Recording; Bill Callahan; Science of Sleep; Tapes 'n Tapes

4/16

Another Monday at the Prole. These come to an end soon when Dan gets tired of the DJ gig.

4/17

With Jeff's new toy, we had our first recording session. I've got some rough mixes from that, and though they're far from perfect sonically or musically, it's pretty damned cool having recordings of us. Vincent will be graduating soon. I'd like to have something akin to an EP finished before he goes, but that takes time. Lots of time.

4/18

Back in December we were fortunate enough to attend Joanna Newsom's magical performance at the Orange Show. You might recall that Bill Callahan—formerly of (smog)—opened the show. Well, he had another show booked here to kick off the tour for his new album, Woke on a Whaleheart. My friend Zach, owner of Austin's Backspin Records, had sent out a request for someone to shoot video of the show, a request that came from Bill to Zach through Zach's wife, who was touring as part of Bill's band.

So, sensing an opportunity, I passed the opportunity along to Greg, who likes to do the whole video camera thing. In doing so I managed to get he, myself and Cindy on the guest list. Sweet.

So we show up at the Orange Show. First act is Astronautalis, whom I might have realized sooner that I had actually seen before had he still been called MC Astronautalis. Turns out I saw him when he played a Polyphonic Spree Christmas show in... 2001? Anyway, I recall him wearing a t-shirt that said "World's Greatest Lover 1981" and he did a freestyle about that. Maybe he did some breakdancing too, or maybe that was somebody else.

Regardless, I wouldn't have expected what I got at the Orange Show that night. Astronautalis (or Andy, which I have less of a tendency to misspell) has a rap background, but hearing him that night, indie rock was the first thing that really came to mind. I mean, hip hop, in general, bores me. I think a large part of that is due to repetitive production, and with Andy, I don't have to worry about that. Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Explosions in the Sky, lo-fi, K Records; these are all influences. Sonically and lyrically, you get something that's dense, intense, and emotionally evocative. I violated my "don't buy before you try" policy and bought his CD right then and there. Apparently he's a huge Bill Callahan fan, as are his parents who had flown in from Florida for the show that night, hence Andy having the gig. (As a side note, I saw him play this weekend and it was phenomenal. But more on that in... six months?)

So anyway, Bill Callahan was up next. I found his folky songs much more enjoyable with his full band (mostly culled from Austin act Shearwater), but ultimately I wasn't crazy about it. I 'd be interested to hear how it compares to his older (smog) material, though.

But the Orange Show is so great that you don't have to be crazy about the act to have a great time, and we did. Yay Orange Show.

4/19

Committee meeting time, and I wanted to be able to work in the Tapes 'n Tapes show on Sunday, so I worked late...

4/21

I worked on a Saturday. That's how committed I was to having everything ready so that I could go to the Tapes 'n Tapes show. Yep. Dedication.

After calling it quits at work, Cindy and I watched The Science of Sleep. It was cute and quirky in that Amelie sort of way. But ultimately it was sort of tragic. It would have been easy for it to have ended well, but it just... didn't. I'm a sucker for happy endings. I readily admit it. So my suggestion is if you watch this, stop it ten minutes before it's over. Make up your own ending.

4/22

More working on the weekend. But it was all to get to see Tapes 'n Tapes play at Numbers. The show was... maybe a little disappointing. But it'd be hard to top the intimacy and energy of that show at Super Happy Fun Land a mere day or two before they blew up at SxSW that year. Maybe it was subjective, but they just didn't quite translate to the bigger venue very well.

In Real Life...

Busy week ahead. Revisions on one paper, trying to figure out what to do with another paper that got rejected (well, that's a negative way to look at it; we'll say they "declined our offer to allow them to publish the article"); trying to get some programming done that will yield another paper (hopefully), and then putting a poster together for retreat in the latter half of the week. Busy busy. But at least I'm not Cindy, who has not one but two papers that have to be rushed out lest they be scooped...

Other than that, things are good. Hopefully I'll be able to squeeze a couple of entries in this week.

Grindhouse, Recruiting, Art takedown, More chili

4/9

Since the reviews came out, I had been quite intent on going to see Grindhouse, so at first opportunity Will, Cindy and I went on an Angelika Monday. Robert Rodriguez's half was entertaining, and had nice portions of violence. The "intermission" was thoroughly enjoyable and might have been best distributed amongst the start, middle, and end of the entire experience. As it was, I missed some of the wonderful faux grindhouse trailers to take a much-needed bathroom break.

The highlight was Tarantino's Death Proof, which, in my opinion, could have stood on its own as a film. Not a particularly big or ambitious one, but I think that directors should feel free to make "side project" albums the way, say, Beck handled Mutations and Sea Change, or the way some bands do nice, compact EPs. The movie itself was lots of fun, from the beaming celebration of the city of Austin in the first half to the fun of doing stupid and dangerous shit with cars and turning the tables in the second half. I probably have no reason to ever revisit Rodriguez's Planet Terror, but I can imagine buying the DVD just to be able to watch Death Proof and the faux trailers from time to time.

Afterwards, a quick round a little Woodrow's.

4/10

Band practice...

4/11

More recruiting, more free drinks. Probably another night at the Volcano?

4/12

More of the same, though details escape me.

4/14

Rebecca was in town to disassemble her installation. We did lunch at Mai's, which I think has gotten Becca on a bit of a kick. I took off to catch Levi at guitar center to get myself a keyboard case and to get Jeff a digital recording interface/Pro Tools combo. After that (which took forever), I stopped by the gallery and helped clean up some tape. Once I became a third wheel, I went home and played a bit of the newly-arrived Paper Mario for Wii. Later that night, we grabbed dinner and drinks at Rudz.

4/15

Becca, Ali and I hit La Mexicana for brunch, which was good as always. That afternoon I did some shopping and went round two for perfecting our chili recipe, with Cindy's help. We corrected some problems we found with the original recipe, ending up with more of pretty much everything except the meat. In particular this batch ended up hotter, and we significantly increased the amount of beer to give us more liquid to work with. It was a success.

Afterwards Cindy and I watched Stranger Than Fiction which was a surprisingly clever and enjoyable film. The ending was sentimental and by the numbers, maybe, but I am a sucker for happy endings.