Get a piece of CAKE, a photo zine by Caitlin McCann starring The Districts and Sun Club
If you don’t know Caitlin McCann yet, you should. The Philadelphia photographer has been making a name for herself with music videos and portraits of artists near and dear to the Philly scene, from Pine Barons to TJ Kong. Her latest project is CAKE, a large format, 60-page zine consisting of photos from The Districts / Sun Club US tour.
“It’s all sorts of sticky and sweaty and boozy,” McCann tells us. “But you won’t find any live music photos in the pages.”
from Cake | photo by Caitlin McCann | courtesy of the artist
She’s been friends with The Districts and has been touring with them for the past few years, filling any number of roles from working merch to acting as tour documentarian. But, as she tells us, there’s more to tour than the shows.
“The music is why we’re all there, but we’re only experiencing it 10% of the time,” McCann writes. “The other 90% is what’s portrayed in the photos. The Districts and I hit it off with Sun Club on the first night of tour, so really CAKE is an exploration of that friendship and the time we all spent together.”
The photographs are candid, humorous and quite beautiful. Recalling a bit of Zoe Strauss and a bit of Mick Rock, the zine mixes artfully-framed black and white and color images showing, for instance, guitarist Pat Cassidy reclining on a green room couch, bassist Connor Jacobus giving a backrub to frontman Rob Grote, and drummer Braden Lawrence inexplicably wearing KISS makeup.
“I love photographing these guys because no one takes themselves too seriously, yet everyone is ambitious and really cares about what they’re doing,” McCann continues. “They’re inspiring people to be around and they do what they believe in. I think it’s important that this group of photos exists in print because so much photography is consumed via the internet now, it just gets lost. There’s no absorbing, just scrolling and liking. Touring is a very physical experience and it’s very in your face so I wanted to make something that reflected that feeling.”
You can order yourself a copy of CAKE here. The Districts played the XPoNential Music Festival this past weekend; revisit their set (and watch a killer rendition of “Bold”) here, and check out a preview of some of the images in CAKE below.
from Cake | photo by Caitlin McCann | courtesy of the artist
from Cake | photo by Caitlin McCann | courtesy of the artist
from Cake | photo by Caitlin McCann | courtesy of the artist