You may have been traveling…

in a hot-air balloon…

over the South Eastern Pacific at the mercy of every whim of the elements…

and haven’t seen land,

(or more importantly)

an internet port,

for days…

If that’s the case, you might have missed a great little gem that popped onto the intertube cyber-waves a couple days ago. We care an awful lot about our hot-air ballooning friends, so we’re posting it here too. Said gem is the wonderful new animation of Danielson’s “Idiot Boksen” by animator-extraordinaire, Tom Eaton . It was created as part of the Season of Danielson, which culminates November 4, 2008 (December 1 in the U.K.), in the release of Trying Hartz, the Danielson retrospective of all things pre-Ships:

(click on the heart of your choice to pre-order!)

So click on the cartoon, enjoy, and be sure to check out the very hip commentary from Tom Eaton about the making of…

Idiot Boksen from Sounds Familyre on Vimeo.

“It was tough to pick a song from Trying Hartz… some of my favorite Danielson tunes are from the very early days, and it would have been a great opportunity to animate to one of those tracks. But I’d also always loved “Idiot Boksen,” and it lent itself really well to a short cartoon, what with its punchy beat, literal lyrics, & relatively short length (always a nice thing for an animator!) so I chose that one.

I also agree with the song’s anti-TV theme. Dan & I talked about growing up without television as a big part of our lives, which I think is a good thing. So in the video, the opposite of watching tv is engaging with your friends and going outside. I also wanted to add the element of focus group testing, which is such a big part of kids television these days, as a framing device.

(Just for the record, although I believe TV rots your brain, internet video is perfectly ok.)”

photo by Sandor van Voorst

BREAKING NEWS!!

This afternoon (10/17/08), Wovenhand will be performing at “Tiny Desk Concerts”, a fantastic program hosted by NPR’s All Songs Considered. The show has a very simple premise: a mini-concert played
at NPR’s Bob Boilen’s desk. Very cool.

Today’s Wovenhand Tiny Desk Concert will be video-streamed live right here between 1:30 and 2:00PM EST. Tune in and enjoy!

If you can’t make it to a computer around that time, rest assured, the concert will be archived here in a week or so. Follow the above link to see past shows. There are some incredible performances by some wonderful artists.

photo by Sandor van Voorst

Here’s the scoop:

Oct 9 2008–THE 930 LISTENING ROOM
930 Mary St., Louisville KY
w/Interstate; $10
www.the930.org

Oct 10 2008–THE PILOT LIGHT
106 E. Jackson Ave., Knoxville, TN
21+; w/Pick Up the Snake; $10
www.thepilotlight.com

Oct 11 2008–THE DRUNKEN UNICORN
736 Ponce De Leon Place, Atlanta, GA
w/Royal Thunder & Jeffrey Bützer; 18+; $10
www.thedrunkenunicorn.net

Oct 12 2008–GRAVITY LOUNGE
103 S 1st St
Charlottesville, VA
w/The Great White Jenkins; Cost:$10
www.gravity-lounge.com

Oct 14 2008–THE KNITTING FACTORY
74 Leonard St.
New York City, NY
w/ Silver Summit & Beat Circus; 21+; $12/$14
www.knittingfactory.com

Oct 15 2008–THE MIDDLE EAST (UPSTAIRS)
472 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA
w/Silver Summit & Beat Circus; 18+; $10/$12
www.mideastclub.com

Oct 16 2008–JOHNNY BRENDA’S
1201 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia PA
w/Silver Summit & Deadfolk; 21+; $10/$12
www.johnnybrendas.com

Oct 17 2008–IOTA CLUB AND CAFE
2832 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA
w/Silver Summit; 21+; $12
www.iotaclubandcafe.com

Oct 18 2008–CLUB CAFE
56-58 S 12th St
Pittsburgh, PA w/Matt Bauer; $10/$12
www.clubcafelive.com

Oct 19 2008–THE PIKE ROOM @ CROFOOT
1 S. Saginaw
Pontiac, MI
w/Blue Black Hours; All Ages; $8/$10
www.thecrofoot.com

Oct 21 2008–LADIES LITERARY CLUB
61 Sheldon Blvd. SE, Grand Rapids, MI
w/Crooked Saints; $5-Advance/$10-Day Of
www.calvin.edu/admin/sao

Oct 22 2008–BOTTOM LOUNGE
1375 W. Lake St., Chicago, IL
w/Minsk; 21+; $14
www.mpshows.com

Oct 23 2008–TRIPLE ROCK SOCIAL CLUB
629 Cedar Ave., Minneapolis, MN
21+; $10/$12
www.triplerocksocialclub.com

Oct 24 2008–THE SLOWDOWN
729 N. 14th St., Omaha, NE
All Ages; $8/$10
www.theslowdown.com

Oct 25 2008–MERCURY CAFE
2199 California St., Denver, CO
w/The Wheel; $12
www.mercurycafe.com

Half-handed Cloud’s John Ringhofer recently returned from a trip to Europe. Prior to a brief UK and Scandinavian tour with K Record’s Lake, he spent a week in London collaborating with printmaking duo Henningham Family Press. Their week of printing culminated in an event during which John debuted brand-new Half-handed Cloud songs to accompany a print that the three had designed together. The print was created with silkscreens, linocuts, three carefully-chosen colors of ink, and even post-consumer printing paper made by wind power!

Zap!

Six new songs were performed atop a giant 12-foot spinning turntable, and nearly 100 people participated in a sing-along to cue cards displaying either “Ooooh”, “Doo-doo-doo”, or “Aaah”. They printed a limited edition of posters which will be for sale in the near future on Asthmatic Kitty’s website but are available here now.

Get ‘em while there hot!

“Everyone has a sidecar, some are just more obvious than others.”

All of us have psychological and physiological qualities that shape our perception and experience of the world we live in. While these qualities do not define us, we carry them with us like a motorcycle carrying a sidecar.

Sidecars is an extraordinary short film by Ben Stamper that explores this idea by documenting an unusual friendship between two extraordinary people. Charming and cheeky, Justin is a teenager who has autism and wants to be a “famous illustrator” when he grows up. Lyndsley is Justin’s art student who has the patience and optimism of a saint. She also has her own “sidecar,” which is a rare rheumatalogical condition called Polymyositis. Sidecars is an intimate portrait of two friends seeking identity outside of their diagnoses, while learning from each other how to transform their struggle into beautiful works of art that strengthen and inspire.

Click on the sidecar above to see the trailer, and to visit the Sidecars website.

We are very happy to announce that Sidecars will be screened at the 2008 Rhode Island Film Festival (one of the most important festivals in the industry). The screening is at 7:00pm on Thursday, August 7th at the Andrews Theatre in the Columbus Theatre Arts Center (one of New England’s most beautiful theatres), located at 270 Broadway, Providence, RI. The festival runs from August 3rd through August 10th with 320 different films being screened.

To visit the Rhode Island Film Festival website and purchase tickets for the screening of Sidecars, click here. You can also call call 401-861-4445 or 401-490-6735. Single tickets are $10.50.

“My mother never saved anything except nursing school textbooks, but something made her keep that one box of my toddler clothes. Strawberry Shortcake shoes, crocheted dresses, purple printed bell bottom corduroys. Sometimes something possesses you to want to relive your childhood (the good parts) through your children, and dress them in something you can save for their kids…”

So begins the announcement of Vesper’s new line of hand-made cloth goods on Etsy (a very hip online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.) Sounds Familyre isn’t just about music, we’ve got some super talented clothiers too! Many of you are already familiar with the wonder of Mamma-Made (take a look at their new summer line here), but did you know that the beauty, power, humor and grace so evident in the blessed vocal-cords of Vesper extended to her work with needle and thread? These people are so darn creative! Do yourself a favor: click here to go to Vesper’s Etsy shop and see her extraordinary handmade clothing and handbags, as well as Ben’s one-of-a-kind handpainted T-shirts! New stuff is always being added, so come back often, and BUY.

In the meantime, check out some of the pictures from her shop below–cool cool!

(Artwork by Anita Santiago)

Release Date: Sept.9, 2008

‘Kicking Bird’

Click here for free download of ‘Kicking Bird’, and to stream ‘Horsetail’, also from TEN STONES.

Tom Eaton

The whole season is a shot of fresh oxygen, where trees and grasses remember life before they dozed off a few months back, birds and wind delight in frivolous movements, and waking up in the morning is a whole lot easier (unless, of course, your relationship with pollen is compromised). Wouldn’t our New Year’s Resolutions have a better chance of success if we made them in the Spring instead of in January?

What do we do in the Spring? Hair-dying? Knot-tying? Potato frying? Lawn-lying? Ankle-sock buying? Get-in-shape trying?

What spring foods do we eat?
What about Spring music?
What Spring spots do we visit?
What Spring spots do we visit whilst whistling a Spring tune in between bites of Spring food?

Read on for some of our favorite springy things…

Michael Kaufmen:

To bring in the spring…Slo-Ro is flexing muscles, working out at LA Fitness which has a mural of San Diego. Cracks him up everytime he is doing his 10 pull ups. Hey, he is working his way up. Don’t you worry. When not working out, he is “crate-digging” at his public library for lovely music of other territories than the U.S. pop flood. He is learning to identify species of birds and energy bars.

Half-handed Cloud:

Sleeping with the windows open.
Swimming in rivers and lakes.
Bike-riding without gloves or long sleeves.

Megan Slaboda:

Spring line of Mamma Made Clothes
LONG WALKS
The warmth of the sun on my face.
Vacations with the ‘Smith’ family

Dan Zimmerman:

a trip to Longwood Gardens, PA
“The Girl from Ipanema” goes walking..
The Notorious Byrd Brothers
“If Dogs Run Free” then why can’t we?
Care for your mower..
Lila Downs,
New Order,
and oh yes,
“The Santa Cruz River Band”
from lovely Tucson Arizona
(see my MySpace)

Christiaan Palladino:

Lamburgers with your best friend.
Piggyback weekends.
Fleet Foxes on repeat in the car.
Car washing.
Kissing my wife.

Lenny Smith:

I think everyone would greatly enjoy doing what I just did last Saturday and two Saturdays before that. I drove, with my three sons, down to the Batsto River in the South Jersey pines. We had a great breakfast and then went off, with our kayaks, down the Batsto River. It was so peaceful and lovely. The whole 7 hour trip we only saw two other boats: two canoes with couples fighting about who can steer better, branches in the face, and something about spiders! Once we got past them (they did say, “Hello.”), we had nothing for the next several hours but peace, beauty, and a quiet joy. The woods really are “lovely, dark and deep.” NOW we get to the best part: Along the way, while my 3 sons were out paddling and laughing ahead of me, I quietly dropped into the cedar water behind my kayak the following things: any memories tormenting me from the past, any hopes for the future robbing me of the joy of the moment, any regrets whatsoever, any thoughts about wars, floods, earthquakes, famines, shootings and the like, any concern about the election, any considerations about possible invasions by aliens or terrorists. Over the side went my over-active mind, my identification with my mind, my propensity to “take” offense, and so much more. Suffice it to say, when I finally got out of the kayak for lunch on the sandy beach, I forgot that I was not a kid anymore. In fact, I really was a kid again and I remembered that I was allowed to be happy! And NOW I AM. There really must be something magical in that cedar water flowing through the South Jersey pines.

Hi All,

An article appeared in the New York Times this weekend called “The Return of the One Man Band” by John Wray. It’s a great article about Final Fantasy, St. Vincent, and Panda Bear (with a brief nod to Sufjan Stevens), but it also had these nice words to say about the great Half-handed Cloud:

“…in the last few years there has been a gravitation from tried-and-true rock paradigms, driven both by boredom with the increasingly threadbare conventions of indie rock and by a sincere, if playful, rediscovery of experimentalists as diverse as Van Dyke Parks and Philip Glass. And it’s no surprise that many of the boldest of these, like Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Half-handed Cloud and Ghostband, are essentially one-person projects that don’t require too much consensus about what a song should be.”

Way to go, Mr. Ringhofer!

For the whole article, click here!