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We want to feature your music-related photos on Blender.com. Not a professional photographer? Doesn't matter! If you have great live shots or any music-related photos, submit them at photos at blender.com, and include any Web site or link that you’d like to run with your photo. There’s no limit to how many you can submit, so keep 'em coming as you take 'em!
Photographer Ryan Wakeman took this photo of Justice at Nightclub 9:30 in Washington, D.C. “I had never seen Justice before, but was aware of all the hype. No one stopped moving/sweating the entire night until the two DJs decided to end their set and make an appearance in the parking lot to sign clothes and take photos.” Check out more of Ryan’s photography at his Web site: wakemanphoto.com.
See past Photo's of the Day here.
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 Justice
"Stress"
Director: Romaine Gavras
There's little restraint involved in Justice's hyper brand
of dance-metal. It's loud and unrelenting in its ceaseless quest for
sensory overload. The duo's latest video expertly translates their lack of inhibitions through
a group of young hooligans who spend their days wearing matching
Justice bomber jackets (awesome) and bullying everyone and everything
that comes across their path. There's no resolution, no moral — just
violence for the sake of it. And the clip's unforgiving nature quickly
crosses the line from being merely irresponsible to knowingly sly (a probable inspiration: the similarly ruthless French cult film
Man Bites Dog). Still, there's no chance you'll see this on MTV anytime
soon.
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 With five stages, 130 bands and approximately 7,000 cumulative hours of music (of which we saw about 30), Coachella can overload even the hardiest of festivalgoers. Here, we sort through our fried cortexes to highlight the weekend’s winners.
Most Mind-Blowing Set
Prince was fantastic, but for sentimental reasons we’re going to have to give it to the reunited Portishead. As My Morning Jacket’s Jim James said, “Whenever I listen to Portishead, I feel like I’m trapped in a horrific funhouse and demons are trying to kill me.” (He meant it as a compliment.)
Most Functional Stage Makeup
Islands frontman Nick Thorber’s white face paint, which doubled handily as SPF-8,000 sunscreen.
Coolest Art Installation
The sonic forest and inhabitable steampunk treehouse were both pretty cool, but we have to go with the massive S-shaped sculpture made from two decommissioned 18-wheelers. According to its creators, it’s a statement about “a global oil industry at the nexus of our world’s political, social, and environmental systems.” We just think big trucks are bad ass.
Most Incongruous/Awesomest Walk-On Music
Tres cool DJ duo Justice taking the stage to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”
Least Cool Moment #1
All the times that that mysterious, all-consuming fecal smell washed over the polo grounds. “I can assure you it wasn’t anyone in the band,” said the Verve’s Richard Ashcroft when it wafted in during their set.
Best Context-Free Quote
“I f*cked you.” – Sean Penn
Most Glamorous Star Sighting
British beauty Sienna Miller, shaking a fist at the Hot Chip set.
Least Cool Moment #2
When that skinny hippie kid got the shit kicked out of him by five gangster-looking dudes in the middle of Roger Waters’ set. Witnesses said the kid had apparently sold his assailants bad acid. Ironic bonus: It happened during “Wish You Were Here.”
Grooviest Facial Hair
Black Lips bassist Jared Swilley’s handlebar mustache, and Gogol Bordello singer Eugene Hutz’s … handlebar mustache.
Most Ubiquitous C-List Celebrity
That one guy — what’s his name? From The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? We think he was in 24 too, maybe? God, what is his name?
Biggest Regret
That when some 17-year-old kid asked if we had any E he could buy during Vampire Weekend’s set, we had to say no. Sorry, kid. Maybe next year.
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 “I want to send a shout-out to the sunset right now. That is some beautiful-ass sh*t!”
So said a westward-facing Kid Sister during the third and final dusk of Coachella v.9.0, and we were in no position to disagree. King Helios was riding his winged chariot over the majestic San Jacinto Mountains, the breeze was blowing, and the sky glowed crimson with satisfaction. It was indeed some beautiful-ass sh*t.
Day 3 at Coachella is an exercise in mind-over-matter. The temperatures are always hotter; the grass is yellowing from abuse; the campground hippies are running out of weed. Everyone is bushed, and no one — let’s face it — is really dying to hear more live music.
Fortunately, Gogol Bordello didn’t care about any of this. We never really “got” the whole gypsy-punk thing, but today it all made sense, as Gogol turned the Empire Polo Grounds into a big fiddling Bulgarian happiness orgy. Elijah Wood was loving it too (his girlfriend, Pamela, is one of the percussionists), and anything that makes Frodo get crunk is all right in our book. Backstage after the show we asked GB frontman Eugene Hutz how he planned to spend his evening. He looked at us like we were morons: “Um, by getting f*cking laid?” Fair enough.
The day had highlights. Justice dropped a 20-megaton awesome bomb in the Sahara tent. My Morning Jacket’s face-melting jams would have left us grinning idiotically if they hadn’t already melted our faces. Sean Penn gave an inspiring recruitment pitch for an humanitarian trip he’s organizing to New Orleans, but all we could think was, “Why is Spicoli talking about biodiesel buses?”
The day’s headliner was former Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, who came armed with a handful of Floyd classics (“Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “Wish You Were Here”) and a stage setup that included 30-foot flame jets, a giant floating pig and a low-flying plane sprinkling the crowd with what Blender initially feared was weapons-grade anthrax. (Turns out it was just a few tons of Obama confetti.) After a quick intermission, he returned and played Dark Side of the Moon top to bottom. Substances = consumed. Minds = blown.
Back at our hotel, we stumbled our way into Waters’s post-show soiree. Sean Penn was there, reeking of cigarettes. Patrón was there, tasting delicious. Then things started to get weird. At one point we were sitting between Penn, Waters and a tequila-guzzling painter from L.A. who kept remarking, apropos of nothing, that Rod Stewart’s old bassist was “a Chinaman.” Waters was “shi*faced” (his words, not ours.) Meanwhile, somewhere, Eugene Hutz was getting laid. When a drunken cougar threw her arms around a clearly perturbed Penn and told him he was “a f*cking goddamn genius,” we took it as our cue to call it a night. And a festival.
Until next year: Shine on, Coachella, you crazy diamond. Shine on.
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We ran into French electro house duo Justice last night backstage at an exclusive party and grilled the former graphic designers on everything from their Top 5 party records to old-school Metallica tracks:
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We ran into a few bona fide celebrities (not to mention a bevy of velvet jumpsuited Playmates) last night at Playboy's Rock the Rabbit party — and even took pictures of them to prove it:
 
[Left: Justice's Gaspard Auge. Right: Moby]
 
[Playmates. We didn't catch their names but let's just call them Sapphire and Prudence for now. Also, you don't think they tell them to pose like that, do you?]
 
[Left: The always-sanitary Perez Hilton. Right: "Pete Townshend"] [Photos: Christy Kurtz] |
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WHO: Justice
WHAT: "DVNO" [Director: So Me/Machine Molle]
WHY: Note to every music video director who's not So Me (a.k.a. the dude behind Justice's "D.A.N.C.E." and Kanye's "Good Life" clips): Step your computer graphics game up! Also, for your viewing pleasure, the old-school HBO intro animation (you're welcome).
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We want to feature your music-related photos on Blender.com. Not a professional photographer? Doesn't matter! If you have great live shots or any music-related photos, submit them at photos at blender.com, and include any Web site or link that you’d like to run with your photo. There’s no limit to how many you can submit, so keep 'em coming as you take 'em!
Diana Rose Levine took this photo of Xavier from Justice DJing at Studio B in Brooklyn last October. Diana, an art department magazine designer, also shoots music, events, celebrities and editorial assignments on the side, and has photographed a range of musicians and public figures.
See Diana’s work at her Web site www.dianalevine.com.
See past Photo's of the Day here.
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WHO: Justice
WHAT: "Phantom Pt. II"
WHY: Yeah, but have you seen Little Miss Sunshine ... on weed?!
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