Dean & Britta – PopWars

June 20, 2013August 15, 2019

Passion

I’ve been uploading photos for the last week and I could spend the rest of my life organizing them but I was anxious to check out this external embed flash code so I put my first “set” together and embedded it above. (Note: Flickr embed no longer works)These are all stills I took from the Passion of Saint Joan movie. I can’t remember if I stopped the dvd and shot them or did screen captures from YouTube. The movie is public domain and about a million times better than “Frances Ha” which we saw at the Little on a $5 Monday night. Our neighbor’s brother and wife contributed music and had a small part but what happened to that director? We really liked “The Squid & The Whale,” sort of liked “Margot at the Wedding” and hated this one.

And while I’m complaining, the new season of Breaking Bad, that is the newly released dvd season, Part One of the fifth and final season in the series, better turn around because the first six episodes are going downhill on the brilliant meter. I just know they’re setting me up though so I’m hanging in there.

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September 4, 2012August 17, 2019

Since You Ask

Brick building with concrete window in downtown Rochester

“I like boring.” That line doesn’t make the most stimulating dinner conversation but I tried it tonight when we had dinner down the street at our neighbors. They had invited us and the new people who just moved in on September one and I guess I was sort of trying to lower the expectations for them.

She is originally from New Zealand and her husband from Australia so the conversation ping ponged all over the map before landing on music. He plays guitar and she is a writer but she said her brother was in a band that was quite successful, Galaxy 500. I told her we saw someone from that band when he played here last year with his wife Bitta. She said that’s my brother, Dean.

Dean & Britta Screen Tests

Dean & Britta at Lovin' Cup in Rochester, New York — Dean & Britta at Lovin’ Cup in Rochester, New York

The dreary weather this morning was the perfect setting for viewing Dean & Bitta’s “13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests”. We bought the dvd from Dean Wareham after his reading at Record Archive yesterday. Released in conjunction with The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh the dvd features Nico, Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick and Dennis Hopper sitting for Warhol’s silent film portraits. But the films aren’t silent anymore because Dean and Britta have provided a beautiful soundtrack.

We knew nothing about Galaxie 500, Luna or Dean & Britta except that Angel Corpus Christi likes them. And then Casey form Mex called with his offer to pick up tickets for Dean & Britta’s appearance at the Lovin’ Cup in Henrietta out next to RIT. It was total immersion for us, bartender John John playing Luna tracks at Mex and listing all the covers the band used to do, Dean reading from his tour diary at the Record Archive, Dean & Britta in concert and then the gorgeous dvd. The thing that ties all these projects together is the Velvet Underground, the best rock band of all time. How can you go wrong? We loved it.

Hotel Reverie opened the show last night and sounded great. You can almost forget you’re in the suburbs when the band starts. The club has the right idea with no chair or tables in front of the band and the room sounds great.

Testing 1, 2, 1, 2

Rubble Bucket at Record Archive in Rochester, NY

Alayna sent us a press release from the Record Archive announcing the appearance of Rubble Bucket on stage in the store at 5 o’clock last night. They were described as a “polyrhythmic nine piece dance band” with comparisons to Fela Kuti, James Brown and Bjork so we dutifully headed over there after work. We were late as usual but he band was running late too so we caught their soundcheck. Sound checks are often the most interesting part of a band’s performance. The interaction between members without their stage persona, what they play while getting their sound, the words they use to test the mics are all more revealing than the songs they perform.

Dick Storms told us the band was on Wease’s show in the morning and Scott Regan’s show midday but hardly anyone showed up for their free performance here. I think that says something about the demographic of those shows. This young jam band has all the right old school influences. I hope a younger crowd found them at their club appearance later last night.

We headed over to Casey’s to pick up the tickets he bought us for tonight’s performance by Dean and Brita. We hadn’t been to Mex in a while and I was happy to see the mural was aging gracefully after almost ten years. The plaster chips and scratches and dings all contribute to tipico ambiance. John played Luna tracks from his ipod in bar downstairs and the food upstairs was better than ever.