In just a few hours I am getting on a plane and traveling to Austin for the SXSW Film and Interactive Festival. I am covering it for the Village Voice and then I am headed straight into the SXSW Music festival the next week to cover it for MOG.com. After 11 days in Austin I am then headed to Miami to cover the Winter Music Conference and then possibly to Orlando for a few days to hang out, shoot a party and hang out at Disneyland for free.  Finally my trip will wrap up with a flight to DC so I can steal my parents car for a few weeks because I need it to pick up shit to build and office in my kitchen.  These things are all very exciting, unfortunately it is going to be hell updating from the road.  I am going to do my damnedest to get you guys amazing things while I am on the road but it is very unpredictable.  I have at least 4 updates planned that have nothing to do with SXSW that I can post quickly if I get bogged down, so you should have some stuff, but if I miss a day, make sure you check out my Tumblr and my Twitter because I will be updating those often during my trip. I hope to get bunch of film stuff up before the Music fest starts and then I will have a lot of stuff up on MOG during the music week, but I probably won’t get any of the music galleries up until at least I get to Miami.  Last year at SXSW I shot 6000 photos and was working 20 hour days. I hope to top that this year.

Time to get serious. Have some cute fucking animals.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0-Sv6YnxEc[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wswE4fFvJ8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

I know about a billion people are going to blog about the Lady Gaga Vs Beyoncé video, but I just have to blog about it, this video has a place in my heart. It’s not that I am a huge Lady Gaga or Beyoncé fan, in fact, I am not really a huge fan of this song, but the video is fucking amazing and for so many reasons.

Let’s start with the fact that Jonas Åkerlund directed it. He is one of the craziest music video directors of all time. Just search for him on YouTube and see what insane shit you find. I have been waiting for the Director’s Label Åkerlund DVD since the moment I heard about the Palm Picures series. Now I am almost glad they haven’t released it yet so Telephone can be on it.

More importantly, I am a big Exploitation geek.  Exploitation Cinema for the point of this conversation is characterized by cheap very specific genre pictures made in primarily the 1960’s and 70’s that “exploited” things such as sex, violence, race, popular trends etc.  Some of the more popular genre’s are Blaxploitation, Grindhouse Horror, Spaghetti Westerns, and Sexploitation films.  But the genre’s get much more specific with things like biker movies, drug trip films, and one of my favorites, Women In Prison.

There are an insane number of Women In Prison films starting with 99 Women in 1969 and continuing through out the 70’s.  The highlights of the genre are the Jack Hill films starring Pam Grier – The Big Doll House & The Big Bird Cage. (Jack Hill also directed the Greir films Cofee & Foxy Brown.  Quentin Tarantino took the name for his film Jackie Brown from Jack Hill and Foxy Brown.) And this Lady Gaga video is purely Women In Prison.  All it’s missing a shower scene and an escape scene. All the aesthetic elements are there.  On top of that it borrows from other exploitation films.  The key theme of revenge is very important to many of the female led action exploitation films of the ’70’s and the wardrobe while very Gaga, has clear influences from biker films, cheesy sci-fi films and Jack Hill’s legendary Switchblade Sisters.

Clearly you noticed the Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill. This video is an homage to Quentin Tarantino’s homages. It takes elements of these exploitation films that Tarantino loves to steal from and recontextualizes them so it looks like Akerlund is stealing from QT. I mentioned that QT loves Jack Hill so much that he named a movie after him, but he also distributed Switchblade Sisters as part of his failed distribution company, Rolling Thunder Pictures. The references to some of my favorite movies, directors and genre’s makes this video in my mind an instant classic even if I could care less about the song. It’s just that good.

I do need to wrap this up quickly because I am ranting but there are two other small things in the video I should mention. One is the line that I am sure will be talked about on all the blogs – “I told you she doesn’t have a dick.” Lady Gaga quite literally shows her critics her womanhood by taking off her pants and revealing once and for all that she doesn’t have a dick.  (Unless of course they used CGI…) Finally confronting these stupid rumors in a video like this takes some balls, which clearly she doesn’t have.

And lastly, my boys from Semi Precious Weapons make a cameo playing exquisite corpses. At least Cole and Justin do.  I didn’t notice Dan or Steve.  I am continuously proud of those guys. You know you have made it when you have been killed off in a major pop video.

Anyway, sorry for the rant but it is 3am and I have been getting ready to leave town for three weeks all day today.  I think might be losing my mind a little bit. I am headed to SXSW and then to Winter Music in Miami where almost exactly 2 years ago I photographed a barely known pop singer’s birthday party. Oh right, that was Lady Gaga.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ95z6ywcBY[/youtube]

I cannot act.  I have no idea why I was asked to co star in a short film for The New Pop.  I guess it had something to do with the fact that I am an nightlife photographer and the character was a nightlife photographer.  I was flattered to be asked, and I have been trying to get my friends to put me in their movies for ages so I said yes despite my reservations about my poor acting and some questionable bits in the script. We rehearsed a few times and each time completely rewrote the script.  The director Trevz has shot music videos and has ten years of behind the camera experience but had never directed anything with scripted dialogue. I am not sure he was prepared for what he was getting himself into.  He thought we could finish the whole thing in a few hours, but we went all night.  It was the coldest day of the fall and have the shoot was outside and we were miserable.  No one really knew what we were doing and we kept missing parts.  I sort of took command of making sure we got everything while Trevz made sure he got amazing shots.  I think everyone was a bit annoyed at me when I kept making us redo things. Luckily we got everything shot, and if nothing else the footage looked incredible.  Trevz did a few edits that got better each time, but it never really came together the way he thought it would.  I just think we needed more time preparing, and it would have been nice to have shot on a warmer day, but you live and you learn.  Trevz clearly knows what he is doing behind the camera and has a vision, he just needs a little more practice.  I can’t wait to see his next attempt.

Anyway, the project was almost scrapped, but Trevz figure out away to keep some of it alive.  He cut it down from 7 minutes to just over two minutes and created a little snippet that is totally different from the original film.  It was a pretty great move to save it.  My favorite part was the end, which is completely gone now, but he told me that it might end up becoming the opening to his next film, so we will just wait and see. Read Trevz take on the whole thing here.

If nothing else, you get to see me looking really tired in a wife beater.  And while it is pretty clear I have no acting talents, I still want to be in all my friends movies, so please cast me already.  I need to start putting together a reel.  Oscar or bust motherfucker.

The Scene Episode 2 from trevz on Vimeo.

So I have mentioned it a million times on here before but I used to manage a band. I did it for 5 years.  And before that I ran a small record label and ran a punk zine.  I shot nothing but bands for the first 8 years of my photography career.  Music was my life.  I have been booking shows since I was 12 years old and booking my friends grunge cover band, Manly Stanley, at classmates birthday parties. That being said, although I have promoted some parties over the last few years, its been at least two years since I booked a legit show.  That drouth is over.

Saturday so many good things came together at once.  I had been trying to get Teddy Blanks the lead singer of that band I managed a show that my friends could come see for a while.  He has had lots of shows but they all cost money or were in some weird place.  I also had been trying to book everyone’s favorite Theodore Grimm a show because they are making me DBB buttons and I needed to return the favor.  On top of that one of my favorite bands, Gang from Philly was asking me about shows because they hadn’t been to NYC in ages. All of this came together and I realized that all three of these bands are super dancy and needed to play a show together.  I added another awesome dancy electronic band called Great Tiger who feature the guy who designed the DBB Productions graphic.  It was a solid bill.

Then I just needed a location.  I went to 200 Orchard first but the had to cancel the show two days after it was booked because the cops were cracking down on there cabaret license.  I posted a help call on my Twitter and the awesome Bob Bland responded.  Bob is a lady believe it or not and she designs a clothing line called Brooklyn Royalty and she was just opening a venue called Kingdom in Williamsburg on N. 4th and Bedford,  just 3 blocks from the Bedford L. The grand opening is tomorrow night actually for the Brooklyn Royalty fashion week party.  (Its free, you should go!)  Bob is looking for a way to introduce people to her place so we worked out a deal where some of the bands could get paid but we could still keep the show totally free.

The show is going to be great. Sean MF Roberts is DJing in between bands and after the show so you won’t stop moving all night long.  You can check out the Facebook invite here. You have to come, it will be awesome and I will be taking lots of photos. On top of that I will have new Driven By Boredom stickers I will be giving out and I will probably give out a few DBB Tshirts & Tote bags.  Don’t miss it!

Here are videos from each of the bands.  I will be posting the flyer on Friday.  I can’t fucking wait.

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

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2bwzXP4anY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0vo1MfxXkA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYStTP1rX9c&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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 you might have noticed things have been slow around here.  I am frantically trying to figure out my plans for South By Southwest and Winter Music Conference at the same time. On top of that I am trying to figure out plans for the 9th anniversary of drivenbyboredom.com, open a web store, sell prints and plan a show.

Well my SXSW plans are figured out mostly. I am shooting SXSW Music for Mog.com and the Village Voice.  I am also probably shooting SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive for the Voice but I am still looking for work in Austin during the Film/Interactive festival.  If you need a photographer in Austin before SXSW Music starts let me know.  I also might have a little time during Music, so if you have a one off event, let me know about that too.

Less figured out is my WMC plans.  Because it is so close to SXSW its much cheaper for me to fly straight from Austin to Miami.  So I am pretty much willing to make that trip without any work lined up because I always get offers at the last minute.  But I really need a place to stay on South Beach that week.  So if anyone has any hook ups for places to crash during WMC or some parties/events they need covered during that week, please let me know.

As far as the prints go, I just did a bunch of test prints and I am pretty close to ready to open my web store. The store is going to be up on March 1st, the 9th anniversary of this site.  One print is going to be available each month for $50, but to pay for the prints I am selling a preorder package of the first 6 months.  Its a pretty good deal and there are only a couple left, so if you have some money you might want to invest, these are going to be super rare collecters items if I start doing this every month with some sucess. Contact me for details.

All my contact information is listed right above the posts in the Contact section of my website.

And as always when I do a post with boring site updates and requests from my fan base, I wanted to give you something with some entertainment value.  My friends over at Pop Porn just came out with a Jersey Shore parody porn.  It looks fucking hilarious. It stars my friend Lexi Love and two of Burning Angels main fellas. James Deen plays Pauley D and Brian Street Team plays the guy who punches Snooki in the face. He steals the show. The trailer is on YouTube so its pretty much safe, but I probably wouldn’t watch it at work unless your boss has a good sense of humor.  Love that shit.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rXf9M8QHUs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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]

So pretty regularly I get people offering to either pay me to blog about some product or offer to send me free stuff to blog about. Once in a while I take them up on their offer, but usually I tend to turn it down.  People usually don’t want to pay me enough to clutter up my site.  You might have noticed this site is pretty much ad free. I’m always open to offers, but nothing has really made a lot of sense to me yet.

So it might come as a surprise to you that I am writing a blog about Vita Coco Coconut Water just so they will send me a case. A case on Amazon is only $21. I wouldn’t mention something on my Twitter for $21. Fortunately for Vita Coco I happen to love the stuff so I am willing to shill for them for nothing.

Plain Vita Coco is all coconut juice which is super amazing.  I can get a can of coconut water at my Bodega for a dollar, but they add so much water to it, and then to counter balance that they add sugar and it becomes pretty gross. I would drink Vita Coco all the time except its like $2 for an 110z box of it, although I noticed at Walgreens the price went down to $1.50.  I hope that is a trend, I would buy a lot more of this stuff if it was a bit cheaper.

Anyway, Vita Coco has asked me to spread the word about their product and I get to offer you guys a $2 coupon on a case.  Click here to open the product in Amazon and then enter the coupon “2BUCKVIT” when you check out.  Make sure to do it soon though, it expires on Feb 5th.  You can also be entered to win a case just by becoming their fan on Facebook.

Anyway, I hope you guys aren’t too pissed for this blatant ad, but this stuff is delicious. To make up for it, here is without a doubt one of the most intense, suspenseful, and beautiful videos involving working out, painting and making blended drinks that I have ever seen. You need to watch the whole thing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvbL_5rH1QQ[/youtube]

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]