Event: Daddy Long Legs at APYC
On a soft summer Friday night in New Jersey, I’m sure you could have found a pleasant outdoor venue, opened up a chilled bottle of rosé at your local yacht club and listened the the dulcet tones of some crooner.
Or, you can do like I did, and jammed yourself into a Jersey shore bar called the Asbury Park Yacht Club – with nary a yacht in sight – had yourself a shot and a beer and listened to the throaty growls, steel guitars of a three-man band called Daddy Long Legs.
They say they are from New York and maybe they are now. But with an antique microphone in one hand and a harmonica in the other, lead singer Brian Hurd sounds nothing like a New Yawker. He and his band sound more like something that would have been playing out of Robert Mitchum’s hot rod in Thunder Road.
Brian Hurd
Is “punk blues” a type of music? If not, it is now.
Man, what a band. Pretty much from their opening salvo, I was hooked. Hurd’s lanky frame (hence, the Daddy Long Legs moniker), mop of curly hair and big belt buckle took up one side of the stage, while Murat Aktürk’s snakeskin boots and beautiful black slide guitar took up the other.
Drummer Josh Styles, he of pencil-thin mustache and long black hair, was wedged in the back, but no matter: the cat doesn’t use cymbals. Heck, he doesn’t even use two drumsticks instead working the skins with one stick and a macarena.
Murat Aktürk
I won’t lie…APYC is tough to shoot in, especially when there’s a good band in the house. It’s tight, it’s hot, it’s dark and the lights that ARE on are usually orange or red.
Since I like B&W, that’s not so much of an issues, but, man, it was dark. I should have upped the ISO on my FujiX100T. I know it does well at higher ISO’s but I’m still hesitant to do that.
But I made due, though I also took some liberties in my processing. Got a little creative using the Nik Analog EFex Pro 2 filters. But actually, in the end, I liked how the images turned out.
DLL is right up my alley. I’m bummed I didn’t pick up a t-shirt – I stepped out on the boardwalk to get some air, and when I came back, their merch guy was packing up and I didn’t want to bother him.
It was then, though, that I snapped a super lousy-blurry pic of Brian and Nicole Atkins but shhh…don’t tell them that.
Anyway, if you like punk-blues-rocknroll that’ll make the windows shake, check out Daddy Long Legs.
If you prefer to sip your rosé in your yacht, maybe don’t.
Here’s to hoping I get to shoot them again. And soon!
© Mark V. Krajnak | JerseyStyle Photography | All Rights Reserved 2018
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