New Pop Vintage – Memorial Day 2010
Not only is Memorial Day the unofficial start of the Summer movie season, it is also the unofficial start of the New Pop movie season. That means more cool New Pop produced client movies, more personal videos, more cool new projects to announce, and possibly more Getting To Know You videos. Last Memorial Day I found myself at Coney Island with my new Canon 7D camera and put together what I can now call my very first New Pop Vintage HD video.
Enjoy
TrVZ
New Pop Vintage ’07-’08 – Mean Red
The years between 2007 – 2008 were particularly great for the downtown scene. Everything seemed new and fresh. The music, the fashion, the photo/video blogosphere, the art, even the promoters were thinking outside the box finding some of the coolest and most unique spaces to hold events. It was as if everyone was feeding and informing each others art. At the center of this new raw energy you would more often than not find the ladies from Mean Red. They held events at some of the most interesting venues in the city including the legendary now defunct Yard located in Red Hook Brooklyn. It made for some of the best times during those early New Pop party years. The following video first published in 2008 highlighted some of those great photo/video moments. To this day no one could cover events like our crew.
Enjoy
TrevZ
New Pop Vintage 2007 – Down & Derby II
Of all the events I covered, the Down and Derby events at Studio B was the best of them all. This video comes from the second Down & Derby which unlike the first D & D was a bit more laid back. There was a surreal mood that was different from the all out non-stop fun of the first event. It felt more like a cool date as opposed to an all out party. My favorite clip comes from the two sisters who found each other on facebook and met for the first time about a week before this event.
Enjoy
TreV
New Pop Vintage 2006 – Love Brigade
In 2006 I approached Alyssa Key the founder of a new boutique Love Brigade about doing a short documentary about her company as a DVD release. At that point I was shooting web videos for a little over a year and wasn’t quite convinced that the web was a medium that people would embrace for watching films. At the time I started producing web video content in late 2004 Youtube hadn’t even been created yet and most videos on the web were hosted on individual sites and servers all over the net. Other than Atom Films which was mostly a niche group of filmmakers seeking traditional distribution, there wasn’t really a platform for serious filmmakers to exhibit their work to non filmmakers. It took over a year for me to embrace the potential.
Fast forward to the summer of ’06 while shooting the folks at Love Brigade when after much thought I finally decided to forego traditional distribution for the web. It was a decision that immediately felt right, and for almost 4 years particularly in the downtown scene I enjoyed having this playground pretty much to myself. The Love Brigade series will always have a special place in the New Pop archives because it was where I came upon the proverbial fork in the road. Here are the first 3 episode in the Love Brigade series, episode 3 being my favorite. You can find the rest by following my youtube link.
Enjoy
TreVZ
New Pop Vintage 2008 – Writers Block
In 2008 the artist RIP MC approached me to document a spoken word event produced by a collective of artist called Writers Block. This event held at The Bowery Poets club was all the buzz on the scene, I was excited to see what all the fuss was about. From the moment I entered the establishment you could feel the energy in the air. It reminded me of the late 90′s Poetry Slam scene at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe. On this particular night Theophilus London was the featured artist. We had featured Theophilus on a few of our webisodes and I had listened to his much hyped mixtape Jam, but I didn’t know what to expect from his live act. That night he gave an energized performance that blew everyone away. To this date this is one of the most spiritual and energized events I have ever documented.
Enjoy
TrevZ
New Pop Vintage 2008 – Art Basel Miami
With the start of Art Basel 2010 tomorrow, I thought I would revisit my first visit to Art Basel in 2008. 2009 wasn’t as good as the year before. I won’t be attending this year and I can only hope that its growing popularity doesn’t ruin the vibe. Here is the 3 part series from 2008 Art Basel Miami. Included are interviews and performances from Jose Parla, Ellis G, A.R.E Weapons and Adult.
Enjoy
TreVZ
New Pop Vintage 2007 – Kareem Black & White
One of my favorite profiles featured Photographer Kareem Black. In 2007 Kareem was at the center of a scene that I was suddenly discovering as a videographer. At the time things were happening relatively fast for me and I tended to keep everyone at arms distance. Kareem was someone who because of his talent, his experience and his success provided me with keen insight on navigating the scene and avoiding the stumbling blocks that seem to devour artist after artist.
I am not sure if he realized how much of what he said in this very interview (Especially part 2) still provides me with a blueprint for success as a new media artist. Allot can be said about Kareem, but you can’t say he isn’t always on his game. Here it is in two parts, Kareem Black & White
Most ironic moment in part 2 at 4:17 right as Kareem says “downtown’s growing up’ someone walks by on cue in what looks like a bull fighting outfit.
Enjoy
TreVZ
New Pop Vintage 07 – A Day in the life of Jules Kim
Here is a profile we did back in 2007 profiling Jules Kim founder of the Bijules Jewelry line. In this episode Jules chats it up with Kareem Black, tells us a creepy gym story, talks about beautiful people, and works on her upcoming showcase. All told in reverse order.
Enjoy
TreVZ
New Pop Vintage 2005 – Jneiro Jarel “Quantum Leap”
Back in 2005 I shot my first on location Music Video for the artist Jneiro Jarel. I first heard this track thru a friend who had a line on Quantum Leap. When I heard the track I was blown away and started to put in motion my first music video that was not shot in front of a seamless backdrop. The premise was to have Jneiro exist simultaneously in three different worlds to represent Quantum Leaping. Each world would be represented in a video frame. Not sure how clearly that idea came across but it was allot of fun.
Enjoy
Trevz
New Pop Vintage 2005 – Romashka
Here is a blast from the early New Pop past. One of the first projects I shot even before I owned my own camera was this music video from the Gypsy band Romashka. I met them while shooting my first event ever at the old Galapogos back in 2005. Even though I had no idea what they were saying I found myself dancing in the aisles camera and all. I wanted to capture that same energy in a music video. I shot this 720 X 480 but wanted to make it widescreen in post. To this day it was probably the toughest edit I ever tackled. Adding seamless white isn’t as easy as one would think.
Enjoy
New Pop Vintage 2008 – “Pop Goes Contessa LES”
From our Pop Goes Contessa series this episode featuring Theophilus London takes place in the L.E.S. I decided to post this as a tribute to “The Bench” at American Apparel which is being removed. Oh the memories.
If you didn’t know the history of the bench here is a little background courtesy of NYracked.com
“Not only is American Apparel hurtling towards financial destruction, but the company just removed five of the nine benches from outside its Orchard Street store. Back in the heady days of 2007, a New York Observer article proclaimed one of the benches “the epicenter of perhaps the hottest ‘anti-scene’ scene on Saturday nights” after a bunch of DJs released a fake press release treating it as a hot new nightspot. (The bench even had—has!—its own MySpace page, although it looks like nobody’s left their mark there since 2008.)”
New Pop Vintage 2007 – “Blue Scholars”
Blue Scholars take us on a tour of some of the indie shops in NYC with one question in mind.
New Pop Vintage “Fred Armisen” – 12/08
Two years ago Texas and I were asked to shoot the behind the scenes video for the URB magazine Fred Armisen spread. Armisen talks about his life before SNL, when he got the call for SNL and being a bad boy on set. Check it out.
New Pop Vintage 2007 – Pop Life
As time passes it becomes more apparent how special the early days at thenewpop were. Back in 2006 there were only a handful of photo bloggers, and no other videographers I knew covering the scene. Tone, Texas and I were doing something new and everyone wanted us at their events. For those who couldn’t be at the events we covered the comments we heard most was, ‘you made us feel like we were there.’ For those who were at those events especially the promoters the comment we heard most was, ‘If we weren’t there it’s like it didn’t happen.’
And to the three T’s, the triple threats, the original New Pop crew; Tone, Texas & Trevz. We may now work seperatly in this downtown photo/video world we helped create together, but we will always have the memories of countless late nights spent capturing precious moments, discovering new artist, or just bullshitting on the way to a shoot. Moments we often shared with ourselves before we shared them with you the audience. This makes those memories extra special. The video below is a montage of a small portion of the photos and videos we published from those first three years. This montage titled Pop Life was first published in 2007 and re-edited in 2008 with updated photo and video footage.
Trevz
New Pop Vintage 2008 – New Design High
One of my all-time favorite stories featured the kids at New Design High School. ND High is located on the Lower East Side and has this amazing rooftop painted with all of these graffiti murals. The iron canopy and sheer size combined with the amazing pieces make it one of the most breathtaking sites in the city. In 2008 Tone & I spent the day with them documenting the art and talking to the kids for the old Tone & Trevz series. Check out the video, it’s allot of fun and so New York.
Trevz
New Pop Vintage 2008 – President Wyclef?
Wyclef Jean intends to announce he will run for president of Haiti on Larry King tonight. I thought it would be cool to pull out a vintage New Pop episode from the old Tone & Trevz series featuring the future presidential candidate. It’s always funny to see political figures use bad language.
Enjoy
Trevz
New Pop Vintage 2007: Junk Science – Granddad’s Nerve Tonic
In 2007 our friends from Junk Science produced an album titled Granddads’ Nerve Tonic. What was really interesting about this album was the fact that they were having a Beer made after it. I thought this needed to be documented. While shooting the interview at SixPoint Craft Ales in Redhook, the owner of SixPoint threw on some tracks from the Nerve Tonic album and Baje One the lead MC started to lip sync. It was a you dropped your peanut butter into my chocolate moment. It occurred to me that adding the musical element into this documentary might just work. I told Baje One to roll with it. It worked out so well that we utilized the concept throughout the entire video. On this day in the year 2007 the musical documentary was born.
Enjoy
Trevz
New Pop Vintage – Whole In The Wall (R.I.P. Rammallzee)
Legendary Graf Writer Rammallzee passed away today. I only saw him once at the Whole In The Wall show I documented last year. He had one of the coolest pieces. I overheard someone saying that may be the last time we would see him. That night Rammallzee was acting really strange; mumbling under his breadth, buzzing around like a hummingbird, not speaking to anyone, a few weeks later a friend of mine who knew him told me that was just who he was.
The photo below (courtesy of The Arab Parrot) Rammallzee had that icy look on his face because this stodgy artsy couple told Rammallzee not to touch the art not knowing who he was or that the piece he was touching was his piece. If you think the look on his face is funny you should have seen the couple. I caught the same scene on video from a different angle. (You can see it about 2:00 in) He was one scary dude.
Trevz
One Year Ago Today…
…we lost a legend. I’ll never forget that day. I had to shoot a party that night and it turned into a sappy MJ tribute.
R.I.P. MJ
Trevz
New Pop Vintage 2007 – Down & Derby
The 1st Down & Derby event in NY was one of those events where all the elements were just right. Vince Masi who was throwing this party in Pittsburgh for awhile decided to bring it to NY. Vince reached out to us to shoot it which was funny because a few months earlier we were considering throwing a similar event at the Empire Roller rink in East Flatbush before it closed down. So when this gig came up we were all over it.
It was at a hot new venue Studio B, there was a huge buzz in the days leading up to it and everyone wanted in. I was getting calls days in advance from folks who were connected themselves to get on my guestlist. When we arrived the line extended down the block with folks decked out in their best rollerskating/American Apparel gear. The combination of roller-skates, dancing, great music, and warm weather made this arguably the best night I ever had shooting. It was also the first time I met Contessa. We covered 2 other Derby events after this one, but none came close to the sheer energy of Down & Derby 1. Ahhh the good old days.
Enjoy
New Pop Vintage 2008 – Summer Of Love
Two summers ago on Memorial Day Weekend 2008 Texas and I decided to usher in that summer with an all out party video that took us from The Hope Lounge, to The Yard, to a Sunday morning hot tub party, back to The Yard, and finally to a trigger happy rooftop jam in Tribeca. All along the way asking our friends what they had planned for that summer. It was one of our busiest weekends shooting ever. Here is that video Summer Of Love, featuring a great track from our friends No Surrender.
Enjoy
p.s. We’ll be shooting at Contessa’s Whore House party this weekend so if you got the info come on out. It’ll be our first party video in ages. It’s hard to say no to Contessa. haha.
New Pop Vintage 2008 – Electric Punnany
Starting in 2007 my former partner Tone was the resident photographer at Sway Monday nights. Mostly due to his photos it went from being a pretty laid back Monday to the place to be. Everyone went there and they partied hard. I missed out on all the fun because I pretty much never went out unless I was shooting, as a result my experience was limited to Tone’s photos and internet buzz. In 2008 I was asked to document the 4th edition of a monthly party called Electric Punany which took place once a month at Sway. After experiencing Sway on a weekly basis through Tone’s photos I kinda knew what to expect and it did not disappoint. The night was hot, it was sweaty, it was filled with interesting stories and characters. From the vintage collection here is Electric Punnany.
Trevz
New Pop Vintage – Taste 2007
Here is another old video uploaded to the vintage pages which I will be constantly updating as I am scraping my old “Dark” site. This video was shot at Oren D’s loft in Williamsburg. Oren D was this guy we met on myspace who use to throw these cool parties at his loft located above the old N6 bar. In 2007 he got kicked out to make room for the construction of (Get This) the Music Hall of Williamsburg. This was the last party at that space sponsored by Taste NYC. Excuse the orange faces and bad audio.
I also attached some photos of the transition which is pretty cool when you compare it to the video footage outside the loft.
Trevz
New Pop Vintage 2008 – Danger Party
Here is another old video I dug up featuring one of the legendary Danger parties. The Danger crew consistently threw the wildest most out of control parties in the city. The ones we documented occupied this two story loft in Bushwick and went on until the next morning. This particular party may have gone over the line when the naked guy started peeing on his friends. I love the way this video starts with Texas getting the surprise of her life. Along with the last two vintage videos I’ll place this in the Where did I find the energy? file.
Enjoy
Trevz