At this point I don’t even really know what to say.  I am fucking free of the burden that was thousands and thousands of pictures that I took during a three week trip which I averaged less than 4 hours of sleep per day.  I really have one special gallery to go up in the future, but I am saving that one. It’s all 35mm and not pictures of bands.  Ignoring that, this is it. This gallery is just full of pictures that didn’t have a place anywhere else. This is the crowd shots and the people hanging out.  This is what SXSW is all about, the friends and the people you meet.  You can see these bands anywhere, but what I remember most about my trips to SXSW are the people I have met.  A lot of them I see every year there and only there. Its my 6th or 7th year in a row but it feel like I have been making the trip my entire life.  As much greif as getting these pictures up has caused me, I can’t wait to go back.  See you in March Austin.

Click  here to see the very last pictures from my SXSW trip.  There are some fun ones in here.

It’s come down to this.  The end of my spring trip.  Nearly 6 weeks after I got back from my trip and nearly two months to the day before I left New York for Austin I am finally finishing getting up these photos.  I took over 10,000 images over 25 days and edited them all twice.  Once for my clients and once for this web site.  And here we are, the last two galleries, and the last day. Thank god I can finally get back to my real life.

The second to last gallery consists of the bands that I didn’t take enough pictures of to warrant a gallery on their own. When I started organizing the pictures I figured there would be more than just three bands in this gallery, but it is what it is.  When I shot The Walkmen I wasn’t happy with the quality of light so I edited the gallery down to just a handful of pictures, none of which I was super happy with.  The pictures I took of Men I liked a bit more but I only caught their last song or two and I was at a weird angle because I was on the side of the stage waiting for Hollywood Holt to go on. And the last band were The Moonrats and I just had no idea who they were and I just grabbed a few shots while I was hanging out with people.

So yeah, it’s all very exciting.  Ill be back in a bit with my very last SXSW gallery, but for now click here to see a few pictures from The Walkmen, Men and the Moon Rats at SXSW 2010.

Speaking of the Levi’s Fader Fort, here are the handful of crowd shots I took while I was there.  For some reason it felt like I took a lot more, but I guess I didn’t.  Highlights of my Fader Fort experience this year included hanging out with this rad local girl I see every year, running into my ex’s friends at the same spot I met my ex at one year earlier, and of course getting free jeans.  I pretty much wear the same pants eveery day and they are Levi’s 511’s and they seem to last about a year, so I just keep getting Levi’s to hook me up every time I come back to SXSW so I am always wearing free pants.  Thanks Christian & Levi’s!

Anyway, if you aren’t a SXSW regular the Levi’s Fader Fort is a huge open place with free booze and cheap food and lots of bands.  You can just meet up with everyone there during the day and then head out to whatever adventures you are getting into. They have a place to charge your phone and computers to check your email and your schedule. They have a silly photobooth and free t-shirts and all sorts of madness. It’s a good time.

Click here to see a handful of crowd shots from the 2010 Levi’s Fader Fort at SXSW.

So I am getting real fucking sick of apologising for photos not being up when I say then will be because of my of my gallery fuck ups. I will be dealing with that problem soon.  Yesterday was partially my fault as I didn’t get started working until pretty late but the pictures should have been up by 11pm and they didn’t finish uploading until closer to 11am.

Anyway, here are pictures of The Local Natives at the Fader Fort.  I took their picture because someone I was hanging out with told me they were really good.  Honestly it was so long ago I don’t even remember who told me much less what the band sounded like.  So let’s just assume they were awesome and move on.  We only have 3 more SXSW updates after this one.  Sorry for not giving you your due Natives, but I did take some nice pictures of you guys.

Everyone can see the photos of the Local Natives at the Levis Fader Fort at SXSW by clicking right here.

So Tuesday was a weird night.  I was just sitting around my house when I got a text from my friend Andie (Dj Cassette) who was DJing Disco Down at Happy Ending later in the night.  I told her I would go.  A few minutes later I get a text from my friend Brendan (DJ VH1) who told me I needed to get up to the Royalton Hotel because Lady Starlight was doing a party and Justin from Semi Precious Weapons was hosting and it was a weird scene with all these old downtown kids hanging out in Midtown.  It seemed weird and I haven’t seen Justin since SPW’s video shoot, so I jumped in a cab and was in Midtown in 20 minutes.  When I got there the mood had changed because Lady Gaga had shown up.  I was given a place to stay in Miami two years ago if I would shoot her birthday party so I figured I could probably take some photos there.  Clearly I was mistaken.  I wasn’t even allowed to point my camera in her direction even if I was across the room.  I took a few pictures outside and then I got some shots of Starlight and Justin by the DJ booth. I took a photo of VH1 her old DJ down stairs and I got yelled at it because the bouncer said “she will flip out if there’s any pictures being taken near her”.  He seemed to understand his request was silly.  The whole thing was funny because her and I have a ton of mutual friends and they were all at Justin’s table with her.  And so I was over there with them and then there was a whole ring of people around us, and then a whole ring of people around them.  I felt like I was in a Greek auditorium and she was Socrates speaking to her super weird looking pupils. I tweeted something to that effect and the rest of the night I was bombarded with Tweets from Gaga fans all over the world who were just trying to get another peek into her life.  The whole thing is tremendously weird. She did eventually pose for one of the photos from Guest of a Guest but I didn’t try to get a shot because a) I don’t care that much and b) I am not a fucking paparazzi.  I only want to take pics of people who want their photo taken.

Anyway, that was all pretty funny, but because of it I didn’t get to shoot many photos at what was a pretty fun party, but my night was far from done.  I headed down to Happy Ending and I never even got inside the place because while I was talking to friends outside my friend Annika came running outside.  She had been punched in the face by some dude because he was grabbing her friend and she pushed him off of her. The cops came and she had to get looked at by EMT’s and such. It was crazy fucked up. They got the guy on film doing it, so hopefully they catch him.  She handled it like a champ and kept partying.  While all this was happening DJ Cassette came out and was heading over to Lauren Flax’s party at Home Sweet Home.  I was at Happy Ending just to see her so I went with her over to Lauren’s party.  Lauren had already left so I hung out with Andie and some rad lesbian chicks and then when Andie went home headed back over to Happy Ending for my friend Eden’s birthday.  Twig gave her a bunch of mustaches for a present so that was entertaining for a while.

The whole night was pretty fun and I took a few pictures of it. You should look at them by clicking here. It would be the right thing to do. See you guys tomorrow with the final updates from SXSW.  I hope.

The first band I saw at SXSW was Crystal Fighters.  I had been shooting SXSW Film stuff all day and I had just grabbed some food when I ran in to Anton Glamb and my friend Arden who I actually met at SXSW 2 years earlier.  I told them I was headed to check out the Lose Control party at a club called Vice.  I didn’t really know what was going on but I had a few hours to kill until my friends band Shells played so I figured it would be as good time as any to check the party.  It was pretty late when we got there and they only had “special guests” playing so we had no idea who we would see.  Anton took off but Arden and I found some empty stools by the stage and hung out.  This band came on and they were pretty fucking awesome but we had no idea who they were.  I took some photos and I thought they looked great.  In retrospect they weren’t that awesome but I still had a lot of fun.  Plus I had a seat for the first time in days so that was nice.  Arden would watch my bag while I would shoot for a few songs and then I would get to sit down.  The whole thing ruled. We found out the band was Crystal Fighters which Arden was excited to see anyway.  Prince Terrance and one of the dudes from the Bronx met us and they were psyched about the Fighters as well.  You should probably check them out if you get the chance.

You can click here to see the slightly dissapointing, but still kinda nice photos of Crystal Fighters at Loose Control 2 at Vice at SXSW in Austin, TX.

So guess what? After the two posts I am putting up today from the Lose Control 2 party at Vice I have only 3 more SXSW updates.  I realize this stuff happened almost two months ago, but damn, I was busy and I took a lot of fucking photos. Better late that never… Let’s just keep it moving.

I went to Lose Control with my friend Arden, we came to just check out the place and heard a bad we wanted to see was playing late there.  I don’t even remember who it was, but I never got to see them because I ended up leaving to see my friends band play across the street. I did get a chance to see Hey Champ.  I actually don’t remember much about them because it was so long ago and they were the second band I shot out of 50 that week.  I do remember that they were fun to shoot and that two girls were flirting with me while I was shooting them.  That was a lot of fun.

Anyway, I have three updates for today and it’s already 10 PM so we are gonna just have to keep it moving.  Click here to see the pictures of Hey Champ at Loose Control 2 at Vice at SXSW in Austin. Yeah.

So The Bronx are an LA punk band you have probably heard of. For some crazy awesome reason they released a traditional Mariachi album and now they play both punk sets and Mariachi sets under the name Mariachi El Bronx. I think this is all very brilliant but instead of telling you about their show at Mess With Texas I am going to instead tell you the story of how I came to know of the Bronx.

I had heard of the Bronx before, but only because friends of mine dig them.  I had never heard them or anything until last summer when I was in LA. I had been hired to shoot a Vice Mag party in NYC but I couldn’t do it because I went out to LA to shoot both a porn convention and a marijuana convention by the LA Weekly.  One night after the porn convention I was talking to Burning Angel star Jessie Lee.  She told me that Vice was having the same party in LA as they were in NYC and we should go to it.  Her friend Jorma was DJing.  So we head out there and Jorma thought he could get her in but not me and she didn’t want to stand around alone while he was DJing.  So we got in line but the line wasn’t moving.  In front of us I heard some hot girls talking about how they had gone to the porn convention and were talking about how ugly the girls would.  I took slight offense to this as porn girls are my peoples, and asked them if they thought Jessie was ugly.  They said she was hot and asked her about porn stuff.  Turns out they were Jorma’s friends too and couldn’t get in.  Right then someone came by with info on another party so we decided to fuck the Vice party and head there.  I had a 2 door compact rental car, but some how we fit 7 people in it with four in the back seat and one person in the trunk.  We went to this party that had tons of free booze but no one was there and it smelled like gasoline.  We left within five minutes and headed to some bar.  I hit it off with two of the girls and I started making out with both of them.  Jorma then showed up and it turns out he was the drummer for the Bronx and that he and I have a ton of mutual friends.  He was friends with the girls I was making out with so everyone was getting along.  We had a lot of fun at the bar, but the kids we had just met wanted to go hit up their friends bar to see if they could get free drinks before last call.  Jessie and Jorma wanted to go back to Jorma’s house.  I had the only car so I didn’t know what to do. Jorma offered to take a cab but somehow I felt that wouldn’t have been cool since he didn’t live that far away.  We fit all 8 people in my two door rental car, with Jessie and Jorma in the back.  I drove them two his place at Dodger stadium, but in the 5 minute drive all hell broke loose and Jessie got into this big argument with the girl I was most friendly with and they threatened to fight each other and this whole thing. It was probably the most fun night I have ever spent in LA.

Long story short, after that I became friends with Jorma on Twitter and have been meaning to see his band.  I finally got a chance to see them as Mariachi El Bronx, and you can click here too see all the pictures of them at SXSW.  The end.

People seem to love Yacht. And don’t get me wrong, I think their music is good, and they put on a pretty good show when I saw them at Mess With Texas, but I don’t really get the obsession with the band.  People really go crazy for them.  Evidently there is some Tumblr meme involving hipster triangels that somehow came from Yacht’s use of triangles.  If anyone can explain that shit to me, I would love to know.  Tumblr is pretty damn confusing and often maddening but I actually sort of love it too. Follow me, duh.

Anyway, back to Yacht.  I saw the first 5 minutes of their set at Austin Carniville before I went to shoot Mariachi El Bronx at MWTX.  Right after El Bronx finished Yacht was playing again at MWTX.  Like they played two shows with maybe an hour break in between to move all their shit.  So I gotta hand it to them for that.  But yeah, fun band, pretty good music, pretty good live show.  I would check them out again for sure… but I really don’t get the obsession.

Explain it to me in the comments right after you look at the pictures of Yacht that I took at Mess With Texas at SXSW.