Back in 2013 I photographed the very first Elm St. Music & Tattoo Fest  and had a blast covering it, so I was really excited to get invited back to the 6th annual festival in Deep Ellum, Dallas, TX. The festival is hosted by Elm St. Tattoo owner and by far the funniest judge on Ink Master, Oliver Peck and features a ton of tattoo artists and bands. Plus, it was once again sponsored by Sailor Jerry which means I got to go. 

Now I am going to tell you all about the tattooing part of the fest (and all about the Sailor Jerry meets Harley Davidson activation) tomorrow but for now I am gonna give you guys the music fest photos because it seems like it makes the most sense to break this stuff down like that, plus it’s almost midnight and I want to get something up while it’s still today!

The tattooing happened at the venue Trees, but the music all happened across the street. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday band played at Three Links and on Saturday there was a special show featuring Ben Nichols of Lucero, that was actually Lucero. Surprise! That show also featured Sadgirl and the Vandoliers. I actually missed the Vandoliers, but Sadgirl wasn’t sad or girls and they were a good time. Lucero I have seen a bunch of times and they killed it as always. Halfway through their set I jumped over to Three Links to catch former Rancid singer/guitarist Lars Frederiksen’s band Old Firm Casuals and I have been pretty much listening to nothing but Rancid’s first two albums ever since. Texas punk legends Lower Class Brats played after them and put on a hell of a show considering they’ve been around almost as long as those Rancid albums. Editors note: How the fuck did we get so old?

Jumping back to Friday night, the most unexpected band of the festival for me was Piñata Protest. I walked in to Three Links in the middle of their set and a ton of punk kids were moshing to a band fronted by a dude playing an accordion. Imagine if Weird Al was a Mexican American from a Texas border town and heard the Casualties instead of Dr. Demento. They were fucking amazing live. They opened for Riverboat Gamblers who put on a great show too, but I was expecting that. Days N’ Daze headlined and I made it about two songs into their folk punk set before bouncing. I liked some of their vocals but one of my best friends was in a pretty big folk punk band in the late 90’s/early 2000’s and I’ve just had enough of that in my life. The kids at the show were having a blast though and that’s all that matters.

The festival ended on Sunday with a couple tribute bands. The Thin White Dukes were a Bowie tribute and Whiskey Jar was doing Thin Lizzie. Olde Heavy Hands opened the show and played their own stuff. I ended up missing the Thin White Dukes because I hadn’t slept much all weekend and as has become increasingly clear in the last three paragraphs, I am old. I do love a good tribute show though (shit, I used to front a punk cover band) and I was really enjoying Whiskey Jar when I decided to go back to my hotel and edit all these photos.

Lastly, I should mention that on Saturday there was also live band punk rock karaoke at Three Links and while it was pretty fun I decided not to post any of the pictures because no one wants to look at random people reading lyrics off a music stand. 

Anyway, the music part of the Elm St. Music & Tattoo Fest was a blast and it was really awesome to see that Dallas has a punk scene. I’ve been in a couple punk bands in my time living in NYC and I was always super disappointed by the scene. There’s a lot of people my age and older that like punk and would go to shows but it didn’t seem like there were people actively involved in the culture. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Dallas and that makes me really happy.

Now click here to see the photos from the music part of the 2018 Elm St. Music & Tattoo Fest in Dallas, TX.

On the last day of South By Southwest I got to photograph a boxing match. My friend Keith Underwood is a tattoo artist and a boxer and he started a boxing promotion company called Underwood Promotions. They had this idea of doing a boxing match during SXSW called SXSW Slugfest that would feature both boxing and live music music. It worked out and became an official SXSW event taking place at the Moody Theater the home of Austin City Limits.

I know Keith because of my work with Sailor Jerry. He apprenticed under Mike Malone who worked under the Sailor Jerry himself and took over Jerry’s shop after he died. Keith has continued the legacy and we have done a bunch of tattoo events together for Sailor Jerry.  It only made sense for Sailor Jerry to sponsor the event and the tattooed ring girls wore Sailor Jerry shirts. Musically the event featured a rockabilly band called The Octanes who played before the boxing started. Between matches hip hop artists MC Doughbeezy and Young Jay performed. Zach Blair of Rise Against played the National Anthem before the main event.

As far as the boxing goes, I am just gonna post all the info from the website.  because I don’t know a goddamn thing about boxing outside of watching every movie about sports ever made. I mean, I loved Tyson back in the day but my love of boxing ended right around the time he bit Holyfield’s ear off. I do own a George Foreman grill though…

Carlos Trevino vs Manuel Rubalacava – Manny Mondragon vs Tyler Pacheco – Prisco Marquez vs Tanner Dodd  – Iskander Kharsan vs Richard Munoz

The main event was Reshard Hicks vs Adan Ahumada for the World Boxing Bureau Intercontinental Title. Check out the official results here.

Hicks pretty much destroyed Ahumada and only the first match went the distance but all of the matches were pretty entertaining. I had never photographed boxing before and honestly I had a blast. I was so close that a couple times I got hit with the ropes when the boxers would crash into them. I had some blood spatter less than two inches from my arm which was pretty great too. I mean as long as didn’t get in my face right?

I took so many damn photos and I edited them down to just over 100. I don’t think I got any shots that were the perfect boxing shot that I imagine when I think about boxing photography but I got a lot of shots I was pretty happy with. I would love to shoot more boxing. I think if I knew the sport better and had more experience shooting matches I could get pretty good at it. Sports photography in general is so specialized but with boxing you sort of have to just “spray and pray” a bit because you never know when that big punch is coming. I feel like those big moments would be a little more intuitive if I watched more boxing.

Anyway, the boxing was a blast and I hope I get to do it again. I hope you guys click through this gallery because some of this stuff is really fun.

Click here to see all the photos from Underwood Promotions: SXSW Slugfest at the Moody Theater in Austin, TX.

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This is going to be a massive post. In one single update I am going to be posting over 400 photos from six parties over a three day period that account for nearly everything I did at South By Southwest. I thought about breaking it up with a separate update for each party or each day, but I am exhausted after a week in Austin and I have one of the biggest gigs of my week tomorrow and then I am headed out of town to see my family so I wanted to get everything up as soon as possible. So let’s break this down!

Every day from Wednesday through Friday Brooklyn Bowl threw two parties at the Scoot Inn on Austin’s east side. The parties started at 1pm and went to 1am every night. The whole event was sponsored by Harley Davidson and Sailor Jerry who just happened to be my clients for the event. Aside from photographing the bands I was on hand to photograph people getting free haircuts from local barber Teddy Sloan thanks to Sailor Jerry and free air brush tattoos from Harley Davidson. Harley also had a bunch of bikes on hand and a training bike so you could learn how to ride a Harley. I should also give a shout out to High Brew coffee who sponsored the “Roadie Lounge” which was air conditioned and had free coffee. They aren’t a client of mine but I am pretty sure I would have not survived without all that caffeine.

Now let’s go through this party by party! Day one featured the Brooklyn Bowl party during day and the This Song Is Sick party at night. R&B artist Son Little and indie/folk Hop Along were the highlights of the day party but I honestly enjoyed all of the bands. The night party was mostly DJs. The absurd Party Pupils were, if nothing else, highly entertaining. They got the crowd both dancing and laughing. Louis Futon brought out a trumpet player to play along with his DJ set and Classixx headlined with a DJ set of their own.

Day two had the Consequence of Sound party during the day and the Brooklyn Vegan showcase at night. The Consequence of Sound party was actually my favorite event even though I am not sure the bands made any sense together. A band called Hinds from Span opened up and they were on their 7th of 14 SXSW shows. That is madness and it’s the kinda thing that leads to some terrible shows, but even for a 2pm set they were really enjoyable. Even their soundcheck was fun when they started covering Beatles songs they didn’t know the lyrics to. Chicago rapper Kweku Collins played next and put on a great show, but I was just happy because he dropped his beer so I ran and got him another drink in a Sailor Jerry cup so I could get some good branded photos. Is it weird that nailing a branded shot is a highlight? Sunflower Bean were really fun to watch. It’s weird that I don’t even remember what they sounded like, but I really liked photographing them. Photography has broken my brain. Headlining was Dr. Octagon which is the alter ego of legendary rapper Kool Keith with music by legendary producer Dan the Automator and legendary DJ DJ Qbert. It was really amazing to see them all together on stage. I remember my friend Keith shoplifted Dr. Octctagonecologyst from Tower Records for me when we were in high school and I had that CD in my car for years. Also, I got a shot of Dan and Just Blaze together which was pretty iconic even if it’s just a mediocre party photo. The Brooklyn Vegan party was headlined by Ted Leo and Wye Oak but the highlight for me was this band Bully who gives me a nostalgia boner for every female fronted band I listened to in the early ’90s i.e. anything with a Deal sister in it.

Day three was all about Relix Magazine. The magazine started out many years ago as a Grateful Dead newsletter so it’s day party “Tribute to Jerry Garcia” makes a lot of sense. Aside from the bands that played, the day party featured a bunch of exclusive clips from a documentary about Willie Nelson’s roadie Ben “Lovey” Dorsey called King of The Roadies. Willie Nelson’s daughter Amy Lee Nelson co-directed the movie and was on hand to show the clips and talk about the film. There was also an auction to raise money for Live Like Lovey, a charity that helps roadies founded after the death of Ben Dorsey by the fellow roadies who took care of him late in life. The afternoon ended with the Texas Gentlemen doing a Grateful Dead cover set with a bunch of guest musicians stepping in to play. It may come as a huge shock to you guys that I am not a huge Grateful Dead fan, but I did own Skeletons from the Closet when I was 10 and I was totally singing along to about a half dozen songs.  Bonus: My friend Sam and I sang Truckin’ karaoke at a fair when we were in the 5th grade. The parties ended with another Relix event that featured Hiss Golden Messenger and headliners Okkervill River.

Okay, that’s all I got. The rest of my SXSW was spent eating BBQ & mexican food and trying to avoid going downtown. I did photograph And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead for Rolling Stone, but I didn’t take enough photos to justify a post.  The only other post I will have from SXSW is a great one and should be up tomorrow: SXSW Slugfest! Until then go look at this massive gallery from the Brooklyn Bowl Family Reunion!

Click here to see all the photos from the SXSW Brooklyn Bowl Family Reunion at Scoot Inn in Austin, TX.

Yesterday was a hell of a day for me. Things actually started the day before when I arrived at Slattery’s Midtown Pub to prepare for two days of football related madness, none of which had to do with the national anthem. I have explained this here before but I kinda feel like every time I do a Miami Dolphins related post I need to do it all over again…

My friend Michelle and I started the NYC Miami Dolphins fan club in 2008. When I moved to NYC I didn’t really have any friends who watched football and so I would watch them at random bars. Eventually I met Michelle and started watching with her and her small group of Dolphins fans. That small group organically grew until after the 2008 season when Michelle and I decided to start using our web and marketing skills to start promoting it. Dolfans NYC was born.

We started doing raffles and selling t-shirts and coming up with other reasons for people to come to the games despite the Dolphins being a mediocre football team. As we started to generate income we decided to give all the money to charity so we wouldn’t be motivated by profit or fight about money. That decision paid off because it attracted the attention of the Miami Dolphins who have given us a ton of support and opted not to sue us for blatant trademark infringement.

We raised so much money over the years that we actually had to become a not for profit corporation. We couldn’t just deal with beer buckets full of one dollar bills anymore. We needed to make it official. Last summer we filed for our 501(c)(3) status and got it and now I have a no limit AmEx card which says Dolfans NYC on it which is absolutely absurd but great for getting into airport lounges.

Anyway, back to this weekend. Sunday was our annual #MetLifeTakeover event where we bring hundreds of Dolphins fans to the Dolphins @ Jets game and throw a massive tailgate party which starts the night before at Slattery’s with our annual #MetLifeTakeover pre-party.

I got there at 5pm to set up for the 7pm party which was supposed to end at 9. I think we left around 1am after organizing and packing up eight huge bins of assorted Dolfans NYC merch. The party was a good time and we raised $500 for hurricane Maria which unfortunately makes nearly $2000 we have already donated to hurricane relief this year. On a more positive note we got to try out our Snapchat filter that my friend Ricardo at Subdrive records made for us.

After I finally got home from the party I packed up all my personal shit from the night before and tried to get a few hours of sleep before I had to be awake again. I might have managed 90 minutes… I had to be back at the bar in midtown by 6:30. The bar manager was still there from the night before.

We loaded up four chartered buses and took them to MetLife Stadium in jersey to meet up with over a thousand Dolphins fans for a party organized by Urban Tailgate. They took a huge amount of stuff off our plate and were already pretty much set up when we got there. Our own DJ Tropic showed up with them and had music blasting before the busses even pulled in. There was so much god damn food and a bar sponsored by my friends at Sailor Jerry and we set up all sorts of games that bros like to play. And of course we brought some inflatable palm trees. It was pretty great.

Around 10am the Miami Dolphins radio show “Cup of Joe” showed up to film before the game. It’s hosted by former Dolphin great Joe Rose who interviewed fellow former Dolphin and current Dolphins Vice President Nat Moore and CEO Tom Garfinkel. We also had another legend (Jim “Crash” Jensen) just show up randomly to the tailgate and party with us.

After that Solo D performed a few songs in the crowd. He is a rapper who mostly writes songs about the Dolphins and unlike most sports themed music is actually really good. I have a weird collection of Miami Dolphins vinyl records and I really want to put out a Solo D record one day.

The tailgate sort of ended with a big raffle we did for a Dolphins helmet signed by one of our best players, Cam Wake. We ended up raising $1800 for charity just with that helmet alone. When you add that to the all the merch we sold and profit we made on the $70,000 worth of tickets we are going to be able to do a lot of great things with that money starting with a pretty sizeable donation to the Miami Dolphins Foundation.

It’s really weird that the thing I have been most successful at in life is running a pro football fan club but here we are. I am actually headed to Florida in just over a week to see the Dolphins play and make that Miami Dolphins Foundation donation but I am gonna fly into Orlando or Tampa and make my way down to Miami with a nude model and shoot a bunch of weird photos and get tattooed and crash with a juggalo sideshow because my life is fucking insane.

Speaking of trips, I am headed to Detroit tomorrow to hang out with my lady friend Gia Paige. Hopefully I shall return with photos of her in abandoned urban ruins and even more photos of her tiny puppies. Gonna try and get an update ready to go before I leave so I can drop at least one more post on you before the weekend, but no promises.

Click here to see all the photos from the 2017 Dolfans NYC #MetLifeTakeover.

Ps. Yes, I know the Dolphins got embarrassed by the Jets and yes, I think it’s bullshit that the President of the United States is using is platform to tell black athletes to shut up, but don’t you think this post is long enough already?

On Saturday I went to a party/show/classic motorcycle rally. My friends at Sailor Jerry were sponsoring the event in the Broadway Stages parkinglot in Greenpoint and asked me to come by. A bunch of bands were playing and there were some solid food trucks and a ton of vintage motorcycles. Seemed like a good time.

I got there pretty early so I was in time to see Julia Haltigan go on and then I photographed a bunch of the bikes and hung out with the Sailor Jerry crew. They were giving away a hand painted Harley and the had someone live painting a helmet with classic Sailor Jerry flash. I hung out with the homie & SJ brand ambassador Gravy Thomas who never stops moving throwing these SJ events across the country. Every time they do one of these motorcycle events I wanna buy a bike but am 100% sure I would wreck it in a week in NYC traffic.

As the sun started to go down Sharmuffin started playing and they were great. Their front woman got in the crowd and finally turned the block party into a rock show which I appreciated. I was actually supposed to be somewhere else after that but I wanted to stick around for Daddy Long Legs. I shot them at the Beauty Bar 20th anniversary party and they were really fun and I am glad I stuck around.

I did have to leave before Dirty Fences played but the party was 10 hours long and I had to get a bunch of stuff done by Monday (which is why these photos didn’t go up until today.) But I’ve shot them before too and they are really fun. Wish I could have stuck around.

Anyway check out these photos because even if you don’t care about old motorcycles and rock bands you will care about the photos of adorable dogs at the party.

Click here to see all the photos from The Lot vintage motorcycle party!

Last night I got to hang out on an aircraft carrier which is probably the coolest location I have been to for a party in all my years of partying. Fleet week started yesterday and Sailor Jerry threw their Fleet Week kick off party on the USS Intrepid. The Intrepid is a decommissioned WWII aircraft carrier that is now a museum and apparently a fantastic place to party.

It was hard to beat the Fleet Week kick off party last year which featured Cage The Elephant and Norman Reedus but the Alabama Shakes played this year and when you mix that with the insane location it was one hell of a time.

For some insane reason they gave Daniel “Gravy” Thomas a wireless mic so most of the night featured Gravy running around like a mad man buying sailors rum and hyping the party while Ian Saint Laurent DJd. Around 9 Alabama Shakes came on and ended the party properly. I haven’t really listened to them before but I left fairly impressed.

I really like some of these photos because the scenery was so amazing. You probably are gonna wanna check these pictures out.

Click here to see the photos from Sailor Jerry’s Fleet Week kick off party on the USS Intrepid.

Daredevil Tattoo celebrated it’s 20th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of legal tattooing in NYC over the weekend. The events started on Friday with two events at Daredevil and then two full days of tattooing with some of the best tattoo artists in the world doing classic flash tattoos and updated versions of the historic flash. It was a really cool event and I got two galleries for you from it!

On Friday things started out with a few hours of $50 Sailor Jerry tattoos with a small break before the opening night party. I didn’t make it out in time for the $50 tattoo part but I did make it down in time for the party. Sailor Jerry was involved all day with brand ambassadors Gravy Thomas & The Paul Monahan both showing up for the madness and bringing plenty of Sailor Jerry rum to the party.

The cool thing about having a party at Daredevil is that it’s not just a tattoo shop but it’s also a tattoo museum. The place is filled with tattoo history and is located just blocks from the birth of modern tattooing. The first electric tattoo machine was patented in NYC and changed tattooing forever. If you wanna learn more about it I guess you could google it, but you should probably just go down to Daredevil and check it out.

Aside from partying with all the legendary tattoo artists the coolest part of the party had to have been the surprise appearance from Golden Lions NYC. I was not expecting three Chinese New Year dragons to roll up into the shop but they did and it was pretty incredible.  After the lions I left to go watch the end of a playoff hockey game that went into overtime but I was up bright and early the next morning for the second part of the tattoo celebration.

After working for Sailor Jerry the night before I got hired by the website Tattoodo to cover the tattoo convention part of the weekend (located a few blocks away from Daredevil at Ludlow Studios). Tattoodo is a massive online tattoo community with almost 2 million followers on Instagram. They sponsored the weekend and it was great working with them. Plus I got to get tattooed while I worked!

I decided to go with some of the historic flash and got a snake wrapped around a dagger tattooed by Nick Colella. Nick and I have been instagram friends for ages and I actually got tattooed at his shop Great Wave in Chicago before they were even open to the public. Nick had never tattooed me though so I figured it was time. Thanks Nick!

After getting tattooed I spent the rest of the day photographing other people getting tattoos by tattoo artists that have waiting lists of months if not years. One of my favorite tattoo artists Grez was tattooing all weekend and it took me 9 months to get an appointment for him to do my arm and and another 6 months to get my chest done. The tattoos were well worth the wait but you gotta love a convention where you only need to wait a few hours.

I didn’t make it back Sunday but I got plenty of shots for you to look at. If you care at all about tattooing or tattoo history you should check out these galleries. I have not one, but two of them! But before I get to that just wanted to congratulate Michelle Myles & Brad Fink on 20 years of Daredevil!

Click here to see all the photos from the opening night party at Daredevil Tattoo!

Click here to see all the photos from the tattoo convention at Ludlow Studios!

What’s this? Another SXSW post while SXSW is still happening? Yeah, that’s a thing but this one is gonna be way shorter than the last. Yesterday I finally got to work for my favorite client Sailor Jerry. I have shot the last few SXSWs for them but this year we only did the one event but it was a fun one.

The Austin Chronicle throws a party every year called Hair of the Three Legged Dog named after their office dog Hank. Bands play and money is raised for Austin Pets Alive. Sailor Jerry sponsored and so did Fleshlight which was kinda amazing.

I wasn’t there the whole time but with two stages I got to see a bunch of bands. Think No Think was playing when I got there and the end of their set was real fun. My friends White Mystery played after that and they are always fucking great. Black Lips played after them and while their band has changed a bunch since the last time I saw them they were still a good time. Creepoid played inside after that. I met them last year after seeing them play for like one song so it was cool to see them play a full set. And finally I caught Telle Novella play on my way out. Good vibes all around. Oh and Al Lover played a bunch of records.

Plus as an exciting bonus for you guys shot a couple of portraits Sailor Jerry brand ambassador Daniel “Gravy” Thomas as well. Okay, enough delicious 92 proof spiced corporate branding, let’s look at some photos!

Click here to see all the photos from the Austin Chronicle’s Hair of the Three Legged Dog SXSW Day party at Barracuda! 

Last night Schott NYC and Sailor Jerry launched their second collaboration. The first one was a pea coat to celebrate the 240th anniversary of the US Navy. This time they did a version of the classic Perfecto motorcycle jacket. This is the jacket that James Dean wore, that the Ramones wore, that pretty much every cool person since the 1950’s wore. The Perfecto is legendary. I actually own a vintage knock off that I love but the leather is all dried out and despite a gallon of leather oil I can’t get it soft again.

Fortunately for me I photographed last night’s party and got my hands on one of the greatest jackets in human history. Plus the Sailor Jerry version of the jacket has some pretty good touches like a red satin interior featuring a Sailor Jerry tattoo flash skull and another skull on the shoulder. Oh and did I mention the jacket feels like it’s made out of a tiny baby cow that lived his entire life in a bathtub of moisturizer? It’s unreasonably awesome and at this point I am just trying to make you jealous.

At the release party last night a tattoo artist named Jon Boy was doing tiny Sailor Jerry flash tattoos. Normally at these Sailor Jerry events they do normal sized flash, but Jon Boy is known for his tiny fine line tattoos and so they thought it would be cool to do micro flash which ended up looking real cool. When I saw his work I thought it was a little bit silly given my love for the thick black lines of American Traditional but talking with Jon Boy changed my mind in 2 minutes. This is a guy who knows what he’s doing and clearly gives a fuck about tattooing and unfortunately her ran out of time before I could get a tiny dagger.

Also, one of the first people to get tattooed I knew I had seen before and he told me he had been to a couple Sailor Jerry events I had shot so I figured that was it… but I checked Instagram this morning and realized he was pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini and while I have probably taken his photo before I really recognized him because he was the host of the tragically short lived Top Chef Just Desserts. And if you know anything about me you should know about my love for competition reality shows about food. Funny thing is that my friend Ashley Holt was supposed to come with me and she won Next Great Baker so they could have maybe had some sort of violent pastry fight.

Anyway, check out the photos from the jacket launch and when you see me out in my Perfecto make sure to rub on my aggressively soft and incredibly badass jacket.

Click here to see all the photos from the Schott NYC x Sailor Jerry Classic Perfecto launch party!