About Me and FAQ

My name is Marcus Lauer and HereForTheBands.com is a solo project. You can reach me at hereforthebands@gmail.com.

I was born in Detroit, grew up in LA, and lived in several places including The Netherlands, Canada, and Berkeley, CA. During my time as a photographer I have lived in New York City, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. I get around.

While I have been going to concerts regularly for decades, photography is a more recent interest. I bought a point-and-shoot camera around 2002 just because I thought I should own one. While living in New York (circa 2007) I started taking photos at an animal shelter which sparked my interest in photography as a hobby. Since I was going to lots of concerts I started taking a few pictures at shows too.

In 2009 I decided I was serious enough about photography as a hobby to buy a DSLR, and not long after that I started working with various established music blogs. I also started publishing my concert photos on this website. I decided to make my own site because I work in IT, have the skills to do it, and figured that building a website with some content management features would look good on my resume. No I'm not a web developer but a site like this shows that I know some things about databases for example.

I was thinking about making a local music calendar as early as 2012. Originally the site had a little Recommended Shows section in the sidebar but I wanted to expand on that. I didn't exactly hurry to get it finished but by 2015 the site had a working calendar.

I did a lot of concert photography from 2009-2019 or so, then just sort of slowly lost interest. COVID didn't help of course, and I was never really a fan of doing a writeup with each batch of photos. Basically I don't expect to add many more concert photos to the site, maybe I'll do it once or twice a year.

The Concert Calendar is still going strong because it's useful for me! I check it several times a week. That said it used to cover more regions including Richmond VA and the Lancaster/Harrisburg/York region of PA. If you followed some old link looking for a calendar which doesn't exist any then I'm sorry, it's just too much work to cover that many parts of the country!

Beyond the basic logging which all web servers do we do not collect any information on viewers of this website. The web server will record the IP address which connected to this site, the page requested, the time at which it was requested, and the user-agent string (e.g. which web browser you are using). That's it, just basic web server logging, the site doesn't even use any cookies.

I have shot for music blogs before, most recently Impose. In the past I have shot for BrooklynVegan, Vulture (New York Magazine), and any number of smaller blogs. However most of the time I'm doing it for fun or practice so "it depends".

First, if you are actually in a band which I photographed then you can use my photos of your band with no restrictions. That includes using them for commercial purposes. I would appreciate being credited for my work but this is not mandatory.

For everyone else, these photos are released under the Creative Commons BY-NC 2.0 license. Basically, feel free to post them on the web or use them for noncommercial purposes as long as you give me credit in some way. If you create a derivative work there are no license restrictions on that except that it must be non-commercial.

The short answer is that I either missed it or skipped it.

The long answer is that the calendar is supposed to be a music calendar, not an event calendar. Concerts definitely make the calendar. DJ nights might make the calendar (it helps if the listing mentions who the DJs are). Dance parties and open mics rarely make the calendar (it helps if there's a live band). Comedy, musical theatre, poetry readings, dance lessons, yoga-with-music, drag shows, and burlesque rarely make the calendar even if there is a live band or other musical performance since, at least in my opinion, they aren't mainly about the music.

That applies to the venues themselves as well. Venues which mostly have live bands tend to be on the calendar whereas ones which mostly have open mics and comedy nights or rarely have any music at all tend not to be.

The answer to this question has changed so many times over the years, so prepare for an avalanche of numbers...

Back in 2009-2010 I used a Canon T1i along with a Canon 17-85mm or Canon 28-135mm lens and a Speedlite 430EX II flash. Towards the end I picked up a Sigma 30mm f/1.4, then the Canon 85mm f/1.8.

From 2011-2012 I used a Canon 7D. I was quite happy with the autofocus system in the 7D, somewhat less so with the picture quality at high ISO levels, but it got the job done. Back then I mainly used three primes: a Sigma 30mm f/1.4, Sigma 50mm f/1.4, and Canon 85mm f/1.8.

From 2013-2018 I used a Canon 5D Mark III, which was amazing in every way except that recovering detail in shadows was hard. I started using those same prime lenses but later switched to zoom lenses. The full list of lenses I have used at some point in the last few years is pretty long. Most of the time I used either my "small" kit of a Canon 24-70, 35mm f/2 IS, and either a 100mm f/2 or 135mm f/2. I also have a "big" kit which is the 24-70, a Tokina 16-28mm, Canon 70-200 f/2.8, and whatever primes or extenders I can fit in my bag with them (usually that 35mm).

Sometime in 2019 I switched to a Sony α7 III with a Metabones adapter so that I could still use those Canon lenses. Since then I have purchased Tamron lenses (28-75mm, 17-28mm, 70-180mm, all f/2.8) which are actually designed for that camera. That is probably the last gear I'm going to buy except perhaps to replace stuff which dies.

Steve Koepke and The List (which seems to be here now). This is how I discovered music back in college (UC Berkeley, mid-90s).
The OhMyRockness and BrooklynVegan concert calendars. I spent 10+ years living in NYC and these were a lifeline.
ShowListDC for introducing me to the DC music scene. Also for being good but not so good that I didn't think I could do better (sorry but the slow updates were killing me).
My friend Molly's website NYCSeen (now defunct, but see here if you really care) which got me thinking about how to set up a music website.