2009 brought a ton of opportunities for myself as the sole photographer for Killahbeez. I had the pleasure of shooting Sasquatch! Music Festival, Rock The Bells, Virgin Music Festival, No Doubt, Pearl Jam, Sebastien Tellier, Peaches, The xx, Metric and the list goes on and on. So I decided to compile some of my favorite shots from this past year and share them with you the readers who may or may not have seen some of these photos. I hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I had a blast taking them. More to come in 2010…I hope.

Below some of the photos are the stories behind them and how I ended up with the shot.

At the beginning of this concert I had to choose. Position myself in front of Dave Navarro or Perry Farrell cus it was going to be unlikely that I was going to have a chance to move back and forth with the amount of photographers shooting this show. I picked Navarro, why? Cus I figured Farrell would come to him and I was right and when he didn’t I ended up with epic side shots like the one below. I love the color explosions in the one above and the light flare just below Navarro’s guitar is sick. The smoke and lighting make it an epic shot. The one above was shot on a fisheye.

This shot here was at a Fool’s Gold gig which featured Treasure Fingers as well as Jokers of The Scene. The guys from JOTS, I guess bumped into this girl named Vanessa and she had some pretty fly ass nails and so this shot came about.

Simian Mobile Disco. The lighting at their shows are always crazy. Dark as hell, but if you capture shit in the right lighting or situation like I luckily was able too, you end up with some pretty cool shots. The one above looks like a space ship is beaming its lights down on him, while the one below captures the essence of their show. Them twisting knobs and playing shit live in front of you.

Another crazy dark show. The band, The Golden Filter, is known to have this air of mysteriousness around them, which explains their dark lighting for live shows and the lead singer covering parts of her face with her hair. I like these two shots because of the lighting as well.

For this shot I armed myself with my 10.5mm fisheye lens and positioned in front of Kim when I noticed Julian coming towards me. I stuck my arm up in the air and caught this shot as Kim stood up in the background.

I love Sebastien Tellier. In particular his last album, Sexuality, was the fuckin’ bees knees. I loved the way he looked / was put together. Really clean look and then you have this face full of facial hair and disheveled hair going every which way.

Kele of Bloc Party is always good to shoot. I’ve photographed Bloc Party twice and he always provides great emotion on stage. This shot is a prime example of him just blasting through the mic and strumming his guitar.

This was at Sasquatch! Music Festival. By now you’ve probably seen the video that the guy above is featured in. It’s had over 2 million views, I provided a video below in case you haven’t seen it. I saw this kid on the first day and he was having the time of his life. I even have pictures of him eating grass, like the lawn he’s dancing on. Anyways this picture kinda captures the fun spirit of the festival. Shit was a great experience.

This show was a great pleasure to shoot. There were no restrictions and Maja Ivarsson played it up for photographers as did her band mates below. Energetic concert from beginning to end.

This shot above was also at The Sounds. I dipped out into the crowd as I usually do. I saw a great path between some concert goers and the Maja on stage and snapped. I ended up with this photo above. I love the light kissing down on one of the audience’s head and the fingers and one fist pump.

The three are my personal favorites because of the contrast and lighting in them. I’m not very good at taking black and white photos, but these ones are definitely favorites of mine.

Stuck in between two monitor speakers up at the stage, I thought, wouldn’t it be fuckin’ great if Ben Harper sets up right in between these two monitors. BAM. It’s like he heard me. Swapped out my regular lens for my fisheye and this was the result.

One word. Legends. Three groups I listened to when I was first introduced to hiphop: NWA, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul. Shot with a fisheye on this one.

Erykah Badu at Sasquatch! She came out and had such an air of presence about her that you couldn’t explain nor fuck with. Oh and before I forget she came out rocking tight leather black pants. Soooo good.

I photographed a Girl Talk show the previous year, but the photos didn’t turn out very well. I was still adjusting and learning to shoot on digital. So when he came back again I thought it would be great to give it another go. A friend of mine described the shot above as a modern day image of The Last Supper. Ya that Last Supper. While the one below is pretty dope too. I saw this girl prior to the show running around trying to find a way to get a bracelet so that she could dance on stage. Well, guess she got one, and I got her headbanging pretty hard.

I just like the photo above. It just catches my eye every time and I’m not quite sure why. While the photo below I thought was pretty hilarious. One of the concert goers dancing behind Gogol Bordello had shaved his body hair to resemble that of  Eugene Hutz’s facial hair. See above then look at his body hair below. HAHAHAHAHA

One of my favorite shots all weekend at Virgin Music Festival. Jimmy Shaw of Metric, on stage with Broken Social Scene playing the trumpet. The composition and colors stand out to me.

Canadian musician K-OS, the whole photo set I took of him, I would describe with one word. Colorful. His clothes, mixed with the lighting and his movements.

Lykke Li, I had waited for this concert for a loooooong time. The previous time she came to town I had chosen to attend Yelle instead, it was on the same night. This time she came back and I got my shit in order nice and early. A picture of her singing out to the crowd. Shot looks so peaceful, doesn’t it.

The band: Monotonix. This was at Sasquatch! Music Festival and was the most insane show I’ve ever photographed. These dudes don’t set up on a conventional stage, they put their shit in the field with the audience and rock hard. The shot above is a shot of the lead singers ass, this was probably theeeeee most awkward shot ever, not the picture itself, but I was all contorted and shit. I was also shooting this whole show with a 10.5 mm fisheye lens so although it may not seem like I was up close, trust me I was VERY close.

The one below is also ill. He was standing on a speaker box, I was on the photo railing. I love how the cord appears to whip me across the face. Rest assure it didn’t, but the following shot (which isn’t posted here) has him bending down and melting my face off by shredding hard on his guitar.

Whenever I photograph concerts and the singer or band leader is a woman, I always without fail photograph their shoes. Why? The above shot pretty explains it. These Jeremy Scott / Reebok joints are soooo dope. These are what Santigold wore as she rocked the crowd, in what was probably one of my favorite performances all weekend from that festival.

Click on link to download.

Phoenix “Long Distance Call” Sebastien Tellier Remix
Erykah Badu / The Roots “I Wanna Be Where You Are” Michael Jackson Cover
Don Diablo vs The Roots “The Seed 3.0″

Final show of the night for myself at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. Erykah Badu coming out on stage and capturing everyones attention and doing her damn thing in tight black leather pants and looking daaaaaaamn fly in them. Right after this I hopped into my car and drove 5 – 6 hours straight home. It was a miracle I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel, I think it was the Baconator from Wendys that kept me awake, good or bad, who knows, but it was delicious going down.

This is the final set of photos from the whole weekend. We hope you all enjoyed checking out our photos. To see all the different sets click here.

Here’s a fresh interview with an up and coming designer by the name Melody Ehsani whom is makin’ some huge waves in the industry. Stars such as Angela Simmons, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Keri Hilson and Erykah Badu to name a few have rocked her jewels.

If you were one of the ones that didn’t get to venture down to SXSW, this includes me, which I am now kicking myself for. Then you missed out on one of the hypest shows that went down. Levi’s and Faders tent featured Kanye West, Common, Kid Cudi, Erykah Badu and the rest of the G.O.O.D. Music family members. SPIN magazine reported that Kanye and above mentioned cohorts performed for 2 hours straight…siiiiiick! But fret not, the good folks over at Fader streamed the whole event and even have it posted it up online, so head on over to Fader for the video. Below is the official playlist from that evening.

Kanye West’s Setlist
“Amazing” (Kanye West)
“The Good, the Bad, the Ugly” (Consequence ft. Kanye West)
“Don’t Forget Em (Consequence)
“Gone” (Consequence ft. Kanye West)
“Drive Slow” (Kanye West ft. GLC)
“Big Screen” (GLC ft. Kanye West)
“Spaceship” (Kanye West ft. GLC and Consequence)
“Disperse” (Consequence ft. GLC and Really Doe)
“We Major” (Kanye West ft. Really Doe)
“Plastic” (Really Doe ft. Kanye West)
“Crack Music” (Kanye West and Malik Yusef)
Malik Yusef interlude
“Diamonds Are Forever (Kanye West)
“Getcha Some” (Big Sean)
“Way Out” (Big Sean & Mr. Hudson)
“Anyone But Him” (Mr. Hudson ft. Kanye)
“Stay Up!” (Viagra) (88 Keys ft. Kanye West)
“Everybody” (Fonzworth Bentley)
“Welcome To Heartbreak” (Kanye West ft. Kid Cudi)
“Sky Might Fall” (Kid Cudi)
“Buggin’ Out ‘09″(Consequence ft. Kid Cudi)
“Day ‘N’ Nite” (Kid Cudi)
“Universal Mind Control” (Common)
“Get Em High” (Kanye West ft. Common)
“The Light” (Common ft. Erykah Badu)
Freestyles (Common, Erykah Badu and Kanye West)
“Heartless” (Kanye West)
“Paranoid” (Kanye West ft. Kid Cudi and Mr. Hudson)
“Good Life” (Kanye West)
“Love Lockdown” (Kanye West)

Source / Images: SPIN.com and Matt Kiser

For this week’s Mixtape Monday, I came across a double headliner mix via Asian Dan.  Rob da Bank introduces two of France’s most influential men in electronic music.  The first hour is covered by the producer with the golden touch, Fred Falke.  Ed Banger’s frontman, Pedro Winter, covers the second half of this 2 hour mix.  For the most part, Fred Falke’s set consists of tracks he’s gotten his hands dirty on.  Per Busy P and Rob da Bank’s dialogue, his set consists of mid to downtempo favorites for those in favor of afterparty music.

Its a hard toss up between which mix I enjoyed best.  Fred Falke is an overly confident dj/producer that loves to play his own work live.  No hate here folks, I get ecstatic every time I see a new mp3 with Mr Falke’s name all over it.  But the minute I keyed in “overly confident”, the name, Dillinja, immediately came to mind with a chuckle to follow.  Then there is Busy P who experimented all across the board.  I wanna say his is the best because he introduced  Bullion, whom I would’ve never knew existed.  Then towards the end he busted out with some Masters at Work steez.  Yo Pedro, Why didn’t you play “Runaway” instead???

Download the mix here.

Rob da Bank’s Double Decker – Fred Falke & Pedro Winter ‘Busy P’”
Fred Falke

Aphrodite – ‘I Want To Live (Fred Falke edit)’
Hans Zimmer – ‘Great Boat Race (Fred Falke edit)’
Kleer – ‘I Love To Dance (Fred Falke edit)’
Todd Rundgren – ‘Love Is The Answer (Fred Falke edit)’
Sugababes – ‘Girls (Fred Falke remix)’
Digitalism – ‘Apollo-gize (Fred Falke remix)’
Filthy Dukes – ‘This Rythm (Fred Falke remix)’
Will Young – ‘Grace (Fred Falke remix)’
Fred Falke feat Tef Balmert – ‘Chicago’
VHS or Beta – ‘Burn It All Down (Fred Falke remix)’
Fred Falke – ‘Ampkiller’

Pedro Winter

Bullion – ‘Get Familiar’
Kid Cudi – ‘Day And Night’
Santogold – ‘Lights Out (Dj Mehdi remix)’
Erykah Badu – ‘Honey (Seiji Remix)’
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – ‘Rich’
Maurice Fulton – ‘My Gigolo’
Dj Mehdi – ‘Tunisia Bambaata’
Busy P – ‘Rainbow Man’
Clark – ‘See See’
Esg – ‘Ufo’
Lopazz – ‘F**k Me!’
Cut Copy – ‘Hearts On Fire (Holy Ghost Remix)’
Chromeo – ‘Waiting For You (DJ Mehdi Mix)’
Sh*t Robot – ‘Dondolo’
Black Science Orchestra – ‘Save Us (Motorcitysoul Remix)’
Sam Sparro – ‘21st Century Life (Dj Mehdi Secret Disco Dub)’
Maw feat India ‘I Can’t Get No Sleep’
Djedjotronic – ‘Horrorklub

Source: Asian Dan via Rob da Bank
Image Source: TrusttheDJ

Just announced is the line-up for the 2009 Sasquatch Music Festival which takes place Memorial Day Weekend (May 23 – 25) down at The Gorge in Eastern Washington. The line-up looks pretty impressive and here are some of the acts that I would be interested in seeing: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Erykah Badu, TV On The Radio, Animal Collective, Bon Iver, Santigold, Of Montreal, M83, Chromeo (DJ set), Passion Pit, School of Seven Bells. See below for the full list, keep in mind that there will probably be more acts added to the line-up, but this gives you a general idea.

Tickets for the event officially go on sale on Saturday February 28th 10:00am at a special rate before jumping back to the regular price on March 2nd. For more information on this Live Nation and Adam Zacks produced festival hit up www.sasquatchfestival.com.

Full Line-up below:

Music line-up includes Jane’s Addiction (feat. all four original members), Kings of Leon, Nine Inch Nails, Ben Harper & Relentless7, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Erykah Badu, The Decemberists, Fleet Foxes, TV On The Radio, Animal Collective, Silversun Pickups, Bon Iver, Santigold, Of Montreal, Explosions In The Sky, Devotchka, Peter Bjorn & John, Gogol Bordello, M. Ward, The Avett Brothers, Doves, Calexico, Grizzly Bear, M83, Girl Talk, The Gaslight Anthem, The Walkmen, Chromeo (dj set), Deadmau5, Mugison, Sun Kil Moon, Airborne Toxic Event, Blitzen Trapper, Shearwater, BLK JKS, The Wrens, Tobacco, Monotonix, King Khan & The Shrines, St. Vincent, Passion Pit, John Vanderslice, Bishop Allen, Blind Pilot, AA Bondy, Black Moth Super Rainbow, The Knux, Ra Ra Riot, The Dodos, Beach House, Arthur & Yu, The Submarines, Owl City, Viva Voce, James Pants, Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band, The Builders & The Butchers, The Dutchess & The Duke, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head, Dent May & His Magnificent Ukelele, Fences, School of Seven Bells, Death Vessel, Horse Feathers, Hockey, Point Juncture, WA, The Pica Beats, Loch Lomond, Vince Mira & more to come.

Comedy line up includes Zach Galifiankas, Demetri Martin, Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job, Todd Barry, Jon Benjamin, God’s Pottery, People’s Republic of Komedy & more.

Two remixes and a new song dropping for your listening pleasures. First up is the remix of Erykah Badu’s song “Real Thang” featuring the Re-Up Gang, these dudes have been hella busy and just on everything. Definitely building up that hype before their album drops. Next is a remix from Lloyd for the song “Around The World”, which I actually quite liked the original, now he’s back with a remix with a ton of rappers, unfortunately he thought it was a good idea to bring on Dj Khaled…”WE DA BESSSSSST!”. Enough already god damn it!

Erykah Badu Ft. The Re-Up Gang “Real Thang” (Tumbling Dice Remix)

Lupe Fiasco “Where Do I Go”

Lloyd Ft. Dj Khaled, The Game, T.I., Young Joc, Rick Ross, Ace Hood, Young Dro, Pitbull & Busta Rhymes “Curtain Call”

New Wu-Tang video for the single “The Heart Gently Weeps” off of the album 8 Diagrams. This song features vocals from Erykah Badu as well. Only RZA and GZA from the Wu make an appearance in the video.

Just announced mid last week is the New Amerykah Tour with the RnB / Neosoul songstress Erykah Badu. Tickets on sale to public April 11. Exclusive presale links will be e-mailed out on April 9 via Gman & Rizks’ newsletter. To sign-up for this newsletter go to www.gmanandrizk.com. There’s no doubt this concert will sell out. Concert to take place June 6th at the Commodore Ballroom.

New Erykah Badu video, “Honey”, off of the upcoming album New Amerykah which is scheduled to drop on February 26. This is an interesting video as it pays homage to many famous album covers and interestingly enough even parodies Andre 3000’s “Hey Ya” video.