James Bland had a history of Dallas music photographs hung throughout the theater. DJ Mr. Rid aka Mark Ridlen was spinnin’ vinyl GREATNESS in the lobby bar…speaking of which, the joint was absolutely GORGEOUS!
Jason Carney put on one helluva slam poetry performance…you coulda heard a pin drop. Josh Alan Friedman was quite the star of the evening with a line to purchase his latest book, Black Cracker and a standing ovation for his perfect musical performance on stage.
Saturday, March 20
Doors at 6 p.m. The Opening of the Kessler Theater
Featuring: DJ Mr. Rid (spinning) – Josh Alan Friedman’s Book signing Black Cracker – “A Photographic History of Music in Dallas” by wicked-awesome photographer James Bland – Performances by Mark Growden – Slam Poet Jason Carney – Josh Alan Friedman Cost: It’s on the house, just bring booze money
Full bar
A couple of weeks back, Salim Nourallah invited me into his Pleasantry Lane Recording Studio for an “artist’s studio tour” for KERA’s Art&Seek. It was nearly 5-years ago that I did the same for Pegasus News. The studio has changed dramatically since then.
I was asked to obtain a copy of the Nourallah Brothers self-titled album, which will go into rotation on Gini Mascorro’s Texas Mix on 91.7 KXT…I uploaded the entire CD and its bonus CD to my laptop prior to handing it over to KXT. I’ve been listening all day and it’s really made me melancholy and wishful that the Nourallah brothers would put their differences aside and come back together to make another record. I think it could be quite brilliant and full of quirky and perhaps dramatic stories about the making of it.
Anyway, the above video was shot and produced by my dear friend Alex Kanakis. I was actually invited to sit in on the planning meeting for the video, but Alex took the ball and ran with it, and a lovely, thoughtful and wonderful video resulted.
Below is the latest studio tour I filmed for KERA/Art&Seek.
I dearly love Salim and his family. In fact, I’d say he’s in the top five of my top five favorite humans on earth. He’s also one of my very very very favorite singer-songwriters.
There’s a very cool intimate concert series that takes place at the Studio by the Lake. Salim will perform on April 3rd, alongside other local greats, Trey Johnson and Ronnie Fauss. It’s a not-to-miss-er…so don’t miss it.
I’d kill to be able to shoot and edit like the folks at Lucky Rabbit Films. Hell, I’ll probably ask them if I can be their eldest intern (in the history of film) when I move to Austin in the coming years.
The above video is a 2-year old project that captures the band perfectly. It’s a gorgeous piece, rich with great videography and the perfect sounds of Deadman’s music.
I got to take a tour of LaGrange in Deep Ellum just a couple of hours before they opened their doors. There are full videos here…and one just as a taste below. Go check out the full tour here.
LaGrange: the opening night musical wrap up. Music courtesy of Slick 57
“Scabby” lost his balls last week. I know it’s wrong on so many levels, but we’ve been posing him as a satellite dish, a martini glass, a plunger and various other things while that stupid thing is attached to his head. No worries. He doesn’t mind. He pretty much adapts to everything in a few secs….
Jason Janik, along with the good folks over at Quick, put together ho…ho…holiday photos of local musicians, personalities and a chef, including Gordon Keith, Tim DeLaughter and the fam, Blythe Beck, Smile Smile and Bowling for Soup, set to a Christmas classic movies theme. You can check out the photos by picking up a copy of Quick, which can be found, like, anywhere. Plus, check out the peek-a-boo videos shot during the photo sessions. Pretty nifty stuff.
Shot this for Art&Seek and it still ranks about #1 on anything I’ve ever shot, video-wise….I love Becky and Bill and I love this video of them rehashing….
When I was doing some research on Willie Baronet, I ran across an interview he had done (can’t for the life of me remember where I read it) and he mentioned that a man named Jack Allday had given him his first shot. My dad was good friends with Jack Allday in high school. I shared this information with Willie and he just happened to have filmed Jack’s 50th high school reunion. Weird wonderful world. I can’t remember if dad and Jack were in the same class, but I’m posting these for my dad cuz I know he’ll know folks in these great videos.
