StreetPortraits: Comicpalooza Edition

If StreetPortraits was a movie, I’d say it’s a genre film. It’s not a subtle adult drama. It’s more cops and robbers than Kramer vs. Kramer. We’ve become interested in heightened reality, interested in sub-groups, and interested in the activities that tend to inspire these large group gatherings…

After dinner with friends the other night, Anne and I pulled out of the parking lot of the restaurant and saw an enormous group of people on bikes, taking up every available inch of sidewalk and parking lot, even spilling out into the street. Hundreds and hundreds of people creating a huge swarming mess in the middle of the road. Cars were diverting, obviously irritated. I’m sure the cops were called. But, for some reason, instead of heading a different direction, I headed straight for the beehive. I drove slowly past them, windows down, trying to figure out why in the world they all were there. Anne started laughing at me. “You’re such a mob person…” I started laughing. I totally am. There aren’t more interesting places to ask “why” than the middle of a huge group of like-minded people.

Maybe that’s the best way to describe the iteration of StreetPortraits that’s emerging: We’re mob people.  

A few days ago, while scouting for a SerialBox session, I stumbled upon some fliers for Comicpalooza, an annual comic book convention here in Houston. I noticed the dates and times and put it in the back of my mind. Could be cool, but it’s in the largest convention center here in a town and access to those kinds of events can be tough. 

Cody and I decided it’d be dumb not to try. So we loaded up a cart full of gear and headed out Saturday night to try and catch people in the interchange between a costume contest and the all-night Steam Punk Ball. We figured, best case, we end up outside the main entrance, catching people heading into and out of the convention center. When we got there, there wasn’t much traffic in and out. We decided to head upstairs and see how close we could get. 

A few business cards and phone calls with the festival director and security coordinator later, we were set-up in the lobby between the contest and ballroom, on the fourth floor of the convention center. Lights up, cameras out, and we were off. 

This was by far my favorite session we’ve undertaken. The people were extremely generous and playful and willing to stop for portraits. Just because people have come dressed in costumes doesn’t mean that they are up for strangers making portraits. We had quite a few people turn us down. The ones who stopped though were having a blast. The most frequent question? “Should I pose as myself, or my character?” 

Our answer: “Both, please.” 

What a great night. 

A few images:

A big thanks to Comicpalooza for allowing us such great access to their convention. We had a great time and loved getting a peak behind the curtain of such an interesting event that attracts such a fascinating group of people…

An Evening with Arcade Fire… [an addendum]

The beauty of Arcade Fire’s music in particular (and of art in general), is that often the collateral damage of creating something truthful and honest is that it connects with people across all kinds of demographic and situational lines. A highschooler trapped in the suburbs hears one thing, a near-father living in the middle of the city hears another. Yet, both are mysteriously true.

Now, obviously my experience with their music is filtered through the eyes of someone struggling with the sprawl of adulthood. I don’t want growing up to mean the murder of mystery in service of security. Naturally, I respond to the layers in the songs dealing with these same things. That is the specific why that comforts me in the “it’s going to be alright” that comes through in the music… 

So that being said, if my previous post about my evening with Arcade Fire was the 30 year old yin, then perhaps this post is the teenaged yang…

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It’d been a long evening and the after party was wrapping up sometime after 1am. Joey and I walked out with Win to head back towards the buses. We turned out of the gate to head down the alleyway and three girls immediately popped up off the curb. They’d clearly been sitting there for quite some time. They cautiously approached and asked Win to sign a set-list they’d managed to get a copy of. They could barely contain their nervous energy. I assumed Win would be polite, sign a few things, and move on. It was late and beyond playing a show, he’d been cornered by fans all night at the party. 

To my surprise, he stood and talked with the girls for nearly twenty minutes. They were gushy and excited and talked about how they can’t wait to get out of the suburbs, can’t wait to experience life “outside,” and how much the music made them feel like they weren’t alone. Joey and I stood off to the side, politely out of earshot. I know that feeling, the wanting a moment to interact with the person who has made this thing that you connect so deeply with. I didn’t want to encroach on the moment.

I only caught whispers of the conversation, but beyond the stories and the chit-chat, I did hear Win encouraging them to not give up, that there is a wide world to explore, that soon they will get to make their own choices…  

In an evening of pretty poignant moments, this, to me, was one of the most meaningful. It’s easy for a band to play a show. To be charming and dynamic and create a moment on stage. I’m sure it’s tiring, that the road can be tedious, and the nights can be repetitive and long, but performing is what likely drew them into the profession in the first place. Nah, in my opinion, where the rubber meets the road is how a band interacts with fans in these little off-moments. It’s how they interact with the people who sit on a curb for hours just to tell you that your music makes them feel a little less alone. It’s what they say to the fans that drive all night and buy all your records and really connect with what you’re saying. Ostensibly the night was over for Win and the band. They could have nodded and smiled and autographed and moved on. But here were three young kids, fans, and Win stood with them telling stories, engaging.

Surely it was a special moment for them.

Win asked me to snap a quick photo for them. One of the girls handed me her camera and I took one quick shot as they were getting into place. Then one “official” pose-y one and we all parted ways. A few minutes later I said bye to Win and I was off. 

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Fast forward a couple days and I was neck deep in trying to put words to the evening. I posted this on twitter and ended up getting a response from someone I didn’t know. I navigated to her feed, figured out she had been at the show, and then noticed a reference to a story I had heard Win tell those three:

We exchanged email addresses and I shot her an email asking what it was like that night, why they waited for the band, and what it was like to get to tell a band that you love their music…

I’ll let Debora take it from here:

Where do I even begin?

My friend Kristin and I were left in total awe once the Arcade Fire show was over with. Even being 100 yards away from the band, you still felt part of what everyone closer to them felt. As someone on Twitter mentioned - An Arcade Fire show isn’t something you witness; it’s something you are a part of. And that’s exactly what that night was for me in particular. 

 As a teenager music is the only one thing that you’re completely sure of. It doesn’t judge you. It doesn’t ask questions. It just makes you glad that there are people out in the world that can share that one particular belief/feeling/emotion as you. Arcade Fire is what Nirvana was for teenagers 20 years ago. And I’m not talking about the exact type of music but how their music was so important that it shaped a generation. I’m really glad to be living right now in this moment. It’s nice to know that I’m living in a moment where an amazing band like Arcade Fire are universally connecting with kids all over the world. One specifically living in Houston, TX.

Interestingly, in the first email we exchanged, Debora attached the photo I snapped with her camera, along with this note:

Oh and on another note were you the photographer that took the photo of all 3 of us with Win??? If so I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. There’s a photo attached to this email, and you captured the best moment known to history. Thank You.

I think it might be one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken, if only for how much it means to them…

An Evening with Arcade Fire

Confession: I haven’t, up to this point, been a huge Arcade Fire fan. I haven’t actively disliked them, not by any stretch. I have all the albums, I’ve loved several of their songs and many have consistently found their way into my mixes. No, it wasn’t that I disliked them, it was that I just didn’t quite get the obsession with them… They are a band that inspires rabid adoration and increasingly, rabid adoration from the some of the world’s most prominent musicians. Getting the stamp of approval from Elton John, Sting, Springstein, U2, Bowie, and the like surely indicates that something is going on, even if I didn’t quite get it.

Now I also know that if you’re a “true” music fan, then the amount that you like a band is supposed to be inversely proportional to the amount of awards they win. But, for some reason, watching Win put his Album of the Year Grammy on top of his amp and begin to sing “The businessmen who drink my blood…” I perked up a bit. Amidst the sea of tweets bemoaning the mainstream adoption of their favorite indie band, I thought to myself, this just got interesting… The truth is, it’s easy to whine and hand-wring and opt out of whatever version of mainstream culture you came from, grew up in. What do you do when you find yourself suddenly successful, adopted by the very culture you were standing against?

I pulled out my copy of The Suburbs and began to re-listen. It wasn’t long before I began to realize that I hadn’t really heard it the first time. The first time around, to be honest, I was moderately irritated at the whole “suburbs” thing. I’d written them off thematically. It’s a favorite subject among suburban reared kids to rail on the suburbs as mono-syllabic, homogenous, banal, or whatever other fancy pants liberal-arts school adjective you want to use. The whole “9-5 is a slow death,” “I don’t own a TV” (but you sure do own a computer), adventure-is-king, “stick it to the man” treatsy is, to put it bluntly, the realm of 22 year olds and peter-pan thirty-somethings delaying the inevitable. The entire framework of that discussion is way too binary, this-or-that, black/white to be compelling to me. Adulthood is way too complicated for such simplistic discussion. I had lumped their album into that category and let me tell you, I was wrong.

I was interviewing an incredible singer/songwriter named Thad Cockrell the other day and he brought up his favorite lyric from The Suburbs, “…never trust a millionaire preaching the Sermon on the Mount. I used to think I was not like them, but I’m beginning to have my doubts…” As Thad said, it was a beautifully candid piece of truth. I suddenly began to notice a much deeper discussion taking place within the album.

The thesis of The Suburbs is this: I used to think the tedium, the boredom, the bankruptcy of the rich and the powerful, the ever-expanding sprawl of my city, my heart, was this place, was this idea. But the older I get, the more that I realize that the sprawl, if I’m not careful, comes from deep inside of me… Or to put it another way: Growing up is much damn harder than it looks, and maybe being an adult means having to hold competing ideas in your head… 

I don’t know, maybe it is just the place I’m in in my life. I’m standing on the precipice of 30. My baby girl is due in a month. I’m a reluctant adult navigating a modern world that is nuanced and confusing and beautiful and that, frankly, often terrifies me. But tell me music doesn’t open some secret passageway straight into the very marrow of our being. If music is the vehicle, then that night Arcade Fire was the tour guide. A picture of building something significant, of growing up, of facing the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of loneliness, the fear of opting out instead of courageously stepping into the gaps of adulthood. Music is strength for the journey, a buttress to the work of living life facing forward when, paradoxically, it only makes sense when looking backwards. 

So that is the subtext that is swirling beneath the surface when I receive a call inviting me to come shoot their concert.* And not just the concert, but to hang with the band backstage and to film behind the scenes, to see the preparation, to peek behind the curtain of one of the world’s fastest growing and most interesting bands… 

I’m not going to give a play by play of that evening that I had the opportunity to spend with Arcade Fire. They are an incredibly private band and I was asked in as their guest. They really didn’t limit our access in any way and as as such, don’t feel the need to reveal much in the way of details. I will say, though, that it was an absolutely incredible night observing, experiencing, and interacting with a band that will surely be around for a long time to come. I shot on stage during the show and it was truly special to see the crowd from that vantage point. From their vantage point. They look out across a sea of faces singing their songs, not primarily as fans overwhelmed by a shock-and-awe-multisensory-experience, but as peers. They look out on a crowd singing their hearts out, as if they themselves wrote the songs blasting from the speakers. In short, they are looking out on a community built on music that is trying its hardest to be honest and truthful. 

And in that moment, I became more than just a newly minted turbo-fan. I became a part of the band…just like everyone else there that night and it seems, just like they’d always intended it to be. We were all in it together, singing our hearts out, telling each other it’s all going to be ok…

So, here are few images from the evening, taken in-between filming, in-between wondering how in the world I ended up here:

A few screengrabs of some of the video I shot. I was just one of eight cameras capturing the evening:

*An enormous, gigantic, huge thanks to Joey Mathews for inviting me to be a part of his crew that night. I won’t ever be able to thank him enough for taking a chance on asking me to cover such an important gig for him (we’d never met!) and inadvertantly allowing me to be a part of one of my favorite nights in my professional life…