The air is still, save for the muffled noises of blaring amps seeping down the giant steps of the historic 1897 Warden Block building and pouring out into the dark night on Higuera Street.
Unbeknownst to the occasional bar-goers and wanderers of downtown San Luis Obispo, an otherworldly experience is opening up on the creaky, wooden floors of the unassuming building. Recently repurposed from an office space to the go-to venue for local, DIY bands, it’s better known by those intertwined in the music scene as The Aviary.
The show remains a blip in time that belongs only to performers onstage and the chaotic, pulsating mosh pit ensuing below. Flashes of constant movement with bodies squished together leave no space to contemplate the moment. Bits of scattered, hazy memories might stay with some after they leave, although a clear recollection of the night seems to evaporate as chords are pulled and instruments are hushed.
Coexisting with the controlled chaos of these concerts time and time again is photographer Jade Hoey, whose Canon Rebel T7 camera can be seen wrapped around her wrist and glued to her eye; the shutter firing every second.
Oftentimes she is contorting her body in precarious positions at the foot of the stage, just inches from the collective surge of the pit. Other times she is high above the crowd on a ladder; the next moment in the center of all those bodies, capturing the fleeting instances where music and movement fuse together.
The result: photographs that eternalize the physicality of a local show in ways that no words or video can.
Sometimes her photographs are of the stomping, crashing feet of countless adrenaline-pumping bodies. Or arms shoving one another in a loving yet violent manner, later outstretched to support a crowd-surfer. They often reveal the vulnerability of musicians, who by stepping onstage to perform for hundreds, have to divorce their insecurities and doubts.
Without having heard the music of the grungy, indie rock band that played nights before, one can see in Hoey’s work the moment a song builds to its highest intensity then drops suddenly, just as the raw facial expressions of musicians or concert-goers reveal the energy of the certain night.
“There’s almost this electricity coming off of the performers in her photos,” said Adrian Rosas, who behind-the-scenes oversees booking and artist relations for The Aviary, and onstage, is lead singer for Flip the Phaze—the emo, post-hardcore three-piece band who played the venue’s first ever show along with Excuse Me Sir, Dead Chicken, and Bramble on Feb. 3 of last year.
Deeply intertwined in the genesis of the downtown Higuera St. office-building-turned-DIY venue space, Rosas said he has come to notice the trust and relationships that Hoey has fostered with bands and frequent moshers through her consistency and dedication to capturing the fleeting moments of each local show at The Aviary.
“Jade is, like Flip the Phaze, a critical part of that venue’s identity and those early shows were all shots that she did,” Rosas said. “It’s been cool to see and experience both the artist side of it and the venue, booking director side, and it’s always nice when she shows up because people are pretty respectful and know that she's going to get a good shot.”
To Rosas, it is the unique sense of energy and fluidity emanating off each of Hoey’s photographs that distinguishes her work from the core group of local concert photographers.
“You don’t necessarily need to have heard the music,” he said of the collection of shots Hoey captures and edits of Flip The Phaze during each of their sets around town. The photographs of the band—which has been rooted in house shows and small, DIY spaces since they formed in 2023—bleed the reverberating sound of fuzzy amps and reveal the chaos of a moment enough that one needs little else to feel, hear, smell, and embody the energy.
In Hoey’s eyes, there is artistic potential in every person and moment. With every click of her camera’s shutter, she says she calms the strong urge, which resides deep inside every photographer, to survey a scene and capture it.
“Before I knew what photography or the phrase ‘picture’ was when I was a child, I would look at things and wish I could look at them forever,” she said. “The first time I saw my aunt take a picture with a Polaroid it was magic. I was like, ‘This is sorcery.’”
Hoey, a Cuesta College freshman majoring in Photography, was born in San Luis Obispo and lived in Oregon until moving to Atascadero with her family at age six. Before pursuing concert photography, she took senior portraits for her friends—though “really,” she said, “I've been doing photography ever since I could pick up a phone.”
Her keen eye for composition appeared in moments as young as 8 years old, as Hoey remembers feeling subconsciously drawn to take photos on her mother’s iPhone. One time it was of scattered leaves she arranged in different patterns on the pavement. Another photoshoot revolved around the shadows she created by propping up her skateboard in the sun.
And when she was first introduced to the world of house shows as a sophomore in high school—having spent $50 on an Uber with friends to get to SLO—her artistic future seemed to flash before her eyes. As Hoey walked through the door of what she thought was just another awkward teenage party, she was met with the sound of “Drop The Guillotine” by Peach Pit, “my absolute favorite band at the time,” she said.
The band performing in the squished corner of the living room, past the sea of swaying bodies, was Couch Dog—the local indie garage rock band that at the time was only just emerging into the town’s music scene. Hoey said the social anxiety and lack of confidence she grappled with at the time dissipated instantly as she watched others dancing and connecting to music. Although it was one of the most crowded house shows she has been to, even to this day, she remembers its inviting atmosphere holding space for her to exist in.
She said she walked out the door after the band’s set was over, thinking to herself: “Wow I want to do this for the rest of my life.”
“And then I just kept going and going and going,” Hoey said.
Now, many years later, Hoey and the members of Couch Dog—guitarist Pablo Acosta, vocalist Max Ferrer, bassist Tasha Lee and drummer Josh Cheruvelil—have established a professional work relationship and friendship, in which both sides are huge fans of the other’s work.
It was 2019 when Couch Dog started making music together and quickly becoming, for many, a leading star in the town’s music scene. They have now since graduated and moved to the LA area, though see Hoey as an integral part of the DIY, house-show-turned-small-venue scene that remains as alive as they left it.
It was around 2023 when their band-photographer relationship started. “We got some pictures from her and were like, ‘Man, every time she takes photos, it's always some of the best,” Acosta said.
As old-timers to the current music scene, the band said they recognize not only the highly skilled technicality of Hoey’s work—the compositional choices, the depth and the striking colors—but also her ability to capture the chaotic energy of a show. Mixed in with the sweaty, head-banging shots are the gentle moments that reveal the soft, human side to these musical gatherings. Acosta said sometimes this is as simple as Hoey catching him smiling to himself after playing well.
“She gets in your face, too, because we have that rapport,” he said. “If I see her there, I'm gonna start doing something crazy at her and she'll get the hint and just take the picture.”
The band did a rebranding photoshoot for Spotify and Hoey was, as Acosta said, “the easiest pick possible.” With her self-taught editing skills, she turned what was shot as an aerial view photo atop a parking garage into one of vibrancy and motion blur in a flowery grass field.
The creative techniques Hoey employs are all proudly self-taught, and during her early years of photographing concerts, when she relied more on the automatic functions of her camera, the process of editing quickly became a useful tool to get the best out of her shots.
Nowadays, she plays around with shutter and aperture in the moment of a show. More confidence has come, too, from the countless hours she recently spent in Cuesta’s darkroom during an analog film class. It introduced her to the science behind a photograph and the chemistry that can transform them; the ISO, the dodging and burning.
What seems to have always been ingrained in Hoey is composition. She can’t help hyper-focusing on a photo’s every element—“That’s just how my brain is wired,” she says.
A tick list appears before her finger clicks the shutter: where does the subject lie, what distractions hide in the background, does crouching or tilting or standing on her toes make for a more enticing shot? She said a rule of thirds grid sometimes even appears before her eyes.
Hoey’s atlas of visual knowledge and music theory (from 12 years of school choir) jumps out in her photographs and ability to anticipate when a big moment happens. Not only do the bands take notice of her craft, the crowd does as well.
At shows, one can watch as moshers keep watch over Hoey and give her a bubble of space, while still participating in the rapid speed chaos of the pit.
“Over the past couple of shows, I have not seen people picking each other back up, but they have still made that space for Jade,” said Reau Kummer, founder of the Central Coast booking and media arts collective Channel Frequencies that organizes many of the local, DIY shows Hoey shoots at. “People know that her pictures are going to be good and they're going to capture some angle of some form of what was happening in that moment.”
In February of last year, Hoey joined forces with Kummer to help capture the essence of Channel Frequencies’s shows. A year later, she is head photographer for the collective and has been to almost every concert.
Hoey said it was challenging at times, navigating certain spaces and discovering the ones she could fit into comfortably as a bisexual, multiracial woman growing up in San Luis Obispo County. The shows organized by Channel frequencies fostered an environment she felt always tried to ensure people were having fun, no matter their background.
“At a Channel Frequency show, they're all there and they're all having fun and it doesn't matter what your background is or what you believe in because you drop whatever your personal beliefs are for the music to jump around and push each other and pick each other up when you fall.”
Engulfed in the town’s music scene ever since moving from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo for high school, Kummer, 23, noticed musicians lacking an accessible, all-ages entryway into the town’s music scene just as passionate moshers were struggling to find their place. He took initiative to create Channel Frequencies, becoming the person in their corner—a “pseudo band-union rep,” in his words.
Over time the platform has become the go-to booking collective for emerging, DIY bands. Kummer said he and other members behind Channel Frequencies like Fred Miller and Mo Overfield have broadened their scope of impact beyond San Luis Obispo county lines, with the goal of organizing shows with bands hailing from Isla Vista, Ventura, and Santa Cruz.
Their first house show featured local bands Earthsip and Krooks along with Isla Vista’s Field Daze, who soon after developed a fanbase in SLO.
Kummer said he doesn’t take any cuts from the shows, and any money made is given to graphic designers who create flyers and photographers, like Hoey who capture the experience. The profits Kummer walks away with come from the success of the shows he organizes: where people of all ages and walks of life gather at a venue’s door; drop any sense of judgement, hatred or self-consciousness; and flood into the mosh to join the rhythmic, pulsating energy of the crowd that is guided by music.
These moments are what drew Kummer to start Channel Frequencies in 2023, and reach out to Hoey last February to join the team after seeing the impressive portfolio of photographs she had under her belt.
Having already adopted a professional work ethic and drive to take the initiative, Kummer acknowledged that Hoey—whose name is known by many from LA to the Bay Area—carved a space in the Central Coast music scene on her own accord. However, their partnership has allowed both parties to grow; Hoey has solid footing as lead photographer for the collective while Kummer can rest assured that the bands he books receive in due time exceptional photographs that capture the essence of their sets.
“Where does Jade fit into the music scene?” I asked.
“Wherever she makes the space for herself,” Kummer answered. “And people will watch and engage with her because she is such a dynamic artist.”
With her photography career so far whizzing by in her mind, Hoey sat looking out the window of a pie shop in Atascadero, having taken a break from editing photos from a show weeks ago. Things seem to have come full circle, she said.
She started taking photos of her own accord with no magazine or booking company behind her name; she then became acquaintances and kindled a trust with the bands and show-goers that give purpose to the town’s music scene. She leaned into her passions for concert photography even further after stumbling into a house show playing her favorite band, Peach Pit, not knowing years later she would be on press at the annual Shabang festival, shooting her own photos of them.
The spontaneity behind the art of photography is for Hoey, what keeps it exciting. Her career has only just begun, and she knows she can expect a future of that same spontaneity. After all, photography was and is, as she said “something I felt like I was meant to do my whole life.”
Angie Stevens is a writer on our editorial team. She wrote the article. Sam Thome is one of our art managers. He made the graphic. Jade Hoey took the photos. The bands Krooks, Suburban Dropout, Flip the Phaze, and Couch Dog appear in that order.
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