Noise Pop Film Festival 2009 — Incarcerated Guitar Cases: Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison at the Roxie
February 28, 2009
Words by: Ben Richardson
The crowd outside the Roxie Theater was teeming Wednesday night, awaiting the kick-off of the Noise Pop Film Festival and the presentation of Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, a documentary by director Bestor Cram. A line of graying hipsters, professionals in Converse, and eager Cash fans stretched down 16th street, jostling with confused theater patrons trying to winnow their way into Bloods and Crips, the Roxy’s other movie involving musicians and jail.
Seating was at a premium inside, but everybody was comfortably ensconced by the time the event began in earnest with a short video from last year’s Noise Pop, courtesy of SOMA-based rock-archivists Wolfgang’s Vault. Onscreen, San Diego band Delta Spirit launched into “People C’mon,” a strident anthem that showcased the yowling talents of vocalist Matt Vasquez and whetted the audience’s appetite for the Cash-on-the-mic delicacies that were soon to follow.
Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, as its title implies, concerns itself with the Man in Black’s hyper-famous 1968 concert. Made into a cultural landmark by the impeccable live recording that issued from it, Cash’s watershed gig is well-worn territory for documentarians and cultural historians, stamped as it is in every half-serious music-lovers brain. Even those who have never heard the album itself are likely to know the story, whether through the efforts of a pre-MC Hobo Joaquin Phoenix, or through countless other avenues.
It is Cram’s task, then, to skirt this two-ton gorilla of familiarity, a task that he carries off with significant aplomb. Together with writer Michael Streissguth, the director picks at the edges of the Folsom concert story, constellating an impressive array of side-narrative and ephemera around the lodestar of the music itself. Drawing on extensive interviews with two of Cash’s children, his bandmates in the Tennessee Three, and various other supporting characters, the film fleshes out the fascinating details of a well-known but incompletely understood piece of history.
The film is at its most powerful during interviews with Millard Dedmon, a former Folsom inmate who was behind bars at the time of Cash’s seminal performance. In addition to providing an invaluable first-hand account of the concert, Dedmon’s narrative is a heart-rending tale of crime and punishment, atonement and reformation. Sentenced to life without parole, Dedmon endured decades of incarceration, and it is difficult to reconcile the avuncular African-American old-timer that appears on-screen with his rueful tales of late-sixties criminality. [More...]
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Noise Pop Film Festival 2009 — Romeo Oscar Charlie Kilo: Ashes of American Flags at the Roxie
February 27, 2009
Words by: Ben Richardson
Double-feature action was a no-go at the Roxie, and by the time people filed back into the theater, it was difficult to glean who had stuck around for both films. Unscientifically, the crowd for Ashes of American Flags–a Wilco concert film by Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty–contained 20% more fleece, and perhaps 10% more North Face, than the crowd that had preceded it.
Another concert clip began the proceedings, this time highlighting better-known folk-rock rabble-rousers The Mountain Goats, and John Darnielle’s impassioned frontmanship set the tone for the enthusiastic performing that was to follow. Though in large part a concert film, Ashes of American Flags is constructed around a kind of “death of the American dream” thesis, as the title might suggest. Canty and his collaborators in Wilco are leery of what they perceive as the Wal-Martization of the country–specifically the way that eroding small-town cultural centers are losing storied, historical concert venues.
To this end, the film is organized around five Wilco performances, each taking place at a venue that exemplifies the country’s endangered history. Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Tipitina’s in New Orleans, the Mobile, Alabama Civic Center, the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. are all captured in loving HD, and the folksy, rootsy but also modern music of Wilco serves as a perfect metaphor for the way these venues can be celebrated and preserved, but also reinvigorated.
Fans of Wilco would have been unsurprised by the energetic and engrossing performances captured by Canty, but for the relatively uninitiated like me, the film an was eye-opening introduction to a live band at the pinnacle of its manifold abilities. Canty’s background as a musician no doubt helped him choose what to portray and when, and the shots selected do a masterful job conveying the band’s densely layered and emotive sound. Concert film tropes like the bass-drum-beater-eye-view and the guitar-shred close-up were deployed but reinvented, and the shots of guitarist Nels Cline’s frentic fretboard expeditions captured both the technique on display and the giddy, kinetic quality of his playing. [More...]
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Happy Hour @ Bender’s and Stephen Malkmus at Great American Music Hall
February 27, 2009
If you’re smart, you’ll find yourself down at Bender’s for the Noise Pop Happy Hours. With $3 West Coast IPAs and specials on Fernet, this is the place to loosen up before the evening’s shows.
Bender’s got a bit of a facelift for the festival thanks to the guys at Knight Visions Production and Design who are providing stage lighting for all the festival happy hours.  They also added some nice ambient lighting to the origami cranes hanging from the ceiling.
On Day 2 of the festival I caught the Aimless Never Miss. Frontman Jonny Latimer apparently was suffering from a bit of a sore throat, but you’d never have guessed the way they were rocking.  This was a full on rock show. Amps roaring, cymbals crashing…the whole nine yards. [More...]
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Photos: Sleepy Sun, Lumerians, True Widow, Kings & Queens @ BotH
February 27, 2009
Photos by: Agata Kamler
Sleepy Sun
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French Kicks, Broken West, Here Here, The Dont's at the Indie
February 26, 2009
Words by: Emily Logan
Photos by: Reid Williams
I love San Francisco. But I have a candid confession to make. Sometimes I get really mad at San Francisco audiences. Whether it’s standing stolid before the dancy-est band that’s ever come through town or talking as loud as possible while standing in the very front of the floor, I’ve seen them all. And maybe that’s not characteristic of San Francisco per se, but it’s frustrating.
As the French Kicks played an incredible set at The Independent on Wednesday, the crowd gave them a meager couple of seconds of unenthusiastic clapping after each song, and the worst encore request I’ve ever heard (about a dozen key clappers and yellers, myself included, were about all that kept the lights from coming back on). I felt bad for the band, and it was clear they noticed. [More...]
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The Mountain Goats, Papercuts: Last Night at the Swedish
February 26, 2009
Words by: Ben Van Houten
Photos by: Nicole L. Browner
So it seems impossible to avoid describing last night’s The Mountain Goats show at the Swedish American Hall without rubbing salt in the wounds of anyone who didn’t attend. During and after John Darnielle’s captivating solo acoustic set, the feeling was thick in the air that this was a special performance and we were all lucky to witness it.
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The Mountain Goats – “Dance Music”
The show was a benefit for the Family Violence Prevention Fund, and John Darnielle acknowledged his own experience growing up amidst domestic violence during the show. He thanked the organization for “doing God’s work” before launching into “Dance Music,” an autobiographical song about his troubled upbringing that felt especially powerful and heartbreaking after his remarks. [More...]
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Interview: French Kicks' Nick Stumpf
February 24, 2009
It’s a monumental challenge for a band to just play music because they love it. In an ideal world, they would make the music they want without pressure from record companies and the media, while at the same time benefiting from an organic growth of fans and a constant source of income. But in reality, the “starving musician” archetype pervades the music community, and some bands never emerge from that shadow.
But every now and then, a band manages to escape some of the pains of the business and still maintain a good deal of success. And though they’ve worked for many years and released a few albums in the process, the French Kicks (NY) seem to have struck a balance that is as close to idealistic as it gets. The secret for them appears to be a genuine love of the music they play peppered with a fair amount of coolness toward the business aspects of music. That isn’t to say that they don’t care, but just that the creation and sharing of their music is the foremost priority. And if that’s not ideal, I don’t know what is.
the-french-kicks_swimming_01_abandon.mp3
French Kicks – “Abandon” from Swimming
I was fortunate enough to chat with lead singer/keyboardist/drummer Nick Stumpf (second from right) over the phone from his home in Brooklyn. And during the course of our conversation, it became clearer that the band sees this career as not only the absolute right path for each of them, but also as a true love and privilege. [More...]
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Noise Pop: Wednesday Night Preview!
February 24, 2009
Noise Pop’s second evening steadies the pace with memorable solo performances at SF’s Music Halls– Stephen Malkmus at the Great American and John Darnielle (Mountain Goats) at the Swedish American — but there’s plenty of other great pickings.
Sights and Sounds helps contribute to the longwinded philosophical debate of what it truly means to be an artist. Park Life gallery will display the fine art of those we know as musicians, namely Mark Mothersbaugh (Wes Anderson’s go-to composer, and of Devo), Bianca Casady (the Coco, her sister is the Rosie) and our neighborhood pal John Vanderslice, among others.
A notable and local mention would have to go to Sleepy Sun who, just like the comparable Brightblack Morning Light, owe their reverberating piano pieces and overall psychedelic tendencies to forest-living (originally from Santa Cruz). They’re presented by local radio (KUSF) tonight at Bottom of the Hill, along with Lumerians, True Widow (Dallas) and Nevada City’s Kings & Queens.
One of the underdog records of last year came from French Kicks (NY), playing the Independent tonight with the The Broken West (LA) and fun local acts, Here Here and The Dont’s. One can expect a joyous night of dancing to nonstop drumbeats. Heck, the seemingly improvised, clear-cut pop numbers of Swimming should start the bunny hop on the floor (especially the opener):
the-french-kicks_swimming_01_abandon.mp3
French Kicks – “Abandon”
An out-of-left-field act for Noise Pop this year is Austrailia’s An Horse, the spunk-pop tourmates of Tegan and Sarah as well as Kaki King. This time they’re stopping at Slim’s with an equally happy-go-lucky Matt Costa (LA), Robert Francis (LA) and some locals always expected to steal the show: Two Sheds.
