Yeah I know that sounds kind of weird and … um … not really anything most people think of when they think of going out to a club. But you might be surprised: as Alicia said that night, the Bible is violent and murderous and a lot of the people written about in it were “fucked up.” Alicia has a rather interesting background: she started violin at three and eventually got an MFA in poetry. After making the rounds of superficial literary parties and disappointing internships in NYC, she decided to go to Israel, where she studied ancient Jewish texts for 2 years, after which time she returned to New York to create the band–a convergence of poetry, music, and the mystical literature she had just immersed herself in. Not exactly a story you’ll see on American Idol.

Along with Alicia, Girls In Trouble are Aaron Hartman (Old Time Relijun, K Records) on upright bass, Tim Monaghan on drums and Jascha Hoffman on keys and glockenspiel. Get their debut album out on Jdub Records.

Shooting notes:
It was very, very dark. I used an 85mm f/1.8 and a 50mm f/1.8 mostly, with a little 24-70 f/2.8, but it was hard to get anything even with at wide open. I had been told that flash was OK to use, although I didn’t until the last half of the last song, just to see what kind of cool effects I could get with the combination of flash and ambient, but there was so little ambient that no cool effects were to be had.  The venue does have a lot of room though and it was easy to move around and get different angles, so that made up somewhat for the extreme darkness.

A grand entrance in yellow; the mask is painted on, which I didn’t realize at first.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

The only open spot on the stage was directly in front of me so I spent a lot of time looking straight up at Saul when he would come out to the edge and sing over the audience.

At one point during the show the band pulled up several girls from the audience and had a dance jam for a couple of songs.

Shooting notes:
No barrier, so I was pressed against the stage all night. I tried the 24-70mm lens but could see it was going to be too close, so I ended up switching to the 17-55 and kept that on most of the night, except for a short time using my ultra-wideangle Tokina 11-16. I think I shot everything at f/2.8 and ISO somewhere in the 1600-2500 range, but was able to leave the shutter speed rather slow at 1/60 or 1/80, and even a few shots at 1/40. So, I really didn’t have problems with a lot of noise in most shots. I hadn’t been to this venue before and had no idea what the setup was, so I brought my 70-200mm also: ha, I was so close all I could have gotten was probably Saul’s smile! Good venue to shoot in: easy to get in front (no barrier at this show), and fairly decent lighting for the most part.

Saul Williams, The Niggy Tardust Experience, Afro-Punk Festival, The Loft Atlanta, pictures images concert show venue photography photographer photographs maryelle st. clare meowhouse http://www.meowhousemedia.com

keywords: Trent Reznor Robin Finck Justin Meldal-Johnsen Ilan Rubin Nine Inch Nails NIN Perry Farrell Dave Navarro Stephen Perkins Eric Avery Jane’s Addiction Tom Morello Boots Riley Street Sweeper Social Club NINJA NIN|JA NIN/JA SSSC Wave Goodbye live music concert photography low light Nikon lens Schecter Les Paul Gibson Danelectro Fender Ibanez guitar bass Marshall Aguilar amp gear drums guitarist drummer lead singer bassist bass player setlist keyboard synthesizer band tour north america maryelle st. clare http://www.meowhousemedia.com

So far, I’ve been to the first on 22 August at The Bowery in New York, and the second at Webster Hall in New York, where a stunned crowd was able to watch them perform The Downward Spiral in its entirety for the first and last time. Then Chicago at the Aragon Ballroom on 8/28 and 8/29. Tomorrow off to LA for the final four.

Webster Hall, 8/23/09: one of the few pictures I’ve ever gotten of Ilan Rubin. Drummers are hard to catch.

Webster Hall, 8/23/09. There is a smaller 3/4 figure version of this shot on my Flickr.

NYC, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Trent, Robin, Heresy. This is the third song on The Downward Spiral and right about now is when people might have started to have a tiny inkling that maybe, just maybe, they were going to play the whole thing. But I don’t think people really believed it was happening until Closer broke into Ruiner.  Once it got past A Warm Place, which had never been played live before this show, well if they didn’t understand by that point they probably didn’t know the name of the guy up there singing.

NYC, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Robin has just walked over to Justin’s side, where there was an equipment case right next to the edge of the stage, and he’s about to toss himself backwards into the crowd.

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: It was incredibly hot in there, the hottest I’ve been at any show ever, even worse than Webster where the entire band was soaking wet within about 2 songs. This is at the end of Burn; I have a few of these when Trent is wringing the sweat out of his shirt and onto his guitar while I guess Robin looks on completely grossed out, or maybe that’s fascination, or envy that he can’t do the same since he has to keep playing.

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: Trent and Robin

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: Justin. It was very difficult to take any pictures at this show due to the crowd, where I was, the heat, and the girl next to me who filmed the entire thing and thus blocked my view of about half the stage for the whole show. I only got a couple of pictures of Justin and even though they’re not really that great wanted to include at least one.

Los Angeles, Echoplex, 9/6/09: Robin, again not a great picture but I got so few overall. Not a good photography night for me.

Chicago, Aragon, 8/29/09

Chicago, Aragon, 8/29/09 - Burn

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09

I was supposed to have a pass for the second show in Chicago and so did not bother getting there early, and when I arrived I found out they had all been canceled for the night.  So I had no chance of getting in front or anywhere with a good view.  I ended up mostly standing near the entrance to the side stage and so the majority of my pictures are of Robin in the few seconds I could catch him in between mics and light stands.  This was shot with a Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 VR.

New York, Bowery Ballroom, 8/22/09: Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Trent Reznor, Ilan Rubin in the back (as usual, so hard to get pictures of him). This was fairly near the end of the show, when I had changed to my 85mm f/1.8 lens. Still not quite long enough though.

New York, Bowery Ballroom, 8/22/09: Trent Reznor, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Ilan Rubin, Robin Finck: first moments walking onto the stage. Trent looks like he’s already singing but the song was Somewhat Damaged and there are drums in the intro so I don’t see how he could be, unless it was on a track.

Bowery marquee… spent many hours looking at this without having a ticket, hoping. By some miracle, one appeared at 6:00 to a lucky few of us. One of the NIN crew came out and took six names, of which mine was not one (I was off chasing another crew guy who was giving out tickets in various spots around the city), until my friend who was there told him she would forgo her own rightful spot and give the ticket to me because I wanted to see them more badly than she did. I think this confused him greatly: this was probably the hardest ticket to come by for NIN in the last 4 years, if not longer. He just stared at her, then put us both down on the list and said he’d find a way. And an hour later, we were let in first. Magic.

New York, Bowery Ballroom, 8/22/09

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Robin Finck flings himself back into the crowd during March Of The Pigs.

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09
Trent Reznor

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Trent Reznor, Robin Finck | Heresy

New York, Webster Hall, 8/23/09: Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Ilan Rubin, Trent Reznor, Robin Finck | First shot after they came on, the opening moments of Mr. Self Destruct, before anyone but me and a few others knew what was coming. (I had seen the setlist before the show started.)

My first NIN|JA set was getting unwieldy, so I’m starting another. Again, as with the previous, you can also view the entire set as a large-image slideshow or as a smaller slideshow by going down to the thumbnails at the bottom of this page and clicking on one. Personally I think they look best when viewing on this page itself, but there are usually a few on Flickr that I don’t post here for various reasons. The slideshows do have all images available immediately after they are uploaded.

Update 10/2/09: after today’s upload, I think I’ll have to start another post for any future NIN|JA shots, which I do still have.

Trent Reznor at Phoenix.  God Creates Man, Man Creates Music, Music Creates God.

Robin and his Guitar Face. One of many.

Dave Navarro & Perry Farrell at Mansfield. I think this is the show when Dave blew me a kiss from stage and said “Take a good picture!” Not hard with any of Jane’s; they’re all very photogenic.

Robin at Mansfield. Again I cannot get over what magnificent lighting this tour had. If only all shows were like this.

Justin Meldal-Johnsen & Robin Finck. I guess something funny was going on.

Robin playing his Schecter acoustic, which he would destroy a couple of shows later when there was some problem with it that annoyed him so much he just couldn’t take it anymore. He smashed it to bits onstage and walked off during, I believe, The Becoming. Not his best night ever, he said, but I wish I had seen it anyway.

Robin at Clarkston. He always comes out really well in B&W.

NIN and Jane’s are co-headlining what may be NIN’s last tour ever (well, that’s what Trent says now; he’s been known to say he’s never touring again before and then he tours again… maybe there’s hope).  Support is by Street Sweeper Social Club, the smokin’ hot Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine) / Boots Riley (The Coup) collaboration.

This photo set will cover the North American tour, starting May 8 in West Palm Beach and ending June 13 at Bonnaroo.  New pictures added all the time so check back.  Image heavy, not good for slow connections!  Slideshow links (large opens in Flickr; small opens here) down at the bottom.

I have put up second set in a separate post, as this first one was getting pretty big.

Justin at Holmdel. As I go through all the images I shoot, I trash the obviously bad ones, and keep track of the ones that are pretty good and are “maybes.” 95% of the total are never used, publicly at least. They’re usually good pictures but there’s no way or need to put them all up; I have to pick which ones are the best, or at least have that undefinable thing which makes me know that’s the one to put up. Sometimes that’s because of what the picture looks like, and sometimes it’s because of what was going on when it was taken. I don’t know if anyone else works this way but it’s how I do it. I go through them and stop at the ones that make me pause for a second. I have three of Justin walking toward me looking straight at the camera, taken one after another, and even though there’s a mic stand & cord in front of him in this shot, this one is the best. The others are sharp and clear and there’s no mic… but this is the one–the one that made me look.

Watching from backstage at Bonnaroo:

Chula Vista: Was not on the rail or anywhere near it for this show. After standing in line in 105 degree heat for 8 or 10 hours in Phoenix the day before, we decided to sleep in and go late to this one. So we weren’t in the front. This was taken with a 70-200mm lens at 200mm, f2.8, from at least a hundred feet away, holding the camera over my head to get a shot through the crowd. In the original size you can count the hairs on his arms even at that distance and aperture.

Holmdel, NJ: no words can describe. Amazing, incredible energy. My personal best show ever, thanks so much to everyone and especially Trent and Robin for that!

One from Camden; I have so many more good ones from here; was on the rail perhaps 2 feet from dead center: this picture is only very slightly cropped.

I got another shot of him flying through the air just after this one. Just haven’t gotten to it yet.

Dave usually goes and sits on an equipment case in the pit in front of the rail, slightly more to the center from his standing spot, for Jane Says.  He was facing forward (I was at his right) but he saw me with the camera and turned around so I could get some good pictures of him.  He and Perry were both really good about doing that.  Clarkston was one of my best shows for “Dave” pictures as I was front row directly in front of him.  (I also have some great ones of Eric Avery from Holmdel when I saw him looking over, pulled the camera away and said “Smile!” and he did, for a good 30 seconds, while I clicked-clicked-clicked.  If you’ve seen Jane’s, you know that Eric does not often have a big grin on his face on stage!) 

Mansfield, MA: last show “at home” for me. I could have ended it here and been happy.Trent often gives a short speech close to the end of the show, and what he talks about can be funny, angry, thankful … whatever his mood is that night.  At Mansfield he chose to play La Mer alone on the piano while talking about a very bad time in his life 10 years ago when he went away alone to a house on the ocean and wanted to kill himself, but he never carried out whatever intentions he had, and now he is at the opposite point in his life and he plans to go back to that same house for his wedding.  To watch him playing that song, which is my favorite of everything he has every written, and see his face radiant in the dark under a barely illuminated spotlight when he said paused and then said “I’m going to get married there,” is among the most beautiful things I have ever had the fortune to be a part of.

Robin Finck getting ready to play at the Chicago soundcheck.

Trent Reznor initiated a NIN-organized fundraising effort to get a heart transplant for Eric De La Cruz, a Nevada resident who desperately needed one but could not get on the transplant list because he was on Nevada Medicaid, and therefore would have to have the transplant in Nevada in order for them to pay for it, but the are no transplant centers in Nevada. Eric’s sister Veronica had been able to raise only about $6,000 out of the nearly one million dollars needed for a transplant until Trent, his band, Street Sweeper, and now Jane’s Addiction offered to help. Trent gave fans the chance to make a tax-deductible donation of which 100% would go to Eric’s medical costs and as a thank-you it was possible to attend a soundcheck and hang out backstage and meet the band. If you know NIN and Trent, you know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a fan, and it is for a good cause to boot. In less than a week Trent’s efforts had raised over $800,000 for Eric. What started with maybe 20 fans participating at the first concert to offer this (Santa Barbara) ballooned to hundreds at Chicago. The demand grew so great, and the time so incredibly long to organize it, that finally NIN had to put a cap on the backstage experience. Skateboard master Tony Hawk joined in at this point and then Jane’s Addiction formally created their own incredible experience of attending their rehearsal before a show and hanging out in the “legendary” Jane’s backstage & dressing room. You’d have to see it to believe it and would be the night of a lifetime for any Jane’s fan.

The response from fans who both want to meet the band AND who want to help a total stranger has been astonishing, and none of this could have been done without the cooperation and generosity of Trent, Robin, Justin, and Ilan; his amazing crew who have all worked many extra hours per day on this; and of course Street Sweeper Social Club and Jane’s Addiction. Many people have donated small amounts which got them nothing except knowing they were helping someone who needs it right now. You can see what these fantastic fundraiser opportunities are below and learn more about Eric and the fiasco he’s been through in trying to deal with the US healthcare system.

http://store.nin.com/helperic/
https://store.nin.com/donateja/
http://www.veronicadelacruzonline.com/
http://weloveeric.com/

Looking at this one above makes me want to cry a little because in a few weeks this will never be seen again. This is the first one to go up from Chicago and was a special concert on the tour–it was just Street Sweeper Social Club and NIN–no Jane’s Addiction, probably because they are playing Lollapalooza in August and don’t want to take away from that gig. All the pictures from Chicago show were taken from the sides or far back of the very large pit; soundcheck pictures (to be put up later) were taken from the rail.

By popular demand: Dave Navarro found this picture and tweeted it, saying “Perk and I have been friends since high school… Found this online,” which resulted in thousands of hits to both the picture and to this site from people googling my name in the watermark.  I thanked him for the promotion and mentioned that I had several nice ones of him kissing Stephen and that brought a flood of requests for those pictures.  Here are the two that are my favorites.  They’re from the very end of the Phoenix show, just before the band walked off stage.

This next image is one of the few I uploaded at nearly full size, to show what a picture taken from the 22nd row–beyond the photo pit, beyond the barrier, beyond the GA pit, beyond the divider, and all the way up to Row V–looks like. Click on the picture for the large version, and you’ll have to scroll unless you have a huge monitor.

Technical notes: this tour was arranged by Trent Reznor as having a “relaxed camera policy”; meaning, they are allowing DSLRs in even without a media pass. Still not many DSLRs that I saw though. Street Sweeper opens and plays in daylight so while there is no visually interesting lighting, it does make it easy to get good shots. NIN starts in daylight as the sun is going down and finishes in darkness. Their lighting this year is, for photography purposes, phenomenally better than last year’s Lights In The Sky tour. Although they have so much stuff on stage (mic stands, keyboards, synths, and light stands) that it’s hard to get clear shots without someone’s face being blocked. But overall, this is much more interesting to look at through a camera than last year.

Jane’s takes the Photographer’s Dream prize here: spectacular colors, absolutely gorgeous lighting design, and nothing blocking them on stage. Lead singer Perry Farrell uses a cordless mic and even has a riser box front-center stage that he stands on frequently. Both he and guitarist Dave Navarro are incredibly photogenic and make many trips right down to the front–all the better to catch Perry’s wild psychedelic outfits. He is not a man who dresses to please anyone but himself! And his clothes make for phenomenal images. I can’t count how many times they traveled over and stood right directly in front of me; Dave especially frequently steps down to shake hands with the audience, wave, and make eye contact with individual people, and during Jane Says he goes out into the photo pit in front of the barrier and sits on a case so close to the audience they can touch his guitar. It’s really nice to see and makes taking great pictures pretty damn easy. Even Eric Avery (bass) and Stephen Perkins (drums) were fairly easy to get from where I was, down on Dave’s end. I’m pretty sure Eric saw me shooting at one point and smiled and waited for me to get some of him, at a time when he was sitting back from his normal standing spot.

The lighting was really fantastic. I kept ISO at 640 most of the time, sometimes down to 400 even. For a few shots I had to up it to 1000 or 1600 but those were few and far between. So far I’ve used a 24-70 f2.8 and a 70-200 f2.8; might try an 85 f1.8 not for the aperture ability but for the bokeh. There’s no way I need a 1.8 at these shows! Just stunning set design; if you have a chance to shoot pictures do not pass this up. Even a P&S is going to work well because of the excellent lighting setup.

Click for large-image slideshow

Thumbnails: as new images are added, they will show up here.  I’ll be changing the pictures above too but they’ll all be showing somewhere and the set will grow bigger as time goes by. Click any thumbnail for the small-image slideshow.

Per a recent press release:

“Amazing Baby, a Brooklyn-based five-piece, will be releasing their debut album this summer, but they’ve already earned praise in the States and overseas with the release of their four-song Infinite Fucking Cross EP last year. (Check out the tracks at myspace.com/theamazingbaby) With a sound that can be described as Elvis Costello meets Black Sabbath meets the California coast line with a dash of urban sprawl added in for good measure, Amazing Baby’s psychedelic rock has captured the attention of Rolling Stone and Spin and have recently been featured in The Fader, Interview, Under the Radar and Nylon. They have opened for friends and fellow Brooklyn natives MGMT, Bloc Party and more. Their sets at this year’s SXSW ignited a rapturous response as the band showcased what they have in store for their full-length release.”

“…epic psych rock full of pipe-organ synths and reverb-dunked guitars.” – Rolling Stone

“Amazing Baby’s Infinite Fucking Cross EP and the album they’re recording are psychedelic and spacey, but they are also bulky, acerbic…” – Fader

I hadn’t known anything about them before getting the notice to go check them out, and I was quite glad I did.  Pretty tight, really nice to photograph even though I was kind of stuck in one place.  Check out their streaming tracks on MySpace.

Oh and if you see them live, take a look at the smallest and cutest drum kit I’ve ever seen. He gets a lot of sound out of it; between the drums and being so close to the speakers I had to put earplugs in, which I have not had to do lately.  Also the coordinated head-banging during the last number made me laugh. It went really well with the song and I wonder if they did it that way on purpose … watching these guys I generally prefer to shoot in larger venues with a photo pit but there is something to be said for being up really close, a foot or two from the musicians, where you can see every eyelash and glint of sweat on their faces and watch them when they’re just first starting to get a good following and they suddenly are seeing what it’s like to be “rock stars.”  It must be a pretty heady feeling to stand there and have a crowd of people right there in front of you, so close you can just reach your hand out and touch them, watching your every move.

Amazing Baby is Will Roan, Simon O’Connor, Doc Laaxo, Matt Abeysekera, and Don Devore.
Amazing Baby • Myspace • Facebook

Technical notes: Possibly the best lighting EVER. I just assumed it would be dark and so had the ISO at 2000. They tore into the first song and I could see that was way too high so turned it down to 1250. Still too high, turned it down to 800. Then to 640. Then to 400. I think I ended up with it at 640 just to be safe in case it got dark fast but I really could have even gone down to 200 for some shots. It wasn’t too bright; it wasn’t like they were performing in a dentist office but I didn’t have to use noise reduction on almost all of them. (Contrast to the few shots I got of Cold War Kids–almost everything I shot of them was unusable b/c it was nearly pitch black for 95% of their show.) I used the Tokina 11-16 and my 17-55 for most of it; pulled out the 24-70 for a few shots. I did plan to go to the balcony and use the 70-200 for a few but it just didn’t work out. I wish every show had lighting like theirs. Bright but still with atmosphere.

This was a little difficult otherwise due to having to pretty much stay in the same spot, over on stage left, and having to take every picture from almost the same angle.  I was standing next to another photographer I know (Julian Furtak, who shoots for Prefix), and laughed that we were both going to end up with pretty much the same kind of shots.  Oh well it happens sometimes.

Clicking on the thumbnails below will bring up small previews in a Flash slideshow. To view the large versions, go to the set (click the thumbnail, then click All Sizes above the image) or slideshow on Flickr

In a stunning reversal of his current business model, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has today released a new downloadable album, totally free except for the $18.98 charge to your credit card and, in a salute to his good friends over at Ticketmaster, a $10 “convenience fee” for the instant digital delivery.

Reznor is well known for having broken all ties to Universal/Interscope, his previous record label, after the last release he was obligated to them for in 2007. Since that time he has gone independent and been a shining example to both a new and the old generation of artists by producing, distributing, and touring his music not only independent from any traditional label, but by giving the music files away under a Creative Commons license FOR FREE.

Today’s shocking announcement, deliver via Twitter, said:”I’ve been busy. Brand new FULL LENGTH NIN record available now. http://bit.ly/QtDzR ” and was both a cause for joy (new NIN album! That makes FIVE original releases in 4 years! Which makes it just as much since 2005 as in the entire rest of his career!  Wow those protein shakes are really working!) and incredulous disbelief: that he had clearly gone over to the dark side. Obviously his well-documented former disagreements with Interscope, and even his recent thoughts about being forced to “get into bed” with Ticketmaster, Live Nation, and others (wow now that’s a party!) in order to get into the most appropriate live-show venues, have all been kissy-faced smooch-smooched and made up. This is clearly why with this new release he is emulating Ticketmaster’s “convenience” fee that they charge you to print your own tickets at home using your own paper and ink. Because it’s CONVENIENT for you to not have to wait for Ticketmaster to mail them, even though you paid for them and paid a delivery fee no matter what. See? Ticketmaster is just looking out for you. Because they CARE. And so does Trent.

Anyhoo, the 14 full-length tracks include “Black T-Shirt,” of which Reznor said:

“I decided with this track I was just going to feel the music, feel whatever deeply buried painful emotions came out of me based on whatever the first thing I saw that day which made me stop in my tracks… actually the first thing I saw was Dave Navarro coming out of the sauna, AGAIN, at my gym–is that guy following me or something?–but I felt like that was a little too personal, and you know, I gotta work with that dude all summer, so the next thing on the list was when I got angry about my fave black t-shirt not being ironed correctly, AGAIN, [my assistant has *really* been slacking off] and that’s how this song came out of it.  All the impossible pain of not having that fucking shirt just the way I want it.  It really hurt me.  Unngh.”

“Feel Like Being Dead Again,” hearkens back to his time in New Orleans when he was still possibly a vampire. (He’s over that now, as everyone knows except the few stuck-in-the-90s goth groupies who show up at every show and hang out pitifully in the hotel lobby for a glimpse of their Dark Idol. They usually miss him because he’s now wearing sneakers and eating a stalk of celery while on the way to the gym).  The dark lyrics belie the upbeat “Barney”-like 3/4 beat.  It’s one of those happy-sounding songs until you really listen, and then you want to go crawl under the covers and never come out.  (But don’t–go lift some weights or something, it will make you feel better.)

The third track is an incredible duet of unrequited forever love, aptly and tenderly named “Pussygrinder,” with Sheryl Crow. I’ve just learned this will be the theme song for his upcoming tour DVD directed by James Cameron, “NIN In 2D. It’s a Windows Movie Maker slideshow of tour photos with that song playing behind it–NIN couldn’t get permission from Interscope for an actual live video so “luckily” they “found” this footage one day on the steps of the studio, no doubt left there by some team of technologically challenged subversives.

Perhaps the most carefully crafted and musically complex song on the whole album is Trent’s ode to Chris Cornell’s latest (another favorite of his), “Clap Trap Crack Slap.” The title says it all.

So anyway while it sucks that Trent is charging for records again, this one is WORTH IT. *And* you get these files in Windows Media format. AND you get an exclusive Gmail address! All for FREE except for the $18.98 plus the $10 convenience fee! That’s a deal that cannot be beat. So go now and download it. You will thank me.

Note: $18.98 / $10 download will expire on April 2, 2009. Subject to availability. All rights reserved. Listening to this album may cause unpleasant side effects including brain warble, loss of hearing at low frequency, rash in sensitive areas, and heart fungus. Consult a physician. Do not download while driving. Not responsible for items lost or stolen from the airport bathroom if distracted by Bono’s emoting.