Last week was a super good time. New York City’s greatest psychedelic rock band, Super Natural Psycho, played a number of times at various venues and I tried to make it to them all. Missed the third one, but 2 outta 3 ain’t bad.

SNP is Reggie from NYCHH’s other band, and he introduced me to that crew via our short lived attempt at making a talk show. I’ve been a big fan of everyone in the band since. Here you have Mikey, the brains behind the operation, and Darien, the newest drummer. He also plays drums in my new band.

The lady Chuck D and I headed out to their show at The Ludlow House, which is a SoHo House off shoot. Basically a place where the fancy go to socialize. And basically not fer me. Or at least not my DNA. Regardless, they have good taste in music.

A friend of the band invited them to come play and it turned into a pretty tight party. DJ Joey C was pumping the jams which had Mikey and VRN on the dance floor all night.

Señor Shaun Spencer was also out for the night and he and I shared the experience of wearing matching uniforms all night (hat, band shirt, camera on right shoulder)

The show was funny cause you had to put your name on a list. When you get in a young fabulous person greets you and tells you “you’ll be in the velvet lounge tonight”. Ok.

In between moments Mikey an Darien went out to use their reefers and we met a couple of characters on the street. Mikey, being the generous individual he is, shared that reefer with many a passerby. One got talking about the specific flavors of reefer and happened to be from the same home town as Darien in Florida.

Vrn had her little party dress on an was dancing about all night, she is a little ball of positive energy it’s quite funny to see.

Bryan is also a very funny dude, we got to talking about 90s hardcore later in the evening in the “green room”and that was hilarious. Talking about extreme veganism like low-key throwing a brick through a McDonald’s window.

The set was a sounding very tight due to the fact that their homie who has recorded them came out.

I was pretty pumped to hear them play their two new songs, which are a little more like jammy rock songs, the kind of shit I like.

The crowd was sitting in a semi circle and was a little strange, people were definitely digging it, but I gotta say as a person who plays music I know how strange it is to play to a room full of seated people.

They got a great reaction overall though and sounded awesome.

We chilled into the wee hours after the set and discussed many a thing.

But it was also so relaxed back there it was hard not to fall asleep

The original drummer, Eric, was back in town from Colorado also hanging out. So it was good to see him.

Emma showed up right as they were going on in these crazy ass 60’s pants

Hernik was also out chillin, but toward the end of the night was getting a bit tired and decided to order a cappuccino

This is a poorly aimed selfie. I ended up leaving around 1:30, getting a couple of quick tacos from San Loco and taking the long train ride home.

Unfortunately, recent news broke that current staple venue The Acheron will be closing its doors to shows in July. This really sucks as It’s been a place to play for about 5/6 years. Anyway, SNP got added to one of the last remaining shows with Title Fight. Got to see big Alex Kapps.

And also Ivan.

They played another great set, though the sound wasn’t as amazing for them at The Acheron as compared to The Ludlow house but they killed it.

Plus they got to play to an entirely new crowd

Mikey was doing some good stuff that night, he did some D Boon moves, plus the shirt didn’t hurt the comparison.

Good week

I missed the third show but I’d bet it was just as good. Until next time.

We finally knocked something off the list that has been on there for years. I’ve been wanting to go check out Fort Totten, a national park space in Queens, since I first heard about it. Only problem is that it’s super far away via public transportation.

When you look it up on the net the first thing you see are images like this, cavernous bunkers. Apparently the Fort was put in place to guard the water front area. It being the connection between the East river and the Long Island sound it’s kind of an important pathway.

The whole area is extremely beautiful and is perfect for medium format photography. I decided to bring out the RZ this day to get some good shots, this being one of my favorites.

When you get topside it’s kind of a mystery as to what all this jazz was used for, I mean I can’t imagine the purpose of those standing blocks. They sure do look cool and graphic though.

The other cool thing is that the Whitestone and Throg’s Neck bridges are both visible from the fort. On a hazy day they are really amazing in the distance.

There’s a real small patch of beach down there too, which would be kind of annoying to try and get to.

At this point something started happening to the camera. My assumption is that there is a leak on the bellows of the RZ. BUM OUT! Gotta tape that sucker up!

Charlotte told me that this exact location is used in that show The Americans that’s on amazon. She showed me a screenshot and they drove cars up in here. Seems odd.

One of the coolest things is this one section of the bunker had some really dark cave looking things. Not sure what they were used for, maybe storage? Either way the local barn-swallows we straight up having a blast! I sat watching them in the dark as they whizzed in and out. They turned a broken exit sign into a little nest, and kept looping in, stalling for a sec in the nest, then looping back out. I managed to capture a pair in the shot above.

The other thing about it is all the overgrown homes fully ivy’d out. Some are still in use but others are totally wrecked.

Like this one, that has ivy growing in, then back out of the windows and deck.

The area across the water seemed like a little fishing town too, which is cool. Big puffy clouds all day made for some dreamy shots.

Definitely can’t wait to go back… though next time would be a lot easier with an automobile.