We first saw Coley Brown in some photos that Ryan McGinley took, and when we called him up to ask what it was like to drive around the country with Ryan, he told us all these stories about running naked through sand dunes in electrical storms and climbing trees and breaking his arms and other dangerous but adorable things. We've kept an eye on Coley and all his razzmatazz since then and now he's got this photo show in Montreal called "Growing Up" that he's doing with his friend Patrick Tsai. Jackie from our Toronto office called him and they talked about the show, but the office recorder crapped out and the only part our intern was able to transcribe was when they talked about the weather. "Oh my god," Coley said, "It's so amazing outside. It really looks like a movie set--when it's supposed to be stormy outside but there's way too much light for it to be raining this much?" Our intern was going bonkers trying to fix it and then finally our editor was like, "Just try to remember what you talked about, OK? Jesus Christ, is this ever a fucking shit show!"
Coley's been traveling all over the world and he started a couple bands, too. He went to Japan and, I'm extrapolating but I'm assuming he went to Japan for a modeling gig, and met up with Patrick. That's why they started the blog, to keep in touch. Coley's gone to Japan twice now, but he can't really be there for more than a few months without getting sick of it. I thought this picture was a nice cityscape; you can see all the lit-up windows and the sky is not very bright. He took this when he was staying in the business district in Akasaka. He was talking about how it was such a great neighborhood and how great it was staying with his friend.
The second one looks like a basement punk show. There's this guy flipping his hair really violently and everyone seems to be responding to it in some way. One guy seems to be backing away, another is smiling and looking at him like, "Sick hair flip dude"! Coley said he really appreciated capturing this moment because the guy flipping his hair is his lifelong friend. They both used to play in a lot of bands. Apparently before the photo was taken he went up to the kitchen and drank a whole bottle of vinegar and poured it all over himself and when he started playing he was just spitting up this vinegary spit, spitting it all over people. He said he just appreciates having friends like that, with so much raw energy, and that he gravitates to people like that.
This photo was taken from the inside of an apartment in New York. You can see there's another person sitting on the fire escape because you can see their feet. I asked him if it was coffee in the cup, and it was. The guy playing guitar is Baltimore Andrew who is also a photographer and he is so fucking fun and he and Coley have a lot in common. One time Paul came up to New York and had nowhere to stay and he called Coley and asked if he could move in with him and they lived together for a long time.Oh, and the first photo is in Japan, by the Olympic wrestling stadium. There's this guy playing soccer and he's totally giving it. You can see Coley in the shadow standing on this bridge over this weird pavilion watching this dude. They didn't talk to each other but this guy was just doing tricks for him as he took photographs. Like the hair flipping guy, sort of.Coley Brown and Patrick Tsai's show will be at the Emporium Gallery starting Thursday, July 30th.
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