Be warned, the following images may shock and confuse you.

As you may or may not have already heard, I managed to score a pretty sweet full time job here in Philadelphia as an editor.

And unlike my photography / portfolio blog, I get a salary, benefits, vacation days, and a cute little cubicle.

Outside of my building is a strange looking sculpture. There is a plaque that details what it is, however I’ve decided to ignore it and just pretend it’s something else everyday. Today, it was a toothbrush dipping into some multicolored toothpaste. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. It’s crazy!

My office is on the 17th floor. OMG! This also reminds me of the cover of Just Surrender’s awesome full length CD, designed by my friend Mickey. What an awesome album.

Lettering on the way inside the building. I got some amazing strange looks as I tried to take a photo of it while balancing my latte and bagel in one hand, and camera in the other. Skills.

The view from my cubicle. And yeah, I drink lattes. I’m sure Helen will make fun of me for this later on.

One of the first things I learned here, is that the area where I’m sitting used to be a conference room that people referred to as “the morgue”, due to how cold it was, and the coffin like file cabinets. Also, they used to store dead bodies in here. Hahah, just kidding. There were no file cabinets.

Right now it’s just me at my little desk, with lots of empty desks all around. I hope it fills up so I can have people to shoot paperclips at.

Yep. Here I am. Note the dress shirt, purchased from Hot Topic.

For some reason, I get a barrage of questions pertaining to my photography, my writing, and my education. So let me lay down the facts real quick with this simple FAQ.

Q: OMG! What about grad school Eric?!?
A: I’m still doing that full time. Working 40 hours a week and taking three grad courses. I also plan on taking two summer classes. I’m not slowing down for any reason, and I’ll be finished with my masters degree in May of 2008.

Q: OMGGG! But what about your writing?
A: I work until 5pm. That means I have all night, and weekends, to work on my novel.

Q: BUT OMGGG!!!1! What about your photography?!?1?
A: I get an insane amount of paid vacation days. I’ll be heading out on tour with some huge bands and great friends during the summer. I’m also doing some live concert photography for a local print magazine here in Philadelphia called Origivation. Check them out.

I’m in the real world now baby.

And it’s pretty sweet.

So my good friends Echo Screen, easily one of the most talented pop punk bands to come out of New Jersey since Saves The Day, are competing for a spot on this year’s Smartpunk stage for Warped Tour. This band works extremely hard, and are currently on a full US tour with The Mile After, another fantastic band.

Support these guys and vote for them. They should be ASKED to play if you want my opinion, having an album in stores nationwide and in Japan, but oh well. I’m just a simple photographer, what do I know? *sigh*

The link is below. Takes a minute or two to sign up, but it is certainly worth it. Euphoria is a brilliant pop punk record that more people definitely need to hear. And besides, you’re not only supporting great music, you’re helping out some wonderful people.

Plus come on, Echo Screen? You know that potion saved your ass in Final Fantasy dozens of times.

Echo Screen @ Smartpunk - Vote Now!

I’m sorry, I know that title of the blog post is lame, but I couldn’t think of anything that clever.

So I spent the past two days in the studio with The Junior Varsity, an amazing band from outside Chicago, currently recording their second full length album for Victory Records. For those of you who don’t know Victory is the home to several huge bands, such as Taking Back Sunday, Hawthorne Heights, and The Junior friggin’ Varsity.

Jeff, my good friend from the NJ music explosion Foster, came along (and drove) for the trip. Good times were had. Here are some images from the studio, I’ll have a gallery up shortly.

Chris at the boards.

Ace doing the same.

Here is where the magic happens. The studio was pretty sweet, and did you know that 3 Doors Down recorded their first album here? The one with Kryptonite on it? It’s okay, you can pretend you hate them all you want, but you know damn well you loved that song.

The lights inside the control room were pretty.

Jeff takes full advantage of the open studio while the guys sleep.

The guys in The Junior Varsity pose with their producer and Mike Watts. Fun Fact: the producer was the bassist in Wheatus.

Jeff and Serge jam out on some blues guitar. It was sick.

The guys pose inside the control room.

So taking some posed shots on top of this beat up boat outside the studio seemed like a totally sweet idea at the time. The pictures came out kinda lame…

See? So we scrapped the idea and just had some fun outside.

“Man overboard!”
“Jeff noooooooo!”

Tamborine!

All in all, this was one stellar weekend. Expect more photos up soon and a sweet gallery to follow. Be sure to buy The Junior Varsity’s new album when it hit stores. They’re an amazing group of guys and incredibly talented.

A popular question amongst my group of friends back home, and even the new ones I’ve been meeting in this city, is “How do you like living in Philadelphia?”

After this past weekend, I can answer that question easily.

Whether it is running up the Rocky steps with my friends from New Jersey, checking out the Waterworks, pretending to be beached whales in the fountain in Logan Square, or just sitting in the living room of my apartment, laughing and talking about high school…

Philadelphia is absolutely wonderful.

Whoa! Welcome to the new Ericsmithrocks.com / Brokenfocus. I’d like to thank Tim and Chris from Shiftcore for all their hard work and patience. It came out great guys, thanks!

So a lot has been going on since my last update, which was in August on the old website. I’ll be uploading work that I’ve done for Rockout Records, an amazing new label that has been signing some fantastic artists like Echo Screen and Permanent Holiday, both of whom I worked with. You can catch my photography on all their posters, albums, and respective websites / myspaces. Be sure to see Echo Screen out on tour with The Mile After and Making April all spring, and pick up Permanent Holiday’s EP in stores everywhere on March 13th.

I also did some work for my good friends Racing Kites and Someday Never (All Records), both promotional and live, and some press work for local New Jersey bands Que Cera (ex-All Rights Reserved) and Can You Keep A Secret. I’ll be working with my friends Hear Me Roar next week.

ALSO, I will be entering the studio with The Junior Varsity (Victory Records) this weekend to take some shots of them recording their new album. Jeff from Foster and I will be there, causing trouble and hanging out.

Speaking of Foster, they have some AMAZING new tunes up. Go give them a listen.

I also worked with a Suicide Girl a few months back (whoa!) and will be working with another one later this Spring.

I’ll be using this to blog my ramblings as well as update my photography. My portfolio will be back up shortly. It will feature a lot of my live, promotional, and tour photography, along with several models and commercial images. Hooray!