Not counting open mic performances, I only attended 42 shows in 2010, down dramatically from my peak of 76 in 2008. My responsibilities with the Lost Art Open Mic were a factor in this, but they weren't the whole story. Over time, I had shifted my focus to shows featuring bands and performers with whom I had forged personal relationships. This would become more and more the norm for me in the months and years ahead, with exceptions becoming increasingly rare and eventually almost nonexistent. The closure of the Skillman Street Pub in 2011 played no role in this recalibration, as I had long since ceased to regularly frequent the venue by the time of its demise. Rather, I had reached the point of burn out with the parade of cookie monster metal bands and dollar store Pantera knockoffs which seemed to make up the bulk of its nightly offerings. The way forward – for a while, at least – was in the direction of smaller, more intimate settings with increasingly limited outings to the bigger clubs.
Of course, that's not to say that I never went to the larger venues. I continued to frequent shows played by heavier bands I was already involved with or a fan of, and there were some new favorites that would be added to my list of staples, too. With the new year came my introduction to Kin of Ettins, a doom metal outfit whose lead guitarist Jason Gully was a regular at the Lost Art Open Mic. There was Chase Ditto's new band, Embrace the Embers. And of course there were my old favorites the Razorblade Dolls and RivetHead. Overall, though, 2011 was for me characterized by a strong shift away from heavier styles of music in favor of more low-key, understated performances. Of the 55 shows I attended that year, fully half were for non-metal/heavy rock acts, and most of those fell into the singer-songwriter and/or acoustically oriented camps. These may have made for less tonally aggressive, testosterone-fueled experiences, but that didn't mean they were any less musically fulfilling.
The reality of the Lost Art Open Mic and my increased presence in the local spoken word scene directly influenced which artists I began to follow. First and foremost was Emmeline, whose affinity for coffee houses and family-friendly venues drew me into establishments such as Allen's Yogurtville and Denton's Cafe du Luxe. I saw Lost Art contributor Mark Brandt at O'Riley's in February and at Generator Coffee in August, and I saw Katie Carroll (another frequent Lost Art contributor) perform with her full band at the Liquid Lounge in June. At Lost Art, Katie often appeared to suffer from stage fright despite having an album already recorded and on the market (my copy of Paper Girl came directly from her on one of our nights). Katie would go on to perform several live shows and to release a second album (Desperada) in 2012, so evidently she managed to overcome this handicap. Original Lost Art contributor and one-time co-runner Lilly Penhall appeared with her brother Miles Penhall's band at Deep Ellum's recently opened La Grange, contributing backup vocals for a Prince set during a covers night. And, of course, there was Jason Gully's band.
I'd known Jason off and on since 2003, when we both worked at a certain corporate job in northwestern Dallas near Farmers Branch. Fast forward to May 2010, and I found myself reconnecting with him when he unexpectedly turned up at Lost Art for Shanna Hale's spoken word feature. The two of them had previously dated, and my own acquaintance with Shanna went back eight years thanks to our shared time in the open mic scene. Once Jason and I reconnected, he became a regular presence at our nights at Bill's Records, often performing bits by classical composers on his acoustic guitar and even kicking off the Live at Lost Art Open Mic promotional CD released that November. By the spring of 2011, he'd been recruited as lead guitarist in a doom metal outfit known as Kin of Ettins. Scheduling conflicts and an unfortunate instance of forgetfulness on my part led to my first KoE experience taking place in Austin's Headhunters club in June 2011. I rolled in unannounced with my camera gear in hand, driving all the way down for the show and then all the way back to Allen afterward, a nearly seven hour round trip. The photos from that night weren't especially good, Headhunters being an unfamiliar venue, but looking back, my personal standards for band photography were perhaps a bit too high in a lot of cases. Regardless of venue, I would long struggle to capture KoE with my lens in a manner I deemed satisfactory.
One of the hallmarks of doom metal that's sorely lacking in so many of contemporary metal's other subgenres is the presence of actual, recognizable melodies. The broodiness and the downtuning may not fall harmoniously upon everyone's ears, but over the last twenty-five years or so there's been a definite shift away from what I would count as actual musical theory toward a policy of overly abundant riffing with cookie monster style grunts and growls in place of clearly enunciated words. At least when classic metal vocalists wailed, they did it in tune, and in recognizable English. A lot of what I hear nowadays just sounds like noise, and I don't mean that in a facetious way. Doom metal restored a little bit of my faith in the greater metal genre as one which still has something to offer, provided you find the right niche. And no, not all mainstream metal fits this description. Much, probably most, of it remains generic, paint-by-numbers knockoffs of earlier, more popular bands and styles. But Kin of Ettins singer Jötun can (and did) actually sing, and that's why I refer to him here as a singer instead of as a vocalist. It's also a reason why, apart from the fact that my friend Jason was now in the band, I began to follow Kin of Ettins and made them one of my staples. Well that and the fact that their music was actually good.
During With These Words' hiatus, drummer Michael Villarreal became part of a ska/reggae-infused act called Ten Can Riot. Alongside "Micko," TCR featured American-born Australian Scotty Diss on vocals and guitar and Doug Grabowski on bass. Doug was also active in Cure cover band Le Cure and in the David Bowie cover act Thin White Dukes. TCR burst onto the scene in mid-2010 and quickly became one of my "regulars," their almost kinetic stage energy and party-first exuberance a guarantee that a good time would be had by all. As far as Michael's place behind the kit for With These Words, a position he'd held since the band's formation around 2004, there was no apparent conflict – his two bands frequently played shows together, their sets always presented back to back. I started off 2011 with a two-fer With These Words/TCR show at the long since closed Lakewood Bar & Grill. I wouldn't say I was ever particularly close to Ten Can Riot, especially as compared Micko's other band, but I did enjoy their shows and went to see them quite often over the next couple of years.
As Lost Art drew to a close, I found myself growing increasingly tired of the greater local music scene and of trying to maintain a place within it. I had secured a degree of respect amongst the open mic regulars, particularly those like Johnny Olson and Joey Cloudy who had themselves run open mics and thus related to the tribulations this involved, but I didn't feel like I had much of it within the music scene. Too many acts, I felt, only bothered with me because I delivered pictures via my site and social media. This was a sentiment I had been struggling with for a long time, and I feel now that my presence on social media only amplified it. Social media can be a toxic cesspool for those on the margins of their community, those who aren't members of the "cool kids" cliques, and those who don't want to engage in groupthink. Today I think this situation has gotten exponentially worse, and I encourage everyone to ditch social media and their phones in favor of personal engagement with real human beings again. My engagement via Facebook was getting ever more pessimistic in how I voiced my thoughts about my place in the music scene. I was probably overstating my case in a lot of the posts made during those years, because I believe there were people like Jessi and Jason and Emmeline who genuinely did appreciate me. Nevertheless, the first real signs of my eventual burnout with concert photography manifested around this time. The open mic, at least, imbued me with some degree of purpose that the music scene so often didn't. And before we wrapped Lost Art for the final time, there was one night where the two worlds actually converged.
April 24, 2011, at Bill's Records was that night. It was the night of our monthly feature, but this time we were serving up a main course from completely outside the open mic/singer-songwriter circuit. Somewhere along the way, it was communicated to me that With These Words might be willing to put in an appearance. I put Justin Golden in touch with Alex to make the arrangements, and on that Sunday night in April, Jessi, Justin, and guitarist Jake Stevens (three-fifths of the band) came out and played an acoustic set for our patrons. It was a bit of a surreal experience for me, an unlikely convergence of the two very different worlds which I had a foot firmly inside. Kudos to Jessi for rising to the occasion in front of a completely unfamiliar crowd, and for successfully distilling the spirit of her fiery stage delivery into something equally suitable for an open mic audience. The appearance was a bit bittersweet, because the band's days were potentially numbered. The Goldens' parents were moving out of state, and Jessi and Justin had a tough decision to make.
Initially, Jessi decided to remain here. With These Words continued on with shows at the the Curtain Club and Tomcats West, at the Lakewood Bar & Grill, and at some hole in the wall venue on Elm Street called 2826 Arnetic. The band had their "plaque" show at the Curtain Club on September 30th, part of a tradition the venue had begun to honor longtime audience favorites. I vividly remember how Jessi had lost her voice prior to the show, and how I enjoyed introducing her to Emmeline, a real treat because it brought two of my favorite singers face to face for the first time. Ever the trooper, Jessi powered through the show despite the vocal handicap. But the decision on whether to really remain in Texas weighed heavily, and eventually the pull of being with family proved too strong to resist. Real job opportunities awaited in the new city, there were the family considerations, and ultimately it proved time to make a major life change. With These Words' farewell show took place at Reno's Chop Shop on November 20th. Reno's was a venue I'd always hated, this night being no exception, but it went without saying that I was going to be there. I left my camera gear at home, choosing to go this final time as just a fan and friend. Before the performance, I was coaxed into a photo with Jessi. I'm famously averse to being on the business end of a camera, but I let her have this one because she was on the cusp of moving over a thousand miles away. In the last days before the Golden siblings left town – with Jessi leaving, Justin was eventually to go, too – there was a big get-together at the home of Jake and his girlfriend Kassey to give them a send-off. And with that, another one of the "core" acts from my early days in the scene, and one whose dozens of performances had helped me learn my craft, was officially no more.
Life moved on. 2012 started off much as 2011 had ended, with a combination of open mic/singer-songwriter acts and a few heavier favorites making up the bulk of the performances I attended. Emmeline had begun hosting a weekly music open mic at the Crown and Harp (formerly the Cavern, now Leela's Wine Bar) on Lower Greenville Avenue. The interior was way too close and dark for any real photography, though I did try it anyway on one or two occasions. Better for me were the "official" shows occasionally held there, such as the ones featuring Justin Dyer, another Lost Art alumnus and all around great guy. He was always one of the most supportive of other performers and artists in both the music and spoken word scenes. I was also reintroduced to Felix Flores, a great Spanish guitarist and singer who had once worked at Wolf Camera way back in the day when I used to take my film there. Felix was one of a rapidly diminishing number of actual photographers with real photographic knowledge to work in those types of places. By 2012, with the complete dominance of digital cameras having been established outside of the medium and large format niches, individuals in consumer-level photography stores with practical film experience were a rapidly dying breed. Today that breed is extinct outside of a handful of dedicated photo shops run by enthusiasts. Felix the Spanish guitar player looked a lot different from what I remembered of him at Wolf Camera – better, in my opinion – and certainly more appropriate for his flamenco/jazz/folk fusion music style.
At one of Emmeline's Crown & Harp open mics, I made the acquaintance of another keyboardist and singer, Ellen Hinton, aka Ellen Once Again. Like Emmeline, she had begun making the rounds of various coffee shops and open mic venues. Unlike Emmeline, in fact unlike nearly all the other musical artists on whom I had trained my lens up until that point, Ellen's style was rooted firmly in old-school R&B and soul. In 2011 she had struck viral gold with her cover of Bruno Mars' "Marry You," which she recorded on an iPad and uploaded to YouTube to the acclaim of over 150,000 views. Ellen's and my paths would cross several times over the years, at open mics and outdoor festivals, and once at the Liquid Lounge with her making up one-third of a powerhouse bill which featured fellow keyboard warriors Emmeline and Micha Goolsby. I think my best photos of Ellen came from the Mochalux Coffee House, but I was honestly never satisfied with anything I ever got of her. More importantly for posterity, I conducted two interviews with Ellen for my website. They presented me with a golden opportunity to capture an extremely promising singer-songwriter near the dawn of her success. These days Ellen is more focused on her family and professional music pursuits, and only performs live occasionally. It's always a treat to see her.
In February, Emmeline played a set at the Hard Rock Cafe. To me, the Hard Rock had always been more of a legend than an actual destination, a name and logo I'd seen plastered onto cups and handbills forever but had never actually visited. The first part of the night's entertainment was a standard Emmeline set, with frustratingly difficult backlighting coming from behind the stage, but it was the group who followed her that really caught my attention. It was a five-piece outfit with a petite female singer and a melodically hard rock sound. The group's name was Nevermind the Darkness, and they were an unlikely choice to follow a pop keyboard solo act. I don't remember exactly how the singer Trica Grinolds and I got to talking, but I do remember her drunkenly insisting on getting a picture with me. The picture would go on to mysteriously vanish after the night it was taken – Trica always claimed she couldn't find it, but I admit to having always viewed that claim with a healthy dose of suspicion. In the slightly distant future, Nevermind the Darkness would become a fixture in my local photography canon, being among the final additions to my pantheon of "staple" bands. In the meantime, though, there were a number of notable shows worth mentioning.
Way back in 2007, during a show at Tomcats early into my band photography career, I got to talking with a young woman named Cherina. Cherina was tasked with booking talent for the Tomcats' live shows, and I believe I gave her one of my very first business cards. Not long after our conversation, she disappeared. I would later learn that she had been fired by the management for (according to her) insisting that a band the owner didn't want to pay get paid. The talent got their money, and Cherina got terminated. Late one night in 2012, while on my computer burning the midnight oil, I happened to find her online via Facebook Messenger and we got to talking. What had she been up to over the last few years? It turned out that she was still in the business of booking shows... or, more accurately, trying to book them. None of the venues would return her calls, and her husband's new band Chemical Fingerprint couldn't get a foot in the door, into any door. It seemed that whatever goodwill Cherina may have had in earlier days had been burned away. I suggested she reach out to Brian "Torch" Idell, a local promoter responsible for a series of metal compilation CD-Rs and who regularly booked shows at Reno's (he had been responsible for booking the final With These Words show on short notice). That did the trick, and before long Chemical Fingerprint had a confirmed gig for April 6th. I made sure to turn up for it and to take some pictures. Overall, it was a small gesture in the grand scheme of things, but it felt good to be able to give something back to another small cog in the wheels of the local music scene. I don't know what ultimately became of Mrs. and Mr. Cherina, but I wish them the best.
Not long after the Chemical Fingerprint appearance, I found myself at Dunn Bros. Coffee in Addison. Emmeline was having a special birthday/CD release show, a low-key event attended mostly by the usual crew of regular fans and friends. Dunn Bros. would, many years later, become a regular destination for my coffee and conversation meetup group, but this was one of my earliest times on the inside. By this time, I knew most of Emm's live material by heart. In the not too distant future, I would delight in requesting songs that were infrequently played and less well-practiced, but at this point I was decidedly less mischievous on the nights I attended. I took my usual set of performance photos, this time over coffee, and my below-the-radar cover was blown when Emmeline announced to the assembled audience that I was the one responsible for the night's CD release. The disc comprised a collection of tunes I had recorded at the Lost Art Open Mic, where Emmeline was a semi-regular performer, and selections from a later night I recorded at Cafe du Luxe in December 2011. I had been honored to find my name included in the list of thank yous for her last two EPs, Early Morning Hours (2010) and Someone to Be (2011), which were professionally recorded and manufactured releases. Now, recordings I had personally made of her were also being deemed worthy of release status. It was a bit surreal. At the end of the Dunn Bros. set, everyone adjourned to the sidewalk outside for a round of cake and sodas. As far as I know, the CD-Rs from that night represent the only physical release of that collection in any form. Its online counterpart came to be known as Ramblings & Rarities, and as of this writing it remains available via Bandcamp through a "pay what you want" model.
One of the most controversial acts I ever photographed was Kurtz Frausun, the former drummer of Wolfcult Choir. Following the dissolution of that band, Kurtz had gone out on his own with a string of experimental art projects and electronic music albums. His live shows were fetish fests heavily steeped in themes of BDSM and gothic horror. He took pride in being banned from an ever-lengthening list of venues following his (often sparsely attended) performances. These performances did not feature live music; rather, they generally featured Kurtz standing at a laptop shuffling through prerecorded selections from his electronic catalog, accompanied by acts of self-mutilation, pantomimed sex acts, simulated crucifixion, and fetish-related paraphernalia such as gas masks and Nazi SS-style headgear. Honestly, I never cared for any of this. Maybe I just wasn't sophisticated or pretentious enough to fully "appreciate" whatever it was that Kurtz was trying to do. I've always wanted to support creative people as long as they're not arrogant or insufferable, but the motifs characterizing Kurtz's work were either too "avant garde" for me or just went over my head. To this day Kurtz remains one of the only acts I've ever seen clear out a venue. At one time I had a photo gallery up featuring scenes from two Frausun performances, and it was the only material on this site to ever be preceded with a content advisory.
Kurtz was usually showcased along with actual musical acts, and the most memorable time I ever saw a Frausun "performance" was at O'Riley's in June of 2012. Kurtz had told me beforehand that he needed access to a video camera, and I offered up the miniDV camera I'd used for the last half of the Lost Art Open Mic's run. At this point I had no idea what was planned for the show. Kurtz's hired assistant bailed on him last minute (maybe she'd gotten wind of what was expected?), and he drafted the singer of the band preceding him as a fill-in. I don't think she knew in advance the full extent of what she was in for, and I definitely don't think it was a good idea for her to agree to it given what she said to me after the show. I set up my video camera, and what I ended up committing to tape was an off the wall demonstration of impropriety featuring the singer topless and covered in paint with her wrists tied crucifixion-style with rope. Looking back at the O'Riley's gig, I'm amazed that the performance was allowed to continue through to completion without being stopped by management. I feel bad for the singer drafted into the role of the crucified, since she later admitted to using the coping mechanism of mentally detaching herself from her surroundings in order to make it through the set. I think some kind of ruckus was made afterward, which may be what led Kurtz to blur her face when he later used the video footage.
Out of consideration for the singer, I'm not naming her or her band here. I will say that I subsequently suppressed the original, uncensored video recording of that show and will ensure that at least the physical tape (and the photos of the event, which I've never published) never sees the light of day. While I believe that consenting adults should have the right to do as they will with each other, I don't feel entirely comfortable with the circumstances surrounding this particular performance. And after a grand total of three Kurtz Frausun shows, all of them in 2012, I came to the conclusion that I needed to seek satisfaction of my live performance cravings elsewhere. Supporting artists is important, but I'd run up against my personal red line as far as what offended my sense of good taste, and it was time to regroup.
It was sometime in the latter half of the year – August, if memory serves – that I again ran into Eric, the drummer for Nevermind the Darkness. He had come to a Mochalux open mic night where Emmeline was playing, Mochalux being a setting where I was not used to seeing people from my "other" arts scene make an appearance. After the open mic wrapped, four of us (Eric, Emmeline, and I plus one of the other Mochalux regulars) adjourned to a nearby BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse. When the girls went to the restroom, Eric leaned in close and confided that he intended to make a play for Emmeline. I tried to dissuade him: Seriously dude, no. It'll end badly, and she'll end up writing a song about you. I'd seen it happen before. I didn't think he could handle Emmeline. But like all ardent, admiring boys who find themselves smitten with a girl, Eric insisted it would be different for him. I couldn't fault his eagerness, I just thought he was headed for trouble. Emmeline was talented, musically ambitious, supremely intelligent, and, yes, very attractive. But she could also be tough as nails and very much no nonsense, and I didn't think Eric could deal with those aspects of her personality. And in the end, I was right, as his failure to close the deal became the subject of many a good-natured reminiscence later on. I remember Eric recounting the story of me warning him almost a year later inside Deep Ellum's Boiler Room. He repeated my admonition almost to a tee, right up to and especially including the "... and she'll write a song about you" part. I don't know that she ever did, and as far as I know, they never went out a single time. At least Eric was very affable about it. And he admitted that I was right, which is always an ego boost.
What made a greater difference in the long run, however, was the fact that Eric had reintroduced himself – and in so doing, his band – to me. It had been over five months since the night at the Hard Rock, and our renewed acquaintance inspired me to attend a Nevermind the Darkness show in the first weeks of January 2013. But before that, I made another reacquaintance, one which would end up lasting all the way to the end of my time in the scene. The acquaintance in question was Andrea Larue, aka Roxi, frontwoman for a band called Silver Loves Mercury. My history with Andrea was an interesting one. Our paths had crossed before; I first saw SLM perform during my Skillman Street Pub days, and I once bought a CD from Roxi in an interaction that she does not remember to this day (she was very, very drunk that night). But my Silver Loves Mercury story actually goes back even farther than that.
In 2008, I'd ducked into the Liquid Lounge between sets at Curtain and stumbled upon a pop-punk band with a female singer. For those who don't remember, or who were never part of the local scene prior to July 2019, Curtain and Liquid were essentially one large venue that was partitioned into two, with the Liquid Lounge having a far, far smaller stage, audience area, and bar, and playing host to more low-key acts compared to the big stage and huge standing-room-only area at Curtain. The two were connected on the upstairs level via a door, though this area was rarely opened for the Curtain Club. Generally speaking, if you had a stamp on your hand from one venue, you could get into the other. The punk band that was playing on this particular night was a group called Kittyviolet. They had songs that were direct and straight to the point, with no dillydallying about making you wait for the build up and crescendo to hit. It was punk the way punk should be played, just minus the working-class ethos and with an aggressive dose of pop thrown in (and, thankfully, no reggae or ska rhythms incorporated). In other words, Kittyviolet was a bit like a sharper-edged With These Words but with much simpler song structures, a lot more poppiness, and minus the lyrical depth. Months later, I encountered the band again, this time on the Curtain main stage, and got to speaking with the singer. Her stage name – perhaps her real name too, though I never verified it – was Scarlett. Kittyviolet's guitarist often dressed in godawful drag clothing and makeup (some people can pull off that look, some can't, and he definitely couldn't). His name, I would learn much later, was J.T. "Kitty" Longoria, a producer and engineer who's worked with Izzy Stradlin, King Diamond, and Volbeat.
I was fresh out of legitimate business cards, so I wrote my name and website on one of those perforated Avery card sheets intended for computer printers, and gave one of them to Scarlett. She remembered me at the next performance I caught, by which time I had resupplied myself with actual business cards, and things seemed cool between us. Then one night, months later, I walked into a venue and found this band playing Kittyviolet songs, but... who was this new person on vocals? The rest of the band seemed the same: the guitarist was still there, and the rhythm section seemed pretty well established, but what happened to Scarlett? Who was this imposter singing her lyrics? It turned out that this semi-new act was going by the name of Silver Loves Mercury, and yes, it was indeed a kind of Kittyviolet redux, but with some newer material thrown into the mix. In time, that "imposter" singer would become a friend and one of the last of my collaborators in the scene, but in those early days I more often saw her gallivanting around the Skillman Street Pub's stage, sometimes singing through a megaphone, very often drunk or on her way to getting there. With the closure of the Pub and the narrowing of my musical interests, I didn't see SLM play for over two and a half years. Then one August night at La Grange in Deep Ellum, they played on a double bill with the Razorblade Dolls. It took a minute for me to recognize them, and the singer had grown out previously short hair to past shoulder length. It was a good look for her, and Kitty had thankfully ditched the drag look for something a bit more personally fitting. That night served as my reintroduction to the band, and over the next few years I got to know Roxi and J.T., but mostly Roxi, quite a bit better. I didn't bother with the rhythm section, as Silver Loves Mercury couldn't hold a bassist or drummer to save their lives.
Overall, 2012 proved to be fairly unremarkable from a photographic standpoint. There were some energetic Ten Can Riot and RivetHead shows, as well as performances from the Razorblade Dolls, quite a few singer-songwriter sets, and a few outliers like the Frausun gigs. A performance by chamber pop/folk group Home by Hovercraft at Deep Ellum's Free Man Cajun Cafe & Lounge introduced me to Irish step dancing for the first time, and I've been a fan of the style ever since. Late in the year I discovered Denton-based heavy blues rock group The Virgin Wolves, who drew me in with their catchy hooks and spirited, attention-grabbing singer. I turned up for a fair number of Thin White Dukes and Le Cure cover sets at places like Lee Harvey's and Club Dada. And at one point Jessi Golden even came back to town for a visit and joined Ten Can Riot onstage at the Arcade Bar. But deep down, I was really beginning to feel that my photography was becoming increasingly stagnant, more and more routine and uninspired, and, if I'm being completely honest, boring. Coffee houses and pubs in particular just didn't traffic in the same kind of palpable, electric energy as larger club shows with their full bands and sound systems. As I had in 2011, I closed out 2012 with an Emmeline coffee shop performance, and I looked ahead to the new year.
Nevermind the Darkness played their first show of 2013 at Trees. Trees had weathered four years as a shuttered venue before Clint and Whitney Barlow succeeded in reopening it in August 2009. Since the reopening, Trees had reestablished itself as one of Deep Ellum's premier venues for both local and out of town talent. A large number of "bigger name" acts passing through Dallas would play Trees, though perhaps not quite as prestigious as some known to have played the venue during the 1990s. At this point, I still wasn't encountering resistance when taking a camera inside for local shows, and I caught some pretty decent photos of NTD while they were onstage. Of course, there were also plenty of occasions where I missed the mark, having misjudged the settings needed for particular shots, something that often happened when shooting a live performance using full manual mode. Full manual mode forces you to be at the top of your game, for the most part, but that wasn't why I used it. It wasn't about being prideful, it was about getting the best shots: setting the camera to Program Auto usually gave me photos that were horribly washed out due to too wide an aperture, or way too blurry owing to too long a shutter speed.
My approach differed from that of the other non-professional photographers making the rounds of local shows. In 2008, when I bought the DSLR I was using at the time, the technology hadn't quite advanced enough to get great results at very high ISO settings, at least not at a semi-pro's price point. Some photographers chose to push their camera ISOs to the breaking point to get shots, and the results as published on Facebook told the story of not having enough dexterity with the settings to get the most satisfactory results. Most of these photographers had little to no experience shooting in manual mode and relied on Program Auto to get through their shows, boosting the ISO to the max to deal with the light problems. I saw more than a few extremely grainy, artificially brightened, over-sharpened images posted online that I personally would never have put my name on. Of course, shooting with a flash was an option, but that could damage or destroy any stage lighting as captured in the images. That's not to say using one was always a bad choice – there were plenty of times I used a flash at the Skillman Street Pub and even at the Liquid Lounge, among other venues. In general, though, I tried to avoid using one for color photography at larger venues like Trees due to the presence of colored smoke, spotlights, and the various other lighting effects often employed. I relied on experience and judgement to dial in settings manually, which often meant failing to nail a shot due to having made the wrong decisions in the moment.
Over the months following the NTD show, I went on to shoot other performances at Trees by Silver Loves Mercury, the Razorblade Dolls, and RivetHead, all with no problems from the venue. My "roster" of acts had been strategically narrowed to a handful of regulars I followed, interspersed with the occasional performances from others. Among the regulars were the aforementioned stalwarts from the Trees shows, Kin of Ettins, Emmeline, and Chase Ditto's latest project, a new metal outfit going by the name of Storm the Sun. After parting company with Fallen South, Chase had joined up with a new crew of musicians to form Embrace the Embers, playing a number of shows around the Dallas and Denton county areas from 2009 through 2011. The band underwent a couple of lineup changes, with WTW's Justin Golden featuring on bass at one point, before ultimately dissolving and giving birth to Storm the Sun from its ashes. Forming the nucleus of the new project, at least as I saw it, were Chase and ETE guitarist Greg Adams (who, as a side note, would officiate Chase's wedding to his fiancée Vivi a year later). My first time seeing Storm the Sun was inside an old warehouse building, eponymously located at 406 S. Haskell in Old East Dallas. The show also featured Kin of Ettins and Splattafish, a female-fronted cookie monster metal band I'd last seen at the Skillman Street Pub all the way back in 2008. I was very surprised to find them still a going concern five years later. It was a overall a good show for me, and I was pretty happy with the photos from it.
As I'd come to expect from a Chase Ditto project, the musicianship on display with Storm the Sun was top-tier. Chase was an excellent "scream" vocalist, but when he wanted to he could also sing. This switching it up between the two styles had been a hallmark of his earlier work in Mourning Fury and most of his other projects save for Fallen South, where he had stepped into the shoes of a previous vocalist. I admit that I never liked any of these later outings as much as I had liked Mourning Fury. The later groups of performers were arguably better and more accomplished with their instrumentation and arrangements, but at the end of the day my highest esteem always remained firmly with the band I saw at the Galaxy Club all the way back in February 2007. Storm the Sun carried on until 2015, releasing one physical EP (So Long the Deep End Awaits) in 2013 and a second, download-only release in 2015. Unfortunately, there was never a CD release show for Return from Dust, as by that time the project had come to an end.
Nevermind the Darkness's Dallas CD release show was held on May 8th, 2013 at the Curtain Club. I missed that show because I was in New England, having driven down from Toronto that afternoon while on my annual road trip. I instead attended the April 5th Fort Worth CD release show at the Rail Club. The Rail Club was one of the few venues with an accessible second story, an upper level which overlooked the stage area and one which, unlike the Curtain Club's upper level, was always open. I could go up there with my camera and a telephoto lens and get shots of the full stage and band. I had first done this four months earlier with Silver Loves Mercury, and I was looking forward to doing it again with NTD. The Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth was one of the only other large venues where full stage photos were possible, though in that case it was due to the sheer capacity of the audience section and the ability to set up farther back from the stage – the Ridglea had once been a legitimate theater, after all. While I had once loved the Ridglea, by this point I hadn't been to a single performance there in nearly three years and would not return until March 2019, long after my concert photography days were behind me. The drive was too long and the artists I might have been willing to make that drive for weren't playing there. Ironically, the drive to the Rail Club was actually worse, but the venue was quickly becoming a mainstay of the west side metal scene and groups I cared about were beginning to book shows there. One of those groups was Nevermind the Darkness, so off to the west side I went.
I don't remember the CD release show being especially incendiary, but there were definitely fireworks backstage following the end of the set. As confided to me later by Eric, long-simmering disagreements between guitarist John David Smith and the rest of the band boiled over into open conflict, leading to John being fired... on the CD release night, no less! From that point forward, Nevermind the Darkness continued as a four piece. I honestly didn't notice much of a difference when it came to my personal interactions with the band. The main people I spoke to were Eric, Trica, and Ben, their bassist and a bit of a musical butterfly with his multiple other concurrent bands. The only real interaction I ever had with John was about a week after the Rail show, when he'd reached out to me on Facebook with a friend request, which I had accepted figuring, why not? I had added other musicians from bands I followed before. Unfortunately, immediately after I accepted his request, he hit me up with a play for photos of the band, something which didn't sit too well with me. While there was always some degree of "business" conducted via my presence on Facebook, largely in the manner of being tagged in photos, I segregated most of the promotional end of things onto a separate PAO Productions page and kept it largely away from my personal profile. The long arm of promotion is what eventually led me to change the main photo on my personal Facebook profile to a fuzzy Weeple image instead of my actual photograph.
For much of 2013, Nevermind the Darkness was one of the main bands I worked with. As was the case with all the others save (arguably) for Reverent, this was never in any "official" capacity. I didn't take promotional photos or create flyers or record video for them. Rather, the relationship was one of mutual respect and appreciation. As with my other "staple" bands, I added several galleries of NTD photos to my website, which as that time was still primarily centered around promoting the local arts and music scenes. Trica (pronounced "Trisha," by the way) insisted on retaking our original photo together from the Hard Rock Cafe, this time while sober, and I received a copy of the new picture from her via Facebook. A series of photos I published of Eric behind the drum kit with his mouth open (but definitely in the moment) led to him making a conscious effort to keep his mouth closed during sets. Trica snatched my hat right off my head during a performance at Wit's End and proceeded to perform the entire set while wearing it herself. And I was introduced to the first of Ben's seemingly innumerable other acts, Junk, when they played a show with the Razorblade Dolls at the Rail Club. Overall, 2013 was a pretty good year for me with NTD, and save for the altercation with John, it seemed to be a fairly respectable year for them as a band, too.
Things didn't go so well for the Razorblade Dolls. By this time they had been soldiering on for a full seven years, having made a few lineup changes along the way but showing no indication of slowing down. Their self-titled, full length album had dropped in 2008 and was a musical and artistic success. For years, it had been par for the course to see their fans clad in t-shirts sporting severed pigs heads and the slogan "YOU BETTER RUN, MOTHERFUCKER!" splayed across the back. The Dolls were in fact the only one of my staple bands from my earliest days in the scene that was left standing. And then, near the end of 2013, singer Chris "Smitty" Smith abruptly decided to walk via an announcement on Facebook. I'm not privy to all the goings-on behind the scenes; suffice it to say that there was evidently some degree of tension or disagreement on the inside that decided Smitty on taking his leave. The news hit the scene like a thunderclap, and the other band members clearly weren't happy about it, especially given the announcement's appearance on Facebook without any prior notice. I distinctly remember Rah firing back that it was "nice of you to let your bandmates know first," or something to that effect. Needless to say, the fallout from Smitty's move hung heavily in the air during subsequent, previously booked shows at the Rail Club and Trees, and the vibe onstage was tense. Further complicating things the night at Trees was the fact that Chris had had a change of heart, and had publicly reversed course on his decision to quit. But the band dynamic had soured, and the Dolls would not play another show together for six months. There was no official break up, but things went mostly on hiatus for a long time afterward. The original core of the band, however, was already in the midst of a new project, one which would displace the Dolls for most of the next three years.
Some weeks earlier, I had been invited out to the Razorblade Dollhouse in Forney to witness Skar's and Rah's new musical project. Designed in Kaos, soon styled as D.I.K (pronounced "Dick") on official merchandise, was an industrial metal project conceived in a similar vein to the Razorblade Dolls, but with a heavier emphasis on electronics and a different vocalist in the person of Josh Burleson. The drummer, "Kaven," had been the original drummer for the Dolls and had also been a part of its progenitor project, Trend Kill Clinic. Both Josh and Kaven were associates of long acquaintance for Skar. DIK's first performance in front of an audience was a private one, held in the Dolls' rehearsal space behind Skar's and Rah's house. What I and the others heard that night sounded great – fresh and electrifying, with an energy to it that I hadn't felt from the Dolls in quite a while despite having seen them play dozens of performances. As much as Smitty was a charismatic and commanding showman, he honestly wasn't always the best singer I'd ever heard in a live setting; Josh's voice, on the other hand, was a good fit for the material, straightforward and confident and very well-suited to the style. Some Dolls shows had been fantastic; others, not so much. But with DIK there was a lot of promise, and I was eager to see them in a legitimate live setting as soon as possible.
DIK's inaugural live show was on January 18th, 2014. As expected, the band was great, and I added a write-up of the show to my since-removed "News and Updates" page that Rah shared on Facebook. The future of the new project seemed promising, and I had a renewed sense of excitement for DIK compared to what I'd had for the Razorblade Dolls. Let's be honest, I still loved the Dolls, but they hadn't had any new material in years, while DIK was fresh and new and exhilarating. They would soon sell t-shirts which, though perhaps not as eye-catching as the RBD ones from five or six years earlier, were nonetheless a bit eye-popping in their own right. Skar would later admit to me that the new design had been a miscalculation, as most male fans were unwilling to wear shirts that proudly proclaimed "I [heart] D.I.K." The only male I remember seeing in one was Rah's dad during one of his visits to Texas. I myself never bought one; by this point I had stopped buying pretty much all band merch outside of CDs.
As 2013 drew to a close and 2014 began, I found myself in a different place compared to where I had been in the days following Lost Art's demise. The past two years had been a return to form for me as far as my concert-going and show photography were concerned, with heavier shows having swung aggressively back to the forefront in a trend that would continue for the remainder of my time in the music scene. The acoustic and intimate, singer-songwriter nights became far fewer in number and took a permanent back seat to metal and punk-oriented experiences. The acts playing these latter two subgenres of music were precisely the type from which I was more likely to encounter resistance to serious cross-promotion, not to mention less of an effort to recognize the work of photographers trying to make them look good. Narrowing my focus to a set of regular acts and relationships had helped mitigate this problem to a significant degree, but with my increasingly waning enthusiasm this had only forestalled the inevitable, not derailed it altogether. Eventually, it would be time to hang it up and move on. Just not quite yet.
TO BE CONCLUDED. . .