countessian

I didn’t take this, because I was busy being born at the time, but that’s my grandparents and two of my great aunties at Johnstown Castle in Co. Wexford. I come from a very happy family.

The line outside The Parish for NPR’s party was long and not moving at all because, as I overheard one girl remark, “Blitzen Trapper are, like, totally acclaimed.”

Luckily for me, Kara happened to walk by and is a super magic angel with transferable line-jumping powers, so I made it inside to join all the very enthusiastic BT fans who know every word of every song. Brilliant.

[Shot for lovely Prefix]

First up on Thursday were Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head at the Fader Fort, who Stephen really, really, really, really, really loves a lot.

I hated their name until I saw them, at which point I decided I might at some future date be slightly won over by their general cute-itude and so should officially reserve name-dissing judgement until then.

The Fader Fort was a maximum-security Levi’s shop (I’m not making this up) opposite a files, desks, chairs and top-hat warehouse (I’m not sure if that’s true, but the signage suggested as much) on Fifth Street, except that on “our” side of the freeway Fifth Street seems to be a sort of back alley with train tracks running down the middle and amazing Jesus murals on the walls, which obviously isn’t at all unpleasant.

The entire place was over-zealously decked out with whimsy-hip (I did make that up, do you like it?) furniture and therefore felt very much like the Third Street Promenade branch of Urban Outfitters, but with free Southern Comfort. Again, I can’t say I disliked it even though I think I’m supposed to pretend to be cooler than that.

On Saturday, I finally shot Wavves. He’s good.

[More Natalie Portman's Shaved Head on Prefix, and more Wavves, too.]

In other news, straight after returning from Austin I was off on a trip to explore some of the newest and most brilliant places to go in LA. Pictures once I’m caught up recapping all that Texan stuff.

Then last night Chris T-T played in Hollywood—hurray!—and I have a shot or two from that, of course. Tonight, though, I’m going to break my ten-day streak of sleeping less than three hours a day. Night night.

After Continental displayed why they’re an entirely rubbish airline (more on that later), not much work got done on Wednesday.

I did make it to Ms Bea’s in time for one song by Telepathe, but mostly just shot people.

I’m writing this sequestered in a hotel suite five times the size of my flat, at an undisclosed location in one of those cities that isn’t LA within LA (there are 80-odd, I think.) Earth Wind & Fire are on the smooth jazz station housekeeping left on my iPod-radio-alarm-clock thingy to welcome me, and I left all my energy in Austin so I can’t make it into the other room to start Dark Days/Light Years up instead.

I’ve been stupidly battered by insomnia on and off for years, so you’d think I’d be fine with a bit of sleep deprivation by now, but South by Southwest 2009 really did a number on me. After trekking there on Wednesday (more on our Amazing Race adventures later,) by Saturday I was puking in a bush for no apparent reason beyond having gone to bed at seven or eight in the morning day after day after 80-degree day.

My ability to take a decent picture seemed horribly hit or miss by then, too, and I was just about ready to put the bloody camera on eBay and go back to Essex for some babies and the dole, but luckily Sunday turned into the best day of my life and Monday saw me end up with fancy cheese, cookies and my first ever attempt to open a bottle of wine by myself, so now things no longer seem quite so dreadful.

Perhaps I’ll give it all just one more go, and maybe one day stop over exposing everything so badly.

Night night.

(The picture at the top is Pre at Mohawk, by the way. You can see most of ‘em on Prefix—scroll down and click, or we’ll send you out to sleep in the hammock.)

…but here’s my great-great-grandad to keep you company while I’m gone.

Juanita was making her shooting debut with openers Matt & Kim at the Henry Fonda for her flip-book project (which I can’t wait to see), so I shot Cut Copy after.

It was one of those nights where the opening band had much better lighting than the headliners (from a photography perspective, at least) because it was a lot less “creative”. Maybe I’m a wretched person for thinking this, but most of the time “interesting” lighting is a bit yucky.

Dita Dimoné in Echo Park, back from my homeland, throwing around English slang as only a girl from Hacienda Heights can.

(Recent things I took pictures of: HEALTH at The Echo, Animal Collective at The Troubadour, Cut Copy at the Henry Fonda. I just didn’t post ‘em yet. Tomorrow: The-Dream. This time next week I’ll be in Austin for South by Southwest. Hurrah.)

Club NME at Spaceland helps me feel like I’m not entirely out of touch with the motherland, despite my bizarrely Australian hybrid accent.