Last week I mustered up the strength to get out and see a show at El Cid. Noah Tabakin aka. Ssssnake told me he was going to play with a full band for the first time so I had to go see it. As luck would have it, Kaitlyn the violinist from Seasons was also playing that night in her other band Lady Low. My band had played with both of them multiple times before, so it was like a friends of Beta Lion show.
I missed the first band altogether (Nightjacket), but made it just in time to catch Lady Low's set. Great stuff. Very cool and moody baritone singing and maybe kinda surfy/rockabilly guitars backed up by a pretty full on orchestra. I was so into it, I didn't really take very many pictures.
Ssssnake delivered as always. I've always thought of Noah as maybe the best live performer I've ever seen. Blending comedy, dance, jazz, high brow art, group exercise, crowd participation, and legitimate MC skills, Ssssnake in the words of Mr. Miyagi, "If do right, NO CAN DEFENSE." I was a little bit skeptical when he told me he was playing with a full band. Whenver I'd seen him before, it was just him, his laptop, his saxophone, and a mic. I wasn't concerned that his new band members would be able to musically pull it off, but would they get it? It's a tough act to blend into. They got it. They were awesome, and maybe even better than the solo version.
Ultra Violent Rays had a really cool setup! Laptop playback sync'd up to some of their lighting. Drums and distorted bass. Pretty much everything a boy my age, weight, and zodiac sign could want. I wish I could have stayed for their entire set, but it was a school night and I had to hop into my Uber home before it became an Uber Pumpkin.
Because every time I shoot is an experiment, this time I played around with much slower shutter speeds than I would normally use. The kids from Ssssnake are a particularly fast moving subject, so sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Some of the photos reminded me of old punk rock photos where the faces are blurry from very fast head shakes (not to be confused with head banging).
Click here or on the photos to see the entire album in all of its overly compressed Facebook glory.
