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Chicago experimental outfit Roommate is known for its thought-provoking lyrics and intricate, electronics-infused instrumentation — and Guilty Rainbow, the band’s newest release, impresses on both fronts. Continue reading…
The video for the lead track of Califone’s excellent 2009 album, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers.
Independent radio artists Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison are working with acclaimed Califone songwriter Tim Rutili on a documentary called Journey of the Asian Carp.
For the uninitiated, the Asian carp is a destructive non-native fish that has wreaked havoc on Midwestern waterways by crowding out native fish and uprooting plants. Notorious for their jumping ability, they also pose a physical danger to fishermen and their feeding habits make them hard to capture.
Meister and Collison hope to weave the documentary with Rutili’s music to create something that is more than the sum of its parts. Rutili’s music will supplement the documentary’s narrative as it follows the invasive carp’s slow migration from the American south “to the brink of Lake Michigan, focusing specifically on communities along the Illinois River that already have been invaded.”
If all goes well (more on that later), Meister and Collison will visit some of the small American communities that depend on their waterways and native fish but have been devastated by the Asian carp’s invasion.
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In the early 2000s, art/folk/experimentalists Califone played a few shows in which they improvised accompaniment to silent films. The sessions were documented in the Deceleration series, and though the discs are quite good, they seemed like a different side of Califone, rather than a natural path.
Enter 2009 and All My Friends Are Funeral Singers. Tim Rutili set out to make a movie using only cell phone cameras. Things changed, ideas grew, and a feature film was born. This time, it had a Califone soundtrack and Califone stars, and the film itself had the Rutili touch. Funeral Singers is a remarkable, wildly imaginative film that — along with the band’s 2009 album of the same name — sees Rutili at a creative high point. All My Friends Are Funeral Singers premiered at Sundance, SxSW, and Sarasota film festivals. Paste magazine called it one of the highlights of Sundance, a “whimsical movie…full of fascinating characters…directed with a light, deft touch.”
To win a copy of All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, just comment below and include your email address in the form (your email won’t be visible to the public). The winner will be chosen at random on July 12, 2010. Califone tour dates are below…
What can I say? Alex Chilton is dead. As part of Big Star, he wrote some of the best music of the 1970s, and his work has influenced so many — Jeff Tweedy, Califone, Elliott Smith, The Replacements. The list goes on.
I’m just sitting here playing the YouTube video for this old song over and over again. Those harmonies get me every time. Goodbye, Alex.