Dan Meade - Strike skunk

Strike skunk by Dan Meade

ManicAir Flight 110809

NPR interviews George Romero

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Clusterfuck City

I was trying to get around the barricade to get a better vantage point, got turned back by the cops and was headed to MacDougal when the entire throng screamed, all at once. I though the Michael Jackson float had exploded or the Cloverfield monster had attacked. No, it was the rain turning from a steady drop to a flash-downpour and the crowd reacting with surprise, joy and disappointment all in one scream.

Downtown New York on Halloween, at the Parade, is like being in a giant Clusterfuck City. Streets are blocked off at every corner, everyone is dressed up and stopping in the street to take pictures, people are darting around trying to dodge rain bullets all while the Jagermeister float blares its German-techno theme song with giant Day-of-the-Dead skeletons marching to the beat.

It was fantastic. Cars dividing streets of people, security guards outside of apartment buildings, people hanging out the windows of their 6^th Avenue apartments and everyone in costume, everyone in a good mood behind their masks and makeup, enjoying the night and the frenzy.

I tried to tell the Smurfette from D.C. all this at the bar afterward, but she wasn’t digging the idea of the Parade, saying she saw enough of that type of thing everyday while living in Chelsea these past six months. It was similar to the doctor a few weeks ago who couldn’t understand why I’ve been Kansas and Mississippi. It must be hard to enjoy things when you can’t even imagine doing them.

In the time it takes film to develop…

New York was warm and sunny today. I took advantage of it. Here’s how:

·      Drop of film for developing at 86^th Street Photo

·      Head down to Ground Support

o     Chai and a PBJ-scone thing

o     Photo review of DS09 rolls K through O

o     Enjoy the open-air coffee bar

·      Walk around without a plan

o     End up walking from SoHo to Battery Park City

·      Hang out by the Tom Otterness statues, write, soak in sun

·      Walk along edge of Manhattan to Battery Park

o     Get idea for future video projects

o     Call RB, discuss multiple projects, including 11/7 INFRASTRUCTURE show

·      Head back to 86^th to pick up next 4 rolls of DS09 photos

·      Finish Lewis’ Main Street

Total time? About 5 hours. Day well spent.

Keeping flim alive

http://www.the-impossible-project.com/

via the good folks at Ilford

"Impossible b.v. has been founded with the concrete aim to re-invent and re-start production of analog INTEGRAL FILM for vintage Polaroid cameras."

INFRAshoot: Ertegun

INFRAshoot_Ertegun by Dan Meade

I’m sitting here in Queens, looking at the posted photos that I shot this weekend, listening to the tracks that were recorded as I was shooting 500+ photos of INFRASTRUCTURE in my first formal photoshoot, and it’s giving me just enough space to step back and think about what I’m looking at and hearing.

Rob and the others kept asking how I would describe the band, the sound. I knew, and when I told Rob this he totally got it, that I wouldn’t know how I though they sounded until a day or two later, when I was writing about it. That’s just how my brain works: it needs to ponder and mull until it clicks. It just did:

In one of the tunnel shots, I said “they look like the Beach Boys on heroin,” but that’s not how they sound. “Punk blues” doesn’t quite hit the mark. They sound like survivors of Queens. All the influences of this giant cultural conglomeration, all the compounded internal pressures that build up from being born here, growing up here, then leaving… but not. It’s in your roots and in your brain.

They take the Platonic approach, the Manic approach – brining the world back to those still in the shadows. Everything that is in life, focused through the lens of Queens, fermented and squeezed out into music.

They’re good. And getting better.

The second part of Day 1 of the shoot, after a couple beers and dinner, they came back into the Dungeon charged and fired up, and played tight. Roaming through that space, camera(s) in one hand, camcorder in the other and shit just clicked. For them, for me – it was in the air and they put it there.

I’m probably not going to make the show tomorrow (10/13) at Harper’s Ferry @ 8:30, but I’ll be at the Nov. 7 show. You should go if you can.