Plinth had their third gig last night but the lights were so low most of my photos were shit. Plinth weren’t shit though. They were storming, more than making up for the second gig nerves last month. There’s now talk of publicity and the need to build up an audience that isn’t composed of friends and co-workers so I guess another pro bono website is in the works. Next gig is November 4th. Spread the word.
This one came out fairly okay, but I do need to figure out a way of taking decent low-light shots. Might be time to invest in a pocket tripod.
Support was from Issue 22 who were good and fun and the astonishing, though not necessarily in a good way, Raiders of Rock n’ Roll who did a kind of 80′s hair metal thing without a trace of irony. I was grinning like a tit as the incredibly nerdy lead singer swung his mike stand during a climax and I’m still not sure if I was laughing at them or not. It was kinda refreshing in some strange way. Goodwin was horrified at the clip-art sexy lady on the flyer (see their site) but I like it. They’re playing again at the Firkin on October 28th. You never know…
During the gig I was thinking how I only seem to go to gigs of bands I already know and how this isn’t the best way to discover new bands, and I had an incredibly stupid idea. Once my tax refund finally comes through I’m going to spend two weeks going to every single gig at the Jug of Ale in Moseley (mainly because it’s my nearest gig venue) and when there isn’t a gig on there go to one somewhere else where I don’t know the bands. 14 gigs in 14 days. And every night I shall write up my experience is as much detail as possible. I’m tentatively calling this project “Going Deaf for a Fortnight”. I bellowed the idea in Tom’s ear and he grinned with approval, and now I’ve written it here so it will happen. God help me.
Ooh yes, confirmation appeared in flyer form of Jeffrey Lewis‘s next Birmingham gig, at said Jug on Friday November 11th with fellow US anti-folk noiseters Schwervon (mp3s) in support. I will be there come hell or high water.
Finally a reminder that I’ll be at Una Corda‘s gig on October 7th at the Jug for flat-mate related post-rock action.
The Jug for 14 nights and a write up for each one? Ann (the landlady) might give you beer for that. Might. Always worth asking. Who’s the promoter these days? Arthur something? Always seems very unhappy, like his cat just died.
On the low light shots? See if you can find the manual settings on your camera and get the widest aperture you can, for the slowest shutter speed and work down from there. f2 or less at 60th of a second, or something like that. The other thing to try is to set the timer and put the camera down on the bar or a ledge somewhere, that’d be easier than a tripod in there.
Having said all that, this shot is great. Be useful to look up the exif data and just replicate that. A bit of motion blur is great, a lot of motion blur is even better. :)
These people seem to know their stuff:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/live-music/discuss/42044/
I’m still looking for a rock buddy to come with me to see Dio on the 21st.
Oh wait, you said *new* bands …
“See if you can find the manual settings on your camera”
Ha! You obviously haven’t seen my camera!
The original for that shot was pretty much a dark red blur – the rest is intensive photoshopping. I’d like to make the photoshopping less intensive. Plans are in motion which I shall write about as and when…
Ooh, I look forward to that.
I’m practising with elderly russian fillum cameras at the moment. You can get them for nothing, just about. There was one on freecycle a couple of weeks ago, and I got another body for a fiver. The quality is pretty amazing, and you can get the film developed onto a CD for about a £5 for a roll of 36. Best fun I’ve had in ages. And at that money, that’s a fair few 36s before you get to a half-decent digital.