Michael Weintrob's "Instrumenthead" Collection On-Tour in Colorado
As a working musician, your instrument tends to constantly be on the mind. Photographer Michael Weintrob takes this reality a step further in his surreal collection titled "Instrumenthead" For the past 25 years, he has photographed countless musicians across genres sporting their beloved instruments in place of their heads, creating an unique illusion as viewers admire a fixture of the musician's thoughts.
As a working musician, your instrument tends to constantly be on the mind. Photographer Michael Weintrob takes this reality a step further in his surreal collection titled "Instrumenthead." For the past 25 years, he has photographed countless musicians across genres sporting their beloved instruments in place of their heads, creating an unique illusion as viewers admire a fixture of the musician's thoughts.
Michael was kicking off a Colorado Tour in Telluride when we met him. He told KUVO at the 2025 Telluride Jazz Festival that this idea started back during his time photographing at the Aggie Theatre in Fort Collins: "When I was in college at CSU in Fort Collins, I was the house photographer for the Aggie Theatre, and I would photograph all the concerts of the bands that would come through, and sometimes I would take photographs of the bands backstage. And on this particular day, in 2000, the Derek Trucks Band were performing and I was going to take a picture of the band backstage and the bass player was late and he came running down the stairs with his bass and I said, 'Do something crazy. Put your bass down your shirt..' And he did! And so he put his bass neck down, his shirt down his pants, and it looked like it was his head. And that was the birth of it."
Now several years and artists photographed later, he was on the maiden voyage of his Colorado Tour sporting his brand-new custom box truck converted into a gallery on wheels. For the first few stops of the tour, he was joined by artist Tyler Z. Key, known as TZKey who specializes in giant, freehand spray-paint portraiture. In Telluride, he was live painting a couple of shots Michael took of Trombone Shorty and Cimafunk, both performing this year at the Telluride Jazz Festival. He featured them as a dynamic, black-lit musical mash up and caught a lot of festival-goers' eyes as the painting progressed through the weekend.
Michael plans to continue touring Colorado for the rest of August. After our visit in Telluride, he traveled to the Aspen Arts Collective and then to the Park City Song Summit before heading back to the Aggie Theatre for a full-circle moment. Next stop is the Mile High Rock Poster Show at Cervantes on August 24 before a three night stint at Red Rocks starting August 27. Check out our conversation as well as his tour schedule below for more!
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