Something pretty amazing happened at the show at Le Voyeur on Friday (the show I told you about last week). Emo artist extraordinaire Trevor Peach did a cover of The Jesus Rehab‘s “Long Way to Fall!”
Trevor makes it seem like “Long Way to Fall” was written by him! Very good; I like.
Oh, and by the way, I did end up having a date to the show… and it was also kind of a crazily nostalgic show, because there were a handful of people there whom I hadn’t seen in quite a while. It was weirdly like old times! ^_^
They Might Be Giants recently released a rather amusing video for their song “You’re On Fire” from their latest alblum, Nanobots. YE SHOULDST WATCH IT!
(Yes, I know that the title of this post is “Draw a Glass” and not “Raise a Glass” — you’ll see why shortly).
Last week was an important anniversary that I missed: One year since the opening of Tacoma’s Quite-Quite-Fantastic taproom, Pint Defiance.
It is an excellent place to pick up some bottles, have a pint, or fill a growler with a rather tasty beverage. Before Carrie caught the preggers (and before I stopped drinking out of solidarity) we tended to go there whenever we needed to bring good beer to a dinner or party or what-have-you.
If you’ve never been there Chandler O’Leary did a couple of excellent drawings of the interior so you’ll know what to expect when you DO go there (and you should).
Chandler O’Leary, by the way, is a local Tacoma artist who has a very cool blog called “Drawn the Road Again” where she makes quite excellent illustrations of her many travels.
She also runs Anagram Press, a Tacoma letterpress printing company. You should really check that out. Chandler also just happened to design the Pint Defiance Logo. Plus, she and a friend of hers are the team behind the “Dead Feminists” series of prints.
This Friday night (September 13th) I am trekking down to Olympia to see a show at Le Voyeur!
Friday, 9/13 at 10:00 PM!
“Why?” you ask. Well, because of three reasons. Those three reasons are three of the performers:
Trevor Peach
Who is Trevor Peach? Trevor peach is a reclusive, ultra-emo musician. He rarely plays shows; we can sometimes get him to perform a song at Fools Play’s Christmas shows. As his bio on last.fm says:
An overly emo singer songwriter, Trevor Peach feels that Life is pretty terrible, and so he makes a lot of music. Many people have hurt him and he is too sad to defend himself.
Trevor Peach holds a special place in my musical heart. I even did an 8-bit cover of one of his songs! Here is my version (which is much more uptempo and in a different time signature).
Trevor Peach has recorded a handful of albums, but has never actually released any of them, so they’re hard to come by. There is actually a Trevor Peach MySpace page (if you can believe it) with a handful of songs you can listen to.
The Old Salt
Who is The Old Salt? The Old Salt is a musical pseudonym of Esa Hakkarainen, Fools Play’s own Periwinkle Fool! His music is kind of experimental ambient folk noise. Kind of. This is the first song of The Old Salt’s that I heard, so take a wissen youself.
Frances Rose
Who is Frances Rose? Well, Frances Rose is actually the name of a guitar. It’s a guitar that is held and played by an absolutely, stunningly gorgeous woman with an amazing voice. Seriously: breathtaking.
She doesn’t have any albums out, but you’d best believe I’m itching for one.
So there are quite a few Fools Play connections associated with this show, which is pretty awexome. There is only one problem: I don’t have anyone to go with me! My preggers wife does not feel up to staying out that late (the show doesn’t even start until 10:00) with a full seven-month preggers belly. And my usual show-going buddy has a prior agreement. So that begs the question:
WHO WILL BE MY DATE TO SEE TREVOR PEACH!?
I am taking applications now! Seriously, this should be a really fun and funny show. Here is the Facebook event for it, and here is a map to Le Voyeur (it’s right on 4th Ave in downtown Olympia):
Today I’m talking about Prom Queen once again, this time because she has a pretty awesome idea for a Kickstarter campaign. You see, Prom Queen wants to put out a new album, Midnight Veil. But instead of just putting out a new album, she wants to make a video for each song. But instead of just making a video for each song, she wants to make a series of videos that, together, make up a film. As she puts it:
Prom Queen: Midnight Veil will be a full-length album-film. I will be making 12 videos for each of the 12 songs and they will be strung together and woven into a film, or rather an interconnected series of short-films.
It’s quite an ambitious project, and she’s asking for $12,000. That may seem like a lot, but it really just breaks down to $1,000 per video, which is really not very much money to produce professional-quality videos.
I really like projects like these. It reminds me of Daft Punk’s Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem, in which Daft Punk’s Discovery album was transformed into a full-length animé movie designed by the acclaimed Leiji Matsumoto (Battle Ship Yamamoto, Captian Harlock). Plus Prom Queen is no stranger to making movies; Celene directed the puppet classic A Very Alan Thickemass a few years ago (unfortunately the movie seems to have disappeared from the internet except for one clip). Her recent video for “This Town Ain’t Big Enough” was super-professional (though as she points out she didn’t direct it herself, it still proves she knows how to surround herself with talented folks). So I have every confidence that this movie can kick some major ass, if we kick it first.
I look forward to when it is completed sometime next year, so that I might have the unique opportunity to make Midnight Veil both my Albumand my Movie of the Month. Support awesome things!
Link of the Month: A Mighty Girl
I know I said I wouldn’t post baby stuff on this blog, but this website is just too cool to pass up. It’s a one-stop resource for all media that positively portrays girls (from pre-schoolers to pre-teens) in a strong, independent, intelligent, and otherwise positive light. This is where to go to help girls become active and confident participants in their lives, not just passive princesses waiting for a hero. These girls are their own heroes.
Album of the Month: Prom Queen: Night Sound
“Prom Queen” is one of the musical projects by friend-of-a-friend Celene Ramadan, who is also known as my favorite chiptune musician, Leeni. Prom Queen is pretty far from Leeni. It’s lush, dreamy, 1960s-inspired music. Dark, sultry, dangerous, and sensual (and authentically vintage), this album sounds like the ultimate yard sale vinyl find in a very, very good way. As Celene puts it, “If David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino were to co-direct your prom, this would be the soundtrack.”
Here’s a video of “This Town Ain’t Big Enough”
Exhibit of the Month: Cooper
Now through January 2014, the Washington State History Museum has an exhibit about the notorious Dan “D.B.” Cooper, the only unsolved domestic hijacking case in the history of the United States. The D.B. Cooper case has been romanticized over the years (right now there’s a very funny D.B. Cooper comic book that postulates he was a super-secret agent who fights aliens and monsters and such) and become something of a pop-culture icon. Heck, there was even an important storyline about him on NewsRadio in the 90s! So it’s nice to actually get some grounding and learn about all the actual facts surrounding this mystery man. It’s a fascinating exhibit, even though it does at times veer too far off into modern-day air security (many measures of which were developed in response to Cooper’s actions). It also has a bit of a personal connection: Carrie’s dad worked for Northwest airlines when the hijacking happened (he wasn’t involved in the least, though, since he was stationed in Cleveland at the time). There are also some really awesome artifacts: actual stewardess uniforms, vintage travel posters, airline giveaways and the like. Good stuff.
A Mighty Girl
Prom Queen: Night Sound
Cooper
