Comedic Horror, Mosh Pits in the Library, and Devil's Sky

Today's "Word of the Day" kind of corresponds with the darkly titled picture for the blog, as well as one of the few things I thought I would never see until yesterday. If any of you have seen the Addam's family movies, circa early 90's, the funniest thing about them was always the dark humor. Yesterday, I got to experience what was probably a real life dark comedy, and had to correlate the two. I was asked to be a part of a panel of Chicagoland muscian's for a library event to answer the questions of aspiring kids and teens who are starting out in their first bands, or what to be musicians. The talk was awesome, and my fellow panelists and I talked to these wide-eyed kids for almost two hours on how to start, and our experiences playing shows, and how we achieved our varying success. After the panel, several bands played, what was some of their first shows. Now if there weren't other's there with me, or if I didn't have a camera, no one would have believed that a library would have allowed power thrash and death metal bands to play there. It was surreal, and am realy glad I got to be a part of it. When one particular group called Monolith, covered Slayer's "Angel of Death", I almost peed my pants a little. They did an amazing job, and I had to keep reminding myself that there was a book return next to them and I was probably seeing something most people would never get to see... and then the moshing began. Thanks for the invite Joel Beverly of happyheadbanger.com! Also check out these two great Chicgaoland bands that I got to share the panel with.

Deadmanswake
http://www.facebook.com/#!/DEADMANSWAKE

Sutured Pscyhe
http://www.facebook.com/#!/suturedpsyche

Today's pic was taken in a graveyard outside of Galena, IL. It was only late afternoon, but at the time I was using a slide film called Fuji Velvia. It is an extremely light sensitive film, and even though it was much brighter out when the photo was taken, that is why it has this dark look, with the amazing red hue.