Gettin' Old in Ohiopyle

On Tuesday June 16th as the Phillies bullpen gave up 5 runs in the 10th inning, I quietly turned 40 years old. Two weeks earlier however I had a birthday cavalcade fit for a rock star. In the hills and hollers of Western Pennsylvania's river country my wife and I gathered our friends and family for a good ol' fashioned backyard birthday party. I really couldn't have been more pleased with the turnout and the overall good vibe of the weekend. I put together a slide show of some of the pictures of the day. If you want to see it in HD, hit the HD is Off button and it will route you off the blog and to the Vimeo site. Along with my photos, I've included some great shots from my cousin AJ. All his shots could be seen here. A site with my images can be seen here.

As I stood on the sidelines of the 4 court round-robin bean bag tournament with my family and friends, Beach Music blasting and a Yuengling in hand, I told someone that this might be what Jimmy Heaven looks like. Yeah, if you build it, they will come. I'd like to thank everyone for coming both near and far to our gathering. I requested mustaches in lieu of gifts so thanks for them, I didn't expect it to be such an androgynous showdown. I laughed all weekend and even more over the last two weeks looking at the pictures. Thanks also for the gifts and kind words regarding the weekend. The common thread among all the calls, emails and texts since then was how much people enjoyed the other people there. Kristen and I are so fortunate that our families and many circles of friends have found such common ground over the years. Divine Yoda-type-wisdom has mostly eluded me over my 40 years here, but the one thing I have found is that good people find good people. The whole Paddler's Lane location was a perfect case and point. We found this place online and hoped for the best. We couldn't have done better.

Thanks again to everyone.

Getting Old in Ohiopyle from Jim Harris Images on Vimeo.

Six Degrees of Jim Harris

Yesterday I showed up to document the Bacon Brothers and about 50 Mummers cut a record to benefit the future stability of the Philadelphia New Years Day Mummer's Parade. I'm not sure if I could properly explain what a Mummer is so you could check out this link for a little back story. If you don't know the Bacon Brothers, they are rock band consisting of actor Kevin Bacon and his brother Michael. They are originally from Philadelphia and perform here often. My buddy Rodney has photographed them on a number of occasions and always has good things to say about them and their music. So, Kevin wrote a song involving the Mummers called New Years Day. It's a great summer pop rock song with elements of the Beach Boys. It's about a dude that heads out to LA to take a shot, but wants to come back to Philly. Ha. On this day, they brought in Bunny Sigler, a Philadelphia soul singer best known for his work with the Ojays and Gamble & Huff's Philadelphia Sound. They also laid down a number of tracks with the Mummers horns and strings and vocals. It's going to have a big Phil Spector type sound once all these tracks are mixed in.

Due to city budget crisis etc the city has cut funding for the Mummer's Parade. Last year they barely got a reprieve and the show went on. This year they will struggle to continue the tradition. So this single will be sold to try and raise funding for this years parade. Everyone there was working for free or reduced rates.

I was brought in to document the session. I spent the afternoon in the studio shooting the performers and the goings on. I always see these type photographs in Rolling Stone. The behind the scenes in the studio,,,mixing boards, headphones and microphones. I always think that's what I'd like to be photographing. Yesterday I had a chance to do that. It was like being behind the scenes of the We are the World sessions, except it was the Bacon Brothers and the cause was decadently costumed musicians and not world hunger.

In all seriousness though, this Parade is so unique to the city. There really isn't anything else like it in the country. I've been to the parade and it's entirely grass roots and non-commercial. There are no cartoon floats or celebrity appearances. It's all about the costumes and the music.

I put in a couple more hours than agreed upon yesterday. Unlike some of the work I do, this had a real arc and story element to it....and the end of the story was the completion of the song. After all the instrument tracks were recorded, they brought the Mummers back into the recording studio with the Bacon Brothers to do some large group vocals. I couldn't photograph during the recording so I was just stuck in there with them. After hearing this particular song about 250 times I knew all the words and just sang along a little bit. The Bacon Brothers, 50 Mummers and me. Why not?

Kristen and I were having dinner last night, watching the Phillies and talking about the day. I said, I cut a hit single with the Bacon Brothers today, what did you do?

Leonard Cohen, Chick Rose and The Farm

Other than my family and my wife the person I've lived with the longest is a fella named Markus. I often call him by his rock and roll name, Chick Rose.  Markus and I have been friends now for going on twenty years. Once upon a time we lived on a 40 acre farm house in Indiana. We had parties,  horses and even a beautiful barn till it burned down in the summer of '92. In 8 years of living on that farm, Markus and I came and went from the farm house, but someone was always there to watch our dog Claudius. Claudius was sort of forced upon us by our land-lady, who seldom collected rent and whom we never met, not even once. If this all sounds like a hell of a story,,, it was and justifies more than a blog post.  It think it would make an interesting novel, I always thought of calling it 'My 20's, their 90's.' 

At the farm Markus played guitar and collected records. I learned my open chords and listened to the records Markus collected. We dug a lot of the same music and between the two of us, I'm quite certain we had the most complete collection of Leonard Cohen records in all of Western Pennsylvania. What ones we didn't have I bought overseas and brought them back. We talked about seeing him, but ol' Leonard was living with the Buddhist Monks at the time and seemed unlikely to tour again at his age. We talked about our pilgrimage and the hope that someday it would come to be. 

So at age 74 Leonard announces his first world tour in two decades. Markus agrees to take a train from Maryland and meet me us in Philadelphia. Rob Moore is on-board of course and we all gather at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia's theater district. The Academy of Music is an opulent opera house that opened in 1857. It was a big night. The show was all that we had hoped and though the chandelier was closer to the stage than we were I still managed to get a couple pictures. I feel very fortunate that I was in the right place and the right time to see this performance... especially with such good friends. I can't help but laugh when I think about our camping party last week for my 40th  birthday. Markus, Rob and I all performing a Leonard Cohen rock block. Crowd-pleasers? Eh...not really and apologies to those around the campfire that were looking for something a little less morose and little more John Denver, but I had fun with it. It was a fitting end to our 20 year Leonard Cohen Pilgrimage. 

The Tones Rock the Mountain

The Tones Rock the Mountain from Jim Harris Images on Vimeo.

My Folks and the family have been going to see The Tones since they were in High School. They still play out regularly and I've managed to somehow see them twice already this year... which is the same amount I've seen the Boss in that time span... so somethings gotta give. Enjoy the clip,,,,you can find my family in the mix, and as always they just don't know how to have a good time.