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Another full house for the Andrew Bird show at the Guggenheim. It was spectacular to see all of his amps setup throughout the audience. Unfortunately he didn’t play any of my favorites like “A Nervous Tic Motion of The Head to The Left.” I still love watching him lay down all of the layers to the songs.

There can’t be many more amazing places in NYC to perform than the Guggenheim.

I walked past the chaotic Lady Gaga performance today on my way to another job, pushing through blocks of screaming fans. On the way home there was a crowd of impersonators trying to get some TV time on the morning show who looked more like they belonged in the Village.

Last year I used to shoot those morning shows every week until I got to the Miley Cyrus one and there was a photographer willing to wait on the sidewalk since midnight the night before. I’m told that a waiting list for the photo pit was started at 10pm for Lady Gaga.

In the middle of the most incredible month where I met and shot loads of really interesting people, I got to photograph the Stone Temple Pilots after a radio session at Sirius XM. Many moons ago, I was an angst ridden 16 year old, heading off to my first Rock and Roll concert alone to see them live at Brixton Academy. This month I also got to meet and photograph His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Jodie Foster, Cesar Millan, Hugh Laurie and also Damian Marley and Sean Lennon, the children of two of the best musicians the world has ever seen. Although this isn’t why I got my MFA, it’s turning into a pretty great way to make a living right now.

Delta Spirit – Trashcan from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I’ve posted a different version of this song before and I’ve also mentioned this blog before. My monday morning suggestion is to listen to more Bon Iver and read more La Blogotheque! I had Bon Iver playing while walking around NYC during the snow storms last week which felt very fitting.

Bon Iver – Skinny Love – Une Soiree de Poche from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I forget about bands for while, it’s never for any particular reason and can often be as illogical as not updating my iphone. Here are two musicians that I think are great performing on Letterman this summer.

“Who shot Rock & Roll” at the Brooklyn museum is being advertised on the subway right now and the ad doesn’t tell you who shot rock and roll, but who they shot. I’ll be interested in seeing the exhibit to see who the photographers are. It’s a shame that they aren’t promoting the actual photographers, but I guess such is the way with celebrity photography. It’s just odd that they call the exhibit what they have but don’t advertise any of the photographers, just the people that the photographers took picture of!? Shouldn’t it be “Who was shot in Rock & Roll?”

I’ve just been hauling through youtube looking at old videos of musicians I loved in the 90’s. I remember in 1998 walking through a shopping mall in Hong Kong trying to find a CD store to see if I could locate a rare or bootleg Blind Melon, Nirvana or Pearl Jam recording. I used to go into the local Record store in Portchester and want to own the limited edition recordings so badly but didn’t feel like I could afford it on my art school/retail wages. When I was in high school in London we used to hang out at the local train station causing mischief or chasing Nottinghill girls. One day this dude (he was American) came up to me and asked “Do you like Pearl Jam.” It seemed like an amazing coincidence, as I was one of the few people in my year that did, so I bought a homemade bootleg cassette from him for 4 quid. It was full of incredible bootleg Pearl Jam songs I’d never heard before that are now available easily (on their “Lost Dogs” CD or elsewhere). That whole idea and pride of ownership must be almost completely lost on teenagers now. I’m sure that my little brother (17 yrs old) doesn’t have a big collection of music that he compares with friends, boasting about some of his limited editions or rare bootlegs. It’s all available online at the touch of a button, and why own it when youtube will host it for free for instant access whenever you want on your iPhone.

This flattening and democratization of the music collection surely has some correlation with what is happening in the world of photography. Everyone has access to a camera that will make images at an amazingly high quality. No longer is it just the die hard professionals who spend a fortune on film, developing and the latest equipment who can make an image that can be published. As magazines drop and websites become the preferred method of acquiring information, the sale of high quality and exclusive images become less in demand. Why pay $100 for the limited edition double LP when you can watch the handheld camcorder of the song on youtube?

I’ve been listening to this bands album over and over and over. They’re another band that I found on La Blogotheque, the greatest music blog out there, even though it’s French!

Plants and Animals – A Take Away Show – Bye Bye Bye from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Plants and Animals – A Take Away Show – Feedback in the Field from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I’d stopped checking this blog because they’d stopped posting. Apparently not anymore!! – www.blogotheque.net

I flashed a few frames today with my white balance set to tungsten, so I had to desaturate them to make the images bearable. This got me started with other images and for some reason got me excited about black and white photography. I’m sure this won’t last the weekend, so don’t worry.

I imagine that my conversation with supermodel Helena Christensen (and girlfriend of the lead singer of Interpol) had a subliminal affect. I asked her about her own photography and she told me that she has a show up in the UN right now that she shot in Peru on Polaroid 665 film. Not a bad time to be exhibiting work when a building’s full of world leaders.

In London in 1995, it was not cool to be a Pearl Jam fan, but it wasn’t uncool either. Hardly any of my friends had heard of them. They were all too busy slugging pints over Chumbawumba and lusting after the Spice Girls. So I quietly built my CD collection of American alternative music and only shared it with a few of my friends, not knowing that a few years later I was going to move to the States and my taste in music was not as alternative as I thought. Eddie Vedder’s notoriety in the UK was so poor that in 1996 I was able to talk to him for 10 minutes on a subway platform without anyone interrupting. 

Their new album is pretty good and seems to show some return to the form of the early days. The first single to be released – The Fixer – is a solid Pearl Jam song that I think slips immediately into the classic playlist. I know that it’s not cool of me to have 2 of their albums on my desert island records but I likes what I likes.

Pearl Jam – The Fixer from João Barreiros on Vimeo.