More on Crash Diet Crew

Tonight I’ll be in Williamsburg talking to Crash Diet Crew about the music scene in NYC, what it takes for a band to get it all together in the area, how and where they started doing shows, what recording their music is like, how their music translates between live and the studio and how the music fans of Brooklyn have been reacting to their sound. Oh yeah, and we’ll talk about their first impressions of the Silent Barn. In addition, I’ll be filming the band a little bit in their practice space, and maybe get some more footage of them playing. Also, I’ll be doing a written profile piece on them, to come next week.

Magazine Feature

In addition to the rough (and I stress ROUGH) cut of video on the Silent Barn, I’ll be putting a larger magazine-style piece up. I’ll be talking in more depth with the people you see on the video (Crash Diet Crew, (possibly) Josh Brown, Todd P) and more of the people that make the music scene in Brooklyn in general possible. Also, I will be attempting to get in touch with Animal Collective, a band that, while not speicifically from Brooklyn, does comes out of the DIY/house show/mix tape/noise rock scene and who is just now getting noticed by the mainstream media. Their newest release, Strawberry Jam just came out recently. Give it a listen, I highly recommend it. If you hate it, give it another listen, and you’lll be suprised how much it has grown on you. Here’s their myspace page, with some tracks you can listen to. And there definitly will be more vidoes to come. When I have more time…

Youtube/Blog Comments

So this week I just got my very first feedback from someone on YouTube. I am not really used to dealing with readers/viewers/any sort of audience on a personal level, so I am not sure how to react to it. Is it customary to reply back to a comment. I really wouldn’t know how to respond to this one anyway. Honestly, I’m not sure whether I should be happy that there is someone out there who would even bother taking the time to watch it. You’ll understand why I’m not sure what to make of it when you see the comment. Here it is in case you’re curious. Is he referring to me, or someone in the video? And yes, this is a shameless ploy to get you to watch the video again…

Uploading a video onto Youtube

So this week I just finished editing (on Avid) a three minute video on the Silent barn, featuring an interview with former roommate Josh Brown and the music/performance of Crash Diet Crew. Learning how to edit on Avid in two weeks is difficult enough, but I am particularly distressed with how the video came out on Youtube. Not only does the quality make it look like I shot the piece underwater (and I didn’t have a great quality camera to begin with), but somehow the interview/voice over audio got completely destroyed. I will clean up the audio and repost the piece, but if you want to see this version, go ahead, it should be below, or you can check it out on You Tube. I will also be making another video in the coming weeks. Most likely, it will follow another band playing a show at a more commercial venue (like Irving Plaza or The Knitting Factory), and then tracking that band’s movement over to the Silent Barn, with footage of their performance there.

Crash Diet Crew and The Silent Barn

Crash Diet Crew and The Silent Barn

Crash Diet Crew

Crash Diet Crew, the all instrumental act from Williamsburg played an impressive set at the Silent Barn on Saturday night. I’m going to have a 3 minute video of the Silent Barn and the bands performance, with a longer video of just the band to come.

Pillow Fight

The show at Silent Barn last Saturday drew a fun little crowd of people, the opening band, Crash Diet Crew provided a nice soundtrack for the evening. More on Crash Diet Crew and a video detailing their performance is to come, but for now I’d like to talk about the Seattle-based band Pillow Fight. In true punk rock fashion, these two dudes crashed the party and played, even though they weren’t on the billing. Todd P didn’t even know they were going to show up. To understand what these guys sound like, picture a drummer wearing a crash helmit with a microphone rigged into it screaming while a 120 pound, frizzy-haired guitarist throws himself into the crowd. In the middle of the performance, they broke into duelling drum solos, with the guitarist pounding on old pots and pans. Add to this a basement venue, and you’ve got DIY at its grittiest.

DIY Bar Fighting

Thought DIY only applies to music and art shows? Think again. The fine people over at Chief Magazine have provided their very own DIY science experiment. The subject? What beer bottle brand makes for the most impressive (and cool looking) bar fight weapon when broken? As shown by a couple of hipster gals in lab coats, it’s suprisingly difficult to break a bottle correctly. The next time you plan on stabbing someone in a bar, the girls suggest you order either a long-necked Corona bottle or (suprisingly) one of those somewhat stubby Red Stripe bottles. Check out the full article here. It’s part of a larger Chief series called ‘Science Can Kill,” that offers plenty of other juicey tidbits of knowledge, like how to dispose of a dead body from a rooftop and how to avoid a horde of zombies.

Glasslands Gallery

This Thursday, Glasslands Gallery is putting on a show featuring Donkey Flamingo, Brightside, Suckers, and DJ Ryan Rasheed. For those of you who who’ve never heard of it, Glasslands is gallery space that was started up in 2006 by artist Brooke Baxter, with help from Rolyn Hu, a real estate broker. The purpose of Glasslands is to provide an art space for the entire artist community in Williamsburg. So, while they do provide a pretty lively venue for bands, Baxter and Hu’s main idea was to provide space for individuals to work together on larger, ongoing fine art pieces with other members of the community. The idea is to focus on the creative process itself, rather than the finished product, and this sentiment showcases how Glasslands is a microcosm of the entire DIY scene in Brooklyn. Here, artist and observer are never really considered static terms, and the level of mass participation in a project is more imortant than its overall outcome. For more info, you can check out Brooke Baxter’s website. You can also check out who’s doing what at the gallery on Brooke’s myspace page, where’s there’s a schedule of events.