Once again I have been slacking on Vintage Driven By Boredom posts, and once again I have a reason for it: In the hack I lost access to my archives. That means I can’t look up a specific event and remember what the hell happened that night. My memory is terrible. My visual memory is okay and I think that’s why I take photos, but I can’t remember any of the details without that archive. Fortunately a backup of it exists, but it’s just code and hard to search and until I pay someone to get it back online I am sort of without it. So I had an idea…
Instead of posting photos from a specific party and telling you all about that night, I am going to post hundreds of photos from a bunch of different, all taken in August 2007. The idea is to sort of break down the average week in my life as a party photographer back then when it was just a side hustle and I was still going out nearly every single night.
In August 2007 I had been living in NYC for about a year and Driven By Boredom was pretty popping. My camera sucked and my photos were bad, but somehow I was getting a ton of traffic and was having a ton of fun. I could pretty much get in anywhere at that point and I felt very cool, but I was still working as a busboy at a hotel restaurant. Every day I would go out around midnight, hit one or two parties, make out with some babes and party my ass off until 4am. I would take the train back to Brooklyn, dump my photos, take a shower and head back into the city so I could get to midtown before my shift started at 6am. It was pretty fucking soul crushing to work this shit job after taking off my hipster nightlife persona. About a month after I took these photos I quit and tried to make it as a full time photographer. I made it about nine months. At the end of 2008 I got laid off of my last “real job” thanks to the economic collapse and finally “made it” but in August 2007 I was sleeping a few hours a day and just absolutely grinding trying to live this fun life I eventually managed.
So let’s go through the week:
On Monday’s eventually I started going to the party M at Darkroom, but in August 2007 that was my night off. I went through a couple of months of photos from back then and I think the only time I worked on a Monday was to photograph a band.
Tuesdays were always at Happy Ending or was it Happy Endings, I will never remember. Six Six Sick was downstairs and eventually Disco Down was upstairs, but I don’t think that party existed at the time. Happy Endings was such a fun place to party. This particular night I actually stopped off at Lit first. I think it was a party called Rebel Rebel, but don’t quote me on that. I don’t have anything specific to note, other than I shot a couple bathroom nudes at both bars and that’s going to be a running theme because I uploaded a whole gallery of NSFW photos from this week to Girls of Driven By Boredom.
Wednesday was High Voltage. It was one of the first parties I started going to in New York and I think Dimitry was the first person to ever pay me to shoot a party. It was either him or DJ Jess, but we will get to that on Friday… High Voltage started at Sutra and then moved over to 200 Orchard before finally ending up at The Annex where we were on this particular evening. I didn’t shoot a ton of photos this night for some reason but there are so many photos of people I love in the few shots I did take. My first girlfriend in NYC was there and at least three people that I consider real friends to this day. I fucking loved Wednesdays.
Thursday was either back at Lit of back at Happy Endings or more likely both. I texted DJ RekLES to ask him what the Happy Endings party was and he told me it was called Steam Machine, but I don’t believe him because that is not even slightly familiar. It was hosted by him and Sean Roberts and Antwan and Julius Onah who directs fucking Marvel movies now. Wild. This night I had my friend Alex visiting and he and a few of his friends were crashing at my place. I ended up photographing the two girls he was with naked in the Happy Endings bathroom, and also my friend Tracy who I used to take photos of a lot back then. Fortunately for you guys, you can see all that stuff only on Girls of DBB. As far as the Lit party goes, that was called NC-17 and it was thrown by DJ Jess and Jeremy Bastard. It was a very different crowd by the always had go-go dancers and Lit was such a grimey place I knew I was gonna get someone naked or make out with someone in a bathroom. Honestly that night I took so many photos of people making out but I only photographed one person nude: my old pal Apathy who I have photographed naked more than maybe anyone on earth. Again those are over on Girls of DBB… I should also mention that I think Girls and Boys was on Thursdays at Hiro Ballroom back then. It was a blast and I photographed it a handful of times, but none in August 2007.
Friday nights were two of the best parties of all time: Ruff Club and Trash. Ruff Club was at Annex and it was the very first party I ever went to as a New York resident. Trash was at Rififi at the time and was maybe the first party I got paid to shoot. It was hosted by DJ Jess as well (and Twig and Alex) and lasted longer than any of these parties. Jess was such an important part of my life and I will miss that dude forever. Nearly every Friday I would take the J train to the LES for Ruff and then head up to Trash in the East Village and then take the L Train home (or vice versa). I am actually including two Friday’s in this gallery because one of them I only went to Trash. For some reason on the Ruff Club night I mostly shot photos outside of the club, it was probably insanely hot inside, and I don’t have any photos of the “Ruff Kids”. Both Trash galleries feature so many people I love and of course a tiny bit of nudity…
Misshapes ruled Saturday nights but it was at Don Hills and it was so far away and I had some dumb beef with one of the Misshapes so I rarely went and never photographed it. The party had ended by this time anyways and I think their short lived Wednesday night party Bleached was gone too. Saturday’s for me at that time was Rated X at Luke & Leroy’s (and Robot Rock across the street before that party ended). Rated X was the wildest weekly party. It was thrown by Theo Kagan, Michael T, Jess and Peppermint Gummybear who hosted the insane Hot Body Contest. The whole party was designed to be debaucherous. If you checked your pants at coat check you got discount drinks and they would do a late night hour of two for one well drinks. Somehow they also let 18 year olds in so it was always full of these SVA kids who were fresh out on their own and partying so fucking hard. The aforementioned hot body contest was a complete shit show of nudity and chaos. This is the party you’d think I would have the most NSFW photos from, but the hot body contest was so wild I don’t really want to put anyone on blast all these years later. I do have a few mildly safe for work photos in this gallery, and a few in the paid gallery but only because I think some of the people were in the adult industry so I am sure they don’t care if their nudes are online. Oh, I almost completely forgot, that night I also went to see Andrew WK play at Highline Ballroom, a venue I almost completely forgot about. I almost didn’t include these because it didn’t make a ton of sense for this breakdown of what I did in a given week, but it was a lot of fun and there are some great photos in there.
Sundays really belonged to the Smiths party at Sway. I have photographed that party so many times and I think it existed back then, but Sway, like it’s neighbor Don Hills, was a pain in the ass to get to and I don’t like the Smiths. I still always had a blast there. I have some super memorable nights in my life that happened at Sway. Back then Sundays was also a bit of a day off. I would sometimes shoot a monthly, like the industrial/fetish party Byte at the Delancey or Bowie Ball. If Motherfucker fell on a Sunday I would always be there, but none of that stuff was weekly so I am not including any of that in this gallery.
So yeah, speaking of galleries, this gallery is probably the biggest I have ever posted. It has five hundred and forty nine photos. If you see less than that it’s because someone didn’t want photos of them making out with a stranger when they were a kid online in 2026. I feel you and I am happy to take it down. There’s also that NSFW gallery of 60 something images over on Girls of Driven By Boredom, and that takedown request goes double for those. Not trying to fuck up anyone’s life which is mostly why all that stuff is paywalled. So yeah enjoy, and check out the Vintage DBB Instagram all this week because I plan on posting highlights from each night on there on the corresponding day. (Tag me if you post em.)
Okay go look at all the photos!
