Alfred Tam of Clouseaux
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Disco Expressions – Prom Night
The Disco Expressions show/prom night event last weekend was a huge success. Basically, it was a concert at the Houston Continental Club featuring 70’s disco and 80’s new-age/punk/pop and the audience was invited to dress in a prom theme.
Of course you can’t have a prom without adult supervision.
Meet Continental High School Vice-Principal Henkel
Opening act was Molly and the Ringwalds for the 80’s portion of the night.
Jennifer Ringwald
Carrie Ringwald
And a rare sight ladies and gentlemen. A candid photo of Dekan Ringwald!
That’s right, he’s not staring directly at the camera! This must be what those Planet Earth camermen felt like when they captured those rare images of the Snow Leopard in the wild.
Next up, Disco Expressions playing all your 70’s disco favorites.
It’s hard to tell if Jim is about to give me the OK sign, or if he’s about to flick me like a bug.
Paul was in rare form
All in all, another excellent evening. I wanted to shoot audience pictures to capture those in attendance wearing their prom dresses and tuxedos, but they didn’t come out so well. I don’t do well shooting with a flash and the club is too dark to shoot without one.
I did, however, get one outstanding shot.
Houston Roller Derby
The Houston Roller Derby has been generating quite a lot of buzz lately. Seems that you can’t turn around in this city without bumping into someone who is either a roller derby girl or one of the myriad volunteers, hanger’s on or ever growing minions of rabid roller derby fans.
I work with a roller derby girl, my friend Bill Shirley puts together The Colonel’s Roller Derby Roundup, a combination blog and podcast (of all things) with David Beebe, there’s Myspace after Myspace page for leagues, teams, team members, volunteers and fans. Roller derby seems to be everywhere.
It has been suggested on several occasions, by those who know my love of photography and are affiliated with the derby, that I try my hand at some derby photography. I finally decided to follow up and I contacted the organizers and offered to come out and shoot on spec, the idea being that if I produced pictures they liked and could be used to promote the derby I might be afforded the title of Official Houston Roller Derby Photographer. Basically that would mean that I would have full photographic access to all aspects of the local derby.
This past Sunday I made my way to The Verizon Wireless Theater for the bout. I arrived pretty early so I could get my credentials and get the lay of the land. I wanted to check out the layout and get familiar with the lighting.
After a bit of experimenting I decided to shoot with my 50mm 1.4 lens. I thought this would be the best for no flash and fast action. As it turned out, I got some great portrait shots.
But I struggled with the action shots. Shooting without a flash meant that I had to try to time the shots for when the subject was going to be illuminated. Also, the 50mm lens is challenging at extended distances. I can crop to increase the size of the main subject, but the results are not as good as I would like.
Still, they weren’t all bad…
With a bit more practice I think I can nail it down. I may whip out the Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di lens next time and see how it performs in these conditions.
The response from the derby organizers and the members has been positive. I have been asked to come back and shoot again, not only at the bouts but at other derby events.
We’ll see how the schedule shapes up. I would like to explore this further.
Disco Expressions – Virginia
What’s wrong with Clear Channel?
In a recent blog post, Michael Garfield – the yadda yadda Texan asks “And what’s wrong with Clear Channel?”
This was in response to a comment made by Mark Cuban of Blog Maverick fame when he said of Youtube’s recent announcement about paying for content :
Youtube immediately went from a small but interesting community for its original content, to basically being just like Clear Channel, responsible for programming its different “formats” with the “best” possible content that creates the greatest number of eyeballs and maximizes advertising revenue. It’s big business, just like Clear Channel
You can read Mark’s post for yourself.
While I am sure Mr. Garfield’s question was rhetorical, I can’t help but respond, being a public radio guy and all. Just doing a simple Google search on the term “What’s wrong with Clear Channel” reveals some very tasty tidbits.
Let’s look what people are saying of Clear Channel, the world’s largest radio station operator.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH RADIO?
With corporate ownership and a new form of payola strangling play-lists, listeners are tuning out.
By Greg Kot, Rolling Stone Magazine
At a time when a handful of radio corporations are making more money than ever, dissatisfaction with the quality of music programming has reached a breaking point. People are listening to radio less, and the reason is simple: The days of local radio breaking new records, taking chances on unknown acts and responding to it’s audience’s interests have all but disappeared.
EFF Kills Bogus Clear Channel/Live Nation Patent
San Francisco – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has announced it will revoke an illegitimate patent held by Clear Channel Communications after a campaign by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
The patent — owned by Instant Live, a company formerly owned by Clear Channel, and now owned by Live Nation — covered a system and method of creating digital recordings of live performances. Clear Channel claimed the bogus patent created a monopoly on all-in-one technologies that produce post-concert digital recordings and threatened to sue those who made such recordings. This locked musical acts into using Clear Channel technology and blocked innovations by others.
Salon.com – Radio’s Big Bully
Looking for classy radio programming? Don’t look here. The company is known for allowing animals to be killed live on the air, severing long-standing ties with community and charity events, laying off thousands of workers, homogenizing playlists and a corporate culture in which dirty tricks are a way of life.
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Check the results of the search yourself. There’s more. And I didn’t even touch on the nasty ways that Clear Channel attempts to squelch our first amendment right to free speech. Google search the term Clear Channel free speech, there’s a good read for you.
I’ll just leave you with the words of Lowry Mays, CEO of Clear Channel Communications as quoted at Freepress.net:
“If anyone said we were in the radio business, it wouldn’t be someone from our company. We’re not in the business of providing news and information. We’re not in the business of providing well-researched music. We’re simply in the business of selling our customers products.”
You just might need to ask yourself how far and to what expense they are willing to go to achieve that end.
There’s always room for Jello
Cross another one off the list.
I got to hang out with an icon of my youth last night, Jello Biafra, former lead singer for The Dead Kennedys.
He was in town to perform his spoken word act at the Continental Club last night and I volunteered to pick him up at the airport and drive him around until show time.
I got him checked into his hotel and then we went by Sig’s Lagoon so he could browse the vinyl. Turns out Jello is a huge music buff and a rabid collector of obscure vinyl.
It was a fun enough time. I was in mild “fan-boy” mode but I think I played it pretty cool. Of course I had to get the obligatory “Look at me! I’m with a celebrity!” shot.
His show ran about 4 hours with a brief intermission. He covered all the ground you would expect from the death of Jerry Falwell to the collapse of Enron and even touched on the Halliburton move to Dubai.
I would have expected the show to be attended by mostly old-timers like myself. As it turned out, it was mostly young people. And when I say young, I mean around, at and under 21. The club made it an all ages show.
Best line overheard at the back bar was from and older woman who was talking to a friend and said:
“I don’t like this spoken word crap. I’m a punk rocker, not a hippy!” I didn’t bother asking why she was even there..
Second runner up was when bar manager Trey came over to Sig’s before the intermission and said “I don’t think he’s going to take a break. He just keeps going. Oh, and I think I hate America now.”
Priceless!
The best picture of the night was taken during the sound check:
I was initially going to give him a ride back to the hotel but he decided to hang out at Sig’s for awhile looking through the rest of the vinyl and I was tired. Good thing I cut myself loose, he ended up keeping Sig’s open till around 5:00 am.
I don’t like staying up that late, I’m an old man….not a hippy!
Clouseaux – Fire
Cindy Raschke
Cindy “Crash” Raschke
Thomas over at Sig’s Lagoon had asked me about shooting some pictures at an event he was hosting at the shop. It was a Tiki themed art show featuring the works of Cindy Raschke from Austin, TX.
I’m always up for this type of thing so I agreed to come out early and be the designated photographer. Besides, The Flying Fish Sailors were already signed up to perform a short set opening for Clouseaux over at the CC later the same evening so it was no big deal to get down there early.
It also didn’t hurt that there’s a chance my pics could be used in a story about Cindy in Tiki Magazine. Nothing wrong with getting my pictures in print, even if it is an obscure periodical that caters to an eclectic sub-culture.
Cindy’s artwork was really quite good. Her tiki themed pieces were unique and vibrant.
Cindy herself was outgoaing and personable and even came to catch a few songs while my band played over at the Continental.
She did have on rather unusual piece on exhibit. A child-sized mannequin that she had “transformed” into what can only be called a tattooed demon boy.
I was actually rather fascinated by the demon boy and briefly entertained the idea of purchasing it. I then fast forwarded the scenario in my brain and, knowing Cynthia, knew that this piece would not be allowed in our house.
As it turns out, the piece was already sold to a tattoo artist in Florida so that put an end to my dilemma.
The turn out was fantastic and many of her pieces were sold. There’s going to be another show in Austin on Thursday, Aug. 2nd at The Gallery (next door to the Austin Continental Club) and I may be the designated photographer for that event as well.
More pictures (including Demon Boy) in my gallery.