I have not been writing much lately.  When I go this long without doing anything productive, I feel as though my brain is leaking. Journals and short stories just seem like a way to stave off the notion of dying. But things are really going my way recently. I am feeling really positive.
Response to Vinyl Scrapyard has been mostly positive and we are looking forward to more screenings. I am also going through the ridiculously painful process of finishing paperwork to return to school in September. I now applaud anyone who has gotten into school for just being able to follow the runaround put upon you by this bureaucratic nightmare. I am still trying to prove that I have had the fucking measles. Enough Said.

I recently went for a night to an Earthworks  project called the Lightning Fields. The Lightning Fields is a large expanse in New Mexico with tall stainless steel poles meant to attract lightning. It has been there since 1977. The installation requires that you meet a driver in a small town in New Mexico and he puts you in a car with strangers and drops you off at a lovely cabin in the middle of nowhere. Upon arriving, you discover the odds of actually seeing any lightning, then you are fed tamales. After that, you only have 14 hours to wait until the driver picks you up. I would recommend it if you need to relax, but not if you are a lightning enthusiast. I was fortunate to have brought the book Travels With Charley by John Stienbeck. A good read.

I have been listening to a kick ass record called Can’t Stand Modern Music by the Cute Lepers. The Cute Lepers feature members of the Briefs whom I have never heard, but this album kicks ass. I’ll do a more in depth review later.

Thanks people. Hope all is well…billups

I am just back from DC tonight. Thanks to everyone who came out to Smash Records last Thursday for the first screening of Vinyl Scrapyard. I was really happy with the turnout and response. Special thanks to Smash for holding the event. All the best things in life are DIY. Putting together a faux movie theater in a record store is all I want to do with my life now.
All and all it was a successful trip to DC for me as I came back with an LP bag full of records, screened the film and saw the Shirks. The Shirks are one of the most exciting garage bands to emerge of late. Heavily influenced by The Saints, The Shirks debut single will be out on a label called Big NEck very soon. We’ll be hearing more from them.

I also saw a band called Hollywood who have just released thier first full length also on Big Neck. We’ll be playing tracks from that album on the show next week along with loads of dusty records I have just acquired. A good shopping spree is a shot in the arm for the show.

DC is returning to its former glory as one of the great cities in which to shop for records. Here are some stores we hit along the trip:

Crooked BEat- Washington, D.C.
Smash Records- Washington, D.C.
Red Onion- Washington, D.C. (Books and LPs)
Joe’s Record PAradise- Maryland
CD Cellar- Falls Church, VA (Has loads of LPs)
Record and Tape Exchange- Fairfax, Virginia
The Vienna Music Exchange- Vienna, Virginia

If you are out in Virginia, there is a tiny store in Vienna called the Vienna Music Exchange. It’s particularly worth hitting if you are into metal. It is a one room shop packed to the ceiling with records. The prices are good and if you aren’t looking for metal, you might find a real bargain as metal is the focus. Look it up as it is hard to find. They are well worth supporting. It is easy to make and afternoon of going to Record and Tape Exchange and Vienna Music Exchange if you are heading for Northern Virginia.

So keep it alive. More from me later as we begin planning the Tucson screening. Boogaloo.

I saw one of the most compelling documentaries I have seen in a while last night.

It was called Deep Water. It was made by the producers of Into the Void. Deep Water was the story of a man who entered a yacht race in 1968 that involved circumnavigating the globe alone without making any stops. Not only is the story interesting, but it was well played by the filmmaker. Really Great.

I recently picked up a VHS copy of the movie Sleepaway CAmp at a yard sale. 1983 wa a magical year for cinema. Like most of you, I was wondering what has been going on with the Sleepaway CAmp franchise since 1983. For your convenience, I am doing a brief summary of the information I have unearthed on the series.

The slasher film Sleepaway Camp has two sequals. Both star Bruce Springsteen’s younger sister and have plots involving the young girl from Sleepaway Camp 1 returning to camp as a transsexual camp counselor later in life. The director of the first film did not direct the other two Sleepaway CAmp films, however he has a Sleepaway Camp film planned that will ignore the plot lines of Sleepaway CAmps 2 + 3, picking up where the original Sleepaway CAmp left off. The director of Sleepaway CAmps 2 + 3 also has another film planned that will keep his Sleepaway CAmp plotline relevant. The director of Sleepaway Camp 1 has another film planned after his first new Sleepaway CAmp film is finished called Sleepaway CAmp: Reunion that will round off his plot line.

I am kinda torn here because I feel like the directors of both Sleepaway CAmp movies could put aside thier differences, they could develop a Sleepaway CAmp plot line that would span a consistent timeline of the three new Sleepaway CAmp films that they have planned.  Imagine what could be accomplished with two directors working to maintain a steady plot line for the Sleepaway Camp series. However, artistic vision is entirely relevant and must be respected. It would be unfair of us to ask one to bow to the other. My call in this situation is to respectfully support both Sleepaway CAmp time lines.

Have you ever had a record that the packaging is so complicated that you got confused putting it back together?

I have a copy of the Melvins’ Trilogy. The set has three records compiling a series they did with picture discs and information on the inner sleeves. I got so confused as to which record went with which sleeve I had to Google it to figure it out.  In the age of too much information, it’s nice to be challenged once in a while. However, it’s not like it was in German or anything, I guess I should have been able to figure it out.

I’m not proud of that, but life is a journey. A dumbass journey apparently.

Things Going ON.
Hey there. Thanks for lookin’:

We are about to finish editing Vinyl Scrapyard. The thirty minute documentary about record store clerks and their feelings about the dot com era will be screened at SMASH! Records in Washington D.C. in early June. Dates to follow soon. Keep in touch about it.

Thanks everyone who is reading and stocking Cramhole #2. I am psyched to be hearing back about it. There is a mention of it in the recent issue of Giant Robot; Issue #53. I really appreciate a nice mention in a magazine I admire so much. We are planning more zine exploits for the future. Stay tuned.

I realized the other day that two screen gems have never been released on DVD. Let’s not forget that media format changes are just a ruse to get us to buy more shit, but it does seem a shame that two great movies are left out of the mix. Both star film actor Adrienne Shelly. Sadly, Shelly was murdered weeks before the release of her critically acclaimed film Waitress in 2007. Praise for Waitress surely brought forth some of the recognition she deserved, but Shelly is one of the tragically overlooked actors of our time. All the more reason that these two movies should be revisited and brought around for the next gen to appreciate.

Trust- Hal Hartley
It is ironic that this movie never made it to DVD as the story follows an extreme pessimist who is good with electronics but hates progress. His reluctance to fix televisions keeps him from finding a job in electronics. His accidental meeting with a pregnant teenager (played by Adrienne Shelly) creates a dynamic that serves as a prototype for the unlikely friends indie movie. Hartley deserves a wider audience for Trust. It is a well written character movie. Fans of Buffalo 66 should give this one a go.

Hold Me, Thrill Me Kiss Me- Joel Hershman
I saw this movie in the theater because John Waters type humor was promised in the review. Hold Me, Thrill Me Kiss Me is the story of a robber hiding in a trailer park while he awaits a phony identity that will get him out of the country. While he waits, he falls for the sister of an aggressive stripper. His attempt to hide becomes compromised by the stripper’s reluctance to allow her sister to be with him. An eccentric ensemble of trailer park characters keep him in and out of trouble as he fights to keep his head down and win the affections of the saintly sister (played by Adrienne Shelly). While not as crass as John Waters’ humor, Joel Hershman created a wonderfully encapsulated world around the trailer park in the film that a Waters fan could not help but appreciate.

If there is a DVD called George of the Jungle: Part II starring Brendan Frasier, then certainly the industry could make room for these two underrated pictures. Until then, dust off you VCR and spent the three bucks it will cost to hunt down these two VHS tapes and have a kick ass double feature. Invite your friends over and charge them a quarter. Or don’t. After all, I am just another overweight opinionated zine nerd. What do I know???

I got pretty ill this week. Staying home from work, not being able to do anything, afraid to fart sort of sick. I have a stack of mail orders on my desk for Cramhole #2 ready to go out tomorrow. I usually try to get those out right away, so if you feel like there has been a delay, sorry about that. I really appreciate you guys using the web site. They will go tomorrow.

Nothing else really happened this week except before I got sick I finally saw There Will Be Blood. So much has been written about it that I won’t bother wasting my heathen words on such a modern classic. I was blown away. The acting was great. The cinematography was great. Blah Blah Blah. Blood’s great and we’re scum. One thing that did stand out for me was the score. Elements of Jonathan Bepler’s music for Cremaster III were present in the overall theme music. Occasionally the music would reach for a hint of irony a-la Kubrick’s use of light hearted music in deep situations, but those moments were sparse and subtle. The music was well done and kept the tension at a controlled burn.

Movie theaters have long been a sanctuary for me. As I get older and start hating more stuff, theaters are becoming some of the last sanctuaries available. There is a new breed of idiot slithering into the arena of theater that puts me one step closer to murder. Why do people feel it is ok to look at cell phones in movie theaters? I feel like everyone forgets to turn off a phone once in a while and that could be an understandable offense. Possibly a forgivable offense. But now there are these morons who pull their fucking phones out every ten minutes to see if anyone has called forcing a theater of people to look at a square of light that for some reason this person doesn’t realize we can all see. Are we are raising a nation of dunderheads who don’t have the attention span to sit through a two hour movie? What job do you think the waste of space in front of me has that he needed to be in constant contact with someone every ten minutes throughout the whole fucking movie? My guess is that no one clogged the toilet at Wendy’s during the 9:00 showing of There Will Be Blood that night or he might have had to leave early. Perhaps he is texting the plot to one of his dumber friends who locked himself in the closet and couldn’t make it out. For anybody reading who is not familiar with the principle that light travels, let me lay it out. When people are in a dark room and someone pulls a bright light out of their pocket, everyone in that dark room can fucking see it. This is the same guy who eats Taco Bell on the toilet.

LAter.

Brew Moore- The Kerouac Connection

Between the mid 1940s and the late 1960s there was a group of jazz players who believed that there was only one acceptable way to play bebop. This group of players called the Gray Boys lived by the notion that there was Lester Young’s way and the wrong way. Many of these players went on to become giants in the Jazz world. Aubrey Moore’s career never reached the heights of contemporaries Stan Getz, Kai Winding and Gerry Mulligan. However a recent release entitled The Kerouac Connection samples Moore’s body of work nicely for fans of bebop.

The Kerouac Connection is part 2 of the Gray Boy series; a series focusing the band of brothers named by Lester Young himself. Connection samples Moore’s career through his many affiliations with infamy. It also includes pieces from his own septet and sextet who recorded for such prestigious labels such as Savoy and Fantasy. Recordings Moore made with jazz legends Charlie Parker and Miles Davis are also included in this collection. Connection is an excellent representation of the body of work of a great unknown and a great sampling of the arc of bebop.