SXSW 2009 Preview: Part Three

Music, SXSW,

Sprengjuhollin

They are: An Icelandic pop band. According to their SXSW page, “Sprengjuhollin’s success in its native Iceland can be viewed objectively by the broadness of its fanbase that covers art school hipsters, mechanics, housewives, convicts and politicians.” Unfortunately, my Google search for “Icelandic Convict Radio” failed to return more information about this exciting new subgenre.

Sounds like: The type of band that plays over the credits of a Wes Anderson movie. (Their web site says Belle and Sebastian, so I don’t have to.)

The Tracks (from their MySpace page):

Worry till Spring
Some brass over the chorus gives this mellow groove-rider a little extra flavor. Clean production, warm vocals and a plucked guitar keeps the whole thing humming.

The Drive
A snare heavy intro (channeling “Get Off Of My Cloud”?) gives way to surf-scented fuzz. It’s a nice groove, reminiscent of Apples in Stereo, but it doesn’t seem to quite have anywhere to go.

Tonight
A descending violin squall jumps into a propulsive, string-heavy rush of a song. It turns dreamy at the end, with chanted “Oh la la”s that are bright enough to life the mood of even the most jaded convict.

The verdict: Sprengjuhollin is a great pop band, with a fun, clean sound, but they seem a bit too edgeless to be compelling live.

A Movie in the Making: The Entertainers

FLYMF Alums, Movies, , , ,

Fierce competition. Close camaraderie. A dying art form. And some of the fastest hands you’ll ever see.

That’s the premise of The Entertainers, a ragtime documentary being created by friends (and FLYMF co-founders) Nick Holle and Michael Zimmer, in collaboration with filmmaker Brent Watkins. The movie centers on the World Championship of Old-Time Piano, an annual competition held in Peoria, Illinois. As competitors gather to see who can wring the most swing from their piano, these guys are on hand to capture the love, joy and sorrow that accompanies the practitioners of one of America’s original art forms.

Their trailer gives a sense of the richness of the ragtime experience:

As The Entertainers web site says:

These talented, idiosyncratic performers represent a broad spectrum of the American experience, but they share one abiding love: for ragtime, the first great American music.

Like a combination of Spellbound and Best In Show, The Entertainers will explore a unique American sub-culture, whose eccentric and hilarious characters pursue the perfection of an esoteric art.

Help them make this movie a reality. In exchange for early contributions, the filmmakers are offering space in the credits, DVDs upon release and other exciting goodies. Nick and his friends at WutWutAlma Productions followed a similar fundraising strategy for their first movie, Illegal Use of Joe Zopp, and it worked out great.

Great movies need great supporters. You can play a role in telling this exciting story.

Why I Oppose Chicago 2016

Well Worth Reading, , ,

But based on the existing evidence I think a little skepticism is warranted: if there are cost overruns, or if no developer steps forward with $1 billion to pour into a speculative housing deal in the middle of the greatest housing crash since the Great Depression, then guess what, Chicago? You’ll be covering the balance. Money that could go to schools, parks, police, and firefighters will be diverted to the Olympic effort—including the $10.5 million the bid says will spent coming up with a mascot. Plus, Daley is expecting residents to give up something at least as precious as public money: public space. Only he’s not being up front about it—he’s pretending that we don’t have to be inconvenienced at all.

-Ben Joravsky, The $10.5 Million Mascot, Chicago Reader

The arguments for stating the 2016 Olympics in Chicago are similar to when a big-league team begs for money for their new stadium. “Net gain!” they say. “It’ll create jobs. Bring in tourists.”

Well, profit doesn’t always materialize, even in good times, much less an economic meltdown. And Chicago hasn’t shown itself to be capable of managing costs or timelines for big projects.

The Olympics sound exciting, but I’d rather spend the money on our schools, streets, parks, public transit and other projects that will benefit residents more than Mayor Daley’s ego.

Alan Moore Flaunts His Curmudgeon Status

Comics,

“The average age of the audience now for comics, and this has been the case since the late 1980s, probably is late thirties to early fifties—which tends to support the idea that these things are not being bought by children. They’re being bought in many cases by hopeless nostalgics or, putting the worst construction on it, perhaps cases of arrested development who are not prepared to let their childhoods go, no matter how trite the adventures of their various heroes and idols.”

-Alan Moore, putting a perhaps-unsupportable weight on “probably”

Wired magazine has an interview with Alan Moore in which he presents his thoughts on the state of comic books, the influence of Watchmen and future plans for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. As the quote above implies, he’s seems to enjoy playing the role of the scold, and an egotistical one at that. He’s often revered as the greatest writer in comics—and I’m a fan of his work—but he’s not the only one capable of doing worthwhile work in the genre, as he seems to imply.

Undermining his “hopeless” analysis is the admission, “I have to say that I haven’t seen a comic, much less a superhero comic, for a very, very long time now—years, probably almost a decade since I’ve really looked at one closely.” But sit down and tell us about those superheroes today, with their hippity-hop and capes hanging down below their asses, Grandpa Moore.