July 8, 2014 in Photos, Show Reviews
Well this one was different. The function hall at Somerville’s Cuisine en Locale looks to have hosted more bar mitzvahs and wedding receptions than punk/metal shows, but it served surprisingly well for last night’s massive 6-band bill. Read the rest of this entry →
July 3, 2014 in Photos
Greetings on this sweltering July day. I bring you chilly post-punk vibes from the recent past, courtesy of the Eagulls. The U.K. upstarts played a blistering set at Great Scott a few Wednesdays ago, channeling songs from their noisy self-titled debut into a tight and propulsive live set. Boston locals The Sun Lions rounded out the bill. Idiot Genes may also have played, but I didn’t arrive in time to catch them unfortunately. Click onward and check out photos from the rest of the evening. Read the rest of this entry →
June 18, 2014 in Photos
It’s been about a month since the May edition of Boston Calling, which naturally means that my two rolls of Ilford HP5 have just now returned from the lab and been scanned (if any of you Boaton area people have darkroom equipment and want to teach me how to do this developing thing myself hit me up, seriously). The results are mostly quite nice though, so it was worth the wait. This was my first experience shooting with Canon L glass (70-200 f/2.8, so just the closeups) on my Elan body, which typically couples with my 50 f/1.4, and I’m sufficiently re-impressed by that lens. My trusty 28-70 Tamron fared pretty well with the wide shots too, and switching those lenses between the Elan and my 6D in the photo pits throughout the weekend was actually a pretty effective system. Good test run for my bigger July festivals where I’ll hopefully try this again. Read the rest of this entry →
June 10, 2014 in Photos
San Francisco’s Deafheaven, one of my favorite bands of the moment, headlined a sold-out show at The Sinclair on Monday night with the comparably awesome Pallbearer and experimental duo Wreck and Reference. This is the second Deafheaven set I’ve shot this year , and it was far and away more challenging than the first – mosh pits, no barrier, terrible lighting, a frontman who rarely stands still, etc. I did emerge with my equipment and self largely unscathed though, and managed to shoot a roll of film over the course of the night. No particularly vintage equipment for this shoot – only my recently-repaired and now quite trusty Canon ELAN and a roll of mysterious ASA 1600 Fujicolor Natura. These were obviously not the most ideal conditions for a camera with a fairly primitive autofocus system, but I think there were some pretty nice results. Read the rest of this entry →
June 4, 2014 in Photos
On occasion, I drag some vintage equipment around to shows and shoot a roll of film or two. I’ve actually been making a point to do it more often lately, which is why you’ll be seeing some (hopefully) lovely analog shots from Boston Calling up here in a week or two. For now, here are the results from an old roll I finally got back from the lab and scanned yesterday. These are largely from April’s “Midlife Crisis of Champions” show at TT’s, a birthday/radio show anniversary event put together by WMBR’s Jon Bernhardt and featuring Dump (aka Yo La Tengo’s James McNew), The Bevis Frond and Barbara Manning. I’m pretty happy with how they came out. There are a few less-good shots from last month’s Television show at the bottom as well. Really would’ve needed some ASA 3200 to get anything decent out of that show, but I mostly just wanted to finish off the roll of 400 that was already in my camera. Alas. Read the rest of this entry →
May 22, 2014 in Photos, Show Reviews
I really never expected to see Television. They’re a legendary band with no ostensible reason to embark on proper tours, content to play one-off festival dates and the occasional NYC gig that I would inevitably not be able to get to (case in point: last year’s Rough Trade shows). I greeted the announcement of this out-of-the-blue Paradise show with the sort of enthusiasm I reserve for a select few “holy shit how can this really be happening” performances that come along once in a great while. Read the rest of this entry →
May 16, 2014 in Photos, Show Reviews
Sunday was one of the first legitimately beautiful days of the obnoxious faux-spring that has cloaked Boston in grey misery for much of the last month or two, and a gorgeous day faded into a warm, weird night in Allston where NYC heavy pysch space-rockers White Hills were set to wrap up a tour at our beloved Great Scott.
May 13, 2014 in Miscellany
Hello and welcome to effort number (?) of my attempts to actually use this blog for something. Pictured above is Robert Hampson of the legendary Loop, who played a very loud set at the Middle East Downstairs last month. It was one of ~50 shows I’ve shot and attended in first four and half months of this very strange 2014.
From a photography perspective, 2014 has ruled. I’ve shot The Knife, Arctic Monkeys, Slint, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, a lot of prog-metal, a No Age show in a Starbucks and an A$AP Ferg set wherein the Trap Lord dumped a bottle of water on my gear (during “Dump Dump,” no less). I finally saw Malkmus play “Summer Babe,” I watched Mac DeMarco climb around the Middle East hanging from pipes and met one of my musical heroes. There was also a 2 Chainz show that I was quite proud of nagging enough Def Jam reps to get approved for. At some point I reached the conclusion that I’d be sort of a miserable person if I wasn’t dedicating this much time and energy to live music and photography.
I also had a longterm relationship end in a spectacularly awful fashion this year and have barely written anything in the past three months. As summer approaches and I make efforts to reboot several aspects of my life, it seems like as good a time as any to reboot this half of my website as well. I’m aiming for something more informal where I toss half-constructed ideas, random concert stories/show reviews and the occasional critical piece. We’ll see how it goes.
I’ll have some coverage of White Hills and Television from this week to knock this self-indulgent post off the top of the page soon.
December 31, 2013 in Features
My plans for a 2013 wrap-up were, as usual, a bit too ambitious. A set of favorite photos never came together, and a list of favorite performances simply didn’t have time for a proper writeup. Nonetheless, I tried to give my top 20 albums their due diligence and list off a few of my favorite live moments of the year before 2013 draws to a close.
November 21, 2013 in Photos, Show Reviews
An excellent electronic bill of UK producers, headed by Jon Hopkins and rounded out by Clark and Nathan Fake, took over The Sinclair on Monday night. My review is up at Tastemakers, with more photos here.
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