My music photography passions comes from the fact that I play bass in a local band Audiac. I designed the artwork for their first album No Come Down and when they were about to play a couple of shows in Sydney, their bass player quit - I was asked to learn the album and fill in for them. It was quite a fun show and the guys were pretty happy with my efforts, leaving an open invitation to join the band if I moved to Melbourne.In 2009 we recorded El Toroloco and are now set to release it, which is pretty cool - hopefully some people will be taking photos of me playing some gigs this year!You can hear snippets of both albums on the website... speaking of website...I designed the Audiac webite using a online programe thing called WIX. So far so good with the site, it is very basic and is pretty much drag and drop design, no code, code bores me shitless and even though I do graphic design, I have never wanted to get into web design.It would be great to know what you think of the site, anything I missed? is it easy to navigate?
One reason why I moved from Timaru New Zealand to Melbourne New Zealand was due to a serious lack in stimulation: eyeal, oral and earol.
While Timaru has the.. um.. err..
.
.. Melbourne has the bands, the occasional nice beach and art galleries - speaking of art galleries, I went to an exhibition on Monday of Ron Mueck - if I could sum it up in one word, it would be this: FUCKING AWESOME.I am now going to pilfer words and sentences from the interthing as I know nothing about this guy....
On loan from Wikipedia:
"Ron Mueck (born 1958) is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in Great Britain. Mueck's early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, notably the film Labyrinth. Mueck established his own company in London, making photo-realistic props for the advertising industry. Although highly detailed, these props were usually designed to be photographed from one specific angle hiding the mess of construction seen from the other side.
Mueck increasingly wanted to produce realistic sculptures which looked perfect from all angles. In 1996 Mueck transitioned to fine art, collaborating with his mother-in-law, Paula Rego, to produce small figures as part of a tableau she was showing at the Hayward Gallery. Rego introduced him to Charles Saatchi who was immediately impressed and started to collect and commission work. This led to the piece which made Mueck's name, Dead Dad, being included in the Sensation show at the Royal Academy the following year. Dead Dad is a rather haunting silicone and mixed media sculpture of the corpse of Mueck's father reduced to about two thirds of its natural scale. It is the only work of Mueck's that uses his own hair for the finished product. Mueck's sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce disconcertingly jarring visual images."
END LOAN This guy is great, as I was walking around I was just in awe of how long it would have taken to make these pieces... It was cool that we were allowed to take pics, I really enjoyed trying to capture some sort of interaction between the people and the pieces, do you dig it?Check out this site too. I have sent in my pics to them and there will be something about it in their blog.
Now... look at these awesome pics!
It's a Wednesday.
I'm on a tram.
It's 8.45pm.
The girl opposite me is eating fush and chups and wiping her fingers on the seat.
I'm drinking a V.
This can only mean one thing...
I am on my way to the Prince Bandroom, St Kilda to photograph The Handsome Family!
I used to work in a little indie record store in New Zealand called Rhino Records (which changed it's name to Radiant Records after Warner Music USA brought the Rhino Label and told my boss to stop using the name) My boss, Warren loved Elvis and country music, not that gay country music like Billy Ray - cool country, like Cash and Hank Williams. He used to listen to The Handsome family abit, so when the opportunity came up to photograph, I thought I'd give it a go. After photographing a couple of 'singer songwriters' and
A) being bored shitless and
B) being bored shitless of taking photos of one person
I was hoping they had a band, but they didn't - and it wasn't bad! they really knew how to interact with the audience, cute (strange) stories between songs broke the night up and it really was a great gig. It was one of those moments that you were watching a seasoned performer compared to someone who is young in their journey - and there is a huge difference. Ned Collette was the support, who I pretty much missed due arriving late, I got one cool pic of him though.
I can't believe I actually ASKED for a New Years Eve photography gig, it seemed like a good idea at the time and I got a great gig - NYE at the Espy, St Kilda...
15 bands!
fuck yea!
I'm gona photograph 15 bands!I got there all nice and early in order to catch the early slots and was greeted with some kinda metal/grunge sex child that was called Shaman Son.. a I-dunno-what-you-call-it-type-of-band-but-they-had-beatles-haircuts Frowning Clouds and slightly less heavy metal (I can say that coz I'm old) Regular John, all were good sets, it's hard to tell since I am there to photograph, I think I have a different experience going to a gig to listen.
Next up was The Gin Club, which were ok (see aove), but I was more impressed with the massive beards a couple of them were sporting. It was about now as the place began to fill up and people started getting really (really) drunk that it became obvious I was going to have real trouble even getting into the same room as the bigger bands, let alone find a good pozzy to take some shots from (move around? forget it!)
Next was the highlight of the night: Ouch My Face! apart from a great name, it was a excellent set, you should check them out, I am very nice and have given you the link to their space. I had wanted to shoot a band called Oh Mercy for a few months and we glad they were on this bill - they played the Gershwin Room (one of three stages that were going on the night - honestly, I felt like a little mouse on a wheel) which, in a nutshell, was way too fucking hot - great show from them though. I pretty much missed Tumbleweed in favour for some more space to take some shots in the Basement and caught the tail end of a party band caleld Alba Varden, I even scored a free CD (take note other bands) and also got to catch up with Spun Rivals who I shot a couple of weeks ago (good guys too). I also caught some other band on the Basement stage, I can't even be fucked going into my phone to see what their name was.
I'm not sure if I was over it or if I just didn't like Paul Dempsey by the time he and his band hit the stage at about 1am. By that stage I really was quite exhausted, deaf and over all the drunk people commenting on my beard - so maybe on a better day I would have liked it a little more. Ask me again if I want to shoot another NYE gig.. go on.. do it. Anyway, I think I got a couple of good shots to share...I shot for these guysI gots more photos here
dis⋅ap⋅point⋅ment [dis-uh-point-muh nt]
noun
Buying white bread at the supermarket, only to find out when you get home that you accidently picked up the wholemeal bread.
well well well.. I am officially blown away.
I got myself a ticket to see the Kitty, Daisy and Lewis from London, England at the Prince Bandroom, St Kilda - here in sunny Melbourne. I thought I'd try my hand at getting a photo pass since I had let the chance go with the place that I usually shoot for, which worked - yay me.
No shit words on a shit blog can describe how good it was - probably the best gig I have seen this year (apart from the Flaming Lips - well, the first 10 minutes of the Flaming Lips and all their razzle-dazzle) It easily stood beside Nick Cave as one of the best I have seen.
I stood there, abusing my 'three song, no flash' rule that was bestowed upon me when I arrived, thinking how great they were, and how sad it was that next time they play here it will be somewhere much much bigger and will suck the atmosphere out of the performance like um.. you know.. something sucking something out of something.. or something.
If you don't check these guys out you are gay.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
No pics from the other two bands coz the night belonged to Kitty, Daisy and Lewis (and their mum and dad! mum OWNED that double bass, fuck man, one of the best pieces of bass playing I have ever seen - after the gig the double bass probably had to have a smoke, but only if mum let it because that double bass was her BITCH)
I have been neglecting writing for this website
I have 3,172 more pics here
now, to the pics...
