the late night fight.

Switch was Djing at Girls & Boys upstairs at Webster Hall.  As I am sure you know, Switch & Diplo Voltron together to form Major Lazer and if Major Lazer is around Skerritbwoy can’t be to far away.  Skerritbwoy destroyed the crowd with his amazing performance of which the singing was least important.  He was daggering aplenty.  Girls took their clothes off, 2’x4’s came out and Skerritbwoy dove off the DJ booth onto a fat girl being held aloft by two of his friends in the crowd.  It was pretty much epic. I missed him mid air, but I got some pretty great shots anyway.  I need to shoot him again asap.

Also that night I met a bunch of kids who are from Richmond, VA and went to VCU which is where I went to school to learn how to take photos of drunk and naked people.  Good times.

Click here to see the pictures of Switch & Skerritbwoy doing their thing at Webster.

I figured the most insane place to be on New Years was Webster Hall.  I was not mistaken.  When I got there I had just polished off my bottle of rum and I was having trouble explaining to the door people at Webster why they needed to let me in for free. Eventually I made it up stairs and went straight to my favorite bartender Kate.  I made a pretty wise decision at that point to switch to water and to try once again to get my shit together.  I made it on stage somehow and I had never seen anything like this.  I have seen MSTKRFT sell out Webster before and it is always madness, but I have never in my life seen so many people so close together dancing so hard. I took more photos of the swarming crowd than I did of MSTKRFT. At one point I pulled out my video camera and Alex English grabbed it from me.  He jumped into the crowd and started filming while crowd surfing. Unfortunately I think I was too drunk to hit record on the camera. I still haven’t looked to see for sure.

That’s when shit got awesome. I decided that I would jump into the crowd with my camera. This was a really dumb idea, but I was really drunk.  I at least had the presence of mind to give DJ RekLES my keys, wallet and phone before going in, but I don’t reccomend to anyone crowd surfing with $2000 worth of camera equipment. It was so packed that there was not much of a risk of being dropped up front, but as I got farther back in the crowd I did come crashing down. They caught me the first time and I went back up, but the second time I crushed a girl, but managed to save my camera. She was pissed but her friend helped me back up and then a bouncer reached across the crowd and pulled me back on stage. I really should have shot the band from the crowd, but I mostly only got shot of the people right below me. When I saw the pictures I was pretty disapointed to see it just looked like I was standing on stage taking the shots except for the occasional shot of my shoes in the frame.  It is pretty hard to compose a shot while drunken crowd surfing.  But at least I went for it right? If anyone finds any shots of me in the crowd, let me know.  I am sure someone took photos of it…

The best part about crowd surfing was that it sobered me enough to get my act together.  Before I went in I could barely stand, after I could almost complete full sentances. With the cold walk back to Lit I was pretty much managably sober by 5am.  After the visit to Beauty Bar and a little felid trip to Bushwick, I was pretty much just hung over when I got home at 10am, but I still couldn’t manage to get to sleep until 1pm.

It was a crazy fucking night and I had a blast at every place I went. I wish all 5 parties could have happened on different nights so I could have spent more than an hour or two at any of them.  There are so many other parties I missed that I wanted to hit up, especially some sick house parties.  If only we could end a decade every night of the week.  Happy 2010 guys. Let’s make the next decade as fun as this one.

Click here to see the photos from the late night New Years MSTRKFT show at Webster Hall.