Continental Club – Page 10 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Experimentation

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I’m processing several hundred images. I’m not nearly done but while I was going through my shots of The Aqua Velva, one picture in particular caught my attention and I started tweaking it in Photoshop:

Click image for full size

I didn’t do much. The motion blur and contrast was pre-existing and I simply expanded upon that. I used a noise filter to clean up some of the roughness and give it an smoother overall texture and amped up the color just a little.

Elementary penguin singing Hare Khrishna

There’s something about Beetle that compels me to shoot them in black and white. You can always see them in color each Thursday night at the Houston Continental Club during happy hour from 7-10pm.

I’m really enjoying the fast wide angle lens.

Beetle
Sony Alpha 100
Lens: Sigma 20mm f/1.8

click for larger image

Clouseaux

NYE – 2006

No big surprise, last night Cynthia and I spent NYE at the Continental Club.
Last appearance of David Beebe with the El Orbits for the foreseeable future.
It was a good show and a good time with good people.

Jim Henkel
Click for full size

David Beebe
Click for full size

The hero of 3700 Main

In my time I have saved the computer at the Continental Club on a few occasions and bailed out Thomas over at Sig’s Lagoon. It’s my contribution to the “scene”, I suppose.

This week I got a call from the proprietress of Taco’s-A-Go-Go. Seems their PC was misbehaving and needed some tender loving nerd care. I was surprised to get the call since I had never given them my number. I assume it was acquired via my friend Nick or someone else who had access to my digits. I said I would have a look the next time I was in the area.

With the new 9/80 schedule I had this Friday off and felt I could afford the lack of sleep and headed off to go see Beetle perform their usual Thursday night happy hour gig at the Continental. Since Taco’s-A-Go-Go is right next door I popped in to have a look at their ailing PC. Turns out the wireless adapter driver was in need of a re-install. I had it up and running in about 10-15 minutes. No big deal.

Enjoyed the Beetle show, as always. After they were done playing I was talking to Jim and he suggested heading over to a party at “Bongo” Jane’s place.

I was of a mixed mind about the whole thing. I know Jane and I knew I would know some of the people there and Jim was just so darn insistent about it I headed on over. Glad I did. I saw some old friends I had not seen in over 15 or so years and just enjoyed hanging out.

Jane’s place is quite interesting. She has the best entertainment center you can imagine. It’s a sound stage right in the main living room. Jane has a lot of musician friends and they were coming and going from the stage all night.

click for full size

Sorry to say, I don’t know this singer’s name. She was performing with Steve Candelari on the drums and Aaron Loesch of Jug O’ Lighnin fame on guitar.

Grupo Fantasma

Jose Galeano (click image for larger size)

Gilbert Elorreaga (click image for larger size)

Freeze frame

I was contacted by Allen “King of the Oldies” Hill to inquire if I might be available to come to the Continental Club and shoot some promo shots for the new incarnation of the El Orbits.

Since David Beebe is about to undergo surgery on his voice box he will be taking a hiatus from the band for about a year.

Thomas Escalante, lead singer for Clouseaux, has already moved in to the lead singer position with David doing backing vocals and playing bass. With David gone the vocals are covered but there is a need for bass guitar. That’s where Allen comes in.

With all these changes there’s a need for new promotional material, hence the request for my photographic services.

Truth be told, I was pretty nervous. I don’t mind going out and shooting casually because there’s nothing riding on the results. When shooting on spec there is an expectation and failure means disappointment for more than just the photographer.

Still, it was an opportunity I wanted to take advantage of and I agreed to do it.

The results were not everything I had hoped for. I don’t own professional lighting gear and they wanted the picture on the stage at the Continental Club and the lighting there is pretty bad.

My current photographic preference is to shoot without a flash. This results in shots that are a tad grainy and “soft”, but look cool when reduced in size. In hindsight I should have shot a few with the flash just so they would have had that as an option.

I sent over the files from the images I thought were most usable and Allen determined that this one would do the trick:

Click image to see full size

In other photographic news I sold another picture at Sig’s Lagoon. I’ve doubled my sales revenue!

So long, farewell, adios!

Los Skarnales played what has been billed as their “final performance” last night at the Continental Club.

That band is going to be sorely missed.