Fine Line: 'New Releases' Section

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

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.

If you haven’t picked up your copy of Quick this week, drop everything and go fetch one now. I just took a stroll down to the mail room (that’s where we keep all the local print media) to read David Hopkins’ first comic strip installment of We’ve Never Met and it’s freakin’ HILARIOUS! The Fine Line gives it 3 thumbs-up!

Thursday, December 10th
AllGood Cafe
Jon Dee Graham
CD Release Celebration for It’s Not as Bad as it Looks
9 pm

Guitars by Cade Sadler

“Ocho” – Collin Herring at Ramble Creek from Todd Wiseman on Vimeo.

I was sort of laughing at myself a couple of days ago when I realized that I had missed my “7-years of music blogging” anniversary last month. I wasn’t laughing at the fact that my dead braincells are multiplying, rather that the main staples…really, the only staples, of my car CD player are the following:

The Lonelies EP
Macon Greyson Uneasy
Collin Herring Avoiding the Circus
Deadman Paramour
Joyful Sinners EP
The Happy Bullets Blue Skies and Umbrellas
Salim Nourallah Polaroid

These are the CDs I listened to years and years and years ago that made me fall in love with the local music community, and all these years later, I’ve never tired of a one.

However, I do get really excited when these bands and artists put out new albums. I found the above video over on Collin Herring’s site. It’s really awesome and features some great Texas-based musicians and producers and songwriters and brilliance.

Collin Herring is releasing his latest album, Ocho, pretty much as I type. The above video was shot at Ramble Creek, featuring a behind the scenes peek into the making of this record. Collin Herring and his dad (and bandmate) Ben Roi Herring are folks I consider to be my friends. I’ve known ‘em forever. I’ve loved ‘em forever, and neither one has ever played or sung a note that I didn’t absolutely adore.

Ocho was recorded out in the sticks at Ramble Creek and features such other FineLineFaves as Ben Roi Herring, Will Johnson, Keith Hanna, Roberto Sanchez and of course the great Britton Beisenherz (The Monahans, Milton Mapes).

The Ocho festivities kick-off on Monday, when Collin will appear on KXAN in Austin and on KLBJ 93.7..wait, there’s more…

Tuesday, November 17th
Waterloo Records (Austin)
Live in-store – 5 p.m. – Free

Thursday, November 26th
The Moon Bar in Fort Worth – 10ish

Saturday, November 28th
The Ghost Room in Austin

HOME? from Willie Baronet on Vimeo.

Whew! KXT 91.7 launched this morning and it’s absolutely music to my ears…literally. It feels like Austin up in here. It’s so fun over-hearing folks ’round KERA talk about Sarah Jaffe and The O’s and all things local and regional. It’s a historic day for the DdFW airwaves…drink it up like a fine wine…hiccup…you don’t even have to get up—listen live from right where you be.

In-studio performances all this week, include Sarah Jaffe, The O’s, Rhett Miller, Little Black Dress and lots more! Check it out here.

Last night was quite pleasant. Kettle Art Gallery had an exquisite li’l shindig….above is a snippet of my gallery-going pleasure. Click here for more more more…

Photographed by Jason Janik

Super-dreamy Rhett Miller is performing at the Granada Theater on November 14th, and he’s tagged some other dreaminess to perform as well…here’s why…

The CF Concert Series aims to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis with an emphasis on adult research. It started as a small effort, organized by a few local music fans who have personal stock in helping to find a cure for this life-threatening disease. Last year, the concert raised $30,000 toward CF research. This November, they hope to do even more.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening, genetic disease affecting approximately 30,000 children and adults in the United States. The goal of this event is to help raise not only awareness of the disease but funds allocated for the great strides being made towards CF research.

I have a pair of FREE TICKETS for the first one to email me with a subject line that reads, “you look really nice today.”

November 14th
Granada Theater
Rhett Miller / Salim Nourallah / The O’s / Shibboleth
Purchase Tickets
Emcee: Gordon Keith
7 p.m.-Midnight

If you are interested in film and video, then you might like to know that the 27th Annual Videofest is just about a week or so away. Click for details. Bart Weiss, director of the Video Association of Dallas, wrote a nice little piece on Art&Seek and I think you should read it…m’kaaaaay…

…This year for the festival I tried something completely different. A few years ago I met with a young filmmaker named Ryan Kline and was very impressed. He had a great attitude and was very ambitious for a kid. (When I first met him he was too young to drive.) I then saw him at the workshops in Maine, where I teach teachers in the summer. He was taking an intensive film (as in not video) workshop. So I thought, why not have him do the intro? It was a bit of a risk, but I was really happy to try it. Ryan needed help, and we got lots of help. Bill Schwartz, one of Dallas’ best directors of photography, agreed to shoot it. And he did way more than shoot it – he arranged for so many people and so much equipment it was amazing. For those who this means something to, it was shot on the Red camera. As we moved along, Bill was impressed with Ryan’s talent and his ability to know what he wanted (something not all directors have).

Quickly this shoot got big, with a crew of about 20, a nice cast and way too much for Bill and Ryan to produce by themselves. So I called Amy Lou Abernathy at AMP Productions, who put Mariana Denke on it, who did a great job. Steve Franko did color correction, Post Asylum edited it and James Neel did the music…READ THE REST.

The, absolutely delightful and charming journalist/director/producer, Sujata Dand, followed five teenaged girls for a year, documenting their love lives, or lack thereof. The result is a wonderfully candid documentary, Boyfriends. This exceptionally well-done documentary had one heck of an award-winning team. The film was directed by Sujata Dand, produced and edited by Linda Stogner, and Rick Thompson served as exective producer.

Boyfriends is a gut-wrenching look inside the lives of these five girls, examining their thoughts, dreams, goals, heartaches and triumphs. As a mother of a 20-year old girl, myself, I’d like to go on record by saying that this documentary is a must-see for every single teenager (and those tweens too) in the country.

Sujata and crew did a magnificent job of really capturing the heart and soul of these precious young women. I felt a true sense of intimacy, caring and even adoration for the girls and their families.

You can watch the video here (including lots of bonus footage), or watch the debut tonight at 9 p.m., on KERA-TV. Oh, and watch it with your age appropriate kiddos…they’ll most likely thank you someday for doing so…

I had a perfectly divine evening with Jeffrey Liles and Bucks Burnett last Friday night at the Kessler Theater. Fortunately, they allowed me to turn on the video cameras while they chatted about Bucks’ upcoming gallery exhibit, “Eight Track Tapes: The Bucks Burnett Collection,” at the Barry Whistler Gallery, starting tomorrow night…click here to peek inside…

I was truly honored to have been a part of this project. The day we shot it was so ridiculously fun, I didn’t want it to end.

Please enjoy…and stick around for the credits so you can see all the brilliant folks who made this possible…

Adorable spitfire Abbie Chesney has been putting together an amazing little business. She’s accepting guitar/bass string donations from local/regional musicians and turning them into divine jewelry. For one, it’s a green thing, and for two part of the proceeds go towards the Carter Albrecht Foundation. I bought a bracelet made from Eric Neal’s strings. I looooooove it.

So all you talented ones getcher strings to Abbie so they can become a fabulous fashion statement!

There’s a video forthcoming here on The Fine Line featuring Chelsea Callahan chatting with Abbie about this splendid project. (We had a gal-gathering at the Old Monk on Wednesday) It’ll be up in the next 24-hours, 134-hours or so check back here later…

I’ve already listed a couple of notable thangs to attend in the posts below. Today, today I’m feeling a tad under the weather. So I’m going to point your adorable eyes towards all the creamy goodness that Art & Seek has to offer….LOTS of stuff goin’ on this weekend.