A few months ago I was playing piano at a house party in West Asheville (the notorious Montana House) with Reese. We were trading places at the piano bench and mixing it up with some four-handed stuff and really just having a blast playing and entertaining the folks that crowded around the swaying, rocking old upright. We beat that piano to a pulp for five hours, and my old friends Mike Belleme and his girlfriend Kristen were there for much of it.
A few weeks later, Mike asked me to be a part of a skate video featuring the skaters of Asheville’s PUSH Skate Shop that he was going to be in. He’d filmed all his parts and there was a rough edit but no music yet. Inspired by the music that he had heard Reese and I play, he asked me to play the soundtrack. So we met over at World Coffee, where they have a beat up old Wurlitzer spinet in the back, RJ Hess (the filmmaker) set up some recording equipment and I improvised some music while I watched the rough cut. I treated it like I was playing to a silent film, trying to accentuate action. After about six takes and some great ideas from Mike, the above is what we got. Damn it was fun. Mike said we made history — he didn’t think any skater had ever had a live piano track before.
In exchange for musicking his video, Mike took some professional head-shots of me. Here they are:
I even got a shout out in the MountainX. Kind of weird seeing my name listed next to the Rolling Stones. I love a good collaboration, and though the output is unique, what made it work was not. Can’t wait til the next project.
Me, my friend Par and his friend Lulu of Unifire all have our birthdays on the 11th and 12th of February. Par, promoter and CNG car expert (as well as smackin good DJ) decided he’d throw a party for all three of us at the Emerald Lounge, and he booked the Firecracker Jazz Band to play it. Par will DJ as well for part of the time, and he always gets people groovin’ so bring your soft soles or your high tops and prepare to wear a hole in the dance floor.
Come on out and help me celebrate what an awesome year 25 has been for me, and to rock and roll my 26th birthday! This should be an awesome time, I’m really excited.
- The Emerald Lounge on South Lexington [ Map ]
- Thursday, February 12, 2009
- Don’t park in the lot across the street.
- $5 at the door to cover the band (worth it — I promise)
- R.S.V.P. if you’re hip
Par asked me to design the poster, whch is all over town now. This took me about an hour and I’m pround of how it turned out, but I wish I could have put another two hours of work into it to really polish it up. This is probably my most public work to date, and I’m always trying to level up my craft.
I can’t believe I’ve only been living here a little over a year! This town has been good to me. Thanks, Asheville!
Our photographer Lis just posted photos of our Halloween After-Party. Everyone had so much fun; I really have to say that it was one of the best times of my life. Had lots of old friends and lots of new friends, plenty of alcohol, lots of incredible stories to tell, and lots of clean-up but no damage to the house. DJ Par of Trinumeral spun a great set, and the Party at the Wedge was rockin as well. I’ll be posting some of my photos from the party later today. Enjoy!
So my friend Will Addy was in Vice magazine yesterday. He’s the one with the nub.
He was a Do.
Good friend of mine Josh lives and works in Columbia, SC and in his spare time runs OpenSourceSociety.org, and I just added him to my blog roll. He’s a Linux jockey and a bigger geek with a lot more knowledge than me, and does some really neat mashups with data feeds in his spare time like this:
It’s interesting to think about what ‘Open Source Society’ means. I wonder what else an Open Source Society could mean, if applied to political, sociological and behavioral models. I’m glad he’s helping to define it. Go check him out! www.opensourcesocity.org
Also, on the sidebar notice the new AVL Weather module. Thanks to Josh!
Chris Riddle — actor, filmmaker, videographer, and stage director — is one of my oldest friends. We’ve worked on many projects together in the past. Every year he puts together a team for the 48 Hour Film Festival here in Asheville. If you’ve never worked on a 48 Hour film, it’s a blast with the right people. High stress, high creativity, solving complex problems on the fly, and after two days of that you have a fim. It’s really fun. Chris and his wife Sam put together a great team last year — Director of Photography was Mike Belleme, who’s an awesome skateboarder and gaspingly good photographer, (and also in my blogroll). They tapped me for an acting role — though I had no prior screen credits. Now, I think acting is really fun, and I’ve done it confidently — on stage. On film I was totally uncomfortable with myself. We pulled the Romance genre (which is a tough one) so nobody was really thrilled with the story, and my lines made me feel like I had marbles in my mouth. I hate myself on screen. I hope I don’t really sound and look like that. Enjoy.
I thought of this because I saw Mr. Riddle. I kidnapped him and brought him to Asheville to see the Firecracker Jazz Band play at the Rocket Club, and he asked me to be an extra in his next project which is filming tomorrow. He’s filming it at the cofeehouse in Tryon, where we met. The first friends I ever made outside of church or work was at that coffeehouse, and it always feels good to come back there — especially to work with Chris, who was the first guy to ever talk to me there. I was just weird guy in the corner that nobody knew, and when Chris said “The time has come,” I finished it with “the walrus said,” and I often think of that precise moment, when the outside world first recognized me.
Thanks, Chris.
October is gone once again, and winter has us securely in his sights now. The air has a crisp edge to it, cold and clean; it begs for fire. And fire we had, Saturday night. A few of us (Benson, Travis, Dave) sat around the fire for hours, drinking beer straight from the keg. It was an evening that required nothing more then the knowledge that you were alive to be completely satisfied. Also, I have no idea how much I had to drink because I was drinking direct from the keg, no red plastic cup to interfere with the beer drinking process. It was one step short of straight injecting cold beer into waiting veins.
Took the SAT on October 8, and got a 1920. But this is on the new 600‑2400 scale, so to equate to the old 400‑1600 scale, 1920 / 3 x 2 = 1280. Which is pretty much what I scored last time. However, this time my percentile scores were good; Math 79th percentile, verbal 91st percentile. Not bad for never having a high school education, ehh?
Meanwhile, check this out: Buck Wild
