The Darlings Of Chelsea

While photographing The Beat Goes On festival in 2009, I met the Darlings of Chelsea while they were playing at a small club in downtown Kitchener, Ontario for a mixed, unlikely and unsuspecting crowd. As I photographed something like 16 bands in 2.5 evenings I gave up trying to genre guess prior to entering the live atmosphere. Upon entering this particular show – I was caught off guard. For the first time during the festival I was able to experience music a little closer to my liking: Dirty, raw, unapologetic, authentic, driving, aimless, semi-melodic and purposefully derivative Rock & Roll. Since this show we have worked together numerous times on live, promotional, conceptual and personal photography; we have built a relationship out of our mutual respect and common interests. Being a musician myself (drummer and digital music producer / deejay), I can relate to a number of the brilliant high’s and pummeling low’s that make up the music world and thus, working with other musician’s is something I genuinely enjoy. If you want rock & roll in the vein of ‘The Helicopters’ and a live show reminiscent of early 80′s hardcore, then this is your band; there are so many reasons to listen to this band that jotting them all down, forging out some incendiary biblical template would seem pretentious. Therefore, I will conclude this homage to aggression and honesty and request three things of my radical blog readers:

1) Go and watch ‘Almost Famous’ RIGHT NOW to see the closest that fiction film has come to representing what I believe to be the spirit of true Rock & Roll

2) Follow your viewing up with a listen to Lou Reeds ‘Transformer’, David Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’ and ‘Diamond Dogs’ and Iggy Pops ‘Raw Power’

3) The next morning take a listen to The Darlings Of Chelsea’s ‘Mimico Sessions and go see them the next time they’re in your town

Listen to The Darlings Of Chelsea here: http://www.darlingsofchelsea.net

Below is an amalgamation of photographs I’ve taken of them both live and formal over the past year and a half, starting with their most recent performance at Call The Office in London, Ontario: