Last night saw the first of The Phil's season of Christmas concerts which include readings and carols. The first night of Spirit of Christmas saw Dame Joan Bakewell introducing the songs with Classic FM's Simon Bates taking over next week.
Last night saw the first of The Phil's season of Christmas concerts which include readings and carols. The first night of Spirit of Christmas saw Dame Joan Bakewell introducing the songs with Classic FM's Simon Bates taking over next week.
Or at least tonight is the last chance to do late night shopping in Liverpool city centre whilst being entertained by the likes of giant robots, ladies on skates dressed as Christmas baubles and a wandering mobile disco duo. The entertainers are out on the street from 5-8pm tonight!
Oh and if you are Christmas shopping in Liverpool then my book is still available in Waterstones!
I mentioned these photographs the other day when I posted the ones of Dragonforce and as much as I like them, they're also quite odd in that they look like any other photographs of the band that I've shot over the last 6 years when they were the first band to play at O2 Academy or Carling Academy as it was known then. Actually I'm wrong, that first gig saw singer Michael Head wearing sunglasses for the duration of the gig as he'd gone and got himself a black eye a few days before in some incident in a London hotel with another band! But apart from that the only real difference of photos of Shack taken at this venue over the years is that the lighting's got a lot better!
He really has got a lot of affection for that guitar! May the FORCE be with you.
Musically this is my idea of hell on earth, though of course the place was full of people who thought it was heaven, but visually it was one of my favourite bands ever to photograph purely for the poses. Oh and the hair of course! Last night I photographed Shack and as great as they are and as much as I love them , the photographs are just the same as every other Shack photo I've taken. Mick'll sit on the floor for a bit at some point, looks up with eyes shut, he always wears a similar hat and John nearly always has his eyes shut when he sings. Though I was happy enough with last night's shots as the lighting was better than the last few times I've seen them, they just look like old photos, so I'm left with an out and out power metal band with big big hair, at the beginning of panto season, to keep me visually entertained! Welcome to Dragonforce, there's more to follow. You just couldn't stop me!
The first of my two ROCK outings last week at O2 Academy Liverpool and the first up is The Answer who are proper old school retro rock. Coming up next are Dragonforce!
This is the second single release from Alice Klar and this was shot in the summer!
This is General Fiasco who supported The Answer last week at the O2 Academy in Liverpool and next up will be the main act themselves. Just noticed that O2 are listed as also running shows up at the University of Liverpool which means more work and another venue for me to shoot for next year!
gerneal
Been to both a retro rock and a metal gig this week and I think the bands hairiel displays are worthy of a mention alone. First up is The Answer and the second photo is from last night's Dragonforce gig. Musically not my cup of tea but I loved covering both of these gigs. More photos from both to follow!
Thanks to Art In Liverpool for pointing this article out from Friday's Guardian which runs with one of my photographs taken earlier on this year at the first In Harmony concert at The Phil. In Harmony (as the article explains) is a music education project which gives primary school children access to instruments and the chance to learn how to play classical music. This photograph which features one of the children with Julian Lloyd Webber was taken at the concert in July and on Friday, when this article was published, I also got to go and photograph a Christmas concert by the children in a packed out church in West Everton and the amount the kids had improved alongside their enthusiasm for playing was incredibly impressive and I'll post some photographs of the event over the next few days.
The full Guardian article is here.
Quick photo of the Bombay Bicycle Club from last Thursday at O2 Academy, Liverpool. I only managed to stay for a song as I was also in the main venue to photograph The Answer! There's been big bands in both venues quite a few times this week but it's not easy to get them both when they're both on at the same time and the rule is as ever first 3 songs only!
It was a busy night on Wednesday and this girl girl duo were supporting Goldie Lookin' Chain. I only caught a quick song or two as I wanted to get back up to see Urban Voodoo Machine (see previous post) and I presumed from the in between song banter that they were local but their MySpace page says they're from Buckinghamshire! They sort of look local though!
I was hoping to shoot both Goldie Lookin' Chain and New York Dolls the other night but as they were on at exactly the same time I opted for the Dolls having shot GLC a few times in the past. So I got the first three including the opening Looking For A Kiss (classic!), watched a bit more from the side, and then headed downstairs for a bit of hip hop from the valleys which I stuck out until they got to the new stuff. Still I got to see them do Half Man Half Machine (another classic!) so I was happy and then decided I was tired as I had another night of ridiculous contrasts lined up for the following night!
Got up and saw a clear moon (it was early) so with dog on lead, I had a wander down to the beach at Waterloo to try and get some shots' Liverpool at sunrise but with the tide not being far enough out I had to make do with Seaforth Docks! Nice morning though but it's getting cold out there!
I usually blog support bands at some later date than the main act but this lot were so good they needed bringing to the front of the queue! They swaggered onstage dressed in red and black and stormed into a set that can only be described as gypsy tinged storming whiskey fuelled rock and roll voodoo swamp music blues. And probably loads of other stuff too! This was their first visit to Liverpool and I hope they get to come back cos they probably got one of the best receptions I've ever heard a support band get. Check them out here, they had a new single out Monday, but I'm also going to post a couple of videos after these photographs!
Tonight I'm possibly shooting both New York Dolls and Goldie Lookin' Chain at Academy O2. The 'possible' is down to the fact that if I'm shooting first 3 only and if they start at the same time then I'll just be photographing New York Dolls as I missed them last time around and I've photographed GLC on a few occasions. This was taken just before they broke big and was shot on Parr Street in Liverpool. You knows it!
And that's another Beatles reference! Just a few more photos from Liverpool's Christmas celebrations on and around Church Street. The street theatre carries on for the next 2 Thursdays between 5 and 8pm!
I'd say it feels like yesterday but December 8th 1980, the day that John Lennon was murdered, feels like a long long time ago though obviously I have very accurate memories of the day. It was a school day and I got up quite excited to find back to back Beatles records being played on Radio City until the run of three songs ended and they gave out the news that John had been gunned down outside his home in New York. It was a horrible day but I still had to go to school and I remember the rockers in the school laughing at the Beatle fans and I never liked them anyway 'cos they liked Rainbow and Judas Priest, wore crap patches on their coats and they stunk of Patchouli oil. Later on in the evening it was Granada Reports with Tony Wilson being, from what I remember, not being quite complimentary about John and the clip that seemed to be getting played and played again on TV was the Let It Be rooftop session. And those are my main memories of a sad day. Radio City playing back to back Beatles hits, the smell of Patchouli and John Lennon in his fur coat on the roof of Apple singing Don't Let Me Down.
It would be good to hear what other people remember.
Needless to say I never photographed John Lennon so we'll have to make do with some fake ones.
I recently got a copy of The Phil's annual review, designed by Smiling Wolf, of 2008/2009 in the post with this first image spread across the front and back covers which I was made up with. And understandably enough the whole brochure was full of images I'd taken over the last year at the Phil itself as well as trips out including The Albert Hall, Summer Pops in Southport and the visit to the Houses Of Parliament not to mention the Queen and Macca's visits to Liverpool! The Phil over the last year have put on an incredible programme and things are still on the up with the recent announcement that the orchestra along with Vasily Petrenko are to play out in Shanghai later on in 2010 as part of Liverpool's presence at the World Expo! Fingers crossed I get to go with them!
Underwater themed children's concert.
OMD with The Liverpool Phil.
Bryn Terfel and Vasily Petrenko with the orchestra and choir.
Vasily Petrenko, February 2009.
In Harmony children's concert.
Conductor Clark Rundell and Elvis Costello in rehearsals.
Sir Simon Rattle with The Phil
Sir Paul McCartney during rehearsals for Ecce Cor Museum at Liverpool Cathedral.
Although sometimes I do shoot fashion!
Earlier on this year, I met a very nice and very good portrait photographer from Liverpool who referred to me as a fashion photographer which in a way sort of horrified me as I really just see myself as not specialising in anything and if I am known for anything in particular then it's music having had a book out last year of my music based work. Click here if you haven't seen it! Wink wink! Even though I do shoot lots of music related stuff and will be updating my main site with recent work over the next few weeks, I also do lots of commercial work and the portfolios of that work can be seen here.
However, with regards to fashion, I've sort of let it take a back seat for a while which is partly down to the fact that I don't see the point in being branded as a fashion photographer in a city that doesn't require much fashion photography but one in which there's loads of people running around claiming to be fashion photographers. And a lot of them are a bit rubbish to be honest! There's also more grief in fashion circles, though I think they call it bitching, and over the last two years I've had stacks of people come to me to tell me what such and such has said about me and how such and such would do my commissioned work for nothing just to get in there etc etc. And whilst I find most of it very funny, it does become a drag after a while. Maybe commercial photography just isn't glamorous enough to fight over, and although there's a fair bit of gossip and nonsense that goes around the music scene at times, there's nothing to match some of the cranks that seem to be out there in Liverpool's so called fashion circles. People also seem to talk a lot these days about the Liverpool fashion industry and forgive me if I'm wrong but I thought the whole point of an industry was to make money and I've never had so many requests for freebies as I have from some local fashion clients. So with that, along with free magazine culture that seems to be a constant in the city, I've sort of not been doing much in the way of fashion with the exception of a few regular clients.
In fact this shoot here is, I think, the first editorial fashion I've done this year and the reason I took it on was down to the fact that some of my favourite people were booked to work on it. The shoot was put together by Christine at Impact, the styling was by My Wardrobe's Joanne Watkinson who is amazing, the make up was by Kate Smith and the model is Jenny Cooper. I was also assisted on this shoot by Anton Rodriguez who, though still at college studying fashion, is in my humble opinion way better than most of the other new kids on the block! And some of them ain't even kids!
And if you think I'm just taking a snipe at other photographers then you're wrong as I'm happy to talk about people that I like and respect in the city who do shoot fashion with my two personal favourites being Mark Shearwood (who mostly shoots tests at the moment though he works all over the world as an assistant) and Dan Kenyon. But if you are thinking about joining the throngs of photographers out there who borrow a Prada shirt from a shop in town and then post the picture up to Model Mayhem saying client : Prada, then maybe you should learn to take photos first and a good port of call might be a Bruce Smith masterclass who is a photographer based in, correct me if I'm wrong, Crosby but teaching fashion photography all over the world!!!
And it is a funny old world! These photographs appear in the current edition of The Liverpool Lifestyle Magazine.
This is the cover of the latest newsletter/paper published by National Museums Liverpool and out of 6 issues I think a photograph of mine has graced the over of 3, maybe even 4 of them, and I'm very happy with that. I'm also happy with the contents of my mantelpiece in my office which you can see in the background and for those in the slightest bit interested those contents are a rather large broken Nokia phone, a picture of David Bowie's Low cover made out of plastic beads by Katherine Prange, a few of Ken Dodd's Diddymen figures including Mick The Marmaliser, a unopened bottle of Cavern lager, an unopened 1960's Playboy Playmate jigsaw puzzle, a Dave Dee paper doll (though I think it might actually be Beaky), a large unidentified Beatle in a Victorian case, a plastic Rhino on which the magazine Plastic Rhino was founded, my favourite photo of me and me dad (with a Cockatoo), a framed map of Rhyl and a Chairman Mao alarm clock. I'll stop now.
I did some photographs a while ago for the singer Toni james which have just gone online in her new website which you can check out here.
Or is it Rat & Brian? Rat Scabies and Brian James were the support for Eagles Of Death Metal in what seems to be a hurriedly put together 'Rat and Brian' go Death Metal project. The largely instrumental duo were stupid loud and I found out afterwards that their amps didn't even go through the main p.a. But they were the loudest things I'd ever heard!?! Introduced to the stage by the headline band's singer Jesse Hughes as being one of his biggest influences, the duo made a massive great big drums and guitar assault on an unsuspecting audience that at times reminded me of Link Wray which of course is a good thing. And if their whole set wasn't noisy enough, the Eagles of Death Metal joined them onstage at the end for a massively distorted version of New Rose!
After hearing the volume coming out of the support band who were just two blokes playing guitar and drums, I decided that last night's Eagles Of Death Metal gig was one of them rare times when ear plugs were very very necessary. And I wasn't wrong! Not heard this lot before but they were well entertaining, through the comforting dulled sound of the ear plugs, and from recent reports I heard they outshone the Arctic Monkeys when they supported them on the opening night of their UK tour at the Echo Arena. This was a proper old school rock'n'roll show with the audience joining in to the point that all the boys were giving it the Sign of the Horns and the girls were giving up their bras! Rock on!