Andrew St. Clair

Yes, I know I haven’t shot as many shows as I did last year and definitely have not been posting on my blog as often as I should be. But that won’t stop me from compiling a year end list that will polarize & alienate my readers. Without further ado:

• St. Vincent covering Big Black at Bowery Ballroom - Legendary performance
• Spending the day with Tokyo Police Club before and after their awesome sold out T5 gig
• Seeing Screaming Females live… anywhere. As Ted Leo said at 4Knots, “Best band in the world right now.” 
• Angela from Twin Sister telling me that she drew a picture based on a photo I took of her and used it on a flyer
• Wye Oak covering Danzig’s ‘Mother’ at the A.V. Club. “Wolfs Blood.”
• Heavy Cream… who are going to rip 2012 apart with their new album (produced by Ty Segall)
• Backstage with Ted Leo at 4Knots and listening to him tell stories about when he toured with Radiohead while in the band Chisel
• My photo of Oberhofer used on a Noisey.com show poster
• Hanging with Peelander-Z, The Narrative, and their crews for 2 days on the Warped Tour
• Anamanaguchi & Extreme Animals @ The Museum of the Moving Image
• Lucero. Their year end show at Brooklyn Bowl and hanging with them on stage on the Warped Tour. Plus chatting with Ben Shapiro about tattoos in the press area.
• Braids ‘Native Speaker’ getting on the shortlist for the Polaris Prize (after my predicting it would happen)
• Hanging with Marnie Stern, her drummer Vince Rogers, and members of Tera Melos at Winnie’s in Chinatown singing karaoke.
• Titus Andronicus & The Suzan @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
• Deervana @ Brooklyn Bowl and the swag I took home (thanks Deer Tick)
• Meeting and shooting Dee Snider on the Warped Tour (really sweet guy)
• Japanther’s 10 year Anniversary show at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Heavy Cream (my buddies from Nashville) & Shellshag - two of the nicest people I know. (John, you still owe me a custom t-shirt, btw).
• Lupe Fiasco’s 2+ hour record release party at Webster Hall - Which produced my favorite photo set of the year
• The Immaculates @ Death By Audio - Brilliant!
• Cheeseburger & (my buddies) Hard Nips at the Beekman Beer Garden
• Watching David Powell eat a fucking sandwich while JEFF The Brotherhood played on Jimmy Fallon
• Mueran Humanos @ Secret Project Robot
• Seeing Hunters at Death By Audio as well as constantly running into Derek and Isabel in my neighborhood
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs performance at Brooklyn Bowl to benefit Jonathan Toubin
• Making friends with Friends and seeing random members of the band at shows

It’s a great feeling walk into a venue and see so many friendly and/or familiar faces who make me feel welcome and appreciated. It makes all the late nights and hard work of early morning photo editing all worthwhile.

Obligatory shout outs to Laura Stevenson & The Cans, Bomb the Music Industry!, Oh Land, Lemuria, Fucked Up, Brian and Madeline from Cults, The Like, Cassie Ramone, The Ettes, The Suzan, Street Chant, The Get Up Kids, Grooms, Teen Witch, X-Ray Eyeballs, Thee Oh Sees, Oberhofer, Colin Langenus, Simon Henderson, Nikki Bennett at Columbia, Bryan Nelson, Eric Jimenez, Michael Azzarad, Rich Cohen & everyone at Foundations Management, Starscream, Maria Sherman, Joe Manzione, Bill Pearis, Julia @ Terminal 5, Doris Cellar, Stacy McIntyre, Alon Shapiro, Stephen Tanner from Harvey Milk, Eric Weiner & Nicole DeVita, Emily Greene, Susan Kamenar, Haley Dekle, Katie, Fred, & Dave at Brooklyn Vegan, Kristen Y. Kim, Alexandra Serio, as well as all of my fellow photography friends who are to many to list here (you know who you are). I’m sure I forgot to list a bunch of people, but I do want to get this list out before 2013.