So if all goes well everything I shot in Miami for WMC will be up today.  I have two big parties to update later with some of the more fun I shot in them, but in the mean time I am just going to give you all the other random stuff I shot at WMC.  In general I took WMC pretty easy.  I had two parties that I was hired to shoot, and then I could shoot whatever I wanted for the Village Voice and I needed to put a tattoo gallery together for Inked Magazine.  Other than that I didn’t have a lot to do and I took advantage of that by just loafing about most of the days.

In this gallery you will find a few shots from my first night in town where I slept all day and then went to White Room for about an hour before taking a cab back to the hotel I got by the airport just so I could take a nap. My cab driver meanwhile was taking a nap while he was driving me to my hotel.  It was insane. He was driving 40 MPH in a 55.  People were zooming past us while he was drifting lanes. I thought I was going to die.  I didn’t.

After that we have some pictures from the Raleigh Hotel pool where Steve Aoki was Djing for about 25 people drinking free Alize. That was pretty exciting.  I think one of the first times I met Steve was at the same hotel, but we were on the roof and we had a conversation about how we would jump off if there was a fire. I am glad to know that people think about weird shit like that as much as I do.

Aslo in the gallery are shots from this fashion takeover of some store.  I really wish I had the energy to figure out what it was exactly, but I am really tired so I will just wait until Paloma or Robb sees this and yells at me until I put in the correct info.

There seem to be shots of DJ Loli and Tommie Sunshine in here, but I have no idea where they came from, and then there was the night that I went to a few spots for no reason and then the girl I was trying to entertain left with her exboyfriend. That was fun. And then tehre are a few shots that just seem to be lost.  Whatever, it’s all Winter Music and its all Miami. Deal with the disorder.

Oh! This gallery even has some boobs! NSFW!

Click here to see all the randoms stuff from WMC that didn’t fit into any of my other galleries.

In the recent Kid Sister & Death Set posts you may have noticed I spelled the word “Carnival” like “Carniville”.  This was intentional, and completely not my fault. I blame the fine folks at IHeartComix, Jelly NYC and Mad Decent for this spelling error, because that’s what they named their amazing three day music fest during SXSW.  At the Mexican American Cultural Center, just a few blocks from downtown Austin they threw an epic party full of carnival rides, cotton candy, funnel cake and free booze.  They had tons of bands and DJ’s and the whole thing was free.  So many of my friends played there so I had to check it out.  As you saw I shot Kid Sister and The Death Set, but I also shot a few pics couple other bands that may show up on here eventually.  I also shot everyone hanging out as per always.

You can click here to see crowd shots of the whole thing. It was a lot of fun as you can probably tell.

PS. Sorry there are so many damn shots of the Gravitron, but it was awesome.  (At least until I got off and I instantly wanted to puke.)

I saw the Death Set ages ago, but I haven’t seen them since I became friends with the guys.  I was pretty excited for SXSW to see them but unfortunately the only chance I got to see them was out doors. Not that they weren’t awesome, they actually pretty much dismantled the Austin Carniville crowd, but day time shows are always so fucking weird.  On top of that I spent 90% of my picture taking life in doors at night, so shooting bands during the day is always so weird to me. I think I got some good shots anyway, you should check them out, and then head over to Fat Baby because Death Set drummer Roofeeo is debuting his new mix tape tonight. See you there.

Click here to see the shots of the Death Set at The IHeart Comix/ Jelly NYC/ Mad Decent Austin Carniville during SXSW.

Friday night was the first night I have taken photos in NYC in about a month.  Almost exactly a month.  I got a late start on the night and got to Webster Hall midway through Kid Sister’s set. Two songs later I got a text and ended up having to leave about 15 minutes after I got there. Webster was completely bumping and I felt like it was going to be a great night, but I unfortunately had to take care of some stuff.

I have now photographed Kid Sister four times over the last two or so years and every time I see her I like her more and more. At SXSW a few weeks ago I caught her set at the IHeartComix/Jelly NYC/Mad Decent Austin Carniville and it was awesome.  Even during the day she killed it. Plus, she’s a total babe. I feel like I could fall in love. How could you not?

I feel like this blog is poorly organized, but I wanted to mention that out of the four times I have photographed her I have still never gotten “the shot”.  I always try to get one shot I really love from an artist, but I never seem to get it from her.  I have no idea why she is so hard to shoot.  But I guess that is good, because it means I have to keep seeing her play until I get it.

Anyway, since I have two sets of Kid Sister to put up, and both of them are under 20 images each, I decided to make today Kid Sister day and give you two galleries in one post. Exciting.

First, you can click here to see Kid Sister at Webster Hall on 4.9.10.  Then you can go ahead and click here to see Kid Sister at Austin Carniville at SXSW on 3.18.10.

And lastly, I just wanted to mention that the site might be down for a few hours today. I haven’t talked to my webmaster in a few days, but originally we had planned to take the site offline for a few hours to do some minor upgrades to the site. So we shall see. Until then…

PS. Only 5000 more SXSW/WMC images to get up….

So I had heard about this crazy party at the end of SXSW called Skull By Skull Now. It is a yearly house party thrown by a bike gang called the Skidmarxxx. I mentioned them before when I was talking about them getting in a fight at the Pure Volume house.  I got invited by the Skidmarxxx, by one of my favorite photographers Sucka Pants, by my intern who was crashing there, and by Cerebral Ballzy who was playing the party.  I had been warned by several people that I should be really careful at SXSN. There are always lots of fights, fireworks and shit getting thrown at people.  They had a huge skull filled with paint cans and explosives and when I got there people were throwing paint at everyone.  There were fireworks everywhere and $10 tattoos.  I saw a guy get a swastika made out of dicks tattooed to his knee.  It seemed like the party had a lot of potential but when I was waiting in line to get a tattoo of a skull wearing a party hat, the cops showed up and the party pretty much ended. They blew up the skull, but ultimately, like the party it was a bit of a dissapointed.  No fights, no sex, no one even got hurt.  The only thing that happened was some people got covered in paint and some guy had his bike put 20 feet up in a tree.

So really, the highlight for me was Cerebral Ballzy.  I know Honor and Mel from the band for over a year but I had never seen them play before. Weird things kept happening and I kept missing them.  Shows got cancled, I showed up late, I had to change plans and all sorts of shit kept me from seeing this band. Finally I did, and they were pretty fucking awesome. You should check them out if you get a chance.

Click here to see the pictures of the madness that is Skull By Skull Now and Cerebral Ballzy.

To take a break from all the photo galleries I just wanted to show you a few things I have in print right now.  I sold a pic of Lady Gaga on her birthday to NY Magazine. Its the one in the left corner.  It was in last weeks issue as part of the cover story.  The only copy I have is pretty beat up so if anyone has a copy they wanna give me I would appreciate it. I also shot the holiday party for XXL magazine.  For some reason the pictures are in the April issue. The pics from that include shots of the Jersey Shore cast, football players Eddie George and Darrelle Revis, and a giant photo of a bucket of Heineken.  The funniest part of the night was when I ran into the Manhattan rep for PBR right after the party and he asked me why I missed the PBR holiday party. When I told him it was because I was shooting a Heineken sponsored party. His response without even a second of hesitation: “Heineken? Fuck that shit.  Pabst Blue Ribbon!” Amazing.

I have been putting up all these spring trip photos all out of order and today will be no exception. I haven’t put up anything from SXSW Music yet, so today I am going to put up the very first SXSW Music pictures I took and the very last.  But for the sake of some sort of delusional organization, let’s begin with the first.

I planned on making it an early night.  I had photographed the film awards and had to be up early to photograph Bill Murray.  I was ready to go home around one AM.  I met the guys I was staying with in Austin over at Pure Volume and they wanted to go to this club Mohawk and I had no choice but to tag along with them.  On the way there I ran in the The Death Set and they demanded I go to Beauty Bar with them.  Who the fuck am I to say no to that? So I told my friends I would meet them at 2 and headed off to Beauty Bar.

At closing time my friends weren’t picking up their phones and I was once again dragged to this music co-op space called the Music Gym. The only time I ever DJ’d in my life was there last November.  I just played YouTube videos while people mingled. Anyway, evendently Franki Chan was doing something with Flosstradamus there and a bunch of us rolled over.  Somehow it cost like $15 or something but Flosstradamus managed to drag most of us in with him.

The party was hot and my friends finally met up with us.  As locals they knew the door guy and got in for $2 which is hilarious.  Why not just get them in for free? $2 just seems really weird. Whatever, I’m ranting.  I wasn’t really planning on shooting because I had so much shit to do allready but things were cooking up pretty good and a lot of my NYC friends were there so I had to take some shots. I had been in Austin for a week with only a handful of friends in town, so when everyone started showing up for the music week, I was ready to party.  I even kissed this cute local girl, but she tragically never called me.

I feel like there are some okay shots here, and probably a few less than okay ones.  I was getting warmed up. Just click here and look at the fucking photos already. I have more work to do…

New York in the building!

Ten days after the Pure Volume Party at SXSW, I attended the DJ’s Are Not Rockstars/ Spider-Pussy event at Klutch during WMC in Miami. What is interesting about this party was that half the bill was New Yorkers and more than half the crowd were New Yorkers. It was good hanging out with everyone.  It’s always awesome to see Lauren Flax and it was great to see fellow DolfanNYC member (and DANR Founder) Alexander Technique in Miami. I haven’t seen my dear old friend DJ Krames in ages so it was great to see his smiling, facial hair free face.  Roxy Cottontail and all her bunnies were out, and their asses were hanging out… (I unfortunately never got to see Luther’s ass)  They hired me to work that weekend so it was FANTASTIC to see them. Larry Tee, Mark Kamins & Arthur Baker are NYC legends so running into them was of course epic. I had never met New Yorker Princess Superstar before, but she brought my homey Bad Brilliance out to back her up so that was mint.  I missed the worlds biggest (fattest) Mets fan Fat Jew and Team Facelift perform, but they were hanging out. I did catch The Fire and Reason play and they were awesome. I hadn’t seen them before but everyone knows that Bella is a babe. I didn’t see Maluca or Junior Sanchez, but those guys hold NYC down like nobodies business.  Subdrive Records was in the house and even Maggie Horn got on the mic for a few minutes.  It was a NYC party and everyone had a blast.

In non-NYC news I met Farrington from Last Rights who makes this t-shirt, which I need in my life asap.  I also met maybe the hottest girl I have ever seen before and her boyfriend who both happened to be wearing said t-shirt and happened to be a fucking rad dude. Oh yeah, and the only people who weren’t New Yorkers were from my old home town of DC or Hollywood Holt who as far as I am concerned has been given honorary New Yorker status by Ninjasonik. So that’s legit.

Okay, now I don’t know what else to say but look at the fucking insane pictures from the night by clicking here.

Pure Volume house is the only late night party that goes for both weeks of SXSW. You can just RSVP for it online and they have free booze and sometimes free food.  They have bands and a place to chill outside and the whole thing is pretty great except for that every single person in Austin is trying to get in there so the line is constantly around the block.  It is some times okay during the day, but from 10PM on there is no way you are getting in without waiting for an hour. I have been like two times ever in all the years they have been doing it and both times it was during the film/interactive weeks.  I also tried to go once during the day to get free tacos but there were none.  Shenanigans.

Anyway, I hit up Pure Volume on one of my first nights in town. I mostly hung outside with the smokers because it was nice out and I had just come from NYC.  I don’t even smoke, but I tend to get better pictures outside of clubs than in them sometimes.  I met a bunch of cool people, flirted with some girls, and had a way too long conversation with a guy about my acting career.  I think I was pretty tired considering that I am not an actor and have no interest in becoming one. Anyway the night ended with me meeting these kids from a bike crew called the Skidmarxxx. I ran into them all week and ended up going to their Skull By Skull Now party the day after SXSW ended.  For racist, beer swilling, fucked up dudes who live to fight, they were pretty nice guys. Oh, and then about 5 minutes after I met them they some how managed to goad some guy into throwing a chair at them at which point they caught it, hit him with it and then stomped him until the bouncers kicked them out.  See what I mean? Really sweet dudes.

Check out all the pictures from Pure Volume plus more fight pics by clicking here.