Digital Diversion

Saturday was a bit of a surreal day for me. I was covering that night’s Blitzkrieg show in San Jose and had stayed the previous night down there because I had an interview with Marky Ramone on Friday and I didn’t feel like all the driving. I had a lot of time to kill on Saturday, a good portion of which I figured would be spent transcribing the interview (anyone know a good automatic speech-to-text translator that doesn’t require any voice training?). Anyways, I was grabbing the free breakfast in the hotel before hitting the computer and struck up a conversation with a guy named Eduardo in the restaurant. It turns out he was the guitarist for the headlining band, El Tri, from Mexico City. Super nice guy and, when he heard I was there for the show, started regaling me with stories of touring in the U.S. (someone was murdered at their show while they were playing at the Shoreline in Mountain View) and of playing with the Ramones. One of the photographers later told me that El Tri has been around as a band for nearly 40 years. Eduardo didn’t look that old.

The show was held at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in a long concrete and steel warehouse. I was lucky enough to catch the sound check and I could tell right away that this show going to be loud! Apparently there’s usually a lot of down-time at soundcheck but it was pretty cool to get some pictures of the behind-the-scenes view of things.  Later in the day I did an interview with Michale Graves, singer of Blitzkrieg that is now posted on his site.  You can listen to it here.

I was hanging out in the hotel lobby with Michale and Evan before heading to the show and in walks Marky. Despite having spent almost an hour with him the night before for the interview, I was still in awe of his presence. Then he walks right up to me and starts talking about making some edits to the interview and then tells me it was a good interview. Holy crap, I just got a compliment from Marky Ramone! He probably walked away wondering what was wrong with me as I stood there with my mouth hanging open.

You may have already picked up on this, but the odd thing about this show is that it was billed as El Mexicano Rock Fest and Blitzkrieg was playing in between openers Rostros Ocultos (from Guadalajara) and the aforementioned El Tri. I arrived at the show a little late and only caught the end of Rostros Ocultos’ set. The hall was packed and the crowd was going crazy but the whole thing had a great vibe. No accordions or polka music here … Rostros Ocultos were rocking pretty hard and I got some shots that are included in the gallery below.

Blitzkrieg came on and the crowd was really into it. I only got about two minutes of pictures up front before they kicked me out so I ended up watching the rest of the show from the side of the stage. The lighting was surprisingly good but somebody went a little crazy with the smoke machine; while it may look cool from the audience, it makes all your pictures look blurry. Things cleared up a bit towards the end of the set and, all things considered, I still ended up getting some decent shots but I was grateful I was at the rehearsal for those front-facing shots. I’m not sure what this particular crowd was expecting of Blitzkrieg, but I had a bunch of people come up to me back stage asking what I thought of the set and telling me how great they thought they were. I guess since I was one of only a few people backstage (actually in the whole building) that looked like they don’t speak Spanish, they assumed I was with the band. Even Eduardo from El Tri came by to say ‘hi’ and had a big grin on his face from enjoying Blitzkrieg.

Thanks to Xochitl Garcia for the picture!

Once Blitzkrieg ended, Marky and Michale bolted to the van and took off with an aplomb for avoiding mobs that only comes with practice. Since the van was in a restricted area there wasn’t actually a mob, but you wouldn’t have known it to watch those guys move. I was hoping to catch a ride back to the hotel (where my car was parked) with them but I got side-tracked by the guys from Rostros Ocultos who wanted me to be in a picture with them. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. I want a copy of that picture though!  [edit: ask and you shall receive!]  Anyways, I turned around and the van was gone so I hung out with the band who were really interested in seeing my pictures. Turns out that they’ve been around for 24 (or was it 28?) years. I clearly do not know my Mexican rock bands … shame on me.  Hopefully having my picture taken with Rostros Ocultos will give me some cred, though.  They were really nice guys and gave me a CD which I plan spinning later.

My only regret from the day was not sticking around to see El Tri but I had a long drive ahead of me.  Enjoy the pictures and don’t be afraid to leave a comment!

Back to the Regency Ballroom on a Sunday night … this time virus-free. I got there early planning to catch the opening bands only to find that they added a local act that was just finishing up. I ran into them later on and they were excited to have just played their biggest show ever. Nice guys that invited me to their next show. Sorry guys but Sebastapol is a bit of a haul for me … maybe next time you make it to San Francisco.

Taking Dawn and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster were both pretty fun to shoot. Good energy on stage but unfortunately I missed the shot of the night when the singer for Taking Dawn fell off the stage about 10 feet from where I was standing. I felt it and heard it over the music so it couldn’t have felt good. Ah well, I’m guess that that was something he wouldn’t have wanted to be captured for eternity.

My second time shooting Lacuna Coil was a pleasure. They brought their own stage lighting so that made a big difference relative to the other bands. Plus they had an incredible amount of energy on stage. After the requisite three songs, I shot some photos from the side of the stage that turned out pretty good. Such a great live band. I could shoot a whole set and not get bored, the only downside is I have over 500 pictures to sort through.

All That Remains sounded great but shooting them was another story. The singer wore a hat so his face was in shadow the whole time. The lead guitarist wasn’t particularly fast on his feet and only had two moves, one of which was the cliche hair toss. Sure, he had hair that any woman would die for but, seriously dude, give it a rest. The second was some sort of crazy kung fu move that I put a shot of in the gallery; it’s the picture with the bass player laughing in the background. The camera seemed to like the bass player the best … lots of movement and facial expressions.

Click a thumbnail to enlarge …

Could there be a worse day of the week to have a show than Sunday.  If I wasn’t covering it for Crypt Magazine, I probably would have kept my flu-ridden body at home and rested.  While the Regency Ballroom was no where near sold out, it was a good show except for Soulfly’s abrupt ending to their rather short 65 minute set.  I honestly can’t remember the last time that I went to a show (regardless of the day of the week) that ended before 11 pm.  Given that the schedule that I saw showed Soulfly playing until 11:15, I can only guess that something was afoot with the band but that’s pure speculation.

I arrived at the Regency Ballroom at 6 pm for a scheduled interview with Tommy Victor of Prong (you can read it here).  All of the dressing rooms were occupied so one of the staffers took us up to the third floor of the building in the elevator which, according to him, is the only manual elevator in San Francisco still being used.  I never even knew there was a third floor in the building and it turned out to be the space used by Freemasons for their rituals.  The photo to the left doesn’t do justice to the creepiness.  The stage in this room still had the original hand-painted back drops from when the building was built  over a hundred years ago.  One-by-one, the staffer lowered scenes from hell and Tommy was more than happy to pose for a few pictures.

After the interview, I shot opening acts Mutiny Within and Cattle Decapitation.  I find it’s always good to warm up and test the lighting before the bands I’m covering come on; best to make mistakes early on so I can adjust.  For the most part the stage was back-lit throughout the entire show.  There were plenty of lights pointed at the stage but they were rarely on.  One of these days I’m going to ask a lighting guy why they do that.  I suspect it gives the band a more ominous look from the crowd but often times it looks like they’re just playing in the dark.   I ended up a taking a bunch of black and white pictures which turn out much better than color when there’s no light or when there’s an abundance of red stage lighting (which seems to really get amplified in color photos).  I think they came out pretty well.

The people up front on the rail always crack me up and it’s always something different.  There were two enthusiastic guys that wanted me to take pictures of their Soulfly tattoos (I’ll spare you).  Another woman  started asking me how to use her camera (which she didn’t have with her).  Anyways, here are some pictures that you won’t see anywhere else …

With TSOL’s band members scattered across three states, the band only manages a handful of dates each year, most of them along the West Coast.  This is one of those bands where all of the members have day jobs so you never know how long they’ll keep going so I always make a point to support them when they pass through town.

This night, they were playing the world-famous 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley.  Never heard of it?  Imagine a punk rock club started by hippies and that’s what Gilman is all about.  Gilman Street is run as a non-profit and staffed by volunteers and will someday be one of the last all-ages clubs around because they don’t serve alcohol.  This place is on such a shoestring that the name of the club is the address hence no need for a sign.  In fact, they never took down the sign from the previous business.  Still not ringing a bell?  Many Bay Area bands (such as Green Day) have gotten their start here.  After a collective 7 years in the Bay Area, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that this was my first time here. (continue reading…)