Celebrating the 20th anniversary of their debut album, Bang Bang Rock & Roll, Art Brut began their three night stand at Mercury Lounge in Manhattan, the first place they ever played in the New York City two decades ago (I caught them the same year for the first time at Bowery Ballroom, which is double the size of Mercury, and a second time in the summer of 2006 during Siren Festival at Coney Island). The band performed the record in its entirety (not in track order) when their set began about 7:14PM on the first night on Tuesday, April 7th, after a 6:30PM opening set by Matt Hitt. Last night was the second show of their US tour (the tour began in Philadelphia the night before at Johnny Brenda’s).

Although it had been a long time since I caught Art Brut live, I’m pleased to report they’re still an extremely fun act, with vocalist Eddie Argos sharing anecdotes about songs, while also being humorous throughout the course of their hour plus set. He revealed that he actually does have a younger brother who inspired “My Little Brother,” that was 22 when the song was written who is currently 45 years old, and advised us against putting someone’s age in one’s song lyrics. For “Modern Art,” he said at the time he had only visited Tate Modern and the Pompidou, but has now added a third museum to the list: The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. During “Modern Art,” Argos left the stage and went into the crowd and had people kneel on the floor and asked them to jump up when he got to the number 743 and started at the number one (thankfully for those on the floor, he skipped many numbers). Before the band played “Fight!”, Argos shared they hadn’t played the song in a long time before the previous night due to a fight happening during one of their performances (he was pleased that we refrained from fighting each other during the song). At the end of their set, he introduced all members of the band* as Art Brut then declared everyone in attendance as Art Brut too, and encouraged us to start our own bands (he pointed at people at random, including myself, and told us to start a band together).

Photos from the first night at Mercury Lounge can be viewed in the above gallery, and Art Brut will return to the same stage again tonight, and tomorrow with different acts supporting (My Wonderful Boyfriend on Wednesday, 4/8, and Laptop on Thursday, 4/9). Their tour of the US and Canada continues through April 24th.

*Art Brut band members in 2026 besides Eddie Argos are: Ian Catskilkin (guitar and backing vocals), Olga Karatzioti-Bakopoulou (bass and backing vocals), Tobias Humble (drums) and Zeb Carlisle (guitar and backing vocals).

Art Brut at Mercury Lounge on Tuesday, April 7, 2026
Formed a Band
My Little Brother
Emily Kane
Rusted Guns of Milan
Moving to L.A.
Arizona Bay
Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Stand Down
18,000 Lira
These Animal Menswe@r
Good Weekend

Encore:
Pump Up the Volume
She Kissed Me (And It Felt Like a Hit)
Wham! Bang! Pow! Let's Rock Out!

On Sunday, March 8, 2026, 2026 Women’s Strike NYC Fest took place at Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick, Brooklyn. This year’s event had the slogan of “Care beats hate. Our love melts ICE,” which was said by people in attendance periodically on a unusually warm day. March 8th is International Women’s Day and many of the organizations centered on political organizations centering women, such as Thank God for Abortion, National Women's Liberation, New York Abortion Access Fund, and Red Canary Song. There were performances, demonstrations, opportunities for learning, screenprinting, and tabling by various organizations which included New York City Democratic Socialists of America.

I stopped by the event for a few hours that Sunday and shot the above gallery on film. These images were made with Nikon F100 and Kodak Portra 35mm film or Polaroid 600.

Today, April 3, 2026 is the twentieth anniversary of when I registered the domain of thisisnotaphotograph.com. I feel extremely grateful to still be making images and publishing them online two decades later. Here’s the first ever blog post I created back on April 15, 2006.

On Sunday, February 22, 2026, Mahjong Palace held a collab event with Nine Orchard hotel to bring people to play the game of mahjong. The event occurred just before New York City experienced its first blizzard in a decade, but the East Room at Nine Orchard in Chinatown made it a perfect setting for a cozy afternoon.

I am sharing a gallery of images that I created for the event that can be found above.

On Friday, March 27, 2026, Pennsylvania’s Pissed Jeans returned to Brooklyn for a headlining show at Market Hotel in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for a show booked by Scenic Presents (I last caught the band in August 2024 Roberta’s). The quartet’s headlining set was completed before 10PM as the venue was hosting a Bad Bunny themed party that was scheduled to begin an hour later. Before the end of their set, Pissed Jeans vocalist Matt Korvette joked that for all his adult life, a party would begin “after ME!”

The long running band played songs off their 2024 album, Half Divorced (“Killing All The Wrong People,” “Junktime,” and “Movin On”) plus other older material (final song was “False Jesii Part II” from King of Jeans and there wasn’t an encore) with Matt promising those in attendance that they’ll return soon. Opening for Pissed Jeans on Friday night were NYC acts Pyrex and The Exorzist III, with Pyrex kicking off the show at 7:45PM.

On Thursday, March 26, 2026, Chicago’s CupcakKe brought her tour in support of her latest album, The Bakkery, to Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, NY. The show featured sets from Aye D1 and JxHoney, with the latter bringing out special guests F3ndi, Rocky Snyda, Shelby Swain, and Tsunami to perform their songs for the sold out audience.

I covered the evening for Bowery Presents and the full gallery is now live on “The House List.”

On Saturday, March 21, 2026, The High Line held an event to bid adieu to the beloved Dinosaur by artist Iván Argote. The 16 foot statue, which sits on a 5 foot high concrete plinth, is a massive, realistic pigeon that had attendees flock to celebrate the public art piece a final time. Back in June, Pigeon Fest was held with a large turnout, and Saturday’s event was no different. Advance RSVPs were quickly acquired with many people trying their luck to enter the area as a walk up visitor. When I arrived in the early afternoon, there was a long line of non registered fans waiting to enter the celebration.

The event, called “Farewell, Dinosaur” was from 12-4PM and featured DJ sets, bingo, an art making station, a photo station (my portrait with my husband and Dinosaur appears at the end of the gallery), pigeon related merchandise, and was populated by pigeon fans of all ages. I even spotted two Pigeon Fest participants when I was there: the first place winner Pigeon (Miriam Abrahams), and Carrie Beakshaw. The above gallery features images shot on 35mm film. The next plinth commission has been announced and is titled The Light That Shines Through the Universe by Tuan Andrew Ngyuen and details about the 27 foot sculpture are available on the High Line’s website.

After visiting “Farewell, Dinosaur,” I headed home and made my way document a concert at a laundromat a few hours later.

Ahead of the release of new album, Theft World, New York City’s Lip Critic have a series of shows called Theft Saga taking place in three spaces in Brooklyn and Manhattan, which sold out shortly after the band announced the series on their Instagram account. Up first on Saturday, March 21st was Laundromat, which occurred at an actual laundromat that closed earlier than usual to host the event. All three shows feature performances by the band in advance of Theft World’s release on Partisan Records on May 1st.

Fans were encouraged to bring garments for free screenprinting which took place near the laundromat’s entrance/exit. The opening act for the first night was NYC’s Pop Music Fever Dream, who began their set at 8PM, with Lip Critic taking the stage (technically, back area of a laundromat) at 8:30PM. The band performed their two new singles, “Jackpot,” and “Legs in a Snare,” along with older material while fans sang along and formed a mosh pit. The sweaty show at the laundromat came to an end at 9:30PM with many sticking around to buy merchandise, have items screenprinted, smoke cigarettes outside and chat.

There are two remaining events in the Theft Saga series: up next is Basement on Thursday, March 26th (in Manhattan) and the final night, Boxing Ring, takes place in Brooklyn on Thursday, April 9th.

On Monday, April 6th, Lip Critic released “Legs in a Snare” that was filmed at Yong Xin Tan Laundromat that you can watch below.

On Thursday, March 19, 2026, Jon Benjamin & The Jazz Daredevil Band continued their two night residency at Union Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Both evenings were recorded for a forthcoming live album. Over a decade ago, Sub Pop Records released Benjamin’s first album as the Jazz Daredevil, Well I Should Have…*, a release where Benjamin recorded a jazz album with professional jazz musicians despite not knowing how to play the piano at all. At Union Pool, it was apparent Jon didn’t improve much since the 2015 release but has now ventured into free jazz, which is more experimental and works in his favor as a piano novice.

Before the second night began, Benjamin appeared on stage and addressed the audience. First he addressed us as if he was giving a wedding speech for an old friend named David. Then he asked if anyone was opposed to free jazz. One person indicated he was, and Jon pretended to be angry with him. He then introduced comedian/writer/director Jo Firestone. Firestone performed a brief set and joked that she would appear, then about an hour later, we’d see the band, so it was like going to a restaurant, having graham crackers up front and then an hour later, we’d get our meal. She did some crowd work by asking if anyone was in need of guidance and a man by the name of Max to my right responded that he did. She had a Cheesecake Factory menu on her phone and scrolled through it until Max told her to stop. She landed on the SkinnyLicious® Chicken Pasta and interpreted what that meant, and Max confirmed that it was helpful to him. Then the audience collectively did the same thing, and we as a group asked her to stop scrolling and we all landed on Renee’s Chicken-Almond Salad Sandwich, and for that moment, the entire audience was Renee and proud of the meal named after us.

Just after 8:40PM, Jazz Daredevil Band member Doug Berns appeared on stage to read a statement from the Jazz Daredevil himself. The statement expressed that we in the audience were about to witness history and be a part of history. The Jazz Daredevil Band featured Miles Francis on drums, Berns on bass, Lynn Ligammari on baritone saxophone & clarinet, and David Rosenthal on guitar with these members performing together at first, with Jon Benjamin now donning his daredevil jumpsuit joining the stage to sit front and center in front of a keyboard. There wasn’t much banter from Benjamin himself, whose voice has brought life to many characters such as Ben Katz ("Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist”) Coach McGuirk & Jason Penopolis (“Home Movies”), Can of Vegetables (Wet Hot American Summer), Sterling Archer (“Archer”), Jimmy Jr. and Bob Belcher (“Bob’s Burgers”). Seeing Benjamin tinker around on the piano reminded me of when I used to attend a comedy show he co-hosted over two decades ago with David Cross and Todd Barry called Tinkle, where he made an audience laugh in a small room (Tinkle used to take place across the river at Pianos on the Lower East Side of Manhattan). And here he was actually performing on a piano in front of me.

Is Benjamin a professional pianist? He is not. But what he lacks in piano training, he makes up for with his humor, confidence, and enthusiasm. As the show came to an end, someone in the audience shouted for an encore. Benjamin quipped that he actually has to leave the stage before one asks for that. He then left moments later and we all shouted for an encore. The band returned and there was a muffled, somewhat lengthy debate on what to play for an encore. Another audience member asked if they take requests, and Jon simply replied “No.” The band finally agreed on something; a one song encore which was a cover of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town,” that featured both whispering and shouting.

On Thursday, March 12, 2026, the BAM Free Music series continued with a live performance by Yaya Bey and a DJ set from Ayanna Heaven. Attendees were treated to an R&B music night and got to sing along and dance at The Adam Space at BAM.

I’m sharing some of the images I created for BAM and there’s another show tonight (Thursday, March 19th featuring Anika + Hearts of Soul and DJ sets by GabSoul) and I’ll return next week for David Rivera y La Bámbula with DJ sets from Discolocas).

On Thursday, January 29 and Friday, January 30, 2026 Contested Sites of Memory - A Performance With Artist Carrie Mae Weems took place at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Weems was joined by trombonist, composer, and musical director Craig Harris, Helga Davis, Nona Hendryx, Jennifer Koh, Carl Hancock Rux, and Jawwaad Taylor.

I was thrilled to capture the special evening for The OFFICE and some of the images I made during the second night on January 30th are available in the above gallery.

On Friday, March 6, 2026 another edition of OUTLINE took place at Knockdown Center in Maspeth, NY with performances from The Spits, Prison Affair, Times New Viking (performing for NYC for the first time in over a decade), Snõõper, and The Serfs.

I covered the entire stacked bill for BrooklynVegan and the full gallery is now live on their site, along with details for the second OUTLINE event happening later this month.

Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy and Friends (Dag Julin, John Stirrat, Vijay Tellis-Nayak, and Jon Wurster) continued their tour of performing R.E.M.’s album from 1986, Life’s Rich Pageant with a sold out show at Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, NY. There were opening comedy sets by Bobcat Goldthwait, who had Jason Narducy accompany him to perform a cover, and Eugene Mirman. R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe made a guest appearance and sang two songs with the band to help close their main set.

I covered the fun night for BrooklynVegan and the full gallery is now available on their website.

On Saturday, February 28, 2026, another edition of Competitive Winter Picnicking took place in Herbert Von King Park in Bedford–Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, NY. Multiple teams assembled in the park that created themes, food, drinks, and games. The day was warmer, which meant that the snow from the previous weekend’s blizzard melted during this year’s edition. Many people who were enjoying the pleasant day came across CWP, and joined in on the fun. At the end of the event, three teams took home picnic basket shaped trophies after being judged by a group of clowns. Who were different from two teams of clowns called Clown Cult/Clown Slumber Party & Honk Shoo Hullabaloo

Above consists of images I created for the organizers, Shadow Traffic, with more to come on their site soon. Writer Sam Ligeti wrote about this year’s edition for Grime Square, with some of my images available in their piece.

For more Competitive Winter Picnicking, check out photos from previous years available on my site.

On Saturday, February 28, 2026, Peaches brought her tour in support of her latest album, No Lube So Rude to Knockdown Center in Maspeth, NY. She was joined by NYC’s Model/Actriz and Muchas Problemas (Charlie Le Mindu) for opening sets.

I covered the show for BrooklynVegan and more photos of Peaches & Model/Actriz are now available on their website.

I first joined Flickr over twenty years ago and have shared images of mine on that platform ever since (my account can be found here). Flickr was the first place I would share my images publicly with others after acquiring digital cameras (I joined Flickr two years before I made the effort to create my own blog and website) and I’m very excited that they are launching a photography festival in September of this year.

The festival is called MODE and a new website is now live with more details, after teaser posts were shared to social media earlier this week. MODE will take place September 18th through 20th, and I’m very excited to attend, meet other photographers IRL, and possibly visit some music venues in a town that has been the home to acts such as Prince, The Time/Morris Day and The Time, Atmosphere, Babes in Toyland, and The Replacements (true story, I wrote a paper in college on The ‘Mats).

MODE will have classes, workshops, demos, concerts, and other events in store for the photography community. Ticket information is on their website right now, and I’ll hopefully see you there in September!

On Tuesday, February 24, 2026, the duo known as Joey Valence & Brae returned to New York City for a show at Brooklyn Steel. They’re touring in support of their third album, HYPERYOUTH, which will have a deluxe version with new tracks released at the end of this week. They were joined by Big Daddy Marc for an opening set (that included two cover songs: Motörhead’s “The Game,” and Sheck Wes’ “Mo Mamba”), and their DJ, DJ Ewook, performed a short set before JVB took the stage at 9PM. Their tour is part of the 2026 Monster Energy Outbreak Tour.

I covered the fun show for Bowery Presents’ “The House List” and the full gallery is now available on their website.

On Wednesday, February 19, 2026, Zone One at Elsewhere hosted a show featuring performances by Phiik and Lungs, ShrapKnel, and Gabe ‘Nandez. There was a special guest during ShrapKnel’s set who turned out to be Vordul Mega, who treated those in attendance to some of his material and bringing out his own special guests of Alaska and Cryptic One to perform Cannibal Ox’s “Atom” live for the first time in nearly two decades.

Special thanks to PremRock for inviting me to the show so I could finally get copies of their albums Lincoln Continental Breakfast & Armature which have portraits I made of the duo with the LP.

On Saturday, January 31, 2026, the 23rd edition of Idiotarod returned to the streets of New York City. The racers met at the first location, Cooper Park in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and moved on to three checkpoints before reaching the finale at The Deep End in Ridgewood, Queens. During this year’s Idiotarod, I got to witness a chicken literally cross a road.

This year about 30 teams competed in a race on the streets of New York City with a secret route for prizes, glory, and fun. Each team creates a team theme, a game, bribes, and food and drink items, and some teams engage in sabotage (I was a victim of two separate sabotage incidents; a strap of my tote bag was zip tied by a member of Cryptid Ziptids, and someone tied rope around my feet as I was explaining Idiotarod’s whole deal to a friend who attended her very first Idiotarod.

On Saturday morning, the starting location of Cooper Park was announced, which was the same starting place as last year. The teams gathered surrounded by snow and ice at Cooper Park and departed the park to head to Emblem, the first checkpoint, also located in East Williamsburg. Due to last weekend’s snow storm, traveling with large carts was difficult and many teams opted to push their creative carts in the street with traffic as many of the sidewalks were still covered in snow and ice and only small paths were cleared. The cold weather was wildly different than 2025, where it was warm enough for one team to have wrestling as their game. In 2026, one team turned their cart into a sauna (The Finnish Line), and another converted theirs to a Hot Tub (Hot Tub Crime Machine), incorporating heat into their theme which was a brilliant decision and made their carts very popular with other participants and judges, with The Finnish Line winning Best Cart and Hot Tub Crime Machine being awarded Best Hospitality. There was a team who referenced the troubled venue Brooklyn Mirage, which will be demolished soon, with one of their members acting as the venue’s security, and others acting as construction crew. The winners of Best in Show, Mighty Morphing Party Rangers, combined their carts to make a giant structure at each location, and also changed themselves each time too (at the start, they were the party rangers, then at checkpoint one, they became flower orphans, offering handmade paper flowers to people and feared being beaten physically).

The second checkpoint was in Bushwick at Fine Time. From there, the teams headed to the third checkpoint, Bar Cornelia in the same neighborhood. The finale was hosted by The Deep End, where the winners were announced, all teams were celebrated, and all carts were destroyed (and cleaned up afterwards).

As I did last year, I left the race early to head home (since the first two locations were in my neighborhood, I opted to walk home and warm up) but I loved my time spent at Idiotarod again, despite the very cold weather. I shot a few images on 35mm film and those will be added to the gallery once I get the scans back from the lab.

This year’s edition was graced by the presence of Tom Kramer, who was given the title of Celebrity Judge, as he is the co-founder of the Urban Iditarod, which began in San Francisco 30 years ago. It was his first time visiting NYC for our Idiotarod and was impressed by the participating team’s creativity and joy it brought to all involved and those who happened to witness the race on the streets, even though some people thought there was a costume party going on.

Results of Idiotarod XXII on Saturday, January 31, 2026
BEST IN SHOW: Mighty Morphing Party Rangers
BEST COSTUMES: Cryptid Ziptids
BEST CART: The Finnish Line
BEST BRIBERY: Reptile Dysfunction
BEST CHECKPOINT: Checkpoint #1 at Emblem
BEST HOSPITALITY/STOCKHOLM SYNDROME: Hot Tub Crime Machine
BEST TEMPTATION: Yes Today Satan
BEST POTENTIAL FORESHADOWING: Body Count
MOST HR VIOLATIONS: TNA Industries Annual XMAS Holiday Party 1982
NAUTICAL NIGHTMARE: Sharkcuterie
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Party Goat, Chicken Little News Network

Additional Idiotarod posts from prior years can be found via the Idiotarod tag

On Thursday, January 22, 2026, the Winter Carnival Tour arrived to Brooklyn Steel in Brooklyn, NY. The tour featured hip hop acts Atmosphere (with HEBL), Sage Francis, R.A. the Rugged Man (who was backed by Los Angeles’ DJ Lala, and brought both Bernadette Price and Danny Diablo to the stage), Kool Keith (who was joined by fellow Ultramagnetic MC, Ced-Gee plus Dennis Deft), and a DJ set by Mr. Dibbs.

I covered the show for Bowery Presents and the full gallery from the night is now available on “The House List.”

Swedish pop artist & DJ Robyn announced a New Year’s Eve concert that quickly sold out. On Thursday, January 1st, she announced she’d perform another show on the following day on Friday, January 2, 2026. Since I missed out on the New Year’s Eve show, I abandoned my plans to see a movie that night and made my way to Brooklyn Paramount (with a point and shoot camera) instead. This would make my second Brooklyn Paramount show in the same week.

The evening kicked off with DJ sets until Robyn took the stage just before 10PM. When my husband and I arrived to the venue, there was a huge line for coat check and Papi Juice DJed when doors until 8:30, when another act called NEW YORK, were on. Unfortunately, all DJs were set up off stage by a bar, stage left. Since I stood on the other side of the floor, I really couldn’t see any of the DJs during their sets. Perhaps more dancing would have occurred if the audience could actually see the DJs performing on the stage, instead of looking at closed curtains. I wasn’t aware that Papi Juice was on the floor until a friend who went on New Year’s Eve mentioned where the DJs were positioned the other night. I really enjoyed the sets from Papi Juice and Kilopatrah Jones, and felt they were great choices to warm up the audience before the headliner.

Robyn began her set promptly at 9:45 and was backed by a band. She mentioned this was their second time performing together but you couldn’t tell. The first song of the night, “Missing U,” off of Honey was followed by “Call Your Girlfriend,” from Body Talk. The whole set felt extremely joyful. Everyone around us sang and danced along, while Robyn’s vocals sounded lovely and sharp. Robyn brought out NYC’s Maluca, for “Love Is Free,” which she also did during her Barclays Center show back in 2019. When Robyn left the stage, the set felt all too brief. “Life” felt so big and joyful and I could have experienced that for so much longer. But the joy returned for her final three songs of “Indestructible,” a rearrangement of her one of her earliest hits, “Show Me Love,” and an epic closer of “Dancing On My Own,” which ended with her just letting the audience sing the final moments of the song.