February 2nd, 2010
We are honored to be able to post this short film / long-form music video by Michael and Phil Harrell, that was inspired by the music of 400 Lonely Things. (Thank you, sirs). We hope you enjoy it. If so, please share it / comment on it / embed it.
Tags: 400 Lonely Things, Ambient, Be Still Life, experimental, music video, short film
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January 30th, 2010
Thursday: Mookoid track ‘Hex River Valley’ was played on Sydney FBi Radio show - New Weird Australia.
http://fbiradio.com/program_closeup.php?..programtimeid=101
The same track will also be included in the forthcoming New Weird Australia compilation release in March.
Hex River Valley is also available on the recently released Mookoid album Fishy.
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January 18th, 2010
The Late Show, the second album from 400 Lonely Things has been reviewed at Heathen Harvest. Read it here.
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December 23rd, 2009
Zombies and Euro-Trash Cinema are discussed. Read it here.
Also, Part One, discussing musical influences is right here.
Tags: Burial Ground, Dawn of the Dead, Fulci, Night of the Living Dead, Romero, Zombie, zombies
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December 1st, 2009
A World On Fire is giving away a cd and poster of Tonight of the Living Dead this month - contest details are right here.
Tags: 400 Lonely Things, A World On Fire, CD, Contest, Giveaway, Poster, Tonight of the Living Dead
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November 17th, 2009
Tonight I’ll be writing about Marc Price’s film Colin, and I take great pleasure in doing so, as it was such an unexpected treat. More than a week after our initial viewing of this movie, my wife (who doesn’t like zombie films) and I were still talking about it and remembering Colin with warmth and outright fondness, enjoying the novelty of it coming from such a traditionally unlikely place.
I had not heard of Colin before being invited to the Flyway Film Festival’s International Zombie Summit, and read just a little about it online before departing. I was intrigued by the poster art, and the film’s rumored $70 budget - but mostly by the long overdue concept of telling this type of story from the inside out. You see, Colin is a zombie movie - but it’s told from the zombie’s point of view. A zombie named Colin.
The best zombie films often make us think about what it means to be Human. Since Romero established the tradition with Night of the Living Dead in 1968, zombie films are often allegories for their time, in that they say something about the current direction in which humanity is traveling. No one has really done this better than Romero, whose subtext is often social and political and speaks of The Big Picture.
But Colin teaches us more about The Big Picture by making us think of what it means to be a human in the “little h” sense of the word; the idea of what it means to be a person, an individual, ourselves… It does this by showing what it means to Colin to be Colin.
In the opening moments of this film we watch our protagonist die with no real sense of who he is. He shortly awakens - undead - with even less of a sense of his identity than we have. Colin is reduced to a relentless core of need that is nameless - but that drives him on an obscure journey to reconnect with the phantom limb of his humanity. Along the way, scenes of mayhem unfold, some of which would feel familiar (such as the zombie siege inside the apartment building), but through the uniqueness of their approach come off as being told for the first time, the very freshness of these scenes should cause them to become legendary. However, as intense and enjoyable as these moments are, they often have little to do with Colin’s story, which is gradually told through flashbacks both intimate and personal. It’s in these qualities that I feel Colin finds its ultimate uniqueness and strength. It’s a strength that may alienate Colin from fans of horror culture junk food, but is likely to win new fans (like my wife) who just like good movies, and enjoy a little nutrition when faced with so many empty calories.
In the world of horror cinema (and especially within the zombie sub-genre) it’s not often that a film this quiet and unique gets made, and somewhat shocking when it gets noticed. The habitat of the horror film is frequently a crowded landscape of volume and violence, dominated by big-budget gore with no heart and no risk (and subsequently, no tension), all shouting through studio-mandated, gold-plated megaphones “LOOK AT ME!!!” But Colin is just the opposite of this: a hypnotic, lingering study in Zombiance that shows though the body may be dead - the soul is still very much alive. Colin is all the more remarkable in that it’s modest and quiet and keeps to itself. Don’t get me wrong, there is some pretty nasty gore and loud, shaky scenes of panicky chaos in this film - but while the rest of the world goes on shouting and struggling and fighting around him, Colin himself as a zombie is uninterested in the carnage and spectacle, feeding only out of a distracted necessity. He stumbles about lost, looking for pieces of himself to form a breadcrumb trail - more a victim of amnesia and long-term introspection than a shambling corpse. Along the way, we gradually learn what it is that drives him so - and in the end, something obvious and profound is revealed.
That humanity is always looking for the way home.
_________________________________________
P.S. - As a post script to this entry, I must make special mention of its score, written by Daniel Weekes and Jack Elphick (and also written by director Marc Price). We were invited to Flyway to premiere a music video from the 400 Lonely Things album Tonight of the Living Dead(see Flyway Transmission One, here). Our music often deals with the personal language of homesickness, and that loss of the sense of belonging that I feel, at our core - hiding beneath the idea of ourselves - we always long to return to. I apologize for the self-promotional nature of these comments and this forum, but I can’t shake the feeling I had that 400 Lonely Things had found kindred spirits in Colin - as this idea of homelessness and homesickness is at the core of Colin’s humanity. I also feel that the incredible music in this film did as much to advance this feeling as the writing, acting and directing. I would love to hear more, and I’m honored that we had the chance to share a screen and audience for a night. Perhaps we’ll do it again sometime.
Tags: 400 Lonely Things, Colin, Daniel Weekes, International Zombie Summit, Jack Elphick, Marc Price, Pimalia, Zombie
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November 16th, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009 - 7:00pm -8:00pm : Columbus , OH
Stay downtown after work every third Thursday of the month and check out new sounds curated by local musician and international composer and Pimalia recording artist Larry Marotta.
This month’s Marotta Hour features actor/singer/musician Deb Colvin-Tener.
Colvin-Tener will present a program of songs by German playwright/poet Bertolt Brecht, touching on themes of women’s rights, capitalism, poverty, and war. The evening will include Brecht’s early collaborations with the composer Kurt Weill as well as his work with the leftist composer Hanns Eisler.
Free and open to all. Donations accepted.
This series is part of our after-work programming offered Thursday evenings. Before the show, stop by Tip Top Kitchen & Cocktails and ask for the Urban Artists’ Special: It’s very special indeed and it’s only $3.
About Deb Colvin-Tener
Colvin-Tener is an actor/singer/musician living in Columbus, OH. Some years back she worked with Marotta as a member of the folk band, Hipswitch, and is thrilled to be collaborating with him again on this project. Deb recently performed in LEND ME TENOR at the Human Race Theatre in Dayton, was a 2008 Columbus Symphony Sing-Off finalist & received a Columbus Dispatch Theatre Critics Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Jo/Mae West in Dirty Blonde atCATCO. In her spare time Deb is a small business owner (Busy Blondes Beck & Call Service) and Associate Director of Shakespeare-in-a-Box, a GCAC Artist-in-Schools program.
Tags: Bertolt Brecht, Deb Colvin-Tener, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill, Larry Marotta
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November 15th, 2009
Read it here.
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November 15th, 2009
This just in from Ferrara Brain Pan of Forms of Things Unknown and Everything But The Gargoyle…
I usually don’t perform live onstage more than twice in a YEAR, and now I am appearing in two separate concerts in one WEEK. Not my FOTU solo project this time, but group collaborations. Read on…
On MONDAY night I will be part of a large ensemble of musicians in a performance of the Terry Riley composition “In C” at the Café du Nord in San Francisco - that’s Monday, November 16, at 8:00 pm. Also appearing that night will be Julianna Barwick and The Lickets. The Café du Nord is located at 2170 Market St. Tickets are $10, either in advance or at the door.
Then on THURSDAY, I’ll be one of twenty-five scheduled participants in the upcoming “DroneShift” concert, organized by Matt Davignon. The DroneShift is an unscored live sound event with a duration of two hours, in which participating musicians will each contribute long sustained tones to the collectively improvised performance at various points during the concert, resulting in an organically shifting sound mass whose emphasis is on texture, harmonics, and gradual change and musical development. The scheduled performers are CJ Borosque, Beau Casey, Amar Chaudhary, Matt Davignon, Adam Fong, Jeff Hobbs, Sebastian Krawczuk, Kadet Kuhne, Brendan Landis, David Leikham, Cheryl Leonard, Melissa Margolis, Lucio Menegon, David Michalak, Suki O’Kane, Ferrara Brain Pan, Rent Romus, Lx Rudis, Edward Schocker, Sarah Stiles, Errol Stewart, Lena Strayhorn, Tim Walters, Bill Wolter and Michael Zelner. The concert will take place at the Luggage Store Gallery on November 19, 2009, between 8:00 and 10:00 pm. The Luggage Store Gallery is located at 1007 Market Street in downtown San Francisco (close to 6th & Market). Admission is $6-$10 sliding scale. Please visit the Luggage Store New Music Series page at for more info.
Hope to see one or two of you at one of these gigs!
Ferrara
“Let the great constellation of flickering ashes be heard…”
http://www.formsofthingsunknown.com
http://www.myspace.com/formsofthingsunknown
http://www.myspace.com/everythingbutthegargoyle
Tags: Cafe du Nord, Drone, DroneShift, Everything But The Gargoyle, Ferrara Brain Pan, Forms of Things Unknown, Julianna Barwick, Terry Riley, The Lickets
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November 13th, 2009
Multi-instrumentalist and mastermind behind Forms of Things Unknown Ferrara Brain Pan collaborated live with Ninah and Das of Big City Orchestra on ubRadio. You can download or stream a recording of it, in two parts. Part one is here and part two is here.
Tags: Big City Orchestra, Ferrara Brain Pan, Forms of Things Unknown, UBUIBI
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