Ditchwater Zine #2

RELEASE PARTY
FOR
DITCHWATER ZINE #2

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2008
7:00 TO 9:00PM

W/ MUSICAL GUEST:
CHOCOLATE CRUCIFIX

@ SOUND EXCHANGE, 1846 RICHMOND

Extra Golden

Thrill Jockey artists Extra Golden can't be beat if you're looking for an Afro-pop dance party. They played here last month at The Orange Show. They'll be playing NY in August. Look them up!

Christina Carter, musician

Christina and I have been friends since we found each other at the housewarming party of the legendary punk rock woman, Dorothy Dean in the early nineties. We gabbed in a corner and became fast and furious friends. When she called looking for some promo shots earlier this year, I came running. Christina Carter is based in Austin, Texas these days...

What I did on my summer vacation 2008: Terrastock

Here are some negative scans of the Terrastock part of our summer vacation. This was all done on consumer brand C41 black and white film and scanned at a CVS in Louisville, Kentucky where the festival took place. They were all taken on my trusty Nikon FA with a 50mm/1.4 or my 24mm/3.8 lens. As you can see I didn't grayscale them before saving. My humble apologies for the lack of continuity.


I have never in my life driven so much. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.












The festival made the cover of both alt weeklies in town. This was taken at a nice little cafe called Karma Cafe.














We've known Phil for years. Terrastock is his brainchild. He is absolutely the nicest and smartest guy. Three cheers for Phil.
























Ptolemaic Terrascope writer (and The Broken Face creator and Houston, Texas fan) Mats Gustafson.








This year's organizers: Erica Ruck and Rob Codey.



















Stage left.

















Tara Jane O'Neil






















Plastic Crimewave!
















Makoto Kawabata snapping a pic.






















Antietam are natives of Louisville.
















Damon and Naomi chatting with Yo La Tengo's side project Sleeping Pill.














Saturday setlist.

















Partly Paik.














Mostly Wooden Shipjs.

















Rachel and friend.















Major Stars acting the part.
















Mono from Japan. This was their only US tour date this year.













And I leave you with Linus Pauling Quartet:










Ramon did a write-up of the festival here for The Free Press. Charlie's diary was published with a few of the above photos on The Houston Press's blog here.

X at Warehouse live, June 2008

Here are a few photographs from X performing at Warehouse live last week. These were shot on a Nikon FA, 50 mm lens. The interior pictures were shot on manual setting at F1.4, 1/60 of a second. The exterior shots were also on manual, 1/60 of a second but most likely at F4. I won't underestimate the brightness of that tiny, tiny flash again! Interestingly enough (or not), I used consumer brand Kodak c41 b&w film, ISO 400 (thinking that I might be shooting them for the press). I had them processed normally and uploaded onto a cd. The results were very purple, so I re-uploaded the pictures to Adobe Express and converted them to gray scale. This is the result.

Working with writers...Free Press and Houston Press

I've had fun with Ramon doing dedicated photo shoots for the bands he interviews (for The Free Press). Here are three we've done together:

Bring Back the Guns
















Insect Warfare
























Born Liars

















And I recently teamed up ex-Houston Press Music editor Chris Gray, to shoot live shows he reviews. Here is our first excursion as a team for The Houston Press blog Houstoned:

Sean Reefer and the Resin Valley Boys at Boondocks

Sharon Jones: D76 vs. Diafine

Sharon Jones, Walter's On Washington, Houston, Texas, 2008


No pre-soak, Diafine Part A for 3 minutes (inverted for 5 seconds every 30 seconds), Part B for 3 minutes (inverted for 5 seconds every 30 seconds), no Stop, Koda-Fix for five minutes, rinsed in water for 30 seconds, Perma-washed for 2 minutes, final rinse for five minutes. Total cook time: 11 1/2 minutes


Presoaked for one minute, D76 for 10 1/2 minutes, inverted for 10 seconds every minute, Kodak-indicator-stop for one minute, Koda-Fix for 5 minutes, rinsed in water for 30 seconds, Perma-washed for 2 minutes, final rinse for five minutes. Total cook time: 20 minutes

Both of these were shot most likely at 1/60th of a second, F-stop of 1.4 on my Nikon F with a 50mm lens. The "F" doesn't have a light meter, so what I get is, well, what I get.

It might be an unfair comparison as the top image (cooked in Diafine) is a print (F16 for ten seconds, no filter) and the bottom D76 image is a raw scan. And of course the lighting will be slightly different but I do see the light outlining her leg on both. The main difference I note is that the drums on the top image are bright white. While the drums on bottom have much more gray.