Rehab at evilOlive

Another Monday, another Rehab. What has surely become one of Chicago’s most popular hipster weekly’s this week celebrated the birthday of infamous promoter Derek Berry (haha). The lineup was solid and the shots were plentiful. DJs Yello Fever, Willy Joy, Zebo, Mark Gert & Greg Corner hit the decks while Hollywood Holt filled in for the scheduled He Say, She Say who could not make it.

I’ve been tweaking my editing style of the nightlife shots lately.  Still a work in progress but I like the direction it’s going.  Was more than satisfied with the crop of photos from this specific night!  Let me know what you think.  Leave comments!  That’s one of the reasons I’ve been working on moving over to wordpress, after..

Yeah, like I said.. I liked a lot of them this time around!

Click the image below to see all the photos from Derek Berry’s birthday edition of Rehab!!..

Creme de la Creme / Flosstradamus

Jesse Lee got me involved in the Lava Saturday weekly named Creme de la Creme a while ago, though I’ve only had a chance to make it out twice so far. This night featured a DJ set from Nigel aka Hollywood Holt along with the usual Saturday shenanigans. Mano, Willy Joy & Chuck Inglish are some of the other weekly resident DJs.

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After an hour or so at Lava, Charlotte, Casey and myself headed over to Sonotheque for the monthly Flosstradamus party.  Josh and Curt were in town so they were there and behind the decks of the goofy Sonotheque DJ capsule.  Along with them Kyle aka Kid Color aka my Twitter stalker was playing some jams.

My new friend Ivy was also there, who I had just been introduced to by Richie Panic a week or two prior in San Francisco.  She came up and said hi and we both laughed at how crazy it was we ran into eachother.  You can see her blog over at grooveeffect.com

Click below to see all the photos from Lava Lounge and Sonotheque…

Black Friday: One-man bands and house party

You may know this dude Rory Lake from around town.. he’s been hosting shows, band battles and karaoke nights for quite some time and he’s quite the character. Anyway, he invited me to come out to this show at American Legion FDR Post (one of the coolest bars in town, btw) and film a little segment for the battle of the bands he’s putting on Dec 11-13 at Bottom Lounge, in which I will be judging one of the nights.

I have to admit when I heard the show this night featured two “one-man bands” I was mostly skeptical. In the end I’m more than glad I went! This dude named Magic from Iowa put on an interesting set with goofy carefree jams & jokes. The other performer was more than awesome. He’s from Chicago and goes by the name Lord of the Yum Yums.  I’ll def be checking him out again asap! Here’s a video from one of his previous shows…

After the show I headed over to my friends’ place at six corners for some fantastic day-after-Thanksgiving drinking. A few friends from out of town were in the building and it was in general a good time.

Click below to see all the pictures from Friday night…

No Age

So No Age was in town playing a corporate-funded free show at Reggie’s down on State and 21st or so.  I had never yet been there so I was kinda curious to check out the space.  Aside from hearing bad things from a metal-head I know, I thought the venue was pretty good personally.  They also have food, including 25 cent wings on Tuesdays!

As for the show, Titus Andronicus opened up.  I’d never heard of them prior and they put on a decent show themselves.  The best part about the night was that No Age played yet another show the same night over at AV-Aerie!  This ws perfect since I had to shoot the first show but desperately wanted to join into the faux No Age mosh pit.

You can see photos by me and a review from Miles Raymer over at ChicagoReader.com [here]

Click below to see all the photos from No Age!

Blow Up, Party Bus & Club 222, SF

Unfortunately for me, my 5 days in San Francisco were severely damaged by a head cold. Instead of going out and partying every night, I mostly just stayed in Tara & Tracy’s apartment and watched 30 Rock and Arrested Devolopment. I missed the first night of the Cool Kids / Q-Tip US Tour, which was a total bummer.

I did manage to head out into town one night and have a ton of fun.  Friday night got started with a trip on the Blow Up SF Party Bus.  Haha, it was totally random and totally fun, aside from the annoying guy who told me he has the same Lacoste polo I was wearing and “rocks it fucking hard.” Wardrobe change, please.

After the bus I walked down Market to Club 222 to say hello to a few friends. It was the second time I ended up at this strange, skinny bar.  I’m still unsure what I think of the place.  There were def some dudes doing lines in the bathroom stall, though, which made it feel like SF.

Back to Blow Up, by now I was rather drunk.  To be honest, I got a little too drunk and the night got a bit blurry.  Richie Panic and Jesse Jams were DJing and Fernanda was “hosting.”  I had one too many Vodka Bulls and then the twins and I walked back to their car, which was so not “walking distance” .. probably like a mile away .. with a quick fast food stop for a delicious burrito.  And thanks to a gallon or so of water before I went to bed I woke up hangover free the following day!

Click below to see all the photos from San Francisco!!

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Vessel, SF : iheartcomix tour stop #14

We rolled into SF and I immediately remembered how much I love shooting 35mm on the streets of downtown San Fran!  Seriously, there are sooo many crazy interesting people and scenes going on. I’d been lugging my Nikon FM2 along with me the whole trip but hardly even used it until we got to the last freaking city.  Oh well.

Franki, Toxic & I headed out to eat at some delicious Indian joint near the hotel. Fernanda, mi amiga nueva, came out and met up with us and then we went out looking for adventure.  There was a nerd gathering of about 200 kids outside the Game Stop.  They were all waiting for the new WoW to come out I guess.  We went and tired to go ice skating but had no luck so went back to the hotel for “wine hour.”  Some cute fresh-off-the-boat Japanese woman served us with a smile while annoying older white dudes hit on her non-stop.  Finally after a few hours of surfing YouTube for French hip hop videos, we headed to Vessel for the show.

The show was mostly fun albeit a little slow.  Sleazemore opened up and it was good to see him and the gang again.  A small group of us headed back to the hotel to have some more fun and the dude at the door pleaded with us that they had a strict no party policy.  Ok Ok, we say.  We got away with our little gathering for at least 30 minutes until the dude came up and broke it up.  And that was that.  Simon had to wake up at like 6am to catch his flight back to Paris and luckily we called for a wake up call because I don’t think my alarm even went off.  Au revoir!  C’est la vie!

Click below to see all the photos from San Francisco, the last stop on the iheartcomix tour!

Dance at Arena, LA : iheartcomix tour stop #13

Our second to last stop on the tour was in Los Angeles at Dance. I hadn’t been to LA in something like a year so it was good to get back and hang with Paparazzi & co. for a while.  The club is pretty nutty.  It’s a weekly party that draws like a thousand kids or something crazy like that. Everyone is super young and there was a huge line to get in and everyone had to go thru metal detectors.  I think there must’ve been like 20 people at the bar all night, which leads me to believe the over-21/under-21 ratio is about 100:1.

Youngness aside, the party was rockin and high energy.  Cesar has a fun party going on. I even stage dove a few times for old time’s sake.  It was pretty much crazy.

Click below for the entire gallery!

Fun Fun Fun Fest, Austin : iheartcomix tour stop #12

We headed into Austin after a killer night in Atlanta. Going in, I was excited to get to see some of the other acts who were scheduled to play the fest. Little did I know, it was a two-day fest and we wouldn’t get there til later in the day so that pretty much ruled out the chance to watch most of the acts. We got picked up at the airport and dropped off at the fest grounds, along with Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah.  Upon arrival everyone kept asking us if we were Islands, as apparently they were supposed to go on shortly and were sort of missing. I saw a band get into a cab at the airport and figured it was them.  I wanted to say hi to Patrick of Islands so I was a little bummed we didn’t run into them.

I did run into Annie Ray of Austin nightlife fame, though. She was shooting portraits with her t/s lens which I am super jealous of and want to get for myself.  She was cool and I was bummed we didn’t get to chat more after I was done shooting our set.

I also ran into Dylan who I had just met a few days prior in Oklahoma City.  We talked for a while about life and rock and parties and fests and modding megaphones and building hovercrafts.  Haha, he’s a crazy dude!

Toxic & Franki put on perhaps the best set of the entire tour at the fest.  They had a great 2-hour slot that spanned daylight and night.  They tagged back and forth each 30-minutes and by the end had aquired a substantial crowd that, on a few occasions stormed the stage to start a dance party up top.

After the DJ madness we got some free fest drinks and headed over to Minus the Bear, followed by the hilarious Tim & Eric.  I wish I had more energy but alas, the tour was taking its toll.  Simon & I walked thru downtown looking for food and settled on Wendy’s.  I accidentaly spilled my chicken nuggets on the ground and then we left and debated stopping into Beauty Bar on the way home but opted out.

Click below to see all the photos!

Vagabonds

Toxic Adventure