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Coachella: The Movie

“You can’t trust radio or television because it’s all about commerce and there’s tricks being played everywhere … There’s faith in live events,”
                                   — Perry Farrell, DJ and Jane’s Addiction                                         frontman, in
Coachella.

Movie_art Movie for Music Fans

By Molly Freedenberg (SB Independent, April 13, 2006)

Coachella
Radiohead, Jane’s Addiction, Beck, The Crystal Method, and other musicians star in this documentary directed by Drew Thomas. It screens next Friday, April 21, as part of the Magic Lantern Film series at Isla Vista Theater at 7 and 9:30 p.m.

Coachella
is a documentary that comes across a bit like a long commercial for its namesake two-day SoCal music festival (which is understandable, considering the festival’s promoters produced it). But if you’re a music fan, that probably won’t bother you. At its core, this movie is a beautifully photographed, well-edited love letter to the annual event in Indio that will have you planning to buy your tickets for this year’s late April dates before the film’s even over (a fact that distributors can’t have overlooked when deciding on release dates).

More a scrapbook than a story, Coachella takes a look at the festival’s musical and artistic history, all framed in the loose structure of the festival itself — starting with shots of revelers arriving in their cars and ending with post-festival photos of empty water bottles littering the grass like a thousand moon-lit islands in a deep green sea. And though there’s no real narrative to push the story along, the footage of musicians playing (from Radiohead to The Crystal Method), interspersed with interviews about what makes the festival so unique (including conversations with Perry Farrell, Flea, and Beck), are interesting enough to keep you engaged.

Highlights include a middle-aged but still mesmerizing Morrissey singing “November’s Child” and, quite endearingly, giving a fan who’d climbed onto the stage a warm hug before a bodyguard carried her away; Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips crowd surfing in a giant plastic bubble; the four remarkably normal-seeming members of the Pixies; an intimate guitar duet between members of Red Hot Chili Peppers; and the enigmatic Bjork in yet another wearable-art gown.

Best of all, though, the film does a remarkable job of capturing the spirit of the 10-year-old event. From the giant destructive robots and wall of polka-dots to sweaty revelers resting in the shade of a giant metal spider, the film captures visual landmarks that will seem familiar to veterans, while also giving newcomers an authentic idea of what Coachella is about. And thankfully, the film hits just the right tone: It’s appreciative of the festival, but doesn’t take itself too seriously, making it both reverent and light-hearted.

May 05, 2006 in Film Reviews, Music, SB Independent | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Unleashed and Loving It

By Molly Freedenberg, February 16, 2006

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You may remember Michelle Shocked from the late ’80s, when her singles “Anchorage,” “If Love Was a Train” (both from the album Short Sharp Shocked), and “On the Greener Side” (from Captain Swing) inched up the pop charts. Or maybe you know her from her more recent appearances at Los Angeles anti-war events, or from the less commercially successful but no less virtuosic independent albums she’s produced since Captain Swing. Or maybe you’ve never heard of her at all. And that would truly be too bad for you, because this Texas native can kick some artistic ass.
Shocked is known for her adventurous and unflinching approach to folk music and to politics, making her a kind of Western version of New York folkie Ani DiFranco. But even with a career built on following her artistic whims at all costs, Shocked has never been in as fine a form as she is now. The 43-year-old singer has just released Got No Strings, an album of Western swing covers of Disney favorites; Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a collection of songs about her recent divorce from her husband of 13 years; and Mexican Standoff, an album that’s half Latin-inspired and half traditional blues. Yes, she released them all at the same time (under the title Threesome). Yes, she recorded them all at the same time. And no, she isn’t crazy.
Michelle Shocked is simply unleashed.
First, there’s the new do-it-yourself climate in music that makes anything a singer/songwriter imagines a possibility. (Also like Righteous Babe DiFranco, Shocked established her own music label, Mighty Sound, in 2002.) Then there’s the emotional and creative release that came from finally ending a 13-year marriage that just wasn’t working. And finally, there’s her relationship with fine art painter David Willardson.
“Oh, girl, it’s a mad, mad love affair,” she said.
The combination has been lighter fluid on Michelle Shocked’s already raging creative fires. She wrote Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell all about her divorce. Got No Strings was born when Shocked wanted to make music she could play while Willardson — a former Disney illustrator who now makes Disney-inspired pop art — creates his live paintings. And she did this all while working on Mexican Standoff, an idea which came to her when she realized how much Latin culture she was picking up by osmosis, simply by living in Los Angeles. “I realized I know more Spanish than I think I do,” said Shocked, who has a genuine appreciation for Latin culture. But she doesn’t pretend to completely understand it, so a serious Latin record wouldn’t have made sense. Instead, it’s “a tribute, but not a reverent tribute,” says the admittedly goofy singer, hence the blues numbers that arrive halfway through the album.
The process has been hugely fulfilling for Shocked, though she’s not sure she’ll produce another musical trifecta anytime soon. “It was like having triplets. Okay, it’s nice, now you’ve got the three little babies,” she explained. “But you wouldn’t want to go through it again.”
You can see (or hear) Shocked’s newborns at Borders on February 18, where she’ll perform songs from Threesome and her back catalog while Willardson creates one of his pop art pieces.
“It’s not real pretentious, but it’s a lot of fun,” she says of the collaboration.

February 23, 2006 in Music, SB Independent | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

What's a partridge doing in a pear tree anyway?

When I was a kid, my sister and step-sister and I used to sit in the back of my step-mom's van and sing along to the radio. When Madonna's "Spanish Love" (or Spanish Eyes?) came on, we'd all sing the first verse together: "Last night, I dreamt of some pickle..."

Years later, I figured out she was saying "San Pedro," not "some pickle." But by then, it was too late. The song would forever be about marinated cucumbers for me.

Turns out there's a word for this kind of mix-up: it's called a mondegreen. And what's even better than this geeky tidbit of word-flavored information is the way I discovered it.

See, I'm preparing for Santa Con here in Santa Barbara, which a friend is starting this Friday at Elsie's. And I was cruising Tribe for naughty Christmas Carols when I came across these:

FROSTY THE PHOTON
=================
Frosty the Photon
He is such a quantum sight;
You can see him pass with a zero mass
and a speed as fast as light.

Frosty the Photon
Has a wavelength we all know
With an energy given by h f
And he's born when candles glow.

There wasn't any magic
In the physics lab that night
But when they split those atoms wide
Ol' Frosty came to light.

Frosty the Photon.
Knows he'll be absorbed, he fears.
But his energy and momentum too
Will live on for endless years.

(For more, click here: Download physics_carols.doc)

Naturally, I had to email them to my physics professors from college (who I befriended while still convinced I was going to be a physics major. And yes, I was a physics major for two years before swiching to writing. go figure). And so one of them, the fantastic physicist/poet Robert Reynolds, emailed his own little tidbit:

I was blown away a few years back to hear a description of the origin of the hard-to-understand "partridge in a pear tree".  What (I always asked, as I assume everyone does) is the partridge doing in a pear tree?
But I found out.  It's not...The song comes from the part of England nearest France and simply names the partridge twice, once in each language, thus:  "and a partridge une perdrix."
Further, the "five gold rings" refers to ring-necked pheasants, and the true line is "four collie birds" meaning coal black.
Cool, no?
All I can say is: 1. I love the people I've met in my life. 2. I love that I'm a big fat dork and I'm not the only one. 3. I love the Internet.
Oh, and 4. I've never been to San Pedro, but if it's half as good as pickles, I am so there.

December 13, 2005 in Geek Stuff, Music | Permalink | Comments (0)

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