Hi Everyone! This post is long overdue because I’ve been a bit under the weather recently. Thankfully, I am feeling much better now!

Two weeks ago, I spent the weekend at my business partner’s house in Concord, N.C. while he recorded some new tracks for Sam Quinn.

Head over to Live And Breathing website to hear his new track Oceans.

Click here to hear the new track.

Well, all good things have to come to an end sometime and the Winter 2010 Langhorne Slim tour is no exception. After narrowly escaping a mini blizzard that blew into Atlanta on Friday afternoon, I spent a relaxing evening in downtown Knoxville listening to some sweet tunes at Barley’s before getting a nice long rest to help with the second leg of my journey to Columbus, Ohio.

What a strange occurrence my drive North was. I ran North to get away from the snow (this is just strange to me) and it all disappeared until I hit Ohio where I saw about a foot of snow packed on the ground that looked like it wasn’t going to go away until Spring. I even managed to test a few laws of Physics specifically relating to friction while loading gear in and out of The Summit that evening. Let’s just say the Looney Toon’s ain’t got nothing on my slipping abilities.

Oh! I almost forgot! We also got to push and pull the band’s van out of a snow packed parking spot before Langhorne played on Saturday and it was stuck pretty good. But we managed to win out. Only downside was that Slim interrupted a nice little backstage recording session where Justin Glanville and David Moore were improving on two acoustic guitars while making Mia Krout laugh out loud numerous times.

And on to the final show of this incredible tour. The space at the Summit was packed. The show sold out before April Smith and the Great Picture Show started and the crowd was ready to party. April got the room grooving and Langhorne got them jumping.

The energy in the room fueled Langhorne Slim to play a 10, yes I said TEN, song encore that extended the show past 1 a.m. Boy did it feel great. The crowd loved it and so did I. A couple times I found myself just listening and enjoying the show instead of photographing it. Whenever this happens, I know that I am a party to a night of rock ‘n roll that I won’t long forget.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Justin Glanville and I have started a new business venture called Live And Breathing where we focus on audio recording that makes the sound alive as well as multimedia promotional pieces for Artist’s websites. So Justin recorded the entire tour so that Live And Breathing can make its first live album. Look for sample tracks on our website in the near future.

This set of images took me slightly longer to finish because Apple was kind enough to release Aperture 3 last week. I say this with excitement since I got to play with a new version of my favorite image editing and archiving program while I edited these images and I must say, it will significantly speed up my post-production. All of these images were edited solely with Aperture 3, no need for Photoshop anymore. Thanks Apple!

Moving on… After a great show in Boise, I rode with the band through a pretty major snowstorm to Portland. I can honestly say that there is never a dull moment with that group of guys and Mia. We had fun.

We rolled into Portland late in the evening to headline at the Crystal Ballroom’s 96th birthday show on January 31, 2010. The Ballroom’s birthday bash was an all day event with tons of bands playing free shows.

I’ve heard from many people that it is a venue worth seeing and they were correct. Langhorne Slim performed an incredible show that even included a couple getting engaged right near the front.

Enjoy!

April Smith and The Great Picture Show at the Neurolux in Boise, Idaho

April Smith opened for Langhorne Slim on a Winter 2010 tour across the northern United States and down the West Coast. These photos are from Janruary 30, 2010 at the Neurolux in Boise, Idaho.

I flew out to Boise, Idaho on a whirlwind weekend to grab two more Langhorne Slim shows out West. I left on Saturday morning on a packed flight with a connection in Phoenix and thankfully I managed to get an aisle seat since I was on an Airbus with the least amount of legroom I have ever seen. On the flight to Boise, I got a whole row! Best sleep I have ever gotten on an airplane.

Side note: Why is that taxi drivers are jerks in any part of the country? Is it a prerequisite for the job!

Anyways, I had about 6 hours to kill while the band finished the last part of their drive from Bozeman, Montana. So I headed to the nearest coffee shop to the Neurolux in downtown Boise. I must say, Boise is a very cool smaller city. I managed to find a quaint little coffee shop frequented by Boise State students making it a great place to people watch while working on my taxes.

Once the band arrived, the fun began. April Smith opened and I decided to shoot some photos of them as well. Great band and I got some nice stuff.

Langhorne played as awesome energetic show that left the crowd wanting more. Great night. Check out the Portland photos later this week.

Cheers! It is my birthday!

Ah birthdays. What a great time of year to reflect and learn and grow from another year’s passage on one’s journey through life. My last year has been on crazy ride but I know in my heart that everything was for the best and I have matured significantly as a result.

It must be fitting that today I officially started a new business with a new partner. As well, I plan to focus deeply on my photography business in the year to come and I working very hard to grow. If you have ever enjoyed any of my photos, please use the promo code below and buy an image. Every little bit helps!

Today, February 4th, is my birthday and in celebration I am offering a 25% off coupon for a discount on the purchase of any images from my website in the next 24 hours. So hurry!

Limit one coupon use per customer.

Promo Code: 27BDAY25OFF

You can use the code to purchase prints or digital downloads of any images you see on my site. If you know of other images of mine that you like, but cannot locate them, please email me and I will be happy to assist you.

Be sure to sign up for my mailing list as well. Look to the top of the sidebar to the right.

I also know quite a few people with the same birthday as me, so happy birthday to you all. May this next year of our lives be one to remember!

My last night on the road with Langhorne was at a great smaller venue in Pittsburg’s bar district. The show sold out before the doors opened and that place was packed. During sound check, Slim was changing guitar strings so I got to listen to his band jam for about 10 minutes on some funky tunes. And the show… the show was high energy and one that the audience won’t forget. I’ll be heading to Boise, ID and Portland, OR this weekend to grab some images of two more shows on this tour. Look for them next week. Enjoy!

Langhorne Slim’s second show of the current tour on January 22, 2010 in Baltimore at Ottobar was so much fun. The venue was packed and the energy was flowing. What a difference a night makes! The Hoboken show was fun, but the Baltimore show is one I will not forget for quite a while. Let me know what you think!

This past week, I got to spend some time on tour with Langhorne Slim. Justin Glanville is recording every show from Langhorne’s current tour in hopes of making a live album from it. I went to the first three shows of the tour to get some images to go along with the live album. This is the first gig for Live And Breathing; the recording and photography company that Justin and I recently started.

The photos above are from Langhorne Slim’s first show of this winter tour at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey. Look for more photos as the week progresses.

Over the weekend, I spent some time at Justin Glanville’s place in Concord, N.C. where I was awoken each morning by the insane Cardinal pictured above. This bird, which we all agree has lost it, attacks this very window many times per day starting when the sun comes up. According to Justin, this has been going on for the past year and has steadily increased the number of window attacks per day. At this point in time, between 8am and noon, the Cardinal ran into the window at least 50 times. We hypothesized that there is a reflection on the outside of the window that this male Cardinal thinks is another male Cardinal and this causes him to go crazy on the window. Let’s hope.

While I was there, despite the Crazy Cardinal induced sleep deprivation, Justin and I began to lay the ground for Live And Breathing. Live And Breathing is a joint venture between audio engineer, Justin Glanville, and music photographer, Will Godfrey, where we plan to leverage our skills to bring real and non digitally enhanced recordings back to the mainstream.

Coming up this week, Justin and I are heading to New York City for the beginning of Live And Breathing recording career. Justin is going out on tour with Langhorne Slim to record a new live album and I will be photographing the first three shows. I can’t wait since I have never been the NYC before!

The Journey

Last month, I spent a few chilly days in Knoxville, Tennessee with Justin Glanville for a recording session. After a trying drive which cost me two new tires and twice as much time as expected, I made it just in time to see Ian Thomas perform at Preservation Pub in downtown Knoxville. What a wonderful change of pace! I truly enjoyed listing to him play and I got an extra treat in Paul Lee Kupfer who played after Ian.

The Recording

The next day, Justin and I checked out of our hotel and headed to Ian’s place to setup the equipment in his living room. Being a photographer, I carry a lot of crap around when I’m working, but audio equipment is a whole new ballgame. The sheer volume of gear needed was mind boggling and it wasn’t even all that could have been used. After an hour of setup, we got a few songs laid down before Ian headed to Morelock Music for a few hours of work.

Justin and I took this time to sit in Knoxville traffic. Well, we really went to Guitar Center, but the bulk of the time was spent sitting here or there. After leaving Guitar Center empty handed with stomach’s grumbling, the stop and go drive back downtown ensured before we reached The Bistro at the Bijou for an early dinner (more on this in a moment).

We made the rounds in downtown waiting for Ian to get off work so that the recording could recommence. A little before midnight that is exactly what happened and Ian played until approximately 3am. Most of the images where we look tired were probably taken during this late night session, but the foregone rest was well worth the time spent listening. What a great night it was.

The Company

During dinner, Justin asked me about becoming his business partner for a possible new venture, called Live And Breathing, doing live recordings for the diverse collection of excellent musicians filling up his iPhone’s contacts. The idea being to bring back natural sounds of bands playing together versus the current pop model. I will be running the business side of things and shooting photos, while Justin is heading up the recording efforts and meeting new clients. Look out for a Live And Breathing recording soon. I’m pretty excited!