HUMANS AGAINST MUSIC (Tour Dogs #90) Zine
Limited edition photo zine, 40 pages, 8” X 5.25” I have the last 7 copies available of this zine, originally released earlier in 2022 by Tour Dogs. There are no plans for a reprint. The copies I'm selling are signed.
Humans Against Music is a monthly karaoke night at Freddy's Bar & Backroom in Brooklyn, NY hosted for over a decade by Tokyo Rosenberg, and H-Bomb with part-time co-host Emma C. Hammer. HAM is super low-tech with no bouncing ball to guide you, just printed lyric sheets and an offbeat song list that cuts off somewhere just before the 21st Century. I was never particularly interested in karaoke, having spent many years as a "serious" musician, and only began attending HAM in early 2014 in order to get closer to H-Bomb. (It worked. We're married now.) And because I'm me, I started photographing...and singing, becoming part of the scene myself. For over five years I rarely missed a HAM night, and the chance to cheer on karaoke devotees like Badda-Bing Crosby, Miss Cellaneous, Sandman, and Banana Boy (I am R-Train) belting out the hits with avant video mashups by Freddy's owner Donald O'Finn projected behind them. At some point it became clear that I had been working on a "long term project" without knowing it, which made me wonder "how will I know when it's over?" Then the pandemic put a stop to the music in March of 2020 and HAM remained on hold for 18 long months. Karaoke has since returned, but when these pictures were taken none of us had yet heard of Covid-19, or had any idea that we might be pulled apart for so long.
