iheartcomix Showcase at Beauty Bar

Thursday in Austin was a looong one. I shot the Carniville and then headed over to Beauty Bar for the iheartcomix showcase, which went til 2am and included artsits such as The Very Best, The Toxic Avenger, Men, Acid Girls, Juiceboxxx, Hollywood Holt, Ninjasonik and a bunch more. There was also a rad appearance from Bill Murray, who stuck around to watch Hollywood Holt and Ninjasoik before being mobbed by the crowd for photos and autographs. I held back and gave the dude his space. I guess I'm not cut out for the TMZ world we live in.

Click here to see all the photos from the iheartcomix showcase at Beauty Bar at SXSW...

Texas Nightclub (IHEARTCOMIX)

Day 2 of my time in Austin sent me to the outskirts of downtown and an old Salvation Army in the middle of a strip mall. A stage and speakers were added along with a bar and plenty of free alcohol. Well, enough to last until about 3am, at least. This was the first of two parties at this location and this night was curated by iheartcomix and Jelly. Things got pretty out of control for a good portion of the night, esp when The Toxic Avenger and was playing and Ninjasonik got crazy and started a small riot in the crowd. Click any of the thumbs below to see the entire gallery!

Vessel, SF : iheartcomix tour stop #14

We rolled into SF and I immediately remembered how much I love shooting 35mm on the streets of downtown San Fran!  Seriously, there are sooo many crazy interesting people and scenes going on. I'd been lugging my Nikon FM2 along with me the whole trip but hardly even used it until we got to the last freaking city.  Oh well.

Franki, Toxic & I headed out to eat at some delicious Indian joint near the hotel. Fernanda, mi amiga nueva, came out and met up with us and then we went out looking for adventure.  There was a nerd gathering of about 200 kids outside the Game Stop.  They were all waiting for the new WoW to come out I guess.  We went and tired to go ice skating but had no luck so went back to the hotel for "wine hour."  Some cute fresh-off-the-boat Japanese woman served us with a smile while annoying older white dudes hit on her non-stop.  Finally after a few hours of surfing YouTube for French hip hop videos, we headed to Vessel for the show.

The show was mostly fun albeit a little slow.  Sleazemore opened up and it was good to see him and the gang again.  A small group of us headed back to the hotel to have some more fun and the dude at the door pleaded with us that they had a strict no party policy.  Ok Ok, we say.  We got away with our little gathering for at least 30 minutes until the dude came up and broke it up.  And that was that.  Simon had to wake up at like 6am to catch his flight back to Paris and luckily we called for a wake up call because I don't think my alarm even went off.  Au revoir!  C'est la vie!

Click below to see all the photos from San Francisco, the last stop on the iheartcomix tour!

Dance at Arena, LA : iheartcomix tour stop #13

Our second to last stop on the tour was in Los Angeles at Dance. I hadn't been to LA in something like a year so it was good to get back and hang with Paparazzi & co. for a while.  The club is pretty nutty.  It's a weekly party that draws like a thousand kids or something crazy like that. Everyone is super young and there was a huge line to get in and everyone had to go thru metal detectors.  I think there must've been like 20 people at the bar all night, which leads me to believe the over-21/under-21 ratio is about 100:1.

Youngness aside, the party was rockin and high energy.  Cesar has a fun party going on. I even stage dove a few times for old time's sake.  It was pretty much crazy.

Click below for the entire gallery!

Fun Fun Fun Fest, Austin : iheartcomix tour stop #12

We headed into Austin after a killer night in Atlanta. Going in, I was excited to get to see some of the other acts who were scheduled to play the fest. Little did I know, it was a two-day fest and we wouldn't get there til later in the day so that pretty much ruled out the chance to watch most of the acts. We got picked up at the airport and dropped off at the fest grounds, along with Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah.  Upon arrival everyone kept asking us if we were Islands, as apparently they were supposed to go on shortly and were sort of missing. I saw a band get into a cab at the airport and figured it was them.  I wanted to say hi to Patrick of Islands so I was a little bummed we didn't run into them.

I did run into Annie Ray of Austin nightlife fame, though. She was shooting portraits with her t/s lens which I am super jealous of and want to get for myself.  She was cool and I was bummed we didn't get to chat more after I was done shooting our set.

I also ran into Dylan who I had just met a few days prior in Oklahoma City.  We talked for a while about life and rock and parties and fests and modding megaphones and building hovercrafts.  Haha, he's a crazy dude!

Toxic & Franki put on perhaps the best set of the entire tour at the fest.  They had a great 2-hour slot that spanned daylight and night.  They tagged back and forth each 30-minutes and by the end had aquired a substantial crowd that, on a few occasions stormed the stage to start a dance party up top.

After the DJ madness we got some free fest drinks and headed over to Minus the Bear, followed by the hilarious Tim & Eric.  I wish I had more energy but alas, the tour was taking its toll.  Simon & I walked thru downtown looking for food and settled on Wendy's.  I accidentaly spilled my chicken nuggets on the ground and then we left and debated stopping into Beauty Bar on the way home but opted out.

Click below to see all the photos!

Sloppy Construction

Vagabonds

Toxic Adventure

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