Fleece Flower

Fleece Flower played an ecstatic first show filled with glitter, ethereal guitar loops, and Kelly's powerful vocals last Thursday. Fleece Flower consists of Kelly Mader and Ryan Sims. If you haven't heard them, check out one of my favorite songs, "Eel Soup".  Grab your headphones and imagination, their lush soundscapes created out of cavernous delay, whistling, and pan flutes will make you feel like you're simultaneously scuba diving and walking through Ecuador's cloud forests. Fleece Flower is opening for déCollage at Kenny Penny's house show on August 19th, listen--> download--> come check them out!! It's a somewhat private house show, message me for the location/details in whatever way you see fit.

T-Haus House Show 4/22

Dance Cadaverous put on a house show at the T-Haus on April 22nd. It was a blast, there was 70-80 people there watching seven bands! Here's some pics of all the artists:

déCollage

Kyle Gray (from Rubedo)

Pre-Order their new album on their website. Rubedo is getting their album produced by The Mars Volta's Keyboardist, Ikey Owens.

Matt Tanner (of Tantric Picasso)

Give Them Stories

Architect

Cody Coffey

Solterra

House Show at The Menagerie

On Thursday our community of thirteen friends put on a house show in our basement, The Menagerie. Without knowing it, we created a new music venue in Denver! We had 30-35 people show up and a packed basement!  We plan on having a show every other week. A bunch of friends and I are joining together to create a distinct community of artists (all mediums) in Denver and that's why I started this blog.  If you would like to join us, mesh communities, or play music at the next show, drop me a line (or some interwebmail at arafax1@msn.com).  Five bands/artists played a set and here's some photos of 'em all:

déCollage

déCollage, my band, played a set with half of our members. The amazing Ryan Schlitman held down the fort with guitar, voice, and drumpad/sampler, while the mighty Andrew Horwath played percrussion and a trashcan drumkit. I dabbled in guitar, accordion, and sampling. We had a blast! We performed "Impossible Soul" by Sufjan Stevens, and a bunch of originals. You can add us on Facebook and download free songs here.

Photography of déCollage by Austin Jenness.

Give Them Stories

Without any planning, all five members of Give Them Stories happened to show up. We were honored to house their first show. This rarely happens, but their music sent chills of bliss down my spine on two tunes. You can download songs for free on their Facebook and befriend them!! Give Them Stories is an innovative/prog/experimental band with three singers that tend to break out in glowing harmonies (Kelly Mader, Judon Montoya, and Ryan Sims). Their drummer and bassist keep everyone grounded with their groove and passion (Jeff Young and Ryan "Animal" Bannigan)

Give Them Stories Photography by Reed Fuchs

Cody Coffey

My really good friend, Cody Coffey, played a set of songs accompanied by Ryan Bannigan on drums. Cody has inspired me a lot and has one of the best voices of anyone I know; oozing in rich resonance. He is an amazing lyricist; he sometimes considers himself more of a poet than a musician...and he is a truly brilliant songwriter with a knack for writing catchy songs that still contain dense substance. You can listen to his songs on his facebook, my favorite right now is "God In A Woman". 

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  Photography by Reed Fuchs

Ben Fisher

My friend Ben Fisher played a few of his songs on an electric guitar. He has an impressive vibrato,  a warm, sweet voice, and a killer falsetto.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled, you will be hearing much much more from these artists!

We will have a Facebook page for the Menagerie in the next couple of days!

Thanks to everyone who came and made this happen, let me know if you would like to come next time!

~Reed Fuchs

"Transfeathered" & "What's Left Remains" Sculptures by Lara Nickel

           I recently discovered that my friend, Lara Nickel, creates striking and unique sculptures. Lara is an art major at Metro. Below are pictures of three of her pieces. 

"Transfeathered"

          “Transfeathered” made its first showing in an art installation at Metro State College. She calculated that her hair would be 10 ft. 5 in. if she had never cut it and made the 15 strands of feathers that long. She collected all of the feathers from Washington Park in Denver. 

     "Transfeathered" Photo by Evan Beasley

    "Transfeathered" Photo by Derrick Velasquez

"Transfeathered Bearded Feather Man"

Photo by Derrick Velasquez

"What's Left Remains" 

Lara's series of pieces titled “What’s Left Remains” are sculpted out of objects that she gathered from estate sales, alleys, and thrift stores. The objects have been repurposed and are now enjoyed by another generation. Materials she used include arrowheads, petrified wood, old fuses, a foot rest, shelving, and old furniture, which she broke apart before reassembling. Lara intended this series to capture the aura of an abandoned house.

"What's Left Remains" 

Photo by Derrick Velasquez

                "What's Left Remains" Photo by Derrick Velasquez

"What's Left Remains" Photo by Derrick Velasquez                                     

                                                                               "What's Left Remains" Photo by Derrick Velasquez

"Untitled"

            Lara’s assignment for this work was to create something organic out of 2 x 4’s. She chopped the wood up and cut grooves in the edges of each piece for added texture. Lara got the feathers from bird stores and the Denver zoo. This "untitled" piece spans 6 feet wide.

 "Untitled" Photo by Shawn Taylor                                    

  "Untitled" Photo by Shawn Taylor      

Contact Lara Nickel    

                  If you're interested in buying one of Lara's pieces, contact her at lnickel@mscd.edu or 405-706-1729. 

2010 Favorites

My Favorite Albums of 2010

In no order:

Mountain Man~ Made The Harbor

Sleigh Bells~ Treats

Tame Impala~ Inner Speaker

Skrillex~ My Name Is Skrillex

Flying Lotus~ Cosmogramma

Kanye West~ My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Arcade Fire~ The Suburbs

Beach House~ Teen Dream

Top Five

5. Avey Tare~ Down There

4. Dirty Projectors~ Mount Wittenberg Orca

3. Animal Collective~ O.D.D.S.A.C.

2. Sufjan Stevens~ Age of Adz

1. Joanna Newsom~ Have One On Me

Favorite Songs

Javelin~ "Oh! Centra" (our cat, Hatchet Paige Ellington's theme song)

Dada Trash Collage~ "Fantastic Planet"

Headless Horseman~ "SH8KR"

Baths~ "Hall"

Cults~ "Go Outside"

Menomena~ "Tithe"

Panda Bear~ "Slow Motion"

Star Slinger~ "Dutchie Courage"

Two Door Cinema~ "Undercover Martyn"

The Naked and Famous~ "Young Blood"

Dog & Panter~ "Love Make"

Favorite Movie(s) of 2010

1. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus 

My First Music Video ~ "Language Is A Prison House"

           I made all of the audio to the video below including voice-overs, music, and sound FX. The audio was set to Takeshi Kitano's trailer for his film Outrage, which was released by Warner Brothers. Kitano has not consented to having his name affiliated with our joint effort; thus making this video illegal graffiti. I titled our collaborative work “Language Is A Prison-House”; named after an intriguing quote by Friedrich Nietzsche.

The music video begs the question, “Are all artworks a collaborative endeavor?” Since it took countless people to produce what you see here, this piece questions the authority of traditional aesthetics (What is art? What qualifies someone to be the creator of an artwork? {After all, painters don’t create the paint or canvas they use} Is everything art? Are semantics capable of defining art? {Is there even such a thing as art?}).

What if you create something that hates you? The storyline is a meta-narrative where the artwork is waging war on the artist. The basic internal struggle that all of humanity shares is represented through the video in a comedic, larger than life sort of way via the battle between the characters and their creator. The characters are placed in a prison-house that I made for them because they can only speak using my voice.

The music video was created the opposite of most music videos. Instead of starting with a song to create a video, I started with a video and then set sound to it. The soundtrack is a collage of décollages from five of my songs. I never listened to the original audio or read the script for the video (it is a foreign film), which kept me from being influenced by the ideas of the original creators.

As I made this I felt like I was possessed. This happens to me often when I am making art and it feels as if I am merely pushing buttons and watching it unfold before me. It feels as if the Holy Spirit guides all of my decision-making during the process. I’ll share some examples because it is truly a freaky, weird phenomenon. 1~ I was lying in bed in a state of hypnagogia {threshold consciousness} the other night when I jolted out of bed in search of a pen and pad. I realized that the storyline could be a meta-narrative with the creator (me) as the antagonist, instead of a lame villain that I came up with on my own. 2~ A few songs fit so perfectly with specific parts of the video that I felt the only explanation was the Spirit guiding my creativity. For example, the gunshots already in my song fit perfectly with both scenes when the characters were shooting, as well as, a couple scene changes. Etc, etc.

          I have always been intrigued with the idea of collaborative art where the creators don’t know each other. I love that someone created the idea for this film, other people acted out and shot the video, Foley guys recorded the sounds for it, some corporation created the video cameras they used, and musicians made the soundtrack (this is even an oversimplification). Next, someone else comes by (in this case me), tears out the audio and original storyline, replacing it with their interpretation. It is the same concept as the “Hall of Bulls” cave paintings (in Lascaux) made 17,300 years ago that have continually been added onto since their genesis. So when someone reinterprets and/or augments another’s art, are they destroying the art or are they bringing the piece into a fuller, multifaceted dimension? 

Handmade Christmas Candles!!

       On Tuesday I made a Christmas candle (fondly named after mouths: “Wax Gums Eschew Christmas Molars”) with my roommates. Although we managed to get wax all over our kitchen, it is fairly easy to make a candle of your own RIGHT NOW if you already have a candle! Sounds a little too simple, right? RECYCLING!

       Your local thrift store is a great place to get extra candles to melt and jars to put your finished candles in. You can just melt the candles you buy and reuse the wicks from them for your own candle. The best part of making candles is that there are no rules; you’re free to make whatever you can imagine!

Here are some optional ingredients (most of which I put in mine):

-Dye (or melt colored candles)

-Candy canes

-Magic

-Aromatic oils, perfume, mix your own! (Or melt fancy smelling candles)

-Insert incense sticks before the wax melts

-Blackberries

-Coffee Beans ~“Are you heating up coffee? Nope, just a candle”

-Sunflower seeds

-Paint the inside or outside of the jar!

-“Toothpicks work as an extra wick” ~Ryan {Blame him if it doesn’t work}

-Put newspaper clippings around inside of jar

-Ink (only in the middle layers because it doesn’t mix with wax)

-Cloves, pumpkin spices…actually any kind of spice!

          You can layer the colors by waiting for the wax to dry after each layer. Also, wax and water don’t mix well so my roommate, Ezrah, discovered that you can make complex tunnels after the wax dries by adding water to the liquid wax. 

The Cozy Bean/A Nomadic Coffee Shop

My roommate, Stiles, sells coffee out of an old Volkswagen bus named The Cozy Bean. He sells at farmers markets, festivals, weddings, funerals (maybe not), and business offices. I rode in The Cozy Bean and helped Stiles with his route on Thursday, which was not unlike a “take your kid to work day”. I did some photography for him and drank a delectable Caramel Macchiato. We met many interesting people including these nice ladies:

Today The Cozy Bean made an appearance in the Olde Golden Christmas Parade. I, along with two of my roommates, Ryan and Teddy, helped hand out brochures and candy canes to parade goers. We happened to be right behind the Ronald McDonald van complete with Ronald himself (Although I’m pretty sure Ronald’s actually a girl)!

Check out the maniacs in this family>>

On top of being insanely amazing at making gourmet coffee, Stiles makes dream catchers (that actually work) for the Cozy Bean so that she can sleep a little cozier at night.

You can pick up some coffee from The Cozy Bean by following him on Twitter and Facebook. If you have an event or somewhere you would like to see The Cozy bean, call Stiles at 972-824-8225 or email him at stiles@cozybean.com.