superchick in the house

Last Thursday (March 3), I had one of those terribly crazy days. It began at 4.30 am and it involved work and a midterm and a train and driving and exhaustion. But then I got to Mojoes and the music started, I finally relaxed.

I was there for Superchick, a band I've been following since the beginning, to say the least.

It started with Matt Dally, whom I met the summer I was 8. He was the lead in the children's musical at church, playing Gideon in Zeroes into Heroes. I was in the "corps," parading up and down the stage, holding a papier-mâché jar over my head in "Crash Go the Pitchers." I don't think he had any idea who I was.

But in high school, the jazz band was desperate for a pianist, and I was coerced into the job, despite having no idea how to read a chord chart. Matt played guitar, his friend Bill was the drummer, and Bill lived down the street from me. My sophomore year, they were both seniors, and Bill drove us to 7am practice every day. One day towards the end of the year, Matt gave Bill a cassette tape to play when he got in the car. It was a recording of a band he'd kind of auditioned for the night before, and he really wanted to join. 12 years later, Matt is still playing bass for Superchick.

For whatever reason, I'm often out of town or otherwise booked when they have nearby shows, so it had been almost 2 1/2 years since my last Superchick show. It was great to catch up with Matt and his mom, who was working the merch table, and of course, to see the band play. It's a really cool feeling when I look around and see girls shrieking for them and singing along to their songs.

From the beginning, they've always put on spectacular shows. At the last show I went to, in fall 2008, the shutter on my camera broke midway through their set. I've been a little worried about my shutter lately, but it held up just fine and I got some awesome shots. So enough with the sappy stories about the "beginning" and I'll get on with some photos. Warning: these photos have more lens flare than a pivotal J.J. Abrams scene.

The first opening band was Keep the Change, a local band from Joliet.

They seemed a little nervous at first, but looked like they were having fun by the end of their set. I think this is Frank Stella on bass and Jeff Winter on vocals.

Next up was At Rifts End, another semi-local band out of Bradley. This is their frontwoman, Haleigh Boatright. She tossed her hair a lot, so I had plenty of opportunities to get "hair-movement" shots.

I think the show was actually Made Avail's CD release party, and since they've played with Superchick before, they asked Superchick to join them. I'd heard the name before, but hadn't heard their music. It's not usually the type of music I'm drawn to, but they played really well and put on such a great show that I really enjoyed their set.

I tried to find the names of the guys in Made Avail, but I'm having some difficulty, especially since it seems that they've recently added 2 or 3 new members. So I don't know who this is, but I love the way the light is hitting him.

The frontman (also nameless) for Made Avail. Their last song was this crazy performance piece that involved super-dramatic lighting, a rose, and a face mask.

Then Superchick was finally up!

I got this hilarious shot of Matt early in their set. It really sums up the essence of Matt's typical performances. :)

Melissa Brock, guitarist and vocalist, working the crowd during "Hey Hey," I think.

It's really hard to get good shots of the drummer in most bands, because they're generally in the back and generally not well-lit. But I tried! So while this one isn't as pretty as the spotlight shots, it's a fun one. I believe this is a new drummer, and I actually don't know his name. Apologies!

Guitarist Dave Ghazarian in one of his more tranquil moments

Tricia Brock, lead vocalist, in one of my favourite shots of the night. She's an incredibly photogenic performer, so I have a ton of photos of her to eventually post to my Flickr account, along with more shots from all four of the bands. I'll try to remember to post an announcement when they're up.

Whew, this has taken me 2 1/2 days to finish this post! I'm technically on spring break, but that only means that it's crunch time for the projects that I had to set aside while I was trying to get ready for my midterm. I have two chapters of thesis to finish this week, along with two columns to write for IFS by Thursday, which includes reading two books. Off to continue book #1...at least I won't have to worry about being bored this week!

how i got sucked into skating

In an effort to start blogging regularly and also to kick-start my daily writing, especially during the semester break, I've decided to try really, really hard to do this 30 Days of Skating challenge that is circulating a bit. I love writing about skating, so I'm hoping that I will stay motivated. If you don't love reading about skating, maybe you'll learn something interesting along the way, but I won't be offended if you ignore me for the next 30 days.

Day 1: How did you get into figure skating?

Well, I suppose a lot of you know this story already. But in case someone's reading who isn't friends with me (how on earth did you get here?), here's what happened.

I was 7 years old, it was February 1992, and the Winter Olympics were happening in Albertville. It was the first year that my mom & my stepdad were married, so I don't know, maybe my mom just really liked the idea of us sitting down and watching the Olympics as a family. She had memories of her family doing that while she was growing up. I didn't especially like sports at the time—I usually hid in my room when the Bears game was on—but my mom lured me into the living room because she was sure I would like watching the figure skating. I brought my Barbies with me, in case skating turned out to be boring, like football.

But skating was magical. It was the pairs free skate, and it was full of sequins and flowy pieces of chiffon and white splatter-painted unitards and girls who did the things I did in ballet class, but they had big strong boys that picked them up and twisted them and twirled them and did them all so high in the air. They were so glamorous. It was mesmerizing. And I was hooked.

So for the next 6 years, I read through the TV guide every Sunday morning at breakfast (this was before FSU, when someone else would post the schedules for you) and highlighted anything that involved skating. Then a combination of things, including but not limited to being an overachiever in high school and Nagano breaking my heart, led to a bit of a skating lapse between 1998 and 2002. I caught things occasionally, but only when I had time. And one of the things I happened to catch was the pairs free skate from 2001 Worlds, when a pretty Canadian pair skated to one of my favourite pieces of music en route to a world title.

The next year, I was in my first year at the University of Miami. I had a randomly-assigned roommate, and she and I got along okay, but we didn't really bond until one day in early February, one of us said to the other, "Um...I hope this is okay, but...um, I really really like the Olympics. Like I will want to watch it constantly." And the other one of us, whoever it was, emphatically agreed.

And the pretty Canadian pair was back, and there was a huge ruckus surrounding them, and in all of the chaos, I discovered that there were places online where one could go to talk about skating and connect with other skating nerds just like me! Cue the 'Hallelujah' chorus. Over the next year, I started chatting with people all over the continent, and I was so geeked out and excited about skating again. That was at the very beginning of regular people being able to put video online to share with others (Soulseek, woot!), and since most of the people who owned the right kind of equipment to do this seemed to be snobby and European, I watched a lot of skating that I hadn't been exposed to in my childhood on ABC's Wide World of Sports.

And then in January 2003, a mutual friend introduced me to Jules via AIM, and I met the sister I never knew I had, who loved skating just as much as me, and who had excellent taste, too! And through Jules, I met Christina and Sarah, and then we met Chele and Erica and Erin, and eventually we met Jen, and there are scads of others, of course, and I finally started going to events, after years of watching skating through the television. I heard the blades and felt the chill and inhaled the Zamboni fumes and learned to identify jumps and spins properly, and I started to get glimpses of what the "inside" of the skating world was like through friendships and encounters with the athletes. The wonder and awe I felt as a kid transformed into respect and admiration for the talented people who dedicate their lives to the sport and share it with the rest of us who sit on the other side of the boards.

The more I went to events, the more that I wanted to make some sort of connection with what I saw on the ice. I'd write reviews of shows or take notes at competitions and post them online. As I began to realize how much I liked writing, I wondered if I could ever write for a skating magazine, like IFS, someday. And I was jealous of Erica & her camera, not in a creepy way, but just in that I was fascinated by how she could capture moments. I started wondering if I'd ever be able to invest in a camera like hers, if I'd even be any good at skating photography. I did the best I could with a dinky little camera, but I knew I was limited by the equipment.

In July 2007, I answered a call for volunteer photographers and writers to work with ice-dance.com at the Lake Placid Ice Dance Championships. They said they'd provide the equipment and teach me how to shoot, so I planned a crazy trip. Crazy trips were already the norm by that point. I spent less than 72 hours there. Once again, there was an instant connection. From the first time I pressed the shutter, I knew I had to get a camera, to keep trying this. Something about it just felt right. I wasn't that good, but I was getting a few decent shots per program by the 3rd day, and U.S. Figure Skating bought 4 of my photos for their web coverage. 3 days after I got home, I bought a used 20D and a refurbished lens. A week and a half later, I covered my first event, solo, for IDC.

It's far from being a career. It's not even that good of a part-time gig, because a lot of the events that I cover—especially the big, expensive ones—are volunteer jobs. But there's absolutely nowhere that I would rather be than behind my camera at a skating event, whether it's the Olympics or a StarSkate Invitational. (Well, when I had to choose between the two, I picked the Olympics...but when the Olympics are not simultaneously occurring, I'm happy to shoot StarSkate!) It's still magical to me. Especially if there's ice dance involved. But I suppose that my love for ice dance, even little kids skating basic compulsories, is a subject for another post.