The official video for “In These Arms” debuted a few weeks ago via Glen’s official Twitter account . The video was shot in black and white 16mm by Glen during time off in NYC over the past year and the final cut was finished during a day off in Dresden, Germany on the last tour.
It’s official! Swell Season will be playing at the 2010 Chicago International Movies and Music Festival alongside feature electronica documentary Prelude to Sleep, Directed by Gilles Weinaepflen. Swell Season will play March 5th at the Chicago Cultural Center: Studio Theater 78 E. Washington and will also be on loop with all official music video selections at the CIMM Fest Music Video Lounge in the St. Paul’s basement.
Sadly, I won’t be able to attend the festival, so if you or your friends will be in the area during the fest, please check out all the wicked performances and features. It’s going to be a blast!
Prélude au sommeil (Prelude to sleep) is a film about the life & work of Jean-Jacques Perrey, electro-pop music pioneer. It also features Gershon Kingsley, Angelo Badalamenti, Michel Gondry, Air, Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe and Joel Chadabe. Directed by Gilles Weinzaepflen (aka Toog). Producer: Les Films d’un Jour.
Day 3 of this wretched cold. I am well enough to work, so I have taken my procrastination to the office. If you too have found yourself ill, disenfranchised, sick of the tourists or just plain bored, here are some goodies to fulfill your Thursday afternoon. And don’t forget, episode 2 of Skins premieres tonight on E4. Bring on the Naomily!
Okay, now this is strange. I have been working on a short musical script that takes place in a hospital and while working on the major dance sequence which takes place in the ER I was listening to Deadmau5′ Lack of a Better Name and lo! On comes Moar Ghosts N’ Stuff (the track prior to this video) and oh man, wouldn’t this be the best song EVER! So you can imagine my excitement/ surprise when I came across this little gem today. Yes, it starts in the hospital, but imagine the possibilities… If I got the rights, my short could coincide with this video much like an exquisite corpse (please excuse the pun). Best Day ever. More details to come.
Also, let it be noted that Deadmau5 posts home videos of his cat Meowingtons on www.deadmau5.com
Woo yeah! Skins season 4 premiers tonight on E4 (UK) and to celebrate the return of my favorite indulgence I bring you a super stylized promo vid.
I promise there is more writing to come. I realize I have been posting a lot of videos, but once I get my marbles in one bag I will have something worth saying. Wish me luck!
A lovely film from the Prelinger Archives reminding us of the golden age of discrimination. Good thing we figured out that homosexuals are not exclusively child molesters.
Although if that is the case, those boys better watch out for Madonna Erasure.
We all know it, we all love it and most of us have wailed a karaoke version at some point. I’m talking about The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony; a classic track that has undoubtedly inspired like-minded 20 somethings to get up and do something since its release in the summer of ’97 (UK). The romantic strings and driving beat paired with Ashcroft’s heartfelt vocals create a musical master work perfect for walking with purpose or running from your mistakes. For me it screams of travel, inspiration and making a change for the better.
Look at your life. What have you accomplished? Are you where you always wanted to be? When did you give up on your dreams?
When that crescendo builds I feel my spine straighten, my lungs fill and my legs brace for take off. Things may suck now but if you have the will and a kick ass soundtrack to follow, you are well on your way to taking life in your hands and never letting go.
For a song about staying in one place, it surely inspires the opposite.
Thank you Bret and Jemaine, thank you.
Recently I have been listening to Patrick Watson’s “Big Bird in a Small Cage” and reflecting on my upcoming journey home, and the major changes occuring in my life here in Vancouver.
As a youth growing up in a small town in BC’s central interior, I felt trapped, isolated and confined to not only a place, but a mentality. Williams Lake is a timber, mining and stampede town (2nd largest in Canada) and most houses were subsidized by the major mills to attract a workforce from outside the area. A wood plaque painted with the phrase “This family is fed by timber” (or something similar, correct me if you recall the sign) was nailed to the side of most houses when my family moved there in 1995, and it was clear that during that time, the town was in a slump. Over the years, as prices rose and jobs were steady, the small town that could really turned itself around. The downtown was cleaned up. The major intersection of Highway 97, Highway 20 and Oliver street was remodelled and Williams Lake was on a winning streak for the annual Communities in Bloom civic gardening competition. Things were looking up. But no matter how pretty the town was, I still had the overwhelming feeling of malaise and displacement. How dare my parents take me away from my friends, my school and the sandbox my dad build for us? Why did I have to be here? This isn’t fair.
The night we arrived, I recall sitting in the Tim Hortons, crying and begging my parents to take me home.
“This is your new home, you’ll get used to it”.
And I did get used to it, but it took me almost 12 years to finally call it home. When people asked I would be sure to clarify that I was born in Vancouver, NOT Williams Lake. I refused to be lumped in with the kids I went to school with. They were strange, they grew up on farms, had no sense of style and stole my homework. Once I got to highschool, they were all smoking pot- from a local source no less. So growing up and living through the trauma of the public school system as a self imposed outsider, it was difficult for me to be at peace with myself and my family. But don’t get me wrong, I was a star student and I rarely got myself into trouble, but it was born out of a desire to escape and knowing that my 4.0 was a ticket straight back to the big city.
Fast forward through teen angst, adolescent depression and my first year out of university and you have a young woman who is living in the city she called home for so many years feeling just a displaced, although now for reasons related to heritage, religion and identity. Since moving to Vancouver in 2005, I have called Williams Lake my hometown as my parents are still living there and it offers an identity unique to those around me. I also exploited the “small town girl” image in University as I could be the shining example of cultural stereotypes witnessed, experienced and survived in many of my academic classes. It became a discourse for me; a manufactured identity used to gain pity and insight to the years I “suffered” in that one horse town.
Now, out of Emily Carr University and preparing for my big holiday trip home, find myself at a crossroad. I know I will be going out to the bar, seeing old friends and living it up like it’s 1999, but what am I presenting myself to be? To my peers, I live in the big city, work in the movies and party like a rockstar. I made it. I play the star that I told them I would always be and I feel good because I am bigger than that small town, even if the truth is I can’t make rent. I am the big bird in a cage too small and I am singing my song, but to the delicate ears of Patrick Watson, it is not a song of joy, but one of a small town girl, lost in between her pride and her desire to be/appear better than the hand delt to her.
In the end I am still stuck in that cage, and it’s one I built for myself
put the last word first 