Andrew Kendall – Blog Archive

Photographs from last nights Ludes gig at Kill All Hippies, the gig was pretty cool and I ended up feeling very welcome back in the country! In fact I lost count of how many hugs and kisses I got while I was supposed to be taking photos Thank you all. I haven’t slept since last night, so now some rest and tonight The Cribs and Baby shambles…

Well I made it back alive and after a fantastic two weeks in New York all I can say is England has never felt so English. I have a few days of rock and roll debauchery planned, if you wish to join me leave a comment, Mr and Miss please step forward, would you care to join? Meanwhile I leave you with some photos of The Cribs I sorted on the plane on the way back. Oh and before I forget I just signed up to MySpace, so add me if you like.

Photographs of The Others from Vice Magazine’s 10th birthday party.

Photographs of The Mean Reds from Vice Magazine’s 10th birthday party.

Pictures of last Thursday’s excellent Moldy Peaches show.

Meanwhile I’ve got no real plans for tonight and have in my possession a very large bottle of vodka, does anyone want to ‘take me out?’

After waking up this morning, looking at last nights photos and posting in LJ we met up with who very kindly offered us a lift to Philadelphia to see The Libertines. The journey was pretty straight forward – we got to the venue really early, wandered in, found Gary and said hello and then watched a bit of the sound check. After a while of sitting around, Peter the Libertines tour manager came over and asked if we could leave and come back a bit later. We went for a walk through the streets of Philadelphia, got some food and went back to the venue. I went to pick up my photopass from the desk but for some reason my name wasn’t down on the list. Luckily just that minute Carl walked past so I said hello, we chatted for a bit and I asked if he could sort out my pass, he was cool and said no problem. We hopped onto the tour bus, Carl went to get some sleep and sent me with Greg from Radio 4 to get my pass. I picked up the pass, security were being thorough and made Kris throw away half a bottle of vodka she had in her bag, but we thought fair enough.

Once inside we waited for Radio 4, I was going to take some pictures but just before they played the security guy came up and told me I wasn’t allowed to take Radio 4 pictures so I didn’t and just watched the set. The gig was good and after it finished I went forward to get a position for The Libertines. Just before they were due to come on same security guard came up and told me to put the camera away, I asked why and he told me I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures. Bemused I showed him my photopass and asked to go and find someone from Libertines to sort it out. We went upstairs and everyone was saying “it’s cool, he’s a friend of the band” but security wouldn’t listen and took me to find Peter. I tried to explain that I was supposed to be on the list, I do loads of Libertines pictures and I had come all the way from New York just to take pictures. He didn’t seem to listen and when I said Carl had okayed it he just replied “I don’t care what Carl says, I’m in charge here.” He then waved me out and security proceeded to forcefully throw me and Kris out for causing ‘trouble’. I was kind of stunned, I do so much Libertines stuff and the band were cool with me being around. I figured my pictures were good libertines promotion.

It makes me appreciate people like Baby shambles tour manager Matt ten times more, especially after he was so helpful to me last week at the Scala gig. It’s not the first time I’ve had that kind of trouble, last time was at TITP when Peter dragged me offstage during Libertines even after I had gotten permission from Alan McGee to do photographs. I understand that it’s a job but I was perturbed by the fact he didn’t want to listen and I ended up thrown out for nothing. I certainly don’t want to make enemies and I’m reluctant to post this because I’m not trying to cause trouble, especially as everyone else at Coalition / Rough Trade has been nothing but helpful to me, so if I go to shoot The Libertines again I shall make sure I triple check with Peter that it is OK and hopefully he’ll be cool with me doing pictures next time. So sadly no Libertines photographs today, instead I’m off to sort pictures from the last few days. Farewell Philadelphia, it’s certainly good to be back in rush around New York.

Yesterday, even though it was littered with misfortune, all worked out in the end. The day started with a treck around New York with Kris looking on a search for a cable for my flash. A quick question: Why are all the major NYC camera shops closed on Saturdays but open every other day? I needed a cable from my battery pack to flash, we called Alkit who said they had it in stock, so we got a cab across town only to find there was no cable in stock, headed to Calumet where it was the same story, except the cable that was in stock, was the wrong cable.

After all the hassle we were running late, so another cab downtown to meet Imran. The traffic was horrible and I had visions of missing Dios Malos who I was supposed to be photographing, fortunately I wasn’t too late, caught a few songs, grabbed some pictures, did vox pops and went to find some food.

Next stop the Cribs, they were excellent as always. The club was pretty empty but those who were there were certainly enjoying it. It seems Steve Lamacq is a bit of a Cribs fan, I was quite surprised when I looked round and caught him dancing and singing along next to me. The Cribs returned the love by doing a rendition of happy birthday to Steve. The rest of the set was pretty much the same as their recent London shows and closed on Third Outing and the usual mayhem that goes with it. After the Cribs it was on to the Vice party, we met back up with Imran and waited outside for ages, the Vice party was obviously the hot place to be judging by the amount of people waiting to get in. Dominic finally appeared and managed to drag us all in. This is where it all starts to get slightly hazy. Free drinks, talking to lots of people, photographing the Mean Reds who looked awesome on stage, you’ll see what I mean once all the photos are online. The Others set went well with the help of ’853 NYC division’ and by the end Dominic was being held upside down singing ‘For The Poor’. After The Others it gets even hazier, something about Vice stamps and Kris rather skilfully ‘obtaining’ 2 litres of raspberry Absolut of which we attempted to drink as much of as possible, said our goodbyes, jumped in a cab vodka in hand and returned to 51st and 7th. Stumbled out of the taxi, drank more and eventually made it to bed. Now it’s Sunday sitting on the sofa PowerBooks in hand. Tonight it’s the Libertines in Philadelphia.

I woke up at a reasonable hour, (because I’ve been staying up really late in London I’ve luckily avoided any kind of jetlag), checked the net, laughed at .org, read my emails and when returned from work went to fetch Vodka. After vodka and in what seemed like a good idea at the time I decided to go and take photographs of The Music and Hope Of The States at the Webster Hall before the Moldy Peaches. We got a taxi, got in and saw The Music, who were cool, I shall try and see them again soon. Looking at the time I saw everything CMJ related seemed to be running late, knowing Moldy Peaches were on at 11, when it got to 10:30 and Hope Of The States were only just coming onstage I was getting a bit edgy. I got in front of the stage and started taking pictures, after the first song Sam clocked me in the photo pit and said hello, I wish I could have stayed for more of the show, but instead I ducked out of the photo pit and ran with to get a taxi. The doorman objected to my drinking of the double JD on the street, so i downed it and continued to the taxi. After getting into a cab the driver decided he had no idea where the hook was, so we jumped out and waited five minutes to get another. The next taxi driver seemed a little more helpful, ‘seemed’ being the operative word here, he drove us to Brooklyn then proceeded to look highly lost, when we suggested he look at the map he mumbled something about not being able to read it?!? and then pulled over and ask some random guy for directions. The random guy was singularly unhelpful, and instead leaned inside the taxi and seemed far more interested in Kris than actually helping us get anywhere, when the taxi driver suggested random guy get in and show us the way we just asked him to drive us to the nearest taxi office. Now running thirty minutes late we found the taxi office, jumped into another car and this time drove to the venue. We rushed through the doors, Moldy Peaches were onstage and expecting it to be well into the set I went to the front and started taking pictures, after the taking the first few pictures I glanced at the set-list expecting one or two songs left, however it seems fortunes smiles upon me, because they were still on song number one, and after all that we had only missed about thirty seconds of the show…

The gig itself was amazing, it sounded great and dancing to ‘Whose Got The Crack (Blues)’ and seeing ‘Steak For Chicken’ live again was just fantastic, after the show we grabbed a drink and wandered outside. Not knowing the area we pondered exactly how we were going to get back to Manhattan and while we did a really nice girl came up and asked ‘are you Andrew?’ there’s something random about being recognised in different country we talked about the The Libertines and whether I was going on Sunday (the answer to which is I’m still not sure) after we said goodbye we walked through Red Hook which to be fair is not the kind of place I want to spend too much time, not quite sure where to go we walked past a fire station with a few people talking out side, Kris asked and before we knew it we were in a cab on the way back to Manhattan, bagels and bed.

Today: Work on Moldy Peaches pictures and more CMJ related activities, as soon as I hear from Mr. Imran Ahmed that is.

Well, I finally made it to New York, rough plan of action… Moldy Peaches tomorrow, then The Others and The Cribs. I’m here until the 27th, any other suggestions of gigs I should be going to? Also does anyone from New York want to come and keep me company while I’m around?

If you buy this weeks NME one of the posters is the above picture, taken on the 26th of February this year at the Rhythm Factory