Thursday, December 9, 2010

Big Star Third - Cat's Cradle Dec 9th, 10th 2010





This is the drummer/singer/songwriter from the seminal rock band Big Star. Big Star is most known now by the song that kicks off a TV show called That 70s Show but back in their day they were one of the most innovative rock bands around. Their sound went on to influence many important bands The Posies, Teenage Fanclub, Gin Blossoms, Wilco, Afghan Whigs, Whiskeytown and others. The 1987 tribute song "Alex Chilton", co-written by three members of The Replacements, was released as a single from the album Pleased to Meet Me and contains the lyric "I never travel far without a little Big Star". Standing behind Jody in this shot is the bassist Mike Mills from the American Band R.E.M.

So they are putting on a live show of the entire 3rd Big Star Record in Chapel Hill with a full string section and a horn section. It was LUSH to say the least. This show includes members of Local Triangle bands Lost in the Trees, Rosebuds, The Old Ceremony, The Love Language, Mayflies USA, The dBs, Let's Active, Tomahawks and more. There are a lot of people on that stage!

We got to setup stages in front of the stage at the Cat's Cradle to shoot this so we were shooting on a higher level than usual from the front. I also got to use a tripod which I never normally can in live music situations. In rehearsal on wednesday at Overdub Lane Studios in Durham there were so many documentary people and photographers that Will Rigby said the band had a String Section and a Camera Section.





Stu McLamb of the Love Language







Mike Mills of R.E.M.


Photo notes: this is T-Max 400 pushed all the way to 3200 as the long lens on the Hasselblad only stops down to f/4. I love how smooth this came out in stand development.

3 comments:

lal:tree said...

Wow, 3200? Looks outstanding.

Holden Richards said...

its the dilution and the fact that Tri-x is just great film.

Anonymous said...

wonderful photographs, think you should do more of that, felt concert imagery. agree about tri-x