Tag: film

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"Hey, Fred!" film

Things I’ve Been Digging – 03/29/2021

Without Getting Killed Or Caught

We’re in both a golden age and a glut of music documentaries right now. The most moving example I’ve seen in a while, and I fully admit to my biases here, is Tamara Saviano’s gripping, intimate portrait of songwriting guiding star Guy Clark, Without Getting Killed Or Caught.

Saviano logged many hours in Clark’s world writing her excellent biography of the same name. She made the brilliant choice to tell his story through the voice of Susanna Talley Clark (also an acclaimed songwriter with big hits like “Come From the Heart” and “Easy From Now On,” along with being a painter and writer). Saviano uses Susanna’s audio diaries and her written diaries narrated by Sissy Spacek to capture that vital voice.

Because Susanna’s voice is so prominent, much of the movie focuses on the inseparable trio rounded out with Guy and Townes Van Zandt. Still, Saviano never lets it turn into a Townes movie. The impeccable editing keeps the focus without ever getting mired in minutiae. 

Saviano also avoids the trap of too many talking heads. Every person in the film is someone Guy loved and who loved Guy and Susanna. The closest thing to a record label suit is Barry Poss from Sugar Hill, who helped resurrect Guy’s career at a low point. He adds vital color to Guy’s place in the burgeoning Americana scene. There’s no bending over backward to prove the subject of the film is important.

Everyone who appears – Steve Earle, Vince Gill, Verlon Thompson – knew Guy’s love up close. Nowhere is that more clear than Rodney Crowell, who almost serves as a joint narrator. The quick cutting from one of these almost invariably laughing voices to another reminds us of how art and personalities can bring people together. A scene which epitomized this feeling came with the clip of Guy taking a long drag of wine and pointing to a very young Steve Earle and saying “You need to hear this” to the camera from Heartworn Highways echoed through Rodney Crowell talking about writing the last song with Guy almost 40 years later.

There were more of those moments in this film than I could keep track of. One that echoes with me a couple of days after seeing this was the revelation he wrote “She Ain’t Going Nowhere, She’s Just Leaving” for Bunny Talley, Susanna’s sister, who killed herself. Then the hammer drop of Guy’s recorded voice recounting the story with the line, “Part of being alive is going through that veil of tears.”

Anyone with the slightest interest should check this out in its staggered digital screenings and whenever it finds a more permanent home. Without Getting Killed Or Caught reminded me how much I love my friends and was an incitement to be better.

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"Hey, Fred!" live music

Things I’ve Been Digging – 06/17/18

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Friends at Char Bar

“It’s hard to fight torpor.” That line popped up in Paul Schrader’s much-anticipated return to non-franchise filmmaking First Reformed and, to mangle Bob Dylan, both “rang true and glowed like burning coals” while I watched the film with my pal Rob. The movie wasn’t an official “thing I dug,” more “thing I’m glad I saw for the interesting nougat when it got out of its own way.”

But what spoke to me was the questions it posed about the point at which we’re no longer worth forgiveness; the way shitty means of coping build up and rust over for us like dumping Pepto Bismol in a glass of scotch (one of my favorite gross-out images from the film); and how difficult it is to break out of a rut before we’re ground just that smooth.

Lighter load this week because much of it was catching up with old friends, in town for the Origins Game Fair and elsewhere. The bookend photos come from these long nights of laughter.

Brett Burleson/Josh Hindmarsh/Doug Richeson (Dick’s Den, June 13, 2018)

The tradition of turning a Wednesday over to one artist for a residency at Dick’s Den is one of my favorite things in this town. In a no-pressure setting, someone can worry over new material, reform old collaborative groups, work with people they don’t usually, bring friends up on stage, or do all of these. That tradition is a prism refracting the light of everything I love about Columbus and especially everything I love about the nexus that is Dick’s Den when you get an artist with the kind of ranging tastes in material, style, and players as Brett Burleson.

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From left: Burleson, Hindmarsh, Richeson

Brett Burleson and Josh Hindmarsh have a tradition of playing gypsy jazz songs – and other tunes in that style best known for Django Reinhardt. Wednesday, they rounded the trio out with Grammy-winning bassist Doug Richeson. Jazzcolumbus impresario and great friend Andrew Patton and I stopped in expecting one round and half an hour of pleasant entertainment. I staggered home at 1:30am after two full sets. Picking my jaw off the floor.

Richeson’s expansive warmth provided the perfect backdrop for those two guitars and the handful of guests. It was immediately easy to see why vocalists kept the bassist in demand, including Tony Bennett. In that same spirit, the word that kept springing to mind for everyone on stage was conversational.

Burleson almost reminded me of Keith Richards here, his unshakable rhythm shifted from a straight up-and-down in line with the period they recalled through something more organic and modern, teasing textures from Hindmarsh’s leads and occasionally unfurling solos that were shocking in their grace and concision.

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From left: Burleson, Hindmarsh, Kahn, Richeson

In the full, proper Dick’s spirit, unannounced guests enlivened the proceedings. Michael Kahn, on his way from another gig, brought his soulful soprano. He painted with glowing color, in step with the other three musicians but drawing them out into the less-chartered water. Local DJ, promoter, and singer-songwriter (as Whipped Dream) Laelia Delaney Davis sat in on vocals for the Gershwins’ “S’wonderful” that balanced lushness and restraint like a cool breeze on a sticky evening.

The trio-plus ran a gamut of classics in the style. Their take on Reinhardt’s own “Minor Swing” that felt like a beautifully restored piece of clockwork. Their “Take the A Train” vibrated the room with a propulsive bounce. Their Monk was a sensual, spiraling puzzle. The originals held their own against these time-forged tunes because nothing was played with a preciousness; again and again, we were reminded this was neither museum nor mausoleum.

Coming Up: Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore (Valleydale Ballroom, June 22, 2018; tickets here)

 

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Courtesy of davealvin.net

 

When two riders of the river of American music, Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, teamed up a couple years ago it was one of the most no-brainer collaborations most of us could possibly imagine. These two share an encyclopedic knowledge of everything roots music, marrow-deep empathy for people, and a love of sharing stories.

Their first collaborative record features a couple excellent new originals – including the title track, like a couple of winking outlaws filling out a declarations form at the border – and more of the stunning interpretations they’ve both become more known for over the last few years, giving classics an intensely personal spin. Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee – Plane Wreck at Los Gatos,” features one of the most aching melodies of the 20th century played for maximum impact. Lloyd Price’s R&B classic “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and the Memphis Jug Band’s “KC Moan” get lusty juke-joint treatments that take Gilmore’s high lonesome voice into new terrain with some of Alvin’s best guitar on record.

Both of these artists have a storied, special relationship with Alec Wightman’s Zeppelin productions. Alvin’s appearances at the Valleydale, especially, are always something special. If you’re in town, don’t miss this.

 

 

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Old and New Friends at the Bier Stube

 

 

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"Hey

“Hey, Fred!” 05/25/2015-05/31/2015 A Biased and Idiosyncratic Top Five

Art

OTG_Twitter_Feed_smallMay 30: Off the Grid. Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N High St. 

This week there’s nothing I want to recommend more highly than Off the Grid. The Wexner Center’s fundraiser for their education programs is also one of my favorite parties of the season. Over the last five years since the annual non-gala fundraiser has morphed into its current form and name, Off the Grid has taken on its own identity and carved out its own demographic:  culture vultures like me, young professionals out to see and be seen (and get their first taste of the Wexner Center in the bargain), and a crowd just out to eat some great food and dance to some of the best out of town DJs anyone books.

The selection of local restaurants is always top notch – don’t forget to eat as I have sometimes, too caught up in talking and dancing. The music’s always a righteous dancefloor filler and it gets taken up another notch this year with local electronic artist Giant Claw and Brooklyn DJ Lauren Flax (half of Creep) one of the hottest producers and DJs out there right now.

This marks the end of my two year run on the GenWex Advisory Committee. I know there are a lot of competing choices that night. But if you’re not at Nelsonville Music Festival an hour’s drive away – and if you’re getting down to Oblivians, Budos Band, or Mavis Staples, I won’t question your choices – or seeing the Rolling Stones a fifteen minute walk away, it would be lovely to see you out at this. Starts at 8:00pm. For tickets and more information visit http://wexarts.org/public-programs/genwex/grid-0

Film

May 26: Hard to Be a God. Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N High St. 

No discrespect to Mad Max, but I feel comfortable saying this is the Science Fiction film event of the summer and maybe the year if you’re my breed of SF fan. That is, the kind of nerd who got his or her head blown open by reading Boris and Arkady Sturgatsky’s The Roadside Picnic as an adolescent (and seeing the Tarkovsky adaptation Stalker in High School or College).

It’s hard not thinking about the discussion of a few sad, small, scared men trying to hem in boundaries and keep people out of that kind of genre work (and the celebration of same) when something that reminds me of the genre work I love most comes out. Those were the kind of voices that made me think SF wasn’t worth bothering with and made it easy for me to walk away – without regret – from almost all cons over a decade ago. I went many years not even checking for what was new on those shelves. In the long term, I know their time is done – with them now emboldened and scared leading a terrifying choir that chokes on dust and sounds like a death rattle. As I try to empathize with my friends fighting the good fight on those fonts, I think it’s more important than ever to celebrate this kind of work.

If you want to think of it as other than science fiction, that’s great too.I’m not that kind of nerd to say “You stand up and say ‘No, this is science fiction! You do like science fiction!'” (Yes, I sat in a panel where someone actually did this about Future Shock or Frankenstein or Rappacini’s Daughter and my sense of fuck this started to harden). But it’s a great example of what those tools can tell us about the future and about the past. This film adaptation, finished by Aleksei German before his death, is supposed to be phenomenal and you can best believe I’ll be there. Starts at 7:00pm. $8 tickets available at http://wexarts.org/film-video/hard-be-god

Music

May 28: Deicide, Hate Eternal, Entombed AD, and Svart Crown. Alrosa Villa, 5055 Sinclair Rd. 

In high school when I got turned onto the Earache school of death metal, that was my punk rock, and while it’s not a huge part of my diet these days, I still get a charge out of putting on Deicide’s Legion or Serpents of the Light, and To Hell with God of a few years ago was a stunning return to form full of catchy riffs and pummeling rhythms. Entombed I took a little longer to warm to – and they’re probably still more often thought of by most readers of this blog as the band Nicke Andersson left to form Hellacopters, but I still put on Wolverine Blues with some regularity and it might be the best example of a fusion of straight-ahead rock and roll with the prickly grind of death metal. I saw Hate Eternal a few years ago at the Newport and Erik Rutan still has that quicksilver guitar tone and mastery of the immediately identifiable riff, this power trio format is a brilliant showcase for him. Svart Crown I just found researching this and they’re a French band in the same scene as Alcest who have a great blacked death groove akin to Ohio’s Skeletonwitch. For someone with my tastes and aesthetic, this is the most stacked metal show to come through town in a while. Locals Lorna Shore and Exudate open along with Reading, PA’s, Black Crown Initiate. Doors 5:30pm. Tickets available at http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=5774665

May 29: E-40 and Mystikal. Xclusive Elite Entertainment Center, 1921 Channingway Center Dr. 

Two of the strongest proponents of the regional rap explosion of the mid-late ’90s coming back to town on one massive bill. E-40 helped popularize the Bay Area’s hyphy sound. Mystikal brought a different slowed-down blues shout flavor to the New Orleans flourishing exploding everywhere. These were two voices immediately recognizable the minute they came out of a speaker on a radio or at a party and two indelible songwriters. This venue – a revival and restoration of a classic Columbus dancehall – has been booking killing hip-hop and country acts of late, I haven’t made it to one yet but I’d be remiss not bringing this up to anyone anywhere near my age. St. Louis’ Stevie Stone opens. Doors at 7:00pm. Tickets available at http://www.ticketmaster.com/e40-and-mystikal-columbus-ohio-05-29-2015/event/05004E8DB0D27D04

May 30: Scale Model with Damn the Witch Siren and The Girls!. Wall Street Nightclub, 144 N Wall St. 

Wall Street’s principally known as a dance club but they’ve always done other things – drag shows, musical theater – and they’re making a rare foray into live rock bands this weekend with a perfectly chosen bill. Scale Model out of Nashville does a riff on classic New Wave with observational lyrics, a wry sense of humor, and hooks to spare delivered by a ferocious frontwoman, Megan Rox.

They’re paired with two of Columbus’s finest in a similar make-you-dance vein. Damn the Witch Siren, fronted by Krista Botjer, refine their funky throwback dance music at a white-hot pace, better every time I see them with ever-stronger songs. The Girls! came out of the gate with maybe the best hooks in town and their unhinged live show is a fireworks display, a thing of beauty and wonder that will fill a dancefloor in seconds flat; they’re recording again soon so look for new songs through that big, gorgeous PA at Wall Street. 8:00pm doors. $7 cover.