Maker Faire, Once Again

It’s that time again! The Maker Faire is happening in a couple of weeks in San Mateo and I’m SO excited. We went last year, got free tickets from some guy on the street who had extras, and ended up staying until it closed and we still weren’t able to see everything.

It’s an amazing weekend full of fire-breathing robots, electric cars and motorcycles, an enormous room full of crafties (remember, crafties are hard core), a huge clothing swap, and tons more really interesting stuff. My favorites from last year: a knitting drummer, a plant that calls you on the telephone when it needs to be watered, a life-sized game of Mouse Trap and a handful of computerized instruments. GO!

Local Label Profile: Ghost Mansion Records

Click Here to download your exclusive Ghost Mansion Records mp3 sampler!

When the founders of Ghost Mansion Records say they’re in it to have fun and “celebrate good music and good vibes,” they mean it. There’s nothing uppity or exclusive about this operation. Case in point - they took a random music blogger into their home (moi), gave me beer, told me everything they could ever muster up about how their label works and then they taught me how to block print. Not an ounce of exclusivity in that deal.

The label was officially formed when members of Dame Satan, Sky Pilots and The Everlasting Arms (the latter two of which are no longer playing as those bands) moved into an enormous house in Potrero that they dubbed the “Ghost Mansion.” No ghosts have thus far been sighted, but the house ended up spawning multiple bands, recording and shows.

Since then, they released their first records in 2005, and the label continued, taking many different forms and adding quite a few bands and individuals to the team. Currently the label is run primarily by Mike Chopko, Brendan Sheehan and Ben Thorne.

“As the business of making records and putting out music is in a state of chaos these days, I think the concept of a perfect record label is something currently unknown,” Mike said in a pre-interview email. “It is however an exciting time.”

An exciting time indeed. Thus far, the label has released albums for six bands, and supports many others, which include: Black Fiction (Feature Podcast), Dame Satan, Escalade, The Chapin Sisters, Two Sheds, Sky Pilots, Low Red Land (Feature Podcast), Elders and The Everlasting Arms. But the beauty of the label is its constantly changing lineup and format. Because it’s a DIY operation, the guys realize that they can’t necessarily provide every service for every band. So they do what they can, and they’ve accepted that what they do isn’t necessarily going to make a lot of money.

“I wish we had more time,” Mike said. “Because no one really buys music as much anymore - you want to be accessible, and accessible used to be selling cheaper stuff, but now people want it for free. And once that happens, we’re not going to make any money.”

But out of this never-ending challenge, GMR has offered fans a multitude of goodies beyond the music. They have figured out how to blend the music with art, design, and the value of hand-made artifacts. Ben himself has designed a lot of the art work for GMR bands, which includes hand-pressed and hand-printed sleeves in both CD and vinyl format and hand-printed t-shirts. Even as we talked, he was hand-writing the tracklistings (”It’s totally inefficient to hand-write these, but I like doing it,” he said).

“Honestly if someone gets one of our records for free, I say fine - just go to a show,” Ben said. “But that’s why we go and make things like the Dame [Satan] and Two Sheds split, which is a hand-pressed piece of vinyl to give [fans] something that they can get their money’s worth out of.”

And while they still aren’t padding their pockets, they’ve been able to get the word out about GMR through touring and promoting, which in turn brings more opportunities for projects that the group enjoys, and gives the bands what they ultimately want - a community of people who share music and ideas, and make things happen.

“Every time we go on tour, that’s another aggressive way to promote Ghost Mansion beyond San Francisco,” Ben said. “And to some kid who picks up a record at a show, it becomes something bigger to them already in their minds. They have no idea how it really works, but if they want to find out, we’re not going to hide that from them.”

Their local ties to other musicians through Thread Productions (a collective of local musicians that includes Birds and Batteries, Silian Rail and Tartufi) have helped foster the GMR community. For them, there is always the possibility of working with any one of these bands to do a small, exclusive project.

As Mike described it, GMR “has its fingers in many pies.” Amidst talk of the restaurant business, a food blog and more involvement in art and design, the guys just want to keep being involved in things and hope it’s sustainable.

Currently, they’re looking for two things - a distribution company and an intern. But this year promises to be a big one. Ghost Mansion will celebrate the release of their eighth album, Dame Satan’s Beaches and Bridges, this Saturday, April 26, at El Rio with Black Fiction and The Chapin Sisters. They will follow that release with many others, including acoustic releases from Low Red Land, an Escalade/ Tabernacle split 12″ and many other manifestations of this invaluable group of local musicians and artists.

“If nothing ever comes of this label besides this interview and these records that we’ve put out so far, and the few bands that we’ve been able to contact, then okay,” Ben said. “But as long as we can keep doing it, we’re going to keep doing it.”

As posted on The Bay Bridged here >>

Awesomefest post on KQED

I’ve gotten an amazing opportunity through The Bay Bridged to write for the KQED music blog from time to time, and today, my first post ran!

http://www.kqed.org/arts/music/index.jsp?id=22586

It’s about the Awesomefest, which is a great music festival taking place up north this weekend. Check it out, and take a look around KQED’s site - there’s so much good stuff there.

Simplifying the 2008 Farm Bill

Take Action on Care2>> http://go.care2.com/14823610

The 2008 Farm Bill has been a hot topic among our nonprofit partners and the news media for months now. But one common complaint among us average folk is that the bill is overly complicated and hard to understand. I’ve had my share of question marks hovering over my head as I read petitions or news stories about the Farm Bill, so I myself was anxious to do some demystifying.

So, with the risk of over-simplifying the issue, I did some research, and I thought I would try to explain at least the two issues that are important to our nonprofit partners, which are commodity payments (and their repercussions for our economy, global hunger and poverty) and conservation programs.

First, a general summary. The Farm Bill is a gigantic bill that affects agricultural business and trade, rural development, research, conservation, food assistance, nutritional programs and more. It’s basically one big bill that has lots of separate laws having to do with either policy issues or budget. Some of these laws need to be renewed (ie - go through a Congressional approval process) every year and others are larger-scale laws that do not need to be approved every year, though these can be changed with subsequent legislation.

Basically, this is one large beast to tackle. Our current Farm Bill passed in the Senate on Dec. 14, 2007. Now, the bill needs to travel through a conference committee that includes House and Senate members. They face many challenges in this process. There are many amendments to this bill that were debated heavily, but President Bush has threatened to veto the bill due to its lack of reform and its reliance on taxes to pay for conservation, nutrition programs, etc. According to many of our nonprofit partners, a veto would be a very bad thing, as that would mean that they bill would return to the debates, and conservation programs would likely be cut to balance the budget further. The best scenario at this point would be for the committee to agree on a reformed bill that includes strong conservation programs, and that would be signed by the President.

Even as we drill down to the details of commodity payments, the issue remains complicated. Commodity payments are cash payments that the government gives farmers for certain crops, namely corn, wheat, cotton, rice and soybeans. Though these payments were initially intended as a safety measure to protect farmers from falling prices, they currently allow large farms to sell these items at a price lower than what it costs to produce them. This causes smaller American farms and farmers in other countries (such as Senegal, Mali, Chad, etc.) to be completely unable to compete with the extremely low prices, driving them out of business and further into poverty.

This is just one of the areas of the farm bill that drastically needs to be reformed, and you can see already that it is an enormous task. Also, many organizations have made it clear that just getting rid of these payments is not going to solve the problem - it’s going to take a comprehensive model of supply management and price stabilization. To go into detail here would be excruciating, so I’ll leave it at that.

On the conservation side, it’s really a matter of funding. There are some great conservation programs available, but the truth is that two out of three farmers who apply for these voluntary programs get rejected because there is just not enough funding. There are 20 programs in the conservation section of the farm bill, which provide incentives for farmers to better manage their land, reduce chemical use and emissions and meet environmental laws on clean air, water and habitat for endangered species. These are all great things, and what environmental groups are pushing for is that all farmers at least have the opportunity to participate in these programs without being turned away.

So, while that’s a rapid-fire summary of some of our hopes for the farm bill, hopefully some of the links included will help you get a better grasp on the issue. Here are a few more very helpful resources:

Oxfam’s Farm Bill 101

2008 Senate Farm Bill (Environmental Defense)

In the meantime, you can take action and make sure the committee knows that you want conservation programs in the Farm Bill to remain intact: http://go.care2.com/14823610

The bill is back in debate, and a vote could happen any day…although, the timing in itself is up for debate.

Halou: New EP, Residency at Cafe du Nord

Some bands spend years cultivating a loyal fan base in the San Francisco Bay Area before making their way into the national music community, and some seem to bypass the local scene alltogether, either because their style doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere or because they were catapulted into the spotlight before the local scene could take hold. San Francisco’s Halou is a product of the former.

As they celebrate their twelfth year as a band, husband and wife team Rebecca and Ryan Coseboom and producer Count have seemed to find general recognition nationally, but remain unknown by many local music gurus. In an email interview with Ryan, he explained that he thinks the band just never quite fit in to any one scene.

“We’ve always kept up on music and ideas from all over and I think that has been an important factor in us identifying more with things very much outside of the San Francisco area, whatever those may be,” he said. “I’m not sure we really fit in anywhere. We’ve managed to somehow keep to the side of pretty much every fad that has come along, and we’re fine with that.”

But that’s not to say the band doesn’t have a strong following. Halou has just returned from a nationwide tour with Bob Mould (most famously known for Hüsker Dü), and Count’s mixes have been played across the country, including a Rod Stewart remix that made it to #1 on the Billboard charts. Also, their video for the 2006 song “Everything is OK” got lots of attention during the YouTube Underground contest:

Count was also on a panel at last year’s CMJ festival about remixing, amidst general demand for his production services among such performers as DJ Shadow and Blackalicious.

Halou’s most recent project is The Sawtooth EP, a collection of six songs that have a slightly different feel. The same effected guitars and smooth vocals pervade the songs, but this time with a bit less of a purely electronic core.

“The new music definitely has a shift in focus,” Ryan said. “We’re still working in the same way, but I started writing all the songs with guitar and bass – as opposed to software instruments and samplers as I have previously done. So, this time we approached things in reverse, sort of. The result, surprisingly, is that it sounds like Halou, but with enough of a twist to keep it fresh and interesting. I simply couldn’t make another record the same way. It wasn’t working.”

Here’s a clip from the song “Evensong” from the new EP:

[audio:http://www.halou.com/sawtooth_clips/evensongclip.mp3]
Click here to download the full song.

Though the band has long since used electronic elements, the change in sound has a lot to do with how those elements are incorporated, not only in songwriting but in recording.

“All the new songs were recorded in a studio with an actual drum kit and guitars, bass, etc,” Ryan said. “However, when we perform live, Count plays a mainly electronic kit that allows us to have the exact drums sounds that were on the record – he’s triggering the actual samples from a laptop. My guitar, also, instead of going through an amp, is being run through a laptop so that I have a lot of control over the complex effects that I need for the songs.”

The Bay Area’s opportunity to see these complex live setups is here – Halou is doing a residency at Café du Nord starting this Wednesday with Michael Zapruder. The following two Wednesdays they will perform with The Drift and Nyles Lannon. All of the shows start at 9pm and are $10/$12. Though the typical Halou visuals may not be present, Ryan was enthusiastic about the shows:

“We’ll be playing plenty of songs,” he said, “and we’ve got a couple of the best guys we’ve ever played with up on stage with us, so I’m excited about that.”

The band is mysteriously working on a new album – the only information they have released is that it will be entitled “Halou,” have 14 tracks and have a blue cover. Though that doesn’t help much as far as what to expect, it’s just enough to make the musical taste buds salivate for what the band may come up with next.

As posted on The Bay Bridged here >>

Women Who Tech Wrap-Up

The Women Who Tech Telesummit came and went so fast, I didn’t even really have time to be nervous. My panel, “Build an Online Campaign and Change the World,” was so quick and we got some great reception from it. I also attended three other sessions that were all very useful. My favorite was “Improve This Blog Pitch!” It was all about how to differentiate blog pitches from newspaper pitches and how to build relationships with bloggers. Very useful.

The afterparty was very fun as well, and I met some of the amazing women of Silicon Valley, including some from Google, Intel and CNET. One of them, Leslie Hawthorne, even blogged about a conversation we had:

Women Who Tech Telesummit on Hawthorne Landings

Some other posts about the conference in general:

Women Who Tech: When Estrogen and Technology Merge

Special Report: Women Who Tech

Geek Women Unite!

American Music Club Reaches The Golden Age

Known for occasionally terrifying concertgoers by bursting into tears mid-song, Mark Eitzel of American Music Club has quite a reputation to uphold. It’s been almost 26 years since the band formed, but he has mustered up the courage to give it another go with a new band in 2008.

An SF institution for many years, AMC nearly grasped stardom in 1991 with the release of Everclear, an album that Rolling Stone called the best album of the year. But from then on, the band’s success faltered, ending with 1995’s Hello Amsterdam EP. Since then, the band has taken a new form, with Eitzel taking the lead as usual. Averse to the title of “emo pioneers,” the band is generally referred to in reference to the niche genre of “slowcore,” a sort of high-energy yet very slow genus of rock.

Their new album, entitled The Golden Age and released on Merge Records, keeps with the vibe of older projects while attempting to ease some of the “sadness” that previous albums might invoke. No mistake, it’s still powerful and Eitzel’s vocals in particular drip with enough longing, aching or pure passion to incite the most dramatic of receptions from the listener.

American Music Club - “All My Love” (from The Golden Age)

American Music Club - “I Know That’s Not Really You” (from The Golden Age)

The band will celebrate their CD release in SF tonight at The Independent with Rykarda Parasol and the Tower Ravens. 8pm, $15.

As posted on The Bay Bridged here >> 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Despite my being in a super-cynical period in my life and cringing at the idea that we’re celebrating some guy who went around Ireland telling people they were going to burn in hell, I still want to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick’s Day. I am currently sitting at home making sure the place doesn’t burn down as my roommate boils corned beef for three hours. Ironically, I’m a vegetarian and will not partake in this monster feast, but I will in fact be eating leftover Thai food for dinner. With a Guinness.

But anyhow, it’s still a great day for a celebration - it’s sunny! Spring is almost here. And today, I concede my cynical nature for these reasons:

-I’m Irish, and even though I’m not religious and I don’t eat meat, I still identify with Ireland immensely for its amazing music, scenery (that I’ve only seen in books, but whatever) and amazing culture in general (literature, dance, traditions, you name it). Not to mention their damn cool accent and beautiful names.

-Green is a great color.

-Guinness is a damn good beer.

I could go on, but I’ll save you making this completely unnecessary and boring post any longer. For the annoyance of all, here’s what our terrible president is doing today. At least it’s not starting another war:

Bush Meets With Irish Prime Minister

Happy St. Patrick’s Day folks.

The Bay Bridged: She & Him, Closing Night of Noise Pop at GAMH

Hype. It’s a fascinating thing. The cynic in me wondered if the hype surrounding M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel’s new project She & Him was all based on the good looks and cult popularity of Ms. Deschanel. Hey, I admit I myself am guilty of being slightly enamoured of her, considering she was in one of my favorite movies ever (Almost Famous) and she has a certain style and grace that women my age tend to fawn over, if in lust, jealousy or disdain.

So as a friend and I sought to see first-hand what She & Him was all about, I confess I had my doubts as to if the show would be worth the $25 in advance and almost an hour in line outside GAMH. And while I should be focusing this article on the fabulous locals who took the stage, Emily Jane White and Adam Stephens of Two Gallants, I regrettably missed most of both acts because of the ridiculous line outside the venue. And Stephens, though what I did hear of him was stunning, was unfortunately drowned out very easily by the chatty audience, packed to the walls, seemingly waiting for the headliner. And as I do not like to say anything too negative, I will only say that She & Him was preceded by Whispertown2000 (it may be a style, but I think they should buy a tuning fork).

And so, She & Him came on with a full band and to a roar of audience cheers and clapping. Deschanel, complete with low-cut dress, puffy bangs and a half beehive, looked like she was straight out of the 50s and sang with the confidence of a pro. For most of the set, she stood tall and swayed back and forth with a tambourine in hand. She moved to the piano for a few songs, and the band left the stage for a fantastic group of songs with just Ward and Deschanel. This was the highlight, by far.

My companion for the night made the observation about their debut album, Volume One (which comes out March 18), that she wished M. Ward sang more. Well thankfully, the live show not only brought out his singing, but his incredible guitar playing, which flowed back and forth between authentic 50s jamming and modern experimentation.

There is so much more to say about their performance. But in the end, any negativity that could have been tied to the hype was dispelled with this show for two reasons: 1) the crowd reacted warmly and enthusiastically to M. Ward just as much if not more than to Deschanel, and 2) damn can she sing. The set ended with a cover of “I Put a Spell on You” that literally made my jaw drop. Her control and emotion is just out of this world, and although the album may not showcase that perfectly, she proved it to me and everyone else that night. Watch out Hollywood, music may steal this gal away.

As posted on The Bay Bridged here >> 

Women Who Tech - March 31

I’m really excited about this great event called the Women Who Tech telesummit. It was founded by Allyson Kapin, who is a founding partner of RAD campaign and an all-around great person. I worked with her back in the day on a campaign for the National Women’s Law Center. Anyhow, the telesummit is all about bringing together women who are involved in the technology industry in one way or another. I think it’s a fantastic idea, and I’m so glad to be a part of it!

I’ll be joining the amazing Sarah Dijulio from M&R Strategic Services and Nita Chaudhary from Moveon.org for a panel called “Build an Online Campaign and Save the World,” moderated by Ruby Sinreich of Orange Politics. It’s a real all-star cast and I have to say I’m stunned to be a part of such a great group! Hopefully I’ll have something to offer from my time at Care2.

Later in the day, there are two other great sessions that I’ll be attending and hopefully will have something to say about afterwards. Those are “Firing up your online list” with two amazing women: Madeline Stanionis of Watershed and Marie Jorgensen from Greenpeace, and “Improve this Blog Pitch” with Susan Getgood from Marketing Roadmaps, Mir Kamin of the WouldaShoulda Blog, and Maria Niles of Consumerpop Marketing Consulting.

So…that’s a ton of links, but you get the idea. Visit the site to learn more about Women Who Tech, and if there are any slots left, sign up! All of the net proceeds from the telesummit will benefit breast cancer research. There is also apparently an after-party that night in SF, which I will most definitely be attending.