It was only when I started processing these photos that the significance struck home; as a photographer you wait years, a lifetime perhaps, for that one perfect split second moment to create an icon, construct the legend or fuel the myth. 

I know that every few blog posts I end up including a link to this photo; as a music photographer it’s inescapable.  Let’s call it ‘The Pennie Smith Moment’.  As music photographers will forever be posting in Flickr forums, historically the great music photos were not hindered by stupid music industry rules and conditions that are inescapable in the modern age.  ‘The Pennie Smith Moment’ happened because she was on tour with The Clash, had access all areas and was free to photograph for as long as she wanted, from wherever she wanted.

When opportunity presents itself you need to read the situation, anticipate what is going to happen next and be ready for when it does happen.

“I remember thinking something was wrong, realising Paul was going to crack – and waited. The shot is out of focus because I ducked – he was closer than it looks” – Pennie Smith

With the generously suppplied AAA pass from The Zoo, I find myself side of stage at the end of the Vegas Kings‘ set.  The band are building to an end of set noisy climax, Pete and Ben swinging their guitars around and holding them aloft as the end of the last song builds up to a crescendo. And then Ben has the guitar above his head and without warning  hurls it guitar neck-wards towards the stage.  Being the main guitar I’ve seen him over the last few years and with Vegas Kings also being in the studio recording a new album I just wasn’t expecting it to happen, expecting him to feign a throw and just swing it around.

So with the combination of not anticipating it, being a single shot photographer as opposed to a machine-gunner and the darkness of the Zoo I end up with a close-but-no-cigar single shot – an underexposed, not-quite-in-focus, noisy, red light lit photo that could only really be saved by making it monochrome, with Pete’s guitar lead dangling down the middle – and a yearning for another once in a lifetime photo opportunity, another ‘Pennie Smith Moment’ to come my way sometime soon.

More photos on Flickr.

Screamfeeder

Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side

Vegas Kings

The Blackwater Fever

New Jack Rubys

The Mercy Beat

Even at the time, 1996 was one of the best years of my life: my PhD was beginning to take shape but was in a worry free stage, still years away from having to write up a thesis, living in an amazing share house with great friends, a beautiful hot summer, a feast of football on the TV every night, the amazing night of jumping up and down of the sofa watching this, the Saturday afternoon barbeque a few days later and the place erupting when this happened, followed by the mandatory trip to the park straight after for a jumpers-for-goalposts drunken kick-around, my weekly lustful date with Anna, the amazing Phoenix 1996 line-up, a line-up so good that if you put it on in 2009 it would still be better than most of this year’s festivals, and of course Reading 1996, when for the first 60 seconds of ‘I Wanna Be Adored‘ everything in the world was perfect. 

Of course not everything was perfect; everything apart from those first 60 seconds of the Stone Rose’s Reading performance, for example, and there was of course the dastardly Britpop Pavlovian experiment, where in the combined efforts of the UK music and mainstream press, Chris Evans and Radio 1 were engaged in a war of attrition against the British public, convinced that if they wrote about and played enough Cast and Ocean Colour Scene they would be accepted amongst the upper pantheons of British musical culture.  Sadly far too many were convinced of their and other Britpop also-rans’ greatness and many still are, even to this very day. 

Obviously until a few years ago Screamfeeder meant nothing to me.  So tonight I find myself at The Troubadour for the launch of their re-mastered/deluxe edition of their apparent classic 1996 album ‘Kitten Licks‘, an album which of course means nothing to me and I’ve never even heard, and a ‘Don’t Look Back‘-style run-through of the whole album. 

It’s a slightly strange feeling; feeding off other people’s version of 1996 nostalgia.   Strange and yet it seems so natural and is so easy when there’s such a noticeable and infectious mood of happy reminiscence to less complicated and happier days.  You can’t help but be caught up in it.  Even though ‘Kitten Licks’ is not the soundtrack to my 1996, it has such classic indie rock, hook-laden songs that it just sounds like it should have been or could have been; in a lot of ways it has an eerie sense of a long-forgotten but happy memory. And it would have made the perfect soundtrack to my Summer of ’96, much preferable to being forced to endure the seemingly inescapable likes of Shed Seven and The Bluetones on TV and radio.

More photos on Flickr.

Screamfeeder

Midget

Butcher Birds

This week’s edition of Rave has the UnderExposed exhibition on the front cover.  The montage includes one of my Afrirampo photos (just underneath the ‘-VE” of RAVE). 

The lead feature is a story I wrote about music photography to promote the exhibition, based on an interview with Time Off photographer Stephen Booth, one of the photographers exhibiting at UnderExposed, and Tim Steward from Screamfeeder, who are headlining one of the six live gigs at the exhibition space over it’s 3 week run (Screamfeeder are playing on Saturday 18 April).  The picture of Patience from The Grates at last year’s Splendour In the Grass accompanying the article is also one of mine.

It was a pretty tough challenge for my first effort at writing something for print, especially as the timeframe was tight, with a shortened working week due to Easter and everything for the magazine needing to be submitted by Thursday at the very latest (instead of the normal Monday).  The earliest that Tim and Stephen could be available for the interview was the Sunday night and so I spent a couple hours chatting to them then to get a photographer’s view and a musician’s view of music photography.  I spent Monday at work listening back to the recording on headphones, jotting down the times on the recording where the quotes I wanted to transcribe were and transcribed them on Monday night, ending up with almost 3,000 words of quotes for a 1,200 word article.  Tuesday night I wrote the article, culling over half the transcribed quotes in the process, and came up with a first draft of almost 1,700 words.  After some more culling it was down to just over 1,200 words.  I submitted it for review on Wednesday morning and after some expert subbing at Rave it was all done.  

You can read the article on Rave’s website – http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/14621/30/

They say that time flies when you’re having fun. Whether or not this is true, time definitely has flown since the last time that I saw Buffalo Tom, (which from memory was in London at the LA2 in November 1999) let alone the first time that I saw them back in the early 1990s at The Riverside in Newcastle.

When the tables and chairs are on display towards the front of The Zoo it is usually a sign that it’s a quiet night. However, there was quiet a healthy mid-week crowd in (which made having a load of tables and chairs near the front of the room more problematic…), although not sold out. There have been a few posts on the Mess+Noise message board about the tour and about how there seemed to be a real lack of promotion from the tour, with this apparently being a regular trait of the promoter in question. I was glad I was there and had a great night, but it’s just a shame that they weren’t playing to the full-house they deserve to be playing to.

Whilst nostalgia is a powerful and alluring sentiment, and increasingly being played on by the music industry, watching Buffalo Tom play you can’t help but feel that if a group of 20-somethings released a bunch of songs as good as theirs in today’s musical scene that they would be universally acclaimed and be all over the radio and the music press.

However, sadly, when you’re a bunch of 40-somethings the industry pays a lot less attention. Whilst the set played heavy on their back catalogue, especially 1992’s ‘Let Me Come Over’, new songs from last year’s ‘Three Easy Pieces’ show that they haven’t lost the knack for coming up with hook-laden, 3 ½ minute pop songs.

Hopefully it won’t be a nine year wait between albums next time, and hopefully they’ll be back and playing to the size of audience they deserve soon.

More photos on flickr.

Buffalo Tom

Screamfeeder

Last Saturday was the Pig City Festival at University of Queensland. When I moved to Brisbane a couple years ago someone recommended the book to me and not knowing anything about the city it was a bit of an eye-opener to find out what a mess the place was in until fairly recently. It was a really fun day, with nary an asymmetrical haircut in sight, and really great to see all the bands that are included in the book and finally find out what half of them sounded like (although have since found out most of them have myspace pages…).

Highlights were Ups and Downs, Regurgitator and The Apartments (who I also saw play a fantastic gig recently at The Troubadour with Texas Tea supporting). The reformed Saints were good but I think that the Mess and Noise review was a fair reflection on their set. Thought Ed Kuepper’s playing was great though.

Some photos below and lots, lots more here.

The Apartments

Screamfeeder

Ups and Downs

Kev Carmody

The Pineapples From The Dawn Of Time

Unkle Fats & The Parameters

David McCormack

The Riptides

Regurgitator

Go-Betweens Homage: Kate Miller-Heidke

The Saints