http://punkcast.com/10years.html
PUNKCAST 10 YEARS ANNIVERSARY
PARTY AND SCREENING
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 14 2007 8-12pm
Secret Project Robot
210 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn
(& Metropolitan)
(entrance on River St)
In September 1997, UK punk band One Way System came to play NYC.
Their manager John B was a friend, and had run Jettisoundz - a UK
punk video label. I was working on internet stuff and suggested
the event be webcast. He was keen to do it live, but I explained
the merits economical and reachwise of making the meat available
on-demand with as little fluff as possible - thus punkcast.com
was born. I myself was inspired by the fan-run ftp sites for both
Bjork and Prodigy, which way outstripped all other internet music
efforts of the day. We hired a cameraman to come and shoot video
and put up some pix, the entire audio from three shows, plus a
postage stamp size mpeg clip. John B, inspired, went back to the
UK and on his own next shoots - Hawkwind (taken down,
regretfully, earlier in 2007), and Goldblade - made audio
punkcasts. He returned to the USA in Jan 98 to shoot Jane Couch -
a Women's Boxing Champion who is the sister of One Way System's
drummer, and later in the year posyted audio of the UK Subs
playing in his local in Lancashire. The arrival in NYC of Peter &
The Test Tube Babies in Sep 1998 was sufficient impetus for me to
buy a camera for punkcast, and over the next year I shot about
half a dozen more old school bands I knew, including a quartet of
NYC hard core favourites - Bad Brains, Agnostic Front, Murphys
Law, and Leeway. In 1999 when Ari-Up re-appeared on the scene for
her first shows in over 25 years I was there. She's a compelling
subject and I shot her several times, plus some of the local
reggae scene, which brought the punkcast count up to around 20.
In late 2000 I started paying Sean P. Murphy to shoot local punk
& hardcore, mainly at CBGB, and over the next year he shot about
70 odd shows, only a couple of which I actually got round to
posting. During this time punkcast also got it's first taste of
the NYC indie scene when Leesaw Andaloro contributed a Touchdown
clip for #50. The count was just #100, in September 2001, as
Punkcast entered its 5th year. I'd found I enjoyed shooting so,
with the well burst internet bubble giving me more time, I
decided to do more. Two local bands interested me in particular -
anti- folk heroes the Moldy Peaches and hot hipster outfit the
Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I shot & posted both in short order, and also
discovered that both bands were the tips of the iceberg of
extensive associated scenes that would provide grist for years to
follow. Shooting old pal Joe Strummer in April 2002 for 4 nights
in a row allowed me to experiment and is when I really
established the style I maintain to this day. By September 2002
the count was up to #200. It was then that I seriously started to
shoot in Brooklyn, discovering Mighty Robot and Todd P. After
clandestinely shooting some great shows such as The Gossip in Jun
2003, I was fortunate to gain a carte blanche to shoot in the
Knitting Factory, greatly expanding the possibilities. This was
an exciting period as the YYY's, Liars etc broke out
internationally, while new and interesting bands such as TV On
The Radio were appearing. I embarked on shooting a series of
avant showcases - titled 'Mutiny' - put on by The Social
Registry. The city had started it's own TV station NYCtv and,
after being approached by producer Shirley Braha, I supplied the
bulk of the content for it's nascent new music show NY Noise. In
September 2003, after 6 years, the count was #320. A year later,
in September 2004, the count was #540. Doubling the shoot rate,
however, meant that fewer shows got posted. I had moved the
studio to close to the Knit, to better take advantage of the
opportunies it presented. One shoot #431 - The Fall - was so
successful the band released it on DVD. Apart from frequent
Mighty Robots I was also regularly shooting at Pianos, Sin-é,
Southpaw, Trash Bar, and a new warehouse space in Brooklyn called
Volume. I was also VJ-ing weekly at BP Fallon's Death Disco at
The Delancey. The summer saw the first series of East River Park
shows. The Cake Shop opened. 280 shoots in the year pushed the
count to #820 by September 2005. Even less got posted but those
that did, like The Long Blondes, Oneida, and Todd P's first
acoustic BBQ, were spectacular. With the advent of the video iPod
came the Punkcast Podcast - the first posted was #840 The Gossip
blockbuster 'Standing In The Way of Control', also Punkcast's
first ever YouTube clip, currently closing in on 80,000 views. In
March 2006 the Knit withdrew my privileges. I was just able to
get in there for one last shoot - of my old pal Nikki Sudden, who
sadly died the following morning. The favorite punkcast venues
became The Cake Shop & Tonic. Bands posted included Oakley Hall,
Gang Gang Dance, and Awesome Color. In the summer I shot nearly
all the free McCarren Park Pool shows. In September 2006 I was in
CBGB for the last days, as the count reached #1020, down to 200
shoots in the year. This last year has seen the annual rate drop
even further to 180, as we've seen the closures of Sin-é, Tonic,
and North Six, and right now I'm just on #1202. The flipside has
been, of course, that I've had more time to edit, and it's been a
record year for output with 74 posted. This last year has seen
the first official public screenings with exhibits at Secret
Project Robot in Brooklyn and Point Ephemère in Paris.
It's a lot easier to shoot than to process. A few years back I
reckoned it out that, if I stopped shooting right then, it would
still take me, at the rate of 4/5 bands a week, around 5 years to
catch up. God knows what that figure is now. I trust that I will
live long enough to get around doing it all justice. Probably out
of the 1200 shoots 700 or so merit the effort - the others likely
don't have good enough audio. There are something like 270
punkcasts there right now, with around 700 individual clips.
In 4 hours at Secret Project Robot I'll be able to show, maybe,
around 50 clips.
Flier: http://punkcast.com/punkcast10years.jpg
Video of Paris exhibit: http://punkcast.com/filmerlamusique.mov
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.