FF runway show

_R2C6796, originally uploaded by mikedotephoto.

Look at www.flickr.com/photos/mikedotephoto for some more photos!

Isolation

I am tired and not on my own keyboard: Spending the night at my parent’s apartment

I shall keep this short and sweet. I have had an interesting couple days. Right now my mind is almost blank. Here’s a photo of my father when he was young, next to the building that he grew up in. This was supposedly shot in 1967.

Next, is a photo I shot of him, in almost the same exact spot, 40 years later(last year).

XYZ Affair at the Williamsburg Hall of Music

On Tuesday, after the Action Painters performed, it was time for the headliners: The XYZ Affair.

I emailed them to request an interview, so if they’re interested in having one done, I’ll gladly put it up.

Interview with Tom Haslow

A short interview with Tom Haslow, of the Action Painters.

Me: So- if you don’t mind my asking, what’s your background?

Tom: Well i went to NYU film school. I learned guitar in high school to get girls because I wasn’t having any luck through my charisma and I was a bad dresser. My brother and i each chipped in $25 to get a cheap used acoustic guitar. He never played it, so I did.

Me: Cool man. So, when did you decide that you were good enough to get up on stage and perform?

Tom: Well, I had a really bad band in high school. I don’t think we ever asked ourselves the question “are we good enough?”. But in NYC, where there is so much talent, you start to ask yourself that question. So when we started this band two years ago, we rehearsed for like four months before we played a show. We sounded absolutely awful till about a week before the show, [and] then something clicked

Me: What do you think made it click?

Tom: Probably the fact that we had a common vision for what we wanted to do, and finally we figured out how to make what was in our heads come out of our instruments. Plus, Allison had never played in a band before and was mainly a piano player. So, she had to learn how to play synth as opposed to piano. Once she wrapped her head around it, the magic started.

Me: So, who are your inspirations in music? Or in life for that matter?

Tom: My hero is David Byrne. I like the way he’s done great music that is artistic yet has great pop melodies.

You can think about it or dance to it. Plus, he’s directed a film, done some amazing photo/illustration books, art installations. He’s a real artist.

Me: Ah, a renaissance man in the postmodern world, eh?

Tom: Exactly. Yet each medium he works in has his unique sensibilities: a David Byrne song is the same as a David Byrne photo. Plus, he has great hair these days. me: ah, a renaissance man in the postmodern world, eh?

We don’t sound like T Heads really, but they influenced my musical sensiblities a lot. Also early U2 and Television.

Me: All good music.

Tom: Yep. Bono is a giant cheeseball but I love him. My brother bought Joshua Tree in the 80’s and I woud listen to it on headphones, memorizing everything. [This was] before I knew how to play.

Me: Cool man. Do you feel like your background in film school has made making music any easier for you? If so, how has it?

Tom: In some ways. I think there’s an overlap in, say, writing and directing a short film, and the process of songwriting. Structure, completing a task, having faith in your vision. Also, film school teaches you how to be resourceful, how to make something cool with no money. Also, in the studio I find Pro Tools to be a lot like editing a film.

Me: Do you think you’re a better studio band or stage band? Or is that not an issue?

Tom: I think we are different in both cases. In the studio we like to reverse engineer our songs, try to do something with them that we couldnt’ do live. [We] try effects, crazy harmonies, whatever. It’s an opportunity to explore the studio for what it is: another instrument.

But live, we try to bring high energy and passion to what we do.

So I think they are two sides to the same coin. Different in some respects, but overlapping.

Me: Let’s say you had to choose: between a life recording in the studio or one on the stage. Which would you choose?

Tom: Oh man. It’s so hard because playing live is what gives the songs their shape. You discover their heart when they are out in the world. But in the studio you have the chance to perfect them sonically…

In the end I think music is about connecting with people and the high of playing a show is like nothing else.

It would be a cruel, cruel world if we could only do one or the other

Me: Luckily, it’s not.

Tom: Sometimes, I wonder: If someone offered me a hundred million dollars, but to get the money I would have to wear oven mitts for the rest of my life. Everywhere I went, whatever I did, I had to wear oven mitts. Would it be worth it?

Me: Well, you’d never have a problem baking.

Tom: True, ha. But I would be rich beyond my wildest dreams

Me: Well, to get this out of the way now… I’d like to call dibs on the first shoot& interview if you’re ever made that offer. Deal?

Tom: You mean for your blog?

Me: Or for an album cover…

Tom: Wasn’t this [an] interview?

Me: Ok, back to questions then… How was opening for the XYZ affair? What do you think of their music?

Tom: I dig it. They are great guys and very talented. Their music is different from ours, but I think works well together. Their cover of Don’t Stop Believing made me cry. It was so beautiful. I mean that takes balls

and to do it well…Damn. But yeah, I like their band a lot.

Me: You went to school with them- were you guys ever in classes together? See each other around campus?

Tom: No, I actually didn’t know them.

Me: Do you think life imitates art, or does art imitate life?

Tom: I think they are the same. I see no divison between the two

6/10/08 pt2: Action Painters Band at the Music Hall of Williamsburg

Last night, the Action Painters opened for the XYZ affair at the WIlliamsburg Hall of Music. They opened to a fairly full house, in spite of a huge rainstorm.

I don’t often review music myself, but their music was noteworthy- I really liked their sound and their performance was dynamic.

The crowd was great- they really liked to break it down. Not so much in the picture….

Interview to come later.

Hot Day

So, instead of writing a review about cameras today, I decided to have a day full of action. I kicked an windowsill in, was a rock star, photographer, and I saw things in a new light.

The world is a crazy place. We all want different things.

PC Richard and son had a tremendous day today, owing to temperatures close to 100 degrees. They sold a whole lot of airconditioners. The store was jam-packed for the first time in a long time.

Some people carried air conditioners

Other times, air conditioners carried them.

Speaking as someone who is currently still part of the problem, one thing that all of this air-conditioning makes me think about is the carbon footprint that is make by the way we live. We always need the bigger TV, the better gaming system, the best job, the most money. We don’t realize the impact our ambition that is inherent to us as human beings has an impact upon the planet.

Because we are hot, because we are irate… because we have caused some degree of change in the environment and upset the equilibrium that naturally exists within our planet, we suffer. We either pay our money of to the electric company, the giant manufacturing companies, or we suffer the heat.
These air conditions take resources to produce, and cost money. There’s got to be a better way to do things. We can either learn to keep our cools and be levelheaded when the temperature is high, or we can come up with some better solution. How about a solar-powered air conditioner, that generates the power it needs to run from the sun? How about a housing structure that keeps the cool in, and the heat out during the summers, and something that keeps the house warm during the winter with a sustainable energy source? How about using some of the funding used to develop military technology, to develop a more efficient way to avoid a global energy crisis?

I’m sure all of this has been thought up before. We are in a world of billions of interconnected people. The problem lies not in the connections that we make, but in the way that they’re dealt with. The world I see is not solely my world- it is a world that belongs to everyone. We must live to make this world the best possible place that it can be. We should not be petty, or mean, or judgmental. We should forgive those who have done harm to us and we should do what’s right. We should offer comfort to those who are downtrodden. We should do our best to make each person we can influence into a better person, a happier person, instead of trying to compete with them.

The last photo I’ll show for the day is by far, one of my favorite photos. I took the photograph in the one split second that providence provided to me- I shot this photo while in the process helping with an air-conditioner installation. There’s a lot that makes it an interesting photograph, and by far, it’s one of my favorites.

Party in Bushwick

One of the things about summers in Brooklyn, is that there’s always a rooftop party somewhere.

As I reflect on my life as a photographer, it makes me wonder- will I always be the one to chronicle events? In chronicling them, does it keep me from experiencing them?

I often find that I hide behind my camera at parties, even when I’m there for fun and not as a job.
I go into ‘photographer mode’, where I’m more interested in capturing moments than experiencing them.

I am camera shy. Not in the conventional sense- I don’t mind having my picture taken, although it rarely comes out well. My camera shyness is something else- I am shy when I have my camera. I think it is because I channel my vision through a lens that I forget that there is a world that lies through it.

Midnight 6/7/08- Holy Fuck at the Williamsburg Hall of Music

Titus Andronicus @ the Market Hotel

Shot a show tonight- Titus Andronicus @ a somewhat seedy venue in ‘Bushwickiamsburg’

My speedlite was out of batteries, so I shot with a 50 1.4 at iso 3200. Enjoy

Patrick Stickles:

The rest of the band (too tired to name each one individually):