Skin Deep at the Sagebrush Cantina | Calabasas, CA | Music Photography

2/15/15
It was a beautiful thing to be outside enjoying the sunshine in February.  These west coasters have figured that whole winter thing out!  My west coast fam took me on an adventure to Sagebrush Cantina to watch Skin Deep get the afternoon crowd up and rocking to their mix of just about everything.  They are a cover band that pretty much spans all the decades in their musical library.

Blackwater Jukebox | The Spare Room, LA| Music Photography

2/6/15

Seeing a new band makes me giddy. I love not knowing what I am about to experience. I feel the same way about new venues and this was going to be both of those joys. The Spare Room is located inside The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which was the site of the very first Academy Awards back in 1929 and apparently Marilyn Monroe and Errol Flynn still hang out and do a little haunting on occasion. I didn’t see any ghosts but I sure did hear some great music in an awesome space. The Spare Room is a splendid cocktail lounge with two lanes for bowling and full of welcoming couches and chairs. I was digging on the ambience of the wooden paneling and the beautiful lighting when Blackwater Jukebox started rocking out and then I was instantly pulled into their revelry. I was instantly taken back to when I stumbled into Mehanata on Ludlow Street in NYC sometime in 2000 &?one late, late night or early, early morn, depending on how you want to look at it and discovered the incredible sound of Gogol Bordello.

Blackwater Jukebox has that energy and that thrill, the only thing lacking was the crowd from Mehanata. The crowd at The Spare Room was lame and somehow missing what was going on right in front of them. How could they not see this music mischief happening? How could they not hear the magic of this voodoo circus??? Those people who refuse to hear and see awesome are the reason we cannot have nice things and The Spare Room cut the set short due to the lame people who wanted to sip cocktails in silence. I just don’t get it. Blackwater Jukebox rocks and I want to see them again. Soon. I need a full set of their sounds to be bouncing around in my head. They are fucking awesome.

People’s Blues of Richmond Video, RVA | Music Photography

I was supposed to go home and pack for my jaunt across the country to transplant myself on the warmer coast for a few months… I’m supposed to do a lot of things. Sometimes I do…  and sometimes I don’t. I couldn’t just continue on my way home and pack when I got the call letting me know that the first video shoot for People’s Blues of Richmond was happening in Richmond that night. I would go and stay for an hour. I could be strict about that. I could enforce that for myself. About 15 minutes after arriving, I knew that I wasn’t going to be leaving in an hour to start packing, shit was happening, shit was about to happen and well, shit is far more important than packing ‘stuff.’  Stuff can be replaced, shit happening can’t.

& shit is happening with People’s Blues of Richmond. They have signed with Madison House and word of their prowess is quickly spreading. & it is rightfully deserved.  This band.  THIS band.  Seriously.  Damn.  They ARE my favorite. I have my favorite bands…there is a long list, duh. Lots of bands that I love. But this band. PBR has that it, when the music, the performance, the players, the determination and the drive come together to create something truly electric. They are the band that feeds my obsession for music photography.

They grabbed me the very first time that I saw them play at a packed The Camel years ago in Richmond, VA. Their show is gritty. Their show is raw. Their show is dangerous. Watching a PBR show is a pulse racing, elevating experience because you never know when something is going to explode, cuz something IS going to explode but you don’t know when they are going to catapult over the safety line of life. They start every show with a climax and have somehow found a way to sustain the fervor and excitement with which they play till the very last note. Till beyond the very last note. Fucking love this band.

get ready to feel the power of ‘gone gone gone’ from PBR directed by Julian Ashbee of Barking Iron, visuals by Dustin Klein of VIDEOmetry, and lighting by Alex McArthur of McArthur Lighting.

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and I ended up staying way later and packed my car in 45 minutes with what I thought I would need in California.  Turns out I didn’t do that great a job with packing as I somehow forgot that I would need stuff like clothing for a west coast winter. All was okay as my camera and computer made it along with my Forever Lazy. Gone Gone Gone was a night not to be missed.