MVRemix - Octopus Project prep tour

The Octopus Project prepares to launch West Coast tour kicking off at Lollapalooza, video for “Truck” racks up nearly 400,000 YouTube plays as site explodes with fan video versions of this and other Hello, Avalanche tracks

(The Truck video was by none other than David Zellner, btw)

Twitch - Tran Anh Hung Bringing Murakami’s NORWEGIAN WOOD To The Big Screen!

Good news, but I'll get really excited when someone (someone really, really talented and not American) decides to adapt Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Link to Twitch article

Projections

Here's a quick clip from the visuals I'm working on.

Odds and Ends, west coast Diagonals tour

I haven't posted much in a while because I've been extremely busy lately. No, really- On top of my regular work I ran out to New York and back to record an audiobook of Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl (with additional passages read by Val Kilmer and Phillip Baker Hall), as well as do looping for Sorry, Thanks (which I finally got to see most of and I'm happy to say it's the best thing I've done in a long time). I'm also getting ready to go on tour- Diagonals are following The Octopus Project on most of the west coast leg of their tour next month. I'm excited and a little nervous. I'm trying to change up a little of what I do in the band at the last second (I've been playing pretty simple nord organ parts and I'm adding in an additional midi controller hooked up to ableton live and the native instruments organ softsynth, as well as an osculator-enabled wiimote that I'm using to "hit" a tubular bell sample in one song we might be throwing in at the end of the tour) and I also threw together some projection visuals (just playing off dvd unfortunately, nothing generated live) since we'll have access to a projector for the first time. It'll either be awesome or the first couple of shows will be filled with explosions and me weeping in public. No, it'll be awesome.

Anyway, I'll be on the road from the 11th of August till the 29th. Show dates are up on the Diagonals myspace page and the official band page I just put up. The Octopus Project are badass new gods and we are completely floored and overjoyed that they are letting a relatively unheard of band play with them at so many venues. When I get back home I should have all sorts of goodies to share with you.

You can get the Diagonals EP at the monofonus press website.

Diagonals, Toko-Ri and Follow that Bird tonight at Beerland

We're playing a set tonight at Beerland with Follow That Bird, and Toko-Ri-Get-High-Band. Follow That Bird just got a new bassist and the last time we played with them they sounded really amazing, so this should be a really good show- despite the fact that I busted a key on my Nord Lead and may have to play around it a little bit.*

*(If anybody knows how to get a replacement key for a Nord Lead 2 please tell me. The closest service place is in Dallas and they don't sell parts, and it's out of warranty)

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Austin: In honor of Monte Hellman and TWO LANE BLACKTOP, an appreciation by Richard Linklater.

Rick Linklater gives a nice list of things about Two-Lane Blacktop that he loves on the original Alamo blog:

[...] Because unlike other films of the era with the designer alienation of the drug culture and the war protesters, this movie is about the alienation of everybody else, like Robert Frank's [The Americans] come alive [...]

Two-Lane Blacktop and The Shooting will both be playing at the alamo on the 23rd. Director Monte Hellman will be in attendence.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Austin: In honor of Monte Hellman and TWO LANE BLACKTOP, an appreciation by Richard Linklater.

‘Food Party’ Creator Reveals Backstage Secrets - Grub Street - New York Magazine

Thu Tran, the Brooklyn artist who created and stars in Food Party, our new favorite cooking show, isn't as mysterious to us today as she was yesterday. Tran, it turns out, is a glassblowing instructor who lives in Bed-Stuy. But her real vocation (at least to us) is Food Party. The show, which we wrote about yesterday, is a surreal admixture of puppets, weird special effects, and, yes, cooking. Three episodes have been made over the past year and a half, and a fourth comes out this fall. Tran, who cites “Pee Wee's Playhouse, Sesame Street, Martha Stewart, Yan Can Cook, John Woo movies, and Abba videos” as influences, says that a lot of work goes into each episode."

‘Food Party’ Creator Reveals Backstage Secrets - Grub Street - New York Magazine

Austin Sound - The Independent Music Source for Austin

Austin Sound - The Independent Music Source for Austin- Featured Story, Sound Off: Diagonals

Food Party

Food party is hypnotically fascinating. I think it may be my new favorite show.

Link
Thanks Scott!

Twitch - Klaus Kinski’s Legacy Lives on in JESUS CHRISTUS ERLÖSER

[...]Peter Geyer’s new full-length documentary Jesus Christus Erlöser (Jesus Christ Saviour) seems to support the notion that prevarication was an integral and inseparable part of the actor’s work. Geyer’s film documents Klaus Kinski’s November 20th, 1971 theatrical reading at Deutschlandhalle in Berlin. It was on this evening that the golden-locked, hippy-garbed Kinski engaged an audience of thousands in a reading of a 30 plus page interpretation of the story of Jesus Christ.

The audience quickly took umbrage at Kinski’s readings, and the evening turned into a multiple-hour battle of heated words and raised fists. Scenes from this event were very briefly featured in Werner Herzog’s documentary Mein Liebster Feind (My Best Friend) but Geyer reconstructs the evening’s events using extensive, previously unseen footage. What might Kinski have done to create such a scene? Transcription of brief German language clips available on the film’s web site indicate that Kinski did a lot.

Link

Diagonals, July 4th 5th and 6th (ack!)

We're playing a show (which I believe is supposed to coincide with a release of our first EP?) on the fourth of July.
It starts a 2:00 pm til around 8:00 pm. Over The Hill is playing first, then Precious Blood, then Pillow Queens and lastly Diagonals, around 7:00. It's a small warehouse kinda set-up at The Compound, 610 Vermont ( by 7th and Springdale).

On the 5th we're playing at this place with Silver Pines and Pataphysics. The first band starts at 7pm and it will be all ages.

On the 7th we're playing a free show at Red 7 with The Strange Boys.

oof.