Electro Mehteran - My kind of music . . .

There is a new band in town . . . REPEAT . . . There Is A New Band In Town (okay, picture a guy on a megaphone right now saying this) . . . and they are not messing around! I have always dreamt about music like this. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think this would come true. This band is just too cool.

Eletro Mehteran played tonight, for their second time ever. This well rehearsed, complicated, energy driven, off the wall, brilliant piece of arrangement of music was something to not only listen too, but to see. As advertised by the Tonic Room where they played this evening, EM is a "Balkan-Influenced Progressive Stylings of Epic Proportion". If you think that is a mouth full, the band surpasses that.

Here are the members of the band as headlined on their Facebook "About" page . . .

Eli Wilson - Bari / Tenor Sax

Tom Curry - Trombone / Tuba

Erick Sherman - Drums

Tommy Trafton - Keys

Mike Novak - Guitar

(oops . . . missed his photo . . . or lost it)

Alexander Costello - Vocal

The photos in this post, with the exception of the head shots, are “as shot”.  For a huge part of my photography I do not use Photoshop.  I am not against it.  I just take pride in composing my photographs “in camera” and within the surroundings.  An even larger part of the reason to NOT use Photoshop on these photos, (and I had to with the head shots because they were pretty sad on my part) is because Electro Mehteran is Polished Raw talent, and they deserve raw photographs this early in their career.  I enjoyed this immensely, the band and photographing the band.  I hope they invite me to their next gig.

Here are some photos of the evening.  Really enjoy these, then go see Electro Mehteran.  You will find my photos do not tell the entire story . . .

Ah, the ever changing color lights. When I started photographing venues that did this, I was a bit annoyed. However, as I tried to work my magic to correct, I realized that if I just caught the right change in light, the photograph can look pretty cool. So that has been my concentration. These next two photos will give you the idea.

Now, this was pretty cool. I am an engineer by trade, both service and manufacturing. As an industrial engineer (have other degrees too) specializing in Quality, I jumped up and down with joy when the band handed out a survey. Too cool, like Doctor Who bow ties and fezzes.

All I can say is "book these guys"!

They are a team.  You have to be for what they do.  I do hope they remain together, work at remaining together.  We deserve it, and they deserve it. 

Okay, I started and ended with the headline band, Electro Mehteran. I had to. It was just that good. Here are some photos of the neighborhood surrounding The Tonic Room, of my friends, and of the Tonic Room.  I hope you enjoy these too . . .

The next two photos were taken by Hanna Sherman, a photographer friend of mine, using my camera. I chose to put both in because they are unique enough in lighting that I wanted to see both.

The Tonic Room is a pretty cool small venue. The house was pretty much packed this Sunday night. The staff at the Tonic Room were great. Parking can be found.

For more information . . .

Electro Mehteran

Facebook

The Tonic Room

2447 N. Halsted

Chicago, IL 60614

Website

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