Lit Lounge 8th Anniversary – 2.22.10

June 29, 2026June 29, 2026

I have had these photos ready to go for months now. That whole getting hacked thing caused most of the delay because even though we recently solved that problem the one thing that we lost permanently was my old archives. I had an internal use only version of my old website that didn’t have any of the images, just the text, that way I could go back and check my archives. I could pull up a random folder, like for example a folder only called 2.22.10 and then I could type 2.22.10 into my archival site and pull up that night. I could then see what the party was, what I was doing in my life and what happened that night. It was a great tool and it was deleted forever.

My former webmaster thought she had a back up so she sent me those files, I sent them to the guy who unfucked my website and he uploaded all the files she sent and it turns out it was just some random early version of the current site that only had four posts. No idea what happened there. Since then, I have found my backup of the site, but it’s not the archive site, it’s just the whole ass website, so I can hopefully build back a new archives site, but that probably won’t happen for a while because I have spent all my money on my goddamn house. Anyway long story short I don’t have my notes from February 22nd, 2010… but I do have some memories.

First things first I know it was Lit Lounge’s 8th anniversary party. I actually had to look up which anniversary it was, but I knew it was an anniversary. Lit was one of my all time favorite bars. Before I even moved to NYC one of the best days of my life ended dancing at Lit (it almost ended at an emergency room, but that’s another story). The bar had an art gallery in the back, and incredibly seedy basement, and multiple lockable bathrooms. There are not a lot of places on earth more conducive to debauchery.

The other thing I remember from this night, is that earlier that day the US beat Canada in a huge Olympic hockey game. We of course then lost to them in the gold medal game in heartbreaking fashion, but the reason I remember that day is because in the Lit photo gallery there are a few photos that I shot on a 70-200mm lens, and it’s the only time I have ever brought that lens to the club and the only reason I brought it to the club was because I brought it to watch US hockey at a bar in the East Village and the only reason I brought it to that bar in the first place was because I had just bought it and it was snowing and I had my friend Vicky meet me at the bar and we shot topless photos in the snow. I actually really loved those photos and I am going to re-edit those right now and upload them to Girls of Driven By Boredom, so if you are seeing this, they are up there right now.

You know I love a tangent, but let’s get back to it… What else? For some reason that POS rapist Ron Jeremy was there that night. I used to run into him all the time and he always sucked even before I knew all the shit he did. Aside from that, so, so many of my friends were there and so many girls I had crushes on and went on one date and then just became friends with after it didn’t work out because I was a mess back then. I guess I wasn’t so bad if they still wanted to be friends with me, but I was not really someone anyone took seriously as a romantic partner. Oh and speaking of dates, the girl who I went on my first ever internet dating site date was randomly at the party. We lived in Richmond, VA and we met on a site called Make Out Club (iykyk). She moved to NYC first and then when I moved there she moved back to RVA, but just happened to be in NYC that night.

Anyway, I honestly don’t really remember anything else and this has gone on long enough, but I know people are going to dig these photos because pretty much everyone from like 5 different downtown scenes was there because Lit had something different going on every night. Shit, even my terrible punk band used to play there. Man I miss that spot.

Anyway check the gallery below, and then if you feel like it you can go look at some photos of my old friend Vicky topless in the snow taken earlier that day. She isn’t in this gallery at all, but I promise you will dig the photos if you like that sort of thing. Okay bye.

Roxy’s Playhouse – 10.15.09

February 3, 2026

Yesterday I was digging through my archives in the “2009” folder trying to find some classic party pictures to post for you guys. I have some stuff pulled already, but all of them seemed like a lot of work so I was looking for something that didn’t require a 1000 word essay, a bunch of googling and an hour of editing. I saw that in October, 2009 I had a bunch of folders for each day. I guess the CMJ music festival was right around this time. I opened one of two October 15th folder and found a bunch of really fun photos from a party that Pepsi through with my friend Roxy Cottontail and figured this would be the perfect thing to post today.

“The Pepsi DJ Collective at Roxy’s Playhouse” wasn’t part of CMJ and I don’t even know what the fuck the Pepsi DJ Collective was, but I do know they paid me to take photos and I think it was a pretty nice check, so I should probably add Pepsi as a client to my resume, if I had a resume. It’s weird to think of all the huge brands that have paid me to take drunken party pictures in sweaty night clubs… or in this case sweaty Williamsburg warehouses.

If you don’t know Roxy, she’s a legendary DJ who came up with Diplo and the Hollertonix crew out of Philly. By the time I moved to Brooklyn she was already NYC staple and we did a lot of parties together. These days she’s still doing here thing but she also hosts a podcast about those good old days of NYC nightlife. Wait, come to think of it, why haven’t I been on her podcast? In all seriousness, Roxy rules and I was psyched to get the invite to shoot this late night madness care of a corporate sponsor.

As for the event, the DJs were Roxy, Diplo, DJ Drama and Eli Escobar and there was a performance by Maluca who I always had such a big crush on. In fact in this gallery I have a photo of her and rapper Amanda Blank who was my other musical crush back in those days. It was cool to find those photos. Speaking of cool photos to find. I found one of my friends AK Murda and Ease Da Man, both of whom we sadly lost. Two other friends gone before their time, legendary bassist Andy Rorke and one of my favorite models Vicky, are in these galleries as well. It’s crazy how many people I knew back then are gone. I miss them all.

There are so many notable nightlife and music folk in these photos that I can’t begin to name them all but just take a look for yourself. If you were around back then you’ll see so many notable faces. I should mention that OG Major Lazer hype man Skerrit Bwoy was performing with Diplo as was Telli from Ninjasonik who had just dropped a remix of Major Lazer’s Hold the Line. In my original write up from that night I talked about how much fun that was.

Looking back on this it seems like this was a great time, but in my original write up I was so nonchalant about the whole thing because it was just another night back then. Any of those folders from 2009 could have opened up and been something just as legendary. What a time to be alive.

Okay that’s all I got. I spent too much time on this one already but it’s only 600 words so I didn’t get too carried away. Check out all the photos below from The Pepsi DJ Collective at Roxy’s Playhouse.

New Years Eve 2008 – 12.31.07

January 1, 2026

Making some actual New Years Resolutions this year and one of those things is updating this site more, primarily the Vintage DBB stuff. My plan was to drop a new, completely re-edited gallery every Thursday but that is so overwhelming and took so long and I think that’s why I stopped updating as much. A lot of shit happened in my life as well and I should hopefully have a little more time now, but my main plan is just to not edit as much. I pulled over 200 photos from this gallery and I just batch brightened them in Lightroom and then came back and fixed the ones that were way too over exposed. It took me less than ten minutes instead of over an hour. At least they are in much higher resolution now. Here’s hoping I update with Vintage DBB posts at least a couple of times a month going forward.

Anyway, let’s get into it. I used to only drink twice a year (now I drink never), NYE and my birthday, and this particular NYE was a blur. I barely remember it, luckily I have an offline copy of my archives so I can go back and read about that night. Apparently the reason I got so drink is because I took six shots in 45 minutes before I even got to Don Hills for the big Rated X/ Trash/ Burning Angel collaboration party.

If you weren’t there for all this, Trash was my favorite Friday night party hosted by friend DJ Jess (and Alex and Twig) but Jess was the first person to ever pay me to take photos in NYC and he died a decade ago now and I miss him all the time still. Rated X was a Saturday night party hosted by Michael T, Theo Kogan and Peppermint. It was famous for being a “no pants” party where they had a coat check for pants and you could get discounted drinks if you were pants free. They also were home to the infamous hot body contest which we will get to in a second. The party was hosted by the Brooklyn based alt porn site Burning Angel and Joanna Angel herself. She did some burlesque and helped host, but she also brought a bunch of her girls with her including my good pals Jessie Lee and Draven. My friend Apathy did a burlesque performance as well.

The hot body contest was absolutely wild that night thanks to Jessie and Draven. I uploaded all the photos of them to my paysite Girls of DBB. I tried not to post photos of people who looked wasted or were sort of being bashful about it, but there are 80 NSFW photos up there, mostly of the Burning Angel crew. There are some random people also pulling a titty out which was apparently a thing everyone just did back then. In my original notes from that night I said “The next couple hours were pretty much a blur… A lot of boobs and kissing people and trying not to puke.” What a time to be alive.

Apparently I left the party at 5am, which was probably hours before Don Hills actually kicked everyone out. I was pretty drunk and it’s hard to take photos when you have a drink in one hand as it is, so take that for what it’s worth. It was also a few months before I got a pro digital camera, but the chaos and the fun still shine though and I think you guys will really dig these despite the mid photography.

So check out the gallery below to see a bunch of photos from the Rated X vs Trash vs Burning Angel 2008 NYE party and head over to Girls of Driven By Boredom if you want to see the really crazy stuff. See you soon, I hope!

Happy Endings – 7.21.09

September 26, 2025September 26, 2025

It’s been a minute since I have done a Vintage DBB post on here, but my life has been in a wild transition. If you missed the recent B-Side post, I bought a 60 year old house with 60 year old house problems and have spent the last three weeks working on it every day and then I was on a slightly too long vacation. These are some real Champaign problems but I got poison ivy from doing yard work and I have to spend $2500 to cut down a tree before it destroys the foundation of my house so I am exhausted. Oh, I also got engaged but I haven’t really told anyone so I guess if you are reading this you know before some of my close friends and less close family members.

So yeah, I wanted to update my NSFW paysite thing, Girls of Driven By Boredom so I started digging for a random night out from back in the day that had some nightclub bathroom nudes and I found just the thing. I met my friend Ginger at tattoo party I shot for Inked Magazine before they stopped paying photographers. We talked about shooting and actually had this idea for a larger documentary project that never happened, but we got diner one night to talk about both things and since it was Thursday night we ended up going over to Happy Endings after the meeting (and yes I know it was called Happy Ending and not Endings but I called it Endings the entire time it was open so I am not gonna change it up now).

Every Thursday you had the party 66Sick in the basement and at that time Disco Down was the upstairs party. Downstairs there were a bunch of rooms you could sort of go hide out in so Ginger and I went down there and took a bunch of topless photos of her which are all now uploaded to Girls of DBB. I was going to head out after that but then my neighbors showed up and the three of them, to quote myself in 2009, “went off on a wild tear through the bar, ending up with them having their own personal bouncer who stood by them dancing to keep creepy dudes away from them… ”

I gotta say it’s great still having all my old archives so I can go pull quotes like that, because I don’t remember any of that shit. So yeah, this gallery is a ton of photos of the three of them mixed with a bunch of photos of the Disco Down kids writing a bunch of shit all over themselves with Sharpie. I was hoping I explained what was going on with that in my original post about the night, but I didn’t.

Anyway, I hope to update with old throwback posts more often, I actually have a few random nights pulled for me to reedit, but I need to make time for em. Hopefully once I am moved in I can get back to posting one of these a week, but no promises. This night was pretty unexceptional aside from the Ginger chaos, but it’s always fun looking back at what we were up to 15+ years ago.

Check the gallery for all the photos from a random Thursday night at Happy Endings back in 2009 or jump over to Girls of DBB for the NSFW stuff.

Another Friday Night – 9.14.07

August 5, 2025

I’ve probably spent less than a year of my life total working you standard 9-5, Monday-Friday job. Between graduating from college and moving to NYC I did some temp work at a few offices and my last job ever before becoming a photographer was digitizing books in a library and I did that for about six months, but other than that I’ve either worked retail/food service, or been a full time photographer. So for me, a Friday night is just like any other night of the week, but back in the late 2000s, Friday night meant two things: Trash & Ruff Club.

Ruff Club, held at the Annex, was the first weekly party in NYC that I ever went to and Trash was probably my favorite weekly of all time. Back in 2007 it was held at Rififi which was by far my favorite of it’s four locations. If I was going to hit only one party that night it would be Trash, but like most nights of the week, I would hit at least two parties. I’d usually start my night at Trash and then end up walking down to the LES for Ruff so I could take the JMZ home or just walk over the bridge to Williamsburg. But Rififi was near the L train so I could always do it the other way around.

This Friday night in September wasn’t any sort of special occasion, and the photos were taken before I had a professional camera, but the night feels pretty representative of that time period. Multiple parties, multiple subcultures, a ton of friends and a bunch of time just spent hanging out in the street outside of bars. It was such a fun time in my life and also still in that full Indie Sleaze era of American Apparel and insane accessories and of course flip phones.

I went back and looked at what I had written about that night at the time and it seemed the night was kinda a bust. I sounded kinda depressed about the whole thing and not sure why. Apparently the door person at Annex tried to get me to pay $5 which instead of just paying, I apparently made it a whole thing until Sophia Lamar brought me in and then apparently I was super apologetic to the door person for making it a whole thing. (That’s three apparentlys in one sentence, are you impressed yet?) I was working at a busboy at a restaurant at that time so I am sure I could have used the $5, but mostly I think I just wanted to feel important. My site was starting to blow up and right around that time I quit my busboy job and tried to make it as a full time photographer. I only made it nine months before having to get that book scanning job, but it felt like I was really doing it. In December of 2008 after the economy collapsed I got laid off of that job and I never worked another day job again, so I guess I did make it, just not that Friday night…