SXSW Day 1, Wed. March 18

As with all conferences, I assume, the whole adventure begins at Registration where you hope your hefty fee will actually result in receiving the magical badge which grants access to everything you want to see. I must have gotten there at prime time (about a half hour after registration opened), as there wasn't much of a line after I finished up.


Wandered through the trade show, but wasn't terribly tempted by any of the vendors. I must have missed all the best free swag.

Afterward I wandered around Austin's 6th St., drinking in the festive chaos. I've never been to Austin before, so to me it looked like all the bars in the city must occupy this one five-block stretch. I am assured that this is not the case.


The first bit of live music I took in was the final two songs of Roman Candle's set at Troubador. They're a rocking five-piece from Nashville by way of North Carolina. They were having a great time and I'll have to make sure to check out more of their music.

Next up I drifted over to the outdoor stage set up in the parking lot at 7th St. and Neches. Austin's Snake Skin Prison were setting up, and their start got delayed by generator problems which left the PA unpowered. To kill time, their bassist went on an effects-heavy hard rock jam excursion to the delight of more or less no one. Once the PA finally kicked in, the band had started up a hard rock cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" which was pretty uninspired. They got around to some originals afterward, which were built around hamfisted weaksauce wankery and embarassingly stupid lyrics. They appeared to have some local fans, though.

I saw The Van Pelt from NYC on the schedule and the name rang a bell from my indie/hardcore/emo friends listening habits back in the 90s, so I caught the final two songs of their set. They sounded really rich and full, despite having broken up in 1997. The crowd was very enthusiastic, continually calling for "one more". Might not be a bad idea for these guys to keep on going.


Finally 8:00 rolled around and it was time for the first show on my To See list: Jucifer on the Emo's Annex stage. I didn't really know anything about them ahead of time and was very pleasantly surprised to discover that they rocked my face right off. Guitarist Amber Valentine (really? "Amber"? in a band that sounds like this?) generates a huge, crushing octave-dropped tone through a wall of bass cabinets AND handles the light show with a bunch of foot pedals. Musically, I could only come up with "crazy powerstoner doomthrash" as a descriptor. They're a two-piece, in the vein of Hella or Lightning Bolt, but apparently Jucifer predates both of them and I have to say I find Jucifer much more interesting. They played with total passion, the drummer hidden behind a wall of fog and grinning like a loon as he smacked the hi-hat with his foot. Go see these guys. They're nominally from Athens, GA, but I talked to Amber after the show and she clarified that they "haven't really lived anywhere for eight years".


Next up was a portion of the Texas Hardcore showcase at Red 7, and I caught Hatred Surge play their short set. They played with admirable passion and intensity, but ultimately the music was, well, hardcore. Which is to say: fast, chaotic and indistinct. The crowd dug it, and the crowd looked very much like hardcore crowds always have. 'X' tattoos, Xs on hands in thick black marker, and one kid actually wearing a JUDGE t-shirt. The venue did have a vendor of shirts and 7-inches, which felt appropriate.

Back over to Emo's Annex (which, by the way, is merely a tent in a parking lot) to see Valient Thorr. I'd been warned ahead of time that they were, well, questionable, and my warning was correct. While they have a highly energetic stage presence, musically they're hair rock in denim vests. Metal fans be warned. I ditched 'em after two songs and wandered over to see...

The Circle Jerks! The badge-holder line was long, long enough that the guys behind me from Time Magazine and Spin decided to give up. But I did make it in, and I saw what I'd estimate to be half of their set. I must say, they were killing it up there. Despite age and the bald patches mixed with dreadlocks on the vocalist's head, the band ripped it up. Plenty of offering the mic into the crowd for shout-along lyrics, as at any good punk show. The guitarist bounced all over the stage, and the crowd clearly felt the Circle Jerks still rage after all these years.


Finally, to round out the evening I caught The Decemberists at Stubb's. They were playing the entirety of their new album, Hazards of Love, which was interesting for me as this was the first time I'd ever seen The Decemberists despite being a fan. A friend of mine had expressed some negativity about the leaked copy of HoL he'd heard, but I think it hung together pretty well as a performance piece. My verdict is still out on the album, as I haven't listened to it yet. I'm sure as with most Decemberists stuff, I'll start out mildly indifferent and wind up enjoying it greatly. The band was clearly having a great time, and Colin Meloy rocked out quite a bit more than I would have imagined.


And that was my day one! I retired to my accommodations with aching feet in anticipation of Day Two. Stay tuned.

FLAMING TUSK IN PRINT

Photographic proof of the "Abigail" review printed in the April, 2009 issue of Decibel magazine. Page 88.

"Abigail" in Decibel Magazine

Decibel magazine's Cosmo Lee (also of metal mp3 blog Invisible Oranges, Stylus, PopMatters, and Pitchfork ) wrote a brief blurb about the Abigail EP on the Throw Me A Frickin' Bone page of the April '09 issue. Here, reproduced in its entirety:

Astoria's Flaming Tusk wins the odd bird award here. I have no idea what to call this. You Fail Me-era Converge, but sludgier, proggier and with black metal rasps? It's messy, but melodic and strangely compelling. You can download it for free at the band's site. Try or die!

TRY OR DIE.

Go buy every single copy of this issue you can find.

kill the undead

I am tired of zombies.

No, fortunately, I am not besieged by walking corpses (anymore), but I have reached and breached my saturation point with the resurgence of the zombie in popular culture. That I have just learned about the existence of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is partly responsible for this, but the feeling has been growing for some time.

Now, that book may be hilariously awesome and my criticism isn't directly aimed at it. But reading the title did force my brain to state, unequivocally, that no, everything is not better with zombies in it. As I'm one of the subliterate few who've never actually read Pride and Prejudice, I grant that it's entirely likely that it IS better with zombies in it, but I try to make a point of not allowing contradictory specificities to get in the way of a good sweeping generalization.

I understand the horrible appeal of the zombie. What is more frightening than a mindless, inexorable killing machine which goes beyond mere murder and threatens to turn the victim into another rotting, ravenous abomination? Creepy. The enemy that can't be reasoned with, threatened, or even defeated. Certain death. Scary stuff.

I also understand the usefulness of the zombie as a blank slate for cultural commentary. First, the zombies were the Communists, coming to enslave us all into their hive-mind, arms outstretched, desirous of devouring our free, capitalist individuality. Then the post-modernists had their way with the trope and the zombie became, ha ha! reversal!, the very television-saturated, consumerist breathwasters who epitomize the American Way. As they say on The Internet, I see what you did there. Ultimately the zombie can stand in for any enemy which cannot be understood or communicated with and which seeks nothing but our total destruction.

My nascent rejectionism has nothing to do with that, though. Mythical monsters are only useful as commentary on our fellow humans after all.

It's the sheer, ever increasing volume of zombie-related material. Why does the world need even one more zombie story? Is the next zombie movie going to be somehow scarier, or funnier, or more clever than the scores which have come before? Isn't it telling that the most major innovation in recent zombie history is depicting them as fast runners instead of foot-dragging lurchers? Is this all we've got?

The modern cultural consumer is well known to want "the same, but different" across all media and all genres. I suppose I can't fault our pop artisans for putting food on the table by giving the audience what it desires. But I, I am tired of it, in the same way I've long been tired of cop/doctor/lawyer/family drama TV shows.

The undead are over, and I'm signing the Do Not Resuscitate order.

stagnation?

Several of the voices in my head have been complaining that all I ever post about in this space these days is Flaming Tusk (next show Feb. 9 at Lit Lounge). This imaginary criticism is, I suppose, accurate.

To be fair, the Tusk and Seize Them! have been, together, almost the entirety of my creative output over the last several months. My "job" has been pretty slack since late December, so I don't even have any fun anecdotes about famous people or Cinematic Excess. The idea of writing something tickles my brain, but I still suffer from my chronic problem of lacking a story idea compelling enough to get me typing. Last night I even considered writing Doctor Who episodes but where, I must ask, is the line between writing "on spec" and writing "fan fiction"? As I lack any contacts or credibility with the BBC I fear any efforts on my part would fall into the latter category.

Rest assured, Internet, that as soon as I do or think something interesting you'll be the first to know.

this thing is happening

FLAMING TUSK
1/16/09
MARKET HOTEL
BROOKLYN
9:30 PM
$7
also: The Fakers
Blue Leader
Human Host
Family of Love

I even put wheels on my 4x12 cabinet because holy hell are those things difficult to move.

Metal-Rules.com interviews Flaming Tusk

Canadian metal webthing Metal-Rules.com has published their interview with Flaming Tusk.

Read and weep here.

Flaming Tusk in Underground Rising Podcast #12

Dark Sky Records has included two tracks from Flaming Tusk's Abigail EP in the twelfth edition of their Underground Rising podcast.

We're on there with four other unsigned bands, and the podcast is distributed for free via the iTunes Music Store so go ahead and click on the link above if you've got iTunes installed.

Flaming Tusk's "Abigail" EP reviewed by Metal-Rules.com

Hanntu at Canadian metalhead web mecca Metal-Rules.com has reviewed Flaming Tusk's Abigail EP, rating it 3 out of 5 (which translates to "recommended for serious fans" on their scale).

Metal-Rules says:

This five piece band from Astoria, New York plays an eclectic mix of death, black and thrash metal that draws as much musical influence from The Doors and Black Sabbath as Immortal, via Emperor and Deicide and Testament... Singer Stolas Trephinator mixes up tortured gurgles and screams with death roars to great effect, and the fact that I’m reminded of Schmier, Zetro Souza, Abbath and Glen Benton can only be a good thing. And it’s well worth you to taking the time to read their twisted lyrics, seeing as how ABIGAIL was inspired by the true story of Abigail Taylor (I won’t spoil it for you here but you can look it up on Wikipedia)... With the jagged, doom-ish riffing and the black/death vocals, ABIGAIL is a great debut effort. With the inevitable improvement on later albums in the lyrics department as the band matures, Flaming Tusk will be one to keep an eye out for.

Read the full review by clicking here

There's more to come from Metal-Rules.com w/r/t Flaming Tusk, so stay tuned.
And, of course, download the Abigail EP.

Flaming Tusk photo op

FT buddy Andrew Lynch dropped by the house yesterday to take some Flaming Tusk band photos for our upcoming profile on metal-rules.com. I fiddled with a color treatment on one of my favorites, with the following result:

W.

Last night as we were on our way out of the theater following a screening of W., my ladyfriend and I were asked to record an interview with a Swedish radio journalist regarding our feelings on both the movie and the actual man. Since I've apparently represented the entirety of America on the Swedish airwaves, I suppose it's appropriate now to spout my feelings to the rest of the world.

When I first became aware of the existence of W., my reaction was that it's simply far too easy to take two-plus hours' worth of shots at our still-President. How, I thought, could a comedy about a self-parody really be all that interesting? It wasn't until much later that I learned the movie had been directed by Oliver Stone, and while I'm by no means a fan of all, or possibly even most, of Stone's films I was was intrigued enough to put W. on the "will see" list.

I think it's not giving too much away to say that the movie charts the course of George W. Bush's life from his induction into a frat at Yale until just before the 2004 presidential campaign (also, the boat sinks!). Structurally, it intercuts his distant past with more recent past in an attempt to evoke resonances between events in Bush II's first term and his troubled history.

To use a term of technical film criticism jargon, my reaction to the movie was more or less 'meh'. I do give credit to Stone and screenwriter Stanley Weiser for attempting to draw Bush as a semi-real character rather than a pure caricature. What they could not overcome was the fact that George W. Bush simply isn't a very interesting man.

So Bush is an alcoholic, privileged rich boy who's had everything handed to him his whole life and suffers from extreme Daddy Issues? Gee, that's fresh and compelling. And how do you draw an audience into the inner life of a guy who pretty clearly lacks one? The closest we get is visualization of Bush's "happy place": being all alone on the field at the empty Texas Rangers stadium.

Far too many scenes build to, essentially, punchlines consisting of well-known Bushisms with which we are all too familiar. There's an overall lack of drama stemming from the audience's foreknowledge of every single event that's going to happen. This, of course, is an issue with any biopic or historical fiction, but what one generally hopes for is interesting characters and an evocation of the tension those characters felt during the events in question. In W., the Grand Events are generally dispensed with via stock (and/or artfully altered) news footage after which we are treated to dramatizations of conversations had by the Big Players Involved. Maybe the revelation of Dick Cheney's grand worldview of American Empire is supposed to be shocking but, really, how can it be at this stage?

Speaking of said players, I must give credit for both best performance and most interesting characterization in W. to Jeffrey Wright for his portrayal of Gen. Colin Powell. Making Powell the sympathetic character in the Bush administration was most likely a gimme for Stone and Co., but it does work. Conversely, Thandie Newton's Condoleezza Rice is simply a silly cartoon. Elizabeth Banks's Laura Bush is boring as hell, but then again so is Laura Bush. Richard Dreyfuss is excellent as Dick Cheney and deserves praise for a relatively subtle performance given his source material.

Swedish Radio wanted my opinion on how W. was likely to affect the Bush legacy. I told them that Bush's legacy was written long before this film, and that even without it Bush will be remembered at best as a President who not only failed in everything he attempted to do (unless the plan was to create a state of perpetual war and chaos, which is entirely likely), but diminished the power and stature of the United States to such a degree that American hegemony over world affairs is likely over forever.

If that latter point is true perhaps I should be grateful to W.

criticism!

No musical thing I've ever been involved with has been reviewed before. Before now, that is.
Venerable metal blog Chronicles Of Chaos has written up Flaming Tusk's Abigail EP in their Demos department. Read the review.

regarding Sarah Palin

A longtime reader (hi, Dad!) wrote me to express his surprise that I hadn't written anything about Sarah Palin in this space. Perhaps I've been attempting to ignore her so as not to feed the troll.

I would write Sarah Palin off as a cartoon, a self-parody and a caricature if it weren't for two things: the success of her demagoguery and the insult to women she embodies.

The former is, of course, the reason she was brought onto the McCain ticket. In addition to transparently and cynically attempting to attract disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters, McCain's campaign realized that Palin was perfectly cast to play well to white suburbanites and rustics suffering from Authoritarian Personality. She's somebody they can "relate to" who is "like them". While McCain had to attempt to appeal to the majority of Americans, Palin was tasked with currying the favor of reactionaries, racists, medieval-minded Christianists, jingoists and homophobes. Her affected "golly-goshdarnit" aspect puts an apple-cheeked mask on the grinning demon of insinuation, hissing at us to wonder "who Barack Obama really is". Let's not forget that the base she is pandering to isn't merely the bedrock of a political party, but the lowest and meanest parts of human nature.

Her candidacy is an insult to American women, particularly those who've devoted their lives to achieving some kind of political parity with men. However, it's not merely the fact that she was chosen specifically because she is a woman which causes offense, or the attempted manipulation of the female electorate evidenced by her selection. Rather, it is the particular stereotype of femininity she chooses to adopt as her public persona.

It's popular to characterize Sarah Palin as stupid. I find it difficult to believe that anyone can achieve political success, especially on the national stage, by being staggeringly unintelligent. Even George W. Bush, who is by no means an intellectual, clearly has a type of fratboyish social smarts. However, it is clear that Palin is more than happy to appear, accurately or otherwise, like a rampaging airhead. Proudly oblivious of key foreign policy ("what's the Bush Doctrine?"), unable to name credible news publications that she reads to inform herself, inability to speak in public without clumsily relying on GOP talking points... the list continues to grow. She epitomizes two of the most contemptible aspects of modern right-wing politics: the populist appeal of total ignorance ("hey, she's an idiot like me! I really relate to that!"), and the denial of responsibility via rejection of reality as evidenced by her reaction so far to Troopergate.

As an aside, this may be brilliant positioning for her role as Vice President, since under Cheney it has become clear that the new purpose for the VP office is to manage all the outrageously illegal activities that the White House cares to undertake. The Republicans, via Alberto Gonzales and many others, have clearly demonstrated their belief that public expressions of abject incompetence are a viable legal defense against charges of criminality. Perhaps by installing as Vice President a woman who goes out of her way to cultivate an aura of ditziness the nascent McCain administration is merely taking the next logical step to cover the ass of the Imperial Presidency.

In sum, the women of the United States have been offered as their political champion a picture perfect cliché of the subservient, ignorant, photogenic Conservative Woman. Her politics, of course, are also essentially anti-woman, what with her refusal to recognize that the decisions to carry her daughter's pregnancy to term and to essentially force her daughter into a loveless marriage with the mullethead who knocked Bristol up are choices. Palin's antique religious philosophy doesn't do her gender any favors, either. I shudder to think of the impact her election may have on a generation of American girls, and that's sad. Her elevation to office should be a cause for celebration, and it would be if her place was taken by any number of other, vastly more qualified women.

For me the possible election of a McCain/Palin ticket smacks far too heavily of a dystopian sci-fi novel in which the President dies in office to be replaced by a moronic religious zealot who decides that launching all our nukes at Canada is exactly what Jesus wants.

Remember, everbody: turnout, turnout, turnout. Go vote.

good feedback

Vanshnookenraggen seems to like the Flaming Tusk EP.

WARNING: EXTREMELY BRUTAL

People of the world.

NYC extreme metal band Flaming Tusk has just released their first EP, Abigail, onto an unsuspecting world.

To download it for free, in pretty much every possible digital format, visit flamingtusk.com and click on Music, or visit our bandcamp.mu page, or use this handy embedded player:


TOTALLY NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR MELTED FACES

title imminent

The Flaming Tusk demo has been promoted to the Flaming Tusk EP. Title TBA.

Add flamingtusk.com to your RSS feed reader, or just, y'know, keep checking back.

Plus I'm sure I'll announce it here.

Hail.

you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

People are flipping the hell out about the Canon EOS 5D MKII and the fact that, in addition to stills, it shoots 1080 HD digital video as well. A primary culprit in the hype about this functionality seems to be Vincent Laforet and this blog post of his.

Now, I do not disagree that the 5D MKII is most likely a very nice camera, and furthermore I think the 1080 video capture feature is pretty cool. What it most certainly is not, however, is a game-changer in the professional cinematography world.

Vincent claims, or at least repeats claims, in that blog post that the 5D MKII shoots "full resolution 1080p RAW footage". This is wildly inaccurate, as a brief glance at the official specs sheet makes plain. To quote:

Movie Type: MOV (Video: H.264...)

H.264 compression is not at all RAW. Not even close. It is, in fact, quite highly (if nicely) compressed^*. So let's not dupe people into thinking that they're getting RAW HD video footage from this camera.

Vincent also quotes an unnamed "top commercial film editor who regularly edits RED camera footage" as saying that the 5D MKII's low-light performance is “far superior to the RED camera”. From the test footage that I've seen, this is impossible to say. It is clear that the 5D MKII applies a quite strong gamma curve to the image (and other color processing), rolling the shadows off into oblivion. Granted, this is a very common procedure in video post (crushing contrast), but the fact that the 5D MKII is doing so in-camera makes it impossible to tell how noisy the shadow areas actually are. Applying permanent gamma curves in-camera is also by no means a hallmark of RAW footage. If you actually look at RAW 2K, 3K or 4K footage (from, say, the RED One camera) you'll notice that it actually looks rather desaturated and has fairly flat contrast... until you apply your own color and gamma curves. This, friends, is the point of RAW video capture: to give you maximum possible pixels and minimum pre-processing of the image so you have a beautifully pixel-rich canvas on which to work your color grading magic in post-production.

As another nitpick to set against the claim that this camera will somehow be widely adopted for professional (or even pro-am) cinematography is the fact that you are limited to a 30fps framerate. No 24 or 25 fps capture? No varispeed for fast or slow motion? Good luck interesting most cinematographers.

Also, while Canon-compatible still lenses are very nice I seriously doubt you're going to find any cinematographer who's itching to stop using the huge variety of extant PL-mount cinematography lenses made by Cooke, Angenieux and others.

In summary, while the 5D MKII seems to be an excellent DSLR the 1080p video capture feature is likely to be used as nothing more than a nice added-value functionality for stills photographers and photojournalists. I find it highly improbable that it will find any significant adoption in the cinematography world. And please, let's not continue to make wild claims about RAW 1080 video capture.

---

*What sets "raw" apart from "not raw" image capture isn't so much lack of compression (even though that's what I seized upon in the post above), it's whether or not the image has been "demosaiced" (or, if you prefer, de-Bayered) into an RGB image. AFAIK there's no way to generate an H.264 file that isn't RGB or YUV, meaning that the image must have been de-Bayered at some point and is therefore no longer "raw".

whew.

Good lord, a lot of mail piles up when you aren't paying attention to anything but work for three weeks. I guess that means there's still a world out there.



As Good As Dead was a pretty great experience overall, and it feels good to be done with working on my first feature film as a crew member. My hope that taking on a freelance job as a RED tech would allow me to meet some good people and move closer to my ultimate career goals was pretty well validated, fortunately. If I'm very lucky I might get to have some small hand in the post process for the movie but even if I don't I did impress quite a few folks with my editing and made some excellent contacts.

We had the wrap party at swanky meatpacking district club Tenjune, which was nifty even if the open bar only lasted two hours, and I had the pleasure of indtroducing my special ladyfriend to Cary Elwes. Good stuff, good stuff.

Seize Them! appears to have landed a monthly residency at Tribeca nightspot Uncle Mike's, which we're all quite excited about. Our first show of the series is this Saturday, 9/27, at 10:15PM. Come on by if you're in the area.

Flaming Tusk has begun recording our "2008 Demo", as we're calling it. Looks like we're going to have five songs ready to go in a couple of weeks. The goal is to book a debut show for Halloween night. If all else fails we'll just throw our own party, of course.

imaginemerunningbywhileshoutingthis

Hoo boy, so much going on.

I am writing from the set of the in-progress indie thriller feature film As Good As Dead, on which I am performing the services of a RED camera technician. Basically this means that I try to keep the cameras running (they're using two), and I back up all the footage from the cameras and deliver it to the post facility the production is using. It's been pretty fun so far, if tiring, and it's cool to get to work with Cary Elwes, Andie MacDowell, Frank Whaley, Matt Dallas and Jess Weixler.

They're still in search of an editor, which is a bit painful for me. When the producer dropped by the room where I was working to announce to the production staff that an ad needed to be placed so they could find an "experienced editor" I turned around and said "well, there's me!". Sadly, my lack of feature credits precludes me from consideration (for now, anyway) despite having quickly thrown together an edit of part of a scene that was praised highly by several producers and inspired the director to say to me "that's really good! You're a good editor. Want to cut the movie?". The director, sadly, does not have a lot of clout on this particular picture. Still, I'm trying to be a good sport about it and I hold out some small hope because the production is having a tremendously difficult time finding an editor with the necessary experience who will work for the amount of money they're offering. We shall see.

Band stuff is going pretty well. Seize Them! has a show coming up on 9/27 at Uncle Mike's in Manhattan, and Flaming Tusk is in preparations to play our debut show on Halloween.

Congratulations and kudos to my friend, author Chris Krovatin (better known to his bandmates as Stolas Trephinator), on the release of his latest novel, Venomous. Pick it up if you're into dark YA fiction. I'll begin reading my personalized copy right after I finish White Noise.

the truest freedom is having no rights at all, I guess

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Hey, guess who officially doesn't have any 4th Amendment protection anymore? You, citizen, if you're crossing the border into the United States.

The Washington Post has revealed that it is Department of Homeland Security policy that their border agents may seize, "absent individualized suspicion", "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cell phones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.'"

Additionally, the DHS reserves the right to "share copies of [the data] with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons". Also, they can hold on to your belongings as long as they desire... most likely just enough time to grab all those nude photos you took of your girlfriend during your vacation to the French Riviera that you thought you'd so cleverly stashed in that hidden directory.

All joking aside, though, this is unbelievably outrageous. Having your laptop (or, remember, "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form,") seized indefinitely to be scoured, copied, shared and sifted for any hint of wrongdoing (or wrongthinking, one must assume) "absent individualized suspicion" is not only the definition of unreasonable search and seizure, it is blatant tyranny.

Have a nice trip, citizen.