Henceforth...(travel)

LIFE! Ah, gorgeous and ever-changing breath. You take me down paths and tie them tighter than intestines (with all their hidden miles), and I recoil and I propel...knocking into corners. soaring through corridors (or fields). Take On Me. Take Me On. #teamthompettie #hashtags are the new haiku.

The everlasting road still has many dead ends. Many disguised as places, as culture. And sometimes a living room takes you to the moon.

Pied Pipered

Last night I shot the R Kelly show at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk. And Jesse Scaccia & I did a new conversation review for AltDaily, which you can read here. 

AltDaily also has the funniest pics I shot. Below are some more normal ones.

Walker

Sea of Love by Majali Design & Illustration

Walker

My booted feet print echoes that fade

Along the map I'm walking

Of a still flat Earth

I watch them from a perch

I'm God

We all are until we rest

TOOL

I got to shoot Tool last Friday night. Super honor. Also was my first time shooting at Hampton Coliseum. This was a great opportunity and I loved it. The bummer of the thing was that I only got the first song to be up there. I unfortunately wasted a good 20-30 seconds switching out lenses, which flustered me. Also, they had heavy fog machine presence throughout the song so there was a haze over many of the pics. 

I don't know if it was nerves, or lack of time, or the fog, but I'm not thrilled with the results. However, they are here nonetheless, as I was the only photographer there and I'd hate for there to be no record of it. I wish I'd been able to shoot more from further away, as the light show and art on the screens was definitely more visually rad than Maynard. 

Stay tuned for a review on AltDaily in the coming days.

Update: Here's the AltDaily Review. Also, scroll to the bottom, as we added our only passable shot of drummer Danny Carey per a reader's request.

Love Local Music

Greetings and Salutations. I've been working with the good folk over at Veer Magazine over the last couple of months as a member of the judge's panel for their upcoming Local Music Awards on February 15. By "working" I mean listening to lots of music and telling the powers that be what I'm digging....and interviewing local trio DJP & Mr T for their cover story about local bands and the show. Read it here.

OK Back to the Awards Show:

The contest works like this: 

There's some judges (like me and many other bloggers, promoters, musicians, writers, DJ's, etc. involved in the local scene). 

Those judges name a bunch of stuff we like. 

Those results are tallied and sent out to YOU: the eyes and ears of 757 Music.

You vote HERE.

The judges also vote on those finalists--but with some fairness and rules so we can't just promote our friends and interests. 

The results come in and are announced February 15 at The Naro. The show is going to be awesome. You should go go go if you're in town.

The performing bands are following the show's mantra "Love Your Local Music" and its proximity to Valentine's Day. Their only song requirement is that the title must contain the word "love."

Come! Enjoy some Starr Hill Love, some "Love Me Do" and some Love from your fellow music nerds.

jEScO jESiO jEScO jESiO jEScO jESiO jEScO

Recently I learned my interview with Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia director Julien Nitzberg is the most read story ever on AltDaily. Nice to hear, nice accolade, sure. For me, the best part of that statistic is its subject. I really care about Jesco and co., both as individuals and as representatives of the hard-to-explain truth-myth hybrid I call Appalachia.

As more readers are exposed to this story on the White family, they are also exposed to all the stuff surrounding it. Debates continue to spark. Are they rebellious anti-heroes? Are they moochers and addicts? Obviously the answers to both of these questions is yes. They are. They are also exploited and aware of it and maintain their own sense of freedom within the parameters of lives they navigate, but to destinations predetermined by forces larger than even White.

We come from the same world: where you're addicted to Jesus or to the Devil and there's very little room for in-between in the minds of your community. Jesus may come with cleaner clothes and more money but he often comes with corruption and politicking after the final hymn, over ham and green beans in a townie's eat-in kitchen. 

The Devil brings many types of fire. Hellfire, surely--a concept rarely punctured into sinners as they make their biweekly pilgrimages out of hollers and creekbeds to the post office and liquor store. This conviction is instead whispered among the do-gooders as though they were dandelion tendrils, whirring and buzzing audibly round their ears. This sinner doesn't make much eye contact. Keeps his head low and alert high, as confrontation in his world ends in bruised bodies, not egos.

Pic: 35th and Granby c/o pilotonline

West Norfolk is my

Folk

Naw

Fuck

Gets

You 

No

Where

It's about pace more than race

And more than racing.

A hello is a hello is a hello

Is a welcome.

A dollar is a dollar is a dollar

Is a dollar. 

I Am Not You

I found an old poem I wrote in 2004. 

I Am Not You

I don't have time to think about circumstance
It is what it-is-what it is important?
It's the same with consequence.
The life you plan is the life you miss.
Do that. You'll break down to this:
Even energy feels dormant.

I want to be full on more than dinner.
Let the scrapes-love-laughter-blood-
Lips that talk the tornado-
Eyes that flow the flood
Bring about an articulate simmer
Spiced with clove smoke 
Love notes
Wisdom of the valid
Struggle of the beginner.
Stirred in my head, my heart, my toes
By the wind of the talks we nightly compose.
The waves of zeal
The craze of feeling.
This.

The cities, the pities, the goddamn committees
Why separate to juxtapose?
Then translate to re-compose?
"Add my ebbs, subtract your flows.'
Become what you deem you might've chose.
Really
You're as black as talcum
And as blue as a rose.

I am not you.

Spreading Like Wildfire

I recently wrote a review of my faves Today the Moon Tomorrow the Sun's new album Wildfire. The local paper just pulled it in, which is kind of awesome. Hopefully more people fall in love with these dudes as a result. 

Dr. Bluegrass

I saw the legend himself, Dr. Ralph Stanley on Monday night. I took all these pics and wrote this for AltDaily (featuring input from local bluegrass players Sam Shinault and Brian Dobbins of the new band Two Dollar Bill Band.) 

ST(o)P

I went to Stone Temple Pilots last week. I took pics (here) and there's a review at the bottom of the post.

 It was my second time seeing them live and Adam's third. The first time I saw them was about ten years ago and it was one of the best shows of my life. Adam was pretty much equally stoked.

We got there and opening band Rose Hill Drive were on fire! I mean, they really brought the crowd together and I walked out of there ready to download away.  Stone Temp started and, well, they were "doing their job." They weren't bad and the DeLeo brothers brought their talent out full frontal. Weiland (whose heroin torso has sadly been replaced by a dad belly) didn't have any emotion or show any enjoyment. It was as if every dance move he tried was really done by a puppet master above the stage, with tiny invisible strings attached to his underarms.

He looked tired. He looked sober, too. It's weird to even think about wanting someone to not be, but he's not lost in a moment which makes watching him mediocre now when it used to be mesmerizing. Not a position I'd want to be in. Anyway, his voice is still top notch.

They played all the hits. He stood two feet from me singing my favorite song lyric of all time "Is it raining in your bedroom?" (Don't ask why it's my favorite, as I have no idea.) Bucket list: check. He didn't really speak or banter. At one point someone threw a beer on the stage and he kinda commented that "this ain't the county fair" and how dumb it is to waste beer in this economy. Hardy har har.

STP's new songs from Stone Temple Pilots (2010) were really good. Oftentimes when classic bands take an interlude to play the new stuff, that's when I head to smoke or make a phone call. Not here. They stood up to the old material in quality and in songwriting. Again, had they been performed with more enthusiasm, I think the crowd really would have dug it.

In the end, I get it a B-.

Radio Free Europe, er, Norfolk

It's kind of ironic I wrote the following after I wrote something similar about MTV/videos almost a year ago.

Local alternative station 96X committed suicide this week. Here's my take on it and other Norfolk music news in AltDaily's Groove Advisory.

Here's last year's MTV/WTF rant.

We Had A Storm Yesterday

pic: Andre Kertesz, 1927

It turned wet and dark quickly. We'd been thinking of planting vegetables. 

pic: ynghrts

There was a party later. I was tired and torn between Nod and not.

pic: redbubble.com

Fun won. We sloshed out and were lost momentarily among esteemed Colonials

pic: blogchester.com

Though we know many are mere facade. From our vantage, their towered eyes command fantasy.

pic: durian tumblr

Rain don't hinder my dance, no, no.

pic: doves album cover

Rain won't hinder my dance.