Day 1 of Madison’s Forward Music Festival had me bouncing from the High Noon Saloon to The Majestic where I ended up staying despite previous plans to race back to The High Noon.

First up was All Tiny Things who’s airy, looping, keyboarding songs were very nice atmosphere and I’ve read good things but I had to hit the road.

Racing over to The Majestic to catch At Night In The Box, a foursome out of Minneapolis who I hadn’t heard of prior to doing my research for FMF09 but who very quickly stood out as I paged through all 100 bands’ MySpace pages.  Mixing acoustic folk, fuzzed out electric blues, blues and indie into one I’m really glad I didn’t overlook them.  For only play 3-5 songs they put on a hell of a show and I was disappointed their set didn’t last a few more songs.

Next up was Gold made up of two guitars and drums.  Can’t find anything on them on the internets which is too bad because I dug their loud, hard rocking tunes.

The end of my night was with Puerto Rican punk band Davila 666 who came on looking like they’d been ‘prepping’ for their set for quite some time.  With bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, lead singer and a tambourine player all crowding the front of the stage I wasn’t sure what to expect.  With each backing vocal part, each member of the band (drummer included) all poured their all into the various mics around the stage singing backup and dancing around.

Between A Night At The Box and Davila 666 I’ve found two more acts to follow…

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A little review of recent work below over the last three months or so.  And I promise to keep this updated for the millions reading and waiting for the next post.

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Sometimes you need inspiration to guide, inform and assist your own work.  The Boston Globe’s ‘Big Picture’ does just that. Further, Flickr and the variety of photography magazines and blogs I read also provide the necessary inspiration when ‘photographer’s block’ kicks in.

Just some of my favorites that get me going.

[Note: I didn't take any of these and am not taking credit for doing anything other than finding them...]

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When I first learned that Nikon was coming out with a dSLR that could also shoot 720p video I was skeptical and like a lot of photographers, uneasy with combining the two formats.  I always liked the fact that dSLRs weren’t trying to be something they weren’t and that all the research and development went into better photos and more control.  I got excited about video in a dSLR after seeing Vincent Laforet’s Reverie which used the Canon 5D Mark II and an incredible collection of the finest Canon and Zeiss lenses available.  Seeing video shot on a $2,500 camera body that rivaled or surpased a $100,000 HD videocamera  is something to be impressed with.

Which leads me to the video below; something else to be impressed with.  The depth of field, composition and holding the shot just long enough to get a natural smile got me.  I’ve come around to the possibilities of video on a dSLR; now if I could only justify spending $2,500 on a new body…

Enjoy.

Sofia’s People: Canon 5dmk2 24p from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Indie favorites Elf Power swung through Madison on Friday night, playing a short set of their own songs before taking a short break and serving as the backing band for Vic Chestnutt who they recently recorded an album with.  Talking with the keyboardist from Elf Power (woman with the funny hat) about life on the road was an interesting insight into the life of a touring band.

Dane101.com

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“The person who doesn’t scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs.”
-Hunter S. Thompson