Red Riders @ FBi 94.5
It’s been a pretty great weekend, musically. In contrast to the mind-bendingly loud electronica of Seekae today, on Saturday afternoon I went to see Sydney band Red Riders play a tiny, semi-acoustic supporter gig for FBi 94.5 at Troy Horse rehearsal studios in Redfern.
Thirty competition winners crammed into the squishy Acca Dacca rehearsal room for the set, which was being specially recorded for FBi’s live performance show The Live Feed.
iPhone Landscapes
A few different places I’ve snapped with my iPhone while out and about.
Baffi & Mo
Baffi & Mo is a cheeky little cafe tucked away in Redfern. We checked it out after reading about it in Time Out magazine’s guide to Sydney’s Best Breakfasts, and it’s become an instant favourite. You can read more lashings of praise over on Lee Tran Lam’s blog, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being Hungry.
Jens Lekman Backyard Show
Early last week, a friend tipped me off that Jens Lekman was planning on playing a backyard show somewhere in Sydney’s inner west on the weekend – he’d announced it on his website newsletter smalltalk, and apparently there were limited tickets available on request. Following the email trail, I was lucky enough to be able to attend, and enjoy one of the most relaxed shows I’ve seen in ages.
Jens played with Geoff O’Connor of the Crayon Fields and Sly Hats to an audience of about seventy people, sprawled in the saturday afternoon sun. The event turned out to be a birthday celebration for Simon Mingo, the resident of the house, who had flown Jens and Geoff up from Melbourne especially for the occasion.
BRAG // Wayne Coyne
My photo of the Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne is featured on the cover of this week’s issue of Sydney music street press BRAG magazine.
Editor Kirsty Brown and I visited Wayne in his hotel room when he was here on tour a couple of months ago to do the interview and shoot, and I was pretty nervous as the word was that he didn’t particularly like having his photo taken. Happily, that turned out to not be the case – he couldn’t have been nicer, and we had a great time covering the room in confetti & streamers.
It took many attempts to get the timing right on all the different elements in this shot – there would be either too much or not enough confetti, or Wayne’s facial expression wasn’t quite right, or both. I ended up only getting one shot that worked perfectly, and in hindsight, I’m amazed I got anything usable at all! He was a great sport, and tried lots of different ideas to get the shot working. In the end, we abandoned the mini confetti cannons in favour of just throwing the mess over the top of him from the side, which worked a treat.
Los Angeles
Infinite sunshine, drool-worthy Mexican food, street festivals, endless cups of coffee – for the last two weeks, I’ve been soaking up the culture of Venice Beach, Santa Monica and the surrounding areas in Los Angeles, California.
I was there on business, so most of my time was spent trekking up and down the freeways and working out of the Animal Logic office, but I was free on the weekends to venture out and explore.
Morgan and Jay work in the Animal Logic LA office.
Orly Olivier, an LA-based photographer – we checked out her amazing polaroid exhibition in Silverlake.
It took us an hour of waiting in line to get our hands on one of Pink’s hotdogs.
Pushing my way through the throng down at the Abbot Kinney Street Festival, I was pretty stoked to discover Soko performing live – I’d missed her show at the Oxford Art Factory last Christmas, so this was an unexpected treat.
Harry Perry, legendary rollerblading guitar player of Venice Beach.
From a work perspective, one of the highlights of my trip was meeting legendary makeup & prosthetic effects wizards Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr, and getting a tour of their workshop. This massive sculpt of an Alien fighting a Predator was part of a jaw-dropping display room next to their foyer featuring highlights of their past work.
A friendly local.
Even Books #10
MOUNTAIN DREAM TAROT & JEAN DUBUFFET
Shenanigans at the Even Books shindig last week – boozing, tarot readings, life drawing, polaroid photo-boothing, and a performance by terrific Sydney band No Art.
Decoder Ring
Decoder Ring. These guys pretty much blew me away on friday night. I’m a total sucker for ethereal, post-rock soundtrack-style tunes.
[Shot for The Vine]
Bridezilla
Sydney band Bridezilla, supporting Decoder Ring at the Metro Theatre last friday. [Shot for The Vine]
The Flaming Lips
Here’s a bunch of snaps from the Flaming Lips show at the Hordern Pavilion.
It’s evident from the photos, but this was a particularly frenetic and fun show to be in the pit for – the sheer amount of stuff flying back and forth, the music, crowd going mad, people on stage in costumes, crazy screen graphics, giant bubbles etc – it was an overwhelming sensory experience, which got even more nuts towards the end of the second song when Wayne Coyne turned the smoke machine on the photographers and we were stumbling around, bumping into each other, snapping wildly in all directions.
I was still finding confetti in my camera bag and jacket pockets for days.
Ang Lee
Last night’s Popcorn Taxi event was a particularly exciting one for me – one of my favourite directors, Ang Lee dropped by to chat with At The Movies host David Stratton about his career, and new film Taking Woodstock.
He was a true gentleman, and a very thoughtful, frank speaker – highlights included a 10-minute response to an audience question about the explicit sex in his last film Lust, Caution where he spoke at length about his embarrassment and difficulty planning the scenes; and a straight-shooter impression of his experience working with Heath Ledger on Brokeback Mountain (a shy, nervous actor who required a lot of attention).
To top it off, he was also kind enough to let me snap a quick portrait of him backstage just before the Q&A started.
[Waiting backstage as David Stratton introduces him to the crowd]
[The Q&A]
Baby X
These are some shots I took recently for Baby X, an indie band from the Blue Mountains. The pics were taken in my friend Tamara’s old attic in Surry Hills.
I decided go Strobist, and use off-camera flashes, a shoot-through umbrella and a little softbox. It would have been great to use more professional studio equipment, but the space was so small it was often hard to keep even the small, portable gear that I had out of shot.
The band are playing a MUM gig at World Bar on the 25th of July, check ‘em out.
SAVE FBi THE FINAL FLING
The last FBi 94.5 fundraiser for June hit the Metro again last saturday night, book-ending the month long series of shows.
Dappled Cities, Palace Of Fire, Midnight Juggernauts, Bluejuice, and a ton of other bands and DJs played; everyone danced and sang and had a fantastic time, all in the name of pulling the station out of the fires of debt. They still need help though, so sign up and become a supporter. Do it!
* Muscles
* SPOD
