Rehearsal with Swift Technique feat. Lady Alma, Aaron Goode & Arnetta Johnson

Swift Technique is a Philadelphia-based musical collective that I work with on an ongoing basis (for media, content creation, graphic design, marketing and pr). Established in 2007, the band has a unique hybrid blend of funk, soul, rock, hip-hop and relentless showmanship as well as live performances that are unmatched in energy, musicianship and pure feel-good fun.

These are some photos and videos that I took of Swift while they rehearsed their newest single Landlord for their [December 31, 2019] New Years Eve concert with Lady Alma at the Boom Room in Fishtown. Philadelphia, PA.

swifttechnique.com

Swift Technique with Lady Alma, Aaron Goode (Trombone for The Roots, Jay Z, Eminem, among many others, currently touring with John Legend), Arnetta Johnson (Trumpet for Beyonce, Jay Z, The Roots, and more…) at Boom Room Studios in Fishtown, Philadel… — **Swift Technique with** Lady Alma, **Aaron Goode** ***(Trombone for The Roots, Jay Z, Eminem, among many others, currently touring with John Legend),*** **Arnetta Johnson** *(Trumpet for Beyonce, Jay Z, The Roots, and more…)* at **Boom Room Studios** **in Fishtown, Philadelphia.**

Swift Technique Upcoming Show Dates:

Ron Pope and Caroline Spence at the Foundry

Ron Pope Played for a Room Full of Adoring Fans on Thursday Night at The Foundry.

[January 17, 2020]

Supporting Ron Pope was the Talented Caroline Spence

Opening for Ron Pope was Caroline Spence, a Nashville-based singer-songwriter who stole our hearts with her powerful lyrics and captivating vocals.

Caroline had a sweet and gentle nature as she spoke to the audience about love, heartbreak and honest lessons that she has learned throughout her life.

Caroline’s shy demeanor seemed to be contrasted by the powerful freakin’ warrior that she’d be transformed into every time she would transition from story telling back into belting out her lyrics while strumming the acoustic guitar that she was accompanied by.

Jen_Strogatz-Caroling_Spence-1.17.20-00026.jpg

Enter Ron Pope.

After Caroline’s set was finished, Ron Pope and his (larger than expected!) band sauntered onto the stage and the Foundry, the room still a bit cold from the snow outside, was immediately lit up by the excitement that the packed audience could no longer contain. It was then that it became clear to us that Ron Pope has a genuinely dedicated and loyal fan base who seem to have followed him throughout his entire career and personal life.

The crowd cheered and sang along to Pope’s lyrics as he played some songs from his upcoming album, Bone Structure, songs from all of his previous albums, and to really top off the night, an epic cover of Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer.’

Ron Pope really engaged with his audience, which I respected about him as a performer greatly, and he told us a few short stories about his life, his upcoming album, and also added in some funny anecdotes in between his songs.

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The Band.

His band was also quite impressive. It included a horns section with the sax and trumpet, keys, drums, bass, violin, and 2 guitars (one of which was Ron Pope himself), not to mention his trumpet player, who just so happened to whip out an accordion mid-show, making him double as the band’s single accordion player!

We Love Girl Power.

Something that I was extremely impressed to see was the number of female musicians that were a part of Ron’s band. Playing on the guitar, the drums, and the violin, were all female musicians, and they were pretty damn badass musicians at that.

I had a fantastic time at Ron Pope’s show. Going into it, I had really only known one of Ron’s song, A Drop In The Ocean, plus everything that I had learned about him during our recent interview.

After leaving the Foundry that night and reflecting back on the show that I had just seen, I was not only highly impressed by Pope’s showmanship, his genuine nature and the connection with his fans, but I’ve also got to say: The man’s got SWAG.

He is 100% being entered immediately into the Best of IndependentPhilly.com Awards for Best Hair AND Best Beard.

stay tuned!

[ Original article posted on independentphilly.com. Written by me (Jen Strogatz) - Ron Pope Article on IndependentPhilly or see below ]

Ron Pope at The Foundry with Caroline Spence
Supporting Ron Pope was the Talented Caroline Spence Opening for Ron Pope was Caroline Spence , a Nashville-based singer-songwriter who stole our hearts with her powerful lyrics and captivating vocals. Caroline had a sweet and gentle nature as she spoke to the audience about love, heartbreak and honest lessons that she has learned throughout her life.

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Mar 5, 2021

Ghetto Scriptures - Honch (Official Music Video)

Mar 5, 2021

Oct 20, 2020

Studio Session - Harlem Rapper SNS, Omelly, 11:22 Studio

Oct 20, 2020

Apr 20, 2020

Strogatz Media and Range Recording Partner To Launch Philly's Own Boutique Audio and Visual Content Production Hub

Apr 20, 2020

Photographer/filmmaker Jen Strogatz and Grammy-award winning record producer, Aaron Levinson of Range Recording Studio decide to join creative forces to create an entirely new turnkey agency for multimedia production, studio photography, video production, content creation and artist services in their hometown of Philadelphia.

Apr 20, 2020

Apr 1, 2020

Music Video for "Giddy Up"

Apr 1, 2020

Mar 13, 2020

Interview with the Artist Oasis

Mar 13, 2020

I was recently interviewed by the Artist Oasis. They are a network of artists in Philadelphia that encourages cross-genre collaborations and provides resources for working artists. In the interview, we talk about my background. We talked about how I got started in photography, video, art, music, and how I formed The Philadelphia Globe (www.philaglobe.com). We talked about what I’m currently working on and my plans for everything in the future. And then we talked about a whole lot more…

Mar 13, 2020

Feb 3, 2020

Deadmau5 at The Met in Philly for CubeV3 Tour // January 2020

Feb 3, 2020

Feb 2, 2020

Rehearsal with Swift Technique feat. Lady Alma, Aaron Goode & Arnetta Johnson

Feb 2, 2020

Jan 31, 2020

The Wood Brothers in Philadelphia

Jan 31, 2020

Jan 23, 2020

Snoop Does It Doggy Style at the Fillmore [Photos and Review for IndependentPhilly.com]

Jan 23, 2020

Jan 18, 2020

Ron Pope and Caroline Spence at the Foundry

Jan 18, 2020

Lettuce at The Anthem feat. Ghost-Note and Antibalas [Elevate Tour ~ 2019]

Lettuce at The Anthem in D.C. during their Elevate Tour with Ghost-Note and Antibalas was such a blast. I had shot their show in Philadelphia not too long before this, so I knew them all already and Ryan [Zoidis] was kind enough to leave me a photo pass and a couple tickets to the show and after-party at the VIP entrance. The Anthem was HUGE. I think that was the largest stage I’d ever shot on, it was very cool. When I first got in, Ryan was super cool and texted me to make sure I was all set and he came out to say hey before the Antibalas opened up, so I went back with him up to the dressing rooms. This place was like a maze backstage, I mean, there were multiple staircases (3 floors?) to get to the dressing rooms and I am not ashamed to say that I most definitely got lost back there a few times throughout that night. The energy was really fun and I think everyone was feeling good and excited because Lettuce had just recently been nominated for a 2020 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumentalist (hence the Grammy cake…), and I can’t think of another band more deserving! These guys are super cool and down-to-earth, not to mention seriously skilled musicians. I had always thought that they were more of a “jam band,” solely because I remember seeing them on lineups (circa 2009/2010 probably) that were primarily made up of that new-age jamband/ electronic scene, but they are so much more than that… I mean, they are seriously FUNKY! They are also not like the notoriously douche-y, egocentric jamband-y type guys, either, which I personally respected about them a lot. They’re all just sweet, down-to-earth guys who I truly enjoyed hanging with!

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Then there’s Ghost-Note, an equally amazing band/ musical collective, which is made up of a really talented cast of characters, such as Sput (Robert Searight), Nate Werth, Jelani Brooks, Pete Knudsen, Xavier Taplin, MonoNeon (Dwayne Thomas) - who I have, for some reason, developed some sort of strange beef with. Or possibly… not actual beef, but some weird form of sarcastic banter that goes too far because neither of us know when to quit? Well, I digress. Ghost-Note is a band that’s comprised of incredibly talent artists (also super cool guys) and I was amazed by the group’s collective amount of extraordinary musicianship on this tour.

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Lettuce at the Fillmore in Philly

Lettuce during their Elevate Tour playing at The Fillmore in Philly with openers, Ghost-Note.

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Slayer Farewell Tour ft. Primus, Ministry + Phil Anselmo

Slayer Farewell Tour in Hershey, PA with Primus, Ministry and Phil Anselmo

The Slayer Farewell Tour is now in its final home stretch with their last stop quickly approaching on November 30 in Los Angeles. Slayer, with a star-studded cast of characters (PRIMUS, MINISTRY and PHIL ANSELMO), stopped on November 6 to delight an enthusiastic audience in Hershey, PA with one of their most dynamic shows to date. This being Slayer’s final tour, the show did not disappoint. We felt that it was a phenomenal send off for one of the greatest and long reigning metal bands of all time.

The opening band started with one of the best guys in the business, the infamous Philip H. Anselmo, who has been the front-man for some of the most widely known names in metal such as Down, Superjoint Ritual and of course, the legendary Pantera.

Phil Anselmo‘s set was more or less a complete tribute to Pantera. The full set list consisted of Mouth for War, Becoming, Yesterday Don’t Mean Shit, Strength Beyond Strength, I’m Broken, Goddamn Electric, Fucking Hostile and Walk. Packed with hard-hitting breakdowns and some face-melting shredding, it would suffice to say that this performance was the next best thing to actually seeing Pantera themselves. At stage front was a circle of continuous moshing, a truly necessary response to the songs that were being performed. Needless to say, this was an epic opener and they received a great response from the crowd.

The next band to grace the stage was one of the pioneers of industrial metal, Ministry. As always, frontman Al Jorgensen displayed remarkable stage presence, as did his fellow band members. Ministry had yet another fantastic line up of songs for us. They played The Missing, Deity, Stigmata, Jesus Built my Hotrod, Just one Fix, N.W.O, Burning Inside and Thieves. Ministry slammed the stage with brutal vocals and head banging riffs. It is always a great pleasure to see this band live, and this was definitely not an exception.

The next band to appear on stage was the psychedelic heavy rock band that we all know and love, Primus. They had a wonderful set list featuring many of their older and most beloved songs. Primus played Those Damed Blue-Collar Tweekers, Too Many Puppies, Sgt. Baker, The Seven, Frizzle Fry, Professor Nutbutter’s House of Treats, Here Come the Bastards, Cygnus X-1, Welcome to this World, My Name is Mud and Jerry was a Race Car Driver. The legendary and brilliant band consisting of Les Claypool (bass and vocals), Larry LaLonde (guitar) and Tim Alexander (drums), are what can best be described as the ultimate trio. Their performance was a pleasurable tease for the senses, leaving us all wanting more! In our humble opinion (IMHO), PRIMUS is one of the most skilled and unique bands to ever exist.

This, of course, being Slayer’s last and final tour, something big had been expected of the heavy metal band, which is exactly what they delivered. This came in the form of a 20-song set list of epic proportions!

The full set list consisted of Repentless, Mandatory Suicide, World Painted Blood, Postmortem, Hate Worldwide, War Ensemble, Stain of Mind, Disiple, When Stillness Comes, Born of Fire, Payback, Seasons in the Abyss, Jesus Saves, Chemical Warfare, Hell Awaits, South of Heaven, Show No Mercy, Raining Blood Dead Skin Mask and Angle of Death

The crowd went wild when SLAYER finally took the stage. Kerry King, Tom Araya, Paul Bostaph and Gary Holt showed that they were true professionals at what they do, which in our definition is rocking that stage harder than it has ever been rocked! As always, Tom Araya showed insane stamina on the bass and vocals, with the last song being just as consistent as the first. That man never shows any sign of exhaustion. When Kerry King and Gary Holt share a stage, it is dive bombs galore. They’re two of the best thrash guitarists in the game. Paul Bostaph did excellent work on the drums. Overall, they put on a stellar performance and their hard work and dedication to their fans really showed.

Review on independentphilly.com

Source: https://www.independentphilly.com/slayer-f...

Photography for UNSDG Health during the 2019 UN General Assembly

I had the opportunity to take photo and video for the UNSDG conferences during the United Nations General Assembly 2019, and the Walk The Talk Marathon in Central Park, New York City. I photographed the High-Level Presidential Dinner co-hosted by UNSDG Health and the Ministry of Health and Child Care of Zimbabwe, with guest speakers including the President of Zimbabwe, His Excellency Emmerson Mnangagwa.

My photos of the conference can also be viewed on the UNSDG Health twitter account and flickr album:

Thank You for Joining Us on Sept. 23, 2019, to the High‑Level Presidential Dinner co-hosted by @UNSDGHealth and the Ministry of Health and Child Care of #Zimbabwe @MoHCCZim #UHC2030 #HealthForAll

Please click below to view pictures of the event: https://t.co/aXp4auqVRT pic.twitter.com/iTudDmMyEz
— UNSDG Health (@UNSDGHealth) October 12, 2019