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...

through the sparks is heading to austin once again for sxsw. this will be the 5th year in a row that through the sparks has played sxsw, and the 2nd time i've played with them. we will be there very briefly... from friday morning until sometime sunday, but i'm hoping to fit in a worthy sxsw experience. starting with flatstock : details /// among the other events i'd like to see... phantogram show on friday the 18th at the filter magazine day party, the fader magazine party... haha tonka... and i'm sure i'll see some unexpected gems. when i went to sxsw in 2007 i had a list of bands i wanted to see... but ended up not seeing very many of them. however i discovered st. vincent and the rosebuds along with a few other impressive bands. this year will probably be no different. i just really want to see phantogram. below is the show poster for the sxsw benefit show through the sparks is playing. there are 4 benefit shows all together.

first up... found this fake vintage ad campaign this morning. love this kinda thing. retro is my deal. also this is technically my first blog post of the decade. i found these images on what has become my go-to site for design oriented images, designspiration.net - this site is closely affiliated with my favorite blog, iso50.com . so i finished up the year at a very low-key year year's eve party in crestwood, in the midst of a crazy winter storm. the winter has gotten quite intense so far this year, with no less than 2 ice/snow storms, with one more on the way this week. more non sequiturs... my car still has a dent in the truck from 10/29/10 that i'll hopefully get fixed this week. still not moving forward fast enough with the synthesizer production muzak stuff. last month however, i did finish the artwork for the new through the sparks singles compilation titled "almanac (mmx) year of beasts." the idea behind the design, is to present an anti-album cove...

this was a weird event in my child hood. by the mid-80's i had witnessed numerous day and night launches in my back yard in central florida. it always impressed my how easy it was to see something in the air, that was actually launching off of the north east coast of florida. obviously, the entire planet to some extent remembers this, but its strange from a floridian male's point of view. we all wanted to be astronauts... until this happened.

so, i've become less active on this invisible blog/journal thing. that's cool, it happens. over the past year or so, i've finally warmed up to the ever changing interface of facebook. actually the newest update looks horrid, but whatever. in an effort to streamline my overall online-ness, and in order to keep my adult add oriented musings to a minimum on facebook, i've decided to use a more appropriate means of frequent, random blurbs posts. i'm going to the dark side. twitter. i'm not totally excited about it, but just as i think people should act and dress their age, i think people should use the right means of communication for the job. i find myself constantly deleting posts from facebook, in an effort to not overwhelm folks on my friends list. i'd also like to be able to post something and know that i can just leave it there for further reference, be it a video, a link, a phrase, an idea, etc. so, i'll be starting a twitter account on 01.01.11. m...