Kevin Warnock

Rachel Thoele, Ted Falconi, Steve DePace and Bruce Loose of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

I have photographed bands since I was in college. Usually the bands were small punk rock bands few had heard of.

Sometimes the bands had a recording or two out.

I even did a shoot for an album jacket for Sluglords, for my friend Willy Lipat, the bass guitar player for Sluglords.

Rachel Thoele, Ted Falconi, Steve DePace and Bruce Loose of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

I have never conducted a formal photo session with a famous band until earlier this month, when I photographed the groundbreaking punk band known as Flipper.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to photograph Flipper because I am friends with the drummer, Steve DePace.

DePace handles publicity and booking for Flipper, and he asked me in February if I could come to their concert at The New Parish on March 2, 2012 and photograph the band before their show. I agreed, and I am really glad I agreed.

Steve DePace, Rachel Thoele, Bruce Loose and Ted Falconi of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

I wrote about Flipper on February 25, 2012 to help promote this concert. The show itself was outstanding, and I hope to write a review later. I shot high definition video at the show which turned out well. I brought a tripod and set up in the balcony with a clear shot of the stage. I got some great stills of the band performing, including an exceptional shot of guitarist Falconi in action.

Steve DePace, Rachel Thoele, Bruce Loose and Ted Falconi of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

Here are my favorite eight shots from my nine minute photoshoot March 2, 2012 with Flipper. The band was also formally interviewed before their show. I didn’t want to take too much time, and I felt that after nine minutes that I had some good results. I could have gone on much longer, but I wanted to make a good impression by being decisive and quick. I hope that Flipper will recommend me to other bands they know, as I really enjoy photographing groups of people. I gave a lot of directions on this shoot — including telling people where to sit, stand and where to look. I didn’t tell Rachel Thoele, the bassist, to kick singer Bruce Loose in the head. They were joking around which was great. You would think I knew all these members in advance from how relaxed everyone looks, but I just met Thoele, Loose and guitar player Ted Falconi a few minutes prior to the shoot.

Steve DePace, Rachel Thoele, Bruce Loose and Ted Falconi of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

Loose only pretends to be hurt from his kick in the head. He grimaced for a solid ten seconds like he was really injured — then he broke into laughter and stood up straight and was fine, as you can see in the final shot. He had me fooled.

Steve DePace, Rachel Thoele, Bruce Loose and Ted Falconi of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

All the members of Flipper were exceptionally nice to me. Ted Falcone even talked with me as I was putting away my lighting equipment. He asked me about LED photography lights and what I thought of them. I was impressed by his knowledge of the subject.

Steve DePace, Rachel Thoele, Bruce Loose and Ted Falconi of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

I shot these pictures with a Canon 5D Mark II camera. These pictures may be seen at full size if you click on them twice. Full size is 21 megapixels — huge — bigger than your screen.

Steve DePace, Rachel Thoele, Bruce Loose and Ted Falconi of Flipper, March 2, 2012, Oakland, California. Photo by Kevin Warnock.

Flipper leaves soon for a European tour. They will be flying, not swimming.

Here are the tour dates:

• April 5, 2012 The Croft — Bristol, UK
• April 6, 2012 Res­cue Rooms — Nottingham, UK
• April 7, 2012 The Duchess — York, UK
• April 8, 2012 Stereo — Glasgow, UK
• April 10, 2012 XOYO — London, UK
• April 12, 2012 De Klinker Club — Aarschot, Belgium
• April 13, 2012 Sonic Protest Fes­ti­val — Paris, France
• April 14, 2012 L’Epicerie Mod­erne — Lyon, France
• April 16, 2012 Nachtleben — Frank­furt, Germany
• April 17, 2012 Knust — Ham­burg, Germany
• April 18, 2012 Sten­gade
• April 20, 2012 Arena — Vienna, Austria
• April 21, 2012 Latte piu’ Live — Bres­cia, Italy
• April 22, 2012 Rössli — Bern, Switzerland
• April 24, 2012 Wild At Heart — Berlin, Germany
• April 25, 2012 Club Vaude­ville — Lin­dau, Germany
• April 26, 2012 LVC — Lei­den, The Netherlands

I got this list from the Flipper official website. I added the hyperlinks by performing Google searches for the names of the venues.

Before you book a trip to that venue, please check to be sure I got the link right by making sure you can find Flipper listed on that site for that day. The sites all looked like music venues, but I didn’t take the time to try to buy tickets to make sure I found the correct venue.