shawn avery

here's some photos of the bham showcase, mainly taken by marcia de fiore as well as a video clip filmed by alison hulsey and sean courtney. i took their two clips and edited them together into the black/white version below. the audio is sketchy but the performance is spirited. i think corey flegel might have taken a few of these as well. i also know there were some folks from al.com but i may have already listed them? this last photo was taken on the way back to the craziness downtown after alison and i had dinner with my friend kristin, who i hadn't seen in nearly 10 years. so great to see her at sxsw... i'll post more photos on here later in the day. still working on combining all of the video clips into one long video, which i'll post soonish. the showcase featured two stages, one inside and one outside, blaring out into the street. very cool. here's a few links to some local press about the event: al.com / sxsw coverage . al.com blo g .

so here's the obligatory multi-part sxsw post. this is going to probably be three segments. one on phantogram, one on photos, and one on video i filmed during the weekend. the last one will hopefully be compiled into one, semi-coherent clip. here we go with the phantogram business. at first, alison and i weren't sure if phantogram was going to play this year, but i was fairly confident that they would. their album came out right after their showcases at sxsw 2010, and they were a huge buzz there last year. after we found out they were playing a few showcases this year, we rsvp'd for the filter mag party and hoped for the best. upon arriving last friday morning after flying in from bham, we waited around to check into our room and called a cab to take us downtown. some hipster girls stole our cab van and i nearly killed the driver, but we were lucky enough to catch a ride with the grenadines. we all got downtown just in time for alison and i to jump out of the van and ...

strange . the winter/spring of 1991 was 20 years ago. the gulf war started just over 20 years ago. i was 16. its been 20 years since i played in my favorite high school band. i also realized that i've been using the same snare drum for 20 years. it was given to me by the drummer for the band "the van goghs" who were about to go on tour with "the rembrandts" - true story. this is super geeky, but knowing i've had the snare for over 20 years, i figured it was probably a lot older than that, so i found the product info. this is interesting only to me, i know this. its the only part of my 2nd drum kit that i kept, and its been an incredibly versatile snare. if it can keep up in a genre bending band like through the sparks, then its pretty solid. according to some of the usergroups i've read, the snare retailed in the mid 80's for around $250 and is generally regarded as being a powerhouse both live and in the studio: 1984-85 Model product model is: M-514...