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Shot Ms Lynn for the Washington Post at her show last week at The Birchmere. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she was touring with just her and a guitar, no glitz, no band.

• See more photos of Shelby Lynn in my November Shows photoset.

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Caught one of my favorite metal bands, Thou, the other day at the Talking Head Club. They played later than I thought, but always great and they ended with a cover of Black Sabbath’s Sabotage Into The Void, which was really, really awesome. Great to see some old friends too.

I got out of there as fast as possible and made my way to the Unregistered Nurse show at the Golden West, just in time to catch the last couple of songs by new baltimore band Tremors 2. Amazingly bad/good/bad/unsure name, but they were really good and lively to watch. I managed to get a few snaps. Then Natural Child played, who are a slowed down southern garage/punk band who are really catchy and fun, most of their songs have more than a hint of humor about them and the dudes in the band are really chill as well. Go check them out, they seem to always be on tour.

• See the rest of the photos here!

Last week I was in a photo show that was a part of DC Fotoweek 2011, BYT’s Young at Heart 2. It was a great time, including slideshows and Q&A with 6 amazing professional photographers (Joshua Cogan, Victoria F. Gaitán, Douglas Sonders, Scott Suchman, Nicole Wolf, and Marcus Yam) – you can see some examples of their work here.

The show also featured slideshows of various BYT photographers, including myself. CLICK HERE to see a slideshow of my work that was on display. And here is the original youtube of my slideshow I made to remember what was in the show, it’s of worse quality, but you get the music that was being DJed so you can “feel the vibe”!

   

I shot country western artist Chris Young at the Fillmore. Nice room, this was my first time there. Young was certainly a pleasant, fan-oriented artist, even if his music isn’t really my thing.

• Read the Washington Post review here.
• See more photos in my November Shows set.

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Unregistered Nurse brought Puerto Rican band Davila 666 to the Golden West on Halloween weekend… I am not sure if I had seen them before, but they were really fun live, full of energy, multi-person singing/yelling parts… they put on a good show!

• See more photos (mostly of people goofing off and smoking cigarettes) from Halloween weekend!

I caught two cool shows in the same building this Sunday, Premonition 13 (the new band of doom metal legend Scott “Wino” Weinreich), and Philadelphia’s Purling Hiss. Sadly, neither show was especially well attended, but it was great to see two really incredible musicians at work… Wino is, of course, a much-heralded guitar player, and his seminal bands St Vitus and the Obsessed (along with The Hidden Hand, and his solo albums) have won him countless fans in the metal underground… but Purling Hiss’ Mike Polizze, who I don’t know much about, is also an incredible guitar player. Dana Murphy from Unregistered Nurse Booking first turned me on to this band, check them out if they play near you… really excellent.

• See more photos of Wino here.
• See more photos of Purling Hiss here.

 

Tonight Baton Rouge doom metal band THOU is playing at Sonar/the Talking Head, along with Black Tusk and (members of Torche) Monstro. You should go, if you even have a passing interest in metal. I have been a fan for some time, above are some photos I have taken of them over the years…

Thou is one of the most interesting underground metal bands right now – their music is really dark yet not theatrically so, and they are very accomplished musicians that manage to make doom metal seem very fresh without adding disparate elements into it… they have consistently toured (at generally very affordable prices), made most (all?) of their music available for free on their web site, and strive to make sure all of their physical media is up to high standards of audio quality and visual fidelity. They have released albums both diy and on larger labels like Southern Lord. And tonight, they are in Baltimore! Come out!

My photo of Ice Age at the Golden West in Baltimore, in the November issue of SPIN (the Das Racist cover). On newsstands now. Pretty stoked to have a photo from a punk show at my friend’s restaurant in there… and to be featured in such a great magazine for music photography!

• Buy a print of this photo (without all the text) here.
• See more shots from this same Ice Age show on flickr.

The other week, I checked out Trans Am playing the entirety of their FUTUREWORLD record, along with local stalwarts Dope Body and the blissfully droney (and foggy) The Psychic Paramount. An all around great show, in the club room at Sonar, but to me the best part of the evening were The Psychic Paramount, who I had somehow never seen before… a great set, a wall of noise, feedback, fog, light, riffs… really good experience. Check them out.

• Check out the rest of the photos from this show!

 

Last month to celebrate the birthday of local booker extraordinaire Dana Murphy (of Unregistered Nurse Booking), Pissed Jeans played a crazy show at the Golden West… complete with bottles of champagne, drag queens handing out cupcakes and shots, and plenty of other craziness.

• Click here to see the rest of the mayhem!