We are all victims of Social Networks.
When liveon35mm started, I was shooting on film, there was no Facebook, Myspace was the next big thing and blogs were the best way to interact on the virtual world.
Not anymore.

Nowadays we spend more time on FB than anywhere else online, Facebook has become the Internet and the Internet is what is being linked onto Facebook (or Twitter).
it’s a fact and google analytics confirms it. Forget G+, Pinterest or , erm, Ello.

I haven’t stopped shooting gigs, though. Who’s in touch with me (on liveon35mm Facebook page for example or Twitter :-) knows.
I don’t like posting “just another gallery” of a live show in here. I didn’t do it in 2007, when music photography blogs were a handful, I don’t feel like starting today where there are at least 3 online galleries for any concert happening anywhere in the world. Concert photography has become so ubiquitous to the surreal point that it becomes a news when it is not anymore in the news.

These months I photographed many good gigs and some of the photos have not seen the light of the day, the best always go to my ever growing live music gallery on my website, if you’re interested.

Rarely I have the will and the time to write about a gig again. This is one of those moment.
I love all the crazy guys that went around the stoner age.
I posted Briant Bjork with his Bros. here actually I have to rescan that pic of him, is one of my favourite 35mm shots.
Than also Eagles of Death Metal, Queens of the Stone Age when Nick already left, and Kyuss when Nick rejoined them.

I have seen Nick Oliveri with and without clothes in most of his bands

Yesterday he came to Cambridge to play a date of his solo Death Acoustic tour 2015.

I didn’t know he had an acoustic album years ago, 3.5 mark on Pitchfork.
I didn’t know he was on tour.
I didn’t know even know he plays guitar too.

What I know is that he’s a super cool guy and on stage and, in a tiny place as the Portland Arms, it can only be fun. In fact if anything else this show is a lot of fun.

Promoter told gig would start at 10PM, but around 9:30PM, after an embarrassing support band, Nick’s on stage plugging his only guitar. It doesn’t take much does it?
A table next to him hosts a beer, a tequila and a couple of glasses.
A microphone pole.
A nice backlight and a lot of smoke to blur the background.

Even the ingredients for some photography are present, despite the light is never enough, it was OK.

There is not setlist, not a band. He goes freely picking songs in a back catalogue that would made envious about 80% of modern rockstars.
Not many, not even Josh Homme, can write down in the CV to have been part of Kyuss, Queens of The Stone Age and Mondo Generator.

Only Nick can say to have been sacked by all of them while dedicating the songs he plays to them. It’s a kind of great rock’n’roll mystery what went on inside those changing rooms.
Badasses.

The show starts and end on acoustic guitar, vocals and screams. Latter is the most interesting part.

Nick isn’t a great guitarist, he jokes during the set about what those two more strings are for. Mark Sandman would probably have agreed.
Nick is not a great singer either, especially when he confronts implacably with John Garcia‘s songs. Nevermind, he can scream those parts out.

Afterall Oliveri has an amazing band with him: the fans.
They are ready to sing, chat, joke and, if invited, happy to stage invade.

Midway through the set there is a group rendition of Queens Of The Stone Age early anthem Feel Good Hit Of The Summer that basically goes on and on around the line… “Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Ecstasy and Alcohol
Cocaine”. Sang with 50 people on stage is one of the best pits of Portland Arms since Pulled Apart By Horses crowdsurfed.

Everyone knows that, when a girl comes to tell he has 20 minutes, about a hour into the set, it means much longer.
So we are delighted to two more songs for the main set, some chat, about three for an encore, two more pints fell on the floor, another drunk guy that has to leave because he cannot, literally, stand. Few more are attempting that British gimmick of dancing with a pint in hand while gigging, with mix results.

A hour and half later the gigs closes. The super-sweaty Portland Arms opens the door to the beer garden and I am all ready for a pint and a chat to refresh a bit.
It’s a wonderful, warm summer night.

Not Anymore. I see a strong light on the horizon. Not sure what it is. A second one leaves two options. Either Milton village is being attacked by an air strike or a summer storm is about to arrive. I live close and leave in a rush, without beer. I got the scooter, a light denim biker jacket. 5 minutes I am at home.
5 minutes and 1 second Cambridge is submerged by the most violent storm I ever seen here.
A sign?
I download the photo you can see here.

Nick Oliveri meanwhile is going to play London and touring Europe, including my hometown in Rome. If you’re around and up for a fun night out, this is the gig you’ve been waiting for a while.
Nick is online somewhere here [website] [Facebook] [Twitter]

Photo tip

I received an e-mail recently, a girl wanted to know some info on how to behave when she had to go to one of her first live gigs… one of the question was:

“Would I be better off only taking with me things I need (ie. Camera & camera accessories, phone, ID, confirmation email and travelcard) as opposed to a backpack with my things in?”

It’s a fair question. Gigs are busy, when photographing you lose track of your belongings, space is never enough and queue at the cloackrooms after the show is usually much longer than my patience.
The answer needs a counter answer. What’s the venue like?

If you’re going to shoot in a big theatre, with a pit, you’re fine with whatever you have. Leave all the bags and coats under the step of the barrier delimiting the pit.
Under,not over, because you never know who’s in the first rows and your lens are quite expensive to be at hand reach of some excited fans. Plus the risk of liquid spills is high, photographic gear doesn’t like beer as you may want, so keep it protected enough but not too much that is unreachable. It happens often that plans are wrong and the lens you need is the one in the bag.

In a small (packed) venue, with no pit, as it was this tonight, it’s tougher. You need to find a safe place, so arrive early, get to the front and spot it. Look if other photographers have one. I usually leave it to the front next to me, in sight all the times. Or under the stage if there is space. The worst case scenario is you have to move the stuff with you along the stage if you’re moving. Don’t keep backpack on your back, that’s annoying for the other people and useless to you.
Leave it in the cloackroom is an option for coats and stuff, but the essentials (batteries, lenses, memory cards) needs to be with you all the times.
Even when you’re allowed to shoot the whole set, going to the cloackroom to get the charged battery and coming back to the front can be a (too) long Odyssey.

Internet taught me the reason of the name change. It is because of another band, The Dears, who threatened to sue Deers for name infringement. The 2 bands do not even share the same name.

It is a grotesque sad story indeed. The Dears are a Montreal band who for a couple of albums rode the wave of Canadian alternative music (without being that great at surfing to be fair). The wave, originally generated by Arcade Fire at the beginning of the century, arrived to European coasts and broke out about 10 years ago. Without having the strength of other Canadian bands, The Dears slowly disappeared from the music horizon.

Recently, they had the brilliant idea (sarcasm here) to spend the few dollars they earned, to pay a lawyer to sue a fellow Spanish indie-rock band, Deers.
WTF!! (Stands for: What the Fuck!!). Hoping in what? Bad press coverage and what else?

What they are basically saying is that Dears’ fans are so stupid that could easily confuse between their favourite band and this lovely girls.
If this wasn’t devaluating enough,  what for? Accidentally spotifying a song of Deers instead of one of Dears before realising they are different bands (loss of $0.01)? Buying a Deers album (yet to be released) instead of one of the Dears (loss of 2$)? For real? How much does a solicitor letter cost? Couldn’t you invest in a new guitar for yourself instead of allowing your lawyer to buy for himself?

In facts, they must have understood that the silly legal move was utterly stupid because it is now difficult to find that The Dears from Montreal are the band forcing Deers from Madrid to change name into Hinds.  Enough.

Hinds, which are cool, took the news in style. They drew a lovely cartoon to NME explaining the situation in which they report that “They force us to, we received an email from a Canadian lawyer saying that our name created confusion with his band’s name. And that name is not even deers (LOL). We tried our best, really, but we have no choice. So… Okay!!! Let’s take this with a smile !!! deers are now… Hinds.”

Pass this on to your friends, hoping they’re not fan of The Dears.

Let’s talk about Hinds. There is a lot to say.

As I mentioned, they are not American, British and not even Canadian. They are from Madrid, Spain.
They are 4 young girls. They play garage rock, sang in English, with a joyful Spanish twist. God knows if garage rock needs joyfulness.

Carlotta and Ana play guitar and share vocals. Curly Ade plays bass and blonde Amber (born in Holland) sits on drums.
Is this it? [cit]. Yes, it is. The perfect line-up.

Carlotta and Ana told (again NME) they first got together, learnt to play instruments listening to their favourite music which includes the Black Lips and took off from there.
Then they asked Ade and Amber to add the rhythm section and the Hinds were born. It already sounds as a classic indie-rock fairy tale.

With two difference.
Madrid. The Spanish capital is not the first place to come to mind when talking alternative rock.
The all-female line-up. This is not breaking news though, there’s a comeback of girls’ rock. Not only of historical acts as Electrelane and very recently Sleater-Kinney with a beautiful album, but relatively new bands as Warpaint and Haim are now playing the main stage.

It’s a relative short story from now on. With the debut album still to come, it was a long time since a band got so much press with only a bunch of singles and few shows. That are instantly sold-out. I tried to get in at the Lexington in November, too late. I bought a ticket for the small Boston Arms in Tufnell Park, before even asking for a photopass, just to avoid being left-out again. London Press lists are always tight to photographers despite they are mostly unattended.
Meanwhile they sold out another date at the bigger Electrowerkz.

At The Line of Best Fit they have a great intuition on newcomers. I read about them for the first time.
The Guardian, who won the Pulitzer price and has the traffic, also has a great set of music journos who championed Hinds for the popular “new band of the week” section.

All this press needs attention and I needed to fulfil my curiosity. I went to see and came back tryng to name the last gig I had as much fun. Leaving apart Fat White Family which are something else, I must quote Japandroids at the Camden Barfly in 2009 .

Carlotte came to stage with the other girls to write the setlist on a paperbag with a black marker and to ask the soundman to keep DJing for a while. The sound goes on till the Strokes arrive. They leave and come back walking through the sea of fans packing an oversold venue. I stepped to the front from 7:30 to get to the right place. It’s almost 10pm when they start. It takes seconds to understand it’s going to be a great gig.

Imagine all the passion of latest newcomers overwhelming the lack of technique due to youth. A indie-rock manifesto since the Stooges.
A band that clearly spent time having fun in a garage, rehearsing and learning to play at the same time.
It’s natural they will get better with time, playing and playing again, but the sincerity and the warmth coming out of the tunes is all here and I do hope won’t be sacrificed to skill.

Every giggle, every smile every move is done with straight honesty.
Indie fans feel that and love that.

Songs as Trippy Gum and Bamboo quickly get everyone dancing in a lively mosh pit (at this point I would be worrying about my lenses as per usual). Vaguely retro but into this era without being caught into 60s vintage as Girls. (PS: I love Girls and want them back)
I don’t give up, I know this is the place to be in London tonight. Jangly guitar and lot of smiles. A good English (all songs are sung in English) including Castigadas en el Granero the only with a Spanish title.

It can’t be a long show, literally for the lack of songs. No one complains. They played all their catalogue and sounded brilliant from start to end. Pop hook, chorus, fresh sound, crisp and young riffs. Simple, pure.
They always smile, have a laugh if something goes wrong, never look preoccupied if some cables unplug or a string is out of tune.
A lovely evening, between them, with the fans all it was missing was a Spanish summer open air night.

When it’s time to close the gig, Hinds don’t have anything left to play but would love to play more. So they call anyone to jump onto the stage. Once as many people as the stage can squeeze are on, another version of Bamboo is played with a sing-along of 100+ people.

It’s the kind of situation in Spain (or Italy) would be absolutely normal and part of the local folklore. To the English “Health and Safety department” of Boston Arms it must have looked dreadful. A bored big man, shini yellow jacket, “security” font Arial Size 128 on the back, came to the front to check no one ain’t doing no wrong.

Obviously nothing happens, apart an unplugged cable, a guitar that stops working and need change and some big laughs to build an impromptu moment that everyone will remember for a long while.

It must be a beautiful sensation to find yourself on a stage in front of people that sincerely adore you as much as you sincerely do what you adore.

Hinds just finished their tour, be sure you keep in touch with them at the right places (a plethora of domain changes it’s happening right now), the following should help to not get lost: [website][facebook][twitter][Instagram][Spotify]

Photo tip

Boston Arms is 50 yards away from Tufnell Park’s tube station. Northern line, High Barnett branch. One stop after Kentish Town, two from Camden Town. It’s North London zone2. To my knowledge a no go zone years ago, now that Camden and Kentish towns expand rapidly area is becoming a trendy.

I had never been in this part of London before. Someone tells me this wouldn’t have been my first pub of choice unless I was after a fight on a Friday night plan.
I cannot confirm. On a Wednesday night, tonight, it looks cheerful and cosy, the perfect place to play such a gig.

It was my first gig at Boston Arms music room too. The room is a large pub room dedicated to live music and separated from the main pub. There are few tables on the right, the bar on the left and a wide nice wooden floor hosting maybe 2-300 people.
I am given a leaflet saying Oasis’ superstar Noel Gallagher is playing here in about a month which translates in: the place is hip at the moment.

Unsurprisingly there is no pit and there are only LED lights, this is the norm of venues of this size. Concert photography wise it is a wide angle place, f2.8 throughout ISO >3200. Time to show off your D750 if yours does not have flare problems. I keep going with my beloved D700 paired with a D800 and a range of 14 to 70mm focal lengths. More than enough.

The no pit situation implies to get to the front early, especially when sold out. There is some space under the stage platform to leave a bag and coat, which is very useful.
At the entrance I was told three songs no flash. As anyone with some experience of live music knows, no pit and a sold out small venue means you can shoot the whole gig unless someone asks to stop, which usually does not happen. It didn’t. The girls are so into the music that don’t really care of photographers’ presence.

It’s about 3 or 4 “pro” cameras (+ point and shots + mobiles). It’d be all nice if a photographer, likely at one of her first ever gig experiences, didn’t ignore anyone else and stood in the way of any other lens present. An unusual all access made her feel empowered and above anyone else.

If on a standard night most of my photos are binned because of a mic pole in the way, in this case most were trashed because of a camera, or the whole combo photographer + camera, is in the frame. She acted selfish, aggressively and disrespectfully. It didn’t help anyone.

Not sure she will ever read this little blog but, if it happens, my tip to you is this.

“You can be the greatest music photographer the UK scene has ever seen, you will not get anywhere if you do not learn to respect who’s doing your same job.”

Content.
She asks if I want to go to London Heaven to shoot Charli XCX. She offers a price for it (reasonable considering 99% of publication are “Sorry, we don’t have budget for photos”).
I am free. Free means nothing programmed that is absolutely unavoidable. Still this was about knowing last minute that I had to rush out of my job, get home, get the cameras, hop a train to London, go to the gig, comeback home late night, edit the photos, send the low-res and seeing my lovely girlfriend only once deep in her dreams, in bed, at around 2am. Next morning same alarm clock, wake up and go to work as if nothing happened.

Reaction.
Who is Charli XCX? I didn’t have a clue.
One month since this show I keep writing her name everywhere with an E at the end. Why Charli and non Charlie? I don’t know.
The distance between my listening (Einsturzende Neubauten while I write this) and pop girls is pretty much the same I have between what I like in photography and HDR seascapes.

Further Actions.
Google her.
Spotify her.
Youtube a live song by her.

Conclusion.
Cool. She must definitely play a nice show, fuck indie-depressing-rock, fuck noise-earbleeding-drones, fuck literate-intellectual-songwriting. Tonight I’m going to have fun. Or photograph fun.

I reply OK-ing. I’ll go. Technical e-mails with details follow but everything is smooth and sorted. I’m Italian but do love German organisation skills.

The venue.
Heaven in London is a small hip venue in the arches near Embankment tube station.
It has a nasty security policy, big men very busy to get rid of photographers rather than helping photographers to promote the artists and their venue.
I know that. I get there early.
I get in the pit for the two support acts. Pretty unknown but still worth. The nice side of pop music photography is action and good lights. Dream condition if you spent last ten years shooting guys standing still, in the dark, behind a mic pole, in skinny black jeans.
Spoiler. I noticed the ceiling covered in white and pink balloons.

The Audience.
If you think pop means screaming teenagers on the first rows, you are right. We’re at Heaven but it looks like hell for the exhausted girls at the front rows. Some have been queuing since 7am.
It’s not ‘heaven’ also for the group of parents chatting outside, under the “Arches”. It must be harsh to wait for the next three hours in the winter cold. I am tempted to suggest some of them to cross the bridge and head to the Royal Festival Hall for a drink and some intellectual stimulation. The World Press Photo catalogue is on sale already, at discounted price.
Inside Heaven is all about expensive merchandising, showing ID to get a drink and waiting while screaming or, better, screaming while waiting.

The Artist.
Charli real name is Charlotte Emma Aitchison and she was born in… Cambridge! (Wiki says) in 1992? Gosh!
It means when I moved to Cambridge she was one of those 9 years old cute girls dancing with hippie parents at the strawberry fair. Who knows?
Last week she was walking the red carpet of the American Music Award next to the biggest pop-stars. If you believed Cambridge exported only Pink Floyd and seventhy+ nobel prizes think again. We have Charli!
She is half my age, she achieved twice my goals. Including global stardom (I will be patient). She’s not a photographer.
She supported Katy Perry, Coldplay. Sang songs with Iggy Azalea and Icona Pop. Great management behind.

The Album.
Doesn’t exist. It has a title: Sucker. A big label: Atlantic Records. A couple of number 1 singles: Break The Rules and Boom Clap.
The record has been on the new releases calendar for months and pushed back endless times. It’s ready, but the success of the singles holds it to build expectation. Yes, this is how the pop formula works nowadays.
You don’t come out with a single plus an album. The single arrives, than the next, than the next… iTunes. Spotify. YouTube. Do not stop till success and press coverage is big. Once you exhausted your bullets, here’s the gun. Unloaded. Released.
Strange marketing, as if marketing was a crystalline process.

The Gig.
Sucker is everywhere, in case you forget the title. On the merch, printed in Charli XCX (and in her all female band) outfit, in the selftitled songs hook that goes “Fuck you, sucker!” including middle finger raised, about 56 times in the first 3 minutes of the show.
Yes, I know, I should switch off Einsturzende Neubauten Lament, an elegy of first World War, if I want to write about Charli XCX show. But I’m not sure I’d succeed anyway. I may be her father. I am light years away from teenage rebellion, even from rebellion altogether, to accept such a sad truth ain’t easy.
Charli is an empowered girl, heading a girl power movement. Feminist enough to shout out what she thinks; sexy enough to be a wet dream for an army of teenage boys.
She introduces a song, London Queen, for the first time in London. She began playing small clubs and illegal raves in UK and walked the glittery American Music Award Red Carpet with Jennifer Lopez and Taylor Swift, will soon fill arenas this side of the pond.
And until she does it with enough honesty to be convincing, well why not.

The hit.
I moved to the back of heaven, for the rest of the gig. Forced (by the above famed security) to put my camera in my bag so that the only pic I get of the pink and white balloons’ rain is taken with my old iPhone.
It’s time for Break The Rules, her most successful hit and catchier chorus.
A couple well into their 20s, next to me, dances wildly. She went heavy on red lipstick, he on black mascara.
The silliest rhyme I heard since I my teenage years (but hey, those were the 80s, silly by choice) goes
” I don’t wanna go to school, I just wanna break the rules”
Goes on forever and every time gets more people into a sing along. #FeelingOld

The Lyrics.

“Electric lights
Blow my mind
But I feel alright

And never stop, it’s how we ride
Comin’ up until we die

You catch my eye
Bitch, you wanna fly
I’m so alive

I don’t wanna go to school
I just wanna break the rules
Boys and girls across the world
Putting on our dancing shoes
Going to the discotheque
Getting high and getting wrecked
I don’t wanna go to school
I just wanna break the rules”

Connect with Charli, she is online [Website][Facebook][Twitter][YouTube][Instagram][Spotify]

Photo tip

Few important take home lessons around this opportunity.

– Have your camera bag ready and your batteries charged. A call can arrive last minute.
You don’t want to put an excuse while you think the reason you are refusing is because you have no time to recharge camera batteries.

– Be ready to read into the opportunity and don’t let it go.
If someone offers you a job for the first time to reject it is your right, but be sure you have a strong reason to do that.
Because networking is essential and the chances that person will call you again after you said no are, erm, nil.
Being in London for this gig disrupted a few of my plans and I lost some quality sleep but I earnt some good money and added a contact that can comeback useful in the future.

– Don’t be rigid on your music taste and favourite artists.
I agree, if it’s mainly for free (or in the hope of some agency sale) I’m the first to chase only the artists I like, but to have in your portfolio some acts beyond your interest and taste help making it look less of a niche and more professional.
You can also have some fun. I did enjoy that Katy Perry gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire years ago.

– One question I could not avoid asking was “how did you find me?”

Which I asked. Surprisingly I received the obvious still unexpected question.
“I googled concert photographers in London, your name popped up high, I looked at your Portfolio and was happy with it”

Two lessons more to self (2 tips to everyone)

– Always work on promotion and SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization, and translate into “how many chances people has to find you out of a google search”.
It’s about indexing photo, tagging them properly, being featured in external sites and also have a website in the right place.
– Always keep an up to date and strong portfolio on your site.

A bit of advertising here, Photoshelter has all you need to get you going at best web speed, so being on Photoshelter for years I strongly suggest you consider it if you’re serious about photography.
With this link you can also save some $$ if you join up. Give it a try.

Great portfolios, easy to manage websites and state-of-the-art SEO.

Alvvays have been on my radar for few months, missed them at a London festival, went to catch them close to home
I have a soft spot for indiepop. It is not my genre but it works pretty well when neither Michael Gira nor PJ Harvey do.

Summer nights, refreshing evening to cheer you up with a drink. Contemporary vintage. Nostalgia of old music without wanting to listen to the Beach Boys.
That is where Indiepop enters my life.

OK, Let’s spend a couple of lines on the name. I know, It’s internet. To be or not to be that is the question. Easy is the answer. Depends if the search engine finds us or not.
To get up there in the first half page of google isn’t easy, you know everytime you do a search of site without typing your name.
Name. One and foremost, a unique name helps a lot. A word that doesn’t exist. But still recalls another that does exist. Genius.
Alvvays replaced the W with 2 Vs. Looks wrong (to me) but works great. Google it and see. Than try to Google, for example, Perfect Pussy and see if you get anything about a punk band (DO NOT do this at work).

Unique name. It’s not just that, sure. Being the only Valerio Berdini in the world it would have made me a millionaire.
You need to be good (*reminder to self*), constant, professional and catchy. I’ll get to that later.

Chvrches did it first (or was it Mvscles?). Whatever, V in the place of U looks cooler than VV in the place of W.
Few years back someone pioneered the idea using caps lock (that google ignores) and removed vowels. Band as SBTRKT appeared but, let’s be honest, it didn’t work because it is impossibile to remember the sequence of consonants when you don’t have the whole name. And it’s unpronounceable which doesn’t help words of mouth.
I always get LND or LDN wrong for All London airports international code, for example. (Don’t think you care)

Right I finish this. I needed to squeeze a couple of pretty pics of Molly, rather, pretty Molly pics and need some words between them.

Molly Rankin is Alvvays’ magnet and a magnetic front-girl. She sings, plays guitar and capture audience attention.
Wikipedia tells me she is a member of the Rankin family, a musical institution in Canada that I never heard of until I got to Wiki to check. (Call me ignorant but I am honest)

This to say Alvvays are from Canada. Nova Scotia…. (google/maps/Nova Scotia) … oh yes, it is that protuberance in the east of the country just north of the US. Must be beautiful there.

Alvvays album was out earlier this year and welcomed enthusiastically in UK. They saturated my twitter liveon35mm feed for a week (it’s linked cause I’m close to 1000 for too long go follow me break the barrier), that’s how I was caught by the name, first, intriguing articles, second. I couldn’t avoid them.

Spotify now has their selftitled album on stream so I am listening to it right now.

9 fresh songs. They open with a nice jingle, not a proper riff, more the sort of things Robert Smith of the Cure used in songs, all with the right vibe from start to end.
Jangling guitars and Molly’s voice embodying that happiness of being young and doing what she loves most.

I wanted to buy the album and get it signed after their set at the Cambridge Junction. They came to open for Real Estate, I took these photographs there.
Unfortunately I forgot my wallet at home, so I couldn’t buy neither the album nor the glass of white wine belonging to a lady that I spilled from a table. #FeelingGuilty

Alvvays are a 5 members band. If Molly is the band’s (sweet)heart, the other 4 are the band’s mind.
Down to earth, they have the quintessential indie attitude playing quintessential independent music, dressed in quintessential indie fashion including indie accessories, spectacles, converse, t-shirt, skinny jeans kind of stuff.

So, they do what it says in the tin. And they do it well.

Signed to Polyvinyl (which I hope one day will bring to us another Japandroids album) is a warranty of sincerity.
They will play the album almost in full tonight in a 30 minutes slot. It sounds crisp and shiny (and better than Real Estate but don’t tell them).

Alec O’Hanley on lead guitar has the melodic touch, Kerri MacLellan on keys adds the pillars of the songs, with simple harmonies.
Let’s make it clear, it’s not rocket science, it’s not Thelonious Monk quartet and not even the Cure. But it’s pleasing.

If you want a comparison, you better look at Camera Obscura or the Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
This is on offer and better you take it now.

The most complicate career you can choose, as a professional band in 2014, is this sort of delicate, not showing-off, jangly pop.
It’s difficult to write songs that stand out from the huge bunch they’re with.
It’s difficult to impress your audience when you walk on stage the same way you dress to go to the cornershop to buy milk.

Alvvays managed to fill a whole album with 9 indie-pop pearls and it will be nice to see these guys growing and pointing at bigger stages.
To support Real Estate was good but wasn’t doing justice to their potential.

Listen to them, tell your friends, bring them back to UK.
You now know how easy is to find Alvvays online, but if you’re super lazy, I’m here to help with few links [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

Junction2 is a tiny posh venue, as posh as the city of Cambridge.
When is seated there’s no pit, actually the seats are in a pit.
When it’s standing most of times there is no pit.

Rarely as tonight, they put a pit. It was so tiny that the girl passing the photopass tells me she doubt I can squeeze in. I know I will.
Every small pit is better than no pit.
Why?

General opinion among music fans and venue securities is that music photographers want a pit so they do not have to arrive too early and still have a privileged spot in front of long time waiting first row fans. It’s true. We love our job, still is a job. When you are doing a job to be in the ideal conditions to work helps.

I have covered so many gigs without pit, I mean wild shows, shows with violent moshpits, deafening concerts that I am experienced enough to tell that the problem is not music photographers being picky.

The main reason we want a pit is because it helps shooting better photos.
Why? Yes, because we are close but mainly because we can move.

A concert is not static, and even with the static artists different angles help to find the right photo.
To move along the stage in a soldout theatre with people standing it is not a option when there is not a pit.

It is already tough to get to the front but we must. Second row is a no option. We need to be in front of anyone else.
Fans are right to complain. First row should be for them than to these big lenses taking photo.

Music venues, please, do all you can to put press pits at gig if the band allows photographers.

If you want that we do our best job we give us the condition to work.
If there is no chance we are going to have a pit, please tell us in advance.
We’ll live at home the 70-200mm and probably the second body attached to it. We’ll be lighter, we will be less of a hassle.

On one side I wasn’t very keen of going here and there shooting music because I was concentrated on a different photographic project.
On the live music side many things went wrong.

First the artists: Prince above all, Jack White, Neutral Milk Hotel and Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon to close. I am a big fans of all of them, they are not big fans of photographers which means either I went to see the gig without cameras (Neutral Milk Hotel) or I didn’t go at all (Prince, Jack White).

Then there was the Jabberwocky/ATP festival cancellation. One of the most outrageous behaviour I have ever seen, but I will not write about it because there is nothing more to write. The internet is plenty of insightful analysis that all bring to the only reasonable conclusion: whoever is the responsable they didn’t care of the fans but only of the money.
It’s capitalism, baby.

My friend came from Italy for this and, in addition of struggling to refund the festival ticket, has paid a flight, a stay and everything. We had a nice countryside canoe ride on the River Cam up to Grantchester Meadows, though, which was nice and very Pink Floydy.

So back in Cambridge and back in time, since I don’t like leaving this blog abandoned and I am plenty of photos of gigs that I haven’t used, I fished out a concert that happened in Cambridge in May.

Pulled Apart by Horses played a tiny date at the Portland Arms. If you read me you now know this delightful pub with annexed one of the best music space in Cambridge.
It’s the right time now to get those shots out of the hard disk now.

Pulled Apart By Horses (also known as PABH) have been on the scene for a while. Following the classic indie band trajectory, they formed in Leeds in 2008, putting together the rests of dissolved bands. They released singles and demoes as everyone until they were noticed and signed by Transgressive records to release their self titled debut in 2010.

Despite this, it’s live that the band has always gathered its followers. Exploring the post-hardcore genre that has been going around in UK since the start of the decade, together with the like of Blood Red Shoes, Rolo Tomassi, Future of the Left and several more, PABH raucous shows became the worst kept secret of the underground UK scene.

The second album was out a couple of years later, Tough Love. BBC mentioned it as their album of the week, it cemented their success and increased their following. Together with continuous sold out dates in bigger and bigger venues all around the country including festival stages that are increasing in size under their feet.

A third album has been expected for a long time and that time has come. It will be out next week, 1st of September 2014, on a new label, Best of The Best Records, with a sheer title: Blood.

When PABH came to the Portland Arms, about 3 months ago, there were no rumours on the new album release, despite it was obvious. The above mentioned “indie-rock trajectory” implies that they were due an album somewhere around this year.

This was a special night with The Witches opening (another must see live band) for them. In a 150 people crammed venue. All the ingredients for the punk-night of the year were set.

And the punk night of the year, it was.

All volumes set to 11. T-shirt quickly left space to bare chests. Girls and boys having their wild night out experience. Tom Hudson screams set the energy level to maximum and all the rest followed.

I am not a big punk hardcore fan and if I have to mention one thing I don’t digest of it is the singing.
I appreciate the fast 2 minute songs and the fast music that tonight breaks the world records flowing at a pace of five hundred miles an hour but the singing is my problem.

I love the uncoordinated energy releasing mad dancing of the moshpits. I love the crowd surfing and the band surfing moments.

I like the sweating that for a hour let me think that UK ain’t that cold in the end. And I loved, surely more than the Portland Arms owners, the dismount of the ceiling due to a crowd-surf slightly more vigorous than the health and safety specs.

I could stay here mentioning anyone from Ramones to McLusky. Venturing into a political essay on Dischord and Washington DC scene all to attempt a poor review of this gig but I am a photographer and will not.
I think nothing better than these pitures can convince you that as soon as Blood is out, attending one of Pulled Apart By Horses gig would rejuvenate your soul.

Follow the band online to know where and listen them onto Spotify to know why: [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

Meeting fellow photographers in a pit is common. After few years going from one venue to another you realise that, despite the growing number of concert shooters that coined the saying “there’s more concert photographers than concerts”, we are a limited bunch and we know each other, at least locally.

What is less common is to meet one of the greatest concert photographers of all time in a Cambridge pub backroom. Steve Gullick is a legend of and beyond music photography.
Personally he is responsible together with Jim Marshall to have pulled me into this exciting journey of shooting gigs (even on film, but that journey is someway stopped, with regret, for now). So he’s behind the concept of this blog too.

I crossed my path with Steve already, at another couple of gigs. I remember Josh T-Pearson at the Union Chapel, Mogwai at the Junction in Cambridge and probably some Mark Lanegan’s too.
But having the chance for a chat is rare in those minutes before the show starts.

Tonight I finally succeed to have a quick chat and we decide to go for a pint at some point, point that I’ll make it happen soon.

For the ones who do not know Steve, he is probably the man that has been closer to Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain after Courtney Love. He followed the band, the whole madness of Seattle “grunge” and punk SubPop scene from the beginning. He is author of incredible album covers from the legendary USA scene to latest Foals and Smoke Faires. Steve basically photographs pretty much any artist I am in love with.

Gullick’s photography is on film, mostly, is B&W, mostly, hand processed by him in his darkroom, mostly, very contrasted, saturated, mostly, unusual in angle and lenses used, mostly, and… in a word (and one adjective)… utterly fascinating.

In a world where all music photographs look the same, three songs rule kill creativity. A world where all promo portraits are done in a 30 seconds slot taken next to a fence of a festival backyard or in front of a dressing room, Steve manages to maintain his unique style.

A friend of mine and another great photographer told me that Steve plays in a rock band too: Tenebrous Liars. They are good!
I know this because a couple of years ago I bought their vinyl. The reason was the original Gullick hand-printed landscape on the cover but I put on my dusty turntable the vinyl and I got to love the music inside.

Few months ago, instead, Steve embarked in a huge project on pledge music to make a 200 pages book on Nirvana and their years a reality.
It goes without saying I managed to pledge for a signed copy the day it was launched and now that the book has finally been crowd-funded I am looking forward to receiving it, hopefully in front of that pint.

There is still time to grab a copy of Nirvana’s Diary here and even some original signed prints.
Which you must do if you have ever appreciated this little blog and even if you do not.

Before that, few words about Deap Vally, which is what I went to see few weeks ago in this summer of concerts that, as usual in UK, is being all about weekend festivals with a sparse theatre shows.

One of these few shows that I managed to spot, sort and go have bee Deap Vally’s at Madame Jojo’s in London.
I was recently at Madame Jojo’s for Smoke Fairies album Launch.
I love Smoke Fairies, you must know this if you aren’t new to this old blog… I also loved the place and promised I’d get any chance to give it a second visit.

Deap Vally have been out for a while and I’ve been missing their show for more than that. It was time to fill the void.
When they came out they kind of checked all the bits Iusually like in a band.
Garage – checked.
Bluesy – Checked.
Duo – Checked.
Guitars and Drums – Checked.

Even the plus of having two girrrrrls on stage. How to miss that?

I bought Deap Vally debut album, Sistrionix, about a year ago. Yes, it has been out for a while.

It was very talked about too. Well covered in the mainstream paper reviews, one of the last few advantages of signing with a major, Island, when not targeting pop audeinces.

The album, I must admit, feels good on first listening, and it’s a pleasant record, but in the following months it hasn’t seen my CD player often. Is there a word meaning the opposite of a “grower”?
2013 was a great year for music and even 2014 hasn’t started that bad at all. With so much music to go for, stream, spend money into, I forgot to monitor Deap Vally UK tours. Also read… come to Cambridge girls!

Deap Vally are from Los Angeles, California, not your first garage location. Too sunny, too starlet, too sunset boulevard.

Their story is the classic “two friends met at school”, with the best twist. The school was a crochet class!
I think if garage musicians aren’t many in California, musicians who want to put on garage blues band in Los Angeles and bot love crochet is a tale ready for a movie. Not a Hollywood one, though, time to move to Berlin.
Born to be away from LA!

Facts are: Lindsey Troy and Julie Edwards met, became friends, talked about music and started a band which name is Deap Vally which I don’t know what it means.
They were born in 2011. Lindsey is on guitars and Julie sits behind the drum kit.

They comeback to London about 3 years since they met and about one since the album was released.
Madame Jojo’s is a small venue and sells-out quickly. It’s what here call “intimate”.
The over decorated baroque, fake gold-plated, red-velvet, opera-theatre design matches well the band. Maybe in their subconscious recalls crochet days.

I like Madame Jojos because it is one of the few venue with some tungsten lights, the traditional yellow light, that is being replaced by LEDs.

First a storming set by Howl, a support band that choses the least obvious name to bring their garage fuelled blues-rock to unexpected heights.
Than the usual half hour standing in the (not pitted) front plus five minutes of compulsory clapping, waiting.
Julie and Lindsey arrive, in shorts and glitter.

With just one album out and enough tour bus rides on their diary I know what to expect, song-wise. The album and a couple of new songs written during tour breaks.  More than at songs, I am interested at the sound and the live show.

Inevitably the first two blues-rock duos to come to mind are the (Jack) White Stripes and the Black Keys. If you expected someone to replace the void they both, for different left to take different directions, you’re not going to be satisfied.

White Stripes are irreplaceable since the day Meg vanished off the musicbiz. Because, despite what I believed when they were active, the White Stripes are Meg and are not without her. Listen to the way Jack White plays those song in his solo tour and you know that that magic is missing behind a massive wall of sound. Meg added those key voids, pauses, that Jack White can’t handle.

Black Keys, instead, went the Grammy way. The day they stopped being a duo, the day they added Rhythm to the Blues, recruited a bassist it was over. That Hills County inspired blues was left behind together with FatPossum.

Deap Vally could beseen as a void filling of either of them, but they are not.
They have their personality as a band, which is good, and also they are not because they don’t have that genius in songwriting of their epitomes.

After about an hour of music I was left with the feeling of having seen a surrogate of something. Something not yet defined.

Lindsay guitar skills aren’t at the level of Jack White or Dan Auerbach, they don’t even have Japandroids’ Brian King stormy energy. If you play guitar in a duo you have to take control of the void left by the lack of a bassist. Troy is a guitarist that would gain from bringing a bassist in the band.
Which is exactly what Haim did and gave them a very successful time.

Julie drumming is vigorous, coupled with her stage presence and flying hair, it is very entertaining.
I love when bands bring the drummer ahead and, even if she doesn’t dare to stay on the edge of the stage as Shellac’s Todd Trainer, I’m close enough to feel the passion.

Deap Vally have few good songs, and the good songs work better just because they are… better. Those have a good riffs, hooks, some melody and the chorus.
The mostly male audience gathering at the very first rows is pleased.

I think the fate of Deap Vally relies on the quality of the music that will be in their sophomore release.
I don’t know when it is going to happen but this is a classic example of a band that is in front of that “second difficult album”.

The future will tell, and internet will be of help too: [Website][Facebook][Twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

I get out on Soho narrow streets outside Madame Jojo’s on a pleasant London summer night. I have time for a stroll. While I find my way towards Piccadilly Circus tube station, I put my camera back in the bag and get out my loved 14-24mm to check everything is fine.

It is not. The zoom ring is very stiff, basically the lens doesn’t zoom and in a word doesn’t work. Repair is the solution. The amount of a Fixation bill is my next problem.

The venue was relatively quiet with only a couple of photographers at the front, no pit but quite a lot of people behind me. Difficult to get lenses out of the camera bag in this situation. I decide to mount the 24-70 and leave the 14-24 on stage, in front of me, just in case. It’s plenty of space between me and the drumkit.

Monitor suggests Lindsay Troy will be standing on the left, Julie Edwards sits at the drums. The few hardcore fans are busy shooting crap videos (vertica video is wrong, by the way) and taking photos instead of enjoing their idol in flesh and bones. Prince has a point here.

Second half of the set, Lindsay decides the moment, neither I nor the audience was expecting, arrived.
She walks towards me, stands in front of Julie drum-kit and jumps onto the few people standing there. Quite concentrated on filming a rare moment she got closed to them, they were all concentrated at their smartphone. Lindsay jumped and slowly fell down to the floor.
She was recovered by few aficionados who lift her back towards the stage. One of the worst attempt to surf-crowd I ever attended.

I saved my camera but I didn’t manage to save catch that precious ultra wide zoom lens which flew down from the stage in the hard wood floor.
Few (read: very many) bad words, with the hope it survived the crash, I put it back into the bag deciding the concert was lively enough to be impossible to change lens without a pit.

The morning after I filled a fixation form while having breakfast, sent the lens by registered mail. Prayed.
In a week time the nice (but expensive) people at Fixation called, collect my money and delivered my jewel back. It is working great, my bank account slimmed by £250.

At the price of this gig I could attend a couple of major festivals.

You can support the costs of my stupidity if you want and decorate your room. I have a large selected live-music gallery on my site at Photoshelter. you can order any print you want of Deap Vally or any other artist in my portfolio that will be delivered to your home.

It’s a niche. It isn’t much on TV or national radio to break into everyone’s home.
You need to search for it. You need to desire it.
The only mainstream media to talk about independent music, and only in England, are national newspapers.

Only recently, thanks to streaming platforms, papers became multimedia channels to offer listening in addition to the traditional articles with photos.

The Guardian streamed Slow Club third album, Complete Surrender, before its official release. The newspaper capability to permeate the ethereal atmosphere of the internet managed to bring the band in many more homes including mine.

Slow Club aren’t new to the niche. They still are to the masses.

The first album, Yeah So, was out in the summer of 2009 (5 years is a long time in today’s music average band lifetime).
The album opens with When I Go a delicate country-ish lullaby and goes on with Rebecca Taylor and Charles Watson multi-instrument playing along those melodic lines.

A Christmas EP followed the end of the same year, Christmas Thanks For Nothing. It was not a weird choice. Rebecca voice sounds perfect for a Christmas album. Big, deep, sound. Curiosity made me play Silent Night on Spotify on the warmest day of the year to discover it is an instrumental! The rest of the EP covers Darlene Love and has a couple of originals that, to be fair, are better than the covers.

At this point of their career Slow Club were still looking for a musical identity. I would classify them more among the indie-folk brigade together with the Laura Marling, First Aid Kit and the other girls that grew up with Mum’s Jony Mitchell vinyls.
Rebecca potential still has to come out powerful as it will be.

2011 arrived and Paradise, their second LP, came out late summer. From the first song the message sounds clear. Slow Club are moving to bigger songs. Arrangements gets more elaborate, rhythm is prominent and Taylor’s voice is finding her natural space and place.
A place which is not anymore in the folk tradition but not yet in a soul filled indie-pop.

Paradise deserved all the very good reviews it had worldwide, and in the indie-music blogosphere the band is now well known. They are played to a thousand people in the lovely London Koko to put them in contest.

At this point I haven’t seen them yet. I am much quicker to get in touch with rockier, garage, noisy new bands than more melodic, new-romantics.
But I get there in the end.

3 more years, another summer and another Slow Club album arrives: Complete Surrender. From the cover it’s clear this is a different thing. The colourful painting of Paradise is replaced by an almost monochromatic photo.

This is the piece that marks the division between two eras.
Change of label, they moved from Moshi Moshi to bigger indie Wichita, but most important they moved their sound to a contemporary indie version of Northern soul.
It does fit very well in the definition of blue-eyed soul for obvious reason but I would be unfair to Charles Watson.

Slow Club started as a duo and Charles Watson has an essential part in taking the band music to their sound, never drifting into clichés.

Both Charles and Rebecca are multi-instrumentalist and they alternate between guitar, keys and vocals. Rebecca plays drums too. I like when musicians move to their favourite instrument for a particular song. I imagine them composing music on a particular instrument and going back to that once in concert.

I arrive to the Portland Arms in Cambridge, delighted to see them in such a tiny venu. I know regret I sent my 14-24mm to service due to Deap Vally guitarist kicking it off stage and blocking the zoom ring at a gig the night before this.

One of the reasons that brought me to this show was a Rebecca Taylor interview at TLOBF where she gives her tips for dating.
It emerges an open, sincere, honest personality. Strong and at the same time fragile. The kind of frankness I love.

I get the same impression from the show. New songs have her voice stepping out and imposing itself over the band and the audience. Incredible performance that is rare to find nowadays. Suddenly Rebecca steps back, sit at the drums or at the keys. She hides behind the microphone, almost wispers, leaves space to Charles in a presence that is as essential as it is unobtrusive.

Indie fans love feeling the artist close to them. To be “one of them”. Slow club are indie to heart. Rebecca is inches from the fans, she chats, she asks for an elastic to tie her hair in the super hot room. She get one from ‘Fiona’ a girl in the audience that passes her a rubber band. She’ll then acknowledge Fiona when presenting the band. It all comes naturally and it is lovely.

She introduced the band. Indeed. Slow Club are a quartet on stage. Watson and Taylor keep control but are joined by a rhythm session, drummer and bassist at the beginning before they start exchange instruments depending on the songs’ need.

Expectedly the show rotates around the latest album (A pic of the setlist is here). They started with a couple of oldies but the new songs point to a different direction and the bands has more than a reason to emphasise them. Most of the album will be played and among my favourites The Queen’s Nose sounds as a soul classic, revisited for the third millennium. Number One is a powerful slow ballad where Charles singing finds a perfect place in the harmonics with Rebecca tapping in.

As it always happens when bands change directions (Bob Dylan anyone?) there will always be someone disappointed. It’s the artists the first that have to believe in what they do, and Slow Club ‘convinced me they are convinced’. They wants to bring their sound in everyone’s home. Together with the genuine approach of two young guys that believe in their songs.

Very much worth catching them live now, unless you like big shows in huge theatres in the next years.
For everything else there is internet: [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

So it is possible! So there are wise bands out there.

LED lights have been concert photographers’ nightmare in the past five and more years. They replaced most complaints that were dedicated to red spotlights.
Camera sensors never dealt well with red and too often B&W stopped being an aesthetical decision to become a technical necessity.

Since the LEDs arrived I almost wish for the red lights. LEDs are very cheap to run, give a variety of effects and many small venues have them as standard lighting. As the Portland Arms.
If they are set to a single colour from blue to red through purple, photos are going to have serious problem of sensor saturation as last photo in this post here.
It becomes again a B&W necessity with load of toning of saturation/hue/luminosity levels on the separate colour channels.

Slow Club showed you can set LEDs set to a more neutral colour that won’t make photography job impossible. For the beginning of the set light was good enough (still not enough) to shoot. Than it turned monochromatic for a bit, rotating all colours for another while and in the end stopped on a too pink tone but still this was enough for some photos.

If you are a band, and you want good photos of your show, tell the light technician to add enough green/yellow/orange to the LEDs to counterbalance the purple/red/blue.

It doesn’t have to be forever… give us at least three songs.

This story began in the 60s, between a Swedish painter called Monica Karlsson (Neneh’s mother) and an African Drummer Ahmadou Jah (Neneh’s father).

The ‘Cherry’ comes in once Neneh’s mother marries Jazz musician Don Cherry who will raise Neneh since birth. The tale gets even more complicate when half-brother Eagle-Eye Cherry, son of Don and Monica, joins the family. He will have some glory with a single, Save Tonight, in the 90s.

Until today I wasn’t aware of all of this, and I always assumed Neneh was Don’s daughter.

Don Cherry to everyone slightly into Jazz, especially free jazz, was a constant presence in Ornette Coleman bands. He has credits in all Coleman’s masterpieces. Those albums, from Something Else!!! to Free Jazz through The Shape of Jazz To Come are key recordings that changed the landscape not only of jazz but modern music altogether.
Don also had sessions with most of Jazz and fusion artists including Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, Paul Bley.

Neneh was born in Sweden but moved with family to New York and then to London on her own. Music and music cities surrounded her since her early childhood.

In London she met the Slits and abandoned father and jazz. It was the peak of punk and she claims to have discovered she could sing.

It took a few years before her Raw Like Sushi debut came out at the end of the 80s. The single Buffalo Stance was a hit and for the next 5 years Neneh was a superstar of the pop music scene. Grammy nominations, shocking pregnant set at Top of the Pops, rework of Cole Porter song and collaborations with Michael Stipe (REM) and Geoff Barrow (soon to become a Portishead).

Her career peaked again with the joint single with Youssou N’Dour in 1994. Their 7 seconds is present on both Neneh’s Man album and N’Dour The Guide (Wommat) and was a huge hit worldwide.

History teaches it is difficult to follow up a huge success and Neneh Cherry must have experienced it. She disappearing from the music mainstream for a very long time.

Blank Project her new album she brought to (this) Field Day and Meltdown festival gigs in London was released in February 2014. 18 years have passed since Man, her previous effort.

Differently from many late comebacks of the 80s and the 90s stars (Kate Bush, Sade and even Pixies) Neneh Cherry didn’t go the easy way, pleasing her fans with the music they’d expect from her.

She chose the high tipped electronic musician Kieran Hebden better known with his stage name Four Tet to produce the new album.
The result is electronic but not the Four Tet way, which I don’t like much.

Blank Project, as the title indicates, is a more minimalist approach to her vision of music. Neneh’s voice stands out. Across The Water the opening track is pretty much a statement of what will count in the next 9 songs: rhythm and vocals. And what will not enter. Frills and overproduction.

The record flows at a nice pace without ever becoming tiring. There is a cameo by Robyn towards the end for Out of The Black. The more recognisable influence by Four Tet arrives in the last track. Everything lasts 7 minutes and indeed contains a bit of “everything” in an antithesis of what the opening track did 40 minutes earlier. From Hebden electronic signature to the last seconds of the album where Neneh screams into the microphone in a way that recollects the singing experiments of Diamanda Galas, minus the eccentricity.

Field day tent was packed for Neneh live comeback. With a set all centred on the new album (I couldn’t stay the whole show, I have no idea if some surprises arrived at the end) the music sounded great and Cherry vitality was overwhelming.
It is nice to see an artist that is brave enough to step back when there is not the urge to perform and decide to come back when she has something new to say.

The album had great reviews pretty much across the world music press and I am sure the live concerts will not delude the fans. If you want to catch her live, book your tickets now. You’ll never know if it is going to be 18 more years for the next appearance!

Neneh Cherry is on the web here [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

At music festivals, there are several kind of stages which require a slightly different equipment and approach. Neneh Cherry played one of the Field Day tents. Let’s talk about The Festival Tent.

Field Day is a London festival happening in Victoria Park.
London + Park = Grass. The Tent was mounted on a field and the spacious photopit was on the grass.

Depending on the weather a tent can either be a shelter from the rain or a sauna because of the sun.
In case of rain the counterpart is mud all the way and you need to be very careful with your gear. Regardless what petapixel videos show trust me and avoid your body and lenses to see the ground and become muddy. Some water is fine but hard particles in the moving parts can kill even the best water sealed hi-tech pro equipment.

Thankfully the sky was clear this year. It avoided us the mud but it comes with a different backside. Thousands of people breathing and warming up the temperature under the tent’s roof, and the sun hitting it from the other side is like experiencing a bit of Thailand tropics in East London.
Cameras don’t have problems with these temperatures, we have. So wear light.

Festival tents also have the “advantage” of (coloured) stage lights and smoke even in daytime. Despite my eternal complaining about low lights, I’ll take a lit up gig versus a daylight one all the time. The atmosphere in the photos comes out much better and the coloured backdrop of the tent (black and dark blue in this case) works nicely as a unobtrusive background compared to the mess of a big stage in the sunlight.

One practical problem I often face is where to leave the camera bag. If the grass is wet or muddy, the ground is not an option (see above). To carry it with you is not always possible, especially if the pit is crowded as tents usually are and all ‘togs would be pissed off by the guy with the backpack. To leave it on the barriers would be great but you have to trust the audience and work with the stress someone could run away with your other lenses. Best is to arrive a bit early, look for the driest spot beforehand. A large plastic bag can be an easy solution in case of mud, too.

Last but quite important, tents are wonderful moments to shoot the crowd. The residual daylight arriving from all around does not leave them in total darkness as in theatres, the lower ceiling frames the fans and the light is usually diffuse and pleasing. You may have to balance the white (shoot raw!!). Look out for silhouette options too.

So if you are going to photograph a festival don’t stand all day under the big stage with the big names but organize your schedule with a few stops in the small tents which is where the best pics usually are.

I own their records. The two key albums, Surfer Rosa and Doolittle are in my CDteque since the 90s and should be in any rock’s lover collection.
I can mention the names of all the members, despite I keep forgetting David Lovering and know few anecdotes about them. It’s when it goes down to music they have never clicked as other Americans alternative bands.

If I have to choose I’d definitely go Dinosaur Jr or even Nirvana, over Pixies.
When it’s down to the East Coast or Boston, well, Morphine you know are in my heart.

Pixies history started in the late eighties when guitars from USA jumped on top of declining new romantics from UK. The plastic decade was over, Iraq war, anger economic downturn was the reaction to the hedonism of the 80s and music turned more aggressive, punkier.
Story is well known.
In Seattle subpop renamed punk as grunge and marketed it to make huge money, in LA last glimpse of politic in music from RATM or Living Colour stormed the simple minds. In Washington DC Fugazi from Dischord were taking their hardcore close enough to the white house to be heard by the Bush dynasty.

Pixies were in this and were also not. Not enough to be symphatetic.

Then they sort of disappeared too early for me to fall in love, in 1993.
Ten years hiatus till the comeback. We are in the century of music reunions, it’s accepted now to comeback regardless a band has said they’ll never comeback.
This reunion era will close only the day The Smiths comeback. Still a long way.

Pixies’s Brixton Academy comeback shows in 2004 are considered some of their best moments. I was told they were better as a band even than the nineties. I missed.
Since then they played for about 10 years umpteenth times in London and around. I managed to miss them all too. Partly because of coincidences, partly because I have never been enough into Pixies to challenge the websites and compete in the ticket-sold-out-in-30-seconds event.

When Pixies came back in 2004, they did with the original line-up. Kim Deal, their bassist was there on stage together with Black Francis on vocal and guitar, Joey Santiago Gibson and … what’s his name… yes, David Lovering drumming. Sorry David!
It made sense. I believe if you comeback you have to give the fans the real deal. Radically If some of the original band members can’t (or don’t care to) sit together in a rehearsal room with the original line-up and need to be replaced by another musician, it means there’s no reason to comeback. All band should accept it. I know, alternative 90s band didn’t make enough money to retire with it so everyone needed a comeback to fill the pension fund. Understandable… not sure?

When Pixies came back they didn’t recorda comeback album. Now, my position on comeback album can vary. If you have something to say, if you have a bunch of good songs to record an album OK. If you need an album to tour and pretend you’re still an active ensemble not relying on nostalgia, well, it doesn’t work. Better to be honest with you and cash on fans nostalgia. They want to listen to the hits, they want to remember how beautiful the boy/girlfriend was, they want to party as if it was still teenage kicks.

So we arrive at my first experience with Pixies headlining Field Day festival in London. I’ve been to this Festival few times in the past, it’s nice for being cutting edges, for bringing a slice of music to come in the future. This was still true on the classic Saturday line-up (even if I am not sure about Metronomy’s golden future).

Sunday was mainly about Pixies. The stages were much less, basically 2. With the exception of Future Islands that confirmed to have the best frontman to walk a stage since Morrissey got ill, it was mainly a guitar feast. Sounded good enough to me to go back to Victoria Park despite I was knackered from walking millions of miles the day before. I wanted to check few bands I didn’t know as Pond or Temples and see someone I watched growing up since the very early days, again, as The Horrors.

And Pixies, but which Pixies?
In the last year the band has seen Kim Deal saying bye and walking to her solo/Breeders stuff. No explanation given, not that I have read. Another Kim, Kim Shattuck, replaced the “real Deal”. It lasted about a year and then she was sacked or whatever happened… replaced against her will. Tonight on stage there is Paz, Paz Lenchantin. Formerly of Perfect Circle among others bands. Great musician, no doubts, but she’s not a Pixie.

There’s more. For the first time since Nirvana released Nevermind (hint A.D. 1991), Pixies released an album of new song: Indy Cyndi. It’s not bad it’s just… late. It’s like (actually worse) than the new Afghan Whigs. Good music but there have been 15 years of music under the bridge, history has changed, panorama is different, there is Internet, there is digital music, all of this can’t be ignored pretending it’s forever 1993.

Audience is young. There are some girls standing in the front row since the morning to get every Black Francis note before the rest of the field. Unfortunately the stage is very far from the pit and even further from the fans, which is something someone on stage (Temples singer if I’m not wrong) complained.

Pixies fans seem to be stronger than air separation and as soon as the first notes (at a moderately quiet volume) arrived started to get very excited. The band helped, Wave of Mutilation, U-Mass and Debaser are quite a good statement to open and the whole set was very steady and quite hit oriented.

I took my photos and walked back into the crowd to take more snaps of the party. Lot of excitement, good music, sunset and warm temperature made it a perfect chill-out moment after 2 whole days of festival shooting. When it got too dark and I lost my two friends I walked further back sat on the grass in front of the second row of speakers to listen to at a better volume.
I must admit, I wasn’t impressed. I blame my tiredness, I can’t blame an epic setlist. The songs are all there but… but if I have to speak with my open heart I had the feeling of perfectly executed song played by a former band known as Pixies or, to be a bit harsh, the best Pixies cover band you can see today.

It’s not a case, to me, that Black Francis in March and (what’s his name oh yeah) David Lovering hours before the Field Day set said they’ll be very happy if Kim Deal re-joins the group. No answer that I am aware of.

I am not sure Paz, that does a brilliant work on bass in both Kims’ places and also is on credits on the album (there’s the reason behind the replacement, maybe?) would be as happy as the rest of them, but I must agree.
If it has to be Pixies in the years to come, it has to be the real Deal. I used this “joke” twice, so better I close this here and you go check Pixies future plans online [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

I shoot for years on film, as you may guess from the title of this blog even if you’re reading today for the first time.
Those times I did with Contax cameras. Manual cameras, manual prime lenses, manual focus. It was fun and it was different.

Despite the common thought, the medium we use changes the way we express.
Writing with a pencil, a pen, a computer or a tablet deliver different results. Figure with a piece of technology as a camera.

To date, the digital part of this blog has been entirely shot on a Nikon D700, with nikon AF zooms. When I started I found it much simpler. Then I exploited the versatility to do different things, starting from using colours to more thought composition and straigther lines. I tended to tilt the camera far too often using film. High ISO also simplify life. My concert photography changed a lot.

This Field Day signed another turning point. About 2 years after I bought a D800 body for my other work (travel, photojournalism) I decided to introduce it to a press pit to cover the festival.

One reason is Field Day main stage is far away from the pit, even a 70-200 can be short (all these Pixies pics apart the whole stage shots were framed with a 70-200) and the huge resolution of the D800 allows for something I don’t really like doing:  cropping. You can crop vertical an horizontal shot and still have a file as big as a D700.

Reportage. I like wondering among the crowd and taking some more genuine shots than rockstars on stage, so 2 cameras work better than one to havae two lenses always ready.

Reasons why I didn’t use it till now is because for online and editorial stuff 12 MP are more than enough for everyone, quicker to postprocess and to sell. 36 are pointless unless you are a heavy cropped which I, coming from film the Cartier Bresson way, am not. I also didn’t want to risk a new body into a messy moshpit, the D700 after hundreds of gigs shows signs of tiredness.
Field Day is relaxed and atmosphere is joyous so no worries there.

Todd Owyoung that all of you do (or should) know, convinced me too. He’s happy shooting gigs with a D800 so I gave it a go.

Outcome. It works brilliantly. It doesn’t have big issues with ISO up to 3200 similarly with the D700, but 6400 are well usable too. The AF maybe is less precise and slower, weakest point, but usable. I never burst shoot so I have no problems with its frame per second count.
One of the main problem is the unforgiving high resolution. Slightly wrong focus or too slow shutter time and you have a blurred image.

All the setting are pretty much like the D700 apart they shift the zoom button when chimping the shots.
I think I am going to use it more often and I already brought it to an Eels gig. I still believe a cheap D4 body (as the D700 was for the D3) would be a great thing to have, but Nikon invested in hipsters more than professional photographers and I’m sitting here waiting, actually… I’ll be standing there shooting with a D800.

By heart I can remember only The National (1 – 2), Smoke Fairies (1 – 2) and The Horrors  (1 – 2) had the privilege of a double post even if the record is for Mark Lanegan appearing solo, with his band, Isobel Campbell, Soulsavers, Gutter Twins (kind of). Thom Yorke is solo and there’s Atom For Peace too. While PJ Harvey has the film/digital combo thanks to a John Parish tour.

Now Swans join the group.
I wrote about them few years ago, after a set at ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror in London. I am duplicating it with this show at the Electric Brixton.

Before the comeback, I hadn’t seen Swans live, Gira was a sort of legendary musician doing anything from Swans darkest projects to songs sang on solo acoustic tours.

When Swans played their first comeback gig in London, at Koko in October 2010 I had sorted a photopass well in advance. Sadly I haven’t managed to sort out my flu before the gig. Stuck in a bed with high temperature for the first time in years and the last ever since (fingers crossed) I spent that night listening to Swans new album and reading my friends’ SMS telling how amazing it was. A very painful experience.

Since then, and before last week, I saw Swans live few more times. Shortly at Primavera in Barcelona, at the ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror in 2011, where I took the photos on the other blog post, then in London and at Koko about a year and half ago.

So why to talk about Swans again?

Of the several useless comebacks happened in this reunion century, the only I still found meaningful are Dinosaur Jr (oh they’ve got a double bill here too 1 –2) and Swans.

As any work of art I believe that to make a point you have to shape it out of a good idea. If there is a good idea, there is creativity, there will be a nice piece. If there are no ideas, there will be a piece recalling nostalgia or emptiness.

Swans came back with Gira, better put, Gira resurrected Swans after than 10 years hiatus.
It was a surprise, a nice surprise. As Gira said in many interviews it was also a new phase and the absence of Jarboe is the most tangible evidence of this.
He’s not into the band’s past. Swans are doing new things, as if they were a new band. That’s what “idea” means, this is why nostalgia isn’t in the equation here.

Three albums later, they’re biggest than ever.

My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky, 2010 marked the return. It is a single album, sort of what the Bad Seeds would have been if, instead of Warren Ellis, they recruited Michael Gira to replace Blixa Bargeld.

The Seer, a double CD. After months of touring the bands rolled much “smoother” and the record is recognised with a 9.0 even by Pitchfork.
Crowdfunded selling live recording taken during the tour of the previous album it saw the light in 2012.

Tonight Swans came to London to present the third album since reformation. To Be Kind. Two more hours of Swans mayhem, from post-rock to post-experimentalism through obsessive repetition.

I embark in my journey towards the Electric Brixton on a miserable, rainy end of May evening of a post bank holiday Tuesday. On the train I think I’d rather be at home even in bed.

Instead I arrive early, wet, I enter the venue and discover that health and safety won’t leave me inside the too-narrow photopit. I’m safer with cameras and stuff in the middle of the crowd. God damn H&S silly rules in UK!
This means at 7.00PM I am at the fence and will stand there till 11pm. Better you get me rocking, Michael.

Thankfully Swans audience is intimidated enough by the band sound to be surprisingly calm and well behaved.

He will do.
Gira is on fire. He released many “kind” interview to promote To Be Kind (sorry :-) including a mammoth mother of all interviews here at The Quietus  where he clearly states what it is clear tonight from the moment, well before the gig, he enters the stage to check if everything is right.

The four years since Swans return, have seen Gira more and more at the centre of the stage. He has always been Swans but now Swans are Gira.
Compared to the early gigs I attended, Gira is now in total control.

His stage presence is more theatrical than ever, emphasize the music has he always had, highlighting all the song passages and changes, kicks the air and remarkably jumps the stage, there is more performance into it.
He has always spitted on stage. But he has never left the guitar to dance as a shaman for a whole song. That was a premiere.

Gira always interacts with the musicians, but he now pretend they must look at him all the time. He engages with all of them in turn. As Miles Davis used to do, he plays most of the set backward to the audience, to direct “his” orchestra.

There are wonderful moments with Christoph Hahn which, towards the end of the show end abruptly. I probably was the only to witness (and photograph) this scene. Gira lifted his right arms to communicate to Hahn something, but he wasn’t watching at him, he did it again, nothing. Gira walked to him and pointed his eye. Body language was precise: “you must look at me, pay attention”.

Hahn face was like the pupil who forgot to do the homeworks and from that minute on, Gira stopped that nice theatre which was giving me cool shots.

There is time for everyone, except Thor. Maybe he’s too big to have an argument with or too intimidating with those oversized mallets mistreating huge gongs. Perhaps he is simply too perfect and essential to Swans music.

The concert is fantastic. The band has almost 4 years of touring and you can perceive every minute of it. They are an incredible ensemble that decides eithr to punish or delight the audience at their will.

Compared to my other Swans performances, the new songs live sound more structured. They still morph in a sonic magma erupting at ears-bleeding volume (even if Swans volume isn’t as disturbing as other loud bands) but in a less, radical, less controversial way.

Hardcore fans could read this as Gira compromise to a much more “mainstream” success. Recent 9.2 Best New Music on Pitchfork and praises from everywhere including NME (yes the same magazine looking forward to the Libertines reunion) isn’t so predictable.
It must be my ageing but I find myself less open to radicalism everywhere, even in music, and the fact that a Swans composition can plea me from start to end, without going through a layer of pain isn’t something I tend to ditch nowadays.

Gira is less angry and maybe pleased by the recognition his music deserved since the 80s. He’s a happier man and sublimates his positive mood in a sound that remains Swans’ sound with the intimidation moved away.

Swans still are one of the best live bands out there, maybe they are the best of all. It is not to me to say.
Swans are here [website][facebook][Swans are not on Twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

I have been a few times to the Electric Brixton. It’s “the other” Brixton place, considering the temple of Rock music in London, the Brixton Academy is just down the road.

Electric Brixton is up the road, towards Brixton Hill. Getting out of the Tube, because the Victoria line is The way to get to Brixton, turn left and walk about 5 minutes. On the right, where the small queue is forming, there is the venue. That is the Electric Brixton.

You may remember it as the Fridge, a place famous to have launched the New Romantic movement. The Fridge closed in 2010. Electric Brixton opened in 2011. Same place different everything else.
Recently Electric Brixton is gaining its momentum as a concert venue for cool event.

I shot here Franz Ferdinand comeback last year , with also gave me a couple of pics sold to the Telegraph and already faced a too narrow pit with not enough space to move, if someone else is in it with you.

I am prepared for Swans to do the same, until the security girl tells me it’s not going to happen. The tiny pit is there not for us to access. Damn!
It 7pm and can’t do nothing else than reach the front barrier, slightly stand on the side and stay there all night.

I have shot Swans few times so I know the best place to be, central slightly on the left looking at the stage. It is were Michael Gira spend most of his stage slot.
No pit means no chance to move around. All the images will be from the same perspective and sometime (as this time) even with the same lens. Impossible to switch.
No pit, on te positive side, also means we could shoot the whole set, which I probably prefer over shooting three songs with freedom of movement.

The stage is average in height and size. Swans use white lights with backlight which I love so I can’t complain on this for once.

If you are less stuck than me and have freedom to roam around, there is a nice room on the right of the venue, with a bar and some sofas. It is detached from the gig area so is the perfect place to have a chat before the show and especially during if you belong to the people going to concerts to chat all the time and ignoring who’s next to you. There’s a window in the wall to look at the stage if your friend love drama gets more boring than the live set.

The Merchandise desk usually is on the other side, next. There is a circle upstair, look small and interesting, but I have to admit I haven’t had the occasion to go up there yet.

Since then I travelled, worked, photographed and forgot… till about a week before that.
Sent and e-mail to sort a pass, went to youtube and Spotify, gathered everything I could hear from them.

A single, a bunch of songs. 2 EPs

In the last year Wolf Alice popularity grew exponentially.
Probably helped a bit by a comeback of guitar music (at last! n.d.Valerio) surely not only for that. Some tried to catch the train and dropped miserably (Fratelli’s comeback anyone?)
These years mark the 20th anniversary of some landmark guitar albums. The early nineties were all about superfuzzy guitars. A decade of over underwhelming synth-pop sets the music thermometer back to 6 strings and distorted amplifiers.

Guitars are vintage now, fender mustang, jazzmaster and telecaster. The stratocaster is banned by the uncool etiquette for reasons I am still waiting to read, must be Clapton/Gilmour/Knopfler’s fault. Nevermind (yes, that album too).
I am a 90s boy and I love guitar bands. So… far so good.

Wolf Alice are beyond being just a guitar band. Every teenager, apart from me, has been in a guitar band.
Wolf Alice are a great band. With guitars. It’s a substantial difference.

They are from North London. London is a good place to set up a band, competitive sure. No money, those are nowhere to be found but let’s state this, never good rock music has started by someone with a pocket full of money.

In London you are where things happen. They do it is not a common place.
With a debut album still to be released, with a year of relentless touring in UK and beyond, Wolf Alice are climbing the ladder, reached the cockpit and set to take-off.

It all started with a self-released free download single, Leaving you, back in 2012. It was catchy enough to get Radio1 airing. That bouncing guitar string opening is so familiar to anyone who turned 30 years old that I wasn’t surprised at all to read it was onto Radio1. Still does not happen everyday to debut with a single picked by BBC.

On the other side I am surprised to realise how important radio airing still is to break through a market that we are told is dominated by streaming and the internet.

Fluffy was their second single. Despite the title, it’s a more aggressive song. Drums kick in, guitars follow and the riff is one of those you don’t forget.

Few months and the debut EP, Blush arrives. The title song slow things down, Ellie Roswell voice take the place of guitars and crafts a wonderful song.

I was still in the distract listening phase at this point. Skipping through Spotify tracks that I read on twitter were worth.

The turning point happens when I realise all Wolf Alice songs tend to stay in my mind, I dug into them.
The more I listen the quickest I love them.

Papers and blogs too. Nirvana and Hole came out when journalism is lazier than ever, but there are interesting articles even if every journalists tries to put his or her own mark. I read comparisons from the XX to Elastica, which have the consequence of making me remember bands my memory removed.
They covered Katy Perry Roar in the meanwhile, very good move and even better cover.

Honestly, Wolf Alice have so much ideas in their ‘chords’ that the band is more the consequence of a personal evolving path, built among the grooves of the records they spun, rather than someone dipping in others music to fill up a lack of personality.

They changed, started without a rhythm session, went through a milder sound, recruited drum’n’bass and moved to heavier sound never forgetting melody and song structure. I love bands that write songs with a melody.

When Bob Dylan said that a good song is still a good song when played just voice and guitar, he was right.
But it was half a century ago too. Computers were a NASA only privilege and electric guitars something to be plugged in a jazz orchestra to make them audible over saxophones.

We’re in 2014. Decades changed the music, music changed the society, computers shaped it and now are uncool enough to be relegated in an office desk at work, we use gadgets at home.

Almost the entire music ever produced in the world is available to stream in seconds at a google search. The game of being influenced by someone else needs to be adapted to the way a musical project develops nowadays.

With their ideas and styles still changing in their first handful of songs, it’s good that Wolf Alice wait to record and release their debut album.
It is such an important step in a crowded scenario, it sets you in a defined niche that has to be carefully shaped around who you are.

In the meanwhile the demand of a growing fan base for new music has just been satisfied with another 10” EP released recently: Creature Songs.
4 more songs, sing-along choruses Mona Lisa Smile with a dancing themed video just released. Eergy, energy and Ellie persona standing out.

It’s clear from these photos isn’t it? The band will excuse me but Ellie is Wolf Alice ‘s soul. She’s the front girl, she’s the one.
We are not in front of a mediocre bassist put there to balance testosterones level on stage and gather some lads follower. We are not in front of anouther beautiful Scandinavian girl fronting a synth-pop combo from behind her toy keys.

Ellie is the voice. She is the guitar. Wolf Alice won’t be the same band without her. There are bands where you can replace members, there are bands where you cannot.
Ellie has magnetic eyes. She plays and she stares beyond the stage, the audience, the venue. She’s into the performance so deep that even an earthquake would not stop the song.

I could go centimetres from her nose with my lens without noticing a hint of distraction. I was invisible. Venue is invisible. She inhabits the songs. She’s there but she is unreachable. Which is what makes her so attractive.

To supply the absence of earthquakes in UK, there’s the audience that had already learnt all the lyrics by heart and crowd-surf singing along despite in such a tiny venue there isn’t really a surfable wave.

I have seen many nice show this year, went to see Swans yesterday (wait…) and The Fat White Family still leads the league, but Wolf Alice come close. The UK tour ends tonight at Scala in London, be sure to read your festival program carefully, there will be plenty of tents’ slots this year.

They still don’t have an album which I do hope will come out soon. They have the songs, the fans, the band and they have Ellie.
They also have the:[website][facebook][twitter][Spotify] as we all have

Photo tip

It’s post 250 on this blog, which means I have written 250 photo tips all about concert photography, the way I see it, the way I do it. With film, digital, big festival stage or a small pub room as this one.

You may think there’s not much to discover or learn for me, I can tell you otherwise, every gig I improve, I learn something, I get upset or surprised by something else.

This Wolf Alice gig was at the Portland Arms in Cambridge. I wrote about it when it was about to be closed and dismantled. In a rare twist of events a petition worked out and this landmark Cambridge pub was not only saved but totally refurbished.

Now the concert room is bigger, cleaner and the acoustic much better.
Lights are not, though.

I know the light technician and before every gig I ask him about the setting and plea of turning them a bit up, in vain.

For this Wolf Alice gig the answer was almost funny. “They are going to be the same, all colours rotating, just wait 10 seconds and you’ll get the colour you want”
This is easily achievable with the new spots made with loads of leds. They change colour as a cool designer lamp, save a load of energy and look cool to everything in the room apart from camera sensors.

Blue and purple are no go. Red is bad. the wavelenght around green yellow orange slightly better.

Concert photography is pretty much about catching the right moment during the song (that is why three songs suck, too few right moments to catch).
Questino: Can you calculate statistically how many time in three songs the right moment and the right light colour converge to deliver a decent image? No? I’ll tell you: two.

I hate to go black and white because lights are bad, I believe B&W isn’t a solution must have a reason.
Thankfully B&W suites Wolf Alice well so I liked it… but I had no other option between this and a 2 photos post.

I’ll write about Swans next, it’ll be a B&W post.
The lights there were brilliant and the colour pics look good, but I still wanted to have them B&W. For a reason, to remove colours with the same approach the band remove anything unnecessary from their music… leaving the essence… but this is going to happen next

In 48 hours I crossed the USA and the Atlantic (with the help of a plane) I am fighting an 8 hours jet-lag, I worked for two days and photographed 2 gigs in two different cities in two consequent nights editing the photos till early hours in the morning to realize they haven’t been uploaded onto REX feed. Good, actually bad.

The first of these 2 nights was an incredible outburst of energy provided by a double bill, Wytches + Pulled Apart By Horses in a Cambridge pub. You can see some pics online and I will tell you about this maybe at a later time.

Here I will go through the second of my jet-lag recapping nights (#fail) which was London yesterday and is pushing my resistance to the limit.

I travelled to the Electric Ballroom in Camden, got a crappy falafel wrap discounted from 4 to 3£ because of the late evening order, all salad and pickled pepper included except the chilly sauce cause it had a hair in it but the guy didn’t even bother removing. I took an Instagram (not of the hair!) of Camden lock while eating it on the bridge over locked waters (after too many snaps of Far West landscapes it was difficult to get some inspiration for my IG followers).

I enter the Ballroom, I show the security I have cameras in my bag. The way they ask “what’s in it?” make me believe there must be a solution to be a photographer without a camera, if anyone knows please tell.

This is the short (not) intro, to justify my tiredness and any mistake in this post.

Hordes of touts outside are eager to: “buy or sell spare tickets for Future Islands?”. The band recent TV appearances have been seen by millions but when I enter the Electric Ballroom, minutes before the first support, Kristian Haring, there’s no one. It is the first time I see a venue completely empty. Where is everybody?
He does a very good job mistreating an acoustic guitar and people gathers close to the stage.

Maybe they are all taking advantage of the discounted wraps and one will even win the chilly-sauced hair.
Fact is, in the space of few minutes and another support, it gets busy, then crowded, in the end packed.

By the time Samuel T. Herring walks on stage there is an adoring crowd ready to dance, sing, clap in the front.

When I walk through the sea of people to the back of the venue (need rest) after the three songs slot, I also meet many that chat, take pictures, drink beer, kiss and ignore the show.

It’s getting more and more a London (modern?) thing to go to a gig and, instead of listening and watching aiming at being listened and watched.

For the ones who wants to see the gig, either they opt to sweat to death in the first rows of the moshpit with the hardcore fans or you have to tolerate to listen to the music and also listen to the latest adventures of girls with men, men with beer, hipsters with “this is fucking cool, mate” and bloggers writing everything down to tell about it in the next post.
Irritating to say the least. Unavoidable, am I not doing the same? Maybe.

Future Islands are 4 guys, drum, bass, keys and Herring singing. The first two things I notice are the lack of a guitar (negative) and the lack of an instrument in front of the singer (positive).

Rock history tells that the best performers, from Jim Morrison to Morrissey are the ones that limit to sing without messing up strumming a guitar or hiding behind a piano.

Samuel T. Herring is undoubtedly one of the best performers I have seen in a long time. He’s magnetic the way he stares at the audience, his dancing is different from anyone else. Unpredictable, he looks clumsy but become harmonious if you follow his body along the music.

He has the opposite of a rockstar look. He’s not the kind of guy I like at a first glance. There’s something too theatrical and melodramatic in this moves. Being (myself) uncomfortable with dancing, as 99% of indie-music listeners we love this music because it is impossible to dance, I must have a sort of unconscious rejection to anyone comfortable with his body. My superego needs to be escavenged.
Herring dance moves have nothing to do with sinuous steps but it’s entirely personal and passionate, hence unique.

So put it sounds this show is all about Herring which, to be fair, it’s true. The rest of the band has a support role on building a solid dance beat, synth oriented pop to host is singing. Stage-presence-wise this is a one man show.

someone between Morrissey and Henry Rollins come to my mind, if the clone doesn’t frightens you.

I am not an expert of Future Islands music. I can’t name the title of their best single, despite I know the album they are touring, their fourth. It is also the debut with the ever brilliant 4AD label and is ambitiously titled Singles. Deserved ambition because I still have to read a non very-positive review.

The three other records have been recorded in the last 5 years or so. It is the typical indie-hyperbole. it started with self-released EPs and singles, then first album Wave Like Home on obscure label. Than they get noticed by Thrill Jockey for the subsequent to acclaimed LPs, In Evening Air and On The Water.

Here is when the magic slowly happens. Endless tours in any small venue of the western world, the words of mouth spread the gospel about the performances and reaches any small place of the blogosphere including my ringing ears (that’s because of PABH show the night before).

Thrill Jockey is an amazing label but I struggle to see Future Islands sitting next to Pontiak, White Hills, Arbouretum or Tortoise.

They sound more at home on 4AD, next to the calibres of The National, Bon Iver or Daughter.

Singles charted both in UK and USA, it is true I recently read that only few thousands copies bring you in the top40 but still is an achievement and surely, the begin of a rise. It’s tough to be a musician, not that a music photographer is easier but at least you know you can’t live out of it and need a planB ready. Musicians cannot, brave people.

For this Future Islands are beginning to tour all the summer festivals and surely there will be a lot of buzz around them. Support music, check them out online at [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

Aperture.
It’s bizarre that after several years happily using Aperture, I decide to write a photo tip about it the week I opted for Adobe Creative Cloud and imported my first photos into a Lightroom library (or whatever it’s called).

The reason is that my first impression with Lightroom, overwhelmed by reading how marvellous the software is, so far has been underwhelming.

Lightroom and Aperture do pretty much the same thing, surely in terms of library management, basic control of a photo, workflow and editing.
Lightroom has the addition of correcting distorsion, something I rarely use after I invested thousands of pounds in distorsion free Zeiss glasses and something I don’t consider essential at gigs.
I am sure Lightroom does much more, I promise I’ll write on it when I got my hands on it.

So far I wanted to praise aperture, especially for gig photography, telling about my workflow…

Import is straightforward, a project about the gig, backed up in an external HD with the same name. To be precise I delete a lot of pics straight from the camera card, I know it’s a bit naïve given how cheap storage is, but I hate keeping photos that will never be used.

Photos go through a couple of rounds of starring. I suggest to start with one star, than go again through the ones without rating to double check you missed something. Starting with about 200 photos I end up starring around 50. At this point I add metadata, and keywords in batch to all the starred ones. Then I go through a second and eventually third round of starring.
The end point is something between 10 and 20 photos I am ready to edit.

I don’t post-edit much, white balance in Aperture is brilliant. Levels and curves also help fighting the LED channel saturation. When they don’t it’s time for some desaturation. Vignetting and sharpening sometime keep the viewer focused on the subject. One thing Aperture doesn’t handle well (or at all) is noise reduction, so the 6400ISO images aren’t always state-of-the-postediting-art. Lightroom is said to be much better. Look forward to double checking.

From downloading (Aperture is faster than Lightroom to download photos from the card) to final edit it doesn’t take me more than one to two hours.
So the question now is, why did I go for Lightroom? I don’t know, I am open to hear your experience, I have time for another 3 weeks to cancel my subscription.

Live music photography does not pay the bills, you know. (if you don’t and are thinking of a career, consider this statement)

Nevertheless, with the approaching of the 250th post on bands, reviewed and photographed on here, with more than 3 thousands (yes thousands) photos for you to browse, in about 7 years, I haven’t left this place abandoned, have I?

“I Are Scientists” has been the best T-Shirt We Are Scientists have been selling since I saw them. They still do.

The first time was a long (very long) time ago. We Are Scientists supported The Editors first tour in the winter of 2005 (never scanned those photos I will one day,but I have these for you) and indie-pop was jangling all around.
The second time they played the Corn Exchange in a NME tour with Arctic Monkeys headlining, it was Febryary 2006. In that tour they become close friend with the emerging Sheffield rockstars.
Third time was their own headline show, still at the Junction Cambridge. April 2006. 8 years ago they played 3 shows in Cambridge in less than 6 months, a record.

I shoot all of those 3 gigs on 35mm b&w film so what’s better than keeping this domain’s name alive and sit back at the computer to scan old negatives?

Songkick tells me there was another stop in Cambridge, in 2010, but for some reason I missed it.

Today, 8 years later, they’re back. My fault, their fault too. I lost track with the band.

I also lost my addiction to photographs concerts exclusively on film. The conditions are not ideal to cover a gig on film, with manual focus fast prime lenses too. It is more expensive, is slower but the main reason no one cares of having a film photo. All they want is a JPG file, possibly in colour.

In these years We Are Scientists have lost Michael Tapper their drummer (and beard of the year 2005 and 2006). They replaced him with Andy Burrows who was drumming for Razorlights (yes I know. This is the first time I cite Razorlight on the blog’s honourable career, I promise is the last).

At this point I should mention also Keith Murray and Chris Cain, because to everyone’s knowledge they are We Are Scientists.

Keith is the quintessential indie-rock guy. Skinny himself, skinny the jeans, slim the fit, converse the shoes. Scrappy Fender Telecaster and nice haircut getting sexier with some grey spots.
Chris is the quintessential indie-rock nerd. Funny, thick glasses, moustaches, tall enough to match his bass good at jokes.

The first We Are Scientists album, With Love and Squalor (I can still remember the title by heart) was one of the nicest, more uplifting records of that era. I remember it being compared to the Killers debut. It has less Vegas and more NYC. More guitars and less synths. It is plenty of hooks to sing-along.

Listen to it if you haven’t. Also watch my photos of The Killers  because since those NME tour years (Killers NME tour was Feb 2005, the year before) they never allowed a freelance photographer in their pit anymore. Ah, fame.

In this 8 years that we walked apart We Are Scientists have continued recording music and playing gigs. I continued to take photos and be a scientist too.

(Wiki) says that 3 more records have been released since that debut. I spotifyed them all before this gig, to keep up to date with what has been going on, but I must admit I haven’t missed anything major.
Brain Thrust Mastery was out in 2008. Barbara was released in 2010… (now I remember this title) and TV en Francais which is the one they are touring is just out now, early 2014.

We Are Scientists never stopped playing. Their style hasn’t moved much from the beginning, what is missing is the hooks that made the hits.

What is left is the humour. They have plenty. It will never leave them.
Here is the big pros of We Are Scientists and also their main problem. They are a hell of a fun.

Actually, when I read about this Junction “comeback” gig I went. For the fun.

If you used to browse the website at their beginning they pretended to be doctors answering fans medical question with hilarious humour. It was a laugh out loud before LOL even existed.
On stage the show is a mix of jokes between them and songs, chat and interaction with their fans.

One of We Are Scientists concerts is one part comedy and 2 part music.

They are almost the alter ego of Flight of the Conchords where the New Zealander comedian duo, Bret and Jemain, are 2 part comedy and one part music.

We Are Scientists gig is a place to dance, to have a laugh, to interact with the girl next to you.
All things that the indie-rock fan is emotionally incapable. Here is the problem.

Pop fan is there to have fun, frills, no hard thoughts. Indie-rock is about being shy, having issues approaching people, chatting only through twitter and FB. Not finding easy to mate in person. Physical contact is taboo. Rage moshpit is the only way.

We Are Scientists are indie-rock music with a rare indie-rock attitude.
They are here for the fun, for the beer, for the girls. They’re not shy to show off, they don’t take themselves too seriously.
They’re not fashion obsessed as the Strokes, not literate as The National, not melancholic as DCFC

To mention Zappa, they’re not in here for the money, they’re in here for the fun.

I doubt they made enough money in the years to have a guitar-shaped swimming pool in Florida, but I bet they had a lot of fun.

If you (you indie depressed fan) cannot put aside your fashion obsession to look cool, the pathological shyness that blocks from dancing, try a gig of We Are Scientists. If they don’t uplift your mood, if you don’t feel the urge to shake your ass, science is not enough, but good therapist can do good for you.

On the contrary, if you find yourself in a moshpit jumping up and down, sweating and dreaming of having a one night stand with Keith I would consider knocking at the dress room for the after show party.

The tour is on now, catch with We Are Scientists online to see where they play. [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]
I’ll be back very soon with more concert photography and some bad written music blogging.

Photo tip

Long time keeping of files.
Don’t know how many of you are bothered. I am worried, to be honest. No, I’m not talking about copies of raw on HD, portable Hard Disk, cloud server. Neither I am talking about raid, mirror disks and all this hi-tech IT that saves our photos from a fatal error of the computer.

Whatever you do, is important that you have copies at least of your raw files somewhere in case of serious disruption. Not as serious as earthquakes, fire, house collapse or the end of the world, in that case no one would care of your concert photos.
Not talking about this, It is plenty of good tutorial online explaining how to back up photos and best keep your files.

What I am bothered is really long long times.

It came to my mind a couple of weeks ago when I found old negatives with photos of my young mum. they were shot more than 50 years old and are perfectly readable, usable, printable.

Now that I am scanning 10 years old negatives of a We Are Scientists gig, same thought. These negatives have been stored in a folder, with an index, in 2 minutes they are in the scanner, previewed, processed, photos. They are perfect (dusty, scratchy without snapseed texture filters) as the day I took them, and they can produce endless copies of good files and or prints.

What when I will have to do the same with my perfectly backed-up digital files in, say, 10 or 20 years time?
Will the Mac OS chimpanzee 25.1 new OS read them?
Will the USB 8.0 hard disk socket plug the cable 5.0 and the computer?
Will those raw files be readable by Lightroom 16.3?

If you’re saying yes to all of this I envy your optimism.
To make an example I have already some problems with pics stored in some recorded CDs and DVDs 6 or 7 years ago. It was state-of-the-art at that time.

New machines don’t even contemplate a CD reader, the one on my iMac stopped working. If I had to import them it wouldn’t be that easy.
It would be worse if I want to recover my thesis which is in floppy disks? It isn’t even 20 ys, it was normal to store in floppy those days. People said you’ll always read them. I would never see that word document anymore (not that I want, but)… would even word eventually open it? Or was it written with Lotus suite?

Yes all of this it doesn’t make me feel sure I will ever be able to show my digital photos to my niece. Surely I will have the film ones with me.
Live on, 35mm.

In the meanwhile I managed to sort a photopass for the Cambridge date of Wild Beasts tour 2014.

Since Present Tense, their fourth album was released and reached the UK top 10, the buzz around the band overwhelmed the buzzfeed surveys I find on my facebook timeline.
Everyone was talking about Wild Beasts from the day rumours about a new album spread online (wherever else)?

I did not remember I saw Wild Beasts live. When The Quietus asked to use some of my photos of their headline at Field Day 2011. I thought they were wrong. I totally forgot it. You’ll think with concerts count heading to 600 on my songkick profile it’s pretty normal to forget some gigs but, let’s be fair, until not long ago I could remember any band I saw, photographed, and if I enjoyed or disliked.
Not anymore.

Wild Beasts headlined a big London festival, I was there taking pictures but I needed to go back to the archives to remember it. In front of the photos I remembered the gig and also that I wasn’t impressed by that uber-hipster atmosphere.

Curiously enough Wild Beasts Cambridge Corn Eexchange 2014 concert was in the same date my photos of hipsters (also) taken at Field Day on the same day made l’Espresso, the biggest Italian newsmagazine.
It means my best paid photographic work to date. 3 photos with two full pages, I felt a photojournalist for a day.

Still on the “where’s my memory gone issue” I was looking at some festival dates for this summer where Sun Kil Moon is scheduled to play to see if there are chances to photograph Mark Kozelek. He is one of those photophobic musicians who don’t want to see photographer in the area.

Until another photographer pal FB-chatted to me asking if Mark Kozelek had changed his policy because he saw a photo I took of him on a review on the Quietus.

Just before I replied with “not my photo, Tim I’m trying to find out if I can shoot him somewhere this summer”, I googled and actually realised he was true. Photo was by Valerio Berdini, subject is indeed Mark Kozelek and I couldn’t remember I photographed him.
I did and guess where? Under a tent at Field Day.

Maybe is not permanent memory loss just my mind was blown that day. I cannot remember. Fact is, to make this long that I need words to separate the photos, I have shot Wild Beasts live. I have rare photos or Mark Kozelek and very likely if I meet Kozlelek at one of those festival I risk to have him punching my nose, he’s not an easy guy by any standard. Honestly, no one stopped me taking pics of him that day.

Fast forward, to Cambridge, to the Corn Exchange, to Wild Beasts 2014 tour.

Just about a month after the album release, the day before their Brixton Academy date, I was expecting to be a sell out. I get to the venue early to find no one is queuing, East India Youth set is about to start and venue it’s empty. The upstairs stalls are closed.. What’s wrong with Cambridge people, it is true is a Monday but still… WTF? Is the Internet time so fast that from the hype of the album release/stream/pre listen to the memory-loss takes much less than the 2 years I take to forget the gigs I have been to? actually 2 weeks?

Thankfully East India Youth brings quite a lot of those queuing at the bar in front of the stage. I added a couple of new shots to my post about him, he has a nice retro illuminated video leaving his bass player silhouette stacking in front of the screen.

By the time I am back into the pit for Wild Beasts there is much less space in the stalls and much more beards around me than on my face.

It’s about ten years this lads make music together and you can feel the band strength from the moment they enter the stage.

With 4 albums there are few dozens of songs available to play but with an album to promote it’s natural the setlist is highly centred on Present Tense.
Ignoring calls of older songs (“it’s so 2008” they recently said at a London album launch show) Wild Beasts are too good and too young to rely on nostalgia and hits.
They want to play the new songs, conquer new public, be loved by the young girls on the front row.

Hayden Thorpe the band singer is the one in control. When he stands at his keys the band looks and follow his arms. His yellow jacket is studied to match the mostly green lights.
With his falsetto dipping into the 80s, the keyboards occupying the core of the songs, I hear echos of Talk Talk everywhere.

Guitars (and guitarist) are sent into the background. More and more into synthesizers, Wild Beasts music earns in dreaminess and loses the jangly indie-pop hooks of the beginning.

Today they are what Yeasayer would have been if they were born in Kendal, England instead of hanging around Brooklyn.
It’s sophisticated pop without multi-ethnic influence. Sheer British coolness pointing straight at East London to make it an English bastion. Dalston has been already conquered, Brick Lane next.

Sophisticated masculinity. Sexual allusion. Creative hipsters with a twist. Arty without being to conceptual. Pop… away from the mainstream.

With a Mercury Prize nomination for their second record, Two Dancers, headlining sets that followed Smother and now a top ten record in the chart, Wild Beasts are at their peak.

2014 is going to be a touring year, so check the internet and catch them when they come close to you. [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

The first time I these green lasers back lighting smokes creating waves of ethereal green waves over an audience it was 11t of July 1988. I was a teenager in Rome and Pink Floyd sold out two nights at Stadio Flaminio, a football stadium at a walking distance from home. We spend the day in the sun, on the grass from 2pm to well beyond midnight. There’s no other live music that will match that production and that light show never ever.
That is the gig I will remember till my last day on earth.

Live music (all music) is dramatically changed in this 25 years. There are not the same amount of money and the cake has to be cut in many more slices because, with Internet, band multiply at a much faster pace than Jesus did with bread and fishes.

Also true I moved away from the fan boy attracted by big productions and I tend to enjoy small venues. For this, I was quite surprised to relive the Floyd’s experience for Wild Beasts.
For a while I was even worried. Have I read on the internet that lasers blow camera sensors? I couldn’t remember if it was a news or a hoax… or it wasn’t lasers. Whatever. I decide to ignore and go ahead.

Or… I would have decided to go ahead but, as always happen, the best lighting is not disclosed until well into a gig so the three songs rule … ruled me out from being in the pit when lasers would appear. They would look incredible from the bottom with the 14-24mm angle hyperbole emphasizing the band. Unfortunately you’ll never see those photos.

I never give up. Wild Beasts are still going, Corn Exchange mezzanine is empty and accessed only to VIP (i.e. photopass holders and guestlist). It is in the dark, it gives a nice overview of the stage and is the most unobtrusive place. I don’t disturb the fans, the band, the venue. It’s perfect (me think).

I sit down in the front row, enjoy the show, mount the 70-200 and wait for lasers to get some cool back shots.
Green lasers arrive, I click once, twice. Check the exposure. They don’t seem to disturb my camera sensor nor even to trick the exposure meter. It works fine in matrix. I underexpose by 2/3rd to get the black nicely black and the photos look cool. Not as good as being in the pit, still good pics, I’m pleased.

If only… someone arrives, with the security-of-a-small-venue-authority and tells me to “stop taking pictures NOW!” He’s in power. No argument. “Put away the camera or I kick you out of the venue!”
Pointless to argue “everyone else is taking pictures” I reply, to get the silliest of answers back “they don’t use professional cameras” which to an intelligent mind translates into “the band manager (the venue manager, whoever is in charge) is fine with non professional photos and video taken of the band to be put online for bad publicity everywhere, but they don’t want good professional photography to represent them”. Good, Isn’t this stupid, I say? I got no answer, just another threatening glance.

Few pictures and I’m with the camera in the bag, enjoying the music, mumbling about stupid policy anytime the lights show me another great photo that is lost forever.

It’s been 10 years I have photographed at the Corn Exchange and all the venues in Cambridge. Since Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in February 2004.
I have done more promotion to the Cambridge live scene than any other photographer in UK. Hundreds of galleries from Cambridge are in all major British music site, from the Quietus to the405, from Thelineofbestfit to Louder Than War to local magazines, blogs and national papers, not to mention this blog.

Still I have to be treated by the venue security as a nuisance, a vandal, a criminal, a lawbreakers because I want to take some quality photos of the gigs I attend, from the back, without flash, without interfering with anyone. I am a perfectionist and I love photography, and it frustrates me to see I can deliver a much better set to report from a gig than the one I am allowed to make.

I won’t stop. Both photographing and ranting against stupid rules.

Marketing.

The first trick was all capitals, but internet isn’t case sensitive and in the social networks commenting on capital letters is the equivalent of shouting, it doesn’t look nice.
Than it was to remove vowels. I believe SBTRKT started it and (even my favourites) Japandroids for a while went as JPNDRDS, thankfully this seems to be vanishing. It looks bad, it’s hard to spell and harder to tell.

Then the V in the place of U arrived. Despite the fight of who started it, CHVRCHES and MVSCLES are the first two bands out there with it in the name. I haven’t searched if there’s more.

Why they do this? Unless you are Italian, where the original Ancient Roman Latin fonts were recycled during fascism and are still used by neofascists, the V looks cooler than U. Especially written in all-capitals as is in CHVRCHES.

It gives access to a plethora of unused social networks nicks, web addresses still available and so on. It is still readable and more pronounceable than a word without vowels.

There are more advantages. It guarantees a unique answer when enquiring a search engine.
Try searching google images for ‘churches’ and you will find hundreds of images of catholic temples.

Then simply replace the ‘u’ with a ‘v’ as in chvrches, the outcome is only images of the band. It doesn’t get dispersive, no contamination, no undesired hits.

Ask The National how long it took google to rank their official americanmary.com website before they became famous.

Engaging.
Lauren Mayberry is Chvrches singer and the recognised band frontwoman. Iain Cook (earlier with Aerogramme and The Unwinding Hours) and Martin Doherty (with Twilight Sad when The Twilight Sad were wonderful) are two experienced musicians.

Part of Chvrches success is the personal way they (and mainly Lauren) have been engaging with their fans since the beginning and still doing.

Chvrches are not only present on social networks. Anyone nowadays is and it is a must-have, if you’re in the entertaining business.
Chvrches engage personally with the fans… and even with the haters.
Being on social networks to say “buy new single it’s out now”or “Tickets for Leeds gig available” sounds very detached to fans. It is like someone paid in a third world call-centre feeds the twitter account with no connection to the band beyond a monthly TC meeting with the PR office.

On the contrary, when messages come from band members and when band members interact with their audience the magic ingredient of the indie culture which is to give the feeling of belonging, being part, spices up the recipe to a successful dish.
It’s today’s news of this fans made video being praised by the band itself. News makes Pitchfork, Pitchfork is without doubts the most influential music site for the online community whether you agree with this list or not.
Engagement, marketing.

Lauren Mayberry brought this to a whole new level last September when, in an appreciated rant of active feminism, she confronted her own audience being sexist, with a passionate article on the Guardian.

Her letter against online misogyny addressed a big issue of online vileness: people attacking (mainly women) artists with sexist and violent insults giving women no options rather than ignore. The letter has bounced on everywhere from Rolling Stone to, again, Pitchfork achieving several things with one single go. Awareness. Education. Politics and last but not least good publicity to the band.

Youth Subcultures. Where have they gone?
On a brilliant piece on the Guardian, Alexis Petridis recently wrote about the shift of youth subculture.

It is very nice read that tries to analyse how the 80s groups, divided mainly by the music they listened and the clothes they wore, is shifting to the point that aren’t recognisable anymore. There are few ways to analyse this but I tend to agree that the principal reason has a very simple name: Internet.

Since web 1.0 fashion and trends have been moving to fast for people to find an identity that would not change in a couple of seasons.
The arrive of the web 2.0, with Facebook and SN, has moved our physical identity to an online identity. “It doesn’t happen in the street anymore, it happens online” is the sentence that goes straight to the point.

Chvrches happened online. They say it, they were a web based band. Their Lies single appeared about 2 years ago on a music blog post titled Skin + Bone (thanks to Geoff for spotting the error and letting me know in the comments). From there it has been a virtual climb to the peak of the online mountain.

Fans of Chvrches are all over the world, because the web doesn’t have borders. With the exclusion of some big and silly countries (looking at you China still blocking this little innocent blog) their online music is accessible everywhere. You cannot shape a unique identity through cultures of people living on 5 different continents. So the best solution is to stick to what you are, do what you believe and play what you like.

With this in mind I needed to see them live. I missed the launch of The Bones of What You Believe at Birthdays in London, thir debut album which I regretted for about 2 months to not go there (to have the chance to photograph a whole Chvrches set will not happen again soon).
I join the band at their sold-out 2014 tour in a very sold-out Cambridge Junction date.

Fans are young as you would expect but even in a fashion coded city, full of posh students, there’s variety. There’s not a dress code, there are people into indie, into electronica, into dancing. Some hipsters and some pop boys and girls with a crush for Lauren. Few are out for a teenage date trying to get a forbidden drink.

The three of them comes to a symmetrical stage lit to redesign the album cover logo. Lauren Mayberry takes the centre and the vocal duties for most of the set. There’s no drummer, I knew this, still I find difficult to click with a live band with e pre-recorded drum machine operated by a synth. It’s my personal taste, I know, but gives me an unstable feeling. I should be more open-minded.

Lauren is funny and chatty as the Scottish people are. I know they are Scottish only because I read it. The lack of a Glaswegian accent keep them among the worldwide-web bands without a clear geographical base. No idea if they’re proud or even wishing Scottish independence, if it was me I’d cancel borders altogether rather than building more. I like the freshness of their universality.

The gig lasts about an hour, playing the album in full in mixed order and leaves me with a feeling of freshness despite their synth pop electronic tunes are far from my favourite listening.

Towards the end of the set one of the boys in the band (don’t ask me who’s who, the one on the right!) moves to vocals, with Lauren taking keys at his board.
I must admit I enjoyed this. The song has a “street” feel which works.

I understand how important is for the image of the band to have a clever and gifted girl at the centre stage, but if I were them I would consider more tracks with the guy singing on them.

Don’t know if this will happen, what I know is that Internet is the best place for you to find out: [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

It is a very strict three songs rule, which means no photos not even from the back of the venue. No camera in sight and a guy in the front row with is big DSLR keeps shooting the whole gig but us, the photographers are kicked out.

I’ve been photographying music regularly every week for the last 10 years so nothing surprises me much (even if Tool photo release made me laugh out loud) but I regret having missed the album showcase in Dalston last year. There is no pit at Birthdays an no one would have cared of me covering the whole thing.

Point is, Chvrches live are one of those bands where the good photo can come every second and it goes at the same speed.
Lights change fast and go with the song, so anticipation is the key.

My uncle used to tell me during war, when prisoners escaping a prison through a sniper’s monitored point the third is the one more in danger. The first attracts the sniper attention, the second allow the sniper to point at him and the third gets shot.

At gigs photography during song follows the same pattern. First moment a verse appear (and the light with it) attracts a photographer attention, second time that verse happen you get ready for the lighting and the third time you can take the pictures. Listening to the music, understanding its architecture helps a lot music photography.

Just remember many songs don’t have the same verse or chorus three times and in that case you have to converge the second to measure exposure, frame and shot all in a blink of an eye.

Still… I don’t burst shoot. I never do

(and beyond the web) ut let’s focus on the web, it’s where I am, it’s (kind of) free, it’s wide, is comprehensive.
This year there was a difference. Spotify unlimited, for free. Most of web publications linked playlists, the ones that don’t only require a quick search and less YouTube browsing.

I spent that couple of weeks lost among the lists to keep up with what I may have lost. To perceive the trends, which in the last 4 or five years saw a decline of guitars being replaced by bedroom laptop pop. Yawn.

Chartflow.
First, I discard the albums that are present on every other ranks. I already listened to most, the rest is usually mainstream music that I wouldn’t stand beyond the first song.

Then I focus on the bands I know and I haven’t yet listened to. Corsicana Lemonade is the great new album by White Denim for example which I had missed.

About a week has gonewhen the discovery phase arrive.
(No, I’m not that obsessive, by the way, just helps me to dilute these photos)

Lack of guitars means I am eager to find some.
Skipping between artists and songs I never heard, suggested by people and sites I trust, gather mostly a sequence of skip and fast forwards.

Till my mouse stops onto Auto Neutron. The opening track of The Fat White Family debut record Champagne Holocaust.
The opening organ, almost out of tune, a retarded chorus, it’s like someone taking you by hand into a cartoon set in a post atomic landscape. You can’t skip this, it glues ears to earphones including the single note guitar-solo arriving mid song. It’s already best track of the year. A free ticket to listen to the whole thing regardless any weak point emerging. There are not.

Auto Neutron culminates in a guitar crescendo I have been waiting for a while and Is It Raining in Your Mouth speed things up.
The album keeps slapping unpredictably. Lias Saudi voiceis low and unconventional as anything this band does.

it’s unsettling start to end. It leaves with many more questions than tries to give answers. Most important it left me with enough songs to be satisfied for the first half of the year.

Three months later I have listened to this album endless times, I bought the CD and I still can’t get enough.

It has that sane perversion than only ‘punk’ music offers. But it’s 2014 and I do not know what I mean with punk.

The record has the right dose of provocation, naughtiness, anger, dirt, intelligence and fun. All what rock’n’roll needs to have to keep its soul out of the grave and kick asses.

This is not bedroom pop by a shy nerd. It’s like the Fall and The Libertines someway landed onto the same star with only one recording studio.
There is Birthday Party intelligence and The Clash political provocation, spectacularly showed off from the top of a Pub in London on the day of Margaret Thatcher’s dead.

The unanticipated consequence is that The Fat White Family at the same time are praised by The Quietus, The Guardian and NME, that sponsored this concert as one of their NME Awards special events.

In a scenario were music taste is fragmented, listeners follow the favourite publications to not find themselves outside a comfort zone, the consequence is that publications tend to please their audiences giving them what they want. This trend brought to a music landscape clustered around faved bands, same audiences, same niches, even dedicated festivals.

Another consequence is that what usually someone likes, the antagonist dislikes.
Which is what you expect between Quietus and NME, to name two.

The Fat White Family are nothing close to be an easy band, still in their perverted way managed to make ends meet.

In love with the CD, I have been looking for the first available date I could make to see (and photograph) them live.

From their Southern London base, the Electrowerkz in Islington is accessible heading north on the, erm, Northern line. Angel is the stop.
A couple of blocks down a side street and you find yourself in one of those basement-like venues (it is at first floor): dirty, sticky, smelly, pitch black darkness.
No pit.

Either the band was born to play here or the guy of The Electrowerkz opened this place knowing that at some point the perfect band would materialize in suche a stage.
It is the venue for Fat White Family, it is not the venue for concert photography. Not on a sold out night with a band that defining “lively” is an understatement.

I was expecting this, can’t do it anymore every weekend but a mosh pit every so often is what you know to verify  there is life beyond daily routine.

Few hundreds people gather under the stage. Few girls hate me from before the start. Fans hate photographers like me.
I’ve got here very early to stand in the central spot of the first row. With cameras.
If you are a dedicated concert photographer you gotta be ready to sweat and fight and conquer the frontline. There are no chances to take good pics from the second row. Bob Capa rule always applies more than ever here: get close.

I did. A blonde girl tries to push me out of her way, I resist. She has her reasons, I have mine. I don’t travel Cambridge to Islington on a working day to let her at the front and miss the chance, sorry honey.

It’s from the first chord of the first song, same Auto Neutron that open the album, that the intent is clear: to provoke. To have fun, to surprise, to shock the unbelievers, convert the infidels to the Fat White cult.

It happens at the sound of guitars, pumping bass and steer energy. The energy that only a band at its peak has. Everything is perfect, everything they do tonight would be what it is needed.

Lias Saudi, the lead singer and the soul of the family, takes about a song to get rid of his shirt and tie and ends up shirtless for the rest of the set.

The girl once behind, is now next to me. One of us three photographers gave up at the second song and the second shower courtesy of a flying pint. She desperately tries to undress Lias pulling down his trousers for the whole set. He knows, he let her go ahead to pull out at the last moment. Mimics a resistance which only increases the naughtiness of the show. It’s a sexy, dirty set something rare I wonder if Prince is in the audience.

Sure there was Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand

When Lias, out of the blue, stares at the back of the hall, bends as he were to start a wobbling 100m race, you gotta be careful. He will sprint toward the fans jumping high and landing over them. It’s a ritual that repeats almost every song, it would make good pics if I had a flash. I had not.

Nevermind, I’m having fun, I’m sweating, I manage to change the lens in the most unstable of balances and risky of conditions for a digital body with a sensor exposed to a rain of sticky sugary drinks.

It works I’m so close I need to go wide to frame the band. I can feel Bob Capa pushing my back, I almost fall onto the monitors, Lias falls over me. It’s a body fluid mess joined to concert photography.  The 14-24mm is on.

The music doesn’t stop, the show doesn’t either. I keep shooting, advantages of no pit, no one is brave enough to come and get me out, no one cares if I shoot three songs, if I use flash. It’s pointless. It’s a rock’n’roll animal.

Music goes on, hard to follow, not important to check they pick the right chords. It’s an event, one of those night to remember, one of those gigs that enter high on the list of bests.

Yes I don’t do my “best of” lists, but if there is a list of my favourite concerts, this is probably on the top ten of several hundreds.

Catch The Fat White Family, Live. They’re here [website][facebook][twitter][spotify]

And if you don’t believe me, believe him

Fat White Family: I haven’t enjoyed a gig like that since The Country Teasers in 1993.

— alex kapranos (@alkapranos) February 26, 2014

Photo tip

With this news Getty last week revolutionised the photography world.

From 6th of March 2014 Getty offers most of their archive, 35 millions photos for free for web non commercial use.
It is still not clear what non commercial is, cause they said newspaper and adv containing sites can use their embedded photos.

This one below isn’t mine, it’s from the same gig and it’s usable by anyone for free. Robin is the photographer that left to save his gear, clothes and everything else from the moshpit. Was it wrong? you judge.

They confessed to have lost the copyright war. Sincerely it’s not them to loose, it’s us, the photographers. They have a plan to capitalise these images with customers info and targeted advs. What is less clear is what will be in the hand of photographers, money wise.
Visibility and credit in change of photos made legal by the biggest agency.

Great? Don’t think. Where I stand, I still don’t know. I don’t distribute through Getty but I do through Rex and what will the answer of other agencies is what everyone is waiting to see.

It’s difficult to get the “full picture”.
For the moment Getty move is very simple to understand.
They set a price. A very debated price online.
How much is worth a low res image for web-only use? Getty fixed the price: $0.00

This set the precedent and this precedent will make it difficult to expect someone would pay for a web image now. Not from Getty, from anyone.

Even worse. If someone takes a web image without permission and a photographer claims his/her (copy)right, the potential consequence in a dispute is that the stealing blogger and the court can state that the market value for such an image is $0.00.

So what? I don’t know.

A truth is that web only images ain’t paid so much. I have been paid for one 0.21 pence so my life will not change.

Still this is serious. Space for photojournalism is getting tighter.

On the positive side there is hope to sell through instagram. This photographer made $15.000 in a day.

This day is going to be important for St. Vincent.
The album is called St. Vincent. Her real name is Annie Erin Clarke but her stage name is, like the album, St. Vincent.
It is her 5th record and it is out right now.

It is the first LP after she departed 4AD, released with Loma Vista/Republic.
It is the first after the collaboration with David Byrne, Love this Giant, which I never loved and managed to go beyond one of the worst covers of all times.

I don’t know the details of the label change but, seen from the 4AD perspective, losing St. Vincent at this time of her career it is not a good thing.

As things go, she just played a European tour in advance of the album release which ended up in this sold out concert I photographed at Shepherds Bush Empire in London last thursday.
Annie is now back to USA to promote the record with several US dates in the next months and will be back for a bigger tour and summer festivals dates in May and June.
It’s indie-rock schedule, before and after the album there is hard touring going on. It’s where most of the money are. Or… (come to this later, bear with me)

The only other time I photographed St. Vincent it was in this same place which is also one of my favourite theatre to photograph Music in London. If it wasn’t for the ridiculous restriction of the security I’ll be here much more.

She was singing her debut album, Marry Me, in a support slot for The National at the end of November 2007. At those time I posted photos of Matt Berninger and Dessner and Devendorf brother on this little blog, but I totally forgot this tiny girl until checking my whole archive I realised I have already shot her. Had to go back to Spotify to check where and when.

Good occasion to switch on my scanner and go back to some 35mm delight for this very occasion to bring you some of these vintage ones of a shy, less curly, small girl with a hat.

St. Vincent debut was out for just 2 months at that time. Very few people have heard of this Texan girl moved to New York to break through the indie scene. The album will sell thousands, will be reviewed by everyone and paved her path to stardom, just not yet.

In 2009 her second album Actor came out. At that time I must have forgotten her, because I don’t remember asking for a photopass for the tour, neither willing to go. The album got Best New Music at Pitchfork, nowadays what you need to be in the empire of indie-stars.

In 2011 Strange Mercy came out and I couldn’t miss this. To me still her best record. The balance between electronica and fuzzy analogic guitar reach the apex in some incredible songs. The first half of the album is majestic, some songs are so catchy I find myself singing Cruel, Cheerleader without knowing what I was singing. Surgeon has so much depth in it.

I remember the tour and remember being gutted not being able to cover these shows, especially when I saw some incredible pics. Annie Clarke is known to be great live and also to use bright white lights which is not something you get often.

With a progression of 8.0, 8.5 and 9.0 at Pitchfork there is not much to say except that raising the bar so high, so quickly will have lead to expectations being hard to satisfy. There are two ways.

First solution St. Vincent attempted, was (to me) the easy way and the wrong choice: To recruit a legend as David Byrne of Talking Heads (and everything else). Surely this generated a huge press coverage that made the breaking news on all music channels. Unfortunately (expectations at this point became even higher) and the music within the album cannot cope. It seems to stop in the middle between Byrne eclecticism and Annie indie-nerdiness and never find to mature.
Reviewers agree with me, the album is not very well received and going from 9 to 5.9 is almost unprecedented to a Pitchfork ‘Best New Music’ Artist. It was a loud message. (Note, I keep mentioning the Chicago site as a reference because everyone else usually matches to the trend they set, especially about US artists).

Back on the hard road, the other solution was to change direction. It’s risky, it’s difficult. If it works it pays back.
There are few artists that can do this. You need a fan base that is open-minded to follow (checked) and you need, of course, the skills to write good music and perceive the new trend (checked).

David Bowie, Radiohead, PJ Harvey? The ones who managed to reinvent themselves in a credible way are part of rock history.
There are many that dramatically disappeared for failing a direction change (Twilight Sad, Glasvegas) and when they U turn again trying to redo what they were good at fans are long gone. Indie-rock audience is unforgiving.

St. Vincent isn’t the case. She did it right. Her new album is a great record, bold but sincere. It had the first 5stars given by DIY and, most important, resurrects to 8.6 and Best New Music for the third time in a row at Pitchfork. This is what she needed. So now, what did she change?

Everything. And I was unprepared.
I expected an indie guitarist, shy, nerdy, using her guitar to separate from the audience. None of this.

I forgot to have seen her live first time. I will not forget this Shepherds Bush Empire show ever.
There is the same throne on stage that is on the cover of the new album. She steps to play guitar on it, the Prince‘s way.

I just bought the indierock.photography domain for this little blog and the first concert I upload on here is a proper popstar in the making. Weird.
St. Vincent new music, but mostly the new look she shows-off at this gig is a pop concert, as you’d expect for a proper pop star at a proper pop arena. Sure this is where she is going.

She wears the same short dress at all shows, either black or white (as PJ Harvey did latest tour, I got it black) with a melting heart on the front.
From the album cover to the photopass sticker she has white dyed hair on a light blue background. She plays a black guitar on stage. It is plenty of strong lights as a pop show demands and she pours attitude from all pores.

Annie is sexy and she knows that to break into pop music sex is, sadly or not as you want to see it, an essential ingredient as black pepper in proper carbonara.
Self-confidence and seductive not shy, introspective sex-appeal.

Timidity doesn’t work here, as fresh cream doesn’t work in a carbonara, you have to be able to mix simple ingredients without the help of cream. It will be creamy anyway if you do it properly.

St. Vincent mixes it up without the use of anything simpler than great new songs (plus many from Strange Mercy), a renewed self-confident attitude, a stunning look and, as salt and pepper, a band that is so good to be present but never intrusive.

I realised looking at the photos of the 2 songs we were allowed to cover, I have almost no frames of the band. There is a drummer on the back a keyboardist guitarist on the front right and another on the background. They are essential but they only complement St. Vincent playing.

She is a great singer but I realised also how good she is as a guitarist. Her six strings produce a wonderful sound and she is a skilled player confirming US artists give to technicality more attention than British.
She enjoys some solos and shows them off which is part of the I-am-a-popstar-now news. Prince is in town, you never know.

All things converge to the conclusion that this 24th of February is going to be a date St. Vincent and her fans will remember.
I saw her twice at Shepherds Bush Empire but I doubt its capacity would be enough to contain the fans in the future. Surely the aim is to biggest venue, larger crowds, fans all over the world.

She deserved it. This is not a one hit wonder, it’s 5 full albums crafted to perfection bit by bit, being brave to change directions, anticipate the trends, indicate the path to the many artists to follow.

It is St. Vincent year and if you still haven’t discovered how good she is, it’s time to immerse yourself in a perfect recipe of pop and indie music. Her website says it all ILoveStVincent.com you better do too: [Website][Spotify][facebook][twitter]

Photo tip

I have been several times to Shepherds Bush Empire, I talked about the advantages of low stage venues, St. Vincent matured as a musician, I surely matured as a concert photographer, the venue never relaxed their strict policy, one of the very few medium size venues that, to be allowed back in after the photos, wants  all photographers to leave the camera bag, to have a valid ticket and to walk down the street from the stage door than back in from the front. At least a couple of songs are missed.

The only time this didn’t happened, believe me, it was for Katy Perry. Yes, I managed to take photos and stay to watch the show with my camera bag simply walking from the pit to the stalls.

Living in Cambridge this policy is one of the reasons why I turn down several photo passes when they don’t come with a ticket. Sadly.
It’s a long way trip for 10 minutes of music. Thankfully this time a journalist friend had a plus one so I stayed to view and review this show.

For concerts Shepherds Bush is my London favourite venue after Koko. It has several balcony levels, it has the red baroqueness of London Theatres. It doesn’t have the Apollo or Brixton Academy shell-shaped floor but towards the back it is elevated and allows to watch the show if you don’t want to join the party in the front.

Photography wise the low stage and usually good lights deliver good images. Some of the photos here were shot ad ISO 320 or 500 f2.8 1/250s but be careful if you are going to photograph St. Vincent because there is a huge difference between the strong lights on her face and the rest. Matrix measurement failed a few times giving me some shots where her face is too overexposed to be usable. Also when the strong lights go away it’s very dark.

I strongly suggest measuring spot on her face for this, be very careful your spot point is on the face or on a bright area, though. I also set the auto ISO in these conditions with a favourite at 800 and upper at 6400.
The two songs are short and the time she spends away from the microphone is much shorter. Few seconds for a short dance intro before the first song and about 30 seconds for a guitar solo at the end of it. I couldn’t bother to deal with ISO/Aperture and Shutter in 5 minutes.

The rest of the time she sings in front of the mic pole with no opportunity. When all photographers are off, she starts her proper pop show off, more lights on, climbs staircase, lays down, plays guitar.
No, I’m not going to ask why not allowing to cover a whole gig again. No I am not.

At an early Florence gig at Shepherds Bush Empire in London XX were headlining. It was also one of the last time they played as a quartet before one member left the band. End of 2009.

A new decade was about to start, economic crisis and low budgets helped minimalist electro indie pop to get out of artists bedroom andMacBooks invaded the underground scene.
Classic dream-pop (Cocteau Twins) darkened by reminiscence from the good side of the eighties: Joy Division, Cure, Siouxsie and a touch of Depeche Mode.
The recipe worked, the backlights delivered silhouettes and I regret to have missed shooting the XX so many times.

There have been followers, as it always is when you hit the right notes. Several and different, each approaching the scene with a slight different angle. All big around Spitafield and Shoreditch. James Blake, Disclosure and Chvrches to mention the first I can think of but, and I finally introduce to today’s post, London Grammar.
(that with Disclosure have an active friendship and collaboration)

I would bet London Grammar singer, Hannah Reid, was among the teenagers at that Florence + The Machine gig in Shepherd Bush in 2009.
The perfect mix of XX support and Florence headline singing will result, after few years of fine tuning and hiring a couple of skilled musicians, in the London Grammar. This trio will produce the debut album that is of the 2013 sensations. Guardian spotted them since April but the album won’t be out until September.

If You Wait is out on Metal and Dust. With sales on the plus side of 30K It topped the indie chart (despite being distributed by Columbia and Warner which makes the indie chart meaningless but this is a different argument) and sold about 250K albums since it was released. Got to n.2 in UK and beyond.

Where Florence did put her voice at use of sensationalism and big tunes, London Grammar use a more subtle trick.
The big tunes are played down by arrangments made by electronica with some effected guitar and sampled drums. It’s Shoreditch, babe.
The voice, mixed to stand out is underplayed by minimalist arrangments. If it wasn’t that Hannah Reid does have a total different timbre of Beth Gibbons you may think Portishead would be back.

Despite I still cannot cope long with music putting guitar/bass/drums aside for electronic samples, I admit some of this modern times stuff is entering my blood and I am now able to listen to more than 15 minutes without getting to hate tapered denim and floral shirts. This means I had the chance to listen to their album few times.

I came to a full-to-capacity Corn Exchange for London Grammar event. Their first proper tour and one of the first sold out dates create the event.
The trio comes on stage lined up with guitarist Dan Rothman on the left, Hannah in the centre and Dominic ‘Dot’ Major behind keys, drums and tricks on the right.
The stage is big which is first problem of portraying the full line-up.

They brought an all-girl string quartet sitting on the back, if this is at risk of mining their minimalism to Florence grander territories, it helped photo composition.
They also brought a quite big lighting which after the third song and from the back looks very effective, if only we were allowed to take picture.

[rant break] Actually I was the only one allowed, because this was another of those situations started with “Sorry Valerio, there are not photopasses left, list is all full” to then get in with another contact and discovering that there was no other photographer in the pit except me. [end of rant]

Gig starts quiet and songs are carefully crafted, ‘Dot’ works on keys most of the time, I prefer when he moves to the drums to add more beat leaving the melodies to Dan Rothmann guitar.

Hannah plays a piano on the back for some tunes which allows the string quartet to kick in the orchestral movements.
Something now reminds me of Bat For Lashes another of 2009 breakthrough acts.

I stay for the whole gig which, to be fair, it was very short running, under a hour including encore.

I know London Grammar have only one album out and those are all the material they could play. What I wonder is why, with so much influences and Reid incredible voice, they couldn’t put together some covers to make the set longer and confront with their reference. London Grammar is the perfect band to refresh famous tunes.

When I was young (yes I was), any band touring with a debut album used to add covers to make a set longer. It works as a homage to what they love.
Crowd pleasers.
Where are all cover songs gone? What stops covers nowadays, either is insecurity or pretentiousness, the only consequence is to not have the chance to listen Hanna Reid voice for a bit longer.

London Grammar are not on Spotify, sadly, you can still find some of their music and all the news here: [website][facebook][twitter][soundcloud]

Photo tip

I arrived at the Corn Exchange expecting a full pit, as the first PR told me, and I was pleased to be on my own. While I prepare my camera and lenses, a guy of London Grammar crew looks surprised to see someone in the pit.
He approaches me and, beyond the usual reprimand of 3 songs no flash, he says that the first songs are going to be quiet so I have to be silent, choose a spot and don’t move much around. Even the house security was surprised by the request. I say I will do my best to not interfere with the show.

It is a key part of concert photography to be invisible, to anticipate the moment when the music will be louder enough to click the shutter and when to be silent even if there may be a good shot.

There is a big production tonight, that delivered a big show… for the audience. It would have been a very good gig for photographers too with some attention to details. A couple of suggestions.

The band is lined up on a line in the front of a large stage. I gues it is more than 10 meters wide, the band members are far apart and there is no way to frame them together without using a very wide angle.
Suggestion number one. Ignore the big stage, keep the band tight. It will look closer and intimate and band photos will be possible. Guitarist and singer can always walk around which adds up to the show more than standing still.

There are big lights. A backdrop of bulb able to write lyrics and some nice yellow tungsten lamps counterbalancing the blue LEDs spots. Unfortunately all of this were used well after the first three songs.
I know lightwise the best bits of a gig has to come at the end and they can’t blow out the special effects for the beginning. Suggestion 2 (ten years I am asking for this) Why don’t let photographers to take pictures of the best moments? Why not to photograph (also) the last 3 songs?

I am an optimist.

This lead to Hearts, the debut album. It got TLOBF “album of the year” tag in 2011 “winning” over artists as Kurt Vile, The war on Drugs and Bon Iver.
True that this Swedish duo, signed by BellaUnion, checked all the boxes the ‘English-but-in-love-with-Scandinavian-pop’ webzine loves as Bridgewater honestly put in the review.

I listened to Heart several times (and I am relistening it now while writing) despite my musical taste is far from electro-pop, dream pop or new millennium shoegaze (which has nothing to do with My Bloody Valentine, Galaxy 500 or Slowdive). With few listens I appreciated the delicate but very well-crafted sound. Sketched melodies and singer lines, hidden behind a softer noise than you would expect by the genre definition, work in a similar way to those delicate sketches of masters of painting that are better than the final canvas.

From the nineties pioneers, to the (20)10s revival, shoegazers have decrease the volume and the numbers of coats of sound they add to cover pop songs.

There are reasons into that. There are less guitars involved. The distorsion effects are applied to laptops. Bands come often from beyond the Anglo-Saxon axis and get inspired by their traditions.

Is not news that, when Norway is associated to black metal, Sweden is the land of electropop.
Maria Lindén and Fredrik Balck, aka I Break Horses, started as a duo. He’s on percussion, she sings and plays keys as far as tinstruments. The bulk of their music is clearly elaborated on a laptop with a mousepad.

It took about 3 years to I Break Horses to put together a second album. It is out now and titled Chiaroscuro, which is the “Italian for light-dark […] in art is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition.” (Thanks Wiki)

The album streamed a week in advance on TLOBF and, as the previous, it took me few listens to click in.
It has similar patterns to Hearts in the sense that songs’ melodies give the sensation of being just sketched with a charcoal ‘chiaroscuro’, only the ‘scuro’ is more present than the ‘chiaro’.

There are not hits in it. Like it or not, this is the trend (listen to latest Warpaint for example, probably the best ever album without a single tune ever written) and it is the same for I Break Horses. They didn’t change their plot because they don’t follow a plot. It’s a stream of consciousness, they follow their heart.
Emotions go up and down a rollercoaster. It’s like climbing on some darker songs, sliding down with some faster beats and getting inundated with some noise. But there is less noise than in Hearts, more electronics.

The album is being received softly, surely with less pomp than Hearts. It’s half because of a natural tendency of the music scene, usually warmer towards debuts than follow ups. The other half because sticking to the same plot, the music has less chances to surprise the listener.

Pitchfork marked Hearts with a 7.2, in its usual anti-European inclination anytime Thom Yorke is not involved. Chiaroscuro gets an unfair 5.9 in Chicago. A mark that back to my school years would mean “they can do much better but they don’t put enough effort into it”.

On top of the Any Decent Music list of reviews sits TLOBF with a sound 8.5 + “album of the week”.
(Maria also talks about emotional rollercoaster on the interview and I swear I didn’t read this before writing about it 2 paragraphs above :-)

All summed up together I went to the Village Underground to see I Break Horses album launch live, it was my first time.
It also was the 23rd of January, time to kick off the concert season 2014 after the lazy Christmas weeks.

I expected a duo, I found a full band, including a guitarist, a back singer and an added synth. Fredrik Balck sits on drums and Maria Lindén, centre stage is on keys and singing. If the audience was iron dust she’d be a strong magnet. The Village Underground is sold-out but it’s like there are 50 of us.

You can’t avoid staring at her. Her singing, her smile, her moves all works in synchrony. Her Nordic simplicity is the most effective way to make her special. No need to show off, to highlight anything. Is the anti pop star. As their music is the perfect anti-pop. All happens peacefully, calmly, beautifully. It’s dreamy or it is a dream, relaxing as a SPA, anergetic as a vegan smoothy. It is pop denying every single pop cliché.

It all comes together, I Break Horses are simple. Not after any special effect. They are not here to surprise the audience, they don’t have tricks in the hat. They love their music, believe in their songs, talk about their life and send the vibe to people sympathetic with it to the point of inviting anyone to a free after show party I sadly have to miss.

You can be in touch with I Break Horses here, they are heading to USA in spring and I expect a busy festival season playing these songs.
Know more about them here [website][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Photo tip

I am entering a delicate territory here but talking about photography of pop and rock stars it is relevant. The entertainment industry undisputably pays a fair share of attention to aesthetics.

I am also Italian and I regrettably bring with me an archetipical amount of “sexism” in my culture that, despite being the least macho man in the country, acts probably on the subconscious to complicate things.

All of this to say?
Well I wanted to put together few words about shooting bands whose frontwoman (it may works as well for a frontman to be fair) is a top-model-like aspect. The occasion just arrived.

Maria Linden of I Break Horses is undisputably beautiful. One of the most beautiful artist in the indie music scene I portraited. Once she walks on stage she magneticaly attracts men, women and camera lenses (the topic of this tip) with her charm.

How to report and review by images a concert of such a band?

One way is to include full band shots. I fired some to Rex but I knew from the beginning that if a photo was going to be picked it would not have been that. Dicto my image on the Evening Standard alongside a review shows is this one

I had band members to shoot with 5 people on stage and I also stepped sideway to get a different perspective, still there is such a power on Maria’s photos that will never be there in any other attempt.
How to portray her, then, and what’s the issue.

I had to change for once my rigid position about (avoiding) microphones as hell, whenever possibile. I am telling you
why.

Going through the set of images I shot on the train back home, I realised that the ones where I carefully waited for the moment she moved away from the bloody microphone did not look like concert photos. They are more like portraits of a model lit by mostly a not ideal lighting.

Back to the devil was the solution. Review-wise, in the case you’ve got an angel in front of you, my tip is to include the microphone. Yes I said that.
I would still wait for the moment the nasty object is out of the face, eyes, nose and mouth if possible, but leave it in the frame. The image will keep that sensation that a song is going on.

There is the option of including the instruments, it works better with guitars, a bit more difficult with a keyboardist and a high stage.

It always arrive the exception to confirm a rule, do not forget the rule!
Microphones are the devil, avoid them whenever possibile and bin all photos where they unnaturally cover singers’ faces.

East India Youth is a solo project by William Doyle. One of the most talked appearances in the London music scene last year.

East India Youth first single Heaven, How Long, part of a 12” EP Hostel, was out in Februray 2013 and immediately was a on music news; for two main reasons.

First is obvious, because it is a great record that instantly acted as a catalyst for the London Electronic music.

Electronica is the music of these years, this isn’t a surprise. The arrive of East India Youth was indeed a surprise. With his sound everything in a confused box seemed to fall in the right place. Doyle mixture of creativity, taste for the sound, melody, danceable loops and also his look stood out.

From that moment (to today) it is as if the reference has been set. The artist to confront with, for any other London electronica ensemble, was East India Youth.

The second reason why East India Youth arrive was on news is because the announced 12” vinyl would have been out on a newly created The Quietus Phonographic Corporation new Label… founded by… erm… The Quietus.

It is a news because … to mention the original article, John Doran, TheQuietus’ editor put it well : “I’d always said that I’d cut my own head off using nail clippers before we started a record label. I’d learned too much from watching other sites and magazines pour all of their time, money and talent into them, just to watch them spectacularly implode. It was, I said, like withdrawing all your money from a cash machine and setting fire to it while simultaneously flushing your own head down a toilet filled with goat’s piss.”
Got it?

Laura Snapes still at Pitchfork at that time, came out with a nice review of the single, which mentions everything from Liars to The Who passing through The Horrors, helping to increase the curiosity inducing everyone to click on that soundcloud wave.

The best bit is when you realise that the above mentions are much more accurate than they read.

Countless play (actually very well countable 49.815 + 15. 783on Soundcloud + 10396 and counting on youtube and more alsewhere) and many mentions caught people attention. New Band of The Day @ the guardian at this point caused East India Youth to became the one to hear in (East) London.

It’s not just marketing or word of mouth, though.
When you get to this point the first believer in you must be yourself. Which is what William Doyle understood quickly and dedicated his time to.

From February till the end of the year his vintage floral shirts, Mac Powerbook and bass have been decorating every other stage, support stage, main stage, DJ set, disco in town… and beyond.

I have not covered a huge loads of concerts in 2013 but I came across East India Youth at least three times.
First for the405 birthday party in April at the Old Blue Last. Shoreditch place to start to be cool.
Then he woke up Field Day Festival goers gathering a very big crowd at midday under the Quietus tent. In a still sleepy Victoria Park his synth started a great day. (the daily life pics on this gallery)

Last (time I saw him) when he opened for These New Puritans (the night pics along the ‘photo tip’ at the bottom).
Unfortunately I missed the other fifth birthday party of The Quietus where William Doyle played together with a stunning line-up made with Factory Floor, Grumbling Furs and Teeth of the Sea. I cannot be everywhere, but I regret this a lot.

Surely in the months from the first time to the last I have attended his live show, the music improved a lot. The set at Heaven was utterly brilliant.

I am not going to review the album here. I know too little about electro/techno/synth/Drum Machine based music to attempt even a couple of paragraphs.
I appreciate (see below) William Doyle was in a band before and this may be one of the reasons why I can listen to his music without getting bored before it’s over. There is memory of ‘songs’ in his tunes.
I also realise electro-pop is the genre of the decade and I keep an ear onto it. The other ear still waits for the day the guitars’ curve will rise back, plug into some Marshall, turns the volume to 11 and blow my mind.

Many are reviewing this by the way. From a tweet of Alexis Petridis going “This album by East India Youth is fucking amazing” last December a plethora of articles emerged.

Petridis himself followed up with a more politically correct tone on his paper making East India Youth a one to watch for 2014: “Something about East India Youth’s debut album Total Strife Forever doesn’t square with the story of the man who made it. To hear William Doyle tell it, he turned to making electronic music for largely pragmatic reasons: the indie band he was in broke up messily and he realised that electronica was a genre that lent itself to a solo artist working from home. He says he recorded the album almost as an afterthought, over three years, while focusing on other projects. It’s not that you don’t believe him, so much as that’s not how the album sounds. It comes across as a hugely self-assured debut, from an artist who knows exactly what he’s doing: he’s confident enough to leap from out-and-out pop to icy ambience to pounding acid house to unsettling experimentation. Whatever the circumstances in which he made it, the fact that he did so marks Doyle out as a rare, idiosyncratic talent.”

The debut album Total Strife Forever is being praised pretty much everywhere and at the moment tops Any Decent Music albums with an 8.3 average (pre Pitchfork) collection of reviews

Clearly if 2013 was the launch ramp for East India Youth the mission is well in orbit now and I do hope to catch up with him at concerts and festival in 2014.

For now, this is a collection of photos I shot last year.

For the future you can follow him online, in line with times East India Youth website is his soundcloud plus the usual bunch of social networks [Soundcloud][facebook][twitter][Spotify]

Last two questions I have no answer are.
What’s the origin of the name?
Is Jenny Saville the painter of the brilliant Album artwork?

Photo tip

In the film era, photography exposure was linked to two variables. Aperture and Shutter.
Iso (also knowns as ASA or DIN before that) the sensitivity to light of the film was a given value and, at least for 36 frames on 35mm film, it was set and unchangeable.
Any pre-digital photographer has been matching, either manually, aperture priority or shutter priority, this pair to get the right exposure for the right situation.

Among the many improvement that digital photography brought to the field, the existence of a third variable is not very appreciated.
ISO are not fixed anymore. From one frame to the next if the light changes it is possible to keep the aperture and shutter we prefer and change ISO accordingly

Talking to many photographers this is not always considered a good practice. At concerts I know that many tend to fix the ISO depending on the situation and keep operating on the classic aperture/shutter pair to determine the right exposure.
The explanation I was given is that from ISO to ISO there is a difference in noise that can make a set non uniform. True till some years ago and very true if you are making a story that needs consistence in results.

Less true nowadays that sensors have improved and ISO variability is not as detectable. Also if you are shooting a concert, if lucky, only one or two photos will be picked for publishing.

I read somewhere that some cameras have ISO priority added to the other two semi-automatic modes.
Mine do not (or I do not know) but I tend to vary ISO during a set often.

Lights at gigs change quickly and deciding which is the perfect ISO is not always obvious.
In dark places there is no choice. With the D700 sensor I know 6400 ISO is the highest to have a decent raw file.

When there is more light, what ISO to go for? My question is instead, why do you have to fix it?

I changed procedure. I set the camera in manual mode, decide the aperture (95% of the times 2.8 to be fair) and the shutter (everything from 1/100s to faster is good) and let the matrix decide the sensitivity.

It is, as any automatic thing, a dangerous approach to do and I strongly suggest to learn very well how your camera matrix deals with light, backlights, spotlights before attempting.
I find that with some experience it is perfectly doable.

What I do is to set the maximum limit for ISO to 3200 (6400 if the situation is desperate), set 800 as a standard and allow the value to go up or down without compromising on the shutter speed (a blurred image is worse than a noisy image) and without messing up with changing the ISO, in addition to aperture and shutter from second to second.

Why? Because concert photography happens to quick to have time to set all the dials and I prefer to be as free as possible to dedicate most of my time to composition.
I believe there is no point to have a sharp, clean image if the final result is a confusing and distracting frame because of a poor composition.
What do you do, instead?

PS: One of my photos of East India Youth (likely one of these in this gallery) has been published on the Guardian, or at least the Guardian has paid me for it.
I don’t have a clue where that has appeared so, if you accidentally have come across it, I’d be very grateful if you let me know. Thanks!