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One of the funnest events of the year, this weekend was Baltimore-based label A389′s anniversary party, as well as the last local show for veteran hardcore band Pulling Teeth. Such a fun night, full of a long list of great bands and so many old friends (most of whom were old dudes like myself). Thanks to Dom of A389 and everyone at the fest and Sonar for making an amazing night. Apparently Mike Riley of Pulling Teeth rocked so hard he literally collapsed a lung! Get well soon, sir.

Click through to the photos below, there are a ton more, including an unspeakable mystery from the men’s room.

In the grand tradition I’ve been following for the last few years (see 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007), every year I try and make a photo set of my favorite shots from the year. It’s a good exercise, I recommend it for all creative types, it lets you see how your work changes and grows over time.

This year, I am doing it a little differently… I am breaking it up into this post, which is my Top 15 Concert Photos of 2011, and another post of my Top 12 Photos (non-concert) of 2011 (check back tomorrow for that one). Cheating, maybe, but shooting more non-concert stuff is a goal of mine, so I decided to break them up. I’m also going to try and write a little about each… so here goes!

In Alphabetical Order:

BB King at the Birchmere. I shot this on New Year’s Day, I believe. Was pretty happy to get a chance to see him play, and I managed to get really close, which is unusual at the Birchmere, because many showgoers rushed to get close when he came out, so I went up to. Never seen that before there.

The Black Keys at Virgin Fest. Kind of a classic shot, but well-executed, I think. Not the biggest fan of these guys, but they got the crowd super-excited and were one of a very few actual rock bands playing this year.

Celebration at 2640 Space. One of my favorite bands in town, this was an amazing show, the 2640 church was decorated with floating clouds and specially lit with ambient lights and projectors… really great experience. It was VERY hard to shoot, however, and I got this out of 100% total luck, going back during the last song to snap a few from the crowd. It ended up being published several times.

Coroner at Maryland Death Fest. Again a bit of a standard shot, and one I barely remember taking. MDF is (by far) the most fun and amazing cultural event in Baltimore, even if you don’t like metal, but it can be grueling… so many bands over 4 days. This one just works for me.

Darkest Hour at 9:30 Club. I used to love this band, and they are still great live. This was a tough shoot, pitch black in the photo pit, bad lighting, stage lights strobing… we were given little instruction about rules but I saw the other photographers switching to flash, so I did too. This was the first shot I took and by far the best from the show.

Deep Sleep at the Ottobar. What to say about Tony Pence but that it’s impressive that a man of his advanced years can both rock pants that tight AND do a split.

Iceage at Golden West. This was chosen by SPIN magazine as one of their top 10 best live photos of the year. It also led to me getting a soundcheck (two page photo spread) in SPIN, my first. Pretty awesome to fufill what for me was a life goal since I was in high school.

Crowdsurfing with pizza at an Integrity Show. A one in a million capture at last year’s A389 Fest. This guy is crowdsurfing on top of 100s of kids, eating a slice. I can’t believe I managed to catch this guy’s finest hour. I salute you, man.

Ke$ha at Patriot Center. Ke$ha surprised me… WAY better than I expected. I like this shot because it’s different than the normal ones you see of her, or pop icons like her. I submitted it not expecting them to go for it, but it ran on the front page of Style! A nice surprise.

Mana at Patriot Center. I shot a lot a Patriot Center this year, probably because Kyle didn’t feel like driving out there. Mana were pretty ridiculous live, sort of like a Latino U2. They had more lights than I had ever seen at a concert before, and the entire set was wall to wall unironic huge rock ballads. Pretty fun.

Moby at DC Massive. This was a frustrating shoot because we were supposed to have really good access, but then we had really bad access. So I couldn’t get on side stage, or anything else… but sometimes when that happens, it’s good because you challenge yourself to think beyond the standard shots. Moby was behind this huge console so you couldn’t see his hands or equipment, and he had all these laser lights, so I decided to play around with what I had to work with. Pretty happy with the result.

Odd Future at U St Music Hall. These guys. Wow, this was a crazy shoot. This was the first or second night of their first major tour, they had no idea what to expect. Tyler exclaimed loudly “man, I fucking LOVE playing shows!”, and their exuberance and excitement were palpable. They also hazed me pretty hard when I got to the shoot, which was during their sound check, making fun of me, calling me names, etc. After awhile though, they settled down and realized I was just doing my job, which was nice. Cool to see young stars on the cusp, still visibly excited by playing music.

Patti Smith at Virgin Fest. Have to admit, never thought I would see her. Of all the bands I saw this year, she was just about the ONLY ONE who had anything vaguely political or rabble-rousing to say from stage. Great show, even though 80% of the kids in the crowd didn’t care about what she was saying, or perhaps didn’t even know who she was.

Skream & Benga at DC Massive. Another shot created out of necessity at not having access. I love the stillness in this one, in what was NOT a still situation. Very hard to get this through walls of fog and strobing lights/lasers. But I think it came out well.

Tuneyards at Red Palace. One of my favorite shows this year, I had never heard her before this, but she put on such a good performance and has so much stage presence. She creates loops live, with instruments, pedals, and her voice, then her and her band accompany them. I imagine no two shows are alike… really fun.

If you want to buy any of these as prints, just post in the comments or contact me, they are all available.

 

Shot Lady Alma for the Washington Post at Blues Alley. Great, intimate little venue in Georgetown, if you have never been. Go check out the Exorcist Steps then see a show! Lady Alma was great, this was one of those shows I probably wouldn’t have gone to on my own, but had a good time. She was full of energy and spark, and was determined to get the crowd going strong too.

• See more photos from this show in my January Shows photo set.
• Read the Washington Post review.

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I shot these with Dan in his house in… 2009? Wow. Don’t know why I never posted these. These were for XLR8R Magazine, which no longer exists in printed form (RIP). The fabric in the background is the fabric that was used (he had it hand-made) for the tent that is on the cover of Bromst (which was photographed by the lovely & talented Baltimore photographer Frank Hamilton).

See more photos from this session here.

Here’s the XLR8R layout:

Slow month, due to the holidays/traveling! I only shot FIVE shows, some kind of record for me:

- Nadastrom & Scottie B @ Red Maple
- Daybreak reunion @ Golden West
- Art Department, Other Colors, Dave Fell, Quiet Hooves @ Golden West
- Dan Deacon, Celebration, Matmos @ Ottobar
- Beirut @ 9:30 Club

You can see photos from all these shows in my December 2011 Shows flickr set!

 

 

Awesome show, from beginning to end. 3 very different, yet complimentary Baltimore music groups, all on one bill! A great weekend for the Ottobar, who also hosted a sold out Wye Oak show the following night… anyway…

I have seen Matmos several times, and they are always different. This night, they chose to create a droning/grooving sort of atmosphere with a Caribbean (to my uninformed ears) feeling type of beat, very noddable and swayable. One of their songs got pretty minimal industrial, again to my uniformed ears, and I would SWEAR that on one song they used the same sample as Ministry does on one of their “Land of Rape And Honey” era records… but maybe I am just a goth.

Celebration remains one of my absolute favorite bands to see live in Baltimore… I love their old material and their newer stuff is growing on me more and more now that I have seen it played live a few times. Their set has morphed into only having one or two songs from the “The Modern Tribe” era, and they are still a treat to watch.

Dan Deacon used this show to introduce his new five piece ensemble (who I have posted about here recently) , and I really enjoyed the additional instrumentation. I think it worked best on the newer songs, ones that I assume were written for this group, but even on the classic Deacon songs, I think they added alot, especially the dual percussion. Live drums really can create a feeling like nothing else. The crowd seemed to agree, they went CRAZY, which is too be expected, and it was a really really fun set. Somehow I managed to stick it out the whole time at the front… a bit of a while since I managed that, but I was having a blast!

See the rest of the photos here!

November 2011 Shows I shot:

- Avey Tare @ U St Music Hall
- Marketa Irglova @ 9:30 Club
- Thee Oh Sees & Total Control @ Sonar
- CMA Songwriters Series @ LoC
- Meshell Ndegeocello @ Birchmere
- Dean & Britta @ National Gallery of Art
- Screaming Females & Roomrunner @ Golden West
- Thou @ Sonar
- Natural Child & Tremors @ Golden West
- Shelby Lynn @ Birchmere
- Chris Young @ Fillmore
- Premonition 13 @ Sonar
- Purling Hiss @ Sonar

You can find photos from all of these shows here, in my my November 2011 Shows set.

Last week, I went to an (I think) all-local Unregistered Nurse show at Golden West, featuring : The Art Department, Other Colors, Dave Fell, and Quiet Hooves. I had only ever seen The Art Department before, and this was their first show in awhile – perhaps after some sort of hiatus (great journalism, I know). Of the other bands, I though that Quiet Hooves were particularly interesting.

I am at my parents for the holidays, so stay tuned for many updates with photos from the last few months (and perhaps beyond…)

• See the rest of the photos from this show (including handsome Dan O in repose) in my December 2011 Shows set.

Saturday was something I thought I would never see… the reunion of Baltimore band Daybreak. They were a late 90s/early 2000s power violence band who put out records on Reptilian Records and Robodog Records (now Robotic Empire). I never saw them, but their records made their way to Baton Rouge by way of Page 99′s distro table and the Robodog’s Geocities-era website. Me and my friends appreciated the music, extreme but approachable and with musicianship, and even more, we appreciated the humorous piss-takes at “the scene” and the feeling of a crew of punks that we got from their record art and inserts… I thought it was cool that there was enough people who liked this music there to even HAVE a crew!

Anyway, somehow, someway, 10+ years later and I am friends with alot of the people involved with the making of these records, and they are all great and I am thankful they decided to do this reunion show so me and others had the chance to finally see this band! It was a fun night, and for a good cause – to help pay for a friend of the band’s cancer-related medical bills.

• See all the Daybreak reunion photos here!

This was a lot of fun to shoot, 4 stages, 10,000 or so dance music fans, tons of lights and costumes and dancers and booze and everything else! In the full set, you will find photos of: Skream & Benga, Moby, Diplo, Tittsworth, Scott Henry, Armand Van Helden, Zedd, and lots and lots of fans.

• See the rest of the Massive photos on my flickr!
• Read the Washington Post review.

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I shot the CMA Songwriter’s Series at the Library of Congress. It was an intimate show where some top country songwriters – the guys who write the songs for the stars – got a chance to shine, tell stories about their songs, and have the chance to perform them along side stars like Clint Black and Patty Loveless.

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Great show the other day at Sonar, courtesy of Unregistered Nurse. Australia’s Total Control (featuring at least one member of Eddy Current Suppression Ring) and California’s Thee Oh Sees.

• Check out all the photos here.

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!

   

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.