RANDOM THOUGHTS ON AN EARLY SUNDAY MORNING

...the two Grace Potter shows I attended at Higher Ground were amazing; it resurrected my respect for good ol' fashioned virtuoso rock skills. They made a fan out of me.

...GP's opening act tonight, Apollo Sunshine, was wacky & fun & I don't care what the booing 40 year old housewives think--they were great! Any band that can end a set with screaming & breaking every string on their double-neck guitar wins major props with me

...filming rock stars is turning me into a rock star--i slept until 4pm yesterday & I'm wide awake at 5am today.

...t-minus 17 hrs. to the New Year's bash on Clarke Street; looking forward to it!

GRACE POTTER & THE NOCTURNALS SHOW @ HIGHER GROUND



Is anyone going to the Grace Potter & The Nocturnals show at Higher Ground? If so, I'll be one of the short, dark-haired guys running around with a video camera, getting in your way. Feel free to kick me or say hello, whichever strikes your fancy!

I've never heard GP & the N before (live or album) so I'm looking forward to seeing a couple shows. It's pretty sad that the only time I seem to go to local concerts is when I'm getting paid to. That's my New Year's Resolution--more local concerts.

It's better than lying & saying I'm going to cut back on my drinking....

JOHN CALE'S "VINTAGE VIOLENCE"



I got out of work a bit early & had some time to kill before picking up the girlfriend, so I figured I'd go give the fine folks at Pure Pop a bit more of my hard-earned cash.

I've been on a big experimental music kick lately, so I went and browsed the "Avant-Garde/Experimental" section. I happened upon the John Cale albums and seeing as I'm a big VU fan and I love the "New York in the 60's" box set I picked up earlier this year, I was surprised that I'd never heard his first official solo release, "Vintage Violence".

I bought the album & popped it in my car CD player, waiting for the bipolar mix of abrasive screeching and bassy drones that were Cale's calling card during his late 60's/early 70's work.

Only a few seconds into the first track, I had to eject the CD and make sure it was the right disc. Yup, John Cale. I popped it back in. The first song, "Hello There" sounded like a Welshman doing a cover of a White Album outtake. The second song threw me off even more--what the hell is this country slide guitar doing on here?

I was thoroughly confused. Everybody knows Lou Reed is the Velvet who secretely just wanted to be a pop star. Cale is the genius madman, the king of dissonance. Sure he did that great cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" but still..what is he doing making an album that sounds like the love child of "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" and "Tumbleweed Connection" ?

But the more I listened, the more I could appreciate it. The lyrics were cryptic and strange; the vocals were oddly detached and restrained. And if you listened carefully, you can hear some of the trademark Cale experimentation on songs like "Ghost Story" and "Please".

Some of my favorites from the album are the slower and more intimate songs, especially the beautiful "Amsterdam", but the raucous "Rolling Stones-without-the-drunken-machismo" track "Bring It On Up" is pretty good too (I would have loved to have heard The Band do a cover of this song, complete with a little Levon Helm yoddling!)

"Vintage Violence" was certainly not was I was expecting, but it was by no means an unpleasant surprise.

SO....WHAT DID SANTA BRING YOU FOR XMAS?



I hope everyone had a good holiday season; I certainly did. A couple days off from work, time with family & friends...it was bliss. The lack of snow was a bit of a letdown, but hey, that's the wonders of global warming for you.

I got some fun new presents as well. My parents got us a beautiful new dining room table; Jaime bought me a couple Lomography cameras (I'll post some pics after I develop my first reel) and some books, CDs and clothes.

So what did you get? Any cool new music or instruments or other assorted ephemera? Post a comment & a picture if you have one.

EMO COLOGNE

Otherwise known as "Eau d'Fall Out Boy"....

*pomotion



I was doing a bit of cleaning around the apartment today & stumbled on the copy of my lost album I recorded in college called "*pomotion". It's a collection of experimental electronic songs that I composed over the course of a year between 1999-2000. I never completed it, but I thought I'd share the work-in-progress tracks with you. Who knows, someday I may even finish it....

robots like us
the future of waffle irons
crackerjacks
losingitman
uncle sam
jesuskrishnavoices
pigs in the electromud
NyQuil & Geritol
come & play in the sunlight
kickyfeetinfant
dance floor hooha
semolina
the locust plague (size 69 bible belt)
the anger of seals
pomosapiens
organiccc
your mom thinks we're cooler than y'all
gobultegook

Enjoy!

MERRY XMAS FROM HANK, PERRY & THE DUKE!

Yet another reason why I shouldn't own a editing suite....

**NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!***



**UPDATE**
Having some YouTube upload issues...if the above embedded video doesn't work, right-click & save the linked file below--

MERRY BUKCHRISTMAS!

MORE KENNETH ANGER

Some Kenneth Anger films, straight from the wonderful YouTube.

FIREWORKS
Anger's first film, made in his parents' home when he was just a teenager.

Part 1:


Part 2:


RABBIT MOON
A beautiful ode to early cinema & the Magick Lantern.



INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER
It looks like the clipped a minute or so off the start of the movie & censored the wangs, but it's still pretty much Anger's film. "Invocation" has always been my favorite Anger work.



KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS



PUCE MOMENT
Like a pre-Warhol Warhol film....



SCORPIO RISING
Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


LUCIFER RISING

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:


ANGER SEES RED
One of Ken's latest works, from 2004.

THE SOLAH TAPES

I graduated from film school in 2001 and immediately returned home to Vermont. My specialization in school was experimental/avant-garde film, and seeing as Burlington barely has a community for narrative & documentary filmmakers, I found very few people who wanted to work on experimental shorts.

However, I did find a few courageous souls (such as Burlington ex-patriate Jereme Mongeon) and was able to do a few local screenings of my work (an installation piece at "The Space" above the old Battery St. Jeans; a show at the former Waiting Room, etc.). But it was sporadic and always disappointing--there were always limitations at the venues. And most importantly, my work was always meant for solitary viewing, the cinematic equivalent of putting on a pair of headphones & listening to an avant-garde recording.

So, in a last act of desperation, I contacted a few old college film buddies & local friends and started the Solah collective in 2004. Every month we would collaborate on a short film: shooting, editing, compositing, composing soundtracks, etc. And when they were finished, my merry little band of film elves and myself would distribute VHS copies of the films (with just a simple label and wrapped in a Ziplock baggie for protection from the elements) to strategic locations around town.

Those of you working at Pure Pop, Seven Days, Waterfront Video, etc. at that time may have seen some of these films. For those of you who have not, here are the first four installments of the Solah series:

SOLAH #1



SOLAH #2



SOLAH #3



SOLAH #4

"RUBICON" SOUNDTRACK



As promised, here is the soundtrack to Simon Tarr's feature-length experimental film "Rubicon", scored by my friend Edward Kurland. "Spitting Out Teeth" readers were first introduced to Ed from my video clip post of our "performance" at the Phyrst pub in State College, PA. While we had a blast getting on stage and making some nice, doped-out sounds together, this album is Mr. Kurland's masterpiece and it's where he worked best--alone, in his room, surrounded by dozens of effects pedals, barefoot, Nag Champa burning, being completely sober but hallucinating on the sound of his own music. He was a great friend and a great musician & I miss him dearly.

While I obviously can't get his permission to post it, I'm sure Ed would have no problem with me sharing the full album of his soundtrack to "Rubicon". The CD of the soundtrack is no longer available from Amazon, but Simon Tarr may still have copies available. So, here it is, Edward Kurland's "Rubicon" soundtrack--

l.e.d (overture)
transplanet momentum
electrostatic
ping pac
most codec
digidust
plastic lyceum
binary compositionism
modem comb
wave space displacement
user error
re:elec


If you would like to purchase a copy of the film, they are available here.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE "RUBICON" TRAILER

I'd love to hear feedback on the music, so please leave comments. I was able to post these files for free using MediaMax. If it works, it's a blogger's dream--25GB of free online file hosting.

WE'RE NUMBER ONE!



I did a Google search about a month ago for "spitting out teeth" and was surprised to find that this blog held the #2 spot. Today I searched again and found out that it now holds the #1 and #2 spots! Thanks to all of you have linked to this site and have now made it possible for any sicko wack-job who is searching for "spitting out teeth" to find my site! :)

MY POST-XMAS GIFT TO MYSELF



All Christmas shopping done. Credit card balance has been paid off. As soon as I get my bonus this quarter, this lil' baby is mine.....***drool***

UBUWEB



Ok, I'm sure 90% of the people reading this (which is probably about three of you) are already familiar with Ubuweb, but if not, I highly recommend clicking on the link & checking it out. Ubuweb is a wonderful resource for avant-garde & experimental audio recordings & writings by such artists as Burroughs, Cage, Brakhage, Debord & hundreds of others.

And recently, Ubu has managed to amasse a nice collection of experimental film and video works, available to download from the website here. I highly recommend checking out the Fluxus Films as well as this amazing interview with Stan Brakhage which is a work of art in itself--

STAN BRAKHAGE INTERVIEW 113MB (RIGHT-CLICK & SAVE)

THE LATE GREAT CHARLES BUKOWSKI



The above interview is from a (supposedly) soon to be released DVD of interviews with the great "poet laureate of skid row", Charles "Hank" Bukowski. There has been a much deserved Buk revival of sorts lately, with the release of the wonderful documentary "Born Into This". Hopefully someday when the world can get beyond the "legend" of Charles Bukowski (drunk, womanizer, beast) there will finally be a true appreciation of his work as a poet & writer who tried to rip down the stuffy walls of academic formalism in the world of poetry and prose.

"As the spirit wanes, the form appears."--C. Bukowski

MAGIC WITH BUBBLES!

I wonder what this guy tells people he does for a living?

SPEAKING OF JEM COHEN....

...it looks like someone has posted his wonderful portrait of Elliot Smith called "Lucky Three"--



Also, here's "Glueman", a short collaboration with Fugazi that is included on the "Instrument" DVD--



The trailer for Benjamin Smoke. If you haven't seen this incredibly powerful film yet, go to Waterfront and rent it. Now.



And here's a clip of Jem accepting his Independent Spirit Award for "Chain". Aside from a few sporadic screenings in large cities, this clip is the only place you'll see any footage from his first narrative feature that I know of (until the DVD comes out in 2007)

THE CRITERION COLLECTION



I'm sure pretty much everybody who's reading this is familiar with the Criterion Collection, but just in case you're not, I'll explain. Criterion is an independent DVD distributer associated with Janus Films that releases exclusively some of the greatest works of cinematic art onto beautiful transferred DVDs with loads of extra features. Their collection has long contained some of the best works of filmmakers as diverse as Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Bay, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Richard Linklater. However, until the recent release of their wonderful 2-disc set of the works of the great Stan Brakhage, Criterion had unfortunatly never recognized great experimental film works.

It looks like that is slowly changing. Criterion just recently released William Greaves' classic experimental half-narrative/half-documentary "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm", which sits alongside such films as Fellini's "8 1/2", Jim McBride's "David Holzman's Diary" and Godard's "Contempt" as one of the greatest "films about the making of films" ever made. A truly postmodern filmic meditation, Greaves basically plays a game of the director sitting back and watching as his crew tries to figure out what exactly they're doing and what kind of film they're making. A highly-recommended film that is available for purchase at Borders and should be available for rent at Waterfront Video.

Now if only Criterion will get their shit together and release the Jem Cohen collected works set I've been bugging Jon Mulvaney about for the past three years...

THE NOISES IN MY EARS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY (THIS WEEK)

My apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days but my life has been pretty boring this week. I have been buying and listening to a lot of music lately. Here's my current rotation--



Mice Parade, "Bem-Vinda Vontade" -- Upbeat & fantastical songs; great for putting on a pair of headphones & zoning out.








Mum, "Summer Make Good" -- Gorgeous; I have no idea why I didn't buy this album sooner. As much as I love "Finally We Are No One", I'm thinking "Summer Make Good" will be my favorite after a few more listens.








Boduf Songs, "Lion Devours The Sun" -- kind of reminds me of a Will Oldham/Calla lovechild. Dark and spooky, but not oppressively so. It's nice to see that Kranky is starting to expand their boundaries a bit. For awhile, I thought they were just going to ride the success of Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Low, but this album and the new Loscil album "Plume" have really changed my mind about them.






Jóhann Jóhannsson, "IBM 1401 - A User's Manual" -- A neat concept, but concepts don't interest me much. Too sappy & movie soundtrack-ish for my tastes; almost too pretty for its own good.






Panda Bear, "Young Prayer" -- Haunting and alienated; really makes me want to hear more solo stuff from Animal Collective's "quiet one". I think Panda's genius and contributions to AC are often overshadowed by Avey, but hopefully a couple more solo releases can cure that.






Wolf Eyes, "Human Animal" -- I always used to get Wolf Eyes mixed up with Wolf Parade. I never got into the latter, and since I always associated the former with them, I never bought a Wolf Eyes album. I decided to give them a shot during one of my latest spending sprees at Pure Pop (they're happening way too often lately), and I'm glad I did. Very industrial and weird; reminds me of some compositions I did for my Solah film series.






OOIOO, "Taiga" -- How many influences and genres can you stuff into a single album? Ask OOIOO. I can hear influences of Miles Davis, Tom Ze, John Zorn, tribal drumming, Tom Waits (listen to "UJA" and try to tell me it doesn't remind you of "Earth Died Screaming"), etc. Weird, wild stuff...






Black Dice, "Creature Comforts" --Nice, strange, sometimes goofy, sometimes angry noise compositions. Very abstract, but with an inherent cohesiveness. I've only had a single rush listening to their new album "Broken Ear Record", but from what I heard it sounds like they've evolved a bit in their sound.




Ok, these are admittedly half-assed reviews. But hopefully they might give some folks enough initiative to give one or two a listen. But if not, oh well--I'm not getting paid to do this thing so I can say whatever I want. Crap hell damn poop. Such overwhelming power....

**evil laughter ensues**

LIMP BASQUIAT

I went to college at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania. In town, there is a small basement Irish pub called "The Phyrst". It's famous for two things--the Phyrst Family Band (and the resulting drunken shenanigans) and its acoustic open-mike nights.

Every Monday night, the Phyrst would put up a sign-up sheet in the bar at 4:00 PM & the first ten people to sign up on the list had the stage for their 15 minutes of "fame". It was a popular venue for every Stevie Nicks or Dave Matthews wannabee in town, and a good place to have a relax pint & listen to some "nice" music. Or at least it was before "Limp Basquiat" came to town.

A little backstory--my sophmore year I met a young musician and filmmaker named Edward Kurland. We had an experimental film class together & realized that our interests were pretty in tune (Stan Brakhage, John Cage, Zappa, etc.) and we started working together on projects. Ed's lease had run out on his apartment and I had a vacancy in mind, so I asked Ed if he wanted to move in. He did.

Thus began one of the best friendships of my life & a the most unique creative partnership of my life. Ed & I created films together, got high together, stayed up until daybreak playing music & arguing philosophy. It was an amazing time in my life, the most free I've ever felt & as such, I felt particulary daring & adventurous. And every once in a while, I channeled that energy into something productive.

Ed and I had been to the Phyrst Open Mike Nights on a few occasions (mostly as a favor to some girl we knew who thought she was the next Jewel), and had always been disappointed. We talked about how sad it was that any person with a guitar willing to play covers could get a stage no problem but it was damn near impossible to get stage time to do something original. And then it clicked.

We had spent the past few weekends messing around with various chains of effect pedals & warping out my Dr. Sample and we'd come up with some pretty interesting noise compositions. We were getting pretty good (or at least pretty high & thinking we were good) so maybe it was time to play out...

Ed skipped his last class the following Monday & signed us up for a 15-minute set that evening at 9:00. We rushed home, gathered up all of our equipment, split a bottle of Robutussin DM & hopped on the bus downtown. We got to the Phyrst about an hour before we were scheduled to go on, so we had a few pints of Guinness for some liquid courage. It also helped to thin out the blood & thus excellerate the flow of the DXM through our veins. After a while, the girl playing the Paula Cole covers didn't sound that bad.

Finally, they called our names and Ed & I ambled up to the stage. While we had 15 minutes of stage time scheduled, it took us close to 40 minutes just to set up our equipment (and combination of complicated effects pedal chaining & chemical factors). Luckily the folks at the Phyrst were kind & understanding, and gave us plenty of technical help & allowed us to play our set.

The video you are about to see is what happened next. For your sake, I edited the setup down to a minute & just left the performance in all its wonderful, goofy glory. Enjoy!



After this performance, we figured we would never be let in the bar again; forget ever playing there for another set. But amazingly, the organizers loved it (or more appropriately, loved the large crowd of fellow film students/paying customers we brought with us for support, making it the most attended Phyrst open mike night ever) and invited us to come back for another show. We ended up playing several more sets, joined by Rob Cotton, under the name "Limp Basquiat". Future shows included flutophone, James Brown samples & more magic tricks.

Early this year, just days after my birthday, I received an e-mail from a former college film professor. He was writing to break the news to me that Edward had been shot and killed during a break-in at his apartment in the Logan Square district in Chicago. I was shocked--Ed was a zen buddhist, a vegetarian & one of the most gentle, non-violent people I had ever known. It was one of the worst moments of my life.

Since then, I've come to terms with Ed's death by listening to his music (Phyrst stuff aside, he was an amazing musician, creating work in a variety of genres from folk to hip-hop to experimental composition soundtracks) and watching the films we created together. Ed would have loved this blog, and I wish I were writing something that he could read tonight rather than a eulogy and a nostalgic tribute. But in a way, I may never have created this blog if he was still here. I always lived vicariously through his creativity & productive energy. Now that he's gone, it's almost as if there's a void to fill. And I'm glad to do it.

Miss you brother; rest.

SHORTWAVE SYMPHONIES


I remember reading about these a while back & just happened to find them on archive.org after searching for the Animal Collective stuff. It's the Conet Project, a four-disc collection of shortwave radio "numbers stations", rumored to be used for secret message transmission of spy message over the past few decades. Some of the transmissions are mixed with odd repeating music or just Yoko Ono-esque vocal repetitions of the same number over and over. Weird & intriguing stuff.

Here's the link to download all four discs:

Conet Project on Archive.org

Or, if you want to purchase the full 4-CD set, complete with artwork & an 80-page booklet about the recordings for $55, go to the Conet Project Official Site. You even order the official t-shirt!

FREE ANIMAL COLLECTIVE LIVE EP

Courtesy of Animal Collective & French radio station Planet Claire, here is a three song EP of a live performance from August 2005:

The Purple Bottle (Track 1)
Flesh Canoe (Track 2)
I've Got Mine (Track 3)

Or if you're more of the "watching" type, here are videos of each song being performed (this are pretty large .wmv files, so be prepared for the download to take awhile if you're on dial-up):

The Purple Bottle (video)
Flesh Canoe (video)
I've Got Mine (video)

The nice folks at Planet Claire were even nice enough to provide a .zip file with album artwork that you can print out to make your own jewel case, slip case and CD label (in .pdf format). The design is pretty crappy, but hey, it's free:

EP Artwork (.zip)

And yours truly decided to do a quick Photoshop job to make an iTunes compatible cover art JPEG:



Enjoy!

**UPDATE**-- Here's some more free Animal Collective live stuff from Archive.org

Animal Collective @ Archive)

You can download three free full concerts in FLAC, OGG, or mp3 format.

ET TU, PURE POP?



I'm a little bit hurt this evening...our wonderful local record shop, Pure Pop, denied my friend request on MySpace. I hope that my recent glowing reviews of Chicago's Reckless Records didn't have anything to do with it; while Reckless may be my mistress, Pure Pop will always be my wife. Or maybe my ex-wife with a good divorce lawyer, seeing as they get half my salary every month.

Tanner, can you help me out here? I've bought every Nest Material album released (LP & EP). I've apologized every time I've accidently set off the theft alarm. I've never hit on any of the female employees (not that I haven't wanted to). And I've never complained about not getting a discount if I forget to present my Pure Pop card after my purchase has been entered into the register.

Why don't you love me back Pure Pop? :(

NEW "CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH" ALBUM



Here's one I've been waiting for...the sophmore follow-up to "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah"'s wonderfully catchy self-titled debut album. The new album is called "Some Loud Thunder" and will be released on January 30th. If you're of the downloading persuasion, you can download the full album on January 16th at Insound.

In the meantime, here are a couple of tracks from the album that CYHSY is providing to whet your pallette--

"Love Song No.7"
"Underwater(You and Me)"

(Right click & "Save As"...you know the drill)

I kind of feel bad for CYHSY--they have some pretty high expectations to fulfill, seeing as their first album became ridiculously popular in a very short period of time. However, from the tracks above, they've earned my respect--they could have easily pulled a Coldplay and just made a guaranteed hit by emulating the style of the first album. However, "Some Loud Thunder" is a pretty radical departure, much more experimental & even melancholy and vaudevillian in places, reminding me a bit of the Beruit album I enjoyed so much this year. Looking forward to the full album!

My Dinner With Avey (and Kria...and Greg...and come to think of it, there was no dinner. Just music)



So here's how I almost didn't get to see the Greg Davis/Avey Tare/Kria Brekkan show at Firehouse Gallery last night...

I raced out of work at 5:00 yesterday, drove my little Matrix at breakneck speeds (ok, 45 tops) and headed into downtown Burlington. I had to pick up my girlfriend Jaime-Lynn first, and then we headed to Firehouse to buy tickets for the concert. When we got there, no one was around. I waited for about ten minutes and finally a woman came downstairs and told me that tickets would not be sold until the gates opened at 7:30.

Ok, I thought, I was planning on getting the tickets & then getting dinner & a few drinks before the show; I'll just change the order a bit. So we went off to American Flatbread & got some 'za, salads and a bottle of Las Rocas. A nice, relaxing dinner and when we finished it was only 6:45.

So we headed off to Wine Works to get another glass of wine (hey, I don't get out much...) and they were having some weird speed dating thing going on and the only table available was right in the midst of it. It was kind of depressing to watch, so we opted for another bottle, of Borsao instead. Luckily we didn't have the fortitude to finish it, as we probably would have been quite sloppy for the show. We paid the bill at 7:35 and walked over to the Firehouse.

When I got in line, I was stunned--a queue of flesh (unfortunately nearly all caucasian, but that's for a different blog/rant) that went past the Firehouse toward RiRas. Crap. I saw someone that I knew from a previous job that now works for the Firehouse & I told him that I was on the reserved list. He was about to usher me in the side door when he realized I wasn't alone & told me that I'd unfortunately have to join the rest of the poor, huddled masses. Sigh.

So we got in line & I chatted a bit with the guy behind me about Andrew Bujalski (which I guess earns me official "hipster" status) and watched in horror as the seats fllled up. The one damn concert that I finally make it out for & I'm going to miss it because of delicious red wine. I was picturing myself leaning with my ear against the glass outside for an hour and a half, shivering.

But no--we managed to get in and take some side seats in the back. I got to say a quick hello to Casey Rea and we sat down as Greg Davis was doing the evening's intros and preparing to do his opening set.

I've only recently been introduced to Greg's work, and it has absolutely blown me away. His collaboration with Sebastien Roux,"Paquet Surprise", is one of the most beautiful and deceptively simple albums I've heard in a long time. I have great respect for music that you can either listen to pensively over a good set of headphones or fall asleep to because you feel so comfortable with it. "Paquet Surprise" achieves both for me. If you don't own this album, you should.

Greg began his set with a long, single note drone that sounded like warm amp feedback hum. It had an immediate comforting effect on the audience. My girlfriend put her head on my shoulder. The girl in front of us put her head on her boyfriend's shoulder. Greg has apparently found the aphrodisiac note. The room buzzed and purred like a huge electronic cat. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the tone began to shift in pitch and more instrumentation came in. An electric violin (or at least it sounded like it--I was too far back & there were too many heads to see the instruments), then chimes. The drones shifted to a simple yet multilayered melody, sounding like what I dream a church choir should sound like.

Then slowly, again almost imperceptibly, the layers faded back to reveal a recording of nature sounds that I never even noticed before in the mix. Then only the chimes were left. And then silence. What an amazingly beautiful piece; it makes me proud to know that we have a talent like Greg here in Burlington.

A few minutes after Greg's set, Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan made the stage. I probably wouldn't have been able to pick them out from the rest of the crowd, except for the fact that they looked slightly older & exuded the calm confidence that can only come from being a power-couple who belonged to two of the most critically-acclaimed indie bands of the past decade. That and Avey's sweater. Who the hell else would wear that? But I gotta admit--dude pulled it off.

Their set was incredible. The fact that a single piano, acoustic guitar & two voices could fill up the gallery like a symphony made me acutely aware of the power of good songwriting. The crowd was literally leaning forward, trying to catch the cryptic lyrics that Avey was putting forth, bent and twisted, loud and soft, baritone & falsetto. I hate to put forth such a comparison, but it reminds me of concert footage of the early 60s Dylan shows I've seen, where everyone is seated quietly, latched to every annunciation of phrase. It's quite a tag to put on someone, but if anyone is going to be the Dylan of our generation, I'd rather have it be Tare than some little emo twit like Connor Oberst. (Cue "Donna")

Kria was like some gentle woman-child, the slightly-twisted offspring of Erik Satie and Bjork. Her piano playing and pixie-like voice worked perfectly together, reminding me of why I had liked her former band, Mum, so much. Her style also melded perfectly with Avey's; whether it was genius or just the chemistry that happens when two young musicians in love work together, i don't know. Maybe a little of both.

The songs went from gentle & soft to harsh & tinny, but always beautiful as the sounds reverberated off of the ceramic vases, pitchers & plates that lined the side walls of the gallery. Avey and Kria finished their set and I left the gallery, a bit hungover from the wine & the beautiful music I had heard that night.

GREG DAVIS WITH AVEY TARE & KRIA BREKKAN




Because of my work schedule, I don't get to go to many local shows, but I've managed to put everything aside tonight to attend this show at Burlington's Firehouse Gallery & I'm sure it won't disappoint! I'll have a full write-up of my thoughts on the show by tomorrow night; hope to see you all there!

MY UNAUTHORIZED BURLINGTON MUSIC VIDEOS

For those of you who don't know me well, I graduated from college in 2001 with a degree in Film & Video. My specialization was in the highly lucrative career of avant-garde and experimental film. Obviously, I was unable to parlay my love of pixels and jump cuts into a career (though I did work as a Motion Graphics designer for nearly three years), but I still make films as a hobby.

I've long been a fan of experimental music videos and documentaries, and my images are often inspired by music. I've even made a few experimental works using music from some local Burlington bands that I thought I'd share.

NECROPHAGIA (The Cancer Conspiracy, "Conversation With A Wall")



This was actually a trailer for what was meant to be a longer experimental documentary on The Cancer Conspiracy, mixing some of the imagery shown here with live concert footage, interviews, etc. Alas, it was never meant to be, as TCC went their separate ways shortly after I completed this trailer.


GOSSIP OF FLAMES (The Interior, "Gossip of Flames")



This is probably the closest thing to a "music video" I've done, seeing as it incorporates the entire track. The footage that it contains is b-roll from my days as a wedding/events videographer, quite possibly the worst job in the world. If anyone out there is interested in the ghost-like effect used, I'll be glad to explain what I did. Let's just say it involves After Effects and many layers of video.

I have the worst luck with these things, because shortly after I made the video, The Interior broke up.


APPLE CORE (Nest Material, "Ghosts of Dead Kids")



For a short time, I was participating in an online film club called the "54-hrs. Film Project". You would get a cryptic sentence via e-mail on Friday night & have to create a short film inspired by that sentence, encode it & post it to the web within 54 hours. "Apple Core" was one of these submissions. I had just recently been turned on to Nest Material, and I really wanted to incorporate their music into one of my pieces, so....here it is.

CRISPIN GLOVER ON LETTERMAN (1987)



I'm sure most of you have probably seen this already, but it was a first for me. All I can say is....wow. It's been argued back and forth whether Glover was on LSD or if this was just an early incantation of his "Hellion" put-ons (he's a pretty eccentric guy; very Kaufmann-esque) and I'm really torn as to which it is myself. Maybe a bit of both. Apparently Glover claims he is not a user of any type of drugs. Hmm.

For future proof of the weird genius of Crispin Hellion Glover, check out his new film "What Is It?", a very bizarre 16mm transgressive feature film starring Glover, a lot of nude women in masks, snails & a cast of mainly mentally challenged non-actors.

Oh yeah, and did I mention--he's a musician as well. Here's the music video for his "hit" single, "Clowny Clown Clown"