2024 links to published reviews
And if you feel like reading, here are links to my reviews:
mclusky at The Sinclair
Dan Boeckner at Brighton Music Hall
Pixies/Modest Mouse at Xfinity Center
Drive-By Truckers at House of Blues
Michael Shannon/Jason Narducy play REM's Murmur at The Sinclair
Neck Deep and Drain at Roadrunner
Mary Timony at Crystal Ballroom
The Last Dinner Party at Royale
Maynard James Keenan's Sessanta at The Wang
Guided By Voices at The Athenaeum (Columbus, OH)
Cypress Hill/The Pharcyde at Roadrunner
Guided By Voices at Mr Smalls (Pittsburgh)
The Decemberists at Roadrunner
W.I.T.C.H. at Brighton Music Hall
The Chameleons at Theatre Fairmount (Montreal QC)
Built To Spill at Beachland Ballroom (Cleveland)
Johnny Marr and James at The Orpheum
The Saints at Northcote Theatre (Melbourne)
The Jesus Lizard at Roadrunner
2024 Recap
So this is the time of the year where I remember I have a blog section to my website, and so I will use it to do a giant dump of what the year had in store. Well, it was certainly busy! With the loss of DigBoston I got to less big shows, but the arena and stadium shows don't hold a lot of appeal for me in general so it's not like I didn't see a ton of amazing shows. By my count, it ended up around 334 different performances, in 59 different venues, scattered over four countries and 16 different cities. (For the sake of argument i didn't differentiate cities in Massachusetts, aside from Solid Sound tucked up in the far corner of MA in North Adams).
Before I forget, I want to thank Jack at The Big Takeover and Rob at Culture Beat for letting me do my thing and covering bands I am interested in. Also big thanks to Sarika and the team at Desertfest London and NYC, I always have a great time at each event and and happy to be part of the team. So many great bands, awesome fans and good times every weekend they hold it. And a shout out to Ryan at Widowmaker too, Hopsmoker is a super good time! Lastly, the publicists and band management deserve kudos for approving me for press credentials most of the time, and thanks for kicking in a +1 when you can as well, much appreciated.
My day job didn't bring me back to Amsterdam like last year, but I can't complain as I squeezed in a three week jaunt to Melbourne and that was amazing. Saw some great shows and a bunch of cool nature stuff too.
Like last year, I'll do a dump of some of my favorite gigs and photos from them and add an appendix of all the reviews I wrote up as well. 2024 was a pretty strong year! I hope I have an equal thrill next year, like when Tony Iommi shared a photo of mine on his Instagram account... that was pretty wild and unexpected.
I had written up little blurbs for specific gigs that stood out and ended up losing that draft... so here's the list with re-assembled content.
Deathchant at Desertfest NYC. Last run of shows w/ Joe behind the drums... met these guys a few years ago at one of the Psycho Las Vegas events (can everyone toss a penny into a nearby well and wish for that festival to be resurrected?) and they completely rule, on and off stage. It takes a lot to skip out on watching an entire Amenra set for me but this time that decision was easy.
The Chameleons at Fairmount Theatre. Having Reg back in the lineup is one thing but I couldn't miss not hearing "Caution" played so I drove to Montreal as I couldn't make the Boston show.
Orsak:Oslo at Desertfest London Every once in a while a completely unknown band bowls you over, and Orsak:Oslo was that band for me this year. Essential guitar-fueled instrumental rock, and they sent me down a Discogs rabbit hole to get all their releases that weren't at the merch table.
Unwound at the Paradise Even though i really dislike this venue, there was no way I was skipping this show, especially as I played the long game and patiently waited for Unwound to book a local show.
AIR at MGM Music Hall. The French duo have each been busy doing their own solo work but got together to wish Moon Safari a happy 20th birthday. The detached Gallic cool factor was off the charts.
The Saints at Northcote Theatre. Sometimes life hands you unexpected gifts. Not only was I fortunate enough to have my day job send me to Melbourne for three weeks, it coincided with Ed and Ivor recruiting some friends (Mick Harvey and Mark Arm!) to bang out essential songs from The Saints' first three records.
IDLES at Roadrunner. Though TANGK landed on a lot of best-of year lists, it didn't really resonate too strongly with me. But skip a live show from them? Never.
The Jesus Lizard at Roadrunner. The Jesus Lizard have NEVER mailed in a show and Yow still subjects his body to the whims of the crowd, even at age 64. Simply incredible band.
Grails at Crystal Ballroom. It had been 11 years since they played town and as all five members live scattered over the US and even Europe, tours are pretty sporadic. "Sad & Illegal" was my favorite song of last year, what do you think?
Guided By Voices at Bearsville Theatre. I saw GBV a lot this year (8 times!), mainly since Pollard gave strong hints that this would be the last year of any sort of significant touring. Nothing beats a beery, sweaty show and the Bearsville (Beersville?) show was way up there, strengthened also by having Winged Wheel open. Classic Pollard banter - "We're happy to be playing near Woodstock. You know the baby who was on the cover of that Woodstock record? That was Bobby Bare Jr."
Horse Lords at Solid Sound Festival. A late show (they got on around midnight, after Wilco's headlining set but Tweedy made sure he caught their set) and their intricately built songs were a special reward for those who held out for it.
Poison Ruin at The Tote. The Tote is a long-running legendary venue in Melbourne and the crowd was ready to throw down for the five band bill, with Poison Ruin headlining.
Civic at Fairfield Lawn Bowling Club. Another band that I knew nothing about until seeing them this year. They start with a well-tested premise (I think everyone can agree that Radio Birdman is an essential band) and then give it a sharper edge without losing any of the songwriting craft.
Summoner at Widowmaker's Hopsmoker Fest. I wasn't expecting a Summoner reunion but got it anyway; what a great set, everyone in the building with giant grins.
The Damned at Big Night Live. I've seen this band a lot but never with Rat Scabies and Paul Gray both in the lineup. Essential stuff, not just punk rock.
2024 in pictures, continued:
2023 Recap
2023, by any perspective I approach it from, was a remarkable year for me in terms of photography. First off, I went to a ton of shows... 76 shows shot in total, and five I didn't (Sigur Ros w/ the LSO in Amsterdam, Rammstein in Lisbon, the Eric Arn/Glenn Jones show where I forgot to bring any memory cards (doh!), the 2nd night of GBV 40, and Dylan), in six different countries. I also covered six festivals - Desertfest London and NYC, Boston Calling, Newport Folk Festival, In Between Days, and Sky Blue Sky. The grand total of bands I photographed this year? 368. And I did a handful of shoots w/ bands for publicity photos, as well as with some artists at festivals. I hope to expand more in that area for next year.
I had the good luck of having my day job send me over to Amsterdam for over 60 days this year, and it was a great opportunity to really get to know a city much deeper than a regular tourist can. Safe to say that Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities and has a lot to offer. It was also really fun to re-connect with fellow photogs I'd met at Roadburn prior (Niels, Paul and Falk-Hagen), and to make some new friends like Kamil who graciously lent me a camera to use for a show in Germany where I also finally got to see Colour Haze and Kungens Man for the first time! I got to see some great shows in Amsterdam too; thanks to Tomoko and Meg for the hookup for the Pantera gig! The best one had to be seeing both Roy Montgomery and The Dead C, after so many years from the last time and I was super happy to chat with the guys before and after the show.
A big setback was having Dig Boston cease operations, and I want to thank Chris Faraone for entrusting me with so much leeway in covering the acts that interested me (and hopefully others!) the most. The flip side is that I'm now providing a lot more content for my old pal Jack Rabid and the venerable Big Takeover magazine and I appreciate the opportunity. I also have provided some show coverage for Culture Beat, Rob Duguay's PVD/BOS-centric blog on music so thanks Rob!
It goes without saying that none of this would be possible without the publicists and the bands who've given me a lot of trust that allows me to capture all these incredible moments so thank you! Also hats off to Sarika and her team at Desert Scene for having me as part of the teams in London and NYC to cover the event. 2024 looks even better and I am honored to be part of these great teams.
With so many shows it's extremely hard to come up with a top 10 for the year but I've definitely done dumber things so here goes; I am purposely avoiding for the most part bands I've seen a lot in the past; there is no doubt that bands like Wilco, Elder, Major Stars, Dinosaur Jr, Amenra, Converge, Guided By Voices, etc know how to put on a great show... These bands have never mailed it in and continue to be transcendent on stage. I didn't think that 2023 would be the year I saw Colour Haze not only once but twice! Truly magnificent, a band that operates in a fully organic mode, each of the four members a critical piece. This is a pretty long post so I'll also add Bill Callahan and Yo La Tengo sets a few weeks apart in Amsterdam's lovely Paradiso were both incredible shows. I caught Minibeast opening for Jon Spencer early but their show later in the year with Mike Watt's MSSV was a 1-2 hit to the back of my skull. Great to see the veterans doing new shit and not just coasting on stuff they wrote decades ago; rock is still vital!
At Desertfest London I got to see my buds Deathchant and Dommengang wring every last bit of energy out of their instruments and was also afforded the opportunity to finally see Weedpecker and Spaceslug. Polish stoner rock is on a high crest right now, do not sleep on these bands. I've seen QOTSA a few times but this summer's set (longer than their festival set at Boston Calling) was really special for me as I finally got to see them play "In The Fade," a song that means a ton to me and is even more emotionally charged in the wake of Mark Lanegan's untimely passing. Oh, and Yves Tumor? That is a proper rock star with there, attitude and presentation with songs and musicianship to back it. Wow!
I guess that's at least 10 but I also want to mention local buds GOZU and Blood Lightning, who both put out amazing records this year, and I also finally got to see Sam Black Church; yeah I was a little late on that one. Last pile of accolades must include REZN, Slowdive, Codeine, Yob, Coven, the triumphant return of Reg along w/ Mark to bring The Chameleons' songs to life, a vital part of my listening evolution. Lastly, the Twins of Evil tour was so good I had to see it twice, Boris and Melvins were a dream tour pairing and both bands exceeded what I thought was possible.
So, thanks for staying with me on this lengthy post and let's see some kickass stuff in 2024 together!
Browse HERE for way more photos from 2023:
PS - one thing I forgot I did last year was to catalog all of the reviews I wrote, so here goes for 2023:(in the spirit of completeness, I've added a couple stragglers from 2022 that didn't get published until early this year, 48 in all.):
Budos Band @ Brighton Music Hall
Dry Cleaning @ The Toulouse Theatre
Constant Smiles @ The Lily Pad
Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew play Remain in Light at House of Blues
Boston Calling - Day 3 and Festival Wrap Up
Sisters of Mercy @ Big Night Live
The Backseat Lovers @ Roadrunner
Young The Giant - Leader Bank Pavilion
Panda Bear + Sonic Boom @ The Paradise
The Clientele @ Crystal Ballroom
Queens of the Stone Age @ Cross Insurance Arena
Tedeschi Trucks Band @ TD Garden
Explosions in the Sky @ Roadrunner
Nick Cave and Colin Greenwood @ The Wang
The Chats + Cosmic Psychos @ House of Blues
Mudhoney @ Brighton Music Hall
Squirrel Flower @ Brighton Music Hall
2022 Recap
Well that was a fun year... pretty busy too! Here is an utterly self-indulgent look back at 2022 of every show I reviewed, just click on the artist name to get to the review and more photos.
Ministry/Melvins/Corrosion of Conformity:
Khruangbin:
Converge and Chelsea Wolfe play Blood Moon:
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever:
Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets:
Suede + Manic Street Preachers:
Amon Amarth + Carcass + Obituary:
i shot a bunch more that i didn't review, maybe i will pull together a Best of 2022 photo gallery sometime as well.
Matt Pike Fundraiser
As any self-respecting metal fan knows, Matt Pike has had a shitty end of 2018... Two tours of High On Fire have been canceled due to complications that have involved foot problems, and hey - this is the US, not Europe.... dealing with that shit ain't free. So, the Riff Lord could use a little help, and that's where you come in. I am opening my fairly extensive archive of all things Pike (roughly 30 shows of Sleep and High On Fire) in order to raise some money to help defray these costs.
For $75 and about 8 dollars for shipping, you can be the proud owner of any 10" x 15" photo you fancy, and that photo will be autographed and personalized if you want, by Matt. If you would like a larger size, 12" x 18" prints are available for $100, with the same shipping fee. NOTE - my watermark that you see online WILL NOT BE on the print.
Due to international shipping rates and overall hassles, only residents of US and Canada are eligible ... all you overseas fans best lean on an American or Canuckistan friend to help out if you want to own one of these prints. That said, I am willing to estimate postage if you are OK with taking on that cost, and don't complain if the print gets delivered as if it's an accordion.
This offer will remain open until FEBRUARY 15th, 2019, and your signed print will be mailed out later that month.
If you wanna dig through the volumes to pick out your fave photo, you can do so via these search results on my website:
If time is of the essence, you can also take a scan through a self-selected gallery of my favorite Pike shots that I personally pulled together:
Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter. Worship the riff, follow the smoke, and help a brother out.
Details on ordering (see screenshots in the comments):
1 - select the photo you want, and click the BUY button in the upper right corner
2 - select the print size you want, from the drop-down menu on the right
3 - (THIS IS IMPORTANT) At checkout, use my shipping address (Tim Bugbee 223 Concord Turnpike #413 Cambridge MA 02140) so that I can collect all the prints, make sure they are all printed with no issues, and send them off to Matt. If you use your own shipping address, it gets delivered directly to you and Matt can't sign it.
4 - One detail I forgot to include is that I need your mailing address too so be sure to enter your email address in the above form so i can contact you later to get it.
If you've got any questions, don't hesitate to give a shout via [email protected]
People have asked how much of the sales proceeds are going to Matt. 100% of the gross. I am covering all of the printing costs, and will pay for all postage of the signed prints to Matt, and then back to the buyers. I am not skimming anything here, or even looking to break even. This is a benefit/fundraiser, to do anything else would be weird imo.
Thanks for your support!