I once had a friend who got to interview The Hold Steady, and he told Craig Finn that their band and the Drive-By Truckers were the only bands he saw live that year who smiled. That is absolutely still true. Despite how gritty and depressing the Drive-By Truckers’ music can get, Patterson Hood still looks like the happiest person on the planet, smiling ear to ear, seemingly happy to be around and playing music. But Friday night at their show at Boston’s House of Blues, the audience got three bands who smiled.

Each band brought something unique, but could all be described as having a very obvious, joyous connection to sounds of the past. The Truckers, having spent time as a backing band to Bettye Lavette and Booker T, have links more direct than most. Those collaborations highlight the kind of soulfulness that makes them a band worth listening to. They’re not a particularly diverse band, playing in a strain of southern rock that relies on downtrodden stories. Cory, in his review for Ted Leo’s The Brutalist Bricks, asked ““What the fuck: why can’t they just do what I like them for?” Well, the Truckers are the band that has been doing what their fans like them for, nothing more and nothing less. There’s a point where one song intro might sound like another, but their craftsmanship and talent for story songs lends itself to consistent songwriting.

Part of that might be because they have at least two equally strong songwriters. Patterson Hood may be the Trucker most often cited as the band’s leader, but he and guitarist Mike Cooley switched back and forth throughout the night, treating lead singer duties like a baton. Their voices and personalities become clearer on stage: Patterson, an exuberant musician with an ear-to-ear smile; Cooley, a showman more willing to strut to the front of the stage to show the audience exactly how blazing his solos look on the fretboard. Bassist Shonna Tucker got to add two of her own songs to the set: “(It’s Gonna Be) I Told You So” and “Home Field Advantage.” Her songs, heavy in their own right, added a sweetness and further diversified the overall sound. Combined with Patterson’s raspy yelp and Cooley’s craggy voice, the band sometimes felt like a three-headed beast spewing depression and encouragement wherever they looked.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifK_tPlXO_s

They opened with the one-two punch of “Drag the Lake Charlie” and “Two Dimes Down,” and the set smoked without ever looking back. The band seemed to lean heavily on the recent The Big To-Do -- 6 songs out of 22 -- but they reached back throughout their heavily populated discography over the course of the night. Other than promoting their newest album, things seemed to spread out evenly. There’s something to be said about the strength of their craftsmanship, when just about any random combination of songs can be made into a setlist. Such is the nature of the ever-changing setlist that on most nights, not every song is going to be a favorite, but a few gems and surprises will turn up anyway.

That said, things ended as they should with “Let There Be Rock,” the band’s love letter to concerts and rock stars who died too soon, and a cover of “Rocking in the Free World.” The latter is a fitting end; Neil Young and the Drive-By Truckers both have a knack for taking really bitter subject matter and making it into anthems. “Let There Be Rock” dedicates its verses to concerts by dead rock stars. Perhaps it’s fitting that the last original song the Truckers played reaches a denouement at the line, “Bon Scott singing/Let There Be Rock tour,” while the audience sings along, a bitter, anthemic elegy to the fallen frontman.

Langhorne Slim opened the show with a too-brief five-song set of roots rock, a sort of Otis Redding by way of Blonde On Blonde blend that sounded natural and, more importantly, passionate. While gyrating and stomping around the stage, he and his band fired up the crowd by sheer exuberance. A too-loud kick drum marred the set slightly, for those too close at least. There wasn’t much singing along with his “Ooh ooh ohh” choruses and call-and-response portions, but he took it with a smile. He’d won over a lot of the people around me, at least. “Maybe next time,” he joked.

Lucero‘s most recent studio album feels a bit like something Bruce Springsteen might make if he grew up during the punk era. Live, though, they have a more soulful country-tinged sound. They don’t attack things with a punkish speed, but their midtempo stomp has a heaviness to it that recalls the energy and resilience of punk. Friday night, they proved to be a band with more of a light ska feel, an amalgamation of Americana. Really, if the entire night -- all three bands -- could be summed up, it would be in the phrase “an amalgamation of Americana.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIa3QTp34Sw

Drive-By Truckers:

• Official Site
• MySpace
• Last.fm
• JamBase

The Action Blast played their first show at The House of Blues in Chicago, and I was there to take a few photos after some happy hour boozing this past Friday. My steady hand prevailed thanks to my bullet-proof Irish drinking genes, and The House of Blues spacious photo pit. Hot mess beloooow!

Another solid show by The Action Blast–hopefully next time they’ll be able to join me in my pre-HOB-show routine of drinking nonstop at Chilis.

It’s been almost a year since I last had a chance to see Rise Against, as they’ve been touring all around the world the past year, but they’re finally coming back this December 18th for their 10th anniversary show at my favorite venue in Chicago, The Metro.

The band recently released a video for the song Savior off of their most recent album, Appeal to Reason. It compliments many of their previous videos carrying some of the same themes, as well as being shot in and around Chicago. (From what this Chicago native can tell)

Unlike their previous work, however, this video has a somewhat humorous take on the current state of the union. The same themes from their previous videos are present, but this time, instead of being blatantly forward with their message they’ve decided to use what is possibly a more powerful storytelling technique: humor. (Something we at Assault are quite fond of.)

You’ll have to watch the video for yourself to see what I mean, but I have to say that I agree with the central core messages of the video which are forgiveness and openness.

Rise Against also released a new Digital 45 this week on iTunes with the single, “Grammatizator” as well as a live version of the song, “Hero of War”. You can get it now on iTunes.

Along with the video there’s a quick making of featurette with some insight from the director, Kevin Kerslake who provides some interesting insight into the background of the song and music video:

And just in case you’re a fan of orchestral music, The Vitamin String Quartet did several covers of Rise Against’s songs. It’s the first time I ever considered a group of classical musicians totally badass. You can get it in iTunes here.

One major skill that I’m relieved to have learned while in college is how to take good quality pictures. One of our ideas with Assault was to get pictures of our shirts on rock bands rather than on stock mock ups like every other apparel company. We felt it was the one thing to set us aside in a small way from everyone else that would also be a great way to network with bands that we were fans of.

Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that live concert photography is probably one of the hardest forms of photography. You can’t depend on your camera’s automatic mode if you want your photos to look professionally done. You can’t use a point and shoot camera. After a few practice shows though, and with plenty of practice and tips from our friends, we were finally able to nail down our process which we’re going to share with everyone, cause we’re awesome.

Lookout! Giants at the Metro Chicago

Account for lighting & other variables

If you’ve been to Assault’s Online Store you know that we try to get photos of people wearing our clothing during rock shows where there are any number of variables that you can’t account for. Such as:

• The crowd
• The amount of lights
• The layout of the venue
• The variation in color and intensity of the lights

To help you get started doing your own photography under these conditions I’ve prepared a few tips and techniques that will help take your photos from sorority party-girl self shots to Rolling Stone worthy concert photography. (Maybe not THAT good, but close)

As always, we’ll try to accomplish quality results as cheaply as possible.

Equipment: Digital SLR Camera

Your little party camera, aka the point and shoot, isn’t going to cut it. I’m sure it’s got plenty o’ megapixels, but the most important thing is that you get a large image sensor to capture more color information. I started off with a Nikon D70 DSLR that I bought off my friend Dennis Burnett for $300 bucks. It’s older than my little sister’s point and shoot, but the photos still look ten times better.

If you shop around I’m sure you can find a decent used SLR. Try Craigslist, or Ebay. (Does anyone use Ebay anymore besides Nigerian scammers?)

Not only is the camera body important, but it’s important to have a decent lens on your camera. I stuck with the zoom lens that came with my camera to start, but eventually purchased a Nikon 50mm prime lens to help in the low lighting situations.

Equipment: External Flash

A Hero Named Hope live show at the Metro Chicago

The quickest way to make your photos look like an amateur Kenny Powers photo shoot is to only use the built in flash. Buy a decent external flash. You’ll be able to shoot from further away. You can also get a better amount of light around your subject. Along with a softer light, you’ll also be able to adjust the intensity of the light so your shots aren’t washed out and overexposed.

I bought the Quantaray QDC 900WA for my Nikon D70 for $99 bucks. It looks like you can buy the same one online for the same price. Google it.

External flashes can also have a diffusion cover of some sort put on them to reduce over exposure and ensure that your subjects are softly lit.

Chris Huebner from the band, From the Broken

Camera Setup

Put your camera in manual mode. When I first started I asked my friend Dane Sponberg for some settings to start out at. Here’s what he had to say:

Try using these camera settings as a starting point:

• 800 ISO
• F4 or 4.5
• 1/30th of a second shutter speed
• Flash set to +1

If the stage lights aren’t coming through, either bump your ISO up and turn your flash down, or leave the shutter open longer, like 1/10th of a second. Just watch that, cause the longer the shutter is open, the blurrier it will get.

A few additional pointers, tips and tricks

A few of my personal additional settings/tips that you may also benefit you are to:

• Shoot in uncompressed raw mode
• Try not to overexpose, digital imagery picks up more color information in the blacks which is more easily fixed in post than an overexposed shot
• Bring an extra CF or SD card
• Charge your damn camera. I can’t count how many times I’ve been burned on this
• Use Lithium batteries in your flash so it charges up faster
• If your camera is older like mine, clean off the contacts with rubbing alcohol to ensure the external flash will work
• Shoot LOTS of images. Many will not turn out.

Some final thoughts

If you’d like to see how most of my early photo sets turned out you can look at our Flickr Photo feed. The most important thing to do when getting the shots in the show is to make sure you are shooting in NEF Raw mode so you can edit the files later in Photoshop.

The more color information you have the easier it is to make your photos look even better in post. My next tutorial will cover how to edit the photos and color correct them to make them look even better.

Mr 51% decided to use his exclusive membership to the Blood Pact Alkaline Trio fan club to get some of our t-shirts to Dan, Matt, and Derek from the Alkaline Trio at their show recently in Dallas, Texas. Little did we know that Derek would actually wear the shirt to the show!!!! For now all we have is a picture we grabbed off of FlickR where you can vaguely see the Radioactive II T-Shirt.

There’s also a picture of Dan holding his Skull Wing Assault Shirt. Hopefully, we can catch a photo of him wearing it somewhere on the net!