This is by far my biggest post of SXSW! Get ready for a LOT of photos.

Sailor Jerry flipped the scrip on South By Southwest this year by abandoning their yearly takeover of the Gypsy Lounge and decided to do stuff completely differently. Everyone has a million bands playing at SXSW every year but not everyone has priceless original Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins art work to show off.

Sailor Jerry took over an art gallery and over a four day period showed off original paintings, stencils and drawings from the most legendary tattoo artist of all time. I have been a fan of his art and have worked for the company that shares his name for years and I have never seen more than a handful original pieces and most of them were just stencils.  This collection had never been show in the US and it was amazing.

Aside from showing off the art during the day, in the evening Sailor Jerry turned the space into a private invite only lounge featuring free cocktails that changed every night. Instead of having a bunch of bands play, they had a bunch of bands DJ and it kept the thing way more mellow and a way to relax and get away from all the madness for a bit. The DJs included members of Thee Oh Sees, Spits, Ice Age, Lust For Youth plus Cheetah Chrome, Andy Animal, Al Lover and a bunch more.

You could tell the parties went really well because you could find editors of major music blogs hanging out drinking booze in the air conditioning instead of catching the new hip buzz band. Plus the homie Hannibal Buress came there straight from his Jimmy Kimmel appearance and came back the next day as soon as we opened. You know it’s a good time when the spot is bumping from the moment it opens until the weird after parties we had back at the Sailor Jerry house!

Anyway this gallery is MASSIVE and it features four nights of partying plus some day time shots of the gallery. It’s worth the click through. But the real question is how am I going to pick just 5-7 images to represent the whole week? I guess we are about to find out…

Click here to see all the photos from The Sailor Jerry Gallery at 2015 SXSW.

As my SXSW updates continue I bring you some photos from the only music week day party I photographed. During music week for the most part I only had stuff to do at night. When it ended up raining on Friday and Saturday I just decided eating and sleeping were a better use of my time than seeing another band. I had already been in Austin for a week and I was already pretty beat up. Fortunately Thursday was really nice out and I got a chance check out Hotel Vegas.

Hotel Vegas was doing the Levitation/ Austin Psych Fest day party and because my client Sailor Jerry was one of the sponsors and helped curate the bands I had a VIP pass and I got to walk right in seconds before Thee Oh See’s went on. I have probably seen Thee Oh See’s play 15 times and for some reason every single time has been in Austin. I pretty much equate them with SXSW so it would have been weird not to have seen them. Even with a new line up John Dwyer and company killed it as always.

While I was there I also shot my buddy Justin’s band (also with a new line up) Residuels (sic) and I saw the first song by the sitar playing Gourisankar. Plus I invited a ton of people to the Sailor Jerry Gallery party that night and met a girl named Isabel that I ended up photographing two days later. Good times!

Click here to see all the photos from the Levitation/ Austin Psych Fest party at Hotel Vegas.

Tomorrow I am skipping town for the next two weeks. Headed to my 12th straight SXSW. Because I won’t be able to update like I would normally I am moving everything over to the magical Driven By Boredom Road Trip Blog for daily updates while I am gone. So if you get this and it’s any time between now and the 23rd of March I you should click over there!

For those in Austin or just interested in my life for some weird reason I will be shooting SXSW Film stuff for the Village Voice/ LA Weekly media empire as part of my yearly SXSW Film Portraits. I start Friday on that stuff and go until Monday. On Tuesday I am working the premiere and after party for the new Robert Duvall directed film Wild Horses which should be a lot of fun.

Then South By Southwest Music starts and I am working the art gallery of original Sailor Jerry flash that is part of the official SXSW program (flyer below). Wednesday through Saturday night I am working some private parties that I can’t technically talk about but if we are friends and you want to go hit me up. During the day during SXSW Music I am freelancing for Rolling Stone and Noisey so hopefully I will find some cool stuff for them too.

Should be a fun trip and hopefully I will take an insane amount awesome photos.

Now click here to visit the Road Trip Blog while I am at SXSW! 

CMJ festival happened again and I shot the two Brooklyn Vegan day parties at Baby’s All Right. I want to get these up now even though it’s Sunday night because tomorrow I want to do the last post about my new book Kickstarter before it ends on Tuesday. There are a TON of photos and a ton of bands but I want to make it quick so let’s break this down.

I was shooting the parties for my favorite client Sailor Jerry (with the Iggy Pop party in Miami I worked for them on four straight days). They were doing another free tattoo and free booze event with free SJ drinks all day and a free tattoo raffle. Instead of doing a ton of small tattoos they did some big nicer tattoos but only did about a half dozen each day. Matt Marcus from Three Kings was doing them and he’s a boss.

Here’s the line up from both days.

Highlights from Friday included King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Single Mothers who both killed it. I dug most of the bands that played on Friday actually. It was a pretty serious show.

On Saturday I was glad to get to see Fat White Family again and Bo Ningen were really intense. I was really into Girlpool when they started but they got a little slow for me after that. I would love to see a full set of their uptempo stuff. Residual Kid were pretty fun. They were a bunch of skate boarding teenagers playing grunge which I didn’t hate at all. Beverly were pretty rad too and I feel like there are a lot of really good female fronted rock bands that exist right now which rules.

So go look at all the photos and then donate to my Kickstarter before it’s too late! Less than 48 hours to go!

Click here to see all the photos from the 2014 Brooklyn Vegan CMJ day parties at Baby’s All Right.

Sometimes this job is really great. On Wednesday I flew down to Miami to photograph the release party for the Iggy Pop/ Sailor Jerry collaboration “The Flash Collection”. The Flash Collection started last year when Sailor Jerry worked together with the Clash’s Paul Simonon to create a very limited leather jacket, two t-shirts and a bandana. This year they teamed up with Iggy Pop to bring you a denim vest and a belt limited to 50 pieces each! The vests are signed on the inside by Iggy Pop and come with a bunch of patches that are based on old Sailor Jerry tattoos.

The party took place at the Garrett in Miami and I was one of the only two photographers allowed to photograph Iggy in the vip upstairs. The party featured free rum, free BBQ and everyone who came walked out with a grab bag of swag. They also had two women sewing on patches all night. I was working too hard to get my vest patched but I grabbed one for the road. Miami natives the Jacuzzi Boys were the main attraction and they played a fantastic set after Iggy introduced them. I have seen them a few times during SXSW but it was great to see them play in front of their home crowd. I took a bunch of photos, met a bunch of babes and hung out with near Iggy Pop all night. It was a pretty great experience.

After that a bunch of the journalists covering the launch were invited by Sailor Jerry to a small after party at the Broken Shaker cocktail bar. The bar designed some sort of insane Sailor Jerry drink that had beef jerky in it. Now that is intense. There also were a bunch of kittens running around which is not a terrible way to end an awesome night. The only bad part was after the party I walked to David’s Cafe to get a Cuban sandwich and found out they closed months ago and no one told me. Tragic.

Now click here to look at all the photos from Iggy Pop and Sailor Jerry’s The Flash Collection release party in Miami!

As you may or may not know I have been out of town for a bit. I was in LA for a few days but I got a call from my palls over at Sailor Jerry who were sponsoring an event called Viva Las Vegas which is a yearly Rockabilly Weekend filled with pin ups, hot rods and rock and roll. Vegas is a quick four hour drive from LA so I got in my rental car and took off. Seven hours of horrible traffic later I was at the Orleans casino in Vegas ready to rock and roll.

Viva Las Vegas lasts four days but I only photographed the car show on Saturday. Sailor Jerry brought not one, but FOUR custom SJ cars built by Mackey’s Hot Rods and set up their own area featuring the cars, one of SJ’s famous air stream trailers, a gas pump that pumps rum instead of gas and a dunk tank!

The dunk tank featured cute girls in bikinis that you could try to get wet after making a donation to Honorable Recharge a charity that helps US war veterans deal with PTSD and other wounds. It was a very cool thing that drew a crowd all day and raised a lot of money. Plus at one point I got soaked when I was taking a photo and since it was about 1000 degrees in Vegas it was probably the best thing that happened to me all day.

Anyway, the cars at the event were really cool but I think the people are even cooler looking. So many rockabilly babes everywhere and while some of it is a bit over the top and goofy, there are a lot of bad ass looking motherfuckers hanging out… I love shooting people and documenting subcultures so you might notice I paid a lot more attention to the people than to the cars. I also live in NYC and don’t even own a car much less know anything about them. So yeah, there are some cool photos of cars but I think you are really gonna dig the shots of the humans.

Now I gotta drive back to LA. Click here to see all the photos of the Viva Las Vegas Car Show at the Orleans in Las Vegas, NV.

The last day of the Sailor Jerry House SXSW takeover of Gypsy Lounge was about two things for me. 1) Trying to make it through the day without dying and 2) Getting good shots of the Dum Dum Girls getting tattooed. I had been a few hours of sleep for 10 days at this point and was losing my mind. I didn’t know how I could look at another band much less photograph them. The next day I ended up getting really sick and taking a nap that ended up lasting 13 hours. I was done.

BUT the Dum Dum Girls were headlining the day party and getting tattooed after and I knew that was my money shot. My friend and Spin told me they wanted shots of them getting tattooed and I thought Noisey was going to come by. They didn’t but still wanted photos. I ended up getting shots of them on Spin, Noisey, Rolling Stone and Examiner.com. So It was in fact my money shot. Personally my favorite Dum Dum Girls shot was of Dee Dee taking a selfie even before I knew she was in the Dum Dum Girls (even though I have met her and photographed them twice – I just have a horrible memory). But yeah, cool girls, fun show and their photos made Sailor Jerry super happy with me and that’s the whole point of all of this right?

The highlights of the rest of the day involved finally seeing my pals White Mystery, getting to see Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys play Sonic Reducer, plus performances by Youth Code, Cosmonauts and the Residuals who I hung out with all week long. King Dude headlined but after I took like five photos of them I got the fuck out of there, edited photos and was about to go to sleep when everyone from Sailor Jerry came home and I ended up staying up all night anyway. Oh well, eventually I slept and the whole week was a blast! Can’t wait to do it again next year!

And that’s it! All of my 2014 South By Southwest coverage is done! I did shoot a bunch of 35mm stuff which will be making appearances on my Tumblr starting as soon as I pick up the 10 rolls of film that are currently being developed.

But until then click here to see all the photos from the final day of the Sailor Jerry House SXSW takeover of Gypsy Lounge! 

Ps. RIP Dave Brockie. You will be missed Oderus!

Sailor Jerry House day four! I wanna get through the rest of this SXSW stuff quick so that I can move on to some new stuff I have ready to go up! Gonna try to get day five up later today so be on the look out this evening!

Okay so yeah, another long crazy day! The fantastic Alysha Nett and her crew came by early to get tattoos. She got a pin up dagger thing on her shin by Oliver Peck and her boyfriend Mike Fuentes of Pierce The Veil got a spin the wheel Sailor Jerry tattoo by Phil Larocca. Big Freedia came by after that and got swallows tattooed to her shoulders. They looked pretty bad ass. Musically the day highlight was Fat White Family who put on an insane show as you can see below.

The night time party was the Cultist Zine/ Blundertown showcase which featured another set by the lovely ladies the Coathangers and one of the most fun sets ever by the Coachwhips. The first time I saw Coachwhips frontman John Dyer’s other band Thee Oh Sees they were playing on a bridge in Austin at SXSW years ago. It was such an amazing show but I think this Coachwhips set might have that one beat. They played in the crowd so I got to shoot from behind them on stage, often helping make sure that speakers didn’t fall on top of them. It was a blast and afterwards they went and played on the same bridge. I was home editing their photos but I am sure it was epic.

So that’s it for now but look for another update tonight and some fun, non SXSW, tomorrow. In the mean time…

Click here to see all the photos from Day 4 of the Sailor Jerry House SXSW take over of the Gypsy Lounge!

On day three Sailor Jerry House was taken over completely by Black Bell Records. Pretty sure 150 bands played in 14 hours but I could be off slightly with that number. Black Bell is Ayad from Passion Pit’s passion project and I have been to a few of his SXSW parties and they are always a good time. This year was no exception.

Before I get into any music I should mention that the day started with me getting a big Oliver Peck tattoo, TJ Miller showed up and we also tattooed these rad fashion blogger babes Christina Caradona and Bonnie Barton. Oliver and I played a trick on Bonnie where I drew her tattoo and Oliver put my stencil on her and she kinda freaked out about it but she was super polite. I kinda think that she would have gone ahead and got this crooked ass tattoo because she didn’t want to be rude to Oliver. Fortunately he put the real stencil on her and she got a (straight) arrow on her bicep.

The day time highlight was Ayad’s own band Team Spirit. Those kids killed it and set the tone for the wild night a head. The night party really went crazy about the time the The Lovely Bad Things went on. Their “frontman” was sort of their bassist who didn’t sing but played in between the two singers and played like a maniac getting the crowd involved. By the end of the set the rest of the band was going crazy too and as you will see below I got some rad shots of guitar playing, beer drinking stage dives.

The next band to really impress me was The Garden. They are a two man band made up of weirdly dressed male models who played loud aggressive rock and roll before launching into a weird rap break before returning to the rock shit. They were so weird, put on a great show and filled the crowd with tons of hot babes. Loved that shit. One of the two headliners was Brooklyn’s own So So Glos. They played manageably poppy punk rock  and the crowd fucked shit up along side them.  I wasn’t expecting to like them nearly as much as I did. They are playing Mishka’s 350 Broadway 5 year anniversary on Thursday and I am excited to see em again.

The night ended in totally insane fashion with a incredible performance by Diarrhea Planet. As much as I hate their name I love their live show. They have four guitar players which would seem really pretentious and awful if they weren’t all dedicated to rocking the fuck out. There was nothing pretty or masturbatory about their sound and they just put on a fucking amazing show. They started out by bringing the Lovely Bad Things out with them and throwing a shit ton of ball pit balls into the crowd and ended by bringing up the So So Glos for a cover of Fight For Your Right To Party. In between it was constant stage diving and crowd surfing and amazingness. They couldn’t hear themselves play because all their monitors got unplugged during the show but it didn’t really matter because everyone had an amazing time and I got so many good pictures…

So click here to look at all of the rad pictures from the Black Bell Records party at the SXSW Sailor Jerry House takeover of the Gypsy Lounge in Austin!