Oliver Peck is not only a bad ass tattoo artist and host of TV’s Ink Master, he  also happens to be one of the only Republicans that I get along with. After spending the last seven weeks in NYC filming season three of Ink Master Oliver is headed back home to Dallas. Last night with the help of Sailor Jerry he threw an insane going away party at Arlene’s Grocery.

Back in Dallas, Oliver and his friend Josh Hammertimez host Good Luck Karaoke, which is pretty much like regular karaoke except Josh and Oliver cause a ruckus on stage while you are performing your song. They brought the party to NYC last night and did karaoke until everyone was too drunk to sing anymore. I have seen a lot of karaoke in my life but never as out of control as last night. The Alkaline Trio showed up and Matt Skiba got wasted on Sailor Jerry and decided to play the drums during about ten people’s karaoke sets. It was pretty amazing/ hilarious.

Oliver also brought his friend and co-worker at Elm Street Tattoo, Carl Hallowell, to tattoo Sailor Jerry flash on people while the karaoke madness was going on in the other room. Skiba got a death head moth on his hand, my dude AK Murda got a hinge, Steve Lewis got a pin up, etc. Lot of rad tattoos all around.

Oh, I should probably mention that everyone was wearing wigs all night. Why you ask? I have no idea actually, but it probably has something to do with Oliver’s drag queen Ramones tribute band The Ramonahs. They played a set in the middle of the karaoke party and it was fucking awesome. Oliver does a pretty good Joey Ramone impression only with a mustache and fake tits. Seriously it was wild.

Enough with the story let’s get to some pictures. It was a wild night…

Click here to see all the pictures from Oliver Peck’s Wig Party at Arlene’s Grocery featuring Good Luck Karoke and The Ramonahs!

Last night I went out to the Roseland Ballroom with almost no idea what I was going to see. I knew my friends from Trouble & Bass were DJing and I knew it was part of the massive month long Red Bull Music Academy. Other than that I didn’t know much, I really just wanted to get out of the house and shoot some photos. I’ve been so busy working on a bunch of random project that I haven’t had  much time to do any actual work.

So it turns out the event was “Culture Clash” a battle between four NYC DJ crews hosted by Miss Info. Trouble & Bass were squaring off against the reggae  crew Federation Sound, the “Global Bass” duo Que Bajo and hip hop producers/djs Just Blaze and Young Guru. I am not gonna lie, I was pretty psyched for Just Blaze and Young Guru even though I was rooting for my T&B fam.

The contest works like this: There are four rounds and the winning team gets a point for rounds two and three and two points for round four. The first round is just 15 min to do whatever you like to get the crowd hyped and no one wins. The second round is more of the same but it the crowd votes on it. In the third round each crew has to play another team’s type of music and the fourth round is all originals and live performances.

I am not gonna talk a ton about Federation Sound or Que Bajo too much because this post is going to be way too long as it is and they don’t really play music I am into. I am a massive Jimmy Cliff fan and I fuck with some other reggae stuff but dub reggae is just not my jam. Que Bajo plays some sort of mix of reggaeton, moombahton and other latin and island stuff that is pretty interesting but again, not really what I am feeling.  I will say that Federation Sound really brought it to the competition, handing out whistles and noisemakers, doing a ton of original stuff written just for the Culture Clash and as you can see in the photos basically went to war with the other groups. Que Bajo put on a fun show with dancers and MC’s and some funny disses but their photo pit was way too small so I didn’t focus on them as much as the other groups.

Just Blaze and Young Guru killed it all night. They have produced for everyone in hip hop and brought most of them on stage with them at some point in the night. They had guest appearances by Raekwon, 2 Chainz, Wale, Jadakiss, Memphis Bleek, Pharoahe Monch, Syles P and a ton of others. It was pretty wild. Just Blaze brought a t-shirt cannon and was giving away stuff all night. At one point he filled it with money and made it rain on the audience. Unfortunately I was on the other side of the room taking to a friend and I left the event just as broke as when I walked in. They killed it all night and I am a way bigger hip hop fan than I am any of the other genres so I was psyched for their sets.

But as awesome as Blaze and Guru were, Trouble & Bass brought it even harder. They were a late edition and had only a few days to get ready. Despite this they had really dumb/funny signs and Ninja Turtles prepared. They won every single round and walked off stage Culture Clash champs after calling their shot with fake NY Posts that declared them the winners after the third round. Speaking of the third round, they were the only ones who did a great job DJing another genre, but they had a ringer. They had to imitate Que Bajo, so they brought out Dave Nada who actually invented moombathon and he clearly killed it. They had some awesome special guests as well. Aside from their host all night Teli from Ninjasonik they also had Flatbush Zombies and Nina Sky perform. They brought out the big guns in the last round with an amazing performance by Robin S doing her early 90′s hit Show Me Love. Everyone lost their minds instantly. She killed it so hard. They ended their set with a great dis, bringing out Cam’Ron doing tracks that Just Blaze produced. It was amazing and they deserved the win. I jumped on stage and hung out with them while they DJ’d everyone out of Roseland. It was a special moment. So proud of those dudes.

I took SO many damn photos so if you want to get into it there are nearly 400 images in this gallery. It’s gonna be hard to pull my favorites below but I am gonna try my best.

Click here to see the HUGE gallery of pictures from the Red Bull Music Academy Culture Clash.

The Tribeca Film Festival is in town and one of the films I was most interested in was a documentary called Bending Steel about a man named Chris “Wonder” Schoeck who is training to become a strongman. Like sideshow Coney Island style bending bars over your head type strongman. I have always been fascinated with the sideshow and while I sort of hate magic, I love actual feats of strength that seem like magic. When I was a kid I learned how to blockhead (hammering nails into your nose) learned to swallow hot dogs whole with the idea that maybe one day I could learn to swallow swords. Two of my favorite photographers growing up were (and still are) Diane Arbus and Bruce Davidson who both documented sideshows and circuses and there was a time in my life where I really spent a lot of time researching and learning about this amazing culture.

Eventually my interest wained, mostly because there are only so many feats you can do. Unless someone is particularly innovative or captivating eventually seeing someone swallow a sword, eat glass, spit fire, etc eventually somehow gets old. But actual strongmen are few and far between. Sword swallowing is incredibly difficult and dangerous but I have seen dozens of people do it. But before Saturday I had never seen someone bend a steel bar into a bunny head.

Let’s get to the point here… After posting the trailer for Bending Steel on my Tumblr page I was asked to photograph the after party at The Red Door. Aside from free Sailor Jerry rum and a bunch of cute girls running around there was an amazing strongman show! Adam Realman, who hosts the Coney Island Sideshow Spectacular, hosted an evening full of incredible feats of strength featuring Chris “Harculese” Rider, Sonny “Man Of Steel” Barry, Steve “The Crusher” Weiner, Gary “The Brickman” Brown, Bill Solony and of course Wonder Shoeck himself. On top of that Cardone performed a straight jacket escape which is always impressive. The highlight for me was watching Adam Realman blow up a hot water bottle. It’s a feat I have heard about and seen online but never in real life. It’s legitimately terrifying waiting for the bottle to pop, especially being a few feet away from it. A piece of exploding rubber could honestly do some serious damage. Another highlight of the show was just watching the camaraderie of the strongmen. You had four generations of strongmen there rooting each other on. It was a cool glimpse into a world the most people never see.

I didn’t get a chance to see Bending Steel yet but I know it’s playing a few more times this week. Go see it if you live in NYC and if not I am sure it will get distribution and we will all be able to see it soon! Anyway, these photos are pretty cool but you need to see this stuff in real life to really appreciate it. Some of these guys are twice my age and they are beding steel like its tin foil meanwhile I seriously hurt my back trying to rip bubble wrap. Maybe it’s time I started strongman training!

Click here to see all the photos from the Bending Steel Tribeca after party at the Red Door!

I fucked up and forgot to do an April Fool’s joke for the site so instead I will give you some Zombie Rave photos from Webster Hall last night because the idea is pretty fucking hilarious. I shoot all these NYC Zombie Crawl events so I figured I should finally check out Zombie Rave (this is the third edition). I was told they would be dumping 1,000 gallons of blood at midnight, and while it didn’t go off at exactly midnight and there probably wasn’t 1,000 gallons there was a lot of very sticky orangish liquid sprayed all over everyone. It was horrifyingly sticky actually, and after I tried to walk around the room after the blood was sprayed I decided I didn’t want to get attacked by bees so I got the fuck out of there. Still, I got some pretty wild pictures for the hour or so that I was there.

I probably could tell you a lot more about this party but my punk band is playing in a couple hours and I need to get into a headspace that doesn’t involve me blogging any longer. But I might eat your brains if you show up…

Click here to see all the insane, bloody pictures from Zombie Rave 3 at Webster Hall!

Trying to take it easy today given that nothing is open and no one responds to email on Easter but I had to get up these photos from last night. I got hired to shoot this super weird party at Spike Hill called Famous Hill II. I didn’t go to the first Famous Hill but I heard good things so I was looking forward to the party. When I walked in this punk-rap group named Animal House was fucking up shit and the hosts were dressed up like low budget Game of Thrones characters and there were gold spray painted “dragon eggs” hanging from the ceiling. It only got weirder from there with a super melodic pretty band named Redfoot playing in between DJ’s B-Tips and Longarms. Longarms actually did a Game of Thrones remix and then these rad Canadian women named Diamond Bones played some rock and roll.

Nothing made sense and there were some technical difficulties which host/rapper MH The Verb blamed on them “getting high and painting dragon eggs” but the party was still fun and I got to talk to cute girls about punk rock. Speaking of MH The Verb, he and B-Tips at one point beat boxed which only added to the “what the hell is going on here” vibe.

And speaking of punk rock, my punk cover band Fucking Bullshit is playing tomorrow at the Flat and you should go. (More on that tomorrow.) Now where was I? Oh right, the party also had live painting by Jason Borbay and I missed  the last band Empty Chairs because I had to run to another thing but I am sure they were awesome anyway.

So yeah! Happy Easter and party forever!

Click here to check out all the pictures from Famous Hill II at Spike Hill!

The Whorehouse NYC/ Gold Whistle/ Bury Me In Brooklyn super party is back at 35 Beadel St. and it’s as insane as ever. Few parties can mix super gay shit with super ratchet shit and I mean that in the very best way. Add to that some awesome guest DJ’s (Lil Internet & Jubilee) and a kid in a pig shirt with a hula hoop and you have a party that can really only exist in NYC. Actually, I take that back, Whores N Gold is a party that can only exist in Bushwick. I don’t fuck with the after hours shit any more so I left around 4 but the party was still completely going off when I left. I am sure it was wild til 8am. Oh did I mention that one of the promotors got arrested on some unrelated shit in the middle of the questionably legal party where people were smoking blunts and drinking from bottles of booze and the cops left without shutting down the party? Only in Bushwick…

I don’t have much more to say about the party except “when is the next one?” so I am gonna leave you with a mission: look through these photos and ask yourself “Why the fuck would these people be in the same room each other?” If you can’t answer that question you know it’s a good party.

Click here to see all the photos from Whores N Gold at 35 Beadel St.

PS. These photos are mildly NSFW thanks to the insane Cuntmafia who performed one of her “trap metal” songs live for the first time.

My South By Southwest updates are still going strong but I think after this one there will only be three more. Of course I am shooting two events tonight that I am going to want to get up so you could still be getting SXSW stuff into next week. Let’s see how it goes. The Sailor Jerry coverage continues with the party that Castle Face Records and CMRTYZ hosted together. The line up was top secret but included all sorts of rad bands like Night Beats, Wax Idols, Pharmacy and two different bands with Time in their names (Pony Time & Heavy Times), but the highlights were the headliners The Mallard and Thee Oh Sees.

I had seen The Mallard play earlier and I thought they were pretty good but they didn’t really stick into my brain. When they played this night show I was totally unprepared for the end of their set when their front woman hung her guitar from a banner and jumped into the crowd throwing dust on herself and everyone. It was pretty fucking awesome but as soon as I started taking photos, random people from the crowd started photo bombing her performance and it became this weird photo shoot with the crowd. It was pretty amazing and I ended up with some great, if not super weird, photos.

Thee Oh Sees are a band that I catch at least once every SXSW. They are fucking amazing and always put on a great show. The first time I ever saw them they were playing on a bridge and playing every other song with another band. I saw a girl with two black eyes and it turns out she got them from getting kicked in the face during a Thee Oh Sees show the night before. The madness did not disappoint and I actually ended up getting attacked in the mosh pit by some drunk guy who had tried to start a fight with me earlier in the night. I saw him coming and I grabbed him by the shirt and smashed my camera into his face. I was pretty upset that I lost my shit like that but my camera was fine. The next night he came up to me and sort of apologized but he really just wanted to know what happend because he didn’t remember anything of the night before. We were all good after that and he let me take a photo of his camera wound. Oh yeah, and Thee Oh Sees killed it.

Now click here to see all the pictures from the CMRTYZ/Castle Face Records Face-Off at the Sailor Jerry at the Gypsy Lounge!

Blundertown is company that books rad rock and roll shows in LA. They helped book two of the day parties (Friday and Saturday) at the Sailor Jerry takeover of Gypsy Lounge. On Friday they teamed up with the skate clothing company Altamont and thew a party with King Tuff and Hanni El Khatib headlining. There were a lot of great bands (check out their recap) but my personal favorites were White Lung and the bad ass band Hunters who I got to see at CMJ.

On Saturday Blundertown teamed up with LA Record for some punk rock awesomeness. They had NoBunny open the madness and The Spits close it out with a bunch of insane band in between. Cole from the Black Lips DJd and tons of rock and roll fun was had by everyone.

On Friday Keith Underwood tattooed anyone who was willing to throw a dart at a dartboard to pick their tattoo. It was all rad Sailor Jerry flash so you weren’t gonna be screwed but it’s still funny to see people getting a tattoo based on a dart throw. My man Terry Brown did the dart tattoos on Saturday and everybody’s favorite TV reality show host, Inkmaster’s Oliver Peck, tattooed bands and VIPs both days (like my home girl Alysha Nett). Oliver is fucking hilarious and not a bad tattoo artist, so it’s always fun to have him around. Terry tattooed a little bird on me when we were fucking around and I love doing events with him. Good times.

Anyway I have so much more SXSW stuff to get up so we are going to try to speed these right along. Check out the pictures from both parties and get ready for more “SXSJ” stuff tomorrow!

Click here to see all the pictures from the Blundertown/ Altamont party on Friday at Sailor Jerry x Gypsy Lounge!

Click here to see all the pictures from the Blundertown/ LA Record party on Saturday at Sailor Jerry x Gypsy Lounge!

Thank god South By Southwest is over! Not that it wasn’t amazing, it was, but I am exhausted. I think I broke my foot and I think I have slept a total of 7 hours in the last ten days. Good times! I am very ready to head back to NYC and sleep in a bed but my 10th SXSW was a fantastic time. The big finally for my SXSW trip was the Thrasher party, Midnight Massacre, at the Sailor Jerry Lounge. Hours of metal and cute skater girls and lots of rum. Oliver Peck tattooed some bands and there were a lot of people walking around with injuries and skateboards. Today Is The Day and Mondo Generator headlined. You can check out the rest of the line up here. I got a ton of shit to do today so I gotta make this short. Tons more SXSW photos to come when I get back to NYC, but until then enjoy these shots. See you guys soon. Skate or die or just look at  photos.

Click here to see all the pictures from the Midnight Massacre Thrasher Magazine party at the Sailor Jerry Lounge.