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72 hour “No Sleep, All Hustle” Tour

Just wrapped a 72 hour west coast all hustle, no sleep tour with Sean Forbes and Jake Bass. We performed in Salt Lake City for the first time, seeing an amazing turnout of about 350 fans. We then flew over to Reno to perform at the University of Nevada, Reno, with a tiger in the crowd. From there we flew out to Riverside, California to perform at a Deaf Awareness Street festival where the temperature was a cool 100 degree’s when we took the stage. It was nice to be back on stage with the band again after a summer hiatus.

Salt Lake City
University of Nevada, Reno
This guy showed up to our University of Nevada concert…school mascot is…a wolf?!?
100 Degrees in Riverside, California
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Busy Busy Busy…

The last four months of life has been absolutely crazy busy, which explains my complete lack of updates. Life has a funny way of taking you places that you least expect.

Since I last posted in May, I took a spill skateboarding on a halfpipe and fractured my wrist, which put my left hand out of commision for a month. While that was healing, I headed off to work my 10th Bonnaroo Music Festival which saw me clock in 82 hours of work in just 8 days. I took some much needed R&R and took off to Chicago to enjoy the Grateful Dead’s final GD50 shows. Followed up by a short 5 day vacation in Tamarindo, Costa Rica which was the last of my summer downtime.

In July, I was invited to LA to Assistant Direct alongside director Jules Dameron for a new online TV series that is currently under wraps and will be debuting in the New Year. After a week engulfed in Hollywood with a small crew of 25, I then took off to New York City with the D-PAN crew to Assistant Direct a soon-to-be released ASL music video for a band that is currently dominating the charts right now. This project saw me coordinating and scheduling a shoot with a crew of 50 and overseeing 80 people on set.

This summer also saw me working quite a lot of concerts, ranging from Lana Del Ray, Kenny Chesney and One Direction to name a few.

I’ll let the attached photos share my stories of summer. I’ve broken them up into 3 galleries;
1st: Rock n Rollers
2nd: Concerts
3rd: Photos from the Film sets I worked on

I look forward to sharing all of my work very soon. Until then…

Legendary rock photographer Danny Clinch
One and only guitar legend in the making, Gary Clark Jr.
One of my Guitar Idols growing up, Wes Borland of Limp Bizkit, and currently of Queen Kwong
Fred Sablan, bass player for Marilyn Manson (’10-’14)
Rob Derhak, bass player of Moe.
I had the pleasure of working with Josh Castille on several projects this summer, as well as with Ally Stroker from Glee. Both can currently be seen in NYC Broadway run of “Spring Awakening”
Worked Lana Del Ray’s ‘Endless Summer’ tour…it was quite cold – DTE Energy Theatre
21 Pilots at Bonnaroo
Clutch – Chill on the Hill
Grateful Dead at Soldiers Field
Grateful Dead ‘Fare The Well’ show at Soldiers Field
Worked the Kenny Chesney Show at Ford Field
Third time working the One Direction show in Detroit – Ford Field
Cheap Trick – Rick Nielson sporting his 5 header – Arts, Beats & Eats
Salt n Pepa w/ DJ Spinderella – Arts, Beats & Eats
Neon Trees – Arts, Beats & Eats
AC/DC – For Those About To Rock
Weezer- Freedom Hill
LA set 2
LA set 1
Directors Adrean Mangiardi & Jules Dameron on Set in NYC
Camera Porn from our NYC Music Video Shoot
D-PAN Studios
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2015 Spring Tour Wrap Up

The Deaf and Loud Spring ’15 Tour has officially wrapped. Another amazing journey with band and crew – after warming up with a few shows around Michigan, we hit the road for three weeks starting with a show at Mt. Aloysius College in PA, and a D-PAN ASL Music Video workshop in Delaware, continuing on to shows in South Carolina, St. Augustine, and Tampa Fl, Corpus Christi, Austin, and Houston TX, stops in Memphis to visit Graceland and Sun Studios, and wrapping with shows in Louisville and lastly Mississippi, it was one for the books.

A special THANK YOU to everyone that came out to show their support and rock out with us. It was AWESOME to have Robbie Wilde, a Deaf DJ from New Jersey join us. Thanks to Sean Forbes for once again bringing me along on tour. I couldn’t be more honored to share the stage with Sean, Robbie, and Jake Bass.

To be able to tour, play music with friends, meet friends old and new, inspire people, and make a living doing this as a Deaf individual is something I’ve worked extremely hard for, and I’m forever grateful for all the kind words and support. Sean and I have been touring together for 8 years, and it’s amazes me that we can continue doing this and make these shows bigger and better everytime we go back to a town.

Deaf and Loud, Band and Crew
Kalamazoo, MI
Central Michigan University
My gear for the tour
Newark, Delaware
South Carolina School for the Deaf
Band and Crew pre-show hangs in St. Augustine Fl.
Deaf and Loud, band and crew
St. Augustine, Florida
Reverse Crowd shot in St. Augustine
University of South Florida, Tampa
Rest Stop hangs in Texas
Corpus Christi, TX
“Can’t Take Away The Good Times” in Austin, TX
Austin, TX
Deaf actor, Russell Harvard in Austin, TX
Houston, TX
The band spent a day off in Mempis, TN at Elvis’ Graceland.
My Elvis Pose
Swung by Sun Studios after visiting Graceland
This mic was used by Sun Studio Legends such as Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, B.B. King, Muddy Waters and so many more!
Louisville, KY
Rocking the stage in Biloxi, MS
Biloxi, MS with DJ Nicar, Rosa Lee and Wawa
This guitar was part of a free giveaway raffle sponsored by RIT
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ASL Music Video Workshop – Delaware School for the Deaf

April 13 and 14th saw the D-PAN team visiting Delaware School for the Deaf to give a two day workshop to Deaf and hard-of-hearing students on how to create a music video. We had 22 students, and in just 2 school days, we successfully guided the students through the process of brainstorming, performing, filming, and editing an ASL music video. It was a lot of hard work, but amazing to see how the students pulled it off with the limited amount of time they had. Congrats to them all.

If you are interested in learning more about the video workshops we host with D-PAN, seeing past videos, or interested in having us come to your school to do a workshop, click here.

Here is the final video the students created.

I also realized that I never shared the final video by the students from our February workshop, so here is “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift filmed by students from our Holley Family Village ASL music video workshop.

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21,000+ views in 24 hours!!

The ‘Wrecking Ball’ video Adrean Mangiardi and I filmed was uploaded directly into D-PAN’s facebook page on March 5th, and in under 24 hours, garnered over 21,500 views, nearly 575 shares and 500 likes. I will never understand the odd trends of social media sites but it’s certainly great to see lots of positive feedback and praise. Thanks to those who shared and watched!! If you haven’t seen the video yet, check it out on my Video Profile page.

3/6 Wrecking Ball Stats

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Spring 2015 Tour Dates

Coming to a town near you
Coming soon to a town near you

Excited to share our Spring 2015 tour dates. More specifics will be announced soon – check out my ‘On Tour‘ Page for additional details. Looking forward to being back out on the road. DJ Robbie Wilde will be joining us for the majority of the run too. New songs, new stage set-up, new gear, gonna be awesome!! See you soon!!!

Spring '15 Tour

FOR EVENT SPECIFICS AND TO PURCHASE TICKETS CLICK HERE

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D-PAN Workshop – Brooklyn, Michigan

February 20-22nd saw the D-PAN team host another Youth ASL music video sign language weekend workshop. We had 20 students ages 12-17 attend the camp, many coming from Detroit and metro Detroit area, as well as a couple students from Massachusetts!

We are extremely proud of the students as they put their heads together to create, film, perform and edit a music video in just 12 hours. A hard task indeed. These kids never cease to amaze me with their passion and excitement. Once again I am blown away by the result. I couldn’t be more honored to be involved with such a talented team to help blossom and develop the future of Deaf Talent! The video is going through a few minor touch-ups and will be released shortly!!

Students with their certificates of completion and the D-PAN team
Students with their certificates of completion and the D-PAN team

EDIT: Here’s the video:

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Rebel Yell

All has been quiet on the homefront as I’ve been busy with work projects. Got a couple music video releases coming up soon that I’m looking forward to sharing as well as some upcoming tour dates to be announced soon for dates in March and April.

In the meantime, I recently worked Billy Idol “Kings and Queens of the Underground” tour when it came through Detroit on 2/6/15. Billy still has it!!

Billy Idol and Steve Stevens, Detroit, Michigan, 2/6/15
 Steve Stevens, myself, & Billy Idol, Detroit, Michigan, 2/6/15