Photographer: Joseph Towns
Site: Heavisides
Based in: London
ONE
AMENRA
Towards the end of my final year of university, I managed to excuse myself from exam revision to go to this show, as the line-up was unmissable – Amenra, Dragged into Sunlight and Rwake. Recently joining the Neurot Recordings family, Amenra play with a stage setup fitting to their sound, playing in near total darkness. However this doesn’t make it easy to get live shots of them. Working here without a flash, I caught the end of someone else’s which I think made the shot come out quite well. I guess there’s a bit of luck involved in getting the picture you want sometimes.
TWO
RWAKE
At the same show as Amenra, above, Rwake made working a lot easier with the aid of stage lighting. They also helped by pulling some sublime metal poses and grimaces, it was only a matter of waiting for the claw to come out for this shot.
THREE
PALEHORSE
With two bassists, two vocalists and no guitars, I managed to catch Palehorse for the first time since first hearing them a good few years ago. A fairly crushing set. I was using a recently acquired off-camera flash cord to get a bit of variation in lighting. I’ve come to like shooting from below catching some nice shadows on the walls behind.
FOUR
As you can see, not a band here, although the woods are the perfect setting for some cvlt BM! I enjoy exploring the natural environment. The theme of human destruction of the environment, be through endless consumption of resources or mass-slaughter of sentient beings is one that I often find myself attracted to in music. Perhaps an induction of some level of misanthropy in me! In this shot, I noticed these moss-covered dead trees just off a path on a walk and loved the green hues.
FIVE
LIGHT BEARER
An unintentional recurring theme it seems, as this was the first time I’d caught Light Bearer in a live setting too. I play in another band with Alex and Matthew pictured here, and was asked to take a few photos at this show. The venue was close to capacity and I was pushed to being about half a metre away from the band, fortunately my wide-angle lens came into its own here and with a bit more of the good ol’ lighting from below, I got some shots I was very pleased with.
SIX
ONSIND
A departure from the heaviest of the heavy perhaps, but these two very good friends of mine write some of the most awe-inspiring music and lyrics, and truly show the power of politics in punk rock. This, when a number of ‘punk’ scenes appear to have lost all regard of progressive(/any) politics, lamenting patriarchy and shrugging shoulders at inequality. For me, that’s the underlying ethos of punk and particularly DIY punk. I used a prime lens, with the aperture wide open at f1.4 here to make the most of low-light conditions.
SEVEN
COMADRE
California’s finest play some of the most energetic shows I’ve ever seen, making it tricky to keep up sometimes. This show was in my hometown of Durham, Northeast England about a year ago, so being there with so many friends made it all the more enjoyable. I didn’t have my wide-angle lens at this point, so could only get a couple of people in frame at one time, but i think this one and a few other came out okay.
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