It's quickly becoming a strange month, and threatening to be an uncomfortable year as the coronavirus; COVID-19 is sweeping across the globe and disrupting pretty much everything. This week my work place made the decision to close the office and implement a 'work from home' strategy which I totally understand the logic behind and support. This has thrown a spanner in my photography plans however with no commute and no hanging out in Birmingham for the next few months, but I will count myself as very lucky indeed if that's the only effect this crisis has on me before it's all done and goes away. So with that being said, a slight change from what I had planned for March!
This month, my pal Dave, who also just so happens to be in the band Shackleford started a Facebook group for his old band, and legendary Nuneaton band: Effervescent and asked people to share any old photos they had. This prompted me to go back through my photo archive and whilst doing so I stumbled across some total gems from what feels like a different life time ago! When I was young lad who still had a fringe I took my Fujipix A120, and later my Kodak C613, with me to gigs photographing the bands. Most of the photos I got were terrible and I eventually stopped doing it because it was interrupting my enjoying the gigs, but in the course of some 3 - 4 odd years I shot at a bunch of different shows, some local, some touring bands and occasionally maybe by pure accident got some actually half decent photos! I thought it would be cool to share them, starting with oldest first, and really wallow in the nostalgia of it all. Apologies in advance but because I sucked at photo archiving then, and because some of these are nearly 15 years old and have survived a move from desktop hard drive, to laptop hard drive, to portable storage, they still have my old Myspace watermarks on. It was a different time man, I tell ya.
Independent bands, labels and businesses are really going to struggle over the next few months. If you made it this far down and you're feeling generous, feel free to spend some money on these awesome people who make and sell great music: Shackleford, God Damn, Big Scary Monsters, Xtra Mile Records and these amazing people who keep the film photo community alive: Analogue Wonderland, Kosmo Foto, Japan Camera Hunter & PPP Repairs.