The Lego Wire

On the heels of The Wire: The Musical comes this interpretation of Baltimore's favorite (sorry Homicide) crime drama.  Thanks to Twitch.

Artscape / Resurrection

This weekend is huge.  There is simply too much to do.  Tomorrow night Telesma plays their "Resurrection" show at the Ram's Head, which will bring full-circle the death and resurrection of Ian Hesford.  Artscape is all this weekend, and the Station North stage has an awesome lineup with the likes of Big in Japan, Celebration, Caleb Stein and Yeveto.  Of course the Metro Gallery will be in the fray, with DJ's and air-conditioning all free, all weekend long.  Here's a brief video of last year's Artscape, just to get you excited.

Dan Deacon - "True Thrush" Official Video

So the official video for "True Thrush" came out yesterday, and it is a novel and fun video.  I was lucky enough to be on the crew, and it was a pleasure to work with so many amazing artists in Baltimore on this experiment in memory games.  The concept was by Dan Deacon and Ben O'Brien (Showbeast) and was produced, directed and shot by them as well.  They write;

The video co-directed by Ben O'Brien and Dan Deacon is based on a drawing game popular in the Baltimore art collective Wham City, which is in turn based on the game "telephone."

For the video, Dan and Ben filmed a simple 13-second scene. That scene was then shown to the next team. After seeing the video that team had 1 hour to recreate it -- characters, props, set, costumes, and actions -- as close to exactly as possible from only their memory.

The cast is made up of members of Wham City, Dan Deacon Ensemble, Ed Schrader's Music Beat, Future Islands, Red Room Collective, Copycat Theater, Effervescent Dance Collective, Showbeast, Annex Theater, Nuclear Power Pants, FlucT, BXDC, Bloody Panda, Foot Talk, Important Comics, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and various icons of the legendary Baltimore Arts Community.

Sonar is Closing...

and this guy is really upset.  

Filmish Fantastigorium Tonight!

Tonight "Filmish Fantastigorium" presents a double feature of epic proportions. It's at the Metro Gallery (1700 North Charles St., Baltimore) and doors open at 7pm, and after some shorts there's "The FP", a futuristic look at video game dance competitions with a coming-of-age story that is sure to have all the moves. Followed by "Father's Day", a frightening gore-fest from Troma that will make you want to lock your father up. These films are rated "R" and deserve it, so no children. FREE, with popcorn and air-conditioning. My pal Eric assures me these films are so terrible they're great, and he wouldn't lie.

Dan Deacon - "True Thrush"

Back in February of 2011 I caught Dan Deacon playing a fundraiser called "Head 2 Head" that was for the Transmodern Festival.  He played for a lively crowd at the Floristree, and one new song I hadn't heard really grabbed my attention.  I quickly cut this video for the track and it briefly appeared on Pitchfork, but I hid it from view again waiting until Dan officially released it.  Good things come to those who wait.  The song "True Thrush" just got released today, and appears below.  It is an awesome, catchy and thoroughly uplifting tune and the best we've (officially) heard from Dan's upcoming "America" album thus far.  Both his release and my video appear below, and comparing the two provides interesting insights into how his songs develop through live performances over time and how more may be in a composition than meets the album listener.

Painted Talis-Man Trust, Fractal Cat, Aligning Minds

On April 20th, our friend Ian Hesford and band member of the group Telesma suffered a heart attack while performing onstage. His recovery was successful, but his care was and will continue to be expensive. Sadly he has no health insurance. The Painted Talis-man Trust had been set up to raise money for Ian's medical bills.

On June 28th at the Metro Gallery there was a fundraiser thrown for the Trust featuring Aligning Minds, Fractal Cat, Bassdread, and a silent auction with artwork by Alex Grey, Adam Scott Miller and others.  Below is a video of all your visionary Baltimore pals having fun and celebrating the resurrection of their friend.  I also taped Fractal Cat's set, and you can see them play a couple of songs with Tiffany Defoe and Rufus Roundtree on horns.  Closing the evening was half of Aligning Minds, and below you'll also find the audio of his entire set.

If you would like to donate to the Painted Talis-Man Trust click here.  Catch Telesma at the Resurrection party at Ram's Head Live July 20th.




Fractal Cat also has a Kickstarter page set up to raise money for their new album "The Eye in the Dawn".  Check the video below.

Filmish Fantastigorium - "The FP" Sunday July 15th

Sunday, July 15th  "Filmish Fantastigorium" presents a double feature of epic proportions.  It's at the Metro Gallery, doors open at 7pm, and after some shorts there's "The FP", a futuristic look at video game dance competitions with a coming-of-age story that is sure to have all the moves.  There's two gangs, fighting over a town, and in order to settle their conflict they compete over something that looks a lot like "Dance Dance Revolution".  The trailer is below, and you'll want to see more.  After "The FP", we'll play the movie "Father's Day", a frightening gore-fest from Troma that will make you want to lock your father up.  These films are rated "R" and deserve it, so no children.  FREE, with popcorn and air-conditioning.  My pal Eric assures me these films are so terrible they're great, and he wouldn't lie.

Future Islands Unplugged

Happy Summer everybody.  The 4th of July always means we are in the best of BBQ season, the beach is calling, and the sprinkler is in the front yard.  In that spirit, the photography show Wild Nothing opened at the Metro Gallery two years ago on July 10th, 2010.  Curated by Natasha Tylea and Elena Johnston, it featured pictures of Summer from a number of local photographers and personalities. Future Islands played a very special acoustic set that evening, and the recording came out quite well.  After some discussion of various avenues for the material, the video of their performance of "Vireo's Eye" was uploaded by their label Thrill Jockey Records.  I went on to upload a video of the photography show and a couple of tracks as well, which I've posted below.  I also made an alternative video for "Vireo's Eye" at the time, made of found footage from 8mm home movies.  The idea was to compliment the Summer themes of the day with the video montage.  In the end it was decided it wasn't the right time for it to be uploaded, as it would be too many versions of the single uploaded at once.  Now that we find ourselves in the throes of Summer once again, and the dust has cleared a bit around Future Islands' 2010 release "In Evening Air", it feels like a good time to finally revisit this phenomenal performance and give it some time in the sun.  Hope you all enjoy the rest of the week.  I know I will.

Hi Custodian - The Dirty Projectors

The trailer for the Dirty Projector's new film "Hi Custodian" just came out, and it looks absolutely amazing.  The film, directed by David Longstreth, accompanies much of the music from their new album "Swing Lo Magellan" which is out soon on Domino.  These guys aren't exactly local, but with a number of close associative ties to musicians in town, they seem just as Baltimorean as the best of us. 

12 O'Clock Boys

Baltimore film director Lotfy Nathan has been working on a documentary about dirt bike gangs in our city for over two years now, and it may be coming to completion soon.  After a successful Kickstarter campaign last April, a long trailer showing at the Full Frame Festival in Durham, NC and another short at the Stranger than Fiction Festival in NYC the film is highly anticipated.  So Sunday he uploaded a trailer onto YouTube that looks very similar to the one on the Kickstarter page.  If you haven't seen any of this material yet, check it out.



It is worth noting that this is not the first independent film to cover this material.  A quick scan of YouTube yields a ton of videos from a movie entitled "Baltimore Biker Boys: Above the Law".  It came out in 2010, and is available on DVD and can be purchased online (at least that's what is advertised).  Directed by David Lee Roberts, Jr. and produced by King David Productions, it looks as authentic as they come.  The truth is, I just can't get enough of this stuff.