On Christmas day, songwriter Vic Chesnutt died. Listen here as Michael Stipe recalls Chesnutt’s life. Or listen to Vic Chesnutt on Mountain Stage at NPR.org.

MP3 - Like a Monkey in a Zoo

This is a gratuitous “arts and culture” post and horn tooting, your weekend chance to grab a cup of coffee or a Goose Island and do some art and music browsing.

I really should actually be getting ready for this show instead of writing about it, but hey, it’ll only take a few minutes, right? (more…)

Most of the time you already know it, but then sometimes you’re reminded just how cool your friends are. The Good Fear just put out a great video for the song “Tools of Trade.” You can also see it and other stuff at the Deluxe 36 MySpace site.
Tools of Trade

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For those of us with an interest in regional music history there is a special treat coming up on PBS later this month. On Tuesday, August 22 (in our area, check your local listing for local showing time) the PBS program P.O.V. (Point of View) will be airing “Lomax the Songhunter“, a documentary about Alan Lomax, the folk music collector by film-maker Rogier Kappers. Alan Lomax was a contemporary of other well known collectors and folklorists as Harry Smith, Vance Randolph and his wife Mary Celestia Parler, John Gould Fletcher, and Otto Ernest Rayburn. You’ve probably seen this logo on more than one collection of Lomax’s field recordings. Here’s an excerpt from the description of the film on the P.O.V. website.

Alan Lomax was “the song hunter.” He devoted his life to recording the world’s folk tunes before they would permanently disappear with the rise of the modern music industry. In “Lomax the Songhunter,” filmmaker Rogier Kappers seeks to tell Lomax’s story by interviewing friends such as Pete Seeger, combining it with archival recordings of music greats Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, and gathering footage of the cotton fields, rock quarries and prisons where Alan Lomax captured America’s quintessential music. Finally, Kappers followed the route that Lomax took so many years ago and traveled around Europe in an old Volkswagen to remote villages in Spain and Italy, hearing memories and music from the farmers, shepherds and weavers whose songs Lomax recorded decades earlier.

Looks to me like the tour shirts turned out good. I haven’t seen the posters except for in a brief flash during the crazed brawl between Mr. Bill Krejci and the Murder by Death merch guy. Anyway, can’t wait to see them in person. Shall I take orders? Maybe I can snag a few of the leftovers.

Kings of New England playing a show in a local garage

Twas a big night for BSB clients and friends at last night’s 11th Annual NAMAs (Northwest Arkansas Music Awards). The Kings of New England walked away with a Best Album of the Year and Best “Plugged” Album. Which all goes to show that if you break up, your chances of winning awards increase greatly.

Wooden Stares also gave a great performance at the show, didn’t win anything, unfortunately. They have not broken up yet and are actually going quite strong.

Moreover, Kelly Mulhollan was up for Best Male Singer/Songwriter and his amazing Never Ending Conversation was nominated for best “unplugged” album. He was denied both awards, indicating an overall decline in justice in the world.

Block, Street & Building had the extreme pleasure of creating the album art for all three of these great acts. And for that we’d like to thank God for pulling us through the hard times, our parents who never gave up on us and encouraged us to follow our dreams, even during hard times. To our Apple computers for remaining faithful even when we asked more than we should of them during hard times. To our friends who have always been there for us in hard times. Firewire for being so fast in hard times. Our vision for remaining something resembling 20/20 even in the hard times. And lastly rock and roll like Tel Aviv, old-timey music like Violet Hensley and underground hip-hop labels like Bru Records. And our producers. The NAMA limo driver. And fondue.

As soon as they become available, I plan on posting some of the photographs that were taken at the show. Twas a great evening.