My friend Kyle (from the Frantic, who often grace my blog) made it to Hollywood on this season’s American Idol! Kyle is such a genuinely sweet guy who truly loves music (seriously, he has photos on his Facebook of him performing when he was just a kid). He’s the kind of person who will hang around after a show until he has talked to everyone who attended, even if it takes hours. He has boundless energy onstage, and he and rest of the Frantic have been an important part of the Chicago scene for years. Basically, we’re so excited for him, words can’t even describe it.
Until the beginning of Hollywood Week on Idol airs tonight (and y’all better be watching), a few favorite Kyle photos of mine are below to keep you busy.
PS. Brett, Chris, and Ian… I love you guys too, obviously.
After redoing my branding, and redoing my wedding & portrait site, I decided it was high time to revisit the design of this blog. It’s been ages since I really did anything new, so I completely changed up the theme (thanks to my hubby Aaron for all the coding) and decided to rock some bigger photos (which are coming in the next posts). I’m still tweaking a few small things, so please excuse any “dust.”
I’ve been getting out there again and shooting some great concerts, so keep an eye out for lots of new content… but while you’re waiting, let me know what you think of the redesign!
The fantastic (and maybe crazy?) Christian and Britton Picciolini opened their home to their musical family – people from JBTV, bands that Christian manages through Goldmill, and a random assortment of others that somehow fit into the mix (me included!).
They had one of these parties last summer, and we weren’t able to attend, so the second that Christian sent out the save-the-date email, I marked it on my calendar, swearing off all other activities for that date, no matter what. Luckily, it worked out, because it was a fantastic time. I mean, there was a 112 lb. roast pig, ladder ball/bags/badminton/volleyball, friends, campfires, sing alongs, smores, etc… what else could anyone possibly want?
As a side note, I know I haven’t been posting on this blog much lately… there will be blogs forthcoming. It’s wedding season right now, so my energy is devoted to that, but there are great things coming (Company of Thieves and Ludo come to mind…).
(Christian’s such a good sport )
(must give love to the Treaty of Paris tattoo )
(Aaron looks vicious when playing badminton… don’t worry, he’s all bark, not much bite)
(one of my favorites from the day)
(Molly died after volleyball)
(Kyle & I have a longstanding ritual. I take pictures of him, he flips me off.)
(The beautiful and gracious Britton)
(The one and only Jerry Bryant)
And, as a special bonus, a video of one of my favorite parts of the night. Please excuse the less than stellar framing – with the light quality, I needed to set the camera down on a flat surface, so I had limited composition options.
I’ll take a little break from music photos to share a few free resources that I use daily and have made my life much easier.
The first is Dropbox. Dropbox is a file sharing site/program that allows you to just “drop” files into a folder on your computer to share with others. The files you drop into Dropbox are given a unique link, which you can then share with others. I use it for almost all of the files I need to send to clients, and also use it to share files between computers.
The main reason I love it is that you don’t have to connect to open an FTP program, connect to the FTP, then upload…. the time I save being able to simply put a file in a folder that sits on my desktop is amazing. The other reason it’s amazing is that your files are accessible anywhere… even if the computer you’re on doesn’t have an FTP program, or you don’t have the link for the file, Dropbox has an interface online where you just sign into your account and can access your files. Try it out here!
The other resource I use constantly is Signature Confirm. Signature Confirm is an online contract-signing service. You create your own contract and then email it to your client via Signature Confirm. The client can then review the contract and electronically sign it. I especially love Signature Confirm for my live music work because, so often, it’s practically impossible to meet up with the band before or after the show to get a signed paper contract. Getting the contract signed online before the show makes the day of the shoot much less stressful. You can sign up for Signature Confirm here.
I hope my little informative interlude has helped point you in the direction of some fabulous resources. If anyone else has any online services that they use and love, let me know!
I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this before – for a while, I’ve been working with They Will Rock You (TWRY), which is an utterly fantastic source for music news, exclusive interviews, tons of pictures, and giveaways. You can often see my photos there and occasionally an article or at least a small news blurb on one of my favorite locals. My dear friend Mary Ouellette is TWRY’s creator and goddess of all trades. She seems to live and breathe music and is constantly introducing me to new bands via the site. Plus, she’s a pretty fantastic photographer as well.
Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about TWRY. It is a truly a labor of love, and I can’t imagine how much time goes into it to make it so awesome. It is definitely worth your time to check out the site or follow TWRY on Twitter.
In the interest of simplifying, I combined my website and my blog into one blogsite. Everything that used to be on my website is now on my blog – portfolios, pricing, about, etc. Things are cleaned up, portfolios are revamped, and I spiffied up my background and my headers (go ahead, refresh the page a few times). The basic layout is the same because I liked my layout, but there are lots of new little tweaks.
I generally don’t posts that announce releases and shows, but this is big news, and thus a worthy exception.
What’s the big news?
Treaty of Paris is releasing a new EP on January 9th, entitled Currents. The EP was recorded and produced at Last Fast Action’s studio, Audioisking, and was born of many late nights (and lots of fun, see?). Their EP release show will be at the ever famous Metro in Chicago, IL, and will have supporting bands including The Victory Gins, Last Fast Action, The Insecurities, and AM Taxi. The CD will be for sale at the show.
Who is Treaty of Paris? Well, Treaty of Paris formed in January of 2005, and since then, has had a multitude of successes. They were signed to Andrew McMahon’s (of Jack’s Mannequin) label, Airport Tapes and Records, as well as participated in Q101’s reality series entitled Breaking The Band. They have packed the Metro, and toured the country with several large acts, including Yellowcard and The Spill Canvas.
If you’re not in the area… drive/fly in for the show. Just kidding (kind of). They will also be selling the record online via Amazon and iTunes beginning on January 12th, 2010. Smartpunk.com will have a pre-order going on next week, with some special packages if you just can’t wait until Jan. 12th. And, I might even have one or two to give out once it’s released. Maybe. I might not want to give them up.
If you’re not convinced that you need to go to the show/check out Treaty of Paris/buy the EP/record at Audioisking yet, perhaps you need to watch this video. Dear internet world, I introduce some of my best friends:
BONUS! Anyone that has a blog, any kind of blog, this is for you. If you post about the show and/or EP release (feel free to copy/paste any of my post if you can’t come up with something of your own), let me know in the comments with either a link to the blog post, or a link to a screencap (if your blog is private). With your comment, you will be entered into a drawing for an 8×10 photo from the show. If you win, you can choose any one of the photos that I post to my blog from any of the sets performed that night… and I will be doing some backstage photos, so this is a good chance to get a unique print!
The third installment of my Chicago scene photoblog is up at Spin.com, here. It features bands such as Paramore, Flyleaf, Last Fast Action (my best buddies!), locals Kill Hannah, The Sounds, and Jet… as well as a small guest appearance from Tyler of Darkroom Demons. See if you can find him.
Now that it’s published, full sets of the bands featured will be posted to my blog soon!
My second photoblog for Spin.com was published today.
I particularly like this set of photos because it’s really diverse. I have everything from 80s metal band Steel Panther, Bluegrass from A Night In The Box, a recording session from Treaty of Paris, electronica with Ladyhawke, and Finnish metal with Sonata Arctica. And that’s just the start!
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