I was able to go to the first night of 9:30 Club’s World’s Fair. The club turned 35 last year and its current location is celebrating its 20th anniversary. To celebrate, 9:30 Club turned into a mini museum of its history and where you could get a free (real!) 9:30 Club logo tattoo. The club now has a Hall of Records. They also released a book. (Despite my name being misspelled in the book, it’s still cool to see my photos in it. Tear sheets from it are coming soon.)

The 9:30 Club forever holds special to me, not only because of the performances I’ve seen there but also the memories I have. Possibly the best memory at the club was the Youth Lagoon show in September 2013, where I met Nicholas Karlin. (I’m sappy. I know.)

My full photo set of the World’s Fair is on Brightest Young Things.

Warning: Super sappy post ahead.

On August 22, 2013, I got an email from Brandon Wetherbee, the managing editor of Brightest Young Things, asking if I could come in for an interview. I applied for their fall internship on a whim, thinking I wasn’t going to get it. Two days later, Svetlana Legetic and Brandon Wetherbee interviewed me and asked me to come in for my first day.

Two years later (and over six hundred emails between me and BYT), I’m still at Brightest Young Things as a contributor in their photo team along side Franz Mahr, Jeff Martin, Andy DelGiudice and the other super amazing BYT photographers. I’ve also met some of the coolest people at BYT. (I’m looking at you, BYT staff and writers and photographers.) 

If it wasn’t for Brightest Young Things, I wouldn’t be a photographer and wouldn’t have 75% of the experiences I can tell now. If you asked me two years ago where I thought I would be now, I would have said that I would have been a struggling architect in Manhattan. 

What wouldn’t I have done? I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of driving The Lampshades and Everything Is Terrible during Bentzen Ball 2013 or driving a packed car of alcohol and other BYT swag around DC. I wouldn’t have seen the first Lincoln Theatre show after the I.M.P. takeover. Actually, I wouldn’t have seen 99% of the shows I’ve seen in the last two years. I would have never went to shoot Kill Lincoln. I wouldn’t have went on a Bentzen Ball date with, let alone have met, my partner-in-photography Nicholas Karlin. I wouldn’t be shooting with him as Karlin Villondo Photography. We wouldn’t have gone to Bentzen Ball 2014 together, got on a pirate ship with Bentzen Ball comedians and saw John Hodgman, Brendan Cantry and his sister or Pedro the Puppy at an after party at the We Work Wonderbread Factory. Nicholas and I wouldn’t be living at 9:30C(lub) in Silver Spring together. I wouldn’t have nightmares of that weird zombie baby or have swam in the National Building Museum. I wouldn’t have taken so many OnomonoMEDIA photo booth photos. I wouldn’t have eaten at half of the amazing restaurants in DC. I wouldn’t be working for Conservation International. I wouldn’t be shooting for Consequence of Sound and have shot Dismemberment Plan or Sweetlife 2013 and 2014 for CoS. I don’t even think I would be nearly as happy as I am now to be honest.

So thank you, BYT. Here’s to more good times and memories. (We’ll pretend I have a Heineken or Stella in my hand.)