MuteMath (San Francisco, CA)

MuteMath performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco

Friday night (October 9th) I was fortunate enough to shoot one of my favorite bands, MuteMath, at the Fillmore in San Francisco. I knew vaguely what I was up against (they're known for having some of the most intense lighting shows and stage antics), but there were a few things that I did not expect:

1) 4 drum pads up against the back of the stage, on which Darren played "No Response" while standing with his back to the crowd.

2) Darren floating his kick drum up on the crowd, then proceeding to climb up on top and stand on it while the crowd held him

3) Darren jumping from said kick drum all the way back to the stage

4) Almost getting decapitated by a stray cymbal that was not fastened to the stand.

The show was amazing and needless to say, I got a lot of killer shots. Enjoy!

MuteMath performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco

MuteMath performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco

Paul Meany of MuteMath performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco

Darren King of MuteMath performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco

Darren King of MuteMath performs at the Fillmore in San Francisco

Happy Body, Slow Brain

As I edit through thousands of wedding photos from the last month or so, I've taken a few gigs lately for promotional use (as you may have noticed). I enjoy these because It lets me be super creative.

If you travel in the rock music circles, you may have heard of the band Taking Back Sunday. In fact, if you view my posts from last month, you'll see that I shot for them twice during their tour with Weezer and Blink 182.

Before they headed to Hawaii, we had organized a shoot to happen upon their return. Not for TBS, but for a side project called Happy Body, Slow Brain which consists of TBS members Matt Fazzi and Isaac Bolivar.

I picked Isaac up yesterday and we headed to Fazzi's house about an hour away. On the freeway, a red gas can was sliding across the lanes, having just been dropped from a vehicle. I wasn't able to swerve safely, and the car in front of me went over the tank without any problems. So I decided to do the same.

Without speaking, Isaac and I watched the can slide under my car, followed by a loud 'thud', and then prolonged scraping on the asphalt. All I could do was laugh and say "Dammit", to which Isaac says "I hope it was empty." Right on cue, we start smelling gasoline.

Obviously we made it out alive. But it was an interesting start to the day.

After a morning/afternoon of playing with Mac software, eating breakfast food, and listening to the band Self on an iPod connected to a stereo, we decided "hey, maybe we should get pictures done" before Matt's red-eye flight back to NYC.

Here are some of those from yesterday:

New Montgomery Photo Shoot

My good friends in the band New Montgomery have just wrapped up a new EP, so I took them to San Jose to do some promo shots in a studio there. You can hear their music here:

www.newmontgomery.net

Taking Back Sunday (w/Weezer and Blink 182)

With all the wedding posts lately, you may have forgotten that I shoot for a lot of musical acts as well. Mostly around the Bay Area, with some occasional trips down to Hollywood.

A good friend of mine plays guitar for the band Taking Back Sunday. He got me in to shoot at Live105's BFD event earlier this year. Other members of TBS were impressed enough with my work, they I was given photo passes to shoot this past Saturday and Sunday in Sacramento and Mountain View, respectively.

It was a blast! ...a lot of fun to see Isaac rocking his heart out at Sleep Train Amplitheatre... after which I drove him home to the Bay Area, and then we all met up again at Shoreline Amplitheatre the following evening. Weezer put on an excellent show as well, and Blink 182 certainly was entertaining.

Sunday night's show was drenched in rain, which only added to the fun (except for making sure my equipment stayed dry). There was a lot of security that night too, so I had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it down to the stage with my gear. But all worked out just fine :)

Matt Rubano performs with Taking Back Sunday in Mountain View, CA

Adam Lazzara performs at Shoreline Amplitheater 

Matt Fazzi and Isaac Bolivar perform with Taking Back Sunday

Isaac Bolivar performs at Shoreline Amplitheater with Taking Back Sunday

Isaac Bolivar and Adam Lazzara perform with Taking Back Sunday

This wedding is on FIRE!

The title is only half-joking.

I'll explain: My brother is a videographer in Los Angeles. We did a wedding together on August 29th (first time working together on one) for John and Becky. It was beautifully set in the hills north of LA, and everything was ready to go.

Then, if you happened to see the news, a wildfire spread through the hills, covering 100,000 acres by the day of the wedding. Ash was raining on my brother's car, and we had to keep the air on "recycle" because the atmosphere got too smoky.

It's 1:30pm... out having lunch... need to be on site by 4:30. We get a call saying "wedding may be canceled, stand-by".

Long story short: the couple was able to evacuate the wedding site, find a new location, set up tables, sound, decorations, food, and get the word out to 110 guests... all in about 3 hours. Everyone showed up on time, and everything was ready to go at a gorgeous ranch tucked in the hills.

The bride and groom were calm, and all smiles and laughter throughout the whole day. I was extremely impressed. Congratulations John & Becky!

KKIQ Wedding

Mikey & Jodi were my contest-winner couple from KKIQ's "My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding" contest. Probably the shortest ceremony I've ever seen (4 minutes, maybe), after which we went around town to get some shots in, and stopped at a Starbucks before heading back to the reception (they met at a Starbucks).

The rest of the night was filled with dinner, dancing, LEGOs, and more dancing. My job was done around 10pm or so, but I was dragged from the bar by the bride and groom to come dance until about midnight. I just decided to crash at the Marriott rather than drive home. Super fun evening!

Northern California Winery Wedding!

So I shoot for a Bay Area band called Pine & Battery, who you may have heard on KFOG radio if you live around here, and I was hired to shoot AJ's wedding on August 9th. A 3 hour drive up to Ukiah, out in the middle of nowhere, with rolling hills and vineyards everywhere. It proved to be a hot hot day, but an extremely fun event nonetheless!