Year in Review
Friday, January 28, 2011
Music / Year in Review Friday To-Do: Alpha Rev
ALPHA REV
9 p.m., Stickyz. $7.
Of all the MOR radio rockers currently humming through the airwaves, not many are as musically ambitious as this Austin orchestral-pop act. Alpha Rev may be yet another band whose bare, emotional core was strip-mined from Jeff Buckley's tragic legacy and the minor-key warbling owes a debt to any number of inoffensive "Dawson's Creek" bands, but it sets itself apart, if not in scope, in size. It's a seven-piece band with six vocalists and cello and violin that doesn't sound terribly gimmicky and a high, ethereal tenor in front of the mix (lead vocalist and primary songwriter Casey McPherson) that bites, tastefully, from a "Bends"-era Thom Yorke. Formed in 2005 after the breakup of McPherson's previous, modern rock band, Endochine, Alpha Rev soon found a footing in its fiercely competitive home town, was named the best indie band from Texas by Myspace, signed to the Disney-owned Hollywood Records and became a regular fixture on VH1 with their biggest single, "New Morning." Along the way, the band also provided the soundtrack to MTV's "True Life: I Hate My Plastic Surgery" and contributed music to "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" and "The OCD Project." It may be a ham-handed soundtrack for your next pity party, but hey, at least the band's aiming for grandeur.
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Thursday, December 23, 2010
Film / Year in Review A for 'Antiquities'
Local filmmaker Daniel Campbell, 29, proved Arkansas-made film is in good hands with his deadpan, quirk-fueled "Antiquities." Clocking in at a brisk 14 minutes, the short follows antique mall scrub Terrence (Jason Thompson, stand-up comedian and drummer for The Reds, in a hilariously awkward role and wig) and his callous, curt boss, Blundale (a scene-stealing Roger Scott), playing hooky from work, landing in strip clubs and urban barbershops and talking about Terrence's object of affection, Marissa (Jennifer Pierce). The film's punchy John Hughes by-way-of Wes Anderson charm helped it land the Charles B. Pierce Award for Best Film Made in Arkansas at the 2010 Little Rock Film Festival and spots in film festivals from Oxford, Miss., to Portland, Ore. And it looks like the auteur-in-training isn't showing any signs of slowing down. Campbell tells us he recently secured $5,100 from 31 backers in order to make his next short, "The Orderly," a Southern Gothic comedy about a psychiatric hospital orderly charged with getting two patients to a home five hours away with only three hours to spare.
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Music / Showcase / Year in Review B for Brother Andy
"You'll know him when you see him." In some Little Rock music circles, it's a bit of a joke about Andy Warr, the giant, neckbearded young rocker who toes that line between backwoods Syd Barrett and a "foretold" musical Moses for the Little Rock Sound. Since winning the 2010 Arkansas Times Musicians Showcase with his main band, Brother Andy and His Big Damn Mouth, Warr has released his Big Damn Debut in "Mystical Indian Hitmakers," is soon to release "Hell's Angles," the sequel to that album, this New Year's Eve, and has strapped on and plugged in as a regular member of Detroit rockers Sweet Eagle, Dixie metal outfit Iron Tongue and Southern synth-funkers Pilot Whale. As if he wasn't hard enough to miss to begin with, the unmistakable 6'6" redhead made sure he was omnipresent and inexhaustible in 2010, too. He makes us feel lazy. And short.
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Music / Year in Review C for Country Music
- Brian Chilson
- Reba
Central Arkansas is never going to draw all the big concerts. We're too small and our demographics don't match up with the fanbases of some of the world's biggest pop stars (in other words, sadly, there probably aren't enough of us willing to shell out $50 or more to see Lady Gaga or Kanye). But when it comes to contemporary country, you'd think we were Nashville for the concerts we get. To wit, every winner (and most of the nominees) of this year's Country Music Association Awards played Central Arkansas in 2010 or late 2009. Here's just a sampling of the names who played in 2010: Brad Paisley, Tim McGraw, Brooks and Dunn, George Strait, Reba, Willie Nelson, Randy Travis, Miranda Lambert, Marty Stuart, Lee Ann Womack, Joe Nichols, Darius Rucker, Easton Corbin, Martina McBride, Hank Williams Jr., Trace Adkins, Loretta Lynn, Justin Moore and Gary Allan.
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Music / Tattoos / Year in Review D for Dude-tats
Also known as "bro-tats," this local tattoo phenomenon picked up steam in 2010 as more and more local musicians got tattooed variations of Thick Syrup Records head honcho Travis McElroy's bearded silhouette. For his part, McElroy got a massive tattoo of Andy Warr on his chest with the words "In Warr We Trust" floating in a laurel above. Dude-tatter Matt Quin most succinctly captured the motivation behind the trend: "When your brother dies, you get his name tattooed, RIP and that stuff. The way we're doing it celebrates your friends while they're alive. Like, 'I love the shit out of you. I love you so much I'm going to get your name or face tattooed on my body.' "
More on dude-tats on the jump.
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Music / Year in Review E for Elise Davis' 'Trouble'
We called it during an August profile of the prolific local songbird and it still stands true: "Trouble," the highlight of Elise Davis' new album, "The Same Vein," is our favorite song to come out of Little Rock all year. Brisk, melodic and driving, it's a pop earwig of the highest degree, deceptively catchy, supernaturally listenable and miles better than anything any of her major-label counterparts have released in years.
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Film / Year in Review F for Film
Arkansas is on the ascent as an unexpected, Southern mecca for movie appreciation. The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival is still going strong in its 18th year, even expanding: Festival Director Dan Anderson is curating the Arkansas Underground Film Festival (ARKUFF!), a three-day celebration of the cinematic fringes with entries traversing the space from Locust Bayou's Phil Chambliss to the early works of David Lynch. Up the road, the Little Rock Film Festival is rapidly becoming a heavy hitter on the film festival circuit, drawing not only national praise but 25,000 guests into the seats in this, its fourth year. To put things in perspective, that's 10 times as many people as were in attendance for its inaugural year. The Ozark Foothills Film Festival in Batesville remains a staple for cinephiles in the northeast chunk of the state, as does its counterpart in Fayetteville, the Offshoot Film Festival. Festivals aside, even libraries are getting into the mix. This year saw the emergence of Conway's new Faulkner County Film Society, which takes to the Faulkner County Library monthly to highlight notable directors with a double-feature in their honor. Recently, it's screened films by Jane Campion and Jim Jarmusch. Central Arkansas saw the bright lights this summer as Hank Williams biopic "The Last Ride" began shooting with local Harry Thomason at the helm. The film, distributed by Fox, is expected to hit theaters in 2011. Now, if Pine Bluff could bring back its yearly film festival and Little Rock could support a dedicated repertory movie theater in our empty downtown, we'd be in serious business.
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Year in Review G for Gone, but not forgotten
- Brian Chilson
- Lisa Blount
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Music / Year in Review H for Hendrix College, music venue
For more than a decade, Hendrix hosted a series of free concerts, open to the public, featuring names to make any music geek's head spin: Lucinda Williams, John Cale, Bill Frisell, Van Dyke Parks, Gillian Welch. That series is no more. But Hendrix certainly hasn't quit booking national acts. In fact, this year, the college might've been Central Arkansas's hippest venue, as it hosted performances from four of indiedoms most revered: Girl Talk, Clipse, Deerhunter and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Too bad, at least for non-students, all but Grace Potter required an invite from someone on campus.
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Music / Year in Review I for Isaac Alexander
Throughout the year, the musician/graphic designer was responsible for a string of eye-catching flyers that look great behind a frame or wheatpasted to a telephone pole. But Alexander stood out this year when "See Thru Me," a soft-spoken album he released in 2007 to fervent acclaim in small circles, landed in our Greatest Arkansas Albums poll, sitting right alongside Louis Jordan and Al Green as a contemporary spoiler of the highest degree. To our ears, it still sounds like a cold classic, ready for nationwide appreciation.
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Music / Arkansas Music Poll / Year in Review J for Johnny Cash
Even seven years after his death, Dyess' favorite son is still making headlines, with his induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame; the release of his final collaboration with Rick Rubin in February to unsurprisingly near-universal acclaim; Grammy recognition for the crowd-sourced, eerily animated video for "Ain't No Grave" (available at thejohnnycashproject.com), and with the famous jumpsuit he wore while recording "Live at San Quentin" auctioned off for $50,000 — over 10 times its original projected price. Also, the Man in Black was named the single greatest native Arkansan musician of all time by a landslide in our Arkansas Music Poll.
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Music / King Biscuit / Year in Review K for King Biscuit
- Brian Chilson
- BB King accepts the key to the city at King Biscuit
Can we stage a burial ceremony for that antiseptic mouthful of a name that stood in for "King Biscuit" while out-of-state marauders held it hostage? Something cleansing like setting a canoe filled with all the unsold "Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival" merch on fire and kicking it out to the Mississippi River? Because the Biscuit's back, y'all. Not only did organizers — led by irrepressible director Munnie Jordan — manage to negotiate an agreement to, once again, use the festival's original name, they staged one hell of a festival in 2010. BB King, Dr. John, Taj Mahal — where else are you going to find headliners like that for a $25 weekend pass? Times readers got to witness the renaissance firsthand on the last day of the festival. Nearly 100 of 'em rode the Arkansas Times Blues Buses, which came equipped with kegs of beer and live on-bus performances from North Little Rock cigarbox guitar whiz Bluesboy Jag. It was a party.
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Year in Review L for Luke
It's hard to think of a more beloved figure in the Little Rock arts world than Luke Hunsicker, who passed away this year at age 29, after a long battle with brain cancer. Music fans across the country knew him as the rangy, charismatic bassist in American Princes. He joined the band as it was blossoming from a local favorite to a national touring act signed to North Carolina's Yep Roc Records. Followers of the local music scene remember him as one of the area's most in-demand bassists, who, at one time or another, played as a member of 613 Mob, Big Boots, The Evelyns, Silver Swirly, Sugar and the Raw, Them of Delphi and Under Rues. And friends and family remember him as an arts polymath, who drew, sculpted, sewed and cut hair. His name will live on in the newly established Luke Hunsicker Memorial Scholarship for a graduating Parkview senior who wants to study art or music.
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Year in Review M for Miss Arkansas
- Mike Bell
- At this year's Miss Arkansas Pageant
Yes, pageants are tired and vapid. But let's forget that next year. Because Fort Smith native Alyse Eady, crowned Miss Arkansas last July, is surely the best contender our state's sent to the Miss America Pageant since, well, ever. For starters, she's got all the requisite qualities: She's strikingly pretty; she advocated, in the Miss Arkansas pageant, for a good cause, the Boys and Girls Club; and as a recent OBU grad, with a major in communications, she's not likely to bungle her answer to the onstage question. But most of all, we're smitten with her for her talent: a yodeling, ventriloquist rendition of "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart." Yup, an African-American pageant contestant is yodeling and singing one of Arkansas's greatest contributions to country music — Arkansas native Patsy Montana made it the first million-copy seller for a female country artist in 1935 — without moving her lips! We need Alyse Eady T-shirts. "Miss America" airs at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, on ABC.
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Year in Review N for New...
Wherein, we stick odds and ends.
New Mann. Amidst a nauseating number of puns on his last name, the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra introduced its bright, new music director, Philip Mann.
New prehistoric bird. Hollanda luceria, a prehistoric bird identified earlier this year, was named in part for Lucero. The newly identified species most closely resembles the modern Southern Screamer, which perhaps led scientists to think of lead singer (and Little Rock native) Ben Nichols' voice.
New books. Highlights include former Oxford American editor Paul Reyes' tour de force account of the housing crisis, as seen from the ground, "Exiles of Eden"; C.D. Wright's affecting blend of poetry and reportage, "One with Others"; Janie and Wyatt Jones' zany guide book "Arkansas Curiosities"; Tom Dillard's encyclopedic take on "Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics" in Arkansas; Rick Bass' "Nashville Chrome," a fictionalized account of Arkansas's first family of country, The Browns; and Jay Jennings' insightful and carefully reported racial history of Little Rock, "Carry the Rock: Race, Football and the Soul of an American City."
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