Music, panoramas, sports, landscapes

Ham Radio Communications is an independent platform for (inter)national indie and underground music. Last night they celebrated it’s second anniversary in Vera with six acts. I wasn’t able to see the last two bands as I had other plans for today, but I did see the first four and they were just great. I love indie acts, you just never know what your gonna get.

The evening started with Dutch Kim Janssen and his Major Cities Band, or at least part of that (the full band consists of about twenty friends providing orchestral and vocal backup, he had a few less with him now). Great Singer/Songwriter gig

A short stage set-up later Karl Blau from the USA took to the stage. A genuine one-man-band with a mix of folk, hip-hop, R&B, grunge and anything else this he could fit in. This was one odd concert, but greatly enjoyable

Cedarwell was up next, another American band and this time a duo (although it was a trio last night). A great pop-rock folky gig with an incredible vocal solo by the drummer. So good, he had to do it again. Really great fun this band

The last band in the main hall was Dutch band We vs. Death. Last time I saw these guys (also in Vera) they were an instrumental indie rock band. However last year they released a new record and introduced vocals to the We vs. Death sound. The overall sound however is till very much like a soundtrack for travel. Terrific!

After these gigs, the party continued in the below area with The Secret Love Parade and I Am oak, two Dutch bands, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to see those as well.

Checking out the gigs in the Vera venue in Groningen a while ago, I noticed the name The Ettes and reading the announcement I got very intregued: Great Garage-rock band with punky edges and vocals reminiscent of 60’s country. The Ettes had already toured with names like The New York Dolls, Gossip,  Kings Of Leon and (my favorite) The Black Keys and their latest album got great reviews. All in all more than enough encouragement to go and see this band.

They played in Groningen last night and were even better then I had imagined. Coco the singer/guitarist has a great voice but drummer Poni just blew me away. Style, rhythm and looks, that has to be a female drummer And she was phenomenal, ferociously driving the band on and creating a fantastic rhythm together with male bassist Jem. From what I’ve read this trio makes up The Ettes, but they had an extra guitarist with them on stage.

Apparently they’re about to tour with Jack White’s Dead Weather shortly, so go see them in the small venues while you still can. They’ll be in the big venues on their own shortly.

On Thursday February 18 El Pino & The Volunteers played at the Vera venue in Groningen. Opening for them was The Information, a fairly new band from Meppel (nl).

The Information played a great set. The voice was incredibly familiar, but I couldn’t really recall what it reminded me of. I’ve been thinking about that a lot and I think it’s the Norwegian band Helldorado. But it’s been a while since I saw and heard Helldorado, so I’m not 100% sure. The Information played a great set, but it was weird seeing the audience so far in the back.

After a quick stage rebuild and a large audience increase El Pino & The Volunteers, led by frontman David Pino, took to the stage. The bandmembers have quite a history. Nearly all of them have a history in various punkbands. Longing for other, ’simpler’ music, El Pino & The Volunteers was born and had -initially- a rootsy Americana-sound. However after the first album and an extensive and successful tour one of the bandmembers (and with that the banjo player) quit. If I remember correct I saw one of their very last concerts in Hoogeveen back then. After two years the band is back with a new album and sounds a lot punchier and pop/rock.

The concert in Vera was terrific. The band played with lots of enthusiasm, the venue was well filled and the concert just flowed and had a lovely raw edge. Lots of new songs, some oldies and before we knew it 18 songs were played and the gig was over.

I would like to express my thanks to the stagelight operator. Can’t remember the time I had such an amount of light, it was AWESOME!

I recently posted a blog on my new Nodal Ninja 3 panorama head for my camera gear. However, I hadn’t really found the time to test the device. For those that thought (like me a while ago) that it was mearly a matter of installing the head, hooking up the camera and shoot… well it’s not really like that. Not at all. You need to do some work first to get the right shots.

In the past week I read reviews and tutorials, learned about the Nodal point (you set up the panorama head so the lens is rotating around it’s nodal point, this assures seamless stitching of photos) and fount the nodal point for a few of my lenses. I first tried a set of my livingroom and then went in search for the right software. This wasn’t that either. TheCanon Photostich program turned out not to work in Apple Snow Leopard, the freeware software Hugin made photos that looked like they were thought up by Esher of H.R. Giger and not like a panorama at all. Also the Photomerge option of Photoshop didn’t work at all, it could not make any decent panorama of the supplied photos. Eventually I found PTGui and that’s just incredible.

So now that I had a working setup and the means to produce a panorama, it was time to take the kit outside. I first did a simple walk just outside of Assen and tried a few with my 15mm fisheye and also one with my 50mm lens (different Nodal point, but I remembered what it was). However, I also wanted to try a few with buildings, so I headed to the center of Assen and shot some over there.

The way it works is really simple. Setup the tripod, make sure it’s level and shoot the photos all the way round. I shot 18 (at 20 degrees intervals) per photo. Back home I fed the photos into PTGui and that turned them into lovely panoramas. Here are a few that I uploaded to Flickr (check them there for large views):

There are a few afterthoughts… I really need another tripod. My Manfrotto 055 is a great tripod, but way to heavy and large to easily carry around. Also a remote trigger would be better to make sure I don’t shake the camera when taking the photos. oh… and I had just thought that a macro lens in combination with a panorama head when I found the settings for the 100mm Canon macro lens with the Nodal Ninja set. So don’t be surprised if that lens is added to my collection at some point this year All in all I’m very happy that the Nodal Ninja 3 works so well and I can’t wait for the summer to come and to find some wonderful locations to make more panoramas.

On February 11 Benjamin Herman, well known for his part in the New Cool Collective jazz band came to Groningen. Not as a New Cool Collective gig, but with a quartet and under his own name: The Benjamin Herman Kwartet. Still very jazz, amazingly cool and it’s still absolutely brilliant, just fewer people on stage. But the names on stage are impressive: Carlo de Wijs on a modified Hammond organ, Jesse van Ruller on guitar and Martijn Vink on drums. Herman himself of course on saxophone and occasionally on tambourine. The gig was steaming (the fact that the venue was packed helped a lot too). Had a terrific night, only the lights could have been a bit better (what is it with these endless red lights on stage, are they cheaper?).

Last night Lou Barlow (known for his work in Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, Sentridoh and Folk Implosion) came to the Platformtheater in Groningen. It was my first visit to this theater, but it looked great and had a fantastic atmosphere thanks to great placements of lights. The stage for the bands looked a bit makeshift though, but that didn’t matter a bit.

Opening for Lou was Vox Von Braun from Groningen. A great band, but I found the vocals a bit hard to follow. Would love to see them again sometime.

When Vox Von Braun finished the set the stage was quickly reset for the main act: Lou Barlow & The Missingmen. Lou started solo, sounding ever so fragile. Then the Missingmen took their place on stage and the concert gained a lot of power. As an encore, Lou played a bunch of requests. He did this solo again and it sounded (like the rest of the gig) absolutely fantastic. Had a terrific night.

I’ve been reading about panorama photos for a while and like the shots you can get with the right gear. And then suddenly I found this Nodal Ninja set. It’s affordable and looks like great fun to use. So as my birthday is creeping nearer, I decided I’d allow myself this set as my birthday present. The company I usually order my gear at, had it ‘on order’ for a while now, so when I found it to be on stock at a different company and for the same price, I decided to not take any chance and order it. It’s a bit early so I’m not allowed to play with it very much yet, but hey; I did get my own personal panorama kit today

The images aren’t perfect, but I wanted to show what it looks like. I’ll try some panorama pictures soon, when I find the time.

The full name of this kit is “Nodal Ninja 3 MKII + RD8 Rotator“. The Nodal Ninja 3 part is the bracketing system to install the camera on, the RD8 is the lower part; the rotating head. The RD8 uses a screw to turn in a specific amount of degrees (from 20 to 120).

Last night the ‘normal’ concert season started with a terrific gig by Joan As Police Woman. The Eurosonic/Noorderslag days are great, but incredibly hectic. Last night I was able to enjoy the whole concert, and that’s a nice change

Joan Wasser (the ‘Joan’ of ‘Joan As Police Woman’) is a great singer/songwriter and mixes musical styles with great results. The gig itself was great. Lots of songs from the albums ‘Real Life’ and ‘To Survive’ and some unexpected covers. In between the songs there was time to kid around a bit with band and audience, to learn some Dutch and to exchange some fashion tips on boots. Not a sold out venue, but a good turn-up anyway and a fantastic way to start the season

Another set of new albums today:

Vic Chesnutt – Dark Developments (vinyl)
Karen O And The Kids – Where The Wild Things Are (ost)
Jaga Jazzist – One-Armed Bandit
Motorpsycho – Heavy Metal Fruit
Orchestre Poly Rytmo De Cotonou – “Echos Hypnotiques”

I just found out that in March this year (as actually every year) the World Championship Motorcycle ice Racing (a.k.a. Icespeedway) is held in Assen, in De Bonte Wever, from March 11 to March 14. Training will be held on Thursday and Friday, races on Saturday and Sunday. A spectacular way of getting into sports photography

In setting up this website I also wanted to broaden my photography horizon. However, if I do so, the current logo doesn’t span the whole area, as that fully states I’m a concert photographer. The thing is, I do like the looks of the current logo. So I decided to change it only a little bit. It’s only ‘in concept’, but what do you think?

Old logo

New logo

I’ve added an agenda to the left sidebar. The agenda is read from the Google calender, which in turn is fed by Last.fm. In the future I hope to get my own calendar online again, as that’s also my archive. But for now I at least have an active aganda again.

As on my previous site, the agenda isn’t based on what I’m definitely going to see, but what I’m interested in.  Some of them are based on if we (FileUnder.nl that is) can get the necessary approval to bring my camera to the gig.