Posts filed under 'Movies'
In honor of Tax Day, at least that’s what we’re celebrating here in the US today, here’s a clip from the old Beatles cartoon where they discuss tax policy with Robin Hood. Well, they don’t discuss tax policy as much as run around in a poorly animated fashion while “Taxman” plays on the soundtrack. Oh, and does anyone else think the line about declaring the pennies on your eyes when you die is perhaps a bit morbid for a children’s cartoon?-MJS
April 15th, 2008
The Fretboard Journal has quite a few Seattle subscribers (thank you) so here’s a heads up for a pretty unique show headed this way next week: on September 15, artist Bruce Bickford is having a rare exhibit at Seattle’s Christoff Gallery. Bickford is best-known for his claymation films with Frank Zappa, including Baby Snakes. Not sure what’s in-store for the opening night, but the gallery is claiming that works spanning his entire career will be on display and available for sale.
September 10th, 2007
Bryant Trenier builds his fine archtops up in Seattle in a workshop that’s not much bigger than a walk-in closet. He said that he regards Jimmy D’Aquisto as the finest luthier ever, at least when it comes to archtops, and you can see definitely see that influence on Trenier’s work. Trenier likes to build purely acoustic guitars, although he will install a floating pickup if the customer requests it. The empty stand on the left was where he parked the first guitar he built with a pickup mounted in the top. I’d show you what it looked like but every time I stopped by to photograph it someone was trying it out in one of the quiet rooms. Trenier also offered a very nicely produced DVD that showed his building technique and guitarist named Tim Lerch playing the guitars built during the course of the filming. He said it wasn’t expensive to produce and I have to say it really illuminated Trenier’s building philosophy and the care he puts into each guitar he builds much more clearly than a paper catalog could. I hope more builders consider doing this.-MJS
August 27th, 2007
Our pals at the Bluegrass Blog have scored a coup. They will be debuting Four Days of Infamy, a 30-minute documentary about the Infamous Stringdusters on their site today. The documentary was produced by Craig Havighurst of String Theory Media. Craig spent four days traveling with the band and he was able to shoot footage throughout the trip. There are scenes in the band’s van, on stage, backstage and everywhere in between. I’m very jealous the Bluegrass Blog gets to show this documentary first but I can find some consolation in that fact that Craig has written a couple of great articles for the FJ which will be published in upcoming issues.-MJS
August 27th, 2007
So, I don’t remember where I found this image but I sent it to Gary over at Ukulelia for obvious reasons. He mentioned it on the blog and his readers turned up quite a bit of info about it. Like, for example, Bad Girl won two Academy Awards in 1931. Head on over to Ukulelia.com see what else they found out.-MJS
August 16th, 2007
Chasin’ Gus’ Ghost is new documentary about jug band music that looks pretty sweet.-MJS
August 3rd, 2007
So, I was reading this review of a new Japanese ghost movie called Kaidan and it mentioned that one of the characters was killed with a shamisen plectrum. I’d never heard of a death by pick so I tracked down the trailer, where you do get a glimpse of the plectrum in question. As you can see from the image on the left a shamisen plectrum is a substantial piece of hardware and, at least in a ghost movie, you can sort of imagine it being used to kill someone. Still, I have to say I was hoping to find that ninjas were chucking Fender 351s around like shurikens, but no such luck.-MJS
August 3rd, 2007
If you were alive during the 1970s, like I was, and went to lots of midnight movies, like I did, you probably saw the short cartoon Quasi at the Quackadero a few dozen times. (It seemed like it was in constant rotation with Bambi Meets Godzilla.) Anyway, the cartoon’s animator Sally Cruickshank has posted it on YouTube and it turns out that the music was done by FJ contributor Robert Armstrong and his friend Al Dodge, who are both founding members of the Cheap Suit Serenaders. Click here to see Quasi at the Quackadero and relive a tiny portion of my misspent youth.-MJS
July 24th, 2007
