Bell Hollow's luminescent version of The Prids' "Contact," recorded in late 2008, is now available on the Prids tribute album "Dots to Connect: The Music of The Prids," the brainchild of our own Hillary Johnson. This digital-only release brings together 18 bands (including A Place to Bury Strangers, Swann Danger, Autodrone, Entertainment, Sleepmask, and Veil Veil Vanish), donating their time and energy to help their pals in Portland. All proceeds go directly to The Prids to help deal with medical and other expenses resulting from their devastating 2008 van accident.

To go directly to "Dots to Connect" on iTunes, click here: http://www.five03.com/dotstoconnect

The five03 page http://www.five03.com/pridsbenefit has links to purchase any of the songs from the comp via Amazon.com, eMusic, or Rhapsody, plus complete track listings and credits.

Artwork is available here: http://www.five03.com/artists/images/cd_prids_dots200.jpg  

Check out my cheesy childhood magnum opus of monster moviedom:

The Curse of the Pharaoh (1979)

 

Bear in mind that me and my school chums were 13 years old, and our technology was very limited in that archaic pre-digital age (Super 8 silent film with separately recorded audiotape soundtracks), and you might be able to enjoy the fiendish humor. I wanted to make monster movies, and so I did.

I will be posting YouTube links to the other five Monsters in Sneakers Productions short films that preceded Pharaoh here as well, including our first effort, a hilarious remake of The Blob.

Special thanks to Barrett Hiatt for his stalwart work yesterday in video and sound re-editing. They could not have been digitized without him.

The Anticipation of Rudolf

I am actually really looking forward to watching the first episode of "Clone Wars" with Rudi on TV tomorrow night.
We saw the movie on opening weekend of course, and unlike most critics, I liked it alot. Maybe it's that I can see the films through my "Star Wars"-obsessed nine-year-old son's eyes, but I kinda enjoy going against the grain. And by grain, I mean the endless stream of deprecation and dismissal of all post-original trilogy SW stuff. It's ridiculous, all this "George Lucas ruined my childhood memories" garbagio. As if the original films were such serious entertainment (in the sense of being high art). I was there on opening day for the first movie, when it was still just called "Star Wars," and I can still watch all the films, new and old, with Rudi as if I was still that 11-year-old boy back in '77. And while if forced to pick, I still think "Empire Strikes Back" is my favorite, I like all the films. In some ways, I enjoy the later films more, as I am less interested in Luke and Leia and Han, and far more interested in the Jedi Council, in Yoda and Windu and Dooku and Kit Fisto. I like McGregor's Obi-Wan as much or more than Guiness'. I like the cool monsters and the political stuff and, I suppose, just the Jedi in general, that there's more of them and more about them (though Rudi cares most about the Fetts). Sharing Rudi's fun has led me to start reading the more interesting books and graphic novels, and again, I am more interested in the characters and events of the Clone Wars period than the original trilogy. So bring tomorrow's show on...

This guy in "Entertainment Weekly" was the only one who got it right this summer:..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Hollow

Lastly, Nick and I had a quite productive session on Sunday afternoon at our rehearsal space. We worked on our demos, recording my guitars on "Diamonds" and retracking my rhythm parts on "Trip the Fantastic," then doing a little arranging on "Only Candy Knows," "Luna, Luna" and "Babette of Electrons."

I hope we can book some shows soon...I'm getting itchy now that we have nothing on our schedule.

Following up my post from yesterday, check out this excellent video footage of Asa Ransom at PubAss, shot by Hillary.




And in case anyone was wondering how things were working out, she has been doing a terrific job as Bell Hollow's manager...


Manager Hi Fi

Chalkboard marquee

Recap of last month's show at Public Assembly...

August 27 was a fun evening, though being a Wednesday, things were kinda more quiet than we'd have liked. I was definitely impressed with how nice a job the club did in upgrading what used to be the grotty back room of Galapagos. The new stage and sound system were great.

As for the music, Silence the Bird and Gold Streets did a fine job of sandwiching us with sonics, Michael Grace played some good tunes, and MC Ben Lerman provided a welcome dose of ukulele-accompanied humor.


Silence the Bird


Gold Streets

I ran out for a few minutes in-between sets to grab some food across the street at a Middle Eastern joint called Alia. I had some mint tea and some sort of yummy lentil dish called mujadarra.

We went on second, and for some reason I felt nervous and was not at my best, but in general our set went very well.

Setlist (Bell Hollow): Oh, My Heart Is Stone / Jamais Vu / Eyes Like Planets / The Bottle Tree / Sons of the Burgess Shale / Shukriya Moon /  Trip the Fantastic / The Invitation / Copper Crayon / Whirl and Pearl

The final band really blew me away. I kinda liked Death of Fashion (though I never saw them live), but in their new incarnation as Asa Ransom, these guys were riveting. I am not often at a loss for words in describing or comparing bands, but for some reason their stylistic antecedents were more difficult to pin down than usual (perhaps "Metal Box"-era PiL, Wire, Pop Group?). The drummer was an octopus in sunglasses...somehow it came off really cool and not cliched. They were wiry, prickly, sometimes funky, sometimes ominous. Judge for yourself: check out their MySpace or stay tuned for a video clip from the show that Hillary shot.

Setlist (Asa Ransom): The Way We Go / The Luck of Stoney Bowes / Red Dub / Crystal / 12 Mortal Men / Strange Ways / Man with Tuba and Wife / Island



Asa Ransom

Off to rehearsal after a hard week's work on the Agent Hero project and two nights in a row of parent-teacher meetings at Southdown and Rudi's new school Woodhull (as a fourth grader, he moved up to intermediary).

We've been working on yet more new BH songs: "Eavesdropper" is dark and funky and getting there, "Luna, Luna" as well. Last week we debuted a new song Nick brought in called "Only Candy Knows," which is the sweetest pop confection we've ever played (in a good way...reminded me of The Housemartins or something).

Some photos Hi Fi snapped at last week's practice, in the new compact room we just moved into: