I had an interesting run in with the Pittsburgh City Paper a while back when one of my photos ended up on the cover and on the inside of their paper. I will chalk it all up to a good old fashioned misunderstanding that did come to a peaceful resolution in the end but I will still write this long screed about it.
Back in July of 2022, I travelled to Buffalo, NY with Submachine to work a show at a brew/pub type venue. Fellow Pittsburgh band Speed Plans was also on the bill and it was good to see them play, as always. The show and the trip up and back was a good time, if I remember correctly. It was one of those trips that reminded me why I do the things that I do and keep pushing myself to do them.
Recently, Speed Plans released their album Statues Of God on Iron Lung Records and were receiving a bit of well earned attention for it. They ended up getting interviewed by the City Paper for their efforts and pointed out one of my photos that they liked to go along with the article. Here's where things start to get interesting.
It is very much by design and for multiple reasons that not many people know my name. I go to the shows, take pictures and then make a hasty retreat back to my sad-boy hovel of solitude. So because of my antisocial tendencies and the comfort I feel in anonymity, no one in Speed Plans knew my name but they did give the reporter from the City Paper my Instagram handle under the impression that said reporter would reach out to me to give the okay to use the picture. That did not happen.
I was happy for about thirty seconds when I saw a picture that I took on the cover of the local weekly paper that I've read for decades. After that thirty seconds is when I went, “Hey, what the fuck? They didn't ask me to use my picture.” A normal person probably would have held onto that moment of happiness and gotten on with their lives but I left normal behind a long time ago.
This happened on a Wednesday just shy of 8:30am, which is when I start work at my new office job. I sat there seething for the full eight hours of my shift and couldn't wait to pounce on the City Paper at the first opportunity. One of the reasons for my seething is the complete lack of response that I received from the paper when I was looking for work that didn't involve pushing papers. My work didn't even warrant a response from them when I reached out to them but now all of a sudden I have a picture on their cover and here I am generating “content” for them for free. They didn't even take the time to tell me to fuck off back to the nine to five world but they'll use my picture without asking me. That's what set me off.
I haven't lived a life filled with shitty office jobs because I enjoy shitty office jobs. I have lived a life filled with shitty office jobs because I live in America and need money and health insurance. And as much as I have repeatedly asked, my mortgage company still refuses to accept “exposure” as a form of currency to keep a roof over my head.
I found myself having a very Harlan Ellison “Pay The Artist!!!” type moment. Once public transit coughed me up on the shores of my neighborhood after work, I took to the social medias in order to drag some sort of response out of the City Paper. Since they are a left leaning publication and get a usual deluge of awful comments from adults that don't know how to process their emotions, my efforts to draw them out on Instagram were fruitless. I ended up reactivating my Twitter account that I had abandoned when that trust fund/apartheid baby with the exploding douche-mobiles took over the company.
I worded the message in such a way that made it look like things would escalate quickly if there was no response and it worked. The editor quickly got back to me with an email address and we started going back and forth without the prying eyes of everyone else on Twitter.
Apologies were made and accepted and the editor promised to make things right, which they did. There was no malicious intent behind using the photo without my consent and from the looks of everything, it was a misunderstanding. It really felt like things weren't as buttoned up as they should have been on the paper's end because if they were, this would not have happened. And this is coming from a guy that operates on the periphery of music photography instead of the paper that's been operating for years.
The thing that really bothers me is that, had they contacted me before publication, I could have provided a higher resolution file that would have looked better than the shitty “right click and save” picture that they ended up using. Hell, I even could have provided pictures from the album release show that was talked about in the article because I was standing on the stage with camera in hand while Speed Plans played at 222 Ormsby that night.
Coming from the world of handshakes and greenbacks, I'm normally a cheap date until someone pisses me off. The City Paper could have bought me off with a t-shirt or some other kind of merch had they come correct but instead they ended up being my new chew toy for a day. And the worst part is that I now have another tax form that I'll need to file next year.
Playing music and trying to nurture a scene of some kind has always been an uphill battle in Pittsburgh. It's always been about forming relationships and filling needs to help everyone get a little further down the road. And it's always operated under the radar of local media, including the alt-weeklies, which is why anybody that shows up to sincerely lend a hand is greatly appreciated.
That's why I do what I do for the sake of doing it and to document to history and the world that we were here and we existed in spite of a town that could give a shit. If I can help a band out, I will and I was very glad to help out Speed Plans because they are some of the nicest guys in the Pittsburgh Punk scene. But now I have a tax form and the government's on to me.
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