Part two of my Sturgis trip is going to be a bit shorter of an update. If you didn’t check out Part One, do that first. Part One consisted of the first two days I was working ofr Sailor Jerry at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, while Part Two is just day three. That being said, the last day was my favorite and has some of my best photos from the trip so this should be a good one, even if there are less photos and less of me rambling. Speaking of less rambling, let’s get into it. 

Day two started with a surprise. I was told I was gonna have to work pretty much non stop from 1pm until 9pm so I decided to sleep in. Luckily I didn’t sleep too late because I woke up to a text offering me a helicopter ride. South Dakota seems to be the helicopter tourism capital of the world because everywhere I went I saw helicopter flights being advertised, I just didn’t expect to go up in one. It’s at this point I should mention that at sometime in my 30s I developed a crippling fear of heights. I can’t stand on a railing a few flights up without my palms getting sweaty. But the interesting thing about that is that I am not at all afraid of flying, and I thought maybe the same thing would be true about helicopters. Luckily I was right. It was legitimately an amazing experience and I think I got some cool shots of the Buffalo Chip campgrounds. I would love to do it again with a longer lens, less for the photos and more for just the fun of being in a helicopter. It was just really great even if we were only in the air for about twenty minutes.

After the helicopter ride we went over to an event at Camp Zero at Buffalo Chip. Not sure what the official party was but there was a bunch of mini bikes and drag races and everyone was young and wearing Hawaiian shirts and seemed like they could be from Brooklyn or Austin and less of the hard right senior bikers that seemed to be everywhere. I actually ran into a woman I had photographed in LA many years ago. This was way more my speed. The International Bikini Team girls were back in their Sailor Jerry finest and we took some fun photos as well. It was a blast.

Next on the agenda was the Sailor Jerry tattoo happy hour. The tattoo artist Shaun Kama was hosting a pop up tattoo shop on the Buffalo Chip campgrounds and Sailor Jerry of course had to sponsor it. They also did two events where you could come by and get free Sailor Jerry tattoo flash. I was only in town for one of them, but five people ended up with Sailor Jerry tattoos during the happy hour. I have done so many of these tattoo events with Sailor Jerry and I love doing them because it’s a lot of hanging out with tattoo artists and bullshitting while taking the occasional photo. It’s very low stress and a good time for everyone. 

The happy hour ran late so I actually missed most of the VIP event that Sailor Jerry hosted backstage. I did end up there just in time for the Sailor crew to go up on stage and toss out SJ merch. That was a nightly thing and not the most exciting of photos, but always fun to try and shoot t-shirt cannons. After that Styx and REO Speedwagon played which admittedly aren’t really for me, but the crowd ate it up and I enjoyed the hits. Part of me wanted to stay out late that last night, but I was exhausted after a few days of sleeping in an uncomfortable RV with motorcycles driving by every few minutes so I crashed early and got my only good night sleep of the whole event which made my 13 hour travel day way more chill than I was expecting. 

So that’s it! That’s a wrap on Sturgis. Thanks again to Sailor Jerry having me out. Was really glad to cross that one off my bucket list. I’m also down to just three continental US states that I haven’t traveled to. I got a road trip planned to hit Idaho and Montana and then I will just have North Dakota left. Lastly I should mention, that there a handful of very moderately NSFW photos over here, just because I am still using Flickr to host my galleries and I don’t want to get in trouble with them for posting a bikini model in a thong or whatever nonsense is against their TOS because we live in a country governed by puritans and cowards. Okay, go look at photos now. I gotta get back to enjoying my vacation.

Click here to see all the photos from day three of my Sturgis Buffalo Chip adventure! 

For years my favorite client was Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum. We did so many events together and in the early 2010s it felt like I was going to some music festival or tattoo convention for them every other weekend. Times and budgets changed and that stuff slowed down but I was still working with them semi regularly until the pandemic canceled events and then I had my back injury and couldn’t really do any big events. A few months ago I reached back out to them and let them know my back was doing better and was down to work again and it wasn’t long before they reached out with the idea of me going to the infamous Sturgis Bike Week. That’s been on my bucket list for a long time so of course I said yes. 

Sturgis is both a city in South Dakota and a shorthand for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally which is now in its 83rd year. It is synonymous for absolute chaos as hundreds of thousands of bikers descend on the area for ten days of scenic rides and total mayhem. Sailor Jerry was sponsoring the events at the Buffalo Chip campground who has been hosting thousands of bikers every year since 1981. They offer a place to camp, several bars, a swimming hole and live music every night. I got to spend three days in an RV right behind the amphitheater, mostly taking photos of Sailor Jerry related stuff, but I got to roam a bit too and I got some pretty fun pictures in the process. 

I have over 400 photos to share with you guys so I broke my three days into two halves. I didn’t shoot a ton on day one, so Part One is days one and two and then Part Two is the final day which was honestly my favorite, but mostly because I got to fly in a helicopter which is something I’ve never done before. More on that later… 

I booked my flight super last minute and so it would have been $2000 to fly in on Sunday  and the flight would leave at 6am which means I would have to wake up at 3am and since I usually go to bed around 2 that didn’t seem like an ideal situation. So I looked up flights the day before and they were significantly cheaper, but after getting a hotel and a far too expensive rental car, it was basically break even. But flying in a day early meant I would be well rested and I could check out Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood and some of that kinda stuff. I took the 6am Saturday flight and when I got to my layover they offered me $600 to stay. It was raining in SD and so my sightseeing options were limited so I accepted and spent six hours in the Minneapolis airport. I figured I could nap but I completely failed and by the time I got to my hotel I was absolutely broken. Still, the rain was breaking a little bit and I was only five minutes away from Mt. Rushmore so I went and spent $10 to look at some stone heads for about 5 minutes. Honestly it was far less impressive than the World’s Largest Wooden Bigfoot that happened to be across the street from my hotel. I went back to the hotel, walked around Keystone, SD for a few minutes, got some tacos, hit the pool and finally went to sleep well rested for Sturgis the next day.

The first day at Buffalo Chip was mostly getting settled. We got there a bit late because sadly there was an accident and the road getting in was backed up. Jason from Sailor Jerry picked me up and we did some grocery shopping and waited for the road to clear. Once we got there we had to get passes and deal with a few other things and then we got a tour of the place and checked out the Motorcycle As Art gallery. Buffalo Chip is huge and wasn’t really walkable but we had golf carts and mini bikes to use. Fortunately the stage and the Sailor Jerry sponsored bar was super close to our campsite so I mostly just walked everywhere. I spent an hour or two that day on my own. I walked past “Bikini Beach” where they were having an “air sex” competition which was pretty much like air guitar but for fucking. Apparently they had weird stuff like that all day there, which felt real Gathering of the Juggalos to me, but I was of course working for a corporate client so I just took a couple photos and moved on. That night the country singer Tommy Howell, formerly the actor C. Thomas Howell, performed and he was actually pretty good. I don’t really know why he changed his name though because he talked about how he was in the Outsiders between nearly every song. Finally the night ended with Lynyrd Skynyrd headlining. I mean the night didn’t actually end, there was a strip club afters thing and Bikini Beach and some of the bars were apparently popping, but I was off the clock so I went to bed. If I was covering this as a journalist I certainly would have stayed out a bit, but I had long days and I was happy to take it easy.

Day two we got to go out to Deadwood which I was psyched about because I didn’t get to go on Saturday. We brought with us four members of the International Bikini Team which is apparently a real thing. These girls basically served as promotional models for a bunch of different brands throughout the event so they would be working for Sailor Jerry one day and then Monster Energy the next or something like that. They also competed in a Miss Buffalo Chip contest every night and also bartened and did a bikini bike wash. I just hope they got paid well because those girls were hustling. I would honestly watch a documentary about them. 

Anyway, in Deadwood I mostly just photographed them handing out Sailor Jerry swag to people. Not the most exciting thing but it was fun to watch everyone’s reaction to them. We did a mini photoshoot on the stage they had set up for the Legend’s Ride and then a bunch of people came up and took photos with them since we had accidentally set up a photo booth. After that we got lunch and then made our way back to Buffalo Chip. We had planned on stopping in Sturgis on the way back but we were all exhausted. After a quick nap it was back to photographing bands. Leilani Kilgore opened and then Lita Ford played. I had such a crush on Lita Ford when I was like 14 and honestly she’s still kinda a babe in her 60s. 

The night was headlined by Limp Bizkit. Seriously. While Fred Durst is super goofy and I never liked their music back in the day, I actually really enjoyed their set. The combination of nostalgia mixed with the reactions from the crowd made it a lot of fun. Plus my strongest Limp Bizkit memory is their Woodstock 99 performance so I was just waiting for bikers to just start setting shit on fire. It didn’t happen, probably because the average age of the crowd was 65, but we still had a good time. 

So yeah, that’s the end of Part One. I will be back soon with the final day of the trip. I should also mention that while I didn’t really shoot any super NSFW photos, there are a few that I felt were a little to risque for Flicker so I threw them up on Girls of DBB. That site has thousands of my nude photos from over the years and is totally worth the money, but don’t sign up for it just to see the few NSFW shots from Sturgis because it’s not much. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Now go look at some photos. And thanks again to Sailor Jerry for having me out!

Click here to see all my photos from day one and two of my 2023 Sturgis Buffalo Chip adventure.

Update: Jade is back to being called Jade Baker and the digitals from this shoot are here.

Jade Baker was one of my absolutely favorite models to photograph. I say was because she is no longer Jade Baker, she has rebranded and is now going by Rosie Jones. As someone who has had the same online identity since 2001, I totally get it. Clearly I am not the same person I was 20 something years ago and I know that Rosie is a much different person from who she was when Jade Baker was born. 

Rosie was visiting NYC and decided to book the room Dylan Thomas was living in when he died at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Weirdly enough I had never taken photos at the Chelsea and obviously I couldn’t pass the opportunity to shoot there or to photograph Rosie so of course we made it happen. The balcony of the roof has a great view of the sign so most of the shots we took out there. Honestly I took so many of nearly the exact same photo of her on the balcony. I just wanted to nail it and I think I did. We shot it in her bra, topless, nude, during the day and at night. We shot some stuff in the actual room as well, but clearly it’s not quite as fun as that incredible balcony. I’m sure we were spotted by people outside, but it’s the Chelsea, I am sure that kinda thing is expected. 

After the shoot I went home and pulled all my favorites from the digital photos and was pretty much ready to post but I wanted to wait for Jade to become Rosie so I held off for a while. Before she made the announcement I got the 35mm photos we shot back and I was so psyched about them. The daylight flash looked great, the flash stuff in the hotel looked great, the low light stuff as the sun went down looked great and we even got a few decent black and white shots. They just blew away the digital photos and there was more than 50 of them so guess what, you guys get the 35mm shoot instead of the digitals. It had to be done. Eventually I will probably post the digital stuff, but it’s just not as good so who knows when that will be. 

I should mention once again, that my new nude stuff is paywalled because frankly I can’t afford to fix my broken website and I haven’t found a better solution than using Flickr for my galleries. One of these days I will figure out a better solution but for now just give me a few dollars and you will have access to nearly ever nude I have ever taken… on and there’s also some BTS video from this shoot on my OnlyFans. Just saying.

Now click here to see all the 35mm photos of Rosie Jones at the Chelsea Hotel!

It’s all over, we made it to the last post. Will we have to wait another whole year for juggalo content? Only time will tell but this is a wrap for the 2023 Gathering of the Juggalos. All we got left is the music stuff, and it’s the largest gallery of them all. I got over 250 band photos to share with you guys, and some Riff Raff related drama to share and I will try and speak about every artist I photographed and maybe a few I didn’t. Let’s begin…

As I mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t shoot much the first night I was there. I didn’t get in until horrorcore legends NATAS were playing but it was too late to shoot them. So we start on day two when I photographed Korihor and by photographed I mean I took like two photos of them from the crowd because I missed the beginning of their set photographing the wet t-shirt contest. I feel like you understand. After that the 90s rock/grunge band Sponge played. They are from Detroit like ICP so that makes sense I think. You would absolutely know their song Plowed if you heard it. Speaking of 90s bands, Arrested Development was up next. Their first album was the first CD I ever owned and I was psyched to see them. They were great and juggalos absolutely loved them. A mosh pit broke out during Everyday People which was incredible. 

After they ended Riff Raff went on and people seemed excited about it. I barely knew that dude made music, but juggalos were like singing along to his songs. Despite what would have been a mostly positive reception he seemed terrified of the juggalos. He didn’t leave the very back of the stage, mostly hiding behind the DJ booth. Obviously some juggalos threw some Faygo at him, because that’s what they do, but he reacted to it with abject horror. Once juggalos saw that they of course started throwing more shit at him. He brought out a bodyguard which was hilarious to everyone. He forced his boys to go out in front of him and knock stuff down. He then proceeded to perform backstage. Eventually he brought out a second security guard and one of his crew had an actual umbrella and was trying to protect him. At some point a can of Faygo missed him by a few feet and he got splashed and ran backstage to jeers and laughter. It was fucking embarrassing. I posted a video of it and he responded with some hilarious shit about how he had paid for his whole crew to get new hair cuts or something. He deleted the Tweet a few hours later but that didn’t stop my Twitter mentions from becoming a garbage dump. Oh well. 

The mainstage headliners were ICP doing a “Wicked Clowns From Outer Space” show which was based on a tour they did in 1999 which I might actually have gone to back in the day. I don’t really need to do a write up about the Insane Clown Posse again, but if you ever are in a situation where you could see ICP live, I highly recommend it. Even if you hate the music, they are incredible live. Like, one of the best live acts I have ever seen even in 2023. 

Part of being middle aged with a back injury and having photographed the Gathering 13 times is that I tend to go home early. I get there late, go home early, get enough photos and try not to kill myself. So I usually head back to the hotel after the headlining band. Occasionally I do stick around for a late night act or two, and on Thursday night RA The Rugged Man was playing. I enjoy his music, we have mutual friends and he always puts on a good show so I figured I would check out at least part of his set. He did his thing as usual but at some point the mics stopped working so he just grabbed a juggalo’s megaphone and jumped into the crowd. It was a sharp contrast to the Riff Raff set, which RA made clear when he said “I don’t care if you all hit me with a cinder block, I’m not leaving!” He also brought a ton of juggalos on stage, had two juggalette’s serving booze to the crowd and brought out a rapper named Reverie Love who absolutely killed it. I was about leave when my friend mentioned that D Loc of Kottonmouth Kings was playing next. His team had reached out to me about filming something for them, but they weren’t trying to pay me so that didn’t happen, but I figured I could at least shoot a few songs of their set. Finally around 1:30am I escaped the Gathering. 

Day three started off with Whitney Peyton. She’s played the Gathering a bunch and when I first saw her I didn’t really think much of it, but the last couple times she put on an incredible show, so I knew I had to check out her set and I made the right decision. She crowd walked, talked shit about Riff Raff, stole my hat at one point and performed a couple songs from the mosh pit. Towards the end of her set I Tweeted a video of her in the crowd to contrast the Riff Raff shit and when I looked up she was in a kiddie pool crowd surfing. It was great. My only complaint was that she decided that she wanted pink bubbles during her set and you couldn’t even tell they were pink but they covered my hat, vest and camera with little pink dots that I still can’t get out of the grip of my lens. 

After Whitney was Ritz who is another rapper I have seen at the Gathering a bunch and then Mac Sabbath who are a McDonald’s themed band that does like Black Sabbath parody songs about fast food. I don’t really know why they exist but I am really glad I got to photograph them. Also, as I mentioned before my friend’s boyfriend was working for them so I ended up hanging out with him after their set during the headliner Ouija Macc, but before that happened we had a set from Yelawolf who I have photographed a bunch of times. Every time I am at the Gathering I make sure to do a good job photographing Ouija Mac, not only is he the most popular non ICP act at the Gathering but he’s the absolutely nicest dude and he’s managed by friends of mine. I had to get a quick quote from him for my Daily Beast article and I ended up missing City Morgue’s set the next day because we were just talking about whatever and now we are talking about me going out on tour with him for a few dates this fall. So yeah, we fuck with Ouija. 

On the final day of the Gathering I didn’t shoot a ton of bands, as I mentioned I missed City Morgue who were the pre-ICP headliners. I did shoot Alien Ant Farm who apparently still exist. I also shot Krizz Kaliko who has been at the Gathering a bunch. He’s on TechN9ne’s record label Strange Music which is a label that juggalos to tattoo to themselves. Penultimately I photographed a short set from the Sugarhill Gang. I think they only have one original member and they only did three songs but it was still amazing. So glad I saw that. 

Finally ICP did their second space themed set. I threw on a poncho and another poncho for my camera and did what I could to get some decent shots. I have photographed ICP like 20 times and I am not sure I have ever taken a photo of them that I love. It’s just really hard to shoot a backlit band that throws sticky liquid at you the entire time, but we do what we can. After the three songs we were allowed to shoot I threw away the rain gear and shot some of the crowd and then decided it would be a good idea to photograph the “Faygo Armageddon”. During their last song they bring tons of people on stage to throw the rest of the remaining Faygo into the crowd. I’ve actually done it twice and it’s one of the most fun things I have ever done. Unfortunately I had thrown away my rain gear and I got soaked in the process. I ran into a juggalo at my hotel that night and he told me he saw me get destroyed and keep going back. Luckily they ended up being some of my favorite band shots of the Gathering so I guess it was worth it. Plus it started raining right after the set so I got a little less sticky (and a little more wet).

And that ends another Gathering of the Juggalos. I hope you enjoyed the ride. I am sure we will do it again next year, and hopefully by then I will be a little closer to my juggalo book…

Now click here to see all the photos from the musical acts of the 2023 Gathering of the Juggalos in Thornville, OH.

The Gathering of the Juggalos is a place where there are very few rules, basically don’t fuck with other juggalos is the only one. Cops drive around from time to time just to make sure no one is killing themselves but they drive right past people selling drugs without blinking. I actually overheard a cop say “I have done a lot in my career but until now, no one has ever walked up and handed me Molly”. People set off fireworks in the middle of the mosh pit, they launch slingshots of god knows what at people and they spend a lot of time in the nude. 

Sadly we live in a world far more conservative than the Gathering of the Juggalos and because of bullshit laws created my extreme religious groups under the guise of “child safety” it is getting increasingly difficult to put nudity on the Internets. Now, I have my own website and there’s nothing to stop me from uploading nudes, except my gallery system broke and no one knows how to fix it and I cannot afford to fix it. Flickr has been my solution, but they don’t allow nudity unless you have a pro account which is like $75 a year, so I said fuck it, let’s do that. But turns out, if you post nudity you can only see the gallery if you have your own Flickr account which no one does because it’s not 2010. I had no idea so for the first several hours my post was up the other day, people were getting 404 errors. God damnit. 

So long story short, all the nudity from this year’s Gathering of the Juggalos is on my pay site, Girls of Driven By Boredom. I can’t even post it on my OnlyFans because they don’t allow public nudity, so it’s just all fucked. That being said, I did post some old unpublished, not public, juggalette videos on my OnlyFans this week because I wanted to keep it consistent. You’re welcome. Anyway, let’s get into it.

On day two of the Gathering I photographed the wet t-shirt contest. That thing is always insane and this year was no exception. Juggalettes had gone wild. Wild I say! I guess I don’t really have anything to say except, the wet t-shirts were gone pretty quickly and it just became a “show me your butthole!” contest.

Speaking of buttholes, the Queen Of Cheeks contest was even wilder. I was far too close to the stage to handle it honestly. I was exhausted and honestly not prepared for giant juggallette butts being jiggled and spread six inches from my face. At some point I just put my camera down and my head in my hand. The Gathering had won. But, if you wanna see how many women can walk across the stage with a Faygo in their butt cheeks, I have just the photos for you.

Surprisingly the tamest of the events was the Miss Juggalette Contest, which has been historically fucking wild. There was some nudity (even a little juggalette dick) but mostly just people doing “talents” which were primarily rapping poorly (the woman who won was pretty good). I really half assed from a photo perspective because my back hurt, I was tired and it was hot as hell out so I just sat on the side of the stage for most of it. Towards the end I got back down into the pit, but you aren’t missing much. 

Lastly, I had about twenty random NSFW juggalette photos (and one juggalo who asked me if I wanted to take a picture of his dick. Who am I to say no?) I put all those in the Miss Juggalette gallery on Girls of DBB just to fill it out a bit. 

So yeah, enjoy the tame preview photos before and then click the link to my (very affordable) pay site which contains like tens of thousands of nudes from my entire career. It’s worth the $10 or whatever it costs to join. 

So click here to see all the NSFW Madness At The 2023 Gathering Of The Juggalos!

After absolutely killing myself on day two of the Gathering I tried to take it easy a bit on day three. I went out to lunch with a friend who lives in Columbus, Ohio and got down there around 6pm. My back was killing me so I just sort of sat on a rock for a minute, chugged an energy drink and began the day. 

Most of the stuff I have to say about day three is about the bands that played, but we will get to all that in the next update. I will also talk later about the insane Queen of the Cheeks event aka the butthole contest, which absolutely broke me, but in the meantime I uploaded all that VERY NSFW content to Girls of Driven By Boredom. You have been warned. Other than that, I just did the normal thing, walked around and photographed juggalos. I did have a good conversation with April O’Neil’s boyfriend who was there working. April is one of my favorite humans and it was great to meet her partner. Also shout out to Wicked Clowns Harm Reduction who gave me Narcan to keep on me during the event and were helping people test their drugs. I did an article for Vice about harm reduction at the Gathering years ago, and it’s great to see a new group continue the practice. 

Day four was not a very productive day photographically, but I did a lot of work. I finally came up with an idea for my Daily Beast article and I interviewed Sean Barrett aka Uncle Juff and Psychopathic Record’s artist Ouija Macc for the article. After that I walked around and tried to look for young hip looking juggalos to interview for the article about Gen Z. It was a ton of work, but I hope people enjoyed the article. I was proud of it. 

The last day also featured a pretty tame Miss Juggalette Pageant which I will talk about later and of course a bunch of bands. I should at least mention ICP’s set because I got completely soaked and my Gathering ended when I had to run to the car when it started pouring rain. It cleaned the Faygo off me a bit, but had the potential to mess up my camera gear and I had already thrown away my poncho. 

Last thing I want to say, is that I minted five new Juggalo NFTs. My plan is to do 17 drops and this was drop number 14 so not too many to go. I know people don’t love NFTs but I thought it would be a good way to raise money for a future juggalo book. It hasn’t really ended up that way, but I still love putting out these things, and I think it’s a good record. Also I have been able to send some juggalos some money in the process which is always nice. In fact, while I was at the Gathering I saw someone who I had sold and NFT of and had no way of contacting. I ran over to him and just gave him all the cash that was in my wallet. He was psyched about it and it felt great to be able to do that. So if for some reason, you are still into NFTs and want to buy one you are supporting me and hopefully getting some juggalos paid. If nothing else, it is a good overview of my 14 years photographing juggalos… and you can always right click save. 

Now click here to see all the photos from day three and four of the 2023 Gathering of the Juggalos in Thornville, OH. 

Whoop whoop, motherfackos! Once again I journeyed to Ohio to photograph my favorite insane clowns at the Gathering of the Juggalos. I have been documenting this event every year since 2010 and I am afraid I can never stop. I was legitimately bummed to leave. Good news is that I returned with over 900 photos for you guys. 

We will be breaking this down into four posts, probably one a day. Today we are dropping Part One, which includes the first two days of the Gathering minus the bands and events. Part Two will feature days three and four, again, minus the bands and events. Then we will have an all music post and finally the NSFW events post which will mostly just be links to my paysite Girls of Driven By Boredom because we are living in a new era where I gotta make you pay incredibly reasonable prices to see naked juggalettes. Sorry but blame FOTA/SESTA and the cowardice of corporations who host images on the internet, not me. (Ps. There are already some juggalette wet t-shirt photos on there right now.)

But before we get to all that I gotta link some stuff for you guys. First is my article about Gen Z juggalos, who I decided to called Zuggalos even though Zuggalos are already a thing but no one outside of juggalos have ever heard of Zug Izland so like, I am still gonna try and make that a thing. Seriously though, I am super proud of this article. I did actual interviews including ones with Psychopathic Records artist Ouija Macc and comedian Sean Barrett. Please go check it out.

I also did, as I do every year, a HUGE gallery for Brooklyn Vegan. Seriously I think I sent them two hundred photos, including some NSFW ones. I even snuck in a photo of me wearing a clown nose because that seemed hilarious to me. Okay, now that that is out of the way, let’s talk about the first two days of the Gathering!

The day the Gathering started I woke up in North Carolina where my girlfriend was visiting friends for the 4th of July. I had a flight that put me in kinda late but there aren’t any direct flights from Wilmington to Columbus, OH. Problem is my first flight got delayed and I nearly missed my connecting flight. I had to sprint to the gate and made it just in time. I was worried my bag wouldn’t make it but fortunately that flight also got delayed and I made. I spent way too long getting my rental car because there was only one person working for four different rental companies because they are all one rental company because monopolies love giving us the illusion of choice. I finally got to my hotel around 8:30 and I got all my shit together as quickly as possible and ran out the door. When I got to the Gathering I wasn’t on the press list for some reason. Apparently I was on ICP’s publicist list, but not the Gathering list and the person working the night shift had no idea about the other list. I started emailing their publicist while also texting juggalos and about an hour later both the person who was in charge of the list showed up at the exact same time the person in charge of the media showed up and I got in.

At this point it is 10pm and I realize I left my camera battery in the hotel. I could run back and it would only take me about 30 min or I could say fuck it and just go look around, shoot a few photos with my 35mm camera and start again tomorrow. That’s what I decided to do, however I mentioned all this to my photographer friend Nik and he found another photographer who had a battery that worked with my camera and by 11pm I had a working camera. So shout out to both of those guys. I should have just gone home and rested up for the next day but I felt like I had to shoot something since I had my camera so I went over to the Juggalesque juggalette burlesque show and shot a few minutes of that and then walked around said hi to some old friends and then finally called it a night around 1am. I didn’t shoot much, but at least I got something. 

Day two was much more productive, in fact it was by far my most productive day. I got down there just in time to shoot the absolutely insane Juggalette Wet T-shirt contest (see all the NSFW pics here) but more on that later. I spent the next hour or so just shooting juggalo portraits and waiting for the bands to start (again, more on that later) and then shot a ton of portraits in between the bands. I shot more than 1500 pictures on just that one day. ICP played their first set that night so I ended up quite sticky and wet, but I am down with the clown and that gives me the powers to just ignore how gross everything is and have fun anyway. I ended up leaving around 1:30am which is about as late as I can handle as a middle aged man, but I was (kinda) ready to do it all over again the next day.

Click here to see all the photos from Day 1 and Day 2 of the 2023 Gathering of the Juggalos.

Ps. I know everyone thinks NFTs are dead but I still have juggalo NFTs and will be releasing 5 new ones this week!

I starting taking photos in the mid 90s because when I was 15 I started a punk record label and I wanted to photograph the bands on that label. I pretty much photographed nothing but bands for a decade. It was all I wanted to shoot. But at some point it started feeling like work and I would shoot the same photos everyone else would have because everything was “three songs, no flash” photo pit bullshit. I just felt like 99% of music photography was so fucking boring and I just didn’t want to do it unless I was getting paid, but on Friday I went out and shot some bands just for the fun of it. 

I was actually curious the last time I shot a band just for fun and I had to scroll back 49 pages on this website until I found a Ho99o9 record release show I shot in LA in 2015 just for the pure enjoyment of it. More recently I shot an ICP show in Brooklyn in 2017 which I might have not been paid for but was for my larger juggalo book project that I swear I will finish one day. The interesting thing about those two shows is that if ICP and Ho9909 had a baby, that baby would probably be Nü Godd.

The other night my buddy Suitcase Joe sent me a text. “My friends band are playing NY in a few days and I’m giving you a heads up because you might want to shoot them. They’re a bunch of sex crazed anarchist punks who dress like clowns.” My curiosity was sparked and after he sent me a link to the IG accounts of Nü Godd & Fusion Babies I knew I was gonna have to do it. In my career I am best known for shooting punk bands, subcultures, insane clowns and sex workers and suddenly you are gonna combine all that shit and bring them to a venue that’s 15 minutes from my apartment? Fuck it. I’m in.

When I got to TV Eye Zacazama was just getting on stage. He was playing an Oscar the Grouch sample and wearing a trash bag over his head that was decorated with clown makeup. He was also wearing a high vis jacket that made it impossible to shoot flash which I appreciated but I also only shot a few photos of him and then sort of wandered around looking for clowns for photograph.  After that a clown named Tony Tulips came out and juggled and got naked and then Fusion Babies came on. They were very up my alley musically were a lot of fun to photograph. They shared a couple members with Nü Godd who played after, and were on tour together so it kinda all felt like one performance even though the band were very different. It was all chaotic punk influenced clown madness and it was absolutely a good time. Both bands were great to photograph, and the crowd was just as much fun to photograph as the bands. I think because they were touring together and had a ton of people with them that it really felt like the local punk shows I went to when I was in high school where there wasn’t a huge crowd but everyone knew all the songs because everyone was friends and played with each other over and over again. I really enjoyed it even if I was twenty years older than everyone there. Would 100% stage dived even with my fucked up back if there were a few more people there. Maybe I will get a chance to see them in LA one of these day when I am out hanging out with Suitcase Joe. 

This show was the second time in a week that I was out past 3am and man I kinda miss that shit. It’s nice being real domesticated but I need a little more weird middle of the night madness in my life so I can take photos of it. I don’t wanna be one of those old photographers whose work starts to suck (even if my band shots suck, I honestly need so much practice to get back into it). Happy to feel inspired right now and that my back is a little bit better… Oh and did I mention that the Gathering of the Juggalos is in less than two weeks? More clowns coming soon!

Now click here to see many more higher res photos photos of Nü Godd & Fusion Babies at TV Eye.

Back in 2008 I photographed Fool’s Gold Records 1st anniversary party at Webster Hall, 15 years later they asked me to come back to Webster for their 15th anniversary (no the math doesn’t add up, but don’t worry about it). As you probably notice, I don’t really shoot party photos anymore, and I haven’t been to Webster since it was sold but I couldn’t say no to this one. Ever since I started my throwback party photo Instagram account I’ve really wanted to get back to doing nightlife stuff again and this was the perfect chance.

Being at Webster again felt like a dream. I hadn’t been there since 2017 when I shot the “last” party there for Rolling Stone before it was sold. The building felt so familiar but different and that cognitive dissidence made it feel like I was tripping. The mix of seeing a ton of old friends while also partying with a bunch of kids who are wearing some of the same shit we wore back in the day really added to the head trip. I was also shooting with my old camera but with a slightly different set up and it took me a while to get into a groove but I think I got some decent shots in the end. I absolutely want to do it again. 

The party was on two floors, the top floor and then downstairs in what was previously The Studio, now a neon art installation from FAILE called Deluxx Fluxx which is an offshoot of a club in Detroit. Dwells was playing ending his set when I got there, followed by Treasure Fingers who I last saw at Webster back in 2009. Around midnight they opened the top floor and I went up to see Frost Children perform which was very fun. I saw Club Eat do their thing down in the basement before heading back upstairs to see Uffie which was awesome. She was such a big part of the culture back in the day and I never actually saw her perform, but I did actually meet her, once again at Webster Hall, back in early 2010 for an Ed Banger anniversary party. She came out with Doss and then brought on a drummer who was actually her lawyer and then Blu DeTiger came out and played bass for her. It was really fun.

Because of the Uffie show I think I missed the Hellp’s DJ set downstairs, but I did get down there for Naeem who is another person I have known for 15 years back when he was Spankrock. It was great to see him. After that I ran back upstairs to catch A-Trak headline. He’s the person who hired me for this and it’s so cool to see him and Fool’s Gold do their thing for all these years. He played a bunch of old indie sleaze stuff and I found myself dancing on stage to Justice while taking photos. Speaking of indie sleaze, a highlight of the night was meeting the mysterious person who runs the @indiesleaze Instagram account. She’s been so helpful with my @vintagedbb account and it was awesome to meet her in IRL and get to hang out with her a bit. I also got to hang with Uffie and a bit which was a good time. We even re-shot the photo I took of her ana a friend back in 2010 with her and another friend. Same Webster green room, 13 years apart. While I was doing that I managed to miss surprise DJ Laidback Luke, but fortunately I got shots of him with A-Trak and Uffie and then got a few shots of Bag Raiders before finally escaping around 4am. 

Sorry it took me a couple days to get this stuff up but these are the first party photos I have shot in ages and I didn’t want to dump them on Father’s Day where no one would see em. Huge thanks to A-Trak and Fool’s Gold for having me out. It’s so amazing what you and Nick have done over the last 16 15 years. And of course I gotta say something about one of the original FG founders, Dust LaRock. He was an absolutely brilliant artist, a great dude and it sucks so much that he couldn’t be there last night. We miss you Dust.

Click here to see all the photos from the 15th anniversary of Fool’s Gold Records at Webster Hall.

Ps. Go follow @VintageDBB.