athens georgia music&arts

This in Friday (sorry, I was out of the office) from the Modern Skirts:

What March Was Like
A) We went into the studio again at the end of February and spent two and a half weeks recording new material down in New Orleans. We have 9 songs so far towards another album and pleanty of time to record more and tweak the ones we have. Again, there is something completely new about these songs, they feel different than anything we’ve done, and honestly, they could scare the living hell out of some people. You should be extremely curious as to what we’ve been up to.

B) South By Southwest was a good time for all this year.

C) We signed on with a booking agent, Red Ryder out of Chicago, who boasts such artists as Andrew Bird, Magnetic Fields, Mark Olson, Isobel Campbell, The Spinto Band, and the Great Lake Swimmers. We were thrilled to have Red Ryder as part of our family, and our excitement has only grown as our schedule has started coming together.

The band goes on to list upcoming tour dates, which will bring them to the 40 Watt on April 17. Learn more here.

It’s in Atlanta — but certainly worth the drive to celebrate the wonderful Art Rosenbaum and his Atlanta label, Dust To Digital, and their recent Grammy win for “Art of Field Recording Vol. 1” (and the release of Vol. 2).

George Gibson, Earl Murphy and Tony Bryant are slated to perform on Saturday April 4th at the Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge in Atlanta.

Here’s the lowdown

When: 8pm on Saturday April 4, 2009
Tickets: $10 at the door
Where: Highland Inn Ballroom Lounge
644 North Highland Ave, NE / Atlanta, GA 30306
Come and pay witness to some of the most authentic traditional musicians that Art Rosenbaum has had the privilege to record over the past 50 years. Getting things started will be George Gibson, a very influential old-time banjo player from Kentucky. Then Earl Murphy, a 92 year old fiddling master from Missouri, will take the stage. Finally, headlining the event will be Georgia’s own Tony Bryant the grandson of legendary guitarist Curley Weaver. Art will be MCing throughout the night and singing with special guests - The Around the Globe Sea Chantey Singers — the perfect compliment to a pint of beer, shot of whiskey, or even a cup of coffee.

This event is brought to you by Dust-to-Digital and WMLB 1690. More information will be posted on the DTD Blog and broadcast on WMLB as it becomes available.

So glad to hear the news below today — and really looking forward to my membership in Roots Farm’s CSA, along with our own veggies this year.

Here’s to Community Supported Agriculture, growing your own and nourishing your body with the fruits of the land. Roots is still taking members, so sign up today!

A note from a really nice regular reader today politely pointed out what proves to be my embarrassing happenstance with homonyms. In this case, I referenced films in the James Bond “cannon” — the reader wanted to know if the pun was intended — if only. Among my numerous homonym-ities that have made it to print include: “lute” for “loot,” “bear” for “bare” and, without question worst of all b/c it landed in a headline, “heroine” for “heroin.” That was a bad day. Sure, I could blame the copy editors, but I’d rather blame the English language, which is filled with ridiculous rules and spelling mystifications; it boggles the mind. In a weak defense, I’ll say that when your eyes read pages and pages of copy all day, they a) get tired, and b) start to correct things. For reasons I don’t understand, my eyes are quick to see an extra space in a sentence (and really, thanks a lot, because that’s so not as big a deal as other stuff). Though I will say, as an editor, I do find errors when I’m reading something someone else has published or written. But not so good at finding my own. At any rate, the homonym in question today leads to a really entertaining interview with the director of four Bond films, at the height of the series. The video above is part of that.

Or maybe it’s vice verse? At any rate, the 40 Watt will be the place to find out just how many musicians in fact WORK at local restaurants, when the club hosts its First Annual Athens’ Restaurant and Bar Battle of the Bands.

From the release:

“Athens’ restaurants and bars are being challenged to put together bands using their staffs and go head to head. It’s no secret that many Athens’ musicians support themselves working for local area restaurants and bars. Athens’ restaurants will use their musically inclined staffs to compete for a cherished prize while also raising money for two great local charities. The winning band will be awarded a glass pitcher decorated by a local artist.

Restaurants/Bars can enter through Rick Poss at the 40 Watt Club. The entrance fee is thirty dollars and only the first ten bands will be accepted. Each band gets three songs or fifteen minutes to sway the judging panel and all songs played must be covers. The deadline for entering is Wednesday, April 8.”

The event takes place April 27, and is sponsored by the 40 Watt Club, with help from Terrapin Beer Company and local restaurants and bars. Proceeds will benefit Nuci’s Space and The Athens Area Emergency Food Bank.

Always good to hear from Jim White, our world famous troubador now living in nearby Winterville who’s always creating. This just in from him:

I’m about to release a new side project under the band name Mama Lucky.  The album is called Permanent Stranger.  It’s something that Tucker Martine and I carefully cobbled together in our spare time over the last five or so years and consists of songs of mine that my label said were “too weird”.  Subject matter is left field metaphysics delivered with a southern twist.  The mood ranges from Twin Peaks lounge to hard scrabble gospel to gentle space folk.

Tucker (Decemberists, Bill Frisell, Laura Veirs) co-produced and co-engineered with me and brought in all those great Seattle players like Eyvind Kang and Steve Moore that he’s worked with over his exponentially expanding career. 

Vocals are handled by Linda Delgado, a blues singer from my home town who I’ve collaborated with in the past on tracks like The Wound That Never Heals, and Combing My hair In A Brand New Style.

I play lots of instruments, do back up vocals and some whacked out remixes.   

Album art is handled by Gail Marowitz, who won a Grammy a few years ago for an Aimee Mann project. 

Sweet — (read more here — and be sure to check out the video of Patti Smith singing with R.E.M. when they took the stage, for E-Bow the Letter. Goosebumpy.) “Fall On Me” (the dB’s) “The Apologist” (Fink) “Man on the Moon” (Keren Ann with Calexico) “Wendell Gee” (Calexico) “The Great Beyond” (Rachael Yamagata with Calexico) “Sitting Still” (Bob Mould with Calexico) “Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)” (The Feelies) “Nightswimming” (Ingrid Michaelson) “Hairshirt” (Glen Hansard) “South Central Rain” (Apples in Stereo) “Shaking Through” (Guster) “Supernatural Superserious” (Marshall Crenshaw with Calexico) “Driver 8” (Rhett Miller with Calexico) “World Leader Pretend” (Kimya Dawson) “Everybody Hurts” (Vic Chesnutt with Elf Power) “Perfect Circle” (Kristin Hersh and the Throwing Muses) “At My Most Beautiful” (Dar Williams) “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” (Jolie Holland with Calexico) “I Believe” (Darius Rucker with Calexico) “New Test Leper” (Patti Smith) “E-Bow The Letter” (R.E.M.)

Jeff Montgomery, mastermind behind the many R.E.M. listening parties around Athens over the years, has a bunch (but not a ton) of left-over T-shirts from said shindigs, that he’s put together at his athensmusic.net. From Jeff: “We have a very limited batch of shirts from the last few R.E.M. Listening Parties (Accelerate in 2008 & Live in 2007) and Tributes (Murmur 25th in 2008 & Finest Worksongs in 2006 … that we’ve now made available as a group on athensmusic.net in a special area www.athensmusic.net/remfans The proceeds go to benefit Community Connection of NE GA and Family Connection/ Communities in Schools like the events themselves. The shirts are exclusive to our site. They were extra ones from the events that we’ve held on to since the events and decided to make available to help raise a little more money and get them in the hands of people who want memorabilia.” So there you have it — these are some super cool, limited edition, Athens memorabilia tees, the purchase of which go to a good cause. Can’t beat that.

Just came from the Topping Out Party for the new Hotel Indigo, 500 College Ave. downtown. (Topping Out, I learned is when the final floor of the building is in place — there’s a ceremony and a tree involved — it’s a tradition dating back, one Indigo rep said, to Roman times.) The Hotel Indigo is LEED Certified (that stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) — the first in the company’s Intercontinental Group.

The tree in question for the ceremony was in a bucket so it can be replanted, and the hotel is all-kinds of local friendly. All of the artwork on the room walls will be by Athens artists (more to come on that later), along with screenprinted band flyers in super cool reclaimed wood frames salvaged from around Athens and made in Athens; there’ll be a music venue on the ground floor, and what promises to be a beautiful courtyard. Will update later with more details, but suffice it to say this place is seriously awesome, the kind of place where’ll you’ll want to take a “stay-cation” with a night off from home or the kids. I can’t wait.

Plans are for it to be open in the fall of this year.