bitdepth

The Work of Director Michel Gondry

I’ve liked just about everything that I’ve seen from Michel Gondry, from music videos for The Chemical Brothers and Bjork to the film Human Nature. While he’s brilliant at music videos, in Human Nature it felt a bit forced, but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind was a great combination of his talents within a great script with what appears to be little studio manipulation. I’ve been watching the Directors Label DVD The Work of Director Michel Gondry and I’m amazed by the talent of the man. After watching many of the videos you begin to see patterns of repetition and common themes and everything is dreamlike. The most amazing video is Bjork‘s breathtaking Bachelorette which makes your head spin to watch it.
While the videos are great to watch, the neatest part of the DVD is the documentary about Gondry growing up and how and why he works in the way that he does. I’ve Been Twelve Forever takes you through his childhood and mind in an entertaining and visually exciting way that lets us behind the curtain of some of the visions that he has brought to the screen. It’s a lot more than a promo piece that consists of people talking about how wonderful it is to work with him and Gondry himself tries out a lot of different visual tricks to show how he’s thought about his life and the music videos and manages to keep coming back to the same themes in different visual styles. It’s a great DVD that I’ll be spending a lot more time with. It’s fun and inspirational.

April 26, 2004 bjork, directorslabel, documentary, michelgondry, music, video

Standing in the Shadows of Motown

Standing in the Shadows of Motown Poster I’ve been lucky enough to work on documentaries that gave me a chance to meet and learn about amazing people and stories that I would never have known about. When you work on a documentary you have a chance to preserve the story and lives of people and that’s what makes working on documentaries so wonderful and difficult. I finally was able to see the film Standing in the Shadows of Motown on the weekend. The documentary tells the story of the Funk Brothers, who were the heart and soul that made the Motown sound what it was. I’ve always loved Motown songs and heard many of them on Danny Finkleman’s CBC Radio show Finkleman’s 45s, but I never thought about how the Motown sound originated. The most obvious answer is that it came from the session musicans who played on all of the songs. They are an amazing group of incredibly talented musicians who never received proper credit or appreciation of what they accomplished. What’s amazing to watch is a band reassembled after many years and it seems as if they never took a break from playing. The film features a perfect blend between interviews, recreations and performances by the Funk Brothers with a near-perfect structure that kept me entertained and left me content. One of the great music documentaries.

March 22, 2004 cbc, dannyfinkleman, documentary, history, motown, music, standingintheshadowsofmotown, thefunkbrothers

People Like Us

One thing that I’ve realized is that while I have a bit of a background and interest in sound I don’t have a lot of sound-related stuff on the ‘blog. I do have images and lots of film stuff, but not much sound stuff outside of more traditional music at all. I’ve been fascinated the last few days with a radio show from WFMU, “DO or DIY with People Like Us”
hosted by People Like Us who is Vicki Bennett. The show is a neat collection of offbeat music and collages created by People Like Us that I just love listening to.

I first heard People Like Us as part of the Illegal Art exhibition where her hauntingly beautiful track “Swinglargo” is included. I then saw the video “We Edit Life” that she was commissioned to make for Lovebytes. What she cuts and mixes together is clever and fun and with obscure references that I sometimes pick up and sometimes don’t, but always enjoy. She’s also profiled as a Featured Commoner as she’s a supporter of the Creative Commons project and is one of the people who suggested a sampling license. She has a very wide range of recordings available for download on her site, so you can listen and then buy some CDs. I’ve got to listen some more myself and buy some CDs. (But People Like Us also makes me want to do more with sound on my own too…the last thing I did was silent!)

November 18, 2003 art, audio, music, peoplelikeus, podcast, sound, vickibennett

Talkin’ Honky Blues

I hadn’t heard anything from Buck 65‘s new CD, Talkin’ Honky Blues, but I loved the other CD that I bought, so I got it and I love it. I’m listening to it right now on my new PowerBook (but that’s another Titanium-tinged story for later). It’s filled with great lyrics, catchy loops & rhythms, great instrumentals, and just good songs. One neat aspect thrown into the mix is the addition of live musicians which move the CD into the world of carefully-crafted, alternative music. It’s an eclectic combo with Buck’s distinctive voice forming the core and music elements that remind me of Portishead and Ennio Morricone along with a sprinkling of Tom Waits. I don’t want you to think that Buck 65 is derivative… he’s original and not derivative… there are just some family resemblances. It’s eclectic, very listenable, and beautifully crafted. I think this could be “The Big One” that moves Buck 65 into the larger consciousness of the music public. But, I’ve got the CD and he’s doing ok, so whether greater success spoils him or not won’t affect this lovely little disc. The CD has some enhanced CD content (which is something I’m partial to) with a video that provides a neat glimpse at Buck 65 and some info about the CD as well as a link to the “Buck a Month Club” where I’ll be getting more music every month. Now it’s in heavy rotation in iTunes and in the CD player in the car.

October 17, 2003 buck65, cd, music, review, talkinhonkyblues

Hail to the Thief

I’ve been listening to the new Radiohead CD, Hail to the Thief over the past week. It’s a bit downbeat, but that’s to be expected, and it continues to move forward by striking a balance between pop and experimental elements. There are two songs on the CD that I love: the first single, “There there” and “Punchup at a Wedding.” The two songs seem to be some of the less processed, and more built around the band playing (who knows if that’s how the tracks came about, but that’s how I think about it). The video for “There, There” is an amazing stop-motion animation with Thom wandering through forest filled with anthropomorphic animals. The video is at the “Radiohead Television” site, and if you check out the site at the top of the hour you can see a half-hour show, “The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time” which features music from the CD combined with more experimental video and animation as well as some live stuff. It’s a neat progression from the videoblips used to market “Kid A” in a more viral sense. I’ve only seen one episode, but I liked it. One quirky thing that I’ve noticed is that it looks as if the site isn’t working when I access it with Safari, but that was because the pop-up blocking feature was stopping it from happening… so you have to allow unrequested pop-ups for that site to see the show (just make sure you turn it back on after you leave the site). The band is doing the rounds like every other band now as it seems they’ve become much more well-adjusted as human beings following the grind of “OK Computer” documented by Grant Gee in “Meeting People is Easy“.

June 22, 2003 cd, grantgee, meetingpeopleiseasy, music, radiohead, review, video

Resonance FM

My regular Internet radio source has pretty much been Soma FM‘s Secret Agent feed, but occasionally I need to listen to something different. Gair Dunlop is back on this side of the ocean for a while and he mentioned a London radio station called Resonance FM that has a feed available. I tuned in and the first thing I heard was a program that was all…backwards… the next time that I listened it was more of a disco and dance mix with some entertaining banter in between the songs, and then a music and spoken word program. Now I’m listening to a program about fruit machines, which I’ve learned is what slot machines are called in England. Definitely eclectic and interesting. It’s a radio station in London that broadcasts at 104.4 FM is operated by the London Musician’s Collective. Resonance FM was 1 year old on May Day.

Reading about and listening to the station it reminded me of my days in (on) radio in New Brunswick when I worked on a comedy show and then returned to do a news and public affairs show. The station was CHSR-FM, based at UNB in Fredericton. They have a feed as well.

Resonance FM broadcasts live at noon (GMT I suppose) every day for 12 hours (a bit longer on the weekend), but they also have a recorded loop that runs during other times. One of the neat things about the station is that it is live and commercial free… there is something that I love about live radio… the knowledge that there are people on either side of the microphone and speaker who are connected either through the radio waves over the air or the signals flying through the Internet. A great combination of the human and technological.

May 7, 2003 audio, chsrfm, england, fredericton, gairdunlop, londonmusicianscollective, music, radio, resonancefm, somafm, unb

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