Pioneer Square, Seattle

Fisherman's Terminal - Seattle, WA

Piilani Hwy, Maui

9th Ward, New Olreans

NOLA friends

New Orleans, LA

Ketchikan, AK

The Olympics

Capitol Hill, Seattle

Seattle, Washington 

Cascadia

A friend I broke in our new studio space in Seattle with the creation of some Cascadia flags. Of course we went with black. Then we went to the soccer match waved them around like drunken madmen.

NEW MUSIC VIDEO!!!

ALASKA

New York

The city after a nice storm. Looking good.

Chicago, IL

Rising Sun - Buenos Aires, Argentina

that's a melodica...

...and that's Nato playing it

Beirut

Beirut - Santa Fe

SxSW with The Drowning Men

The Drowning Men gang after a show at SxSW 2012.
Gabe, James, Eric, Todd, Rory, and Nato

Charleston, South Carolina

Washington DC

Wend magazine photo spread

I recently had the opportunity to do some photo work with writer Kyle Cassidy, a long time friend of mine, on the latest issue of Portland, Oregon's Wend magazine. The story is an insightful piece about Rattlesnake Mountain and the nearby Hanford nuclear reservation in eastern Washington state. Yep, right outside our hometown of Tri-Cities.  READ THE STORY HERE

2011 Perspective

Twenty-Eleven was a crazy year.

14,000 miles and 35 US states with the Drowning Men, two Bahaman islands, a month in Las Vegas, two months of summer heat in Texas, a short month in Los Angeles, Portland to London, France, Morocco, Barcelona, Italy, Thailand, Hong Kong, Argentina, Uraguay, back to Portland, and a short stint back in Los Angeles to finish out the year. Somehow, between ticketed embarkations, I found time to relocate my material life, which had been locked away in a downtown Portland storage unit, up to Seattle, WA. 2012 has started out slower, to say the least. I’m looking forward to this new home and the bountiful experiences that lie ahead. Thank you, to all of the people that put up with my inhabitation of their couches and floors while I was awaiting my next flight, train, or ride in the “band van.”

See you all in 2012!     

Hong Kong

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Photos taken in the Chiang Mai marketplace during my last visit to Thailand.

Marrakech, Morocco

Lyon, France

LONDON

San Antonio, TX

WU LYF - your new favorite band

WU LYF - DIRT from LUCIFER YOUTH FOUNDATION on Vimeo.

30 years and a skateboard

2011, Downtown Los Angeles. Pushing my skateboard down the middle of 3rd Street. Somewhere between Central and San Pedro. Sometimes referred to as Little Tokyo, Otherwise known as the safe version of skid row, which is roughly 3 blocks to the south. It’s warm… 62 degrees at 1 a.m. A “to-go” coffee cup disguises an IPA as I roll through an intersection. Relative calm inside the downtown streets offers solace to a reluctant visitor. The Los Angeles skyline is impressive. The buildings absorb me the closer I get. Rolling along, looking up at the 1,037 ft. US Bank tower, it occurs to me….

… I envisioned this once. When I was 17 years old. A swell of warm comfort washes over me.

Age 17. Being a skateboarder in eastern Washington State was not easy in 1997. The magazines mostly showed photos from the skateboarding holy land of southern California. Los Angeles was THE destination. I want to be there. I want to be skateboarding when I am 30 years old.

Well… here I am. 30 years old and skateboarding toward the buildings I saw in the magazines. Is it what I expected? No. But nothing in life ends up as expected. But it’s nice once in a while to have that feeling in your gut. The feeling that you are in some way fulfilling your teenage dreams. Even if that feeling only lasts a few seconds.

found in Tulsa, OK

Chuck Ragan

Recently I had the pleasure of watching Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music) perform two shows in Austin and Dallas. He's not only an amazing musician, but an amazing person. Chuck and his boys sent me on my way with some free vinyl. Can't wait to get home to Portland and check it out. Thanks guys. 

self abuse and good times w/ The Drowning Men

map courtesy of Gabe Messer

35 states. 14,000 miles. 29 major US cities. 30 cases of Busweiser*. 4,560 cigarettes**. One dozen Cracker Barrels. 6 Waffle Houses. And of course, countless roadside attractions. 

This is a shortlist of life on the road with a band for 40 days.

There’s no time to relax. No time to think. No time alone.  Instead, we filled our brains and bodies with experiences and substances. Enough to last a lifetime. The Drowning Men played music (every night) and I took photos and shot video… 30 times.

It didn’t take long to realize that this world is very strange (at least for newbies like ourselves). The outside world did not exist, yet we were traveling through it at a break neck speed… well, at least as fast as the van would go towing a trailer. Which is right around 60-70mph. A new city, a new venue, a new set of fans to chat and drink with every night. Pretty soon you forget what city you’re actually in. Confined to the dank innards of a well worn, booze soaked music venue, there’s about 5 questions that cross your mind:

1)    Does this place have a shower?

2)    Is the shower clean?

3)    When are they going to deliver the case of Budweiser to the dressing room?

4)    Where do we set up the merch booth?

5)    What’s the quickest route to facilitate the smoking of a cigarette?

*the 30 cases of Bud were at the venues only. We supplemented with at least 3 times that amount of beer… and whiskey.

**this is based on a an average of a pack per day, per 6 people.

Explorations along the road

We're just over half way through the Green 17 tour with Flogging Molly. There's no question I've been slacking on my posts. Here's a few pics I've managed to snap between shows.  

Atlantic City, NJ 

Detroit, MI

Fenway Park - Boston, MA

Boston

We're making our way up the eastern seaboard!!

Green 17 Tour with The Drowning Men

28 degrees – The temperature in Dallas when we awoke on the thinly covered concrete floor of a south Dallas warehouse. The previous night, The Drowning Men opened their first show on the Flogging Molly Green 17 Tour. It went well.

1300 miles, 5 cases of Budweiser, and a couple hundred cigarettes earlier - an eastbound departure from Oceanside, CA. A quick show stop in Phoenix… megh. Goodbye Arizona. See you on St. Paddy’s Day.

Now the real driving begins. Phoenix to Dallas in a single over night shot. The scratching hiss of an AM radio broadcast spit out inaudible portions of the Super Bowl as we passed through New Mexico and into the vacant plains of west Texas. It’s a big state. The sun rose behind downtown Dallas as the sleepless wheel man pressed on. The sleeping tallied their kinked and aching muscles. This marked our arrival to said warehouse and its impending floor. After an 800 mile push through the night, groggy contemplation led to questions like “what are we doing?” and “do we have to do that again?” After a cigarette reload, skateboarding, and a game of HORSE on a disintegrating basketball hoop, all seemed to be right again. Seemingly, muscles ached less and the eye crust was shaking loose. In 36 hours the Green 17 tour would officially begin, here in Dallas.

The venue was larger. The stage was larger. The crowd was at capacity. For The Drowning Men, the anticipation and uneasy excitement was also larger than ever. Their performance – flawless. The notoriously raucous Flogging Molly crowd embraced the new sound that flooded over them. A good first show. Our new friends, Moneybrother followed, and without doubt, Flogging Molly demonstrated why the house was sold out. Amazing.

Then we drank. Inevitably, crash landing all of us back on the warehouse floor, some harder than others. While our minds tried to sleep and our bodies processed booze, snow and ice was blanketing the ground outside. Houston in the morning? This is going to be tricky. We’ll see how that pans out in the next one. 

A big thanks to our warehouse floor sponsors, Slim and Anthony. Check out Slim’s band, True Widow. They’re really good.