While I was clearing out and backing up old files on my machine, I stumbled across this image that my buddy Carlos Richard shot back in August of 2007 for my cover-feature in S3 Magazine. I thought it might make for a cool skate deck, so I gave it a whirl. I think I know what deck I’ll be skating once I kill my current stick!
Check all the decks online in the Slide Style™ Deck Shop.
After the show in Detroit, we made a mad-dash down the East coast to Coyote Joe’s in Charlotte.
Showtime once again.
This venue had a huge dancefloor in front of the stage. It is hard to tell from the photo… but plenty of line-dancing was being had.
Brandon looking patriotic behind the keys.
I loved the lighting at this venue. Such rich color raining down on Brit behind the drums.
More dramatic lighting pouring down on brother Richard.
After the show it was back to the bus, and southbound… home to Atlanta.
Our second day in Detroit meant another crazy opener for Kid Rock at DTE. Hanging out backstage with the band is their friend, Billy Graham.
I don’t know what a ‘chicken wing party’ is… but Kev’s shirt was hilarious!rn.
Richard was taking it easy before the show.
Brit was in final stages of bandanna prep.
Brandon all ready to go.
Billy was on point for sound.
Lights up…
Showtime.
Paul layin’ it down.
The engraving on Richard’s bass is awesome!
Brandon laying down the keys.
The last song they played was ‘Freedom Song’. Charlie dedicated it to our troops and the crowd went CRAZY.
After the show, we had to pack up fast to make the drive all the way to Charlotte for day 5 of tour (well… day 5 for me)
Stay tuned!
After opening for Kid Rock, the guys had an acoustic show lined up at Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill.
I thought the lighting was great here. It allowed for some great video.
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For some reason I really love this shot of Brandon on keys. Something about the way the drum set in the foreground framed it up… combined with the green lighting just turned out awesome.
Paul having a good time.
Brit was using this resonance box for percussion. It has 40 snare spirals inside, and sounded awesome!
The girl in the photo, Vanessa, worked at the bar, and was celebrating her birthday. She hooked us up with FREE CAKE.
She told us she could ride the bull standing up. We didn’t believe her. She could… and I’m not gonna lie – it was pretty hot. Big Kev said he wanted to marry her on the spot.
Shorly after the show it was back to the bus to rest up for the next day’s gig.
Kevin and DTE crew members got the trailer unloaded first thing.
Shortly after a (wonderfully) catered breakfast, Kid Rock’s tour manager, Shakes, pulled up in this wilder-than-wild Pontiac Bonneville. I snapped a photo of Brit standing next to this crazy thing.
The car, built for Hank Jr.’s 15th birthday, was crafted by renowned tailor-to-the-stars Nudie Cohn. Can you imagine a 15-year old cruising the strip in this thing?!rn.
The dash, steering wheel, door panels, and child seat were adorned with dollar-coins. The saddle in the center-seat position was a child seat. This car was made pre-seatbelt/child-safety laws for sure.
Guns are all over this car. The door-handles, latch for the glovebox, trunk, hood, rear quarter panels, shifter, horn button… all laced with pistols.
The backstage passes were hysterical. KENNY. POWERS.
Charlie enjoying a smoke while talking to Kevin.
Guitars perched for action.
The band hit the stage for sound-check.
Sound master, Billy Kirk, surveying the acoustics.
After sound-check, Charlie and Brit had an interview with WYCD.
Shortly thereafter, it was showtime. Big Daddy Kev hyped the crown and brought them onstage.
The fellas played a great set.
More on the way from Detroit! Don’t wander too far…
Before we made it to Flint, we stopped Cumulus Radio in Toledo, Ohio where the band had a radio interview with K100..
Paul was having fun.
Even more fun once we left, hahaha.
It was back to the bus and back on the road until we arrived at the Machine Shop in Flint, Michigan.
Since we had time to kill, we went across the street to check out a consignment store, and stumbled upon this crazy mall that had it’s hallways adorned with an insane amount of wild stuff. Stuff like this old robot that once answered questions about Ford Motor Cars and a suit from Red Planet.
This chiseled-looking bicyclist sculpture, and a life-sized C3P0. There were also a life-sized Storm Trooper, Darth Vader, and R2D2. I could probably fill an entire post with the plethora of wild stuff there.
My favorite was a life-sized likeness of E.T… just hanging out at the mall. Probably looking for Reese’s Pieces.
After our stint in the crazy mall, we grabbed a bite and headed back to the bus where Charlie was messing around on the guitar.
The band pretty much had the night off, and only came through Flint to see their friend, Randy Houser. That didn’t stop Charlie from getting on stage for a song with Whitey Morgan!
Stay tuned for more as we make our way to Detroit!
I had a chance to hit the road with the boys from Blackberry Smoke for a week while they played shows en route to two sold-out shows with Kid Rock.
I went along to document video footage from the road, backstage, on-stage, etc.This is the tour bus the band calls home. This was my first time on a bus like this, which was pretty awesome! It was tough to get used to sleeping when the bus was in motion, but it was super-comfortable..
The driver, Rusty, was a cool guy that took great pride in what he did. He was always washing, shining, and polishing the bus when we were stopped.
First stop was Indianapolis, for a gig at a HUGE week-long fair. First thing I saw when I looked out of the bus was this equally enormous sculptured likeness of Grant Wood’s American Gothic.
I wandered around the fair until they were slated to be on-stage. I went for a tractor-ride around the fairgrounds that took about 45 minutes to get me back where I started.
There was a huge lot of vintage tractors. The fair had a whole commerce section of the fair revolved around farming and agriculture.
O
ld versus new. There was also an area of the fair specializing in the sale of windmills.
After a brief sound-check, the band had a radio interview on-site with WFMS. My lens was way to long to shoot in the mobile-station, so I shot from outside where you could still hear the broadcast. Richard told me I was number one. He was right! The great thing about shooting this band, is that I’ve known some of the band members for 9 years… so everyone was themselves. No awkward vibes having some random dude wielding a camera in their faces.
They hit the stage and played a great set, despite the scorching heat. I got a ton of great footage from the show.
A mother and son soaking in the music. I always enjoy the family vibe at fairs like this.
You can see it all around you… young and old.
After the show, they had a police escort to sign autographs for the fans.
Afterward, we wandered around the fairgrounds in search of deep fried bacon… and we found it. The lady was kind enough to let us have it for free. She insisted we try it with gravy, but we were all kinda like… enough is enough. Regardless… Kev was pretty excited!rn.
I ate enough to say that I’ve tried it (read: one bite). Once our indigestion settled a bit, it was off to Flint, Michigan for a Machine Shop visit to see the band’s friend Randy Houser… then onto Detroit.
More to come, so stay tuned!
I recently had the honor of revamping my good buddy Will Roegge’s logo. He wanted to give his old logo a fresh look, as well as format it with text and without. The original logo utilized lineart of a panda bear, which was a good starting point.
In addition to giving the panda some new life, I decided to do the same to the type. I will love Helvetica ’til the day I die… but I opted for the slightly more mature look of another personal favorite of mine: ITC Avant Garde. I modified the W and the R by hand, and love how the two letters interact with each other. For the non-text logo, I added some gradation to the logotype as if the panda were casting a shadow on the letters. A few subtle nuances tied the Gs together quite nice for the text version, which we opted out on the gradation for.This was a fun logo to work on, and I am really pleased with how it turned out! I am working on some other projects with Will… so stay tuned!
