If you're a regular here, you'll know exactly want I mean when I say please enjoy some new SFEAD vids here on this lovely Friday, skip the next paragraph and head straight to the music.
If you've not been around for a while then you should know I'm passionate about music. And you'll want to know (or be reminded) that SFEAD stands for Song For Eating And Drinking, a project I created with my pal Michael Hebb, where we invite world class musicians to a huge dinner table in a remarkable setting, we feed them well, we encourage them to sing songs to one another, and then we record these songs--video, stills, and audio--to share them with you and the rest of the world online. It's about music, art, food and new media. See the most intimate side of some of your favorite musicians from huge bands like Pearl Jam and The Dandy Warhols and discover new music from emerging bands like Head Like a Kite, Blue Scholars, The Dutchess & The Duke and dozens more.
These tracks are from a recent SFEAD evening... above is from emerging artist the Pica Beats. Catch my stills from the recent evening, visit the SFEAD site, or after the jump catch 3 videos...Steve Turner from Mudhoney, John Roderick from The Long Winters, and Peter Holmstrom from The Dandy Warhols playing his side project Pete International Airport with Jason Adams [click the 'continue reading' link below...]
In our most amazing Songs For Eating and Drinking evening to date (they keep getting better, but maybe that's just my bias...), my partner Hebb and I today bow down to the greatness of these musicians. And what a lineup we had... The splendor of this night a couple Wednesday's ago - the hottest day in Seattle's history - will be forever burned into my beanie little brain. Sample of the bands represented on this evening:
The Blakes, The Dandy Warhols, Mudhoney, Throw Me The Statue, The Long Winters, The Pica Beats, Rocky Votolato, Say Hi, David Bazan, Sarah Cahoone, Pete International Airport, The Dutchess & The Duke, The Moondoggies.
I'm leaving all four of these performances above the jump in hopes that you'll check them all out. #3.1 above, Rocky Votolato - wow wow. #3.2 David Bazan (now himself, former lead of Pedro the Lion) - one of the most arresting performer's I've ever seen live. #3.3 Throw Me The Statue - these guys will go huge, I'll bet a limb. #3.4 Mudhoney - the seminal grunge band is back, and seriously better than ever. Here they're plugged in as we eat desert at 1am on the rooftop deck. Holy smokes...
And don't forget: links to these performers on iTunes, 6 or 7 of my favorite stills after the jump [AND 100 more at this gallery here. Please check them out.]
[please click the 'continue reading' link below...] -- The epic John Roderick of The Long Winters:
Peter Holmstrom of The Dandy Warhols and Pete International Airport
Major props to the overall winners of the prestigious Prix De La Photographie Paris prize: Erwin Olaf for staking claim to the Photographer of the Year title, and also to Annett Reimer for owning up to Best New Talent. I highly encourage popping over to the Px# site for a through the honorable mentions if you have a chance. Plenty to oogle.
And I'll try not break my arm from patting myself on the back here, but I wanted to say how honored and grateful I am to "the people" for having awarded me 1st Prize in the People's Choice music category. Winning images were from my Songs For Eating and Drinking series...the selection of submitted pics after the jump. Thank you thank you!
[And if you're doubting the power of Twitter, I actually found out I'd won in my Twitter stream (following me? @chasejarvis) before hearing from anybody at Px3. Thanks @m_hagedorn!] [Above image by Erwin Olaf.] --
Psyched (and happily surprised) that our Songs for Eating and Drinking project was deemed worthy of a 30 minute television special last week. Sample it here or if you prefer the boob tube, it runs several more times this month on The Local Music Show with John Richards (The Seattle Channel - cable 21) at 8:30pm on Thursdays and some other late night slots too. With any luck, this sucker is going global. Booyah-kashah. __
Long story short, we followed up our foiled attempt to get to our Portland S.F.E.A.D two weeks ago, with a night I'll never forget. Last Saturday, after a year in the making and some gracious help from our beloved Sabzi, we were able to briefly unite Seattle's once-underground-but-now-erupting hip-hop community--at a dinner table set for 50--for a humble evening of lamb stew, a French red, and a tidal wave of raw and intimate performances. I was awestruck. The Seattle paper, The Stranger, wrote:
"Last week I saw something incredible. Jake One, DV One, Tha Stahi Bros, Fatal Lucciauno, Spaceman, the Saturday Knights, Grayskul, Cancer Rising, Nite Owls, J.Pinder, Dyme Def, GMK, Blue Scholars, Grynch, Macklemore, Common Market, Piece, the Physics, Mad Rad, and others all sat in a room, ate a crackin'-ass dinner, drank like fuckin' fish, and gave a series of short, intimate, straight-up-thrilling performances. It was definitely one of the favorite experiences I've had since being involved in music—and this is coming from someone who got to fucking meet Marvin Gaye..."
With 4 HD video cameras rolling, 10 channels of audio into the board, Nikon digis ripping frames at high ISO, and an old Hasselblad winding through some Delta 3200, we shared in the evening and captured the evening to share it. And we will continue pour it out for the coming weeks.
Enjoy the a-capella performance above delivered by Geologic of Blue Scholars (turn your ears down if you're sensitive to the occasional f-bomb), hit the jump to see the full post, another video featuring Macklemore's Air Jordans, lots of still photos, and a sneak peak behind the scenes. [click 'continue reading' below] --
In case you care, here's how we captured the visuals...
Cameras video: 4 Canon XHA-1's Cameras digital still: Nikon D3 ISO: 3200 Cameras film still: Hasselblad 503cm Film: Ilford Delta 3200 Approximate ambient exposures for both still cameras: f4, 1/60 Lighting: candles + mix of Lowel and Arri spots with barn doors
Stay tuned here and at the Songs for Eating and Drinking site for additional performances added weekly. There's some seriously cool shiznit coming down the pipe from this evening.
The year was 1968. My uncle was killed in Vietnam, and this was the camera that he carried into war.
But this isn't a sad story, nor is it the end of a story, it's a sort of a cool new beginning--not for my uncle Rick unfortunately, but it is for this little camera.
Enter stage right: Seattle’s largest cultural festival, Bumbershoot. Hundreds of bands, theater, performance, food, it’s a 3 day festival in September. Very cool. Enter stage left: my good friend, renowned food guru Michael Hebb (he’s my partner in our www.songsforeatinganddrinking.com project). Hebb was an artist in residence at this festival, and he chose to do what he does so well - host open dinners for 50 people to share, discuss, and revive ideas. The topic for this series of dinners?...the ideas behind arguably the most revolutionary year in US history (and certainly a huge year worldwide), 1968. And to this dinner, guests were required to bring something to share - a story, a poem, memory, an artifact - from or about 1968 in exchange for this meal that he would prepare. From Hebb:
greetings - you are here at one pot at bumbershoot so that i can feed you - but also so that i can get something from you - the basic request is one of reciprocation – I cook you dinner and you bring me something – it seems to be that this basic exchange is the root of most culture. money is an unfortunate substitution for basic reciprocity – it is silent, and generally rather dirty, "it don't sing and dance and it don't walk" - many cultures have (had) great ritual in the matters of the table and the guest/host relationship – the greeks in the classical era were famous for long treatises on the importance of proper exchange – the table was central to this – the collapses of this code often resulted in calamity. take for instance when paris decided to take more than food from the the table of menelaus (he slipped helen of troy into his pocket) the result was the most mythologized war of all time. so don’t steel my woman – I will burn down your village. restaurant tables do not offer this kind of currency. this table was built as a kind of modern agora for an exchange about a very important time – 68 changed our world – I don’t profess to be of high knowledge about this era – this year – in fact I wasn’t even born – but I launched this project to learn about how it came to pass that all the way around the globe thought and ideas turned into action – the world is filled with ideas – and yet the world has arguably never seen as much action as it did in 1968.
As you’ve already guessed, I brought the this little camera to the table along with the story of my uncle’s passing. And I brought it all three nights, along with a handful of Ilford Delta 3200 film, taking a snapshop portrait of every person in attendance, largely total strangers, over their shoulders, in near total darkness. [More story and photos after the jump. Click ‘continue reading’ below...] --
So, aside from this being my uncle’s war camera, the other interesting things about this camera are: 1. It hadn’t seen a roll of film since my uncle’s death in that year of revolution, 1968, and I was keen to change that. 2. The camera is called a “half-frame”, meaning that it takes 35mm film, but takes photos that fill only half of a 35mm frame. As such it gets 72 “portrait” images on a roll. 3. It has presets for 160 and 200 ASA film only. 4. It has a built-in ring flash (can you imagine how stoked David Hobby would be?!) [Update - turns out it's not a ring flash, but a selenium light meter..]
With that information, I formulated the following plan: 1. I wasn’t going to “check” my work after the first night. I planned to just snapping portraits all three nights and see what I got. I WANTED - was desperately looking for - unique, awkward snapshots of total strangers bonding beautifully, strangely over dinner. Eerie pictures, weird pictures. 2. I couldn’t locate the appropriate power source for the ring flash given the short time between when I tracked down the camera in my family and the event. As such, I was forced to go natural light - when there was none. Hence, I’d shoot 3200 iso, and I'd push it. 3. Since there’s only a single dial on the front of the camera with shutter speeds, aperture, and ISO all on the same dial, I had no idea how to get 3200 thru there “properly”. As such, I decided to shoot a test roll. Since the room was going to be "lit" the same for all three nights, I’d be ok. I just clicked off 35 pictures of the room right when I get in there on the first night. When it came time to process the film, the lab could then “snip” this roll -- develop a bunch of different pieces of the film for different lengths of time -- and decide what the right development time in the tank would be for the remainder of the “real” rolls.
Well, the plan was a reasonable one. And I got a pile of fascinating, simple, bizarre images from the dark dinner table. They are indeed blurry, weird, old-looking, but cool. And I think they’re cool because of what they recorded and how and why. And now they’re a part of the permanent Bumbershoot festival collection. Here's a sample:
So I’m looking forward to my new beginning with this weird little camera. Sure I love my iphone, but this is something different. It can't be used, but it has it's special place. Here’s a couple more snaps of this neat old camera below, and then a whole lot of pictures from dinner--150 or more. Keep in mind that a lot didn't turn out. The camera misfired, or people were unrecognizable, or I blew it. Many of these suck beautifully, and some suck poorly. I'm fine with that and hopefully you are too. There's some well known people tucked in these pictures if you care about that stuff. There's the good snaps, crap ones and everything indecipherable and in between--the bulk of which can be found at this link here.
I learned a lot about 1968 that weekend from poems, songs and first hand accounts. I learned more deeply what revolution stands for, how it works, and how it fails. And I learned how to shoot this cool little camera. I love the power of the story or the image and a meaningful meal. I hope you enjoy these photos in a not-so-perfect sort of way. They are a slice of a strange and powerful dinner in 2008, of half-frames, and 3200 Ilford Delta film pushed like mad.
UPDATE: posted an online version of a giant print composite (4ft by 7ft) that we've made with the images to celebrate this series of evenings. View it in this online gallery here...
[Full gallery of blur, 3 pages long, begins here.]
I mentioned in a recent post that I'd soon be occasionally including personal work shots here in a photoblog style. Well, here we go. I'll supply some photographs and you can supply some words or questions in the comments below if you like. I'm excited to be sharing these little personal gems amidst the normal blog stuff. Two more images related to this one after the jump... --
Hassie 503cm. Ilford 3200. This is actually the first shot in the series. Snagged it as he was pulling on his shirt, showing some of us.
The is just after. Ghoulish smoke break. I think the architecture in the background is stunning as well.
If you missed my earlier post about my favorite project in a while, Songs for Eating and Drinking, you'll want to pay that entry a visit for some backstory. If you're already in the know, please enjoy. This is Arthur & Yu (Subpop) performing "3 Horses". Keep in mind that we're posting a couple new performances from #1.0 over at S.F.E.A.D. every week or so until our next evening in Portland.
Throw some big-time musicians around a table with some amazing up and comers, feed 'em like kings and queens, and what do you get? You get some stunning musical performances and a bunch of honest and richly textured video--like this one above--where Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam and Barb Ireland cover "Cool Water" by Hank Williams. You also get a whole bunch of beautifully intimate still images and a really fun project that a friend and I have pulled together... Introducing: Songs For Eating And Drinking.
Okay, here's the concept: Get a bunch of insanely talented musicians together, and let them share songs, food, and drink. Many a musical career starts with small audiences, impromptu performances, late night mutterings; and then the lucky end up on large stages and tucked deep inside recording studios - often vastly disconnected from those that love their music. My friends in the music industry have bellyached that industry folk hardly ever share food in a meaningful way – or rarely just get together and effin chill. So my good friend Michael, who has been putting amazing people at big dinner tables for a several years now, reached out to me after he'd concepted this thing... We connected and decided to take this to the next level, creating these evenings for our musician friends built around long tables, remarkable locations, sturdy drinking food, and bottles of wine and whiskey – with the hope that throughout each night songs would rise up from the table...and with the hope that we could share that music with the world.
I think we're onto something.
My favorite part? Both Michael and I are physically at the table, eating, chilling, hanging out. Michael had gotten all the food lined up--an absolutely amazing job, I might add...ribs, succotash, sangria...a feast--and then he's able to just sort of direct a small but zesty staff of helpers. I photograph from the table and immediate surrounds, as the night leads us along... 3200 iso, using a D3 and an old Hassie 503cm. I'm also directing my amazing video and audio crew from the table, popping up here and there, but fully IN the evening. We've got a great plan going in, but we also keep it loose and raw and real, low profile - the crew does a spectacular job... Talk about a fun personal project. I've always longed to photograph my musician friends in this way - from within an evening rather than from outside it - and without the annoyances sometimes associated with a handcuffed music industry budget and without the cold distance of concert halls. With this project, we're able to really get in there. Simple, gritty, real, honest. But there's more...
I sure hope you want to see more videos, still photos, and get some more background on the project. If so, click the 'Continue Reading' link below.
-- This project is a collaboration between my buddy, table guru and all around genius, Michael Hebb, and yours truly. Hatched from Michael's underground one-pot dinners, and documented in my personal still photo and video style, Songs For Eating and Drinking is the bringing together of the world’s most talented musicians and letting them share songs, food, and drink. Many a musical career starts with small audiences, impromptu performances, and late night mutterings. These cozy and soulful evenings are a return to those days.
If I can talk you into checking out our S.F.E.A.D. site thoroughly, you won't be disappointed. There are two other video performances from bands that, if you're in the uber know, you'll have heard of: Head Like a Kite (so cool - we've used their music in our vids before) and Fences(a remarkable new band that has yet to release a full length album, but will do so very soon and it will rule) and if you're not in the uber-know, well, now you are.
And guess what, there's more. We'll be posting two or three videos from our last evening each week or so for the next month or two, so check in here with us (I'll be embedding some here at ChaseJarvis.com/blog), but also stay tuned to the SFEAD site via RSS or subscribe via email. The full roster of artists at our table a few nights ago:
And of course, I'd also love for you to check out some of my images from the evening. There's a handful here below, but you can get a hundred more by clicking through to this page (don't forget there are two pages...).
Lastly, before you get onto the still images ...just a heads up: we've got a whole series of these evenings planned. Many amazing musicians. I hope you get to enjoy some of your favorites in future posts, as well as learn about some new bands. Buy some of these bands' music. Support them. New, fresh music puts a bounce in your step. There's a huge range of artist in this project, from hipster, to pop, to folk, hip hop, and good old rock n roll. Also be sure to visit Michael's OnePot.org page - he's a great guy and doing really brilliant stuff.
And stay tuned for more. Thanks for letting me gush - this is a really fun one ;)
Fences. Diabetes.
Tilson and Barfly from The Saturday Knights laying lyrics over Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard
Headlike a kite, backlit.
The wonderful and elegant, Karen Loria... Pearl Jam's photographer, Ten Club champion. Shot with the good ol' Hassie.
My partner in crime, Micheal Hebb.
Jesse from Subpop's Tiny Vipers.
Early in the night, ace music writer, Jonathan Zwickel.
The amazingly cool Cheryl Waters of KEXP, along with our very own Cody and Trent from Head Like a Kite.
