I was planning on going down to the Radio Room with a friend on Saturday night and taking it a bit easy on the shooting. I was looking forward to just relaxing and having a good time, since I've already shot a couple of the bands recently. But when he canceled on me at the last minute, it wasn't going to stop me from going out having some fun.

I only saw the end of Marasol's set when they played at the Casbah last month, and didn't have a chance to grab both a beer and photos of them, and I chose beer. I liked what I heard though, and I'm glad I got to catch their full set this time. I even heard some guitar soloing in their indie punk songs. Sorry, I can't describe how music sounds with words, just click on the links and hear them for yourself.





As you can see, they brought some of their own lights, which made post processing a fun challenge. I chose to leave it natural and keep their white backlights white instead of the spotlights, but I'm not all that happy with how the red spots turned out. But, desaturation helps.





Their drummer told me later that he'd like to see a photo of himself smiling, instead of his usual scowl. 


You're welcome, Jim.



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By Sunlight is from Seattle, and I definitely heard a similarity in their melancholy guitar strums and sunny vocal melodies to their city-mates, Minus the Bear.



I went for a totally different look for these guys, since their music is has a bit more of a polished sound than Marasol's, aggressive, contrasty style.







I love it when I can catch a tattoo in a music shot. It's just as characteristic of the person as his face.


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Had my buddy actually made it to the show, I would have put my camera away at this point and the rest of my shots that night would have been done at the bar. But since he wasn't there, I didn't have enough to drink to suppress my compulsive need to hear the shutter click. I *always* drive home sober. So, I'm sure the next two bands are sick of seeing my lens in their faces, but, oh well.

I decided to leave Fever Sleeve's shots pretty red, just to see if I could make it work.





Now that I have a whopping 3 songs of theirs to listen to, I want to hear more. Hopefully they'll push their CD out soon.







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Hialeah's got a new CD coming out at some point in the future too. Since they are Black Box Studios, it's a case where the cobbler's kids have no shoes where they spend all their time working on other people's music and don't leave time to work on their own. Staying too busy with work isn't the worst problem you could have in this economy, I guess.



Not only is their first CD in regular rotation on my Zune and not only are they expressive subjects, but they also are trying to help foster a sense of community by standing in the front and support the bands playing before them by paying attention. It kinda bugs me that some bands don't care to listen to each other when they share the same bill. These guys do it right- support each other!










Time to get those NY/Cleveland photos done!