The most challenging thing about a live shoot is that the artist is under no control whatsoever. It’s totally an ad lib situation. It’s important to be as inoffensive as possible when trying to shoot the artist—that way they’ll cooperate with you. One of the tricks I’ve done over the years is to wear the same hat for every concert. What happens is that everybody sees the black beret and they know it’s me. Then they come over and play almost directly to me sometimes. It was sort of a trick I learned early on to orient an artist to who I am if there are a lot of photographers shooting at the same time.
Rock and roll photography veteran Robert Knight talks to Co.Create about shooting music legends from Led Zeppelin to Slash, what you need to know before attempting to shoot a rock star, and how to ditch Instagram and get real.
MASTER CLASS: HOW TO SHOOT A ROCK STAR
The same hat. Got it.
(via What If Your Favorite Album Was a Book? | Mother Jones)
PURPLE RAIN
I’ll take Blood on the Tracks, thanks.
In fact, it costs more than $100,000 to try to “make it” today, including $30,000 for “training,” $25,000 for gear, $1,000 to “pay a guy to send email blasts to databases of hip music blogs,”and $18,000 to live in New York City, because shaggy-haired rock guys are required by federal law to live in New York City. Man, were the Ramones actually Rockefellers or something?
We’re going to tread lightly here, because the level of delusion in this story could potentially suck us all into a bottomless vortex of self-entitlement from which no amount of whining to wealthy parents will ever free us.
Yeah. Sometimes you read something that’s so wrong you want to yell everything that is wrong about it all at once, so nothing has enough time to become a fully-formed sentence. This is one of those times.
Hüsker Dü’s Land Speed Record came out January 17, 1982. Here are the first six songs from it, going by in a blur.
Charlotte Gainsbourg – 5:55 (promotional video, 2006)
5:55 AM is the Janus hour. It offers a dual experience. The person who is “so much more productive in the mornings” eventually discovers that the earlier they rise, the more morning they have to be productive in; at 5:55 they’ve taken a shower and are drinking coffee and gearing up to answer emails, or to do some personal writing – take their dog for a run – pack for a fishing trip – make their bed with hospital corners – the list goes on. Then there is the person who has been awake all along, and is now facing a momentous decision: go to bed / stay in bed, or get up? At 5:55, if you’re not dealing with a long commute, you can still get 90-120 minutes of sleep in, which is a full REM rest cycle. Also, it is not 6AM, which is morning for everyone. Being awake at 6AM means you are officially an irresponsible person who Stayed Up All Night, perhaps for no very good reason at all. Have you even brushed your teeth? Perhaps you were blogging. If you go to sleep now, you can pretend you did so at night. It’s still mostly dark out, anyway. There’s that dead-fish grey glow on the horizon, but it’s easy to ignore.
That is, if you manage to fall asleep.
No prize for guessing which side Charlotte Gainsbourg falls on – or me. (The fact that thousand-word essays are appearing on OWOB between 10PM and 4AM Eastern Standard Time should be your first clue.)
The video (directed by Yvan Attal, Charlotte’s real-life partner) draws a parallel between the awake-all-night Abyss Of Diffuse Loathing™ and a relationship gone bad – too late to end it now; too early to start again – but the song itself isn’t as explicit. Rather, as Charlotte pointed out, it is primarily concerned with atmosphere: library-hushed vocals and perpetual-motion piano working to recreate that odd, nocturnal sense of suspended time, when nothing matters because no one else is awake and nothing is happening and you are alone, as you always were and always will be. Until 5:55 again.
Been there for sure. Who hasn’t?
I made it to the Return to Forever and Zappa Plays Zappa show on Monday. An audience member got some decent video, except for the back of some heads, which I assume have eaten Lenny White. Full article over on Buffalo Spree or here.
