Swerve Festival
By Rowan Harrison
Home to free Shakespeare in the park during the summer months, Barnsdall Art Park located near the intersection of Vermont and Hollywood Boulevard is this years venue for the first and, hopefully, not last, 2007 Swerve Festival. Swerve is a wonderful three day event showcasing a variety of local artistic talent in the mediums of film, music, and visual art all situated atop the picturesque Barnsdall Art Park hillside.
This festival captures the cultural and artistic lifestyle of the surrounding west coast communities. There was an abundance of ear and eye candy to stimulate the mind and inspire the imagination. Whether it be film, free outdoor live music, creating your own skateboard or listening to the trees---there was plenty on hand.
After hustling and bustling through the never ending barrage of freeway traffic and navigating through the Hollywood streets we begin our musings on the Great Lawn Stage.
The Black Angels
Our evening appropriately begins with a delightful 45 minute set of psychedelic drone from Texas’ sextet, The Black Angels. Drenched in heavy a humbucker bombast, this group reaches out into a cosmic odyssey of sound and thunder. Having heard the Black Angels performance on Nic Harcourt’s Morning Becomes Eclectic show several months ago, it was intriguing to catch their seductive chaos overlooking the scorched Hollywood hills with the sun dipping into the background. Fresh off the heels of their new release, “Passover”, The Black Angels, without wasting any time, slide into a mythical dark aura of Velvet Underground groove.
Hidden behind a cap, front man Alex Maas and his Jim Morrisonian vocals radiate through an orgy of reverb and distortion, bellowing out apocalyptic imagery and mayhem. Meanwhile, drummer Stephanie Bailey with her primitive and timeless rhythm keeps the murky electric fuzz in pace, like splattering highlights on a canvas, she releases a series of crashes at the right opportune time---the full throttle of their decadent sound is gloriously released into the Hollywood streets of glamour and decay.
Jennifer Raines nicely contributes by adding a haunting and dark backdrop on the drone machine. Everything is nicely packaged through the arpeggio sections and the warm static chord progressions of guitarist Ryan and Bland. They both make a pleasant shimmering palette of sustain and noise, making this rather short Black Angels experience romantically enduring.
For the fortunate hipsters who happened to catch their Monday night show at the Troubadour, I’m sure they will be lost in a subconscious wave of foreboding musical landscapes, as it was an easy little trip into the subterranean sonic labyrinth that is The Black Angels.
The Good Life
Jason Prayer is a typical all American kid, kind of, whose rather mundane existence is working two jobs in a small Nebraskan town where every young man’s aspiration is playing on the all American football team. Jason embarks on a slow, somber journey that would be “the beginning of the end and the beginning of nothing that went right.”
Written and directed by Steve Berra, The Good Life is a story of poetic dialogue and insightful conjectures on what is beautiful and nostalgic in Middle America. Having been an apprentice of the legendary skating figure Tony Hawk, Berra curtailed his skating career for a couple of years in order to write a dramatic comedy that in many ways is a steep rail slide into the cornerstone of a young man who is “trapped like snow in a snow globe” and whose life is going nowhere.
In the good life of Nebraska, Jason doesn’t live up to the football jock cool kid, but humbles himself between working two jobs; one at the local gas station and the other at a nostalgic movie house. The vintage film house is owned and run by his father-figure, Gus, played by veteran actor Harry Dean Stanton, who is on the verge of dementia.
Tragically, Jason’s real dad dies taking a piece of Jason with him and not leaving much behind, except a lot of bad memories, cruel jokes, a mother who is emotionally unstable, and a small gift wrapped in unsympathetic recycled brown packing paper.
In a bizarre confrontation with a local deranged lunatic, Jason is struck in the face and is left in the middle of an empty downtown street. A strange, yet calculating, beautiful brunette, Frances, who oddly takes on the personification of a Judy Garland figure, comes to his aid. Frances seems to know a lot about Jason and in the course of the next several days the two engage in intimate poetic synchronistic dialogue.
One of the endearing elements of the film is the raw and open personal testimony between Jason and Frances, unassuming and literal, soft and delicate; it allows Jason to verbally address the painful issues surrounding the relationship and the suicidal death of his father. It is well written and the dialogue sets the foundation and the insight into who these characters are and the sensitive nature of Jason.
These moments are very reminiscent of the S.E. Hinton and Coppola films, The Outsiders and Rumble Fish, where young adults struggle with their uncertain existence from adolescence into adulthood.
For a brief moment Jason’s world seems to liven up, having been able to expose himself in many ways and given the quality, almost soul mate, relationship between Frances and him. Yet, this is only brief…for things are not what they seem and Jason’s world becomes rather deceived. Through these moments of uncertainty a young man acquires a new perspective on what is beautiful and tangible in life.
Berra’s, The Good Life, is a sound effort rich in metaphors centering around many social themes of beauty, loss, humility, and awakening. There are many wonderful supporting characters and clever moments of comedic relief between Jason and his family enriching the structure of the story. It is also a film that cleverly looks back and pays tribute to the glamorous golden age of Hollywood. Bill Paxton’s character, although brief yet relevant, passes his passion of old films of a bygone era to Jason and the movie viewers.
Now, there were two things missing in the viewing of The Good Life. One is for whatever reason, a more dark copy of the film was projected, therefore the quality of color and lighting wasn’t really there, and we needed this. However, this will definitely prompt me into a second viewing of the film. The second was the absence of Mr. Berra’s presence, it would have been an insightful Q&A session into the how’s and why’s of this allegorical piece.
Music Video Program
Coming from the 80’s generation of MTV videos, 120 Minutes, and Richard Blades Video One, I was rather taken aback at the production and look of the music videos presented at Swerve. Being deprived of the latest cable networks and dish satellites, viewing music videos on a daily basis seems to be a long forgotten activity.
So, it was really interesting to see these young, up, and coming directors take advantage of the latest in computers and digital 3-D animated technology. They created a kaleidoscope of magical musical short films.
At certain points of the presentation there were a few videos so visually tantalizing that you almost forget about the music. Cleverness, experimentation, and humor were the constant running themes from such artist as NASA, The Willowz, RJD2, Peter Von Poehl, Seawolf, Great Northern, Bats for Lashes and a whole dozen more.
Some of the most notables catching this bloggers attention was The Go! Team’s “Grip Like a Vice” which combined texture, sixties revolutionary imagery, mixed media all in a pleasing yellow ocher backdrop. The Teddy bears and their whole entourage must have had a lot of fun with their piece “Cobrastyle” which was a spoof on the whole rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and the naughty shenanigans that go in hand with it.
Director Stefan Nadelman worked with Menomena in bringing to life the computer generated beehive and all its fascinating tidbits on the process of nectar into honey, with bees, a visual delight. Then there is Shitdisco with “Ok.” Director Price James uses the novelty and nostalgia of the pop up book format, in bringing the band and its track into a clever three minute bit. Also, there was the artistic line quality and animation by Geoff Mcfetridge, a minimalist yet aesthetic approach to “Golden Cage” by the Whitest Boy Alive.
These are just some of the many wonderful contemporary videos that were in the Music Video program, an eye pleasing ensemble between music and innovative video imagery, a very different take on their 80’s predecessors.
One must make note to take in the whole three day smorgasbord of music, film, and art next year. Having arrived a little before six, it didn’t leave much time to enjoy the slew of festivities and with so much to see, do, and experience through out the day one must plan ventures like these much more carefully---never a dull moment in the City of Angels.