This week it's an unintentional partial double that I took during rehearsal with my favorite band ever, Mad Juana (the gig was this past Friday). Guitar player/leader/Finnish raconteur Sami Yaffa and djembe player Rain Bermudez.
Canonet, TMax100, HC110 H, first shot without flash second shot with flash. I'm trying to work on my B&W flash photography.
Mad Juana by
Indofunk Satish, on Flickr
For those of you who like backstories (and I've probably mentioned this here before), Sami was in a Finnish band called Hanoi Rocks, which was one of the very first punk/hair/glam rock bands in the 80's. In fact, although they were relatively unknown outside of Finland, a lot of American glam rock bands, like Motley Crue and New York Dolls, cited them as their main influence. In a tragic story that ended the life of the band Hanoi Rocks as it was, their drummer Razzle was out partying in LA with Vince Neil from Motley Crue and died in a car accident where drunk/drugged driving was clearly the cause.
Anyways, Sami is still playing with glam rock band revivals, including the new Hanoi Rocks lineup which goes under the name of the lead singer Michael Monroe, as well as hosting programs on Finnish television and Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, etc. Between all of his projects, he uses the one week he has off every year to lead this project Mad Juana, which is very much unlike anything else he does. It's a gypsy/rock band in the vein of Gogol Bordello, and like I mentioned, it's my very favorite band that I've ever played with in my ~30 year music career. For anyone who may be interested, here are some videos where I'm playing with the band (they haven't put out any new albums since I joined in 2011).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBFF737402358C31E
