the CAB - arts news & notes

Marking the beginning of the band's fall tour and the release of its latest EP, Parallel Seismic Conspiracies, Seattle's Telekinesis released this lovely video for "Dirty Thing." The Spencer Gentz-directed joint features a guitar line that sounds like a battery tastes and makes touring with front man Michael Benjamin Lerner look like the nerdiest vision quest ever. Enjoy!

UPDATE!

Michael Benjamin Lerner emailed me with details on the song's guitar sound:

"Every song on the EP (except 'Calling All Doctors') was recorded using Logic Pro, and the microphone on top of my Macbook. So, for that guitar sound, I put my laptop in front of my Macbook and that is the sound on 'Dirty Thing.' Super fuzzy and blown out. Like batteries. Yum."

The band comes to Showbox at the Market in support of Merge labelmates Superchunk on October 14.

Read about my own vision quest with Lerner here.

Here is the trailer for the new movie, Age of Dragons. 

Within the clip, a tag line reads "Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick' told like never before." I'll say. It should be telling that the title Moby Dick is actually in quotes instead of italicized, as if it's some nebulous idea rather than a published work. 

There may be more to this movie than metal music and rusty harpoons, but consider this - if your sci-fi world is overrun with vicious dragons, a quest to hunt one of them is probably a practical defensive goal. 

However, what makes Moby Dick interesting is that Captain Ahab and his crew elect to go on a fool-hardy quest out of revenge and hubris, rather than out of necessity. As such, it creates a brilliant metaphor of the struggle against fate and unattainable desires.

Maybe I'm missing the point about a movie where people hunt CG dragons with harpoons, but it's probably better to allude to the book, rather than claim "adaptation." That said, Danny Glover does look pretty cool. 

Now to cleanse the pallet. From Moby Dick:

All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever present perils of life.

Don't forget to stop by the Northwest Rooms for the Visual Art segment of Bumbershoot this weekend.

There are several lively installations, including Portrait Challenge, thirty years of Counter Culture Comix, a marimba-playing robot that will jam with you, a wall of profanity and more. Artist and Portrait Challenge coordinator Ryan Molenkamp has been snapping some shots for us behind the scenes as artists get ready for the big opening this Friday, after the Mayor's Arts Awards. Click through our slide show just to whet your appetite.

Big News in Little Bits

 "Seattle, a city synonymous with alternative rock, has long sustained a provincial jazz culture," notes Nate Chinen in the New York Times, "without much fuss or a signature sound." That's changing.

How do you keep the theatre industry afloat? Put theatre on cruise ships.

The last time Dick's Drive-In opened a drive in, I was in diapers. Luckily, I'm still young enough not to be wearing them again as a new Dick's Drive-In is about to become reality. And you, dear reader, can have a say into where the new restaurant will be.

Saturday night at the Tractor Tavern, a rumor managed to work its way through the room packed full of music fans awaiting performances by local hot-shit-band-of-the-moment the Head and the Heart and the evening's headliner, Grand Hallway. The buzz? Grand Hallway leader Tomo Nakayama had, earlier in the day, dispersed a full five members of the orchestral pop outfit. Saturday's show, the whispers claimed, was to be the band's last full-on affair before stripping down to just a few members and heading into the studio to record the follow-up to 2009's critically-acclaimed release, Promenade.

The band quieted the whispers with an inspired performance later in the night. Before playing the final song the set, though, Nakayama invited a few close friends to the stage to help with vocals (including recent Style Profile subject Josie Markiewicz), looked around at his assembled band and expressed, simply, his feelings. "I love all you guys," he said, and then started in on the band's biggest hit, the conversely uplifting and contemplative "Raindrops."

"Oh, the sound of life," he sang. "Oh, the sound of change. Oh, the sound of starting over from the start." It was a touching moment, and though there was an encore, this seemed the most fitting end to the band's current incarnation.

Wanting to know if I was reading Nakayama's song selection correctly, I asked him about those rumors, which, Nakayama informed me, were only partly true. Of course. To wit:

Well, the only members who are leaving for sure are Joel Harmon and Chris Zasche.  The reasons for their departures are two fold. One is purely practical, as the success of all of our bands (Grand Hallway, The Maldives, Sleepy Eyes of Death, Head and Heart) over this past year made scheduling increasingly difficult. It's hard enough running a band with 8 people, and damn near impossible if you want to make a living, as I'm sure folks like Damien Jurado and Dave Bazan can tell you. Competition is only useful when it motivates bands to push each other creatively, and I could see it potentially becoming a detriment rather than an asset to our community. Better to set those cats loose and support them as fans and friends rather than gripe about time management, you know what I mean? The other reason is musical. We've explored the huge-orchestral-pop thing to its logical extreme (literally, with our shows with the 50-piece orchestra and kids choir), and the time is right to try something different, something more intimate. What that thing is, I'm not quite sure yet, and we'll have to figure out where everyone fits into the big picture, but I feel really good about the relationships between everyone in the band, and we're all excited for the future. We're going to start our next record in September with Cory Gray and some other good friends in Portland, then take that show down to New York for CMJ with our friend Dave Ulrich from Philly on drums.  "Grand Hallway" as an entity and as a community will survive and thrive so long as I'm writing songs, and I plan on doing that for many years to come.

And, as if to snuff out any lasting doubt that Grand Hallway was not moving foward with gusto, he added, "Thanks for your concern and continued support. And on a side note, we'd love to take part in next year's City Arts Fest if you'll have us (wink, wink)!"

Read City Arts' January feature about Tomo Nakayama, his band and his high hopes here.

Photo by Kyle Johnson

A review of not-so-new foreign films you may want to be more familiar with

This Is England is not a comfortable movie to watch.  Hatred isn’t a comfortable subject in general, but seeing it come from children is even more chilling. 

England, a 2006 British independent film is about skinheads in 1980s England, based partially off of writer-director Shane Meadows’ own experiences.

Lonely twelve-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) gets taken in by a friendly group of young punks who identify as skinheads, but don’t seem to embody the stereotypical extremes of racism and nationalism that such a group typically portrays. It’s easy to see that these youth are more interested in keeping up intimidating appearances than truly acting on dark and hateful prejudices.

Shaun, who lives with his mother alone, quickly finds a second home in this group and looks to the leader Woody (played by the unsuspectingly charming Joe Gilgun) as the big brother he doesn’t have. However, the group dynamic changes when the older skinhead, Combo (played with unsettling skill by Stephen Graham), returns from prison and reveals his racist and supremacist views.

The group splits, and much to Woody’s – and undoubtedly the audience’s – surprise and dismay, Shaun sticks with Combo.

Read the full review and watch a clip after the jump.

Contributed by Spratt504 on City Arts' Around Town Flickr Pool

Dum Dum Girls perform this last weekend at Marymoor Park. Be sure to check them out at City Arts Fest this October. 

Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was not always a beloved children's author. During the first half of his career, Geisel wrote for humor magazines and for the US Army, making propaganda films and advertisements to help motivate and instruct soldiers fighting in WWII.

Curator Dennis Nyback brings together nine of Geisel's WWII short films from this period (including one directed by Frank Capra) introducing Private Snafu, who can't help but make mistakes, but teaches everyone lessons about spies, malingering, malaria and booby traps (including one in a woman's bra). 

Runs tonight through September 2 at the Grand Illusion Cinema at 9:00pm.

Grand Illusion Cinema, 1403 NE 50th St.

1.

Thanks to the French 75 cocktail (gin, Champagne, lemon juice and sugar), I no longer universally hate gin.

2.

Apparently, some local cosmetology students are encouraged to use “floor names” to help clients remember them when going to book future appointments. For example: the more everyday (albeit lovely) “Jessica” might become “Raven” on the floor, just to ensure that clients don’t confuse her with another stylist. (Additionally, her work persona gains a little bit of extra edge and allure, I suppose.)

I’d like to imagine I wouldn’t have to change my name (it’s fairly memorable, as women’s names go). But just for fun...let's think of names that would be cool to defer to whenever I got tired of Bond. How do you feel about "Jet?"

3.

Repeatedly pressing the “next” button on the electronic game Catchphrase – until you find a word that is easier – is considered “cheating.”  (Whatever.)

4.

I think there should be a moratorium on all pre-recorded sounds and music in theatre productions everywhere. Umo Ensemble’s production of El Dorado taught me that everything that one really needs in a play can and should happen in that room, right in front of you. (Save the costumes, of course.) Everything else can be reserved for the later HBO version.