When I used to shoot dance parties every day of my life I would bounce around from club to club and I would occasionally do theses “Random Night Out” posts where I would combine all the shots I took in a night when I didn’t want to do a bunch of posts or didn’t shoot enough photos to really justify their own gallery. Wednesday night was a little bit different, but I felt like the galleries make sense together anyway even if they don’t really have anything to do with each other.

On Wednesday night the Washington Capitals played the biggest game in their history. The Caps went to the Stanley Cup in 1998 but no one really gave them a chance against the Red Wings and they got swept in four games. 20 years later the Caps were on the brink of their first trip to the finals since 1998, but they had to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in a terrifying game 7. The Caps were big underdogs in the series and no one expected them to take it to 7 games much less win.

I had made plans to watch the game with my NYC Caps Crew family so when I got a call from Harley-Davidson asking me at the very last minute to shoot the Fleet Week opening night party I almost had to turn them down, but they only needed me until 9 and the game started at 8. I asked them if I could go at 8:30pm and they were fine with that so I threw my Caps jersey and my camera in my bag and got my ass up to Times Square to shoot the Fleet Week kick off at the Hard Rock Cafe.

My second roommate in NYC worked at the Hard Rock Cafe but I haven’t actually been there before. I loved Hard Rock’s as a kid but as an adult the only Hard Rock’s I’ve been to are the casino in Vegas and the Dolphins stadium in Miami which is, as of last year, Hard Rock Stadium. I ended up getting there pretty early so I shot the Harley on stage and took some photos outside. I didn’t want to bug the sailors while they were eating the pretty serious buffet they had available for them, but I got some decent crowd shots before the USO entertainment began. 

The entertainment consisted of Broadway style versions of pop songs mostly, but you would be really surprised how well Katy Perry goes over in a room full of sailors and Marines. It was honestly pretty amazing. They were a few songs into the country music part of the set when I had to escape to go watch hockey, but the crowd was loving it. Personally I was loving the fact that Alex Ovechkin scored 1 minutes and 2 seconds into the game to put the Caps up 1-0 before I got to our bar Jojo’s Philosophy.

When I got to Jojo’s the bar was completely packed. The bouncer whispered to me to go around and sneak in the back because he couldn’t let me just walk in when there was a huge line. It was pretty funny cause that’s the exact type of shit I pulled in my nightlife days except this time it was a sports bar. I somehow made my way up to my friends near the front, threw my camera bag over one of the bar stools and put on my Caps jersey even though it was 100 degrees in the bar at this point.

When the Caps scored their second goal after the Lightning had been really dominating play I almost started crying. In so many past seasons the exact opposite would happen to us. We would be killing a team but they would get the lucky breaks and the Caps would somehow lose. This felt so different and after the Caps scored again I could see the expression in the Lightning’s faces that I had seen so many times before in the Caps faces. With twenty minutes still left in the game they knew it was over.

When the Caps scored their fourth and final goal with only a few minutes to go in the game Jojo’s completely exploded. Suddenly I realized I still had my camera on me and dove into the crowd to pull it out of my camera bag. I just started blindly shooting and as the bartenders sprayed us with wine and water I just kept shooting. As the clock ticked down we all began hugging and high fiving and just losing our minds knowing we were finally going back to the Stanley Cup Finals. If you don’t give a shit about sports you can probably never understand this moment, but 20 years of pain was wiped out in 60 minutes of hockey. 

Again, if you don’t care about sports, or hockey or the Caps you might not care about any of this, but the faces of jubilation are worth looking at if nothing else. Sports provides the highest highs and the lowest lows and even if you can’t understand that, you can still appreciate the emotions so I recommend you checking out these photos even if it’s not something you’d normally care about.

Anyway, I have broken this up into two different galleries but it’s all one night and all one post. 

Click here to see all the photos from the Harley-Davidson sponsored Fleet Week kick off party at the Hard Rock Cafe.

Click here to see all the photos from the NYC Caps Crew’s Eastern Conference Finals winning celebration at Jojo’s Philosophy.

These “Best of” posts keep coming as I slowly get all my images organized. The 2013 best of gallery was a bit of a turning point though because at some point during 2013 I got a little more organized and so a lot of the work is already done. It goes a lot faster. I am actually done with 2016 too but I will wait to post the best of 2015 first. But, not one bit of this is interesting so let’s start talking about the reason we are here: 2014.

I think I peaked as a photographer in 2014. I lost my favorite client in the middle of 2014 over some shit that I had very little to do with, and then my life sort of detonated in 2015. I have shot a bunch of stuff that I am fairly proud of since then, but looking back at the first half of 2014 I really shot some stuff I loved. My shoot with Raven Rockette at Rock-a-Hoola and my shoot with April O’Neil and Shay Laren at Murphy’s Ranch were two of my favorite shoots of all time and they happened in the same week! 

Some other highlights of 2014 included following Hannibal Buress when he opened up for Aziz Ansari at Madison Square Garden, hanging out with Iggy Pop in Miami, and watching Joey Chestnut propose at the Coney Island hot dog eating contest. I got to shoot Motley Crue from a million miles away on their “last tour” and I got to shoot Miley Cyrus which was surprisingly enjoyable. I shot MIA and a hologram for a tequila and a ton of fun stuff for Sailor Jerry including the Sailor Jerry House at SXSW. 

I shot a ton of stuff for the Village Voice including two of my favorite assignments of all time, Antiques Roadshow and the Westminster Dog Show. I shot some festivals for them as well including 4 Knots, Fool’s Gold Day Off, and of course the Gathering of the Juggalos. The girl I was dating for a bunch of 2014 was a writer for the Voice and we covered a bunch of stuff together, but the one thing we did together that didn’t end up in the Voice was our trip to the Creation Museum in Kentucky. It was so fucking insane. 

I feel like I got a couple more things left to mention before I let you guys get to the 300+ photos. 2014 Art Basel was the last time I went down there after I managed to somehow lose money. It was still a great trip though and I got to see a Dolphins game so I shouldn’t complain too much. I got to shoot John Amos for an article that I don’t think ever ran, but it was great to meet a legend like that. Speaking of legends I also got to shoot Robert Rodriguez, Robert Duvall and a bunch of other actors and directors not named Robert during the SXSW Film Fest including the cast of Silicon Valley. Oh, also I should mention that I shot this Rockabilly convention in Vegas incase you are wondering what all the insane haircuts are all about. Fair warning. 

The one thing I hate about looking back on all these photos is seeing the people I will never see again. The last photo I ever took of Dust La Rock is in this gallery. My really good friend DJ Jess died three years ago this week. I feel like I don’t have a ton of photos of Spam because he was usually behind a bar working but I found a couple and included one in this gallery. My brother from another mother Denny is in this gallery too. Too many people gone.

Lastly, I  should mention that I only found one naked girl gallery I hadn’t published. That’s a good thing because I have way too many that I still need to publish. The one I did find was of a girl named Alison Faye who left the adult industry shortly after we shot and I just never got around to posting them. The set was fairly small anyway, so I just decided to upload the whole thing to Girls of Driven By Boredom so it’s there if you want to see it. 

Okay, now click here look at this massive gallery of the best photos I took in 2014.

This is going to be a massive post. In one single update I am going to be posting over 400 photos from six parties over a three day period that account for nearly everything I did at South By Southwest. I thought about breaking it up with a separate update for each party or each day, but I am exhausted after a week in Austin and I have one of the biggest gigs of my week tomorrow and then I am headed out of town to see my family so I wanted to get everything up as soon as possible. So let’s break this down!

Every day from Wednesday through Friday Brooklyn Bowl threw two parties at the Scoot Inn on Austin’s east side. The parties started at 1pm and went to 1am every night. The whole event was sponsored by Harley Davidson and Sailor Jerry who just happened to be my clients for the event. Aside from photographing the bands I was on hand to photograph people getting free haircuts from local barber Teddy Sloan thanks to Sailor Jerry and free air brush tattoos from Harley Davidson. Harley also had a bunch of bikes on hand and a training bike so you could learn how to ride a Harley. I should also give a shout out to High Brew coffee who sponsored the “Roadie Lounge” which was air conditioned and had free coffee. They aren’t a client of mine but I am pretty sure I would have not survived without all that caffeine.

Now let’s go through this party by party! Day one featured the Brooklyn Bowl party during day and the This Song Is Sick party at night. R&B artist Son Little and indie/folk Hop Along were the highlights of the day party but I honestly enjoyed all of the bands. The night party was mostly DJs. The absurd Party Pupils were, if nothing else, highly entertaining. They got the crowd both dancing and laughing. Louis Futon brought out a trumpet player to play along with his DJ set and Classixx headlined with a DJ set of their own.

Day two had the Consequence of Sound party during the day and the Brooklyn Vegan showcase at night. The Consequence of Sound party was actually my favorite event even though I am not sure the bands made any sense together. A band called Hinds from Span opened up and they were on their 7th of 14 SXSW shows. That is madness and it’s the kinda thing that leads to some terrible shows, but even for a 2pm set they were really enjoyable. Even their soundcheck was fun when they started covering Beatles songs they didn’t know the lyrics to. Chicago rapper Kweku Collins played next and put on a great show, but I was just happy because he dropped his beer so I ran and got him another drink in a Sailor Jerry cup so I could get some good branded photos. Is it weird that nailing a branded shot is a highlight? Sunflower Bean were really fun to watch. It’s weird that I don’t even remember what they sounded like, but I really liked photographing them. Photography has broken my brain. Headlining was Dr. Octagon which is the alter ego of legendary rapper Kool Keith with music by legendary producer Dan the Automator and legendary DJ DJ Qbert. It was really amazing to see them all together on stage. I remember my friend Keith shoplifted Dr. Octctagonecologyst from Tower Records for me when we were in high school and I had that CD in my car for years. Also, I got a shot of Dan and Just Blaze together which was pretty iconic even if it’s just a mediocre party photo. The Brooklyn Vegan party was headlined by Ted Leo and Wye Oak but the highlight for me was this band Bully who gives me a nostalgia boner for every female fronted band I listened to in the early ’90s i.e. anything with a Deal sister in it.

Day three was all about Relix Magazine. The magazine started out many years ago as a Grateful Dead newsletter so it’s day party “Tribute to Jerry Garcia” makes a lot of sense. Aside from the bands that played, the day party featured a bunch of exclusive clips from a documentary about Willie Nelson’s roadie Ben “Lovey” Dorsey called King of The Roadies. Willie Nelson’s daughter Amy Lee Nelson co-directed the movie and was on hand to show the clips and talk about the film. There was also an auction to raise money for Live Like Lovey, a charity that helps roadies founded after the death of Ben Dorsey by the fellow roadies who took care of him late in life. The afternoon ended with the Texas Gentlemen doing a Grateful Dead cover set with a bunch of guest musicians stepping in to play. It may come as a huge shock to you guys that I am not a huge Grateful Dead fan, but I did own Skeletons from the Closet when I was 10 and I was totally singing along to about a half dozen songs.  Bonus: My friend Sam and I sang Truckin’ karaoke at a fair when we were in the 5th grade. The parties ended with another Relix event that featured Hiss Golden Messenger and headliners Okkervill River.

Okay, that’s all I got. The rest of my SXSW was spent eating BBQ & mexican food and trying to avoid going downtown. I did photograph And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead for Rolling Stone, but I didn’t take enough photos to justify a post.  The only other post I will have from SXSW is a great one and should be up tomorrow: SXSW Slugfest! Until then go look at this massive gallery from the Brooklyn Bowl Family Reunion!

Click here to see all the photos from the SXSW Brooklyn Bowl Family Reunion at Scoot Inn in Austin, TX.

So, I am headed to Austin, TX tomorrow to cover something like my 14th South By Southwest in a row so I wanted to get some stuff up before I left. I think I am gonna try and get one more post up before I leave because my flight isn’t until 6pm but if I don’t here’s fair warning that I might not update the site much until I get back.

As I continue to slowly crawl through every photo I have ever taken we have reached the end of 2013 and I bring you another Best Of update. I have now gone through every single digital photo I have taken since I got my very first digital camera in 2001 up to December 31st 2013. The good news is that since 2013 I have been way more organized so 2014-present should go a lot faster. 2013 was also the last year before my life completely fell apart in April of 2014 so I was working my ass off and there’s a ton of stuff for you to look at here.

Let’s give you guys a little run down of some of the highlights of 2013. Since I am headed to SXSW tomorrow that seems like a good place to start. I got to shoot SXSW Film portraits for the LA Weekly & Village Voice. I always loved doing this and my favorite shot that year was of Brie Larson and John Gallagher Jr. for the movie Short Term 12. The picture got even better when Brie won a Oscar a few years later. I also got a really fun group portrait for the launch of the YouTube channel JASH featuring Sarah Silverman, Tim & Eric, Michael Cera and Reggie Watts. I had the opportunity to meet Paul Walker before he died and talked cameras with him which was surprisingly cool. After the Film Fest ended I covered a big week long party for Sailor Jerry and got some really fun stuff as well.

In 2013 I got to cover some other really stuff like the Indy 500, Hannibal Buress’ 30th birthday party,  Friday the 13th tattoo fest in Dallas and another music festival in Austin, Fun Fun Fun. Fun Fun Fun is probably my favorite festival of the year and I got to see Flag and Body Count and Sparks and a bunch of other stuff I actually wanted to see. I covered my usual stuff too like the AVN Awards, Gathering of the Juggalos and Fool’s Gold Day Off where I shot some great stuff of Migos before they took over the world.

I obviously shot a ton of babes as well. I started shooting for Hustler in 2013 and shot some great stuff of Stoya and Charlotte Stokely for them. I also shot some hilarious portraits of Chuck Palahniuk in a sex shop. But more importantly than all of that was my Route 66 trip that started out as a small Kickstarter to pay for some of the trip, to a 31 day adventure that ended up as my first book, a web series, and my first LA solo art show. That trip and the resulting book was a big life highlight.

Okay, I am gonna stop talking now and pack for Texas. Enjoy the gallery.

Click here to to see the HUGE gallery of my best digital photos from 2013!

On Friday night I stopped by Three Kings Tattoo in Greenpoint to check out the art benefit they were doing for Warriors Fund. The Warriors Fund is a charity set up to raise money for the Wounded Knee School District in South Dakota. The money goes to “stock the school’s food pantry and fund specialized counselor training for suicide prevention”. You can read more about the artists involved, the charity and what it does here.

A bunch of great tattooers had art in the show and the event was packed pretty much all night despite the storm. I am not sure how much they raised but I know a ton of the art sold and people were buying raffle tickets all night. I had a ton of fun and I also am getting a tattoo out of the deal so I am pretty psyched about that. Great event all around. Thanks for having me out!

Click here to see all the photos from the Warriors Fund art benefit at Three Kings Tattoo.

In my last update I talked about how I had three girl gallery updates for you this week, but I also mentioned I had finished going through every photo I took in 2012. I also looked at my calendar and realized that Thursday is March 1st, which means that my website is turning 17 this week. In celebration I decided to do a post every day this week. We have the three girl galleries on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but we also will have an anniversary post on Thursday and I decided that today would be the perfect day to put up a gallery of my favorite photos from 2012.

I have done galleries like this before. Here are links to the best of 2009, the best of 2010 and the best of 2011. Hopefully the best of 2013 will be coming soon as well. So far I’ve made it to to June. This one should be pretty good.

2012 was an interesting year. It was sort of a turning point in my career. I was still shooting a ton of nightlife but I was dating someone who lived in LA so I was out there a lot shooting naked women and things like that. I did my first solo photo show in 2012 and I shot my first Village Voice cover. I had some pretty cool opportunities shooting movie posters for Red Flag and The Yes Men Are Revolting and I had a ton of fun shooting music festivals like SXSW, Pitchfork and Musink.

2012 also had some disappointments. The second Vice Dos and Don’ts book came out and I had more than 70 photos in the book but they somehow forgot to credit me. They were really apologetic and I basically came up with an agreement with them that they would start letting me shoot actual documentary work for them. I ended up going to Puerto Rico to do a story on cockfighting. It’s probably some of the best work I have ever done but when I got home my editor had vanished. I don’t want to say too much but not only did the story never get published but I also didn’t end up shooting anything for Vice again for several years.

I also got to do a story on Hurricane Sandy for Gawker. I went with a Gawker writer to Breezy Point and Rockaway Beach and looked at the devastation and recovery effort after the storm. It was and incredible, heartbreaking trip and I came back with some work that I was really proud of. Unfortunately right around that a certain sex tape was published that ultimately led to the end of Gakwer as a website. My editor left shortly after and the work was never published (amazingly I finally got paid for it in 2016!)

I did some other proper journalism in 2012 as well. During Hurricane Sandy I actually walked over the Williamsburg Bridge and photographed a flooded Lower East Side in the middle of the storm. I covered the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, took a bunch of photos at the NFL Draft and went to both the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest AND the after party.  I covered a bunch of conventions including NYC Comic Con, a couple tattoo conventions, Exxxotica Chicago and of course the Adult Entertainment Expo.

I shot a bunch of “celebrity” stuff in 2012. I shot celebrity portraits at SXSW, I photographed Hannibal Buress’ 30th birthday party for him, I photographed backstage at the MTV Woodie Awards and I spent the day shooting Donald Glover when Childish Gambino played the Brooklyn Bandshell. I got to shoot Alec Baldwin doing stuff twice for NYU and I photographed that dude from that band Orgy hanging out in a playground.

I am gonna stop now but shout out to Sailor Jerry and the Village Voice who were by far my best clients back then and I should of course mention that there’s a ton of NSFW stuff in this gallery. I shot a TON of porn stars in 2012 including this great shoot with my girlfriend at the Salton Sea, the first time I ever shot my pal Lily LaBeau and one of my favorite shoots ever with Dana DeArmond. Okay, seriously I am gonna wrap this up now, but did I mention that the Voice made me photograph One Direction? Hilarious.

Click here to see all my best photos from 2012!

PS. I should mention that there are no photos from the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos because I am working on a juggalo book so all those photos ended up in their own folder and I forgot to add them to this gallery.

When I was in Vegas last week for the AVN Awards I had to stop by the WoodRocket 5th anniversary party. WoodRocket is the completely insane adult film company responsible for ridiculous porn parodies like Hamiltoe and Dick & Morty. The company is the brainchild of my friend Lee Roy Myers who once made a Simpsons porn parody where he painted all the actors yellow. Lee Roy and his team make so much weird, brilliant shit and have managed to make a living through sponsorships and selling merch without having to actually charge for their porn. The WoodRocket tagline is “The future of porn” and they are probably right.

When WoodRocket first launched I sat down with the WoodRocket crew and pitched a road trip video series. “Road Strip” helped me pay for my Route 66 road trip that led to my first book “Get Your Kicks”. If it weren’t for WoodRocket I never would have been able to do the trip. Years later I went on a West Coast road trip I shot a photo series that was sort of a continuation of Road Strip, just in still form. One of the girls I brought with me was April O’Neil who is a big part of the WoodRocket team, both starring and directing stuff for them.

Anyway, I love these guys (I had dinner with them instead of going to the actual AVN Awards) so I had to hit their 5 year anniversary party. They turned their studio into a museum to all their weird props and did some of their web series live including Topless Girls Reading books. Unfortunately I could only stay for about an hour so the gallery I posted is mostly just photos of the museum and a handful of party photos. Fortunately I did manage to get my friend Kasey Warner topless on a giant Nintendo console which was my only goal before I left. Oh, also my hero Lloyd Kafuman was there so that ruled.

Okay, this gallery is pretty small but it’s mildly NSFW and it’s a lot of fun so go check it out. And I got a real solid “Girls of AVN” gallery coming next so come back soon.

Click here to see all the photos from the Wood Rocket 5th Year Anniversary party in Las Vegas.

On Saturday I went to a party/show/classic motorcycle rally. My friends at Sailor Jerry were sponsoring the event in the Broadway Stages parkinglot in Greenpoint and asked me to come by. A bunch of bands were playing and there were some solid food trucks and a ton of vintage motorcycles. Seemed like a good time.

I got there pretty early so I was in time to see Julia Haltigan go on and then I photographed a bunch of the bikes and hung out with the Sailor Jerry crew. They were giving away a hand painted Harley and the had someone live painting a helmet with classic Sailor Jerry flash. I hung out with the homie & SJ brand ambassador Gravy Thomas who never stops moving throwing these SJ events across the country. Every time they do one of these motorcycle events I wanna buy a bike but am 100% sure I would wreck it in a week in NYC traffic.

As the sun started to go down Sharmuffin started playing and they were great. Their front woman got in the crowd and finally turned the block party into a rock show which I appreciated. I was actually supposed to be somewhere else after that but I wanted to stick around for Daddy Long Legs. I shot them at the Beauty Bar 20th anniversary party and they were really fun and I am glad I stuck around.

I did have to leave before Dirty Fences played but the party was 10 hours long and I had to get a bunch of stuff done by Monday (which is why these photos didn’t go up until today.) But I’ve shot them before too and they are really fun. Wish I could have stuck around.

Anyway check out these photos because even if you don’t care about old motorcycles and rock bands you will care about the photos of adorable dogs at the party.

Click here to see all the photos from The Lot vintage motorcycle party!

It seems like the only time I cover nightlife anymore is when some sort of historic NYC institution shuts it’s doors. Between the New York nightlife and all of my friends who have died I seem to be getting a little too good at writing eulogies… But that’s life and sadly we suffered another casualty in the corporate takeover of downtown New York City: Webster Hall.

Webster Hall doesn’t close it’s doors for a few days, but last night was the memorial service for the legendary venue. AEG Live recently bought Bowery Presents (Terminal 5, Bowery Ballroom, etc) and they weren’t done buying up New York venues. They partnered with Brooklyn Sports Entertainment (Barclays Center) to purchase Webster Hall after being owned by the same family for nearly 30 years. The venue will continue, possibly under the same name, but it won’t be the same.

Webster Hall was home to the first Motherfucker party I shot for my site. Motherfucker was the greatest party I have ever been to and their 7th anniversary was at Webster. I barely knew Michael T at the time and he specifically told me I couldn’t shoot it so I went around him and got a press pass from the Faint. The next day I got an angry phone call from Michael yelling at me about going around his back. I still have no idea how he got my number but despite his anger he loved my photos and I from then on I was always on the guest list to his parties.

Webster Hall was the place I would bring friends who were visiting town so they could see what real nightlife felt like. Webster Hall had the kinda parties you only see in movies. I would spend New Years eve there hanging with tourists and porn stars and misfits and famous DJs. I let Alex English crowd surf with my camera to MSTRKRFT and partied with a dwarf dressed like a New Year’s baby. It was always the party you dreamed about going to before you moved to NYC.

When my favorite weekly party Trash moved to the basement of Webster I was disappointed because there weren’t any lockable bathrooms to shoot naked girls in, but I quickly got over that because Alex and Rekles were throwing their weekly Boys & Girls upstairs. Every Friday I would shoot both parties for the Village Voice and get paid twice for the same amount of work.

I could use the word legendary a lot in this article but Boys & Girls will go down in history. I don’t think EDM would be what it is today without that party. From their first sold out party featuring Justice to Skrillex playing last night they gave DJs of all genres a huge platform in NYC and they did it so consistently for so long. Despite my long career shooting dance parties I don’t actually like dance music, but that scene was so much fun to photograph and it really felt like a family. For so many years the only DJs I knew were DJs I actually knew and now those same people are touring the globe making millions. That shift from EDM feeling like an underground movement to Atrak, Skrillex and Diplo becoming pop stars was such a crazy thing to be a part of and you had a front row to that every Friday night at Webster Hall.

Once EDM became pop culture the vibe of Webster Hall changed quickly. There were so many bros upstairs at Girls & Boys that the only safe space was when you were hanging out on stage. The security became overly aggressive and there were always crazy lines. Getting into Webster Hall became so stressful. You had to make sure you were on the right list and had the right photo pass and then had to wait in line again your bag checked and then groped by security. By the time I got in the club all the positive energy I had would be gone.

But downstairs at Trash was a whole different thing. DJ Jess was the first person to hire me to shoot parties in New York and one of my favorite people to party with. When Jess worked out his deal with Webster he was given his own door and own security and they were told not to search anyone. Jess stepped up and took responsibility for his party. His little family of misfits playing the Smiths and Bowie were left alone by the finance bros and aggressive security upstairs. Once you got past “door bitch” Brendon James you were set.

Jess threw me a bunch of birthday parties over the years but my 30th was the last and one of the most memorable. I will leave out the details here but let’s just say I got fairly drunk and ended the night naked stuck inside my laundry basket until the go-go dancer I had lured home with me with the promise of tiny kittens pulled me out. My final Tweet of the night was about eating a pretzel sandwich.

Eventually I went to Trash less and less but I would always go to Trash’s anniversary parties. Trash meant so much to me and it was the longest running weekly party downtown. When it finally ended it felt like such a huge chapter in my life had closed. It was such a sad moment made only more sad by the tragic death of DJ Jess a year later. I actually referred to his death as the end of New York nightlife. It was so fucking heartbreaking but his memorial brought so many people back together and it was of course held at Webster Hall.

Despite my complaints about the terrible crowds and aggressive security at “Webster Hell” I really do have so much love for the place. I met so many amazing friends and lovers there. I had so many good times. Many of the staff felt like family and I loved going to Veselka or Sidewalk or another diner with the bartenders and go go dancers and DJs at 5:30am after waiting for everyone to finally clear out so we could get paid. Last night I got to see a lot of those people again.

There are a lot of people that run Webster but I want to give Kenny Schachter a special thanks. He would always get me into shit if I asked and was always so cool to me. He really appreciated the people who were part of the scene and made me feel appreciated. He was one of the first people I ran into last night when he walked me in the door and made sure I had all the passes I needed without having to deal with any of the madness. Skrillex and Boys Noize gave him a shout out last night and the whole thing got me choked up when they brought him on stage and thanked him for everything.

Before I finally get to the photos I should probably mention the actual party last night. Deux Twins were on when I got there and they were followed by Ekali. Around 1am Skrillex got on and didn’t stop playing until six in the morning. He brought up Boys Noize and they performed as Dog Blood which is honestly a fantastic name for just about anything. I have also been told I should mention that DJ Sliink was there although he didn’t play any music.

I still don’t fucking know anything about EDM but Skrillex was a pretty good soundtrack to reminisce to. I just hung out on stage all night with old friends telling stories about that period of time where we ran downtown nightlife. I was talking to a DJ, a coke dealer, a door guy and another photographer together just looking back on the last decade. I might be a more successful photographer now and still doing some interesting shit with my life but I don’t think my life will ever be as fun as the years where I could walk into any bar or nightclub south of 14th street without so much as an ID. I would know a dozen people in every spot and run into bunch more people while headed to the next one.

Everyone who has ever lived in NYC has their “things were better back in my day” story but the sale of Webster Hall another reminder that the New York I fell in love with is gone. Thanks for the memories.

Click here to see way too many photos of Skrillex from the End Of An Era closing party for Webster Hall.