July 20, 2007

New Fugazi Photo Book From Glen E. Friedman

Filed under: photography,rock — sparkrobot @ 3:19 pm

Dischord news reveals the release of Keep Your Eyes Open: The Fugazi Photographs of Glen E Friedman“.

“The 112-page, approx. 9″x11” hardcover book presents the best of Friedman’s unparalleled photographic documentation of Fugazi’s members in almost 200 color and black & white images captured by Friedman onstage and off between 1986 and Fugazi’s last U.S. concert in 2002.

Available for preorder from Dischord Records. Cool.

July 13, 2007

Boss Martians Tonight at Cans

Filed under: rock,tacoma — sparkrobot @ 10:10 am

Friday night, (yes, that’s tonight) The Boss Martians are playing at the Cans grand opening downtown Tacoma, 100 S. 9th Street. You could get lucky. From what I gather, Miller Beer is giving away a Jeep… though I’m fuzzy on those details.

Boss Martians
Photo by, well, me.

Rather than try to come up with some fancy to say while I’m supposed to be working, I’m just going to quote Chris here:

Evan, a UPS alum, has been a pal for a long time, and is no doubt the most entertaining fool on stage. These guys are an amazing power-pop band. No openers, and they go on around 10.

I’ll try to be the most entertaining fool with a camera. These guys always put on a good show. If you’re in Tacoma, you should come down and have a can of beer.

June 29, 2007

Modest Mouse, Frame by Frame

Filed under: photography,rock,video — sparkrobot @ 8:03 am

Stop motion Modest Mouse video:

“Myself and a couple have friends have entered the above into the Modest Mouse video competition. Using green screen footage provided by the band we cut a simple music video. We then degraded the images and printed out each frame sequentially. (all 4133 of them) We then nailed each “shot” of 50-100 posters to various structures and posts. Then using a digital SLR camera with a long exposure we frame by frame shot each poster. Oh, and theres a little video projection (again, frame by frame on the SLR) just to mix it up. There is no compositing, no shortcuts, just lots of blood, sweat and tears, and a huge Kinkos bill!”…. Max

via photojojo, via woostercollective.

June 6, 2007

Georgetown Music Festival 2007

Filed under: photography,rock,seattle,tacoma — sparkrobot @ 12:19 am

The Upside Down from Portland at the Georgetown Music Festival in Seattle, WA

I was able to attend both dates of the Georgetown Music Festival in the Georgetown neighborhood up in Seattle last weekend. 47 bands on 4 stages. The two indoor stages at Jules Maes provided the typical conundrum of taking photographs in absolutely horrible lighting conditions. Ouside however, the sun was in full force. Consequently, a lot of the photos from the two outdoor stages turned out pretty well. After reviewing the work from Saturday, it occurred to me a circular polarizer filter would be a good choice. Sunday’s photos as a result were a lot richer as a result. This gets chalked up as learning while living, and taking photos along the way.

Check out the photos of the Georgetown Music Festival 2007 on Flickr.

“This isn’t about Tacoma, what gives?”

Tacoma needs a festival like this in a big, bad way. So the burning question is, who’s putting it on?

June 5, 2007

No Direction, Period

Filed under: rock — sparkrobot @ 9:01 pm

Evidently, Bob Dylan penned every pop song, well, ever.

May 24, 2007

Carrie Akre Photos

Filed under: photography,rock,tacoma — sparkrobot @ 12:48 pm

Carrie AkreI’ve put up some photos of Carrie Akre and her band from last Saturday’s show at Jazzbones. The band was Carrie Akre (Hammerbox, Goodness) on guitar & piano, Martin Lund – bass, Jared Clifton (Radio Nationals) on guitar and Mark Pickerel (Screaming Trees, The Dark Fantastic) on drums.

May 13, 2007

A Rock Haiku

Filed under: art,photography,rock,tacoma — sparkrobot @ 11:45 am

Center of the stage
Secret to longevity
Being right up front

I found this scene at a benefit show at the Swiss Pub last Sunday, May 6th. The event was a fundraiser entitled “Fight Fistula!” and was arranged to raise money for education and efforts toward the erradication of Fistula worldwide. While I didn’t happen to catch his name, he was right up front dancing and a big hit with the ladies.

The band on stage is The Fucking Eagles from Tacoma. Though I missed some of the bands, I’ve posted several galleries of bands that performed that evening to Live Rock Photos.

One of the themes for issue JPG magazine’s issue 11 is “Are You Ready to Rock?”. Well, actually yes. Yes I am. I’ve submitted this photograph as my contribution to be considered by the community. If you’ve got a few seconds, head over to JPG magazine site and vote for this photo: Yeah, It Rocks! if you please. Registration is required to vote, but I promise you, with only 5 fields, the signup form isn’t all that intimidating. Thanks in advance for your support.

More information about Fistula

Obstetric fistula is a devastating childbirth injury caused by days of unrelieved obstructed labor that can easily be avoided through Caesarian section delivery – an option often unavailable to women in developing and third-world countries. In as high as 90 percent of fistula cases, the baby dies and the woman is left with chronic incontinence.

Sufferers are often cast out by their husbands and families and are frequently ostracized by their communities. Without treatment, fistula can lead to infections, kidney disease and death. Currently, two million women suffer from obstetric fistula.

More information about Fistula can be found on the web at the Fistula Foundation website.

April 18, 2007

Grand Champeen Sunday at Hell’s Kitchen

Filed under: rock,tacoma — sparkrobot @ 1:19 am

Grand ChampeenIt’s no secret Austin Texas is known for it’s live music scene—self-proclaiming to be The Live Music Capital of The World—not to mention for being weird. The locals might be a little jaded, but there’s something in the water down there that keeps the apples alive. From what I’ve heard of Grand Champeen’s latest Dial T for This, apples don’t fall far from the tree. There are some brilliant power pop rock gems here. Wounded Eye slays. Well, they all do… Listen to a couple of the tracks below.

When I was down in Austin for a conference last summer, I took a break from the nerdy software worship scene for a bit and decided to head over to Emo’s Lounge. I had read in the Chronicle there would be punk rock djs spinning vinyl, so I headed over.

emo's buzzedEmo’s lounge was empty, when I arrived, but they were spinning Vee Dee and it sounded good on the vinyl, I decided to hang around for a bit. After a while, the bass player for Grand Champeen Alex ended up there after a shift at Stubb’s bbq where he proclaimed that the set by Gnarls Barkley had just sucked it up. Say no more. We had some drinks and got to talking about the band he plays bass in, Grand Champeen. Referred to as having a big Minneapolis sound and paying homage to bands from MN from late 80s era, Husker Du, Replacements, etc., he mentioned that they were either wrapping or had just wrapped recording on their new, presumably this, record. I told him to let me know if they ever got up to the Northwest. And so now you know.

Grand Champeen headlines an EARLY SHOW (Starts at 5PM) at Hell’s Kitchen this Sunday and their new record, Dial T for This, can (and definitely should) be purchased at CD baby. Other bands on the bill are Never Quiet Never Still, The Beltholes, Glossary and The Lund Bros. I know it’s a Sunday night, but it’s a good night to make an exception to the rules. Ditch school. Go on now, get it.

The band is playing a live in-studio at KEXP on Saturday at 3PM which you can hear on the web and if you can’t make it Sunday, they’re playing the Tractor Tavern in Ballard on Saturday night.

April 17, 2007

A Million Dollars Worth of Music

Filed under: rock,tacoma — sparkrobot @ 6:04 pm

A Million Dollars Worth of MusicA million smackers. That’s a lot of dough man. This Friday April 20th, it will only cost you $5. The F**king Eagles are having their record release party for the release of their latest offering, A Million Dollars Worth of Music at Hell’s Kitchen on 6th Ave. The sound is garage rock r&b a la the Oblivians, Deadly Snakes, The Gories, et al.

But wait, that’s not all. You get Girl Trouble. You get Ape City R&B. You get Gold Teeth. Well, I don’t know if you will actually get gold teeth, but you get to watch the bands in action.

Wow. Tacoma, you’re pretty lucky if stop to think about it. I know this sounds totally crazy, but there are actually two good rock shows… in one weekend. I’ll expound on this shortly with another post on Austin, Texas’s Grand Champeen who are making a stop in Tacoma on Sunday Night at Hell’s Kitchen…

April 10, 2007

Dick Dale on Record Labels

Filed under: rock — sparkrobot @ 12:59 pm

Ran across a video of Dick Dale’s advice to up and coming musicians.

“And that’s the reason why the system hates Dick Dale.”

An elaborate break down of the phenomenon can be found in Steve Albini’s “The Problem With Music“, aka “Some of your friends may already be this fucked.”