In 2010 I’m looking to up my game with gig photography. You may have noticed I’ve been a keen gig photographer for some time now. But I’ve always had to take photos from the crowd and sometimes, no matter how hard you try to get there early, you can’t get a spot at the front for photography.

So, I’m looking to hook up with a magazine (printed or online) which reviews gigs or a journalist who writes gig reviews. My part of the deal is I get a photographer’s pass and get even better photos, and in return you get the photos for your publication. I can even organise a writeup of the gig if you need the words. You can see examples of my gig photography here.

I currently do All Tomorrow’s Parties festivals, plus some London gigs and hopefully the End of the Road Festival. So please get in contact with me if you think we can work together. Thanks!

Yes, on 11th-13th December we were in Minehead for Ten Years of ATP – a festival celebrating the last ten years of of the festival!

Well the lineup was pretty damn fine and we saw some brilliant sets including:

- Deerhoof, who played an excellent and fun set. Great technical skill, too.

- J Mascis and the Fog were very enjoyable, much more so than Dinosaur Jr.

- Shellac who we saw twice, played some blinding numbers, especially on day two. Also I got some great photos of them – thanks guys!

- Afrirampo, who we knew nothing about, were very entertaining with their crazy performance and some very enjoyable thrashing of metal.

- Papa M played some very relaxing soundscapes. Tortoise were actually very good. Mudhoney were disappointing, as were Mars Volta.

- Sunn O))) were hilarious, actually not at all bad until the “singing” started.

- Discovered an amazing band in The Drones, who were excellent on stage and also sound excellent on vinyl.

- Also the Apse set was brilliant and think it must be one of the best albums of the year.

- Battles, who I was very excited about seeing again were very good but I think they were a bit lost in the pavillion – would like to have seen them upstairs.

- The highlight of the weekend was Modest Mouse – brilliant to see them again and they played a brilliant set with older numbers. We wondered if we’ll ever see Modest Mouse in such an intimate setting again.

So, roll on 2010 and everything ATP has to throw at us! I’m even going to try and get a photographer’s pass so I can improve my photography further. You can see my best photos of Ten Years of ATP here.

Ok, this is what I’ve been up to – music, music and more music! Going to the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festivals, buying great new music and making some changes to my listening room (i.e. loft).

First of all, All Tomorrow’s Parties. This year the festivals were held on concurrent weekends at the start of May, in Minehead, Somerset. I’d got tickets to go to both and my lovely wife was coming to the second one, which would be a first for both of us!

ATP vs the Fans Part II

The first weekend was ATP vs The Fans (Part II), so half the bands were voted for by the fans, half by ATP. The idea, for us at least, is not to see the bands we like but to try and see as many bands as possible including the ones we like.

So we saw M83, Devo, The Acorn, Grizzly Bear, Beirut, Shearwater, Future of the Left, Parts & Labor, Andrew WK, Fuck Buttons, Nico Muhly, Retribution Gospel Choir, Qui, Harvey Milk, The Jesus Lizard, Hush Arbors, School of Seven Bells, The Jesus Lizard (again), Pink Mountaintops, Lords, Marnie Stern and The Mae Shi. We didn’t see all of every one of these bands’ sets but we saw at least 15 minutes of each of them and whole sets for ones we liked.

Highlights for me were Shearwater, Parts & Labor, The Jesus Lizard, Pink Mountaintops, Marnie Stern and Lords. Lords played an absolutely storming set and were really enjoying themselves! Phew!

To see more of my photos from ATP vs The Fans Part II click here.

ATP Curated by The Breeders

The second weekend was ATP curated by The Breeders, so yes, we left on Monday morning and on Friday afternoon we were back at Butlins – it seemed like we had not even been away!

Bands we saw included Bon Iver, Blood Red Shoes, The Breeders (of course), Heartless Bastards, Deerhunter (only a little bit), Foals, Yann Tiersen, Buffalo Killers, The Whispertown 2000, Th’ Faith Healers, Shellac, Mariachi el Bronx, Holy Fuck, Dianogah, Melt Banana, Kimya Dawson, Shellac (again), Mr Lif and Styrofoam.

Highlights were The Breeders, who were obviously going to be very popular, and played the most beautiful set, really superb, Yann Tiersen, Buffalo Killers (who were superb, excellent harmonies), The Whispertown 2000 (um, gorgeous!), Shellac (really on top form both nights), Mariachi el Bronx, Dianogah and Kimya Dawson.

I walked away with quite a lot of vinyl from both weekends and took photos, going to the front as much as possible for some of the performances to get the shots I wanted. There has been a lot of great new music around so my next post will cover some of these recent finds.

To see more of my photos from ATP Curated by The Breeders, click here.

I haven’t written anything for a bit, sorry about that. Got plans for various things but other commitments have kept me from this. Plans to write more hi-fi reviews, plans to create new free Photoshop and Illustrator brushes. Also my plans to write 100 random facts about Smoking Drum appear to have dried up at about 29.

Anyway, recently I’ve been boosting my stock image folio and the images above are just a few of the images. I specifically took stock images recently on holiday in Cornwall and it seemed to work well! Out of just over 200 images, 63 were good to submit and only a handful were rejected.

Also, shooting for stock has enabled me to find some photo mojo which I’d lost for well over a year, so that is reason enough. So what if I’m not shooting arty images?

In a couple of weeks we’ll be off to both of the UK ATP festivals where I go out shooting images in the morning whilst everyone else is asleep, so maybe I’ll get some more then!

The situation with the speakers (Decware HDTs) is that they are still progressing, very near to the gluing together stage. I had a few setbacks which is why I got delayed a week or two; had to order some acoustic foam and am having to find some new tube for the ports (because, it turns out, since I bought the speaker plans Decware have revised the tuning and now I need more tube!). So things will be posted on here soon.

Tubes, valves, glowing thermionic devices. My input valve (Jan Philips 6922) suddenly went microphonic last week which only left me with one nice valve (Amperex PQ 6922) which I never use because it’s on its way out, and another horrible valve (Sovtek). Posted on some forums and got some really helpful suggestions for both new valves and cheaper NOS (new old stock). So I’ll be comparing those soon, may well write something about how they all sound.

What else?

I bought a secret new device which is just amazing, but rather than reveal what it is I will do a write up.

Got a whole raft of fantastic new vinyl. Norman Records is turning out to be a really superb shop to order from, their service is just excellent. They also have a great forum where you can find lists of music customers recommend.