Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips performs during the 2010 Free Press Houston Summerfest in Houston, Texas.

Last weekend I photographed the 2010 Free Press Houston Summerfest at Eleanor Tinsley Park here in downtown Houston, Texas. Last year was the festival’s inaugural year and I remember feeling really excited and proud of my city for finally hosting a legit music festival as I watched Broken Social Scene, Of Montreal, Explosions in the Sky and others take the stage in the park just blocks from my place. I have been involved in the live music scene for years, whether playing or photographing and for most of that time our neighbors to the west in Austin have held the torch for the best live music scene, and even though that is still the case, the Free Press Houston Summerfest is a testament to just how much Houston can give Austin a run for its money.

This year’s festival was even bigger and better with a larger main stage, more sponsors, and bigger headliners. The festival (both this year’s and last) creatively blends a wide-range of musical genres from hip-hop and metal to indie and jazz. The main draws this year were Girl Talk, Slim Thug and Bun-B, and The Flaming Lips. For the punk/hardcore audience, Cro-Mags and Municipal Waste graced the side stage. In total there were over 70 bands, national and local.

Temperatures were sweltering on day 1, Saturday. I was able to walk to the venue with a small backpack to carry the camera essentials. There was a lot more activities and vendors compared to last year, but after a trip or two around the grounds I settled at the main stage to photograph RaRaRiot. For most of the first day I remained near the main stage photographing the handful of bands that would take the stage throughout the afternoon.

A crowd dances on stage during Girl Talk.

Popular mash-up artist Gregg Gillis aka Girl Talk headlined day 1. I had never seen him perform live, but was introduced to him and his jams back when I worked in Baltimore in 2008. I always knew his live shows were a party, but I was not ready for the craziness that ensued. Balloons, toilet paper, dirty dancing, and everything else seemed to be happening on and off stage during the lengthy set. Towards the finale of the set, Gregg leaped up onto the on-stage desk that held his only instruments; a laptop, a mouse and a mouse-pad, (complete with puppy dogs) held his hands in the air and in almost perfect synchronization, an elaborate fireworks display went off in the background. It was a perfect ending to the first of two long days of live music.

It wasn’t until I had already started walking through the gates of the festival when I looked up and saw some threatening clouds. As I leisurely made my way down the natural embankment to the main stage, raindrops started to fall on my head. Within a few minutes of my arrival, several other photographers, a few crew members and I were huddled underneath a tent backstage, watching as a torrential downpour threw a meteorological wrench into the plans of hundreds of fellow music lovers. Last year severe thunderstorms made a muddy mess of the festival grounds, but were thoughtful enough to cease just prior to the opening of the gates. This year mother nature had waited until the fans were settled into their hillside spots and onto their colorful blankets before she showed her teeth.

Festival-goers slide down a muddy hillside, during a rainy day 2.

I have to admit it. From under the (relative) safety of my tent, I had to give it to my fellow Houstonians. There was no mass exodus as the rains continued to come down. Of course there were several groups of spectators that called it a day or at least decided to wait it out elsewhere, but the majority of fans took it in stride. They held their spots on the muddy hillside and continued to enjoy the music. Some even decided dive in head first (literally) into a new event that had spawned as a result of the rains, sliding down the muddy hillside into a puddle of muddy rainwater that had gathered below. After watching a few minutes of this intriguing event from underneath my tent, I too decided to throw caution to the wind and not join them, but photograph them. In the process I think a few of my lenses and cameras paid the price, but some interesting images were made.

After a while the rain cleared and the show went on as planned. The rest of the day’s acts went off without a hitch, but like day 1, I was not prepared for the headliner.

The Flaming Lips were set to finish off the weekend of music. I had never seen them live, and although I knew a bit about their live performances, I admit I did not quite expect the sheer craziness that ensued. In a similar fashion to Girl Talk’s set the night before, there were streamers, balloons, confetti, costumed dancers, elaborate lighting, elaborate set design and of course frontman, Wayne Coyne’s signature bubble.

We were only given access to photograph the first song of the set, but after that song I moved back and enjoyed the rest of the set from the rear. As I watched the final songs of this year’s Summerfest I realized how many more people were in attendance compared to last year. I only hope that this festival sticks around, continues to grow (in the best way possible) and draws even larger crowds in years to come.

Check out the slideshow of images below and if you like what you see, please retweet!

SUMMERFEST (JUNE 2010) – Images by Todd Spoth

It’s almost been a week since I departed Houston for Austin and the live music mecca that is South by Southwest, yet it still feels like I’m recovering. It’s mostly the severe seasonal allergies, but the journey wore me out, like it does every year, but like every year, I had a blast and saw some awesome live music. A few days prior were spent in back in Houston with good friend and fellow photographer, Ariel Zambelich from the Bay Area. She took off for Austin Wednesday and I came up with some friends Thursday afternoon.

After getting our bearings upon arrival Thursday, we headed downtown and prepared to attend the Pure Volume House party that night which featured music from Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes fame, Rival Schools and Andrew WK. The show was free via RSVP and even though several members of our crew weren’t on the list, we had no trouble getting passes and getting in. In addition to the live music, Taco Bell was on site handing out endless free tacos and burritos and there was an open bar as well. The stage collapsed halfway during Travis McCoy’s DJ set which forced the show to move onto the floor, DIY-style. Rival Schools were amazing and Andrew WK was amazing as well. The show ended around 5:30am and was a great end to night 1.

Day 2 began with an impromptu portrait session with Ariel and her OhDangMag crew. Afterwards, we caught some jams from The Watson Twins at the Relix Magazine party and then headed over to the annual Shirts For a Cure day show at Red 7. Every year the foundation hosts a handful of awesome bands and this year was no different with sets from, The Riverboat Gamblers, Strike Anywhere, Rival Schools, Fucked Up, Recover, Circa Survive and 7 Seconds. It was great getting to see the guys in Strike Anywhere again. We shared several dates on a tour with those guys about 10 years ago and they are still going strong. Good Stuff. After the Shirts For a Cure showcase, Ariel and I headed to a nearby church where Matt Pryor of Get Up Kids fame was set to open an official showcase featuring Jakob Dylan. When the doors of the sanctuary opened about 30 or so people filed into the small, yet beautiful place filing only the first several rows of pews. Most of the early crowd was there to see Jakob Dylan, and hear his solo stuff (which I might add is no where near as awesome as The Wallflowers stuff!) It was hands down one of the coolest Matt Pryor solo shows ever. After that showcase we really didn’t have too much of a plan. We wandered the streets a bit, and finished the night up by checking out a late set by Minus The Bear.

I started day 3 by spending a good bit of time browsing the annual Flatstock show at the Austin Convention Center. Every year the best poster artists from around the country gather to display their latest work. I am a huge fan of poster art, silk screens and amazing design, so naturally this place is like heaven for me. I make it a point every year to visit and pick up a few things that inspire me. After Flatstock I headed to Ace’s Lounge for a day showcase featuring Hey Champ, Bad Rabbits, et al. Both bands were amazing live and I ended up catching a few others that were pretty impressive as well. After that showcase I headed over the Levis Fader Fort and hung out there for a bit. I saw Adrian Grenier of Entourage fame and caught an exciting performance by Sleigh Bells before the headliner, Bone Thugs In Harmony finished up the night. I wasnt too fond of the music of Sleigh Bells, but frontwoman, Alexis Krauss was a fun performer and helped me make some decent photos (see photo above). As a long time fan of the Cleveland rappers, I am a bit biased, but Bone Thugs really performed well. They managed to knock out all of their hits without playing even 1 song off their forthcoming album. This may be because they were missing 2 of their members, but even so, the set was solid. Click here to see all 5 parts of the Bone Thugs In Harmony set at the Levis Fader Fort.

The rumors of Jay-Z, MIA, and others secretly performing after Bone Thugs were squashed when the loudspeaker announced that the Fort was officially closed, but our night was not over yet. We headed to the annex at Emo’s and walked right into the Fat Wreck showcase. We were in time to see Dead to Me play, but were really there to witness what took place afterwards. The bill listed “Cokie The Clown” which everyone knew was Fat Mike of NOFX fame. Additional rumors were that NOFX (the full band) would play during this slot, however NOFX did not play. In their place was Fat Mike, dressed as a clown, performing a handful of acoustic songs and telling some of the most disturbing and awkward stories that anyone could tell. It would take me too long to explain what happened next, but click here to see the epic ending to the set. Hint: It involves Fat Mike tricking the audience into drinking his urine.

An early visit for some of the best breakfast tacos at Juan In A Million opened up our Sunday followed by a tired drive back to Houston. Another amazing SXSW in the books. I remember sweating like crazy in a t-shirt and shorts during last year’s SXSW journey, this year was a bit different with temperatures in the 20′s on Saturday night and everyone struggling to bundle up and stay warm. Regardless, each year there is a new twist, new epic sets, and new artists to discover. Each year, I set out to really photograph a ton and make a huge body of work, but each year ends the same in that I spend the majority of my time hanging out with friends and appreciating the good jams, and I wouldnt have it any other way. I did manage to make some decent photos though. Check them out below.

This is my second installment of my 2 part favorites post highlighting my favorite images taken during Houston Chronicle assignments. This post contains images from roughly mid-May 2009 through this past weekend taken from my Houston Chronicle assignments only. I am a regular contributor to my hometown newspaper and get to shoot all kinds of things. A few months ago I posted my January through mid-May favorites and I thought now was a good time to post some selects since then. Some may have made it into the paper, some may have not. They were all taken from images sent to the paper from my various assignments.

*Note: I have consolidated my favorite images from all of 2009 into one nice and neat Photoshelter gallery. View the slideshow of 57 images below!

Yes, this is one of these posts. The ones where I preface my blog entry by apologizing for my absence and saying that it won’t happen again, but it’s bound to. At least I have a good excuse. For the past month now Ive been in Brasil with a 10-day visit to Africa. There are thousands of images that I have to mull through yet and I still have a week here in lovely Rio de Janeiro so hopefully I’ll get some more good images in. Once I get back stateside look forward to loads of updates and even more images from my month away.

Before I left on July 7th, I covered Warped Tour 2009 in Houston on the 3rd. It was probably the single worst Warped Tour experience out of all of the dozens Ive been to, but the few stand out performances made up for the day as a whole.

I have a few updates and news(ish) items to talk about. First off my recent article, “Riding A Wave” was published this earlier this week in the SportsShooter.com newsletter. The article which talks about my recent experience producing the documentary, The Messenger: 360 Days of Bolivar, was featured on the front page for a day as well.

I have also used some much needed downtime this week to update my main portfolio website TODDSPOTH.COM. I changed up the look and went with a new sleek white look, added a “recent work” section, added some video and multimedia projects under the new “multimedia” tab as well as added some new images here and there.

One of the multimedia pieces is a project that I worked on with two of my favorite local photographers and good friends, Robert Seale and Dave Einsel for Do1Thing.org. We volunteered our time back in February to tackle this multimedia project to help bring awareness to the homeless youth community. I was in charge of interviewing the youth and assembling the audio to accompany the images, however the person that was supposed to assemble the piece was busy so I decided to take on the task and throw something together. It wasn’t my greatest multimedia feat, but it works I think. It was for a great cause and we were happy to volunteer our time. The piece is also up on Do1Thing.org as well.

In other charity news, I am donating several prints to a charity art fundraiser this Saturday. Wolf Camera has graciously agreed to donate their printing services to the cause so thanks to them for that. My good friend Thomas and I are going to be doing an 8-song acoustic set at the event as well in an effort to raise even more money for the cause. Hopefully we raise money and don’t drive people away. Libby, although in LA for business has agreed to donate a few of her early (limited edition and amazing!) silk screen works.

If you are in the Houston-area and are interested in coming to this event please let me know!

Ahhh Valentine’s Day. I usually don’t look forward to this day even though I should since I am in a wonderful relationship and not sad and alone, however it just means I have to find something to get my lovely lady, usually at the last minute. In the end, they usually turn out OK, but this year’s was grand.

I had another early Chron assignment in the AM downtown, covering Eleanor Tinsley’s memorial service. The media access was restrictive and it forced me to dress up, but the church was gorgeous. On the way home I stopped and got Libs some awesome looking pink roses to satisfy the traditional.

Libs was in Chicago all week on business so I had ample time to think about what to get her, however the idea didn’t come to me until midday Thursday.

I had been wanting to play with some stop motion video for some time so I decided it was time. The idea I had was to create a stop motion movie based on a regular day for us at our current apartment. Sure we go out, travel and do a lot, but we also work from home a great deal so I wanted to illustrate that. Since we are moving to a new place soon I also wanted to emphasize our space, here, and create something that would hold captive those small memories of home that we have shared in this apartment.

Influenced by all of the awesome stop motion I used to watch on Sesame Street as a kid (Teeny Little Super Guy), I started to capture the frames. I wanted to use the song “Diagnosis” by the amazing dudes in The Weakerthans as the soundtrack so based on rough calculations I knew I needed between 500-600 still frames.

I took a photo of the two of us in Brooklyn over last Thanksgiving and cut it in half. I used her side to illustrate a few of her daily activities; waking up, showering, eating breakfast, watching family feud (lol) and working. I used my side to illustrate a few other things like getting dressed, playing with my awesome cat TT, and of course, working.

It was pretty tough, especially by yourself and being pressed for time. I winged most of the scenes and shot most of it in about 6 hours or so.

Today, after exchanging traditional gifts, Libs went to visit her mom as it was her birthday. It gave her a chance to do the finishing touches on her non-traditional gift to me and more importantly gave me a chance to throw my stills into final cut and see what I could come up with.

After some cutting, mixing, adding, subtracting and rendering I came out with a short little piece that I am happy with. The color is off, sometimes the focus was off, etc, but I love it even more for those little idiosyncrasies.

The folder that held the stills was hastily named STOP LOVE, so for the title, I went with that. I kinda dig it now that I think about it.

Libby finally got back home and with her came my gift. I was in awe! She never ceases to amaze with with her ridiculous craftiness. She bought a sleek lamp and replaced the lampshade with a custom sewn one made from slides of images of us together and other random images from our past. She used old slides, make custom slides from digital files and even planned ahead and shot slides with our old AE-1p while exploring the East Coast last fall. When it lights up it looks awesome! There are images below, but they don’t do it justice. It rules.

One of the images she used in the lamp was the same one I used in mine. See images below.

Afterwards I showed Libby my video. She cried. I think she liked it.

I haven’t been doing a lot of shooting recently so naturally yesterday’s all day extravaganza at the 2008 Warped Tour was a welcomed return to shooting stills. My buddy Cameron and I made the trek out to Sam Houston Race Park, a horse racing venue that has recently started holding concerts at its location. Cameron and I attended our first Warped Tour a decade ago in 1998. Time flies. This year was the first year that there lacked at least one good act that I really wanted to see. There were plenty of bands that I made a note of seeing and several new acts that I really enjoyed, but none of them I really told myself I just HAD to see prior to the show. Regardless of the lineup, the festival’s variety, always lends itself to good captures and this year was no different. I have gotten some nice stuff from years past, but I believe this year was my strongest shooting year thus far. I have grown a lot as a photographer and artist in the last year and I have seen the result over the past few hours editing the 1500 or so images from the day. It is also of note that this is the first event that I have edited entirely in Adobe Lightroom. It takes some getting used to but everything was done sans – Photoshop. I walked out with a hand full of good moments and a sunburn. All in a day’s work. I have included one of my favorite, more abstract, images from the day above.