Andrew St. Clair

I was bored at home ready to dig into playing video games all night when BBG from BrooklynVegan pitched a last minute assignment. A record release party at Secret Project Robot (ie. the basement of Monster Island - 210 Kent Ave in Brooklyn). I didn’t have a good reason to say no… so I took it.

I got their early enough for sound check and was surprised to see Violinist-extrordinare Christiana Key (whom I met at the Hopewell show on Governors Island and saw hanging at Jelly’s Rock Yard). She’s a member of Cult of Youth and I had no idea. We’re Facebook friends so we chatted about recent updates (she recently joined an NYC gun club) and about how Neko Case recently complained that she (and apparently most women musicians) don’t get hit on by guys on the road.

Sean, the lead singer/guitarist of Cult of Youth, was getting over being sick and his voice wasn’t 100%. But despite this, Cult of Youth put on a pretty damn good show. YOU. and Blood Rhythm were also pretty energetic, but it was Mueran Humanos that nearly stole the show from the headliner. They’re a two-piece Argentinean band based in Berlin who I can best describe as a Latin Phantogram with a krautrock edge. Really impressed me. Sadly, they had a problem with a bass amp and lost a little time fixing the problem.

As you can see from the pics, I was playing around with the light again to add a visual dynamic that wasn’t there just simply using the bounce flash. The by-the-book pics with a bounce flash was laking a certain energy. I was using a 17-35mm f/2.8 and a slow shutter (usually around 0.4 sec at anywhere from f/4-6.3 at an ISO hovering between 640 and 1000 with a D300 - your mileage may vary). The projections behind the bands really spiced things up, giving me something extra to play with. For the most part, there was space between the crowd and the bands which left room for any of the performers to jump off the stage and onto the floor… and more importantly, it gave me room to move around to shoot). All and all, it was a fun assignment that left a lot of room for some photo experimentation. Did I succeed? You be the judge.

Now, I don’t usually tell bands that their performance was “Fucking Awesome” but somehow I couldn’t contain my usual band-neutrality. I cannot wait until Mueran Humanos swing by NYC again. Unexpectedly, the band gave me a hand-numbered limited edition vinyl of their album complete with a random tarot card inside. Why don’t more bands do this? No, not the tarot cards in their packaging (which admittedly is pretty cool). I’m talking about bands giving me free stuff! I have to say that it’s always nice and unexpected when bands give me merch. Especially albums. It definitely gives me incentive to do future write-ups to promote the band or go out of my way to cover them at a future gig. Just saying.

Anyway, you can check out the coverage on BrooklynVegan.com