Bill Fox Lives.

A bit of non-film related news...

I'm a little bit late in picking up on this, but Scat Records will be re-releasing Ohio singer/songwriter Bill Fox's two solo records Shelter from the Smoke and Transit Byzantium. Originally released in the mid-1990s, these two records have been favorites of mine since I picked them up back then. I loved his music ever since and wondered what happened to him until the Believer published an article about him in last year's print version of their music issue.

His CDs have been out of print for a while and once the Beleiver article was published, the price for his used CDs sky-rocketed on Amazon. (I remember seeing Amazon affiliated merchants asking up to $125 for Shelter from the Smoke, soon after the Believer article was published. I checked a couple of weeks ago and they were now down to about $25 to $50.) The company that released both of Fox's CDs, Spin Art, went out of business in 2007. With Spin Art out of business and Fox essentially not interested in the music business, I wondered if they'd ever be available again.

Thanks to Scat Records they will be available again, and perhaps, better than ever. A few years ago Scat did a great job with their 10th anniversary re-issue of Guided By Voices Bee Thousand, releasing it on both CD and as a 3 LP set. Both added tracks to this already stellar record. In addition to that, they pretty much simultaniously re-released recordings by Bill Fox's 1980s band the Mice for the first time on CD. Now with Bill Fox's solo material, they plan to release it for the first time on vinyl(!) and they are including - what looks like both on vinyl and CD - Fox's Bird of the World 45.

Even though I already have the Spin Art versions of his CDs, I'm gonna save my pennies and buy both a CD and LP version of both. Shelter From the Smoke is due out in September, and Transit Byzantium's release date is TBA.

Once again Scat Records made me a very happy boy.

-Eric

Bummer. No more Independents Week at Harvard Film Archive.

After weeks of compulsively checking Harvard Film Archive's web site for their July calendar, my worst fear was confirmed: their calendar shows "No Screenings" from Tuesday, July 1 to Friday, July 4.

In 2007 Harvard Film Archive held its "second annual survey of independent work that 'flew under the radar'" from June 30 to July 10. During that week titled "Independents Week: New American Independent Cinema 2007", Harvard Film Archive dedicated its programming to showing films like Frownland, Quiet City, Hohokam, Finally Lillian and Dan, Team Picture and Apart From That. In 2006 the program simply titled "New American Independent Cinema" ran from June 1 to June 25 and featured films like Funny Ha Ha, Old Joy, Jem Cohen's Chain, and Frank Ross's Quietly On By (a personal favorite of mine).

Unless they have something in the works for the coming months, it looks like this annual series is no more. Is the decision not to continue into a third year merely because Ted Barron is no longer programmer at the Harvard Film Archive? Or is it symptomatic of a larger mumblecore backlash?

Often featuring the filmmakers in attendance, the series was perhaps the best single New American Cinema event, better than most festivals that by necessity need to draw a larger audience, thus requiring them to program a wider variety of films. I guess this year I'm actually going to find something to do outside this Independence Day week.

-Eric

Hooray for Medicine for Melancholy

Indiewire is reporting that Medicine for Melancholy has been acquired by IFC Films. I can't wait to see it again on the big screen whenever it gets its US release!

-Eric

Team Picture on Benten

I just stumbled upon the fact that Benten Films will be releasing Kentucker Audley's Team Picture on DVD on August 26. (An ever-so-slightly belated birthday present for me!) As soon as I'm able, I'm placing my pre-order. (As of this posting, clicking on "Buy Now" brings up the Amazon page for Free Will.)

-Eric

P.S. After over a month of non-posting, this is number three for today. I had no idea that free internet at Starbucks would boost my productivity this much!

Free Internet at Starbuck's?!?!

Now, if you register your Starbucks card online, Starbucks and AT&T will give you two hours of free internet time everyday. I already had a card to keep me within my coffee budget. So, here I am at Starbucks posting on my blog. This might actually enable me to post on Camera Stilo more frequently and waste more time than ever before.

Free internet at Starbucks? They must have gotten tired of the folks at McSweeneys poking fun at them.

-Eric

I know it's been a while...

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I didn't realize that I didn't have a single post for the entire month of May.

Bad, bad blogger....

-Eric