Get Bit by the Keep in Touch Bug

Keeping in touch with friends can be difficult, especially when distance is an obstacle. Interaction is what keeps a relationship alive, but who says it has to be face to face interaction. If you can commit to keeping touch with friends even when they don't live close by, you'll find a world of ways to help you keep your commitment. Here are a few suggestions:

A Phone Call Away
Your friends are just a phone call away. You don't have to talk every day to stay friends and keep in touch. Some friendships will stay alive with a phone call once a week, some with once a month and some friendships will stay alive with a phone call every six months or so. Figure out what works for you and your friends and make a priority to keep in touch. If you can't get a hold of your friends, leave a message and let them know you care. They will call you back. The nice thing about phones these days is that almost everyone has one, and it is usually a cell. Most cell phone plans have some sort of text messaging, so if you aren't the talk on the phone type, send your friends a text letting them know you are thinking about them. A couple of minutes of your time once a month to call your friends isn't much to ask of yourself and if you really want to keep your friends, it will totally be worth it.

Pony Express Lives On
You would hardly know it with the advent of the internet, but the post system is still in place and the mail man still deliver six times a week. If you don't have time to call your friends, how about dropping them a note in the mail? There is something about getting a card or letter in the mail that just isn't the same from any other quarter. If you want to keep in touch with your long-distance friends, send them a card occasionally. When there is a special occasion coming up like their birthday, anniversary, or Christmas, you don't have to be there to stay friends. You can send them small gifts in the mail or shop online and have it delivered, gift-wrapped and all, right to their door. A note or small gift in the mail says miles about your friendship when you can't be there for them.
Get it Together
Long-distance friends stay friends best when they are able to get together periodically. Plan a once-a-year get together with long-distance friends. Go camping, spend a day together at a theme park, or plan an adventure, but do something that you will all like and that will strengthen the bonds of your friendship. Together time is bonding time, and that's what friends do who stay friends.

The Online Miracle
With the advent of the internet, staying friends has become easy as pie. Email, IM, Social networking, blogs, and personal websites have not only been a part of a technological revolution, but also of a friendship revolution. Most everything online is free, so not only is it easy to stay friends with people over a distance, but inexpensive too. The online tools available make is easy to keep and touch and stay friends, so take advantage of it and set aside time once a week or once a month to update your blog (or Facebook page) with what's happening in your life and read and comment about what's happening with your friends.

Helping family members after a death in the family

After a loved one dies, it can be very hard for people to deal with their death. Many people rely heavily on family members to help them get through the death of a loved one. If you plan to help family members, deal with the death of a loved one the first thing that you need to be aware of is that people grieve in different ways, which can be normally and abnormally. Family members who have just recently lost a loved one are going to require a lot of support. Once the funeral and burial has been completed, you are going to need to focus on helping family members deal with the loss.

Here are some steps to follow to help family members deal with the loss of a loved one.
Step one:
There is no set way to deal with the loss of a loved one; people are going to grieve in different ways. There is no set period that people must grieve or how they are supposed to grieve. You do need to be aware of the fact that when a close family member dies it is going to be a life-changing event. A close family member, such as a parent, is going to cause deeper grief than a family member down the lineage does. How your family deal with the death of a family member is going to vary partly based on your religious affiliation. Talk to your officiate at church to see what your religion suggests for helping family members deal with the loss of a loved one.
Step two:
The first thing that you are going to feel when dealing with the loss of a loved one is that you feel like your world has ended. What you need t help family members do is to learn how to readjust their lives to deal with the death of the loved one; they need to readjust their life without having that person in it. There is no specific time as to how long it is going to take you to get used to the idea of not having that person in your life, but it will happen one day. Feelings of guilt, anger, shame, helplessness, regret, sleeplessness, and anxiousness are all normal reactions and can be expected from a family member. You will need to seek help for a family member if they are having uncontrollable anger or ideas about harming themselves or others.
Step three:
If you are helping a child deal with the death of a loved one you want to avoid telling them that the person was ill and had to go to Heaven. The reason for this is that the child will start associating illness with death, which can cause more damage later on in life. Telling them that the person is sleeping is also something to avoid because you are associating a normal activity with death. You need to explain to the child in words that they can understand different ages can grasp different concepts, about what has happened. If they are old enough to understand death, it can help them to attend the funeral because it helps bring closure to the process.
Step four:
One way to ease the pain of losing a loved one is to talk to family members or close friends. This talking helps increase your acceptance of life without that person in it. Be there for your family members so that they have somebody to talk with.
Step five:
There are numerous support groups available for people who are dealing with the loss of a loved one. You need to talk to your family members about joining support group to help talk about the pain and suffering that you are felling about the death of the loved one.
Just remember that it is your job to be there for your loved ones when they are suffering from the loss of a family member. If you are there for them, they will be there for you.

How involved should your in-laws be in your marriage?

It is often said that when you get married, you marry a family, not just a person. For some couples, this is more true than with others and they find themselves dealing with in-laws who want to be involved with every aspect of their lives.

While it is definitely helpful to have the support of your in-laws when it comes to your marriage, many people struggle with setting boundaries regarding how involved your in-laws should be in your marriage.
The following tips are a few do's and don'ts that will help you determine how involved your in-laws should be in your marriage and what you can do if you feel they are overstepping their bounds.

• Don't involve your in-laws in your fights. You should never involve your parents or your spouse's parents in the fights and squabbles you have as a married couple. These are personal between you and your spouse. Not only that, but there are two sides to every story, and your spouse isn't there to give his or her side. Marital fights tend to blow over and couples forgive each other, but turning to your parents because you are upset with your spouse only leads them to resent and dislike your spouse long after you have forgiven and moved on.
• Do be friends with your in-laws. It's possible to have good adult friendships with people of different generations and even with in-laws. Work to maintain a friendly relationship with your in-laws, but steer clear of touchy subjects that many in-laws want to give advice about but should be dealt with as a couple only, such as financial issues, raising children, and trust issues.
• Do set boundaries. If you don't like your in-laws dropping in every day just to "check up" on things, or if you think they are calling too late, or giving unwarranted advice about grandkids, let them know in a polite way that your home is not open to them at all hours, or that if you want their advice, you will seek them out.
• Don't say anything out of anger. If you have a problem with your in-laws and their involvement in your marriage, or if they are meddling in a very personal aspect of your marriage, telling them in a nice way to back off often has a more successful outcome when done by the spouse to his or her parents, rather than you.
• Do be independent. With the economy in the state that it is, many couples have turned to their parents or in-laws for help. When you live in the same home as your in-laws, or you accept their offer of free babysitting while you work, you are in a way setting yourself up and can expect a higher level of involvement than if you maintained your independence as a couple.
• Don't criticize. Even after marriage, a spouse feels loyalty to his or her family or marriage. Avoid saying mean things about your in-laws, as this will only force your spouse to take sides or resent you. Instead, have a calm talk about how their involvement bothers you, and ask them to speak with your in-laws about it.

Your in-laws can be a great source of support in your marriage. However, they can also cause tension if they become too involved. These are a few things you can do to maintain a good relationship with your in-laws without them becoming too involved.

Comedian Todd Barry

Medium Energy: Comedian Todd Barry creates high comedy with a low-key approach.

 Todd Barry

You’ll be forgiven for not knowing comedian Todd Barry by name, but chances are you’ve seen him without realizing it.

Renowned for his low-key, deadpan speaking style, the New York City native is a modern-day Zelig; he’s popped up as an actor on any number of hip shows over the past couple decades. He’s done small roles on Sex and the City and The Larry Sanders Show, and provided voice work for Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. More recently, he was Mickey Rourke’s deli boss in The Wrestler, and played “Todd,” a bongo player who joined Flight of the Conchords and tried to change the band’s name to The Crazy Dogggz.

While Barry’s hangdog persona has helped his acting resume continue growing, he remains most comfortable as a stand-up. He’s been doing comedy for nearly 25 years, and will be making his first appearance in Utah Monday.

It won’t be his first time visiting the state, though. “I hosted something for the Sundance Channel in 1999. It was me and Allison Anders co-hosting from the festival’s opening night party,” Barry relayed via e-mail from a tour stop in Australia. “I remember seeing, and liking, The Blair Witch Project. They also gave me a gigantic hotel room. And I also got to meet Robert Redford. He probably doesn’t remember.”

That’s Redford’s loss, because Barry is a wickedly funny fellow, whether taking hipster New Yorkers down a notch for protesting the arrival of a Manhattan Kmart (“We hate you Kmart, you and your affordable products!”) or reflecting on shopping at the mall.

“The Body Shop? They should call this place Last Minute Thoughtless Gift Warehouse,” Barry says on his Medium Energy album. “You could be asleep and shop there. Grapefruit Body Wash? ‘Well, my sister eats grapefruit. And she bathes.’ Done. Total shopping time: nine seconds.”

If one were to walk into a Barry show without knowing him, you might hear his low-key vocal style and think he comes from the “woe is me” Rodney-Dangerfield school of comedy. Listen to what he’s saying, though—whether skewering the idea of sharing a bill with Sugar Ray or laughing at the thought of Suzanne Vega touring with Jethro Tull—and you realize he’s cut from the same hipster cloth as much of his audience.

He’s performed sets at music festivals like South by Southwest, and will do a show at the Sasquatch Festival later this spring. His peers are fellow New Yorkers Eugene Mirman, Sarah Silverman and Louis CK, and he’s been pulled on stage by Yo La Tengo to go to work on the bongos with the New Jersey indie-rock heroes. In other words, Barry is one hip cat, and he’ll let you know that in no uncertain terms over the course of a performance.

Like many comics, Barry got into standup via open-mic comedy nights, in his case when he was studying English at the University of Florida. It was 1987, “during the big ‘comedy boom’ of the ’80s.”

“There were comedy clubs everywhere,” Barry recalls. “You could pretty much call up and say you wanted to do five minutes, and a few days later you’d be onstage in front of a decent-sized crowd. I watched a few open-mics and just got the urge to try it. Then I never really stopped.”

Within a few years, Barry was a popular guest on Letterman and Conan, eventually landing his own Comedy Central half-hour special. In 1998, he won the jury award for stand-up at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and shortly thereafter released his first album, Medium Energy—a nod to his approach on stage.

Decades ago, comedy albums by the likes of Bob Newhart and Bill Cosby would regularly top the sales charts, but now they act more as a calling card for a comedian’s live shows. “I think a CD helps get the word out about your comedy, although I have no idea how many people download the CDs illegally. I’m guessing a lot,” Barry says.

Still, he recalls the influence listening to comedy albums had as a kid. “I listened to comedy albums a lot when I was younger. Some of my favorites were Steve Martin, Sam Kinison, George Carlin. I also had a Martin Mull 8-track tape that I played constantly.”

Since his debut, Barry’s released two more live shows on CD, Falling Off the Bone (2004) and From Heaven (2008). They make for fine snapshots of his act, but don’t expect to hear too many older jokes at his show Monday. Barry is constantly working on new material, and he does it without a net, onstage and in front of a crowd.

“I generally think of an idea and just try to work it out on stage,” Barry says. “It’s not really easy for me to sit down and formulate a whole joke without getting feedback from an audience.”

Marcus

Serious Comedy: Former second-to-Last Comic Standing Marcus is set to bite The Hand That Feeds.

Photo by Jessica Perry // Marcus

  Marcus talks about his stint on NBC’s Last Comic Standing as if it happened a decade ago. It was only 2008—but in comedy years, that’s a lifetime.

“It’s weird to think that it’s just been two years since the TV show,” the tattooed comedian says. “Every day, I’m just fighting to stay relevant. People run into me all the time and say, ‘Hey, aren’t you the guy from Last Comic Standing? What are you doing now?’ I’m still a comedian, touring all over the country—but if they don’t see me, it’s not real. This is my opportunity to put something out there I’m proud of.”

That “something” is a new comedy concert Marcus is filming at Kingsbury Hall on May 19. He’s calling it The Hand That Feeds, the follow-up to his post-LCS special of two years ago, the cockily titled Second to None.

After the hard-working West Jordan comedian finished second on the Season 6 finale of Last Comic Standing in the summer of ’08, offers trickled in for a stand-up special. Rather than traveling to either coast to slap together a cookie-cutter hour (such as those ubiquitous Comedy Central Presents specials), he assembled a pro camera team and put together his own live taping in Ogden by fall. As it turned out, Marcus and his film crew had the ambition and technical chops—Second to None looked like an HBO-quality concert special—but the network suits thought he was still a bit green.

“When we did Second to None, Barry Katz—the manager of Dane Cook and other comics—was there for the live taping,” Marcus recalls. “When it was done, he said ‘I gotta have it.’ He took the show to Comedy Central, who said ‘He’s not ready; he needs more time.’ Looking back on it, I know exactly what they meant. There wasn’t enough ‘me’ in the comedy. … I needed a couple of more years to tour, to grow and go through some stuff.”

After one more year of touring, growing and stuff-going-through, Comedy Central called back for a progress report: “They asked, ‘Where’s Marcus at now?’ We said we could put together a little taping, show what I’m doing now. We did Wiseguys on a Sunday—there were about 26 people there, and we filmed an hour and a half of me onstage and sent it off. They got it and said ‘That’s what we want.’” But, it wasn’t all good news: “They wanted to work with me, but they weren’t buying any outside product. They said I’d have to come to New York and let them film me.

“I’d been working my ass off for a year trying to make something they’d be interested in,” Marcus says. “But I’ve seen Comedy Central Presents specials. They don’t know the beats, the rhythms—I’ve written a two-hour show, and they’d just cram it into an hour with commercials. Editing comedy—editing anything—is hard. I said, ‘What if I finance, selfproduce, edit and deliver a final product?’ Why not give them a quality, finished product shot in a room with 2,000 people?”

Which brings Marcus to the daunting task of filling Kingsbury Hall in advance. Utah is notoriously a walk-up audience; unless you’re the Jazz, events rarely sell out ahead of time.

“The waiting for the tickets to sell is stressing me out,” he says, the weeks of relentless promotion beginning to show on his brow. “I wanted to do something here in Utah. If this is the one that makes it on TV and breaks big, people will get to say, ‘I was a part of that.’ “NBC used to fill the Last Comic Standing tapings with paid models, taking up the first rows. I want my fans … I want it to be real.”

Logistics aside, The Hand That Feeds will feature a more “real” Marcus, a performer who’s learned that personalization connects more than sensationalism.

“As a comic … [he pauses, weighing his next statement] I’ve grown. I don’t have to bounce off of the walls. It’s more about the jokes than the presentation, and the pauses and small moments. This will be a two-and-a-half-hour special, and there will be some material that I’m doing only for the filming.”

After The Hand That Feeds (which will also be his last Utah appearance of 2010), Marcus goes back to the road and the all-too-serious business of being funny for a living.

“Celebrities go dancing and kids sing karaoke on TV, and they’re on the cover on Rolling Stone,” Marcus laughs. “A guy goes on a reality show to find a girlfriend, and he’s on the cover of People. Comics—some great comics—go on television and perform material that they wrote, crafted and have been working on for years … and no one gives a shit. It baffles me. People in Los Angeles do it as a bridge, waiting for their next acting gig. I say, what’s wrong with being a great comedian? Comedy needs to be given respect.”

How to deal with a manipulative sibling

Manipulative siblings are after one thing, they seek to control everything around them. If you have a manipulative sibling, you need to learn how to deal with them right away because any relationship that involves manipulation is headed for trouble. Your mental and emotional health depends on you recognizing and dealing with a manipulative sibling.

The first thing that you are going to need to do is to identify manipulative behaviors, which can be hard because manipulators are very good at what they do, controlling others. How they are going to go about controlling people is going to vary, but the end goal is to get you to do what they want you to do. Some of the more common tactics that you will find manipulators using are threats, flattery, demeaning you, or making your feel guilty. They can also keep you guessing by alternating between a lot of attention and charm and coldness or anger. One of the signs that you can look for that you are dealing with a manipulative sibling is feeling stressed or resentful towards your sibling.
Next, you are going to need to look into how you have been playing into your manipulative sibling's hands. You want to sit down and create a list of things that you have done or not done that were designed to please your manipulative sibling. You also want to note how you felt at the time, stressed, happy, sad, resentful, etc. After creating the list, you will need to look at the actions that were taken by the manipulative sibling to see what buttons of yours they were pushing. For example, if you are a giving and caring person, your sibling might say that you are selfish and cold just to get you to act the way they want you too.
Many times people make excuses for their manipulative sibling's behavior, which is something that needs to stop. You need to stop making excuses for their behavior because that only enables them to continue with the behavior. For example, if you are blaming their behavior on their unhappy childhood you are just giving them an excuse. The manipulator uses these excuses, as a part of their manipulative strategy, so be wary of anybody who plays the victim regularly. Something else to watch out for is generous offers of help, money, time, etc. To manipulators these gifts always have strings attached, they are going to expect something in return, no matter how much they say otherwise.
You are going to need to distance yourself from your manipulative sibling, which in some cases is not easy to do. You are also going to need to start asserting yourself and telling your sibling no to their manipulative demands, just make sure you are doing it calmly and rationally. One way to start asserting yourself is to establish and maintain boundaries with your manipulative sibling, distance yourself emotionally so that you can effectively deal with their manipulative comments and behaviors.
Manipulators often tell lies and half-truths to get the things that they want. What you can do to help deal with your manipulative sibling is to challenge those lies and half-truths. Make sure that when you are arguing back with your manipulative sibling that you use logic rather than emotion. In some cases, it will be easier to end the argument by agreeing to disagree, just never back down from your position. You might even have to repeat yourself numerous times until your manipulative sibling will back off.
You will need to be prepared for your manipulative sibling to escalate their behavior in response to what you are doing. The reason for this is that they simply can't give up control without a fight. Your manipulative sibling will probably say many mean and hurtful things to try and get your to change your mind, but you cannot back down. You need to stand firm, don't get defensive and don't take the bait. In some cases, your manipulative sibling will see the errors of their ways and will learn to appreciate the benefits of a more equitable relationship.

Orion Independent Music Festival

Starry Nights: New music festival hunts for talent.

 

Park City is widely known for hosting one of the most popular festivals around, so much so that the ski town has become nearly synonymous with independent film. Salt Lake City musician Steffen Olsen thinks that’s all fine and good, but what about the music?

Like many artistic/business ventures, Olsen’s drive to create the Orion Independent Music Festival stems from a general disappointment with the status quo. The six-day event serves as response to a profit-driven music industry churning out sub-par talent while ignoring truly gifted artists for the sake of Top 40 demand. OIMF will take place on a stretch of land where, just weeks later, Uggs-clad celebs will scurry to crowded screenings and fetes.

“Main Street in Park City is perfect for this because the venues are so close to each other. It’s easy to hop around from one to the next; you can easily see several bands in one night,” explains Hilary Reiter, festival PR director. “Plus, Park City also has a history of hosting world-class events.”

Organizers also reached out to a handful of Salt Lake City’s venues, including the Woodshed which will host festival showcases on Jan. 14 and 17.

According to Reiter, Orion’s mission is to push independent artists forward by enabling them to better use the free resources already at their fingertips, such as the Internet, or to help get them some major-record-label awareness—more than 20 industry professionals will be in town scouting. The problem, as the festival creators see it, is that so much of the way the music industry works these days promotes “pre-packaged, pre-fabricated pop music; there really is nothing organic about it. Orion’s focus is on artists that are touring on their own, recording on their own and are really genuinely passionate about the type of music they choose to write and perform.”

Even though this is the inaugural year, Orion’s eclectic lineup is encouraging. The schedule features more than 50 artists specializing in a wide range of musical styles, ranging from hip-hop and country to indie and R&B, with many performers traveling from Australia, Chili, Canada and Sweden. Of course, there will be plenty of American musicians on hand, as well, including a number of homegrown acts: Ogden’s Shaney McCoy (pictured above) and Salt Lake City’s Mana Poly All-Stars, Kettlefish and self-described “musical joke gone wrong,” The Sweater Friends, among others.

“There’s way more local talent than the festival could incorporate,” says Reiter. “And although we do have quite a few local acts, we definitely wanted to have as many national and international artists as possible to broaden the festival’s scope. It was also very important to have the widest geographical diversity we could to legitimize the festival. On that note, I see the international side of this growing next year and the year after, with more and more really talented artists getting the opportunity to be discovered.”

Olsen is also not too shy to admit that what he wants is a revolution within the music industry. His goal is to change the way things work on a level akin to MP3s virtually making CDs obsolete. “Music is on the cusp of a revolution, thanks to the Internet empowering the independent artist with the ability to self-promote,” he says.
Orion, therefore, is simply a festival forum to provide that next essential step for the truly independent artistic musician to reach success. 

The Cave Singers

Common Folk: Seattle’s The Cave Singers make stripped-down people’s music.

  It’s like a group hug. That’s the metaphor lead singer Pete Quirk uses to describe his band’s music. That’s also The Cave Singers' modus operandi. “We’re just friends, and we get together and make music. We don’t usually go on long diatribes on how we sound,” Quirk says.

There’s no riveting backstory or mythology to The Cave Singers’ tale, either. “None of us just got out of rehab. We’re just ordinary guys that have other jobs, too,” he says. “We like to think of ourselves as a people’s band.”

That’s a band that enraptures a live audience, and that energy and rapport is what the trio hoped to evoke on their third album and Jagjaguwar debut, No Witch, released in February.

Their first two rustic, woodsy-sounding albums were largely written on a four-track in a home shared by Quirk and guitarist Derek Fudesco. They added drummer Marty Lund, and their efforts were representative of their newfound cohesion. After years of touring, fleshing out their sound, No Witch is decidedly the band’s most rock effort to date.

Led by straightfoward jams on “Black Leaf” and clever percussive arrangements on “Outer Realms” and “Faze Wave,” the album nails it. Yet it still ambles along pleasantly enough at times for old fans with driven, loopy guitar parts and Quirk’s raspy, nasally vocals.

The album was produced by Randall Dunn—a veteran of projects with Black Mountain, Boris and Sunn O)))—and his touch is apparent, via his contributions of experimental overdubs and additional musicians. Dunn knows “musicians, like the best oboe or viola player” around Seattle, Quick says, and they all live down the street from his home recording studio, Aleph Studios. That was convenient for the band to add in layers.

“[Dunn] has his hands all over the place. I love how many new elements are in the record, but it’s not too much for us,” Quirk says. “He’s a weirdo—in a really good way.”

Outside of Aleph Studios, the trio would release the pressures of recording with a game they invented: basketball soccer. “It’s starting to take off around the country,” Quirk says, jokingly. The game involves a deflated basketball, hardly any rules (or inventing them on the spot) and a wheelbarrow. Rather than “group hug,” this seems to make a fitting metaphor for the band’s sound—but in all the right ways.

“It’s, like, minimalism: We make great things out of less,” Quirk says, now laughing.

The Cave Singers are jokesters—the other members cackle in the background during the interview as they sped through Florida. “If this whole touring thing doesn’t work out, we’re going to be a standup comedy troupe,” Quirk says. “We’re old, ya know—not like we’re real old—but we can’t even think about where we’re headed, actually. We’re just doing it.”

They’ll slog across the country twice this spring/summer, starting at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and ending in New York City with Fleet Foxes in August before heading to Europe.

“To stay sane, we make [touring] an adventure. We try to go to a museum and park or make it into a food tour. And lots of alcohol and drugs. I’m joking,” he says.

They’re a pretty good touring team, because they’ve known each other for a decent time now. It’s easy enough to tell that from seeing them in concert, where they shine.

The live show is like an initiation into “people’s music” or at least The Cave Singers’ cult.

“It’s kind of like ‘men’s recovery project’ for us, in a way,” Quirk says, with a laugh. “We have our secret handshake and comb each others’ hair in the van—that’s when you know things are getting a little weird.”?

Glade Sowards

Exposed: Glade finds a reason to release.

Singer/songwriter Glade Sowards recently received just about the best present a musician can get. In July 2009, a CD release party for local musician David Williams turned into an unexpected record release for Sowards. Unbeknownst to him, well-meaning friends had copied song files from his computer and pressed the material into physical albums with cover art taken from his Facebook fan page. “It was a really sweet thing, but also terrifying,” he recalls.

Some of the songs on Glade date back to 2005—a typical backlog for Sowards, whose work takes time to marinate and, hopefully, age well. Sowards prefers to ruminate on his output until it’s ready for the rest of the world to hear. On the rare occasion a song comes to him while, say, waiting in line at the coffee shop, he’ll record it and try to find words that fit later. “I try to pretend I’m making a call as I sing it into my phone,” he laughs.

A longtime fixture on Utah’s acoustic-folk scene, the Vernal-born Sowards maintains a balance between stripped-down sound and modern digital means to document his aural fixations. He might write songs like “Sound of Yesterday,” but he insists his interests lie in present-tense musical technology.

Glade reflects, though, a vested interest in the past.

Strains of Uncle Tupelo, Big Star, R.E.M., Neil Young and The Replacements surface throughout the record, which demonstrates his skill on acoustic guitar and bass. Like many Utah artists, Sowards bounced around the country before returning home to plant roots, pursuing higher education first in Southern California, and later at Iowa’s Grinnell College. He moved back in ’98 to care for a sick loved one and embraced SLC’s music community as his second family.

I first saw Sowards play about 10 years ago at defunct record shop Salt City CDs, and noted his comfortable, personable musical style. He produced a short run of albums back then, and has since amassed two records worth of material, but didn’t feel it merited exposure. Glade was recorded with musical backing from David Williams, with whom Sowards performs in The Black Hens, and Jeremi Hansen (Band of Annuals, Blue Sunshine Soul).

Sowards has discovered that, for him, waiting is a significant part of his creative process. “I used to get worried when I’d go six months without writing any songs,” he explains, “but then I realized that’s part of the process, too, living life experiences and absorbing them.” The genesis of the song “Beautiful Night” came when he was walking home from the bar; the evening light struck something within him, and he flipped open his phone and sang the melody that had come into his head.

The song “Koosharem” came after the songs on Glade were recorded, but can be heard on his Facebook fan page and on MySpace. It’s intriguing, because it points to a common ambivalence of Utah artists and musicians towards their home state, naming off small towns like Henryville, Loa and Kanarraville, but most pointedly aims at Salt Lake City: “Salt Lake, Salt Lake, why are you so mean?” he asks.

“Salt Lake is big small town, and for a long time, people were self-conscious about living here, but it’s changing now. People are proud of making a scene and a community,” he says. “I love it, but sometimes I have to decompress.” To this aim, he lived in Torrey with David Williams for a few years, and found the slower-paced life there so refreshing it was hard to come back. They brought some big city music there, such as The Black Hens and Band of Annuals opening for the Magnolia Electric Co. last summer. Blitzen Trapper, Laura Gibson and Horse Feathers have also made the trek.

Music has always been a release for him, and he’s constantly hunting for opportunities to expose people to his music. Later this year, Glade will be available for download on Conor Oberst’s new online label Team Love. Sowards, whose day job is energy program coordinator with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, has two lives, in a way. “In the day, I’m in a suit at the Capitol, then after work, I’m at Urban Lounge.”
Urban Lounge featured him and nine other singers, playing three songs each on Jan. 10. He hopes to debut new material at his next performance, and release another album later this year. “My friends jarred me into realizing I wanted to share this stuff.” 

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers & Califone

Death Benefits: Califone get cinematic.

 Califone

Music has long been known to conjure up visions, its psychic power dating back to ancient religious traditions. Rock music itself has been known at times to evoke strong imagery—it lends itself well as a soundtrack for films. Even its makers are often of colorful enough to serve as riveting subject matter for documentary filmmakers. The film All My Friends Are Funeral Singers written and directed by Califone singer/ guitarist Tim Rutili, though, is a decidedly singular visual and musical creation.

“We wanted to make an album that would stand alone,” Rutili explains. “We don’t consider it a soundtrack album.” Still, the relationship of the film to the album is intriguing. Previous Califone albums have traversed similar cinematic terrain, including the Deceleration series (of which only two of a planned four are completed), recorded while the band played live soundtracks for films made several years earlier.

The band had long enjoyed playing music along to silent films, so in a sense the film project was an extension of that. Their favorite to accompany is “He Who Gets Slapped” featuring Lon Chaney as a man who becomes a clown. But their process is also an analogue of the experience of listening to music. “Sometimes when you’re playing music to a visual image, it’ll give you ideas triggered by the picture—ideas that wouldn’t have come up.” It’s an odd kind of synaesthesia loop between the visual and auditory mediums.

The movie, starring cult actress Angela Bettis, tells the story of Zel, a fortune teller living in a house inhabited by ghosts. Rutili finds the fortune teller an archetypal character. “A lot of that is everybody‘s; anyone can relate.” The late-1800s period feel of the film lends it the air of fable, of a drama that takes place outside of time. “It’s a simple story, about loss and letting go, finding freedom and joy in that, not just sorrow.”

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is the culmination of Rutili’s cinematic vision which includes Key to the Highway, a film and video installation commissioned by Chris Doyle for the 50,000 Beds exhibition at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

As a rock musician, the former singer of critically lauded '90s-era indie band Red Red Meat has always ensured that his songs had a personality of their own—that their music was its own art form. “Our priority was making sure the songs are good,” he maintains, “that they stand up on their own, like the story was the focus of the film.” Funeral Singers tells a story in a sense, like the sequencing of any album has its own internal logic, but then a song like “Polish Girls” has one of the most stick-in-your-head hooks ever recorded by the Chicago band known for sonic and melodic experimentation within the rock song format.

Califone finished the album in March 2009, and shot the movie in April in a rickety old house in rural Indiana. “We recorded a lot of the music in the house, and it affected the way we shot the movie.” Rutili recalls. “We used a lot of ambient sounds in the house.” When you see the band playing in the movie, they are actually recording. A good amount of the music is improvised, especially instrumental music serving as background atmospherics in the film, like the track “A Wish Made While Burning Onions Will Come True.”
To further blur, or perhaps heighten the distinction between the film and the album, Califone will be playing live along with the movie on its Jan. 26 screening at the festival. It’s one of the most eagerly awaited events at Sundance, especially among music lovers. “It’s very precise, we have to be aware of what we’re doing,” Rutili says of the performance. “We have to make sure we’re on with certain moments, but there’s still room to improvise.” 

Nouvelle Vague

Playing with Fire: Nouvelle Vague add bossanova bounce to by-gone classics.

When Nouvelle Vague began their inaugural run of concerts in the U.K. after forming in 2003, Camille and Mélanie Pain, the Parisian band’s then-lead vocalists, had some hesitations. At worst, they worried, unruly crowds might heckle the artists or even assault the stage with projectiles. Even if true, why would a cover band concern itself with such heated revulsion?

“We’ve already got this thing with English people,” responds Nouvelle Vague producer/mastermind Marc Collin, referencing the animosity he perceives between the English and the French. “In a way, we were starting to take their classics and turn them into our own things. [I thought], ‘Maybe they will not like it all.’ They loved it.”

While it’s good to know that the group ultimately never had to undergo public humiliation, the possible aversion makes a lot more sense when you’re familiar with Nouvelle Vague’s approach to the art of the cover. The group transforms sacrosanct punk, post-punk, and new wave standards like the Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk to Fuck,” and The Smiths’ “Sweet and Tender Hooligan” into lounge songs. Less revered names like A Flock of Seagulls and Soft Cell receive the treatment, too, but the experiment remains extremely risky: Wouldn’t drastically altering the style of the originals sap the lifeblood from their primal forms?

Collin and collaborator-in-crime Olivier Libaux understand the dangers, and instead revel in distorting sonic implications. “Bossa nova uses really beautiful jazz chords,” he says, speaking of the form of lounge Nouvelle Vague plays. “Pop and punk songs use simple chords, so it was funny to change the harmonies. It gives the song something else. They are jazzy, more classic in a way. As soon as you hear this beat, you want to dance a little bit. It’s the complete opposite of the originals.”

Much in Nouvelle Vague’s favor, they aren’t shy of taking chances. Instead, these saucy, slowed-down overhauls capture a power of their own. Take their version of “Guns of Brixton” by The Clash: Instead of keeping the reggae-influenced work as a raw, streetwise anthem, Nouvelle Vague twist it into a foreboding fire starter where every word is slowed to kick up the tension.

On Nouvelle Vague 3, their latest record, the band actually managed to convince original artists to rejoin them for rewired incarnations, nabbing Barry Adamson to perform Magazine’s “Parade.” In fact, Collin can recall nothing but positive feedback from his cover subjects. The only exception was Depeche Mode’s Vince Clark displaying distaste for their version of “Just Can’t Get Enough,” but he didn’t mind it when the outfit later covered “Don’t Go” by Yazoo, the project he was in after Depeche Mode. (Collin suspects that Clark’s dislike came from the fact that it was a Depeche Mode song in the first place.)

Having finished dozens of covers since the group’s inception, Collin says that the group’s trilogy is complete. “It was a real tribute to the ’80s,” he says. “We have to change the concept now because we’ve done a lot about this.” He’s pondering a few possibilities—covering contemporary American outfits like Vampire Weekend, crafting a concept album, or maybe focusing on French music.
In the interim, he’s happy to play covers that are miles removed from their famous forms. “We are trying to forget the original arrangement and be free to do what we want,” he says. Neglecting what everyone already knows for the more ostentatious, unlikely vibe of bossa nova is “one of the best ways to do it.” 

Guide to Record Store Day 2011

Once again, it’s time for Record Store Day, when more than 700 independently owned U.S. record stores and 100 international stores celebrate music by offering exclusive tunes not available in chain stores. It falls on Saturday, April 16, and several local stores will transform their parking lots into mini music festivals, with bands playing all day long.

Graywhale co-owner Dustin Hansen says Record Store Day brings an awareness that record stores still exist. “A few years back, everyone talked about the death of the record store and about how the industry would collapse,” he says. “That’s partially true across the country, but there are still a lot of independent, locally owned stores succeeding, making money, being happy and still providing product for people.”

Slowtrain Records owner Anna Brozek is grateful the store has been able to keep its doors open for the past 4 1/2 years. She hopes to see a lot of faces, old and new, hanging out on Record Store Day. “Even if you are broke and don’t have money to spend,” she says, “just come and hang out and remember why record stores are important to local communities.”

For a complete list of Record Store Day-related limited releases, check out RecordStoreDay.com or visit one of these local independent record stores:
Slowtrain Records, 221 E. Broadway, 801-364-2611
Slowtrain will be selling more than 300 exclusive releases. For customers who arrive early, Slowtrain will serve Nobrow coffee. At 10 a.m., Brenda from Boobiliboo will provide children’s entertainment. Then, bands including American Shakes, Plastic Furs and more will entertain the crowd on the main stage in the parking lot. Slowtrain will serve beer from Bohemian Brewery and will have booths set up with crafters from Craft Lake City.

Mike Watt

Punk Past: Mike Watt explores life as a 53-year-old punk rocker.

Not every man can combine a love of Hieronymus Bosch, The Wizard of Oz and punk rock into a 30-song treatise on middle age, let alone make it a compelling listen.

But in Mike Watt’s bass-popping hands, the seemingly incongruous influences come together to form a mesmerizing display of passionate playing and contemplative lyrics on the punk legend’s new Hyphenated-Man.

The album is a throwback to Watt’s days in pioneering punk band the Minutemen, formed with his best friend D. Boon in 1980. Boon died in a van accident in 1985, and everything Watt’s done since—leading the band fIREHOSE, releasing four solo albums—has been an homage of sorts to his fallen comrade.

Yet nothing Watt has done since D. Boon’s death has had quite the direct line to the Minutemen years as Hyphenated-Man. When a couple of filmmakers came to Watt for help in making We Jam Econo, a 2005 documentary about the Minutemen, he was forced to listen to more Minutemen music than he had since D. Boon died.

“That made me interested in working in that Minutemen style again,” Watt relates from the road, where he and his Missingmen, guitarist Tom Watson and drummer Raul Morales, are playing 51 shows in 51 days.

“I wanted to write about right now because I’m in a weird place in my life. I’m a 53-year-old punk rocker. And I wanted this weird mixture of the familiar—my past—and something very strange, very different, so it wouldn’t be some whack, punk version of Happy Days.”

By that, Watt means he didn’t want to just make some bogus nostalgia trip of an album. Rather, he wanted to explore the myriad issues of being middle-aged while staying grounded in that old Minutemen style. That’s where Bosch comes in; Watt always thought the Dutch painter’s works, full of tons of small, ornate images, were similar to Minutemen records that would combine upwards of 40 short tunes to create a cohesive whole.

The Wizard of Oz got Watt thinking of middle age, too. “My take on Dorothy is that she’s tripping on what guys do to be guys,” Watt relates. “Part of middle age, I think, is figuring out what it is to be a man. And she was doing that, looking at the Tin Man and the Scarecrow and Lion. It’s kind of a coming-of-age story for her.”

Hyphenated-Man is the most instantly gratifying listen of Watt’s solo excursions since 1995’s Ball-Hog or Tugboat? He wrote the entire album on D. Boon’s old Telecaster guitar, and every song explores a different aspect of Watt’s psyche, using hyphenated titles throughout (songs include “Bird-In-The-Helmet-Man” and “Blowing-It-Out-Both-Ends-Man”).

“I was afraid to talk about certain things on this album, but I thought D. Boon would help me in a way, give me courage,” Watt says. “Middle age is about reconciling a lot of things. Part of it is dismissing that self-important shit, especially in this line of work, when people are so self-important just because they strap on machines and make sounds. That doesn’t mean they’re better than other cats.”

Watt is known as one of the nicest guys in rock because of just that attitude. He and D. Boon started the Minutemen partly as a response to the bombastic rockers of the ’70s who held themselves above their fans. Watt, on the other hand, hangs out with his fans after every gig, and encourages them to start their own bands every night from the stage.

Hyphenated-Man has been met with rave reviews, and even though punk rockers don’t really care about such things, Watt appreciates the response.

“Back in the old days of punk, you learned not to care what people thought because 99 percent of people hated it,” Watt says. “But I’m very grateful to get that kindness. It shows that younger people, or people in general, are more open-minded about music than when I was a younger man.”

John Vanderslice

String Theory: San Francisco songcrafter John Vanderslice is living his string-laden dream.

At 43, John Vanderslice has finally found what he’s been missing: strings.

The singer/songwriter grew up listening to classical music and developed a love for the violin. He also took vocal lessons for five years. “My teacher was heavy into Barber, Schubert—you can’t help but be changed by it,” Vanderslice says. But in his teens, rock bands like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles were what he and his friends listened to.

“For me, [classical music] was a private thing, because no one else cared. When I finally met other people into it, things just started to click. It happened recently—in the past two years,” Vanderslice says, referring to his recent collaboration with Minna Choi and Magik*Magik Orchestra on the 2011 release White Wilderness.

He waited a long time to come out of the classical closet, especially since the experimental pop-rock musician is somewhat of an indie legend. Based in San Francisco, where his recording studio, Tiny Telephone, is located, he’s produced and recorded acts like Death Cab for Cutie, Spoon and Band of Horses, among others.

Now his little studio is gaining an addition to create an affordable space for up-and-coming acts. Remodeling is making things hectic, but Vanderslice is used to multi-tasking—be it recording, touring, taking photographs or listening to classical music.

The two Tiny Telephone studios will be connected. “We’ll have a communal kitchen and bands will come together and share for their first time,” Vanderslice says. “I find the social aspect of it really, really fun. I think it’s the most rewarding. It’s an open vibe.”

Through their collaboration, Vanderslice has become close to composer Choi, whom he met through unusual circumstances. After moving from New York City, the goal-driven Choi sent him an e-mail, stating she wanted her orchestra to be his house band. He receives a lot of e-mails from studio musicians, but this one was different.

“You don’t see that kind of ambition all that often. So I just thought, ‘This is someone I need to hook up with,’ ” Vanderslice says. “Mostly because I grew up a classical fanatic, it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Although Choi had never orchestrated an entire record before, Vanderslice gave her very basic demos. He says he gave her total freedom, because she’s really cinematic in the way she thinks about composition, which is similar to how he writes. “I like when lyrics are visual,” Vanderslice says, “when there’s recognizable faces and events and a geography to the music.”

White Wilderness has the feel of a movie score. And the subject matter diverges from the not-so-subtle political undertones of his oeuvre since the late ’90s. Almost every song is autobiographical.

“Minna also responded to that. She knows a lot about me and my life. There is kind of an intense connection,” Vanderslice says. “I made her feel very comfortable to ask questions about the lyrics so she could conceptually expand upon them. She’s very intellectual in how she creates music.”

Because the average orchestral string player is much more intensely schooled than almost anyone in rock, Vanderslice says he was continually humbled during the three-day whirlwind of recording at Tiny Telephone.

But he’s a versatile player himself, and he’s figuring out how to make the elaborate arrangements on White Wilderness work live, although without his beloved strings.

“When you’re ambitious sonically, you have to give up the idea that you can be 100 percent authentic to the song live,” he says. “That’s inspiring. Live shows should be something different and realized on their own terms.”

The Terks

Provo rock foursome The Terks hope to build Utah as the next big scene.

Utah may have a reputation among some for being a musical backwater, but our small fish have been making big splashes nationally of late. The Neon Trees got Glee-d, and Fictionist is competing for the chance to be the first unsigned band to grace a Rolling Stone cover. And there’s one fish that had to swim far beyond Utah’s borders to find the nourishing attention that keeps bands afloat: Provo’s The Terks, led by native Idahoan Adam Reader.

“Utah’s a tough market,” Reader admits. “Nationally, we’re getting a lot of attention.” And so they are: The Terks garnered critical praise for their debut EP from Jim DeRogatis, a former editor of Rolling Stone. But the real coup came at February’s eWorld Music Awards in California, where fans and judges crowned The Terks “Best Band.”

Since then, things have been looking up. They’ve booked gigs at Los Angeles hotspots like the Viper Room and House of Blues, Reader said. A national radio campaign is in the works. Recently, the Doobie Brothers contacted Reader through Twitter to give him and his four bandmates kudos.

Reader was thrilled these titans of the 1970s reached out to him. The encouragement speaks to The Terks’ musical mission, which Reader describes as “the revival of rock & roll.” Accordingly, he counts among his influences Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and The Smiths. The first time Reader heard Springsteen’s Born to Run, he says, “was like breaking out of jail.”

Reader wants to share that jailbreak feeling, as well as a message that is “uplifting and inspiring.” While all the members of the band are LDS, they stress that their music is meant for everyone. “Music’s a universal language,” says drummer Josh “Stu” Eastman. The Terks, sitting in semi-circle after a recent practice, nod their heads in agreement.

The Terks—comprised of guitarists Patrick Coffin and Eric “Yeti” Hughes and bassist Christian Williams in addition to Reader and Eastman—are unanimous in another thing: Utah could be the next big scene.

Jason Perkins, owner of Bay 4 Studios, the Terks’ preferred recording spot, agrees: “There are very, very talented people right here in this town, in this region.” He says he helps local bands because he’s “trying to build something” for Utah.

Perkins and The Terks are trying to set the standard for Utah bands being able to break out in the music business without leaving home. The Terks were offered a contract with a major label and turned it down. Reader says the label came back twice, but he and his band stayed firm. He says he prefers to “stay indie”—and retain control of his music.

“The dinosaurs are about to be extinct,” he says of the record industry.

Meanwhile, The Terks are alive and dreaming. In addition to the L.A. gigs, there are plans to play local shows over the summer, including the Utah Arts Festival. Looking forward, Reader is confident his little band will make it big and, even better, help turn the Utah backwater into the mainstream.

Pablo Blaqk

Pablo's Fun Bus: Provo's Pablo Blaqk has big plans for his CD release and beyond.

If Utah County musician Pablo Blaqk could be anything else in life, he would be a bus driver.

“The bus is fun, dude. There are so many interesting people on the bus,” he tells me when we meet up at a tiny coffee shop in downtown Provo on a lazy Sunday afternoon. “I would play paintball on my bus. I would just surprise people with quiz games: ‘Located under your seat are a couple of suckers.’ I would just give people free stuff, play bingo, play roulette.”

Blaqk is a painter, an event organizer, a DJ and a singer-songwriter. His long-anticipated debut album, Sons & Daughters, which he co-produced with fellow musician and friend Joshua James, is being celebrated with a massive party April 14 at Brewvies in Salt Lake City. It’s a party that sounds right in line with his fun-bus party plan, including several friends doing acoustic sets, food, drinks, a raffle, an accompanying art show and even a screening of Pulp Fiction.

”I started singing in the shower, and then I picked up a guitar when I was 17 or 18,” he says. “My dad wouldn’t let me buy a shotgun.” Having saved up $200 to buy that shotgun, Blaqk decided to get a guitar instead.

“I was just really bored. I had nothing to do. I had no outlet. I had art and all these other things, but I was always looking for new things to try out. I played tennis. I played football and basketball in high school, but I was never that kid,” he says.

And, in a way, music saved him.

“Music changed my life,” Blaqk continues. “I didn’t have any direction in my life, but when I started playing music, I felt like I was doing something right with my life, like I was going somewhere. And I wasn’t hurting anybody.”

Blaqk is extremely laidback, goes with the flow and doesn’t take life too seriously. “Dude, I don’t do a damn thing, literally,” he says, describing a typical day at home in Orem, where he lives with his parents, whom he refers to as his roommates.

When it’s time to get onstage and perform, however, Blaqk is all business. And he doesn’t limit himself to one genre of music; instead, he wants to see a progression in his music and hopes to collaborate with artists of different genres. One of his recent collaborations was with The Vibrant Sound, a reggae-inspired, hip-hop rock group also from Provo, on a song called “Industrial Revolution.”

At almost any Vibrant Sound show, frontman McKay Stevens will call Blaqk to the stage to sing with the band.

“Pablo and I met years ago at an open mic, and we both really dug the songs that each of us played,” Stevens says. “We talked a bit and kept seeing each other on the music scene. He liked the band a lot, and I told him that he should write some stuff with some of the [Vibrant Sound] songs I could never sing.”

The combination of Blaqk’s lyrics and the Vibrant Sound’s music proved a winning one, and Stevens said he plans on working with Blaqk on more songs.

“We continue to collaborate on new songs, as our styles work really well together,” Stevens says. “He is a creative individual with a great voice and good energy so I’m sure we’ll do a bunch more together in the future.”

The future is something Blaqk said he thinks about often. In five years, he hopes to have released several albums, own a record company and be married and living comfortably. But why rush the future? Blaqk is all about living in the moment and enjoying each day as it comes.

“I try to create something every day. I think that’s important that people do that in their lives—create something new in the world that hasn’t been done before,” Blaqk says. “I’m just trying to make myself a better person, trying to be more aware of what’s going on around me.
“I just like organizing events and bringing people together. I love that thought, that we can bring people together with music who otherwise wouldn’t hang out with each other. Knowing that I can actually help somebody get through something and feel like they’re not the only person in the world is a nice feeling, because I’ve felt like that many times.”