The Independent Culture Project

It's about to get really quiet...

2009-03-23T23:53:00.007-05:00

Red River is full of cars again, the crowds have made their drunk little ways home, and Austin seems generally subdued. The Indonesian boys have cleared out of our living room, my email inbox is forlorn, sleep is being reincorporated into my daily routine and Phil (my bike) gets to roam around town at our leisure again.

Nathan has gone to New York to clear his head for a week before post production kicks off, and it seems like we're pretty much done with shooting. We're still in talks about what the possibilities are with pickup shoots in April -- Belaire will be recording and there are still a few things to get on film.

So what happens now? I'm going to stick around town for a few weeks, editing some stuff for a friend and whatnot. Jason and I are sitting down Thursday to talk about making a short doc together, which I'm very excited about. I'll be able to finish reading the book I started three weeks ago. I'm not sure how I'll be making rent, but if worse comes to worst, I'm not really using both kidneys. I'm always down for taking photos of your band, and if anyone is interested, you can see my photography work --> HERE <--. And then you can email me (jgazdag at gmail dot com) and we can make photographic magic!

As for the blog, it's been great to have a place to keep track of this whole experience. Clearly, I've had an amazing time working on this film, and I'm sad to see it be over. I'll be traveling for the next few months (hiking!), but Nathan will probably be updating here during the editing process, so check back regularly! Also, I've just recently noticed that people have been leaving comments, so I apologize for not responding. I've tweaked the settings to notify me of comments from now on, so feel free to leave some!

Signing off, for now....

~J

I'm blogging... about bloggers!

2009-03-22T11:16:00.006-05:00

Friday at noon we met up with a couple of our producers at the HotFreaks! party at the Mohawk. We were there to interview music bloggers, which, since I'm a total dork, was the most exciting shoot EVER.

Time was short, we were meeting Black Joe Lewis at Waterloo Records at 3, so we only got two interviews: My Old Kentucky Blog, and Gorilla vs. Bear. It was so bizarre meeting these guys. They had... well, faces. It was like meeting a radio personality. The fact that they have physical attributes just isn't part of the picture you paint for yourself.

Both interviews were great, and I got to speak with each blogger a bit about the work they do. Say what you want about music blogs being pretentious, hipster tripe, but these guys still have great taste, a lot of passion, and without them I wouldn't be in this town and working on this film. There was something wonderful about meeting the people whose writing I've had bookmarked in my browser for years.

Plus, when we got there I had a chance to catch the end of Bishop Allen's set! On our way out I heard She & Him and got really excited for a moment, until I realized it was just the filler music while the next band set up. M. Ward, must you tease me so?

We rushed over to Waterloo and filmed Joe and the Honeybears load in for their in-store show, then back to the Mohawk to snag more bloggers. They weren't there, of course, they'd all run off to see the Hold Steady. Can you blame them?

In the evening, the boys went back to Red River to get footage of the circus down there. Yesterday they did a few more blogger interviews, and then took a much needed break until late at night, when I picked them up to get more Red River circus shots.

Before I did, I stopped by Emo's to catch a glimpse of Jason's (you know, Belaire) other band, Voxtrot. I haven't seen them play for about a year and a half, and I love this band more than I love ice cream. And I really like my ice cream. So... yeah, it was a pretty great show. I can probably die happy now, even though I haven't seen Bowie.

I wanted to get some decent pictures for you guys, but my camera didn't have a press pass, and I knew that if I had it with me, it would be the ONE time my bag got searched at the door. So, low quality phone pictures, but the energy is there.

I left to pick up the boys, and had to smash my way through Emo's, zig-zag the crowd in the street, and run to Brazos and 2nd where my car was parked in a lot that apparently wouldn't let me go back later, which they normally do when SXSW isn't in town ruining my plans. Note to self: don't leave emergency asthma inhaler at home.

So... we're done shooting! Actually done! Except for some potential pickups in April, but we still high fived at the end of the night. And we're done with SXSW. I'm biking (biking!) down to the office later today to take care of some things, and then catching Yellow Fever at Beerland on my way home.

I have to say, after years of coveting this festival, I'm not sure what I think about it. The performers I've seen are amazing, and there's no other festival where I can see this many of my favorite artists in one place. But the shorts sets, the packed venues, the crowded streets, the lines and the general madness are a bit much.

A music festival should be about enjoying the music, about the audience being able to see several performances in a day. This festival is about selling each band, and selling as many bands as possible in a night. It's like Cari said, "music should be an open ended commodity, like air." Even though artists have to make a living, there's still a vast difference between working as a musician and playing your music in a display case, hoping passers by will come in and take a look.

T minus 3 days

2009-03-20T03:12:00.009-05:00

Ok, look. I will probably make no sense in this entry. The past two days have been spent on my feet, living off granola bars, filming and stubbornly going to shows. There's half a dozen Indonesian boys living in our living room (but we got free wristbands in exchange!). I'm not much of a drinker, but when I get sleepy enough it's like I'm drunk. I'm not sure why, it probably has to do with brain chemicals. I'm still going to write right now, though, for two reasons. One is, I figure I should capture the insanity of this exhaustion in an effort to convey a sense of authenticity of this production experience. Two is, if I don't do it now I never will, because I'm out and about again all day tomorrow and probably won't be near a computer until this time Saturday night.

Yesterday morning we met up with {{{sunset}}} at Premium Studio. There was a bit of a hitch -- when I'd gotten in touch with them to clear us for shooting, it turned out we weren't the only film crew. Radio K from Minneapolis was recording the show, both for their broadcast and video for their website. When we first got there no one knew if there would even be room for us in the studio! Oh no! In the end, though, it was all OK. We figured things out and made things work for both crews.

{{{sunset}}} getting ready to broadcast

Here's a great video from Radio K's website:

Sunset - Loveshines II (Live on Radio K's SXSW Broadcast) from Radio K on Vimeo.

After the broadcast the boys hopped in Bill Baird's famous vegetable oil run van and followed him around until the afternoon. We met up back at the office for some footage logging and regrouping, then went down to Red River to get SXSW culture shots. Transpo is insane right now, you guys. Red River and 6th are shut down and dropping the crew off and parking and everything is madness. And here I had naive little thoughts of riding my bike around the festival all week. Silly me.

Trey Brown played a showcase show at midnight, but since I wasn't on the list and couldn't park anywhere anyway, I just dropped off gear for the boys and went over to the Hideout Theatre, which had the BEST lineup ever. JC&Co. followed by {{{sunset}}} (how bad is your day when you see {{{sunset}}} play twice in it, right?), then Mark Ashworth (!!!) who was amaaaaazing and then Brazos but I had to miss them because it was time to pick the crew up. I keep missing out on Brazos shows. This is not something I like. Seriously, though, check out Mark Ashworth. Incredible. Nathan and I talked forever today about how amazing of a song "Something We Can Hold In Our Hands" is.

Today we spent all day at 6th and Red River. The guys went out and got more culture shots, while our PA Ceci and I stood by with release forms and eyes on our gear. We set up base camp on Neches at 6th. We were there a long time so we sat down on the sidewalk next to the camerabags. We must have looked somewhat hoboesque because we made ten bucks by the end of the day.

6th street today. This is usually where cars are. Not today!

Pedicabs are everywhere

After going back to the office and logging more footage, the boys called it a night. I should have too. I should have come home and snuggled under my covers and slept and slept and slept. But I'm not always sensible. Two years ago I sat at my sad little desk at my sad little job in New York and wistfully sighed as I made myself sad little SXSW schedules for shows I wouldn't get to go to. So tonight I thought, sleep be damned! I'm going to enjoy this festival since I'm finally here.

I went down to Emo's to see Yellow Fever, but they're actually playing tomorrow. Then I ran over to Antone's, filled with excitement to see Mirah play. Becuase she is amazing. Of course, this was when I realized I don't know how to read my own calendar, because she's also playing tomorrow. That made me sad. Thanks to my handy iPhone, however, I looked up the sxsw schedule and made it to the Matt & Kim show in time to rock out. For about 3 songs, which is when I starting getting sleepy. Leaving insanely moshing and crowd surfing youth behind, I wandered back to Red River and watched Peter Bjorn and John at Emo's with a lovely British lady I met, who was filming the show for their record company.

I'm pretty sure it was a good show. Things were beginning to get hazy by then - it was 1am already. I enjoyed it, though. Not as much as when I saw them in New York a couple of years ago, but then, it was still a half hour showcase show. Last year I was only at SXSW for the first weekend, and I remember missing out on Peter Moren's solo shows, which were apparently great. My friend PJ (who told me about Nathan and this film, and is the reason for my involvement in all this magic) followed him around for a couple of days. It was some sort of promotional mini documentary I think. I was all sorts of jealous. You can still watch the video here (nice cameos, B.).

Tomorrow we're interviewing bloggers at the Mohawk, which should be really interesting! Then we're doing an interview with Joe Lewis at Waterloo Records, and then more culture shots. This festival is madness, and madness = great footage.

We have three days left of production. Three. Days. We're really making them count.

Beauty Bar gets Art Disastered and I run off to the woods to wear flannel

2009-03-18T03:27:00.012-05:00

We spent all afternoon on Red River getting some sweet steadycam shots of Cari and then Bill Baird. Then we headed over to Beauty Bar, where Dániel Perlaky was throwing his annual Art Disaster SXSW party. Nathan and Rob got all sorts of footage following Dániel around, crowd shots, and the whole festival scene.

They left as soon as they were done, but despite a long tiring day and a gnawing headache, I couldn't bring myself to leave knowing the night's lineup on the outdoor stage. At midnight Belaire played a fantastic set, setting the crowd a dancing and smiling. It's really difficult to photograph them during a show. Or rather, it's difficult to keep my camera steady enough for a good picture when my feet are so motivated and restless to daaaaance.

Following Belaire, the last set of the night was none other than Eprhyme, with Y-Love and Diwon. I absolutely had to stay to watch, since Eprhyme is better known to me as my friend Eden, who I worked with last fall at a Jewish farm/retreat center up in Falls Village, Connecticut. He was one of the first people I met, and taught me all sorts of interesting things. What a small world indeed! The boys brought some great energy, and got the crowd doing some crazy moves.

Eprhyme

Eprhyme + Y Love

Tomorrow we're shadowing Bill Baird all day, starting early in the morning with a radio show , following him to a day show and another radio broadcast, and ending with a showcase show. It's now 3:30am, which means I'll be able to get a whole 3 hours of sleep until then! Yay? It's an intense week, but also our last one.

Production is officially done on Sunday, though we may still do some pickups in April. For now, though, we're clawing our way through this last stretch, adamant to get everything and get it right. Everyone's exhausted and stressed, and it's tough to keep our focus. I seem to be opting for escapism as my solution, and have pretty much spent the past few weeks daydreaming of throwing my phone in a lake and going hiking in Oregon.You could say I'm pining for the pines... har har (it's pun city, and I'm mayor!). Knowing myself, I'll probably buy a plane ticket up there the second we wrap.

There are still at least five long days until then, though, filled with $x$w magic and wonder...

Resume transmission

2009-03-16T00:26:00.002-05:00

I think my body has lost all sense of what a time zone is, I am exhausted beyond words, and it's been a pretty awful week in general, but all it takes is one song to supersede all of that. This is how music is so powerful.

I was walking through Ronald Reagan Airport this afternoon (which makes about as much sense when you're trying to navigate it as Ronald Reagan himself did), from my 8th flight this week to the 9th. Almost back in Austin, I naturally had headphones on to get me from point A to B (or, well, point Q to point R at this point). I've been on an abnormally intense Decemberists kick lately, and the past couple of days have been devoted to the song "The Legionnaire's Lament." The moment it began playing, it was like I had taken a shower in a vat of espresso coffee. Despite everything, the second the chorus kicked in, someone could just as well have been injecting it in my vein. Everything else melted away for a moment -- all that existed was the music and the sudden bounce in my step (and some really cool lego fixtures under glass that were randomly in the terminal and distracted me so long I almost missed my flight).

It's SXSW week here in Austin. We're filming various aspects of it, both positive and negative. We're filming our own heroes who we've been working with for months now, too. I'm torn between excitement and cynicism. There's so much great music this week, it's absolutely overwhelming. Each moment of each day somewhere I can experience something like what I did today at the airport when I heard that certain song. Live music has a magic all its own that can't be captured outside of experiencing it. So yes, it's very exciting to have so many artists left, right, and center.

But it's still SXSW. It's not like those festivals that are all about throwing a giant musical party for days on end. It's a film festival as well as a music one, and the music week seems to be designed a lot like the film one. As far as official shows go, bands play showcases -- they get 30 minutes to show off for the industry folk who've come to town to find a new crop of kids to tap their feet to and market to the 14-30 demographic. Something in me cringes at the thought that even though I might get to see a band I adore and rarely see live, it won't be a real show. It'll be a demo.

I think the perfect example of this is how we ended up deciding not to shoot a band at the festival, who we've been wanting to work with for months. The Octopus Project puts on an amazing stage show, and they haven't played live since we started production so this was going to be a perfect opportunity. We realized, though, that their set would be short, and without most of the theatrics they usually involve. So what's the point? They're touring in Texas next month, let's just go down to Houston or something, right? Right.

Even though this is going to be a very exciting and fun week, and I'm definitely looking forward to it, I can't help but take it all with a grain of corporate salt. After months of strolling down to local venues and enjoying shows, the thought of fighting my wristbanded way in (or standing in lines) just to see a band play half a set isn't all that palatable. I'm somewhat nervous that my most enjoyable musical experience during this of all weeks will have been that moment at Ronald Reagan airport. How ironic would it be, if the most palpable music this week will have been the only one that wasn't live? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll see how the week goes before I get too cynical.

brief intermission

2009-03-04T17:28:00.000-06:00

In a few days I'm going to be taking a break from this blog (and this project) for a couple of days to be with family.

Film, especially documentaries, become your life while you're working on them. So much time and energy goes into the work, and for months at a time it's the single thing you're focusing on. It's not that you don't consider how the world continues to turn, but that's something you can think about later when you're done, because the work takes precedence over everything else. Well, almost everything.

Sometimes you have put down your tools and go deal with things that don't wait, until shooting wraps. If you're lucky enough to be working with a crew and a staff who understand that certain personal priorities outweigh that of the work, then you're very fortunate indeed.

We're wrapping filming in a few weeks, but there are still some great shoots and SXSW until then, so keep reading, I'll be back soon...

I've worn so many hard hats this past week I'm starting to feel like a Discovery Channel special series

2009-02-27T13:23:00.004-06:00

Yesterday morning we did an interview at Urbanspace, as part of our ongoing exploration of what all the development in Austin means for its culture.

In the afternoon we went over to the Austonian, where we met with Bob, the construction manager. He took us up six floors in one elevator, then we transferred to another one and went up to the 29th floor. The view was incredible, and the wind intense, whipping through the windowless concrete floor we were standing on.

Nathan and Rob wanted a better shot, so we climbed up three more floors on thin, wooden stepladders. It felt kind of unstable and there were no beams on either side to protect you if you were to slip and fall down several floors onto dusty concrete with nails and things sticking out. Needless to say, I didn't look down.

One of the shorter ladders

Dang

We got some nice shots but had the wrong tripod, so there were a lot of missed shots too. We got a decent amount of work done, and Bob offered to bring us back for a sunset shoot. If we're really lucky and he's comfortable enough trusting Rob, he'll probably get to go up on the crane here too and get some great footage of Congress Ave. from above.

Barton Creek towards the East

West Downtown

Today we have a production meeting (which I'll spare you the details of), and tomorrow the guys are going to shoot wit Bill Baird in his studio.

The Crane

2009-02-25T21:09:00.005-06:00

One of my aspirations in life is to eventually become one of those people who go to bed early and wake up early. Dawn is my favorite time of day and I'm absolutely a morning person -- I'm just never awake to enjoy it. So when I had to get up at 5am yesterday for a sunrise shoot on top of the Spring condo-to-be, I saw it as a great opportunity to really savor a morning.

And what a morning! It was absolutely gorgeous, albeit frigid. The sky was smeared with clouds here and there, with a thick layer at the horizon so that when the sun began to rise through it, the glow was a bright orange perfect sphere.

The only awkward part of the morning was being the only girl in an elevator packed with construction workers. That was a first.

Nathan and Rob got some wonderful shots of the city, and Kirby - the project manager - was so gracious and open to our project that he got Rob up onto the crane later in the morning.

Rob vs. The Crane

Thus begins the climb...

Climbing... The tallest crane currently in Austin, by the way.

For the record: it takes the crane operator 22+ minutes to climb up to his perch every morning. Rob did it in 12.

You know what else Rob did? Blow my mind with the footage he shot. The whole office was talking about it yesterday after we'd logged it and watched it. I should have some screencaps soon, but I can't even... it's amazing. He got shots from every part of the crane, and at one point he climbed into a basket and was wheeled out to the far edge. Then the crane was spun around so he could shoot the whole city below. There's a point where you can see a tiny Dave below, loading gear into his tiny car.

I have to say, even though this city is full of very open and relaxed people, and we owe many thanks to Perry Lorenz and Kirby Kuntz for granting us such access to their site, at the end of the day all you need is a couple of cameras and no boundaries. Our attitude, both crew and production staff, has been to just go for it and it's really turning our material into something immensely impressive. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's to at least give things a shot -- you never know when it may turn out to be worth it.

After watching Rob's footage, we met up with Dana Falconberry by the South Lamar Bridge. The interview turned out to flow really well and went for way longer than planned, with the guys following her down along the riverbank for the second leg of it. She even played a few songs, and then in the evening we filmed her show at Salvage Vanguard. The greek play/rave set is still intact, and the room was rapt with attention. She has such a beautiful voice and such truly lovely songs. I noticed a woman watching her sing, completely astounded, a smile of mesmerized wonder stuck on her face. I must say, I agree with her sentiment.

Today we shot some follow up stuff with James Moody, and tomorrow we have an interview with some real estate guys and then a shoot from atop the Austonian. Early to bed I go...

What day is it again?

2009-02-24T14:29:00.000-06:00

It's been a crazy few days, and it looks like there are only more like it to come! Saturday night Gary Clark Jr. played a birthday show at Antone's with Bavu Blakes. It was both intense and fun -- those guys can rip up a stage like nobody's business.

When Gary Clark Jr. first took the stage, I looked down and saw a tall man in a suit go up to Rob. He was clearly asking him to turn his camera off, but by the time I fought my way through the crowd to where he'd been shooting, Rob was gone. I found him a minute later and took the tall man in the suit aside to see what was up. Turns out he was Gary's father and didn't know we were filming the show. We smoothed everything out and Rob went on shooting the show. It was intense for a few minutes, there but we didn't lose too much filming time luckily.

This morning we went back to the Spring condo-in-progress to get some dawn shots, so I'll be posting about that later. Rob climbed up the crane! Amazing.

Right now I'm running off to meet the guys near downtown, where we're shooting an interview with Dana Falconberry! We're also filming her show tonight at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, so there will be a lot to catch up on...

Various glowing cities

2009-02-16T11:17:00.013-06:00

Last night {{{sunset}}} held an EP release party at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. The space was set up for a play that's currently at the theatre, which, according to my sources is a rave/greek play, so there you go. The layout and lighting were really cool - the stage was tiered and jutted out so the audience could not only surround it on three sides, but sit on the steps so it felt a bit more connected than the usual audience | performer layout.

A good half dozen other bands played, and the place was pretty packed. There were a lot of familiar faces, and it took me a while to realize why that was strange -- I'm just not used to seeing them here yet. So I guess I must be acclimating and really living here, which is nice. It's incredibly thrilling to be in the middle of a completely foreign place, having adventures and whatnot. It's also a bit scary sometimes, being a tiny you in a big, new place.

As a part of the EP release festivities, the band brought a cake to commemorate YouTube's birthday.

This morning we filmed a conversation between Catarina Sigerfoos and Carolyn Schwarz, of SIMS and HAAM. Both institutions do great things for local musicians, and the two of them go way back so there was good energy.

Then, finally, 3:45 rolled around and it was hard hat time! We met up with Perry Lorenz, one of the most powerful developers in town, under the Spring building. The structure is pretty intimidating from that angle, especially when Dave keeps cracking jokes about plummeting in the elevator with the counterweight following.

To be fair, I joined in, but only because Nathan is supposedly more scared of heights than I am. He didn't seem fazed at all once we were in the elevator, actually, and Dave was the only one who seemed uncomfortable - though that may have had to do with the awkwardness of the hard hat vs. headphones situation.

Perry was joined by Kirby Kuntz, whose company is building the Spring Towers. We climbed into a construction elevator (passing the counterweight on our way up) and went up to the 41st floor.

Which is very high up. And unfinished. A few corners were still missing windows, everything was concrete, and interestingly enough the giant "41" that marks the floor, and that I see on my way home from the office all the time, is no more fancy than what you used to make school projects with.

Outside on what will soon be a balcony, Perry talked to us about developing in Austin.

He's proud that this high rise is going up while so many people are feeling the effects of the recession, and while he's a pretty liberal guy and values local music and arts, he thinks that the cultural changes surrounding the building of condos like the Spring are inevitable. He's the most powerful developer in town for a reason.

This is 2 stories below the top of the building, which is 494 ft. tall -- 6 feet short of being required to abide by airplane flightpath safety regulations.

After the interview Perry showed us around the top of the building. We looked around the future penthouse while speaking with him and Kirby Kuntz some more. The giant red crane that looms over downtown was suddenly very close. Perry told us that the man who operates it gets up there at 6:30 in the morning and is up there all day, and then asked what would be the first question one would pose... "how does he pee?" of course. He pointed to a black tube running down the side of the crane.

I still have my doubts. (Also, are there ever any lady crane operators?)

Once a week a guy climbs to the top of the elevator pulleys to grease them -- we lucked out, because apparently that day is Monday!

Right??!

It started to rain and was getting late, so we packed up our things and headed back down. We're going to try and go back to get some nice shots of the city when it's not all cloudy and the light's better.

Finally, since I'm going nuts with the photo posting anyway, I leave you with my favorite:

This is where the elevators will go.

Talking to a lot of people

2009-02-15T12:39:00.003-06:00

Thursday we had our second interview with James Moody (owner of the Mohawk, Transmission Entertainment). This time around he was joined by Graham Williams (also Transmission Entertainment). It's been about two months since we last met, so there was a lot to discuss about the Live Music Task Force and everything else in town.

I couldn't get a photo during the interview since I was filming with one of the cameras.

Revisiting someone we've spoken with before gave us a more linear sense, I think, of how the story we're following has progressed in the past two months. There was a specific place in time and events that took place that we now followed up on, and a progression between the "then" and the "now."

The next day we spoke with Paul Oveisi, owner of Momos on 6th street and chair of the Live Music Task Force. It's so interesting to me how many different things people have their hand in. For a town that seems very relaxed and mellow, there are a lot of people here who do what seems like an immense amount of work all at once. Paul not only chairs the Task Force, owns Momos and is there most nights, he's managed bands and is involved with the music scene very actively. Maybe because everything here is so chill that it's possible to do all these things at once -- less stress and less crunch time opens up more space for involvement.

Tonight we're filming the {{{sunset}}} show at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre. Tomorrow we have an interview with reps from SIMS and HAAM in the morning, and in the afternoon we're interviewing Perry Lorenz, a very influential developer in town. He's taking us up to the Spring condo, which is still under construction (we get to wear hard hats and everything!), giving us an interview up there and maybe even letting us get some nice shots of the city during magic hour. I predict beautiful pictures tomorrow....

Not quite ours

2009-02-11T12:48:00.004-06:00

We're working on getting some video content up here, but post-production isn't quite at that stage yet. In the meantime, I thought it would be interesting to grab some things from and about the artists we're focusing on most, and share them here.

This is from Belaire's Vimeo page and was made by Cari and Christine:

You Really Got Me Goin' from Belaire on Vimeo.

This video is taken from {{{sunset}}}'s blog - I picked it because we have some beautiful footage of Bill Baird playing it, which made me love it even more than I already did.

This is just a cool SOUND Team piece from La Blogotheque's Concerts à emporter. Since SOUND Team is so closely related to {{{sunset}}} I think it's fair enough to include it here.

#SPLIT 07 - SOUND TEAM - No More Birthdays
by lablogotheque

Finally, here's a video of Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears that I found on Yahoo videos:

Black Joe Lewis - Lolla clip @ Yahoo! Video

"That sounds really cool... what is it exactly?"

2009-02-09T14:20:00.005-06:00

People keep telling me that they like reading this blog - right before they ask what exactly the film is about. And while it's a work in progress that's constantly taking on a more exact shape, I can still sum up what it is we're doing. As a handy reference, I've added a link to the sidebar ("about the film") which will explain things.

Basically, we're making a documentary about indie culture in Austin and how it relates to the city. We're exploring artists' process and work, while also covering the landscape of the venues they play, the people who book them, the various sides of the noise ordinance issue, and the changing landscape of Austin both culturally and physically.

So how did I get to be a part of this? I've been working in film and television, with a dash of theatre for good measure, for a few years now. About three years ago a friend of mine told me I should check out a band called Voxtrot, and the whole Austin love affair kind of snowballed from there. I was struck by the interesting sounds and vibrant spirit of the music coming out of here, and by the communal sense each band or artist exuded. When I discovered Belaire I felt like I had stumbled into a whole new universe - especially when the EP I ordered showed up in the mail, completely hand made. Thoughts of moving to Austin and documenting this incredible niche started formulating in my head.

Nathan and I have a mutual friend here in Austin, who forwarded the link for the ATX Converge preliminary piece that was done for this film. I was working on a farm in CT at the time and didn't really want to leave, but I had to take this opportunity - the guy had already started work on my idea! I got in touch with him immediately and basically told him that I'm coming to work on his film, and after showing him the various reasons this would be a good idea, I was invited down as line producer.

All I had wanted to do was to explore the bands I liked and see where it took me. Nathan, however, knows this city much better and has a great eye for the grand scope of things. The Live Music Task Force, the emerging architecture, the dynamics of venues and a knowledge of the people involved. So when I was invited to come down and see Belaire record a new album, interview Bill Baird, go on tour with Peter and the Wolf... well, what would you have said?

So I guess that's basically what the film is about. It's a film about local music from an emotionally invested fan's perspective. It's about every element that comes together when music is made. You can't just have an album; you need artists to record it, who need a stage to perform and hone it on, a workspace to craft it, an audience to listen to it. You need a city that supports the arts, but everything is a compromise.

On the one hand, supporting means allowing freedom for performers. On the other other hand, being a city means respecting citizens, even if those citizens moved into a condo across the street from the Mohawk right before they started complaining about the noise. Developing new condos downtown is the logical next step in expanding industry here, and putting weight under the support beam of local artists -- it can cause conflict, however, when out of towners start taking over the DIY sensibilities of the locals.

So this is why we're filming. This is what we want to capture. We want to be flies on the walls of this town, watching what happens and letting progression and change speak for itself.

You don't know what you'll be listening to next week, but they do

2009-02-07T22:50:00.002-06:00

This past Thursday we followed Dániel Perlaky over to Sean O'Neil's office at The Onion, where much was discussed about the usual topics: indie bands, the challenges of Austin living/working, changing landscapes both music and industry-wise etc.

We first spoke with Dániel on the street...

Filming in Sean's office

Nathan, Sean and Dániel

Once again I'm amazed at how interconnected this city is. There hasn't been a single person we've spoken to, who doesn't have ties to at least five others.

In the meantime, we've met with Bryan Keplesky from Misprint about animating some of his work for the film, have interviews lined up with representatives from SIMS (counseling services for musicians) and HAAM (Health Alliance for Austin Musicians), an interview coming up with Austin real estate developer Perry Lorenz, and an amazing cityscape shoot from atop the Austonian (one of the new condo buildings in progress). I would also like to point out, that the previous sentence is not a run-on, and technically grammatically correct. Also: Perry Lorenz will be doing the interview at the Spring condo building which is under construction, so we get to wear hard hats and everything.

While these shoots are less oriented towards the live music end of things, they should be a pretty fascinating insight into the various cogs and gears of the various elements of this town.

So you're making a low-budget documentary...

2009-02-01T20:58:00.004-06:00

This happens to practically anyone trying to make an indie film anywhere these days. Maybe it's because we're halfway through production that I'm feeling the stress a lot right now. The thing is, when you're making a low-budget film, be it documentary or whatever else, you're always improvising new ways of making the best of what little cash you have, and hoping that things will somehow stay in one piece until you finish.

Don't worry, this film will absolutely be finished. We're definitely way past the point of no return, and Reversal Films has put so much into it. I've never worked with a company like this -- the producers spend all of their time working to raise funds, and the crew gets to work without being disturbed. Nathan pretty much has free reign to work as he does best, and it's yielded some incredible ideas (not to mention footage!) so far.

I feel like we're in a slightly odd situation here. Austin isn't exactly known for its film industry, and the more I deal with vendors and rental places, the more I feel like I have to immediately be firm and prove that I'm not some silly kid putting together a half-assed student film or experimental project. That I actually know what I'm doing and am a professional. On the flipside, a lot of artists view us with wary eyes and sidelong glances. I don't blame them either, usually film crews that roll into town filming bands end up exploiting their image and popularity and leave the artists with a crummy rep and barely any cash.

The more we progress the less I feel like the latter is a problem. Still, it's difficult to prove yourself to someone you haven't worked with. You can tell them what you're all about, but until they see it, you're all lip to them. We're well aware of it, not just for the obvious reasons but because it's yet another topic we're exploring. SOUND Team and the way Capitol Records treated them; White Denim and the images they ended up being a part of unwillingly. White Denim was actually very skeptical of us, until Nathan took James Moody, owner of Transmission Entertainment and the Mohawk into the editing room.

Really, all anyone has to do is talk to Nathan for ten seconds. He has such a strong vision and is so passionate about this project, it's impossible not to get caught up. Every couple of days brings a new revelation about where the film is going and what is should say, how it should say it, and how we can find that moment in real life. Of course, I was on board for this film before I even heard about it, but I've seen others' reactions, so technically, that's an unbiased statement.

Sometimes all I see is how narrowly we can make things happen. Other times all I see is everything we've done so far and everything that lies ahead, and the rest just seems like a technicality - once we can maneuver our way through it, we can get back to focusing on the real task at hand.

"The rock is about to be unfolded"

2009-01-28T02:46:00.003-06:00

Continuing on our quest to capture every Belaire associated project on film, we shot tonight's JC & Co. show at the Mohawk. JC & Co. is basically Jason Chronis' solo project, for which Cari does backup vocals and ex-Belaire drummer Matt Simon plays drums. A gentleman by the name of Phil plays [a sweet Hofner] bass, and another gentleman by the name of Edward Alan plays lead guitar.

It was a really nasty night out, especially by Austin standards. Freezing cold, just enough so the rain that had been falling all day would bite at your skin but not actually freeze. Few people came out (which, frankly, is kind of lame - the show was indoors, and way better than sitting at home), but the band brought tons of energy and humor to the stage. Jason said he's recording the new tracks that didn't get onto the 7" over the summer, and by the sound of it they're going to be all sorts of great.

Unfolding the rock...

Jason and Jason in Nathan's camera

Cari engages the crowd

I must mention, though it's not really related to our film, the band who played before JC & Co.: Musée Mécanique. They're a Portland band (hence the not being related to our film, though it would be amazing to make a film about that whole scene too), and a few months ago when Belaire's van was broken into during their West Coast tour, they ended up staying with the guys from Musée Mécanique when they got to Portland. Their set was absolutely beautiful, and they even pulled off a great cover of Paul Simon's Graceland. You should check them out.

They looked like such Portlandites. It was a palpably stark contrast to the Austinites present. Very awesome.

Can you move your hips to this, son

2009-01-26T04:22:00.006-06:00

Man, I'm tired. Discovering heretofore uncharted territories of awesomeness is exhausting. It's about 4:30 in the morning, so it's been an hour or so since I got home from Beauty Bar, where I saw the greatest lineup play that I've seen for quite some time: No Mas Bodas, Gayle Gold and Fancy Feast.

OK first of all, No Mas Bodas was fantastic. They took the stage and a few minutes later Nathan and I had this moment -- we looked at each other and both of us wordlessly agreed with the other, that this was something really amazing. He grabbed a camera and started filming then and there.

They're experimental, they're fascinating, they're original and they're an all girl four-piece to boot! Christina, the lead singer, is a sweet looking honey voiced, adorably dressed, curly haired 50's sweetheart with a style and passion that's as gritty as her aesthetic isn't. The band uses pre-recorded sounds as well as live, the latter of which includes a cello. I must admit, I have a soft spot for classical instruments used in modern music. They're playing at Christina's house in a couple of weeks, and you can bet we'll be there!

Then Gayle Gold played, who also played at Emo's when we filmed The Cari and Jason Band last week. They are still awesome and have a great energy and songs to warrant it. When your lead singer launches into cartwheels in the middle of the audience, you probably don't have to worry too much about putting on a great show.

Cari watching Gayle Gold

And finally, Cari took the stage as Fancy Feast. Most of her music was pre-recorded and came from her iPod. Now, don't you even try to raise that eyebrow; I haven't been rocked this hard since I can't even remember. For the first time since I started photographing shows, I put my camera on hold because I just had to dance! The energy in the room built incredibly fast and didn't break until the end of the show. Cari kept it going with a lot of dancing in the midst of the crowd.

Cari's sister Christa added some vocals to the mix

I could make this an endless entry about all that is brilliant about this woman. Alas, it is very late (bordering on alarmingly early) so I'll keep it brief. Her music is original and inspiring, full of youth and energy and experimentation. She embodies it when she performs, but what's really striking is how she brings a completely different energy to the stage depending on which of her projects she's perfoming with, while retaining her personality and artistic essence completely. I've never seen an artist quite this, nor with such an infectious energy and creative spirit. She's also extremely generous with her work, which she's put up on Bandcamp for everyone to partake -- just make sure to spread the word and share!

Did I also mention...

Girl sprained her ankle and still danced like a fiend. B a d a s s.

More frequent updating, I swear

2009-01-23T17:46:00.004-06:00

I know, I know. I was at Sundance most of the week and we've started work on editing so even though we're all insanely busy, I figure lengthy accounts of our adventures with Final Cut may not be what you, the reader, is looking for at this moment in time.

Last night, however, we shot a Stormshadow show at Red 7. The Fresh Boy Crew were all there, who I finally met (since only the film crew has been going to shoot their meetings - we like to give the artists space to work and not crowd them more than neccesary). You should check out the links, they're intensely badass.

Speaking of badass, Cari from Belaire went in to our office to check out what we've filmed so far this week and was really impressed. She's doing a Fancy Feast show at Beauty Bar this coming Sunday night, which we'll be filming. This is very exciting. Why? Oh, I'll tell you.

Fancy Feast was Cari's solo project around 2005. She hasn't done a show in ages (as Fancy Feast, I mean), especially since the Belaire wheels started turning faster and faster. So this show is going to be pretty special. Personally, I didn't think I'd even get to see one while here in Austin, and it's perfectly timed since we're still in production! Should be good times indeed.

The Cari and Jason Band plays Emo's

2009-01-18T11:06:00.003-06:00

Last night Business Deal had a record release show at Emo's, for the Band Lotto album. The idea was basically: 33 musicians were picked at random, put into one of 9 bands, assigned an instrument and a song subject at random. The album is a compilation of what they came up with. A few of the bands who contributed members to the project played the release show, including Gayle Gold and Pataphysics, who put on pretty crazy/awesome live shows.

The crew gets ready to shoot...

We were there to film the Cari and Jason Band, however, and needless to say, those two have a very unique stage presence. I watched the show with a friend who hadn't seen them play before, and she spent pretty much the entire show elated at how endearing they were and what a great sound they had. What was really interesting was hearing a couple of songs that Belaire also plays, but with only Cari and Jason playing them, the energy seemed to have been reshuffled a bit, certain sounds more prominent than others.

There's something very unique about indie music in Austin. It's palpable if you just listen to tracks, but seeing bands live brings it out all the more. There's a freedom, an unassuming sense of experimentation and pure youthful excitement about artistry. It's not just a bunch of kids with guitars and drums making sounds. They're musicians, people with a craft who know how to use it and push boundaries without fear of doing so.

Once again I can't help but be amazed at what's happening here. That this energy exists, not only despite most of those involved barely making a living at it, but that this energy that draws so many people here, so much money and involvement and attention -- how is it not getting its due? I'm glad we're making this film now. I think we're making it right, saying what needs to be said and appreciating what is in front of us.

Town of Machine

2009-01-15T16:50:00.008-06:00

By Nathan

Note: This is a little late in coming but, being one of our best shoots, it's definitely worth a blog.

Construction, progress, noise.

photo by Kate Boswell

We're shooting the skeletal high-rise condos in our film as if they are characters themselves. Noisy, moving, rhythmic.

We shot the IDM duo Machine over the holiday break (Ha! Break!) as they walked through the construction sites of the soon-to-be lofts for Austin's well-monied. The workers slammed, hammered, and drilled and Machine recorded it. They looked like two musical bandits, aiming their shotgun mics directly at the sound (music).

Machine walked along railroad tracks. A train blew by. They got as close as they could to the clanging and screeching while Rob and I filmed it all, my voice rising above the noise: "Don't get too close to the tracks!" They were so focused.

Jonathan - the keyboardist, with his bleached white hair and Chase, down by the tracks in a placid crouch. When the train passed, they looked up at each other and smiled knowingly. Jonathan simply said, "We got it," and they walked down the tracks with their newly-collected booty.

Later that night, and in the nights that followed (including New Year's Eve), Machine got to work, standing before their analogue motherboard of keys, sequencers, Kaos pads, and turntables, turning the city sounds into percussive beats. With Chase living in Boston and Jonathan living in sometimes San Antonio, sometimes Austin, their meetings together are long and intense dump sessions of all the backlogged material they'd both been toying with in the previous year. Their song titles are hallucinatory dream-like portraits of parallel worlds:
'Order in the Clockroom'
'Andromedia'
'Town of Machine'
or
musical sketches of poetic moments:
'Sun Slipping
'Balloon at My Door'

photo by Kate Boswell

After a 2am lull, they launch into an industrial freakout number called 'Moonface,' morphing the hissing drone of the city into an undefinable cacophony. This is not exactly Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, but Machine's music is taking us into experimental realms we haven't yet explored. Beyond this, they are the youngest musicians to show up on-screen. Walking down Lamar, Chase marvels at how quickly the city is changing. Because they aren't ingrained in the "scene" (a term I'm usually loathe to use), there is a freedom about the way they operate. In the grander scope of the film, they represent the young artist taking a seemingly untenable change and turning it into something beautiful.

photo by Kate Boswell

After the New Year's countdown is over and cracked drunk voices croon 'Auld Lang Syne', Machine leads us into the next chapter. Jonathan sits against a wall and recounts a story of the first time he ever heard a drum machine mixed with organic instruments, many years back. The band he had heard was just getting on their feet themselves.

"I had no idea what I was getting myself into," he says.

"What was the band?" I ask.

"The Octopus Project."

Focus Group @ Beauty Bar

2009-01-15T13:47:00.003-06:00

Last night we filmed Focus Group playing at Beauty Bar, which was actually an EP release party for another band, but Focus Group was our main... well, focus.

These guys are incredibly nice, and were very open to us. Before the show we went outside, up 7th street a few buildings and shot an interview with them on the street. There was much talk - of course - of the experience of the Austin musician, and how it compares to playing music in other towns.

The show itself was amazing. They mix pre-recorded and live music, which is always interesting but they have a great sense for sounds and rhythms. They're tight as a band, and have some intensely danceable/moveable tracks.

The best track was one that, last night, was called Yugoslavia. Basically, while the others start playing, Donald goes out into the crowd and asks various people various questions. One person is asked to make their favorite animal noise, another their favorite Batman fight sound etc. The last question was a guy's favorite country, which he said was Yugoslavia (which, for the record, isn't actually called Yugoslavia anymore) - hence the song's title. Donald then went back to play guitar, and as the song progressed, Andrew mixed in the samples they had just recorded from the audience.

Audience interaction is always a plus at live shows, but it was really interesting to see how they incorporated it into the music. The song is different every time they play it live, and you have to enjoy it as you hear it because it's in the moment. So great.

Revenge of the Fish

2009-01-13T12:05:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we did another shoot following Joe Lewis on his seafood delivery adventures. The energy was different this time and I think Nathan was pretty pleased with what we got. Not to mention, we had a cinesaddle at our disposal, so we got some really incredible shots. I promise I'll spice up this blog with some conflict soon, but I can't help it if things are going well. This is a great town, full of great artists being followed by a great film crew with a great idea. Did I mention things were great? Anyway. Here's a shot of Rob strapping the cinesaddle to the hood of Joe's delivery truck:

And Joe making a delivery, crew in tow:

In the evening we went by Dillingerilla studios to talk to Troy Dillinger about Save Austin Music. He and an old friend, John Driver, talked about all sorts of things from the way Austin was back in the 70's to the changes in focus of the industry in town today. John played around on the guitar and we just sat and listened to the two of them reminiscing and discussing the situation today, why Save Austin Music is important, why so many artists are living below the poverty line and how that could change.

Troy and John on the couch.

Troy's cat. Not too relevant, but very sweet.

From Nathan

2009-01-10T20:34:00.002-06:00

While we haven't dropped a line in some time, we've been hard at work, hitting the asphalt day after day. This film is turning into much more than a performance film. It deals with the socio-economics of this city and the rampant development that is happening downtown (15+ high rises all going up at once) and how that's affecting the average working musician. To recap. Since May, we have been collecting a surplus of intimate footage of bands including White Denim, Belaire, Peter and the Wolf, {{{Sunset}}}, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, DJ Orion, folksinger Trey Brown, and others. I think they are the best Austin's got. We are running the spectrum of genres and bands, from my brother's IDM group Machine, who are very new to Austin, to the Grammy-nominated Latin artist Adrian Quesada and his supercharged ensemble Brownout! We have The Octopus Project and Gary Clark, Jr. slate for January and February.

As I said, this is not simply a concert performance film. It is just as much about the feverish changes Austin is currently undergoing as it is about the bands. The theme at the center of the film concerns the nature of culture itself. Austin owns the moniker "The Live Music Capital of the World." With new noise ordinances, re-zoning laws imposed on the downtown arts area, and late-night performance curfews, many managers, club owners, and musicians are coming out of the woodwork in support of the recently-created Live Music Task Force, which has hosted more than a dozen highly contentious meetings at City Hall. A great deal is at stake. In filming the creative processes and struggles of each musician, we will be illuminating the value of an independent culture amidst an encroaching corporate world

With the ardent help of our excellent assistant editor, Nate Ferrone, we've been scouring the footage of the Live Music Task Force City Hall meetings, which have taken place for nearly a year now. With each meeting, more angry citizens collect to complain about the "noise" keeping them awake at night. It really reaches a Theater of the Absurd level at points, with one man (bulging vein and all) likening Austin musicians to terrorists coming through his walls at night, terrorizing him. "Even with all my doors and windows shut and a towel wrapped around my head, I hear the music coming through my walls!" While I can't help but laugh at the madness (DON'T LIVE DOWNTOWN IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE SOUND OF MUSIC INTO THE NIGHT!), we are going to give these people their piece. Not only does it dramatically charge the story, but it allows everyone to have a voice. I told Robert (DP) and David (sound) that we need to seek out this guy and spend a Friday night with him. I said it will probably be one of the most uncomfortable nights of our lives, but that we need it for our film.

Suffice it to say, there are still threads we do not have, but we are working overtime to find them. We stop shooting at the end of February, and the film will hopefully be complete around mid-May. Stay tuned...

"Living will take you on different courses than the ones you expect to be set on"

2009-01-08T18:17:00.003-06:00

So in the past two weeks while we were technically on a break, Nathan, Rob and Dave filmed a Brownout show, a bunch of amazing stuff with Machine - including the guys going out and recording noise like trains etc. and then making music out of it - and we're about to rock January's socks off.

Meanwhile, I've been researching all this construction going on in Austin. We're going to try to shoot from atop one of these impending condo structures, and we're set to interview Perry Lorenz, a big man in the world of Austin construction. We're also prepping for a few BIG days of filming, but I won't say more on that just yet...

Tomorrow night the guys are filming a White White Lights show. You need to click on that link and listen to this band. Trust me. If you're in Austin, the show is at Emo's after 8pm and the show is free.

We're also going to do another follow-along shoot with Black Joe Lewis as he delivers fish and other aquatically derived goods, and are going to be attending the Save Austin Music meetings that are dotting the next few weeks. We've got an interview with Troy Dillinger at some point, who's been doing a great deal of work with Save Austin Music and spoke at the rally/march to City Hall from Antone's. And of course, Belaire is starting work on the new album, so that should be pretty amazing too.

Nathan's about to update too, and we should have some production stills from the past few weeks coming in tomorrow so you'll get to check those out too. I know, I know. I'm excited too.

Day 3,476 (well, it feels like it anyway)

2008-12-17T20:33:00.003-06:00

It's December. It's ridiculously cold by Austin standards. Naturally, we shot outside yesterday.

Dániel Perlaky of Indierect Records, and Victor Moyers, a big player on Austin's creative scene met up with us at Spider House. The two of them have great insight into what's going on with the arts in this town right now, and they're fascinating to watch when interacting. The agreeing! The disagreeing! The idea exchanging! Seriously, they have a crazy energy, and this back and forth thing going on that's fantastic.

Later the crew went to film a Fresh Boy Crew session, which was pretty intense. Good intense, not bad intense. I repeat: this film is going to be amazing.

Today we had a big meeting and the post-production ball is officially rolling. Which is great, since we're breaking for the holidays at the end of this week. If you don't hear from us for a bit, check back in January!

**EDIT: I just saw some of the footage from the Fresh Boy Crew meeting last night, and it is b a d a s s

We've stopped counting days

2008-12-14T12:16:00.004-06:00

Yesterday morning the crew woke up at 5 to get shots of the city at sunrise. Later, we were going to film the Undiscovered Austin show at the Mohawk, since we filmed some stuff with Fresh Boy Crew on Friday, but ended up not shooting.

On my way home I stopped for a taco at El Chilito, and saw a girl putting up a Finally Punk/Cry Blood Apache flier for a show at Emo's on the 27th. I struck up a conversation, and it turns out she's a member of Finally Punk, which I found very exciting, since they're a band I have a special fondness for. It's a 4-piece all girl band with a great sense of humor and a fun stage presence that isn't all that easy to come by. I just thought it was a nice Austin moment. My iPod is no longer a little device that holds my music, but a living entity running around town and showing up at Bouldin Creek and the local taco stand. Is this what tourists in Hollywood feel like?

Today we're shooting a continuation of an interview I did with Cari from Belaire a few months ago, for my other blog. This time I get to go in with two incredible cameras, which is pretty exciting! I know I may have a biased opinion on the subject, but the way this film is coming together and the quality of the work we're doing... I'm just saying, you guys should be very excited. Great things are happening here.

2008-12-12T12:23:00.004-06:00

The crew met up at Bouldin Creek yesterday afternoon, to shoot an interview with some interesting folks. We had initially planned to interview Miguel Hinojosa, and asked him to bring a few friends along. Continuing with our aversion to talking head interviews, we wanted to hear what Miguel had to say, but in the context of a conversation with others.

Miguel has been involved with a lot of local bands, including Belaire and Voxtrot. He's also the man you can thank for most of the Austin bands (including Cari and Belaire) involved in the Indie Translations of the College Dropout, the greatest Kanye West tribute album you'll ever find. Belaire's version of Through the Wire is pretty outstanding.

Miguel also brought his friends Erik Wofford - who's worked with Voxtrot, Belaire, Black Angels and the Octopus Project among many others - Forrest Allen and Jason Riquelmy. They talked about local music and how it's changed since the early 90's, the Live Music Task Force, and the politics surrounding being a musician in Austin. Miguel's girlfriend Angela also came and gave her two cents, which was great not only because she had great things to add, but because it lent some diversity to the conversation.

We've been trying very hard to make this film as diverse as possible, both in the scope of race and gender. I must admit, though, if you're trying to document indie music culture in this town (note: indie music, not just indie rock), it's not that easy to balance the reality of the landscape with the level of diversity you find in it.

Also, a great moment from yesterday: as we were shooting establishing shots of Bouldin Creek Coffehouse, I went around, as per usual, to ask those featured in said shots to sign a release form. I started talking with a couple of guys a few tables away, and as it turns out, one of them was none other than Michael Bell, who's been playing drums with Crystal Castles. He's also been involved with Balmorhea and American Analog Set, so I think it's fair to say he's a pretty interesting guy. Nathan and I were both excited, since we're Crystal Castles fans and all, so of course I proposed the idea to Michael of getting him involved with the film. So far he seems interested, we'll see what develops...

Dallas

2008-12-09T01:11:00.003-06:00

We drove in to Dallas today to pick up the thread of the Mellow Owl (aka. Peter and the Wolf) tour.

What's cool about Dallas: that building to the right has a hole in it. That's about it. We got some cool shots of the skyline, though, and the weather was wonderfully eerie.

We strapped the camera to the roof of our van using a cinesaddle and drove along the highway a few times until Nathan and Rob were happy with what they got.

Reviewing footage atop the car, next to a Novelty Mart -- when Rob was readjusting the camera, someone from behind the bushes threw a rock at him. Unfazed yet cautious, we pulled over at a different exit the next time around.

We went to dinner at one of Dallas' many (many many) fine chain restaurants, and then got a few Dallas culture shots before we went to film the Mellow Owl show. It's funny -- I thought it would be a relief to finally have a reason to speak with my favorite bands, other than declarations of fandom which, admittedly, I avoid because of their awkward nature. Sometimes you're just awkward no matter what, though. Besides which, there's something bizarre about seeing a band live that you've listened to for a long time.

Before and after the show they're people in a bar, but there's a separate moment when they're onstage, personifying moments and memories and attachments to sound you've developed while listening to their music. For some reason, it's still odd to me to reconcile the two, and the process of translating it onto film and making it come to life is what seems to be putting everything into a tangible context.

After the show we drove around town a bit more to get shots of the cityscape up close. It was raining something vicious, but we made it work and got some great stuff. It's late now and sleep is creeping up on me very stealthily, so I will leave you with this:

Getting Dallas culture on film...

In and Out of the Glowing City

2008-12-07T19:48:00.006-06:00

by Nathan Christ

A luminous day with Bill Baird - a 360-degree artist. I call him this because he can express himself from seemingly every angle. He can speak articulately about his life's pursuit, he can draw, paint, play multiple instruments, toss down lyrics in moments flat, and thrive in the studio, stealthily going after the sound he knows is on the tip of his mind. It's bigger than just the music. We filmed him for half of the day, touching on topics from urban development to culture hounds, from his vegetable oil-fueled car to Walt Whitman. He talked about Soundteam being picked up by Capitol records and painted out a hilarious scene of a some guy (maybe A&R) with a backwards baseball cap courting the band around a table with a $500 bottle of Dom Perignon. That was the moment he looked around and realized there was some corporate trouble afoot.

There was ease today after the relative stress of the last few days. The project challenges us every time we go out there, forces us to rapidly re-assess our preconceived ideas of people's desires and motives.

Once the subjects in the film get past the fact that Robert and I look like Robocops with our cameras and shoulder mounts, they trust us more. Bill from the Honeybears and the Harlequins called a camera, with its intense light trained on him, "the blaster." Red Hunter's band simply thought they looked too much like TV cameras. Odd what YouTube and mini cell phone technology have done to people's perceptions of larger, higher quality cameras. As if, by virtue of their quality, they aren't authentic. That's missing the point, I think. We all have our tools, and these are ours, and they are going to give us a beautiful final product.

It makes me wonder why a documentary of this nature hasn't been made in recent years about ATX. I mean, low-res videos abound. Friends shooting friends. Everyone's on camera all the time. But we're attempting to find some shred of sense in it, with good quality image and sound. As much as I love the rawness of the Velvet Underground Quine Tapes, we want to up the quality. And trust me, we are definitely boot-strapping it. We are the definition of a skeleton crew. But I think being only a 3-4 person crew allows us to better engage with the world in front of us. We can be in the moment and follow the energy more spontaneously.

Like the way Wim Wenders filmed Houston in Paris, TX - long tracking shots across expansive banks, staring through the camera with wide-eyed wonder at a giant construction crane with a proud American flag flapping on top. A brilliant and curious German exploring the intricacies and excesses of another culture as he finds them, insidious or commonplace as we Texans might find them to be. We're making this film not just for the people here, but for some guy named Jorg in Stockholm, who thinks people ride horses and screw sheep in Texas (I've been accused of both, completely straight-faced, during some of my travels.)

This is why our trips to Dallas and Houston, commencing tomorrow, will be interesting. We'll come up for air to look at another side of Texas before we submerge back in.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-12-07T12:20:00.005-06:00

Alas, our part in the Peter and the Wolf/Mellow Owl tour has been deferred until the Dallas show on Monday. I can't lie, it was somewhat disheartening. A lot of time and energy went into preparing for it, not to mention enough enthusiasm to challenge a small child on Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza morning. Things happen, though, and we just have to roll with it.

Even though we've always kept it in mind, this emphasized the importance and relevance of approaching each group of artists in a unique way that suits them. We're trying to give everyone the respect they deserve without crowding them or creating a disingenuous image. Whether that means focusing on them without categorizing or making them into a part of "the scene," or if it's just filming someone walking down a street -- or not. Sometimes just filming someone walking makes them self conscious, and then you've already lost the truth of that moment.

Despite the disappointment of deferring the tour, we got right back into gear and reshuffled the schedule so we didn't lose any time in terms of shooting. I even got a full refund on the car rental, which makes me think that somewhere the gods of something are still smiling benevolently upon this project. Last night we shot a show at Hole in the Wall with The Harlequins, who have Bill from Black Joe Lewis' Honeybears on bass and keyboard. They played a great set, I took a few pictures for y'all to see:

Nathan, Rob and Dave are meeting with Bill Baird right now, and tomorrow morning we're heading up to Dallas to meet up with Red Hunter and the band. Stay tuned...

Creekside Lounge Allstars

2008-12-05T04:44:00.000-06:00

Tonight at Creekside Lounge, three of the four bands playing were ones we're following! Naturally, we were there to film it all. Cari's (of Belaire fame) other project School Police opened, followed by a band called Reverse X-Rays, then {{{sunset}}} and finally Peter and the Wolf.

All the bands gave strong and unique performances. The only one I'd seen perform before tonight was {{{sunset}}}, so it was great to have a chance not see more than one band I love for the first time in a single night. I'm beginning to think I've moved into my iPod. It sure seems that way.

Filming went really well, and with the use of our newly acquired stereo microphone, the sound for this film is going to be fantastic. It's not all fun and games, though -- by the end of the night all of us were beyond exhausted. Rest is nowhere in sight either, since in a few hours we're hitting the road with Red Hunter and his band (Peter and the Wolf aka. Mellow Owl) for a week! I'm torn between being extremely excited and wanting to sleep for days. However, duty calls...

Before I go, though, here are some pictures from tonight's show. Special thanks to Ceci Norman for the use of her camera lens, which is far superior to my own. I would also like to thank everyone who found me tonight and complimented me on this blog so far. It seemed like at least half of tonight's Creekside audience is reading this, and I was slightly flabbergasted at all the enthusiasm. Thanks for reading (tell your friends)!

School Police

I tried to get a candid shot of Cari and Nathan but she caught me

{{{sunset}}}

Bill Baird of {{{sunset}}}

Peter and the Wolf / Mellow Owl

Nathan getting yet another great shot

Red Hunter

Check back Saturday night for a tour update!

Pennebaker, Empire, {{{sunset}}}

2008-12-02T23:11:00.000-06:00

The Independent Culture Project Sunset (Bill Baird) Involvement 28 November 2008
Nathan Christ

1) I plan to use Sunset’s ‘When Perfect Flames Expire’ over the opening sequence of our film. The song sounds like a gritty carnival – it’s the 3-way lovechild of the White Album, Van Dyke Parks, and Dusty Springfield, the male-female dialogue like an amped-up Serge Gainsbourg track. I’ve now been listening to the song constantly for months. It’s a secret compulsion. Robert Garza (Director of Photography) and I plan to film our city as a living, breathing character.

Picture this: we truck through the streets of the Red River district at dusk, the sun glowing on the horizon, casting its dramatic shadows against the city’s wandering inhabitants as they prepare themselves for another Friday night. We shoot the tops of buildings at play with the cranes. We shoot them at regular exposure once and then from the same angle with the gain on the camera pumped way up. Gain is typically used in extreme low-light situations – when used in the daytime, it creates a noisy, dirty, busy look in the frame. In post-production, we lay over the clean, perfectly-exposed image on the buildings under a high-gain image of the sky. We fade the gain from a particularly intense level in a halo around the buildings to a blue, regularly-exposed sky. The resulting effect: the city looks like it is glowing with grit. It is a strangely synergistic fit, as Sunset’s wonderful and haunting album is called The Glowing City.

It should be noted here that, while the bulk of our film is being shot on 2 glorious Sony Z7U-HDV cameras, we still plan to employ mixed media (ie. Black and white 16mm film, Canon GL-2 MiniDV, and the sneaky flip cams – ie. Belaire’s East and West Coast tours – more on those later). This opening sequence will be a veritable cornucopia of these formats.

Halfway through the sequence, the sun, well, sets. We return to the corners of Austin with the most musical activity: East Side streets housing venues like the warehouse, Red Scoot Inn, Victory Grille, North Loop, and back to the Red River district, the public epicenter of the film. We truck through as bands load in, fans line up, and all the colorful characters come out for the night.

It is here that we present all the performers in the documentary so the audience understands who they are later. As the great D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars) once said, even if your documentary follows one or two people, they will be complete strangers to a distant audience. The issue multiples when you have an ensemble production like ours. Pennebaker also advises against “hanging signs” on the people you’re photographing (ie. John Blow, Architect, Rebel) or some such thing.

Related to this is my intense aversion to the typical “talking head” interview. Just watch a music documentary like American Hardcore to see what I mean. You have these powerhouse performers (Henry Rollins of Black Flag, H.R. from Bad Brains) sitting in a well-lit space telling us how we shoulda been there. We still have to bring forth the context of all the music we’re seeing, though, so we’re trying to structure our interviews as “conversations,” shooting with a long lens dialogues with various musicians, managers, press, writers, club owners, etc, as if we’re voyeurs watching something unfold through a crowd. I want to drift from band to band. I want the pace of the film to be as kinetic as the music it depicts. I also am trying to use the word “conversation” instead of “interview” because I was affected by something else Pennebaker said when asked why he avoids interviews. He said that when you point a question at a subject, you are giving the answer before they even open their mouth.

2) Back to Sunset. To my knowledge, Bill Baird is the only musician we are following that has been signed by a major label, in his case, Capitol, who controlled distribution for the terrific Movie Monster, the 2004 release from his previous band Soundteam. Capitol ultimately dropped Soundteam and they disbanded. There is something to be said for the driving endurance these artists all have in the face of this sort of disappointment. Austin’s lack of a music industry plays into this. As folksinger Trey Brown said recently, “We don’t have an industry here, we have a culture.” I hope to get insight on all this from Bill and perhaps other members of Soundteam.

{{{sunset}}} at Antone's

3) I think it’s also best not to dwell too much on what’s happened in the past. Robert and I have talked about creating a musical mosaic of one of Sunset’s songs, probably “You’ve Never Lived a Day in Your Life” (originally a Soundteam tune). The importance of the studio in Bill’s music can’t be overstated. He layers and affects many of the instruments he plays himself. The idea, while still not fleshed out, is to shoot Bill in a recording space as he creates a song from soup-to-nuts. We hope to shoot the master wide shot with an extremely high-definition camera (perhaps the newest RED cam) and have Bill perform the entire song instrument-by-instrument. This shot will be locked down on a tripod.

Transposed over this master shot will be a collection of other shots, filmed with multiple cameras (of lower screen resolution), each focusing on very specific details (fingers on keys, close-ups of Bill singing, adjusting levels, adding effects, etc. etc.) We we will need upwards of ten cameras, all at varying angles, to execute this.

{{{sunset}}}

When the song really gets going, the smaller frames could perhaps take us elsewhere (blinking city lights, hordes of people walking in slow motion, abstract, elegiac images). The sky’s the limit. The idea is that the master wide shot is what motivates the smaller images. As the song reaches its end, the frames disappear one-by-one, leaving Bill alone in the recording space. Beyond depicting a great song, hopefully this scene will speak to Bill’s innovation as well as what can be done with new technologies.

We don’t have the money to pull this off just yet, and it will require impeccable planning, but I don’t think the film we are making will be complete without it. We aren’t just documenting something. We are participants. For a distant influence to this, watch the scene in Gus Vant’s Last Days, where the Kurt Cobain character creates a cacophony of noise in his single room as the camera patiently pulls back. 4) Finally, Bill has a lot of ideas that he’s bringing to the project. He told us The Glowing City has always been a concept album. He wants us to shoot a long, unbroken shot of him riding a Greyhound bus to San Antonio, then a long, unbroken shot of his father, disheveled, riding back to Austin. Ideally the entire sequence will clock in right at 80 minutes, the exact length of The Glowing City album (which also happens to be the maximum amount of time a CD will allow). We’re down. It might only get played through a projector at a large gathering, but we are down. The fact is, the footage will exist, and I think that has value. Surely we’ll find a way to incorporate it into the greater film. After bringing up the idea, Bill talked about people turning on to Warhol in the mid-60’s partly because he had the capital to attract people. Hype and public perception can twist a direct image into something strange and grandiose. Perhaps it challenges us to look at life through an altered lens. I got through part of Warhol’s Empire, the eight-hour film depicting nothing but the Empire State Building lording over Manhattan. I’d be full of shit if I told you I enjoyed it, but I did gasp when a bird flew by, one of the film’s dramatic peaks. I started talking like this to Bill, flatly over-thinking it, and he said, “No, I want the bus shot to be oppressively boring.” And that was that. We’re checking Greyhound schedules. In conclusion, I’ll leave you with another quote from local troubadour Trey Brown, which we thankfully caught on film. “I think we’re just lightning rods,” he said, “and we have to be ready to raise ourselves up when the lightning comes.” “Where does the lightning come from?” I asked. “Necessity.”

The Independent Culture Project: What It Means

2008-11-28T16:50:00.001-06:00

I thought it would be nice to use this Thanksgiving weekend lull to put up a more detailed account of what this project is about. Where it came from, why we're doing it, all that fun stuff. Here's the official mission statement, composed by Nathan (aka. Director/Fearless Leader).

Note: This was written in July 2008, before we began speaking with some of the bands in the film. The project has naturally evolved into something bigger, but this provides a nice glimpse into ICP when it was just a seed.

Austin, TX is known worldwide as the "Live Music Capital of the World." But what exactly does this mean? Certainly the SXSW and Austin City Limits music festivals both provide powerhouse performances from cutting edge local and international musicians. But, when the herds of fans flock home and the stages are torn down, where does the music go? It is alive and well and it can be found in the main stages, back rooms, and rooftops of Austin's premiere music venues. Club de Ville and the Mohawk are part of Austin's Red River music district and feature nightly an array of genre-splitting artists like Belaire, White Denim, Peter & the Wolf, and Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. Situated side-by-side, Mohawk and De Ville rest in the heart of a city changing at a feverish pace.

Belaire

Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears

White Denim

Like the watershed music documentary 'Heartworn Highways,' which covers the country music scene in Austin and Nashville in the early 1970s, our documentary will focus on the creative process of each band. As we drift through the musings, personalities, and dreams of each artist, the puzzle pieces will begin to lock together and a larger picture will be revealed. Some of these groups find themselves at the cusp of commercial success (whether they want it or not), a great triumph in a city where you can see hundreds of performers every night of the week. This film will be a crucial document in the years to come. It will allow the distant viewer to look through opera glasses into the mythic music culture of central Texas.

In 1979, UCLA graduate Penelope Spheeris (later to be the director of Wayne's World) and a film crew took their 16mm cameras into the ruinous streets of the so-called L.A. punk scene. In her documentary 'The Decline of Western Civilization,' Spheeris depicts a world in a state of near-anarchy, as groups like X, Black Flag, and the Germs blur the lines between rage, politics, poverty, and music. The beauty of her particular form of documentary lies in that it confronts a particular moment in history, when the future seemed unwritten. Unlike later documentaries about the same period like 'American Hardcore,' 'Western Civilization' is not looking back on an era with rosy-colored glasses. It is made by a fan wanting to dig deeper not only into the music itself, but the surrounding sociological factors, the press, and the upheaval of the American identity proper. It feels unsafe, volatile, alive. The film acts as a primary influence for ours.

A feature film will be created, interweaving night after night of performances with the footage we gather throughout the city's many vibrant corners, from renovated churches-turn-private studios to highway overpasses housing secret performances to the rising star Fun Fun Fun fest. We'll also gather rare interviews with local members of the press, fans, managers, skeptics, and independent record company owners, like Dániel Perlaky of Indierect Records. The movie's format and aesthetic will change according to the sounds and attitudes of the musicians. For instance, because Belaire's style is full of popping, bright colors, pristine High Definition Video is most suitable, while White Denim's aggressive, ramshackle threesome might best be represented with black and white 16mm film.

Our film will tell not only a fascinating story about the way of the modern artist, but will reveal something about the kaleidoscopic world of Austin.

PSA

2008-11-26T22:43:00.000-06:00

If anyone in Austin has a truck, van, or minivan that they'd like to lend us for a week in December, please let me know ASAP. You'll get a thank you credit in the film at the very least. Email me at icpblog@gmail.com -- thanks!

Day 9 - rain is not my friend today

2008-11-24T01:01:00.001-06:00

We had to cancel our shoot today because of the weather. So, we did some work around the office, mostly catching up on footage and preliminary editing. We watched a lot of the stuff we got of various scenesters commenting on Austin's music, and... ok, it's not Williamsburg, I'll grant you that. But there is some serious douchebaggery afoot in this town. I guess that's any scene, though. You're always going to get your share of self-important idiots, and putting them in front of a camera will just inflate their ego. So really, we're kind of asking for it. If you think about it, these people are a pretty big part of this culture, so regardless of how ridiclous they can be (and believe me, there are no boundaries), it's all a part of the whole picture.

Then went over to the Drafthouse theatre to see Let The Right One In, a Swedish sort-of-horror/vampire movie. I'm a total and utter wuss and normally it's impossible to get me into anything scary and/or gory, but the guys said it wasn't really bloody. Plus, at this stage in the game, I'd feel like kind of a jerk passing up a "bonding" opportunity with the crew. I mean, the more we know each other, the better, so I can probably live with a few scenes worth of staring at my shoes.

They weren't lying either, the gore was pretty minimal and the film was actually pretty good. Beautifully shot and composed, and an interesting story at that. The vampire in question is actually a 12 year old girl and the story is more about the relationship between her and a boy she befriends. In a way it was lovely, and in another it was horribly depressing. I don't want to spoil it, but you should see it if you can (before some big American studio buys it and disembowels it of all its atmosphere and soul only to give it a few week run and send it to DVD).

What's almost more significant, though, is that I had my first introduction to the Drafthouse theatre chain (I've only been here a week y'all - I don't know much of what's around town, I just know I can use "y'all" all the time and no one even blinks!). OK, so the Drafthouse is awesome because they have wooden boards (aka. tables) like two feet from your seat in every row, which have menus on them. From which you can order. Food. And drinks. And waiters come and fill your order during the movie. I'm not sure why this is so exciting to me, but it really is. In case you're interested (and I know you are), I ordered a hummus plate - red pepper hummus, pita, and vegetables. The hummus was pretty great and the pita soft and fresh. As for the vegetables, I can only speak for the pepper and carrot sticks, which were fresh and crunchy and all sorts of delicious. The celery remained untouched, since I hate that vegetable with the fire of a thousand prehistoric volcanoes.

All in all, it was still a productive day, in more ways than originally planned. We went back to the office afterward, and Nathan was still editing when I left. We're breaking for Thanksgiving on Tuesday, but I may still go in and mess around with editing some stuff. I may or may not be blogging about that, though. I think I'll save my literary prowess for the shows we're filming on the 3rd and 4th (Mckinney Park campfire and a show at Creekside - {{{SUNSET}}}, Peter and the Wolf, School Police, and oh! so much more). And of course there will be the Peter and the Wolf tour, and the hot Belaire action that'll be going down before Christmas.

Day 8

2008-11-23T00:01:00.000-06:00

The boys went to Church House Studios and shot some great stuff with Trey Brown. Tomorrow we're filming some interviews and probably going through footage.

We also went to Cari's birthday party (Cari of Belaire fame), where we spent far too much time sitting around the fire and talking about work. Not that we didn't have other stuff to talk about, we're just all workaholics. So it goes. We did do some socializing, and you just can't go wrong with a fire pit. Dave is really good at stoking a fire, by the way. I hear he does parties, if anyone out there needs a professional fire-stoker.

Did I mention we're slated to go on tour with Red Hunter and Peter & the Wolf for a week? Because we are. What's got two thumbs and is the most excited, ever? That's right.

Day 6

2008-11-20T22:32:00.000-06:00

The crew met up at the office and went over to Antone's at noon, for the march to City Hall in support of the Live Music Task Force (or rather, of creating a central music office for it). The mood at Antone's was anticipatory and lively. People brought guitars and drums, which usually show up at every protest anyway, but for once they were being played by professionals (and man, does that make all the difference). A few local news crews showed up as well - it was definitely an event.

We got some really interesting footage I think, mostly of people just having conversations. Nathan and Rob would literally find people who seemed to be having interesting discussions, roll up behind them and start filming (naturally we got their permission to actually use the footage afterward - or rather, I did, being the one with the release forms in hand). There were all sorts of people: a young guy and a girl, two dapper gentlemen in nice shirts, a bunch of dudes just hanging out outside talking about music etc.

Rob and Nathan inside Antone's, finding their shot

Dave and Nathan casually recording these dudes' conversation (Rob's arm stage right)

Finally, we all walked over a few blocks to City Hall, holding signs and singing and doing your run of the mill protest-y things. Nathan was running back and forth in the crowd trying to get all the good moments, while Dave tailed him and tried to stay out of shot. Rob was somewhere too, but I didn't see him since I was busy following Nathan's trail of close-ups with my relentless pursuit of signed release forms.

When we got into City Hall, the march ground to a halt - ironically - as we all passed through the security checkpoint one by one. The rest of the crew went ahead into the main chamber to set up and find good spots - I followed eventually, with the camera bags in tow.

The agenda finally got to the central music office (momentum was dented again a bit as we walked in on a meeting about libraries), and the crowd went nuts. After various aspects of the case in favor of the office were presented, it was approved, to many cheers. The mood was jubilant, and people seemed pretty happy. I've only been here a week (well, a week tomorrow), but even I could perceive the wave of relief and pleasant expectation that swept through the crowd. Well, what was left of it, anyway - a few people had drifted away, most likely back to their places of work, since this meeting was in the middle of the day on a Thursday.

Awaiting the decision in the City Hall main chamber

The Austin City Council - check out Rob crouched on the left!

Post-decision revelling. Still finding shots. We don't rest. Ever.

Day 5

2008-11-19T22:32:00.000-06:00

We shot a great interview with James Moody of the Mohawk today. We set up before they opened for the night, so the lights were pretty bright and the place was empty. There's always something eerie about being at a music venue before or after hours when the lights are on. Like it's just another room or something -- the magic of the sounds and atmosphere are somehow crushed and melted away by the brightness.

The interview was really interesting. Nathan and Moody talked a lot about the Live Music Task Force, and the march to City Hall tomorrow to hand over the new list of recommendations. There was also a lot of talk about the Mohawk and other Austin venues, and some interesting stuff about White Denim.

Then we headed back to the office to go over footage. Now, however, I am tired and have a big day to prep for...

Day 4 - The Crew Smells Like Fish

2008-11-18T20:06:00.000-06:00

So, when he's not busy rocking everyone's face off, Joe Lewis has a day job delivering goods for Quality Seafood. We tagged along - both in the back of the delivery van, and following him with one of our cars. Oh, yeah. We're good. Though we may end up not using most of the footage we shot from our car, but Joe is pretty rad and said some great things. Which made it totally worthwhile for Nathan to be sitting in whatever miscellaneous liquid it was that he was sitting in all morning. My bet is on fish juice.

Dave and Rob getting Joe stocking his van.

Nathan, Dave and Rob filming Joe making a delivery.

He and Dave spent a good portion of the morning in the back of the van - so our cameras couldn't see them - as Rob and I shot out the back window of our car. Rob was tied down with some slack line, the back window tied up with rope, the seats folded down and both of us doing our best to keep the cameras steady (which, of course, was much more important than our actual safety - we're just bad ass like that). Eventually Rob ended up in the back of the van, and Nathan got to ride up front.

Rob shooting out of the back of the car.

After a brief pause for tacos and regrouping at the office (sharing cars and small offices with fishy boys = not recommended), Nathan, Dave and I went over to Cari's house to meet with Belaire about the coming weeks of filming as they prep for recording their new album. I was kind of concerned before going in, because, after all, they're a tight-knit group and we're fast becoming one of our own, too. I think the greatest worry Nathan and I share is that our cameras may be invasive to the artists and their work. Once the meeting got going, though, all my fears were dispelled. The band are all open to us and the collaboration, and I think that once we begin sharing space and figuring out how we all work together, things will really take off. I can't wait to see their new material and how they develop it into the album.

Seriously, I actually get paid for this.

Day 3

2008-11-17T23:21:00.000-06:00

I've spent the past couple of days catching up on footage, mostly of the ATX Converge show. It all looks amazing. We've invested what money we have in camera equipment, and it was really really worth it. Everything looks and sounds amazing. I'd already seen the cut of the White Denim show and their energy is unbelievable. Black Joe Lewis really blew me away too, with their funk and their rhythm and badass vibe. And Belaire's stage version of one of the new songs they've been working on is all sorts of awesome.

I'm so excited about this project, I... I don't even know what to say. I can't believe I actually get to do this, and work with these people, both the film crew and the musicians. Tomorrow we're shooting with Black Joe Lewis while he works, and then meet with Cari from Belaire and the band's manager, Dániel. Danny, the drummer/sound engineer may attend too. It's promising to be a pretty amazing few months from here on out.

Day 1(ish)

2008-11-16T00:03:00.000-06:00

"Hey, how would you like to move to Austin, TX and get paid to work with your favorite bands?"

Would you say no? I sure didn't. Which is why I packed up my car and drove to Austin to work on this film. Nathan, our fearless leader and director, Rob, the man behind the camera, and Dave, the master of sound, have already gotten some amazing footage of White Denim and Trey Brown. We'll be spending time with Black Joe Lewis, Bill Baird and {{{Sunset}}}, a week touring with Red Hunter and Peter & the Wolf, a good chunk of time in the studio with Belaire as they record their new album, and various other bands as we go along. We'll also be following the effects of the noise restrictions the city has imposed on the Red River District and the rift between the music culture and City Hall.

We're trying to capture this music and its home in the most authentic way we can. All of us are pretty broke and are in it for the love of the work and the music - which sounds too good to be true, but it actually is. Finally, I am among my people. In fact, all the random knowledge I have about Austin bands seems to suddenly be a special skill. I'm not even sure what to do with that much awesome, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

All I know right now is that I'm beyond thrilled to be working with these bands, especially Belaire, who are very near and dear to my heart. I thought that since the internet and the music blog world was what brought me to this scene, I would chronicle this experience in a blog as well. I'll try to write every day and follow the story as it unfolds. Occasionally other crew members may post a guest entry, so keep your eyes peeled. As of today, my life will be nothing but a total and complete immersion in the Austin indie rock scene. Awesome? You bet it is.