When I got a pretty decent gig working SXSW Music I realized that I could afford to spend another week in Austin and check out the film festival.  To do that I would need to get a film badge.  I asked the Village Voice if they would hire me to shoot SXSW Film and Interactive for them and they agreed. Originally I thought I could just shoot a film party or two and just watch a bunch of movies, but then I got all these press junket invites and realized I could do a pretty cool portrait gallery for the Voice.  The odd thing is that the Voice still hasn’t run these portrait yet, although they tell me they are going to.  A lot of the people in the gallery you might not have any idea who are, and frankly I don’t want to explain it all, but I will link the Voice gallery when it’s up and it will have all the captions.  Also if you mouse over the photos below it will give credits for my favorite shots.

The highlight of course was shooting the Get Low junket.  I got there late due to the cabs in Austin being the worst things ever so I was worried I was going to miss my chance to shoot Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek.  Luckily they squeezed me in, unluckily I only had 2 minutes with them and they weren’t so excited about posing for me.  Bill Murray made fun of me, Robert Duvall was mostly trying to just eat lunch and Sissy Spacek was worried about me shooting with a wide angel.  But when I showed Sissy the photo on my camera and she loved it and later on the red carpet for her movie she came over and hugged me and told all the other photographers that I was amazing. Speaking of amazing, while I was waiting to shoot the cast of Get Low I got to shoot Sissys daughter Schuyler Fisk, who is a musician, actress and totally rad girl, not to mention absolutely stunning.

The other thing really worth mentioning was that I went down to shoot portraits at the Tiny Furniture premiere.  Tiny Furniture was directed, written and starred in by my friend Lena Dunham and my boy Teddy Blanks did the score. Their film won best narrative feature and I was so excited for them.  I am going to do a full review of it right before it screens in NYC so you will get to hear more about it, but it was amazing and I am so proud of those kids.

Anyway, I shot people from the movies Get Low, Tiny Furniture, MARS, Monsters, Helena At The Wedding, and fucking Lemmy from the movie Lemmy.  Amazing.  Click here to see all the portraits from SXSW Film 2010.

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.

So it’s CMJ week and it’s looking like I may skip most of the festivities this year, but I did make it over to Pete’s Candy Store to check out my boy Teddy Blanks.  I am not sure why CMJ picked Pete’s Candy Store as a venue because you could probably play a better show in my bedroom.  Teddy doesn’t have a very big draw so I didn’t mind the small room, but he had to go home and get speakers from his stereo because they only had two small speakers and a monitor.  Teddy doesn’t use amps or drums, so the sound was inadequate.  On top of that the “sound booth” was a mixer nailed to the wall.  Teddy had to do his sound while he was on stage.  It was a very strange set up. Teddy overcame however despite that fact that he had only the right channel working and ended up playing a pretty good show.

After Teddy’s show I headed over to Happy Endings and pretty much hung out outside for the rest of the night.  I did go inside for a bit but I was out of there by 315 and home full of crepes by 345. It was a pretty uneventful way to start CMJ week, but there are a bunch of pictures.  You can click here to check them out of course…

The last time Teddy Blanks played CMJ he was fronting the Gaskets and they were opening for a huge band at the Blender Theater. Well, Blender is out of business and so are the Gaskets, but Teddy is kicking ass on his own and he is playing a CMJ showcase tomorrow. Pete’s Candy Store is just slightly smaller than the Blender Theater, but I think it will be a good time just the same. I think you should come out. He plays at pretty much exactly 11 Tuesday night. Flyer with all the info below…

Also, I should mention that Teddy redesigned his website, because that’s what he does.

I am almost caught up with old stuff although I shot a ton of stuff yesterday, and today is going to be nuts as well.  I probably shot three galleries yesterday and I’ll shoot three more today.  So it may be another few days before we are fully caught up, but just know I am trying.

Last week my friend Teddy Blanks played with Rebecca Schiffman at some bar in midtown called Bar Nine. I am not sure why they play there, but it’s their second show.  I have talked about Teddy relentlessly, so all I will say is that during his set three girls started doing choreographed dances and by the end there were about 6 or 7 people doing the same dance through his entire set.  It was very weird.

Rebecca is this little adorable girl who makes some sort of singer/songwritery acoustic folk type jams.  She is pretty much nothing like Teddy musically but evidently they have a lot of friends/fans in common.  Rebecca is not just a musician but an artist and writer as well. Her website has music, links to her zine and jewelry line as well as her writing and her fine art work.  My favorite of her work is paintings she has done of photos from ebay auctions.  I am really into net based art, and I have done my fair share of ebay pranks, so that stuff is really up my alley.

Anyway, I have to go shoot photos for about 14 hours now, so just check out the pictures from Teddy & Rebecca’s show last week.

As promised I am finally getting the Teddy Blanks photos from Friday up.  I think one of the reasons it has taken me so long to get these up was because I sort of blame the show on blowing out my knee.  Teddy left his TV in my brother’s car and my brother was at work.  I have the other set of keys so Teddy asked me to steal my brother’s car and drive us all to the show in Greenpoint.  I walked all the way to the car (about a 20 min walk) before I realized I didn’t have the keys on me.  I ran a few blocks to find a cab, then ran up my stairs as fast as I could and ran back down so the cab would wait for me.  By the time I got to the car my knee was killing me.  I took the car into the city for the night before dropping it back off at my brothers and starting the walk home.  I didn’t get two blocks from his apartment before I collapsed and had to call a car service to drive me back home.

Speaking of my injury… evidentially it is not as bad as I thought.  I went to a specialist today who saw me for a total of 90 seconds but he told me that my knee seemed okay.  I have to get an MRI soon, but I have to get approval from my insurance company which could take a week. In the mean time he said to rest and ice it, but that I can walk on it.  That being said, I have never been to the hospital before and I decided this merited a trip to the ER. I broke my finger in high school and didn’t even put a splint on it.  The point is, despite what the doctor deduced in under two minutes, until I get that MRI, I still think I am fucked. I got some pain killers and a pretty sexy brace to wear in the mean time. So, I am going to attempt to shoot some fashion week stuff in the next couple of days, but I am going to be moving… very… very… slooowwly…

Moving on… Here are the pictures from Teddy’s show. I was mostly having fun at the show and just fucking around with the photos.  I was dragging the shutter so the TV was all over the shot.  Anyway, enough with the excuses.  I will be back tomorrow with some surprise NSFW shots and new excuses for why they suck too.  See you then.

UPDATE: Tonight’s show was moved to Tuesday by the Annex new owners, unfortunately Teddy is not able to make it Tuesday night so he will not be playing. My friend Grier’s band Great Tiger is still playing though, so you should check them out if you get a chance.

Well the Annex is closing in a about two weeks, but Teddy Blanks is playing there first Monday night. He is playing at nine so you can use it as a chance to pregame. I can get a few people in for free I think so if you know my number text me and I will see what I can do. Either way he puts on a hell of a show an it is worth whatever the small cover price is. Hope to see some of you there.

And if you can’t make the show, you can always pick up his new EP on iTunes.

Significant Objects is a project where writers and artists try to attach significance to a thrift store object there by creating something of greater value.  After the object as are written about they are placed on eBay at their original price and then their added value is determined by how high the price goes over the minimum bid.  As of Wednesday, 35 objects valued at under $50 have been sold for over $1000.

Significant Objects teamed up with the design blog Design Observer last week.  Several of Design Observers bloggers signified about some significant objects this week.  My friend and musician Teddy Blanks is a pretty regular contributer to Design Observer and he was asked to do something for the project. Teddy decided to write a song called “Figurines” about a small Porcelain Scooter that he was assigned.  The scooter cost $1 at a thrift store and is currently selling for $2.38.  That is a 138% increase! But don’t worry, you still have time to bid!

Check out the song below, and read the lyrics by clicking here.

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Somewhat Hasty first solo video from my boy Teddy Blanks. It was directed by friend and former Party Rock 3 member Christian Schultz. While consistently maintaining a retro synth pop feel in all his music this has to be the most 80′s thing he has done yet. My first thought was he was a pair of leg warmers away from Flashdance but a friend of mine compared it to a Billy Squier video. I think he has a point.

Also Teddy has just redone his website with a lot more music up as well as an archive of flyers and a header that quotes a different line from a song every time you refresh the page. He also has a show this Thursday. You should check that out. In the mean time, dig the video, I think it’s pretty great.  Also, download a free Mp3 of Somewhat Hasty here.