How do you tune a taco? Mass party and film reports

I heard there was a Spawned in Seattle party at Chapel 5/25. They passed out Goobers, and other items, presumably. I was told by a passholder it was very sparsely attended. I said that was probably because they hadn’t sent out enough invites!

The Girls Rock! crew hosted a show at Chop Suey 5/26 that was to benefit the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp For Girls featured in the film. I showed up early to do interviews. I found the director, Arne, sweeping the floor, and cinematographer Shane setting up the merch table. All four of the main girls featured in the film were there, though Misty didn’t play. The consensus amongst them was that they were surprised the camp wasn’t just about making music, but also had the self-empowerment side to it; they were even more surprised to find the directors of the documentary wanted to spotlight them in the film.

King played first; it’s a twosome featuring Amelia (the one who was writing songs about her dog, Pippi; she also poses the existential question about tuning the taco) and Bella, who’s also seen in the documentary, usually not far from Amelia. Their name was inspired by other rock names like Prince and Queen; they briefly considered Princess, but thankfully vetoed it, recognizing quite correctly “It’s just not us.” Amelia played dissonant guitar and Bella played drums, creating a very spare, stripped down sound (one local writer compared them to the White Stripes!). Their set was sadly short, just two songs. It was their Seattle debut.

Laura, the death metal fan from Oklahoma City, fronted a band with no name, playing bass and singing with gusto; Marissa from the film also appeared with the band. Pint-sized Palace did her song about wanting to be a superstar; go to the film’s myspace.com/girlsrockmovie page to hear her more awesome “San Francisco Sucks!” song. Blubird, another duo (you could imagine them being on a label like K), did a great set, with covers like Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” and their own hit, “Global Warming.” Diamond Cut Diamond and Raining Jane also played, they were both good. It was an all-ages show, so it started at 1:30 and there was a nice vibe; lots of families, little girls sitting down front. Piecora’s Pizza got plenty of business, as people kept popping out for slices (I actually ended up eating there twice that day!). There was another room with instruments set up to play on, but I was too shy! The instruments were provided by Fender, who then donated them to the camp; they also donated two guitars that were raffled off, and swag bags for the musicians. Nice! The film will be out next year, using the same distributors that handled The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a good choice I think, as they let that film’s rep build thru word of mouth. Both Arne and Shane agree with that.

Next day interviewed Wiley Underwood with the doc about Yva Las Vegas. Because the interview room was locked, I was taken upstairs to the famed hospitality suite to meet him; I had a glass of red wine and a few snacks. Saw Cindy Wolfe, she worked on the film Monkey Warfare, which I'd just seen; she shrieked when she saw my name tag, as she recognized me from my days at The Rocket. I have spoken to her sister Allison (from Bratmobile) a number of times, but never met Cindy before. Wiley and I eventually went downstairs, but the room situation still hadn’t been resolved, so we sat on some couches in a lobby area. The interview went well, probably the last thing that worked out for Wiley that night. Well, he got to the theater on time for his screening, that was the other thing. I decided to see the film again, also I wanted to say hi to Yva who was going to be in attendance. Audience was on the smallish side (especially considering we were in the Egyptian), but most seemed to be friends of Yva’s, so they were enthusiastic. The film started, then about 5-10 minutes in, the screen went dark. We were told a bulb in the projector had burned out and would be fixed in five minutes. Yva sang a few songs from the stage while we waited; quite good. Then we were told it would take more like half an hour for it to get fixed. Everybody groaned. As we left, I heard Wiley wondering if anyone would come back. What a way for a World Premiere to start. I followed Yva to Linda’s, and we had a chat. She said she was happy with the film — then. We headed back to the theater, but considering the time, and that I had another deadline the next day, and that I’d already seen the film anyway, I went home.

Well. The film did continue. But when Wiley returned for the Q&A, he found that the audience was highly unappreciative of his portrayal of Yva (though talented, you get the clear sense she can also be difficult to deal with). I’m told they confronted him in a hostile fashion, and eventually Yva did as well. Oh dear. If anyone was actually there and can give more specifics, please contact me.

SIFF has seemed light on swag this year, though there’s lots you can buy; lunch boxes or mood rings anyone? They have some nifty temporary tattoos though. Not much in the press suite either, though I got a headband for Monster Camp. That changed 5/31, when I went to the Planet Earth party at Spitfire. I had had no dinner, so needed to get some food before imbibing, and it was Mexican-style fare; quesadillas, small tortillas to fill with rice and/or chicken, and plenty of guac. The free drinkies were beer and wine. I scored a Sundance Channel hat and t-shirt (they were the sponsors). The film was Everything’s Cool, a fun and informative doc about why so many Americans succumbed to the disinformation campaign about global warming (that is, that it didn’t exist). Met the co-director, Judith Helfand; the other director, Daniel Gold, was presenting the film on the other side of the country I think. She said that her film doesn’t have distribution yet. Hope that changes.

Not too many people, a good thing in that there was only one bartender in our area. But enough to make it fun. Membership Director Tara told some great jokes. As did passholder Christopher. Talked a lot with Greg, who does computer stuff for the fest. While waiting for a drink, Shannon Gee asked if I’d like to meet Michael Azerrad. Well, yes! He’s the one who wrote the Nirvana bio Come As You Are and his interview tapes with Kurt Cobain provided the basis for Kurt Cobain: About A Son. He was quite gracious and said he knew my work, which was very nice. He now works at emusic.com. He shared some stories about the film’s Toronto premiere (where Shannon met him), doing a bunch of interviews bang-bang-bang in one day and how exhausting it was. Also said he visited Seattle a lot as he liked the place, and named various places he’d had a fondness for, like Ernie Steele’s and the Doghouse. A man of taste. We went to his hotel afterwards for a nightcap.

Fri. there was a party for The Fever of ‘57, about Sputnik and the Space Race. Interesting film, though I thought the narration was a bit heavy handed at times. The party was at TS McHugh’s, and they had a spread of fruit and assorted sweet things like tarts. I only had a few. No free drinkies except water and ice tea. I was tired and didn’t stay too long. I was able to speak to the director, David Hoffman, he was quite passionate about his film, so it was fun to chat to him; he laughed when I said how all the references to Werner Von Braun made me think of the Tom Lehrer song. He also doesn’t have distribution for his film, and urged everyone who saw it and liked it to send in emails to allinaday@aol.com.

NWFF was holding the Alternative Cinema party that night also, and I was determined to make it, no matter how tired I was. I got there around 11 pm, and it was going full swing. Lots of food, but I’d had too much to eat already and so couldn’t fully partake. All I remember now were partial sandwiches on thick bread, I think I had one. Probably some veggies, I think there was hummus too. And all the beer and wine you could drink (they kept bringing more in). Music was raging (one cut I recall was the remixed version of Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation”), there were go-go girls in white boots and fringe dresses frugging on boxes, and people yak-yakking away. Chatting with Susie Purves, who works at NWFF now, we met way back in the day when she was at COCA. She introduced me to Annie Wagner of the Stranger, we discussed our fondness of Amelia in Girls Rock! and I told her youtube had a trailer of the film posted with Amelia singing a line of one of the Pippi songs that’s not seen in the movie (“There was a dog/and her name was Bonestar Pippi…”). After saying hi to Charles Mudede I then said hi to Charles Krafft — from one Charles to another! C. Krafft mentioned that Paul McCartney was profiled in the latest New Yorker. I hope he won’t mind my revealing that he also told me Grace Slick is his cousin! I’m actually working on some “Summer of Love” stories right now, I just talked to Jorma, her bandmate in the Airplane. I didn’t stay too long though, left after midnight.

Partially because Sat. was due to be a big day. Started out with an interview with Doug Pray about Big Rig, his film about truckers. No distribution yet, but I expect it will be worked out. We actually did the interview in a rig that was parked in front of the Egyptian, and I briefly got to sit in the driver’s seat. Then it was off to get interviews with the About A Son folks. I spoke a bit to Steve Fisk, Ben Gibbard (he and Steve did music for the film) and Charles Peterson in the press suite, but then they were whisked away to talk to KOMO TV. The director, AJ Schnack, and Michael Azerrad also did interviews with KIRO radio. Finally, I got my time with them, thankfully there was only one other writer to share them with. My reward for my lengthy wait was a trip to the hospitality suite for a drinkie (gin & tonic).

Got to About A Son extra early to ensure getting a seat, and it was indeed very full. AJ announced the film would be released in late Sept/early Oct. Then there was a party upstairs afterwards. It was a smallish function, as it wasn’t a big space. There was beer (Sierra Nevada, the pale ale being better than the hefeweizen), but no food. Chatted again with AJ and Michael; spoke longer with Steve Fisk, and Mark Pickerel (ex-Screaming Trees) who’d also been at the screening, it was more music people than film people. AJ and Michael agreed the Seattle audience had been good, and actually laughed in the right places; other audiences are more hesitant due to the serious aspect of the Cobain story. Some SIFFers were also on hand, Peter, Andy, Jen, and Shannon Gee again. A pleasant evening.

So that was my weekend excitement. Saw For the Bible Tells Me So on Sun., about what the bible really has to say about homosexuality, good and very funny and will be released later. Tonight: An evening with Julien Temple!