The Young Dubliners | House of Blues, LA | Music Photography

I was ridiculously excited as I headed to The House of Blues, Sunset Strip the other week. It was going to be my first time making images at the legendary HOB (as well as being one of the last times as their doors are closing.) That thrill was small compared to the joy I felt getting to watch the boys of The Young Dubliners rock in front of my lens again. The last time our paths crossed was back in 2011 at a bar called Mexicali’s in NJ.  It had been ages and I couldn’t wait to hug everyone again.
My excitement was already at the max when I found out Eric Rigler would also be joining them.  Eric Fucking Rigler.  He is the badass of all badass pipers. You know who he is, well, you know his Uilleann pipes anyways. Titanic, Braveheart, etc etc..if there are Uileann pipes being played, it is probably him. I cannot even remember the last time I got to see his magic.
The show was fucking awesome. The guys rocked like they always do and the crowd ate up every moment. I LOVED the venue and I hate money since that is the reason they are closing the amazing space, seriously?!?! why would anyone want to live in condo’s on what used to be the HOB’s??  Isn’t Sunset Strip cool >because< of the landmark spots?  Why people gotta destroy awesome??  but i digress, this night was awesome.  Great music, great crowd, great reunions *Erica n Gretchen*, great space, great guys.
Fantastic night!!!!

Wild the Coyote | The Viper Room, LA | Music Photography

When I edit images from a show, I like to have the band’s music playing, especially if it is a new to me band!  It is interesting to hear the studio sound right after seeing them live.

The other night I got to catch the last few songs of Wild the Coyote before The Gabrielz took the stage at The Viper Room. I enjoyed their set. It was loud, it was rocking. Energetic drummers are my absolute favorite to create images of and Wild the Coyote’s drummer ecstatically and ferociously pounded away on his drums. The guys delivered a solid set of alternative rock sliding towards the rock side on that seesaw in the live show.

Their studio recordings seesawed in the other direction, heavier on the alternative side. The songs sound like that song, you know the one, the song you find yourself singing along to while listening to the radio on an afternoon drive without knowing how you know the lyrics.  Several, I thought I knew already, maybe I caught that song at the show?  No, but seriously, I feel like I know the song that just started playing in this moment that I am typing…. “Everybody Knows.” (and no it is not a cover of Leonard Cohen; but I must go listen to that song right now).  Wild the Coyote’s studio work has an air of familiarity about it though I prefer the harder sound of their live show.

(what can i say? the dirtier the guitar, the rougher the bass, the harder the drums, the more i like… any wonder that People’s Blues of Richmond is tops for me – their cd has been on permanent repeat in my car for months)

Thanks for the night of music, Wild the Coyote, I’m happy that I was able to catch a bit of your set. Y’all got the energy pumping at The Viper Room and you have made me miss my chain wallet  😛

Brain Wash Me Video Shoot | PlayLA | Unit Stills

3/21/15

Director, Brandon Nicholas turned Play LA into a visual playground of awesome to create a video for The Conduit’s new song “Brain Wash Me.”  The day was an adventure in reflective insulation blankets, body paint and awesome.  After hearing “Brain Wash Me” over and over and over, I was still into hearing it another time!  The song is catchy and cool.  I cannot wait to see the video once it is finished.  It was a joy to be the still photographer for this talented team.

Anna Copa Cabanna Video Shoot | Big Sky Works, NYC | Unit Stills

3/15/15

Unexpected awesome in NYC helping BA Miale and Anna Copa Cabanna make video magic for Turn to Crime’s video for “Light.”  Anything BA does has magic to it, her projections and creations are beautiful, cool and mesmerizing and this night I found out the same applies to Anna Copa Cabanna.  She is beautiful, cool and mesmerizing and watching her dance in front of BA’s beautiful, cool and mesmerizing projects was almost too much awesome to handle.  BA makes badass music videos and I was tickled pink that she asked me to come lend her a hand at the shoot at Big Sky Works (one of my fave Brooklyn venues.)

 

Had a blast making some stills and shooting some video for BA. She makes everything look so cool.

Skin Deep at the Sagebrush Cantina | Calabasas, CA | Music Photography

2/15/15
It was a beautiful thing to be outside enjoying the sunshine in February.  These west coasters have figured that whole winter thing out!  My west coast fam took me on an adventure to Sagebrush Cantina to watch Skin Deep get the afternoon crowd up and rocking to their mix of just about everything.  They are a cover band that pretty much spans all the decades in their musical library.

Blackwater Jukebox | The Spare Room, LA| Music Photography

2/6/15

Seeing a new band makes me giddy. I love not knowing what I am about to experience. I feel the same way about new venues and this was going to be both of those joys. The Spare Room is located inside The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which was the site of the very first Academy Awards back in 1929 and apparently Marilyn Monroe and Errol Flynn still hang out and do a little haunting on occasion. I didn’t see any ghosts but I sure did hear some great music in an awesome space. The Spare Room is a splendid cocktail lounge with two lanes for bowling and full of welcoming couches and chairs. I was digging on the ambience of the wooden paneling and the beautiful lighting when Blackwater Jukebox started rocking out and then I was instantly pulled into their revelry. I was instantly taken back to when I stumbled into Mehanata on Ludlow Street in NYC sometime in 2000 &?one late, late night or early, early morn, depending on how you want to look at it and discovered the incredible sound of Gogol Bordello.

Blackwater Jukebox has that energy and that thrill, the only thing lacking was the crowd from Mehanata. The crowd at The Spare Room was lame and somehow missing what was going on right in front of them. How could they not see this music mischief happening? How could they not hear the magic of this voodoo circus??? Those people who refuse to hear and see awesome are the reason we cannot have nice things and The Spare Room cut the set short due to the lame people who wanted to sip cocktails in silence. I just don’t get it. Blackwater Jukebox rocks and I want to see them again. Soon. I need a full set of their sounds to be bouncing around in my head. They are fucking awesome.

The Whigs | The Broadberry, RVA| Music Photography

 

1/17/15

The Whigs were the first show on The Rock and Roll Highway adventure that I found myself having last summer. They were also one of my top 5 favorites of the 26 bands that I created images of in 16 different cities. I was very excited when I found out that they would be performing at The Broadberry, one of the best venues in Richmond, VA. They are awesome. They are exciting. They are rock. Their show was just as raucous and groovy as I remembered. The Whigs somehow have managed to blend a perfect mix between tight hooks and raw energy & I am a huge fan.  They also wrote one of my favorite lines
“there’s too many towns that I never have met and there’s too many people to find”
I’m glad I found The Whigs.

The Soft White Sixties, Natalie Carol and Rachel Goodrich | LA, CA| Music Photography

The Lyric LA is an awesome venue.  The black building covered in a gold script hides an awesome space inside its doors.  The entire venue is quirky cool – from rooms covered in artificial grass to hallways lined with newspapers.  The detail in the ambiance carries over to the care taken to the stage area with fantastic lighting and a room built for great sound.

Rachel Goodrich  and the Grrrls started the evening off.  Rachel has a voice like velvet, it is soothingly beautiful and she is backed by the sounds of quirky 50’s rockabilly stuffed with pop.  The music makes you grin.  The vibe is whimsical and happy  with an almost vaudeville sense of sarcasm that lets the audience know that the punchline is coming.  They leave the listener smiling with cotton candy colored glasses on where the world is fun and hopeful, with a little wink.

Go have a listen, I know you are going to dig it.

 

Next up was Natalie Carol with her guitar and her voice. Rich and strong vocals full of longing with stories weaved of the hopefulness of life and love with a sensitivity to the struggle for life and love.  The music has a rawness about it, a bluesy 70’s sound.  She captured the room by herself, save for a lone dancer that she had accompany her with movement on a few tunes.  Fluid, soulful and beautiful.

& then the reason that I had found myself at The Lyric LA that evening, The Soft White Sixties.  TSWS were one of my fave bands from my summer tour, The Rock & Roll Highway, and I was more than psyched that the universe sought fit to put us in the same town on the same night!  They are awesome.  They are a funky, groovy, sexy sound and show.  They are rock, 70’s rock.  Real rock.  I’ve been playing their cd on repeat for the past few months and I was excited to see them live again, I had to know if they would hold true to the memory of that show at The Zoo Bar back in July, the show that blew me away.

And booyah, they did it.  The entire band is tight.  You can see that they are giving their all, delivering a rough around the edges throwback sound. The hard hitting drums and driving guitars are the perfect backdrop to Ocatavio’s never slow down persona.  Octavio is badass.  He commands the crowd with his slick dance moves and inclusive way of making every person in the room feel like he is singing just to them.  His excitement bolsters the crowds excitement and that just keeps growing every moment of the show.   This band has ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ is..that ‘it’ that makes you move on the dance floor, that ‘it’ that makes you grin in the dark, that ‘it’ that makes you sing along and know that you and every person in that room are getting an ‘it’ show from an ‘it’ band that is clearly making ‘it’ happen.

 

All Rachel Goodrich and The Grrrls Images

All Natalie Carol Images

All The Soft White Sixties  Images

 

More Images on Ashly Covington’s Instagram

Dance Candy at The Broadberry | Richmond, VA| Music Photography

9/24/14

The Flavor Project, oh yes.  Say it again, The Flavor Project.  When I started my Rock & Roll Highway tour, my good friend and the hella talented, Russell Lacy put a copy of The Flavor Project’s latest album that he recorded out at The Virginia Moonwalker and it dang near got me across the middle of the country. The funky grooves were contagious and had me rocking out as the flat lands rolled on by.  I was excited when Mark Ingraham told me that The Flavor Project would be opening for Dance Candy at The Broadberry.

The Flavor Project took the stage and took me on a funky groovy tour lead by the sexy gospel queen Buttafly Vazquez.  Wow.  Just wow.  Wow.  They deliver the groove and mix in the hip hop and come out with an all over WOW sound that keeps the crowd dancing and everyone grinning from ear to ear.

 

 For all the pics CLICK HERE

Dance Candy

Ever since I met up with the members of Dance Candy in a parking garage on a cold rainy day, I’ve wanted to see them jam.  They were sexily sleek on that chilly day and I knew the star factor of each member as individual musicians…together…  well, tearing down the roof is an understatement.  The music is HOT HOT HOT. They can do any song from any era and I especially love the covers of current radio hits.

Samantha Reed- Vocals
Steven Boone- Guitar/ Vocals
Jerel Crockett- Keys/ Vocals
Derrick Englert- Bass
Joshua McCormick- Drums
Mark Ingraham- Horns/ Percussion

 

 

For all the pics of Dance Candy CLICK HERE

Ashly on Instagram

DJ Williams Projekt with Karl Denson at The Broadberry | Richmond, VA| Music Photography

DJWP was the first show that I pointed a ‘real’ camera’s lens at. That was back in 2007 on a cold winter’s night at Cafe Diem when they had their weekly (always packed) residency. In the years since, their funky has gotten funkier, they’ve jazzed up their jazz and they have kept rocking the f’ out of everyone who comes to a show. They were tight back then and now they are somehow tighter because of dedication and lots of time putting in the work. These guys work hard and love every minute of the gift that they give to everyone who comes to see them.

The night at The Broadberry, one of RVA’s best new music and event space, was fantastic. Karl Denson, wearing an RVA tshirt came to rock a few tunes and celebrate DJ’s homecoming and Mark Ingraham’s, the trumpet players, birthday. The night was a party for everyone there.

 

 

For all the pics CLICK HERE

 

Ashly on Instagram