33rd Floor

Long Gone Away

This homebrew music video uses some stills from the Night Wanderer post and one of the razed Walnut Mall lot. And an unblogged photo of the Coliseum Mall demolition.

Plus Super-8 footage circa 1998 of the so-called ghost house in my old neck of the woods and other area bits & pieces.

Like Pons Store or the James River seen from Hog Island.

friends in vinyl

As this bit of arcana is more about "getting away" than "looking back", check out this link for the full story . . .

recent and not so recent

The Smithfield Times kindly shares a few of the sights and sounds from this year's Pork, Peanut and Pine Festival.

Think it's been quite a while since I went.

Meantime, here are some images of cool old newspaper ads someone was good enough to post on Flickr.

Includes old Leggett, Home Quarters Warehouse, Circuit City, Revco and Roses ads. So check it out.

3 1/2 sunsets in June 1998

there was a band

Nope, not mine (before my time) . . .



Theirs.


(Click picture for a bigger, better view . . .)

fuzzy photo of a cool concertina

An er, umm informally photographed concertina animated and joined by this singing gentleman.

At this festival.

Taken by one who was no less than a loyal fan of both . . .

icicle drip

It may be too soon to watch ice melt. Indeed, this gnarly little 'cicle soon became part of a big pendulous 3-footer before snapping off.

But in case of summer heat, I'll post this now. And hibernate till then.

The background music is an old instrumental of mine, Low Field, from circa 1996. I'll upload it to audiokayness in a few days.

[UPDATE: It's there now.]

cassette arcana

In Music Thing, there was mention of all these music related crafty items including cassette themed stuff at Etsy. So I thought I'd post this odd bit of cassette arcana.



Tho' I'm a big fan of the cassette, this groovy bit of merchandising predates even my prodigious usage . . .

Detail from just below the cassette's blister pack:



Aside from the splashy design & copywriting, what I love is this is a 15 minute cassette. So words and images connoting boundless vistas of self-expression are put forth to sell a tape that offers 7 1/2 minutes of recording time per side.

Luckily, longer cassettes were also available (gotta love the multiple overlaying images of Beethoven in the Classic series packaging--click the image below for a closer look).

Aunt Mimi online

Couple months ago, I posted a video of the acoustic duo Aunt Mimi playing out in the front yard.

Since then they've been playing clubs and such as you can see at their website.

If you're in Boston MA this Saturday night, they'll be playing from 10PM to 12:30AM at Porter's, 173 Portland Street.

Also some more info on Porter's.

add one butterfly

Along with dragonflies, moths & bees, a monarch butterfly showed up.

The barking of neighborhood dogs etc. has been replaced by an excerpt from a spacey instrumental of mine.

Lifted

Another new homebrew music videos of one of my old tunes.

Unlike "Egypt Lane", which was inspired by a specific place, "Lifted" is a more abstract piece (tho' with some old live video thrown in).

Aunt Mimi on the road

And in the front yard.

A homespun video I shot this afternoon of Steve Malatesta (right) & Derm Whittaker (left). Together they're called Aunt Mimi and they're caught in medias res singing the Buck Owens tune "I Don't Care".

gathering light

Long exposure photos of the trumpet player at the Maria McNeil Group show last night.



Why just the trumpet player/trumpet? Two words, in mock caveman tones: trumpet shiny . . .

(And let me add, in Stone Age syntax: trumpet player good, band good . . . )



Shiny indeed--lit up like Xmas.







Pics of the whole band on unterkayness.

Eyeballs & Eels

Video of parlor rockers The Loved Ones live at the Middle East upstairs, Cambridge MA, 6 May 1993. Part of a telecast hosted by the Wrong Hero.

Performing here without a safety net (or PA):

Dale Kutyna--singing & strumming

Greg Binns--snare & ride

yrs truly--eelectric guitar

More Loved Ones here and here and here and here. And here.

On YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_65wbxxzyg

Originally posted on unterkayness.

Egypt Lane, alt version

Yes, another version of my homebrew music video.

What's different?

Changes made in the video in verse three ("Sun's shining down on the bay . . ."). A shot inserted to break up the long shot there.

Originally posted on unterkayness.

On YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcp0PKdCufE

Egypt Lane

A venerable song of mine plus also venerable Super-8 footage (casually transferred to video) equals the very homebrew video above.

Includes stop-action animation, time-lapse photography, treated film and such, in color and black & white. Most of the live footage was shot at Eqypt Lane (the song's namesake), a small street in Fairhaven, Massachusetts that leads to Buzzards Bay.

While this video is very much my own mess, I have to tip my hat in appreciation toward the acid movie of my friend Steev (& his compadres in the Mental Hygiene League), the Super-8 films of Kaye Lazar, the Brothers Cobb, the work of Fiat Lux, and the likes of Chris Marker, Stan Brakhage and Andrei Tarkovsky. Numerous others would get the nod, including my wife (who was nice enough to share her painting studio), her grandfather (an 8mm and Super-8 enthusiast in his day) and my camera-wielding brother, Roy.

Also Mark and Clay and Mary, wherever you all are, and Jim Taylor and . . . [being dragged from the podium now]

POSTSCRIPT: The footage of Egypt Lane was shot circa 1997. So anyone from the area could tell you that the Atlas Tack factory with the tall smokestack has since been razed. The stack & most of the building is gone and a bike path now runs by the old lot, across Egypt Lane and eastward to the edge of town. Here's a recent view on video.

On YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnXMKbSTaL0

Pea Hicks' Poor Music Project

Details:

http://www.optigan.com/instructions.html

Dunno how current this project is, but the person behind the Optigan site contrived this notion of creating fake homebrew music tapes and planting them in thrift stores. Sounds like a fun idea, if tough to execute.

Kinda reminiscent of Yoko Ono's conceptual pieces. Or my stray notion of Bossy Painting (kind of like commissioning art with ideas, but [ahem] no money).

I modestly propose these titles:

"Xmas at the Ambersons 1973"

"the twins Jake & Janey on their new violins"

"garage door diagnostic pt 2"

"Uncle Paul & Aunt Letitia's hollow pine"

"462 people say hello to Sid, 3 say goodbye"


I'm sure you have your own.