Empty Cellar Records

The Report, Vol. 1 – featuring Joseph Childress and a dead body…

We are a little late on reporting this, as The Report has been sold out for almost two months now! …but we still feel compelled to send some major love to McGregor over at Chocolate Bobka for this amazing undertaking. If you are lucky enough to own – or even to chance upon one of these books – then you should treat yourself to some quality time with its pages. Don’t believe us? …then check out this rad trailer:

The Report from Charles Poekel on Vimeo.

As Devin at Naturalismo put it:

McGregor has assembled what is likely to become one of the most interesting publications this year and will only be made available for a short period of time, each copy being handmade to order. The Report is a cultural breath of fresh air with its focus on slowing down a bit from the rapid and brief fragments comprising much of online music/arts documentation and delving deeper into what is happening at the moment.

…and as McGregor describes it:

The Report, if you don’t already know, is a 100+ page bi-annual journal, compilation and DVD package, containing the weirdest, wisest musings on culture, art and music. Contributors include Dent May, Ben Chasny, Rob Mitchum (Pitchfork), Devin Wolfe (Naturalismo), Justin Gage (Aquarium Drunkar), Molly Sarle (Mountain Man), Matt Mondanile (Ducktails, Real Estate), Sawyer Carter Jacobs (Underwater Peoples, Family Portrait, Emilie Friedlander (Visitation Rites, Arthur Mag, Tiny Mix Tapes), Madalyn Merkey (Irma Vep Tapes), and Cian Traynor (SeeWhatYouHear, Guardian), amongst many, many others. The cassette compilation, which also comes as a digital download, features a bevy of exclusive unreleased tracks, as well as songs that simply were overlooked or are soon to be released.

The Report also comes with an exclusive DVD of never-before-seen footage of Justin Townes Earle, Pure Ecstasy, Twin Sister, the Alex Bleeker and the Freaks supergroup (featuring 2 drummers and Julian Lynch on keys), as well as selections from the Chocolate Bobka Church show featuring Mountain Man, Liam the Younger, Lux Perpetua, and No Demons here.

…as we tend to say about such endeavors:

THIS RULES!

Joseph Childress is featured prominently in back to back pieces. First in a truly thoughtful essay on the life and times of “folk” music in the San Francisco Bay Area, by Devin Wolfe at Naturalismo, and second in the most in depth interview ever conducted with Joseph, by Irish journalist extraordinaire Cian Traynor.

Here is a thrilling excerpt from Cian’s Interview with Joseph in the Report:

So tell me about going on the road and hopping trains…

I was extremely influenced by Woody Guthrie’s biography Bound for Glory. I found a friend who had travelled before and we decided to make our way up the east coast to meet another friend. So that spring my folks were practically in tears. They’re conservative, white Christian ranchers from Colorado. Along the way, one woman in New York got inspired by our trip and sublet her house so she could hit the road with us. She got hit by a car in Gainesville, Florida and had to stay in hospital for a while, so it kind of turned into a sad story but, y’know, it’s just that aspect of adventure. We made our way down the coast and slept wherever we could: in stairwells, on picnic tables, in old apartment buildings. We reached New Orleans and I got arrested for bein’ a knucklehead; bein’ drunk and goofin’ off. The southern route goes straight through there, so they have a heavy crackdown on wanderers and tramps. They saw me trying to sleep out near a bush. I made my way back to Colorado and right after that I recorded The Rebirths. Wow (laughs); haven’t thought about this stuff in a long time. We did a lot of riding the flying J, which is hitchhiking from one truck stop to another. It beats sticking your thumb out on the side of the highway. No one really picks you up and I learned that the hard way. I spent two days trying to hitch my way out of Jacksonville, by myself, during a snowy Thanksgiving. And I thought, ‘God, what an experience’.

What was the strangest moment?

Oh man, we had a lot of strange moments. The one I always talk about when I’m drunk was the night we broke into an abandoned house in South Carolina. It was raining at two in the morning and we hitched a ride from this truck driver who was completely fucked up on drugs. But we were pretty desperate so we gave this guy a try. He said, “you two guys sit in the back; she’s sittin’ up here with me”. Tony and myself looked at each other like, ‘oh great. What’s this guy gonna do?” So he hands her a box of drugs and tells her to get it ready. I’m just thinking to myself, “what the hell? This isn’t smart. Doin’ drugs in a frickin’ freight truck flying down a two-lane highway in the middle of the night”. I think the others were just riding along with it. Eventually I voiced my concerns and he looked at the woman, made an obscene gesture and said, “do you guys feel like dying tonight?” When he wanted to stop to get beer, we decided to get the hell out of there. So we take off from this Get ‘N’ Go in the middle of nowhere and my friend finds an abandoned house down the highway. I was standing guard to make sure there were no cops while they broke in. Then my friend comes back, shaking, saying, “Joseph, I think we just found a fuckin’ dead body”.

Oh my God…

I shine my flashlight through this old house, which is covered in dust, and sure enough there’s a body lying face down in the middle of the fuckin’ floor. We tip-toe up to it, almost holding each other and eventually I get up the nerve just to touch it and see. Turns out it’s a fully clothed life-size dummy from God-knows-when filled with sawdust and cotton. I don’t know if it was for security purposes or what. So we enjoyed an ecstatic moment and knew this was going to be a good one.

This is the second instance this year where Joseph Childress has been featured in the debut issue of an amazing handmade publication (check out the Ribbons Box Set: Book 1) Let’s hope that there are many more volumes of The Report to come.

Mark Trecka & Beth Remis on tour now with Elephant Micah

In case you missed our first post about this tour, we would like to remind all of our East Coast friends that Mark and Beth from Pillars and Tongues are now officially on tour with Elephant Micah, who we love. Check here for dates. …and pick up the Pillars and Tongues record, “Lay of Pilgrim Park” at our store.

Ribbon Publications Presents: Book 1, “Eucalyptus Grove”, featuring Joseph Childress

David Wilson is a magic man, amazing artist, and the soul behind Ribbons Publications.

A couple weeks ago David introduced Book 1 of the Ribbons Box set (thanks Southern Exposure), a project revisiting past gatherings. Over the last several years, Ribbons Publications has hosted a number of truly inspiring events in magical settings – an imagined cave, a deserted island, an aged barn, a moving bus, a beautiful memorial in the woods – and with luminous participants – Little Wings, Michael Hurley, White Rainbow, Barn Owl, Mount Eerie, Joseph Childress, Luck Dragons, and many many more…

This is Book 1:
Book 1 commemorates the first of these events – A quiet evening in an East Bay eucalyptus grove with the songs of Joseph Childress and Mariee Sioux among others.

Book 1, “Eucalyptus Grove” – Enfolded

Book 1, “Eucalyptus Grove” – Unfolded

In the book you’ll find:

A recording of a recent morning spent at the eucalyptus grove talking and sharing songs with Mariee Sioux and Joseph Childress, and a bonus song by Nat Russell…photographs by Terri Loewnthal, Kevin Haas, and Ryan Junell….a letter about the show…a second edition of the original invitation…directions how to have your own journey finding the grove…a series of drawings of different moments spent in the grove…

This is a $15 way to support efforts towards future big plans! …and get a limited edition field recording of Joseph.

Support Ribbons by getting your own copy here.

Sonny Smith and the most ambitious project of all time…

(covers top-left to bottom-right by: Kyle Field (Little Wings), Chris Johanson, Scott Hewicker, Kyle Ranson)

SONNY SMITH: 100 RECORDS
April 9th – May 31, 2010
Opening reception Friday, April 9, 6 – 9pm
Gallery 16
501 3rd St
San Francisco

Live music by
Sonny and The Sunsets
and
The Sandwitches

In Gallery 16’s words:

Gallery 16 is pleased to welcome San Francisco based artist, musician and playwright Sonny Smith to his first solo show with the gallery. 100 Records is a dauntingly ambitious project that bridges his interest in art, music and dramatic form. Smith invited 100 artists to produce artwork for the record covers of fictional bands. Smith concocted the personas of each 100 fictitious bands, then wrote and recorded two hundred songs (the A side and B side) for each. All of the original artwork will be on display as well as a jukebox that plays all two hundred songs recorded by Sonny Smith and other notable musicians. Artists include, William T. Wiley, Mingering Mike, Chris Johanson, Reed Anderson, Jo Jackson, Harrell Fletcher, Chris Duncan, Tucker Nichols, Paul Wackers and 91 others!

…and in Sonny’s words:

This is a year long project that began at the Headlands residency last march. I’ve written 100 songs for 100 record jackets hand made by a shitload of artists. Also there will be a handmade jukebox to play all the songs. there’s gonna be a Volume 1 limited edition box set put out by Gallery 16 available for sale with some limited edition reproductions signed by some of the artists. This thing is a sight to be seen. Later in the year there will be a volume 2, 3, 4 etc.. Which is exciting and I will tell you more about
that soon enough.

100 records, 100 artists, 100 songs, 1 year, 1 opening, 1 jukebox, 1 you, 1 me, 1 gallery. My birth year adds up to 1 btw.

This project incorporates all that i’ve ever been working on all these years: literature, visual, music, collaboration, fictional characters.

It is my year of Individuation: those processes through which differentiated components become integrated into stable wholes. Coincidentally I couldn’t have completed this oneness without lots of people’s help.

So don’t be afraid to celebrate this oneness of one-of-a-kind togetherness/oneness with five or six glasses of (free) wine.!!!

…and in the immortal words of Endless Nest:

THIS RULES!

Keep your ear to the ground for beautiful limited edition 100 Records releases from Turn Up! and Empty Cellar records.

Read This Article or visit the Turn Up! 100 Records Blog for more information.

DON’T BE AFRAID

Gorilla vs. Bear Premiers The Sandwitches First Official Music Video – “Kiss Your Feet”

This morning, Gorilla vs. Bear premiered The Sandwitches first official music video, “Kiss Your Feet”, taken from their debut LP “How To Make Ambient Sadcake” (Turn Up!).

The video – starring the band – was filmed in entirety at a remote cabin over the course of a single remarkably-creepy foggy night in a wooded area in Northern California. It is full of horror that you cannot unsee. The director, Joey Izzo, is a young Bay Area filmmaker who has logged hundreds of hours of live music footage, and created music videos for Port O’Brien among others. We love it, and hope you do to!

A note from Director Joey Izzo:

When I was racking my brain for video ideas, drummer Lance’s low budget creepy-as-all-hell Halloween costume popped into my mind. And from there, the rest came pretty quickly. I tried to come up with something that utilizes iconic horror movie imagery without obnoxiously paying homage to any specific films. But perhaps most impacting was the song itself and the ghostly lovesick imagery it was able to conjure up in my mind.

Shooting a horror movie themed music video at a cabin in the middle of the woods sounded like a great idea at the time, but in practice, it proved to be much more harrowing than originally anticipated. With only one night to shoot, the Sandwitches and our small but dedicated crew braved themselves against the harsh winter elements and no-sleep exhaustion to get everything needed for the video. The band really put themselves through the ringers to get this one done and done right. I couldn’t be happier with the results, but in hindsight we probably all should have called in sick the next day.

The best comment I’ve received so far was from a friend who, after watching the video, told me he didn’t realize that the song was so dark until now. I think a video can be deemed a success when it’s able to touch upon a feeling deeply embedded into the song and bring it out in an interesting visual context.

Watch “Kiss Your Feet” on Gorilla vs. Bear