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Category: Music Monday
July 9, 2012 – Trent Reznor
Ok im going to start this with a couple disclaimers. First, I am ridiculously busy these days. But I am going to stick to this posting schedule the the best of my ability. Second the pictures in this post are very early work. I had’t even held a DSLR at this point. And the camera I took these with was many steps below even a low quality point and shoot from this time. Seriously, this camera came in a blister package, in 2005.
Ok, excuses over. Post continues.
I have been a fan of Nine Inch Nails (NIN) and Trent Reznor since 1994, when I saw the video for March Of The Pigs. You could say it was probably one of the most important musical influences of my adolescence, and to this day I believe had a major impact on the path my life took.
The one-man-shop aspect of NIN amazed me, and the thought that a single person could have control over the creation of so much sound was exciting. In 1999 I moved to London and attended the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording. I had big dreams of becoming a record producing rock star. Knowing myself now, it does seem kind of silly. I don’t regret getting that education (though I always get saddled with being the sound guy when my band plays), but I don’t think I am destined to be a record producer, at least to the level I thought I was.In all these years, I had never gotten the chance to see my “idols” live. Growing up in Sudbury, Ontario, meant a three hour drive to Toronto, where the big shows were. It was not a practical situation, since, well, I didn’t drive.
Fast forward to 2006, I get an announcement that NIN will be playing at The John Labatt Centre, in London. I just happened to be living across the street from The John Labatt Centre. This transportation situation I could swing.When it came time for the concert, I didn’t want to take my digital point and shoot, for fear it would be confiscated. So instead, I opened up a birthday present I was waiting to mail to my brother. I tried to find a picture of it, but no matter how strong my google-fu is, it is like this camera never existed.
It was at best, 0.6 megapixels. It was the size of a normal thumb drive, and similar in every way, except that it had a tiny lens, a shutter button, and a 2 digit digital counter. The package boasted a 16MB capacity, space for hundreds of photos!! WOW!
I wasn’t holding out much hope, picture wise. I couldn’t wait to get to the show.
When NIN took the stage (after Saul Williams blew my mind) I went straight for the moshpit. One of the benefits of buying your camera in the checkout isle at Zellers is you won’t be too broken up if it goes flying. For the entire show I kept it in my hand and would hold it up and snap a few pictures now and then.
I definitely used the 16MB capacity of that little camera. And there was a lot of garbage. But there were also some gems. I ended up keeping 14 of the pics for different reasons. There aren’t any that are so sharp that you could really tell who it was if I didn’t tell you, but I think a couple managed, somehow, to capture the intensity of the performance.I look forward to someday getting to photograph Trent with some proper gear, but until then these will have to do. I still kinda like ’em.
July 2, 2012 – Corin Raymond
Ok, I am going to try to get this post done quick. I had this big lofty idea that I would be able to sit down on a Sunday and write two months worth of posts. That is not going as planned. It takes much longer to write about things I like than I thought. Hours longer. I spend a lot of time with the backspace key.
But I don’t have much time today, and this is going to be a busy week (month, year, rest of life), as the purchase of our new home closes tomorrow!
For my music Monday post this week I’m going to talk about Toronto singer-songwriter Corin Raymond.Although I’ve known Corin for a few years, he recently spent some time here at the London Fringe Festival, and I figured I should write about him and help get the word out before his current summer tour is over.
Corin can almost be considered an institution in the Toronto roots scene. He’s part of The Undesirables, and The Sundowners (whose other members, as well as the group themselves, will no doubt be featured here at some point). In addition to that, he writes and performs his own solo material, both theatrical performances as well as musically.
I first saw him perform at the Home County Folk Festival in 2009, in his duo The Undesirables, with fellow singer-songwriter Sean Cotton. I was immediately struck by how much of himself he gives to the audience. It’s not unusual to watch a singer simply hold the mic, maybe move their hands and feet to the music a bit. Not Corin, he involves his whole body in the song, and truly communicates with the crowd.
You may have seen or heard of Corin recently on the news. He is in the process of creating an album of his favorite Canadian folk and roots songs. That in itself is pretty cool, but what really sets this apart is that the studio he is working with will accept Canadian Tire money as payment. To date he has raised over $4000 in “paper nickels and dimes”. That means over $1,000,000 was spent at Canadian Tire to earn that much. Corin calls it his first million dollar record. It is expected to be released sometime in the Fall.
What really makes me want to write about him right now is not so much his music, but the show he performed at this years London Fringe Festival. Bookworm. Aside from getting rave reviews, he also won the Producers Pick award, which is essentially a best in show as decided by the folks putting the festival on.
Bookworm is a one man show, starring Corin, in which he talks about his childhood and how much of an impact literature has on him, particularly the work of Ray Bradbury. Corin’s energy in his presentation on the theatrical stage is no different than his music performance. He gives everything he can to his audience. In an hour, with no more on stage than a stack of books, he manages to build the walls of his childhood around you.I can’t recommend this show enough. He will be touring the show to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival from July 18-27, Edmonton Fringe August 16, Victoria Fringe August 12, Vancouver Fringe September 6 and the Words Aloud Festival in Owen Sound on November 2.
You can find out more about Corin, Canadian Tire Money and Bookworm at his website: www.dontspendithoney.com. It also has a comprehensive schedule of upcoming show dates.
June 25, 2012 – Leah Morise
So here we are, week two! As I mentioned before, my Monday posts are going to be used to talk about music. I’m going to make it a goal to only write about people I have photographed. That way if I want to write about someone I haven’t, I’ll have to make it happen somehow. Even though last week I talked about a relatively big star, I’ll have a lot about people you might not know of, but should.
For my second music post, I’m going to talk about my partner, and one of my biggest supporters, Leah Morise.
I met Leah in the February of 2006. A friend and I had started hosting an open mic night at a pub, and Leah was one of the first people, along with our good friend Jim Johnston (who I also met that night) to take the mic. I vividly remember being struck by her voice. She sings with an ease and joy that can grab a noisy rooms attention, stopping people in mid sentence. Her smile when she sings is my favorite part; there is no doubt that she loves singing as much as people love listening.
Aside from singer/songwriting gigs, Leah is also a soprano in the First St. Andrews Choir, and has performed in several local musicals. It is not uncommon to see her jump on stage with a friend to add some harmonies. I’ve been lucky enough to share the stage with her often over these last few years, both on guitar and with some trumpet. Last year we toured out to Nova Scotia for two weeks, playing gigs along the way with another friend, Manitoba Hal. You’ll likely see a lot of pictures in future posts from that trip.
Leah is also a very good photographer, as well as a graphic designer. Last year, we made a shared exhibition at the 2011 Visual Fringe. Leah turned the camera on me, while I was turning my antique film cameras on the landscape.
In 2006, Leah released her first CD, “Take Me Anywhere”. It is a great collection of original songs, and was recorded by another good friend of ours, Greg Lirette. Though there are no solid plans in place for a second CD, the broad strokes should start to happen soon, as soon as we are done another project we are working on.
As I write this, Leah and I are 8 days (8 days, 8 hours and 8 minutes actually, weird; yes, we have a countdown timer) away from taking possession of our new home. Several years ago, on one of our many road trips, we came to the realization we both had this dream to live in an old country church. Fast forward to now and its about to happen. Among the many creative plans for the new place, we will be using the space to rehearse, and record Leah’s second album. If you would like to see more details about out it, click here to go to the little site we made about the project.
I won’t go into too much more here. It’s surprisingly difficult to write an article about Leah without it sounding like a tweens diary entry. My life with her these last 5 years has been an amazing adventure filled with music, art, theatre, and campfire jams that last till the sun comes up.
A couple of years ago, Leah and I spent a couple late nights and made a music video for one of her songs:
Here’s an old video of one of our collaborations:
If you would like to see more, you can find her here:
Website: www.leahmorise.com
Twitter: @leahmorise
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Leah.Morise
June 16, 2012 – Henry Rollins
So here it is; the first of my try-and-keep-to-a-schedule posts. Mondays posts are going to center around music. Cause, you know, they both start with M. Very groundbreaking, if I do say so myself. My girlfriend is also very impressed and in no way laughed at me.
Because Leah and I are both musicians, we spend a lot of time around other musicians. Photographically speaking, live music is among my favorite things to shoot. It is definitely the only thing involving people that I can shoot without second guessing myself.
In these posts my goal will be to centre on a particular artist I find inspiring, and what surrounded the particular shots I share.
Since this is my first post, I figure I’ll start with the most recent I have seen; arguably the most well known artist as well.
Last week, Leah’s workplace, The Grand Theatre, played host to Henry Rollins. I found out about the show a few months back and got tickets right away. It was well worth the price of admission. Rollins gave up music (his words) years ago, and does amazing spoken word shows, as well as television and movie work.
He is best known, musically at least, for fronting Black Flag, widely considered to be central in the development of the underground punk scene that came up around the mid to late 80s. Though I don’t consider myself a huge fan of hardcore punk, there is no doubt that Rollins was a huge influence both directly and indirectly on my taste in music and how I thought about it.
If you get a chance to see him live, take it. Though you could describe it as “a cool guy tells you cool stories for three hours” its much, much more than that. First off its three hours. No water, no break, no props. I’ve never seen anything like it. It feels like he’s just talking unrehearsed, directly to you, in your seat. He’ll be telling a story, then branch off into another related story, and merge back in 45 minutes later, seamless.
As far as subject matter, the stories are indeed cool. From road tales with Black Flag to wrestling alligators for National Geographic, to politics and to what punk-rock means to him. There was so much. As I type this I’m killing myself to remember a particular thing he said that I thought I should write down, and I can’t remember for the life of me, because there was simply so much cool stuff.
One message I did get from the show as a whole was to just try the things you think you are afraid of. He didn’t say it directly, but thats what I took from it. And this is where we swing around back to photography.
Anybody who knows me, knows I don’t really take a lot of photos of people. I get nervous and I forget to check settings. I get shy and hesitant to direct the person I’m shooting. I am terrified of going up to a stranger and asking to take a picture of them. I don’t know why, but I am.
Sitting listening to Henry talk, I decided I was going to ask to take his portrait after the show. I had everything I would say planned out in my head. I was gonna check my settings right after the show and make sure everything was right, I was going to take my flash off the camera and light it off axis. It would all go fine and I would see that I wouldn’t have to be nervous.
So the show ended, Leah, some friends and I went out to the stage door to wait. When he came out we introduced ourselves and asked if we could get some pictures with him. He said sure so I handed the camera to my friend and they snapped a shot. Then we traded and I got a shot of them. I wasn’t looking for anything spectacular, just a memento of our meeting.
Bad focus wasn’t my friends fault, I should have put it on auto 🙁 
Not sure what my excuse was, using my own camera and all…. Though it would have been nice if either of them were in focus. This is an example of what happens when I get in front of a subject. I forget to check things, just little things, like what the picture looks like. I suppose I didn’t want to waste his time, or look stupid, or both.
Since we had gotten all our pictures taken, I asked if he would mind if I took a portrait of him. It did not come out like I thought I was going to say it. Again, he said sure. He is an extremely nice guy, and very patient. I snapped a quick shot, thanked him and retreated. I didn’t take the flash off, didn’t think about lighting. Upon getting to the van and seeing the quality of the group shots, I was terrified for how the portrait turned out.
Henry Rollins, London Ontario, June, 12 2012- Click to Enlarge A little bit of processing in lightroom, and I am very happy with the result. I’m glad I asked for the chance, but am pretty sure the next time I do it will be just as nerve wracking. At least I know it will be worth it, so I’m likely to try again.
