Preview: Indie Grits 2015, Day 2

IG-Logo There’s really so much going on at Indie Grits each day that picking and choosing what to do comes down, more than ever, to time, taste, and happenstance. But here’s a few picks anyway.

We’ve already highlighted director Amanda Berg’s Every Body Hit Somebody, which screens at 7:30 tonight, here, but it’s worth noting that she also has another film in the festival, Welcome Home, Fayetteville Observer, a short about daily military life on Fort Bragg, that screens ahead of Old South, a fascinating documentary by Danielle Beverly that looks at the interactions between a predominantly (and historically) black neighborhood in Athens with a newly-arrived white fraternity house that just happens to fly the Confederate flag and hold an annual antebellum parade. Jasper got to see an early cut of this film last year and found it to be a fascinating exploration of naiveté and oh-so-tentative understanding between unlikely neighbors. Old South and Welcome Home screen in the 5:30 block today.

https://vimeo.com/122387929

We’d also be remised if we didn’t point out that today is the grand opening of all of the Future Perfect visual art installations that mark the first time Indie Grits has ventured so wholeheartedly into that arena. Over 20 artists are showing in various spaces throughout the 1500 and 1600 blocks of Main Street as they tackle questions about past, present, and possible futures for a 21st century South. Various tours are launching from the Nick at 6:00, 6:45, and 7:30, on which you’ll have the opportunity to ask the artists questions. We’re the tour guides on the 6:45 one, so you should probably cross the other two off your to-do list. We’ll have Oreos. Seriously.

In another bout of shameless self promotion, my podcast with Lee Snelgrove, Art, Pop, & Fizz, had a great conversation with Maureen Conner of the Institute for Wishful Thinking, which will have an installation in the One Columbia office at 1219 Taylor. Check that podcast out here.

A sample of Hollis Hammond's work, who will be showing in the Free Times gallery.

Last but not least, we’d like to strongly endorse checking out the Fork & Spoon and Friends show at Music Farm tonight. Fork & Spoon is celebrating five years in business, and they’ve consistently put out some of our favorite local records while also managing to be supremely talented and awesome individuals.

Below are a few of the bands playing tonight. See ya out there gritting it up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUr-7ftDa7U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEkXiuYCmI0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk2Xj2dNDe0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXOucUbg2jA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_PpNmfHxk0

Why You Should Go To Shows Vol. 3: Valley Maker CD Release @ New Brookland Tavern 8/10/13

1) Valley Maker himself (itself?), of course. VM is the recent songwriting nom de plume of Austin Crane, who released a few quite-excellent records under his own name and the Valley Maker moniker before departing for graduate school in 2010. Crane only plays a few gigs a year, and all of them mostly here in Columbia on his brief returns. His last record (and first under the VM name) came out in 2010, and is still one of the most-downloaded South Carolina records on Bandcamp to date. All of which is to say that each show he performs becomes a near must-see. Plus, his new full-length Yes I Know I’ve Loved This World is pretty killer.

2) Opener Amy Godwin, who provides the haunting, mood-setting background vocals on Valley Maker records, started the show off my using extensive vocal loops to harmonize with herself on her traditional folk-meets-dream pop sound that is absolutely enchanting.

3) Let’s Go Coyote! frontman Pat Wall (Free Times music editor and Those Lavender Whales guitarslinger Pat Wall) takes a visceral joy in playing the electric guitar as oddly and brashly as he wants, and in the process demonstrates exactly what rock and roll played live should be about.

4) The stage banter bromance of Wall and drummer Aaron Graves, who fronts Those Lavender Whales, also gave LGC an appeal which really only comes through on stage.

5) Those Lavender Whales were co-headliners, and hearing them shoot through songs on their new EP, entitled Parts & Pieces/Goose and Geeses, was worth the ticket price alone. I called their last record my favorite local release of last year, and I’m pretty sure some of these songs are even better.

6) The gang vocals on Valley Maker’s final song (the new record's closing number, “Goodness”). While perhaps not strictly necessary, it was a striking reminder of how the camaraderie of local musicians and their uninhibited affection for each other’s songs is what makes a music scene in the first place. And, of course, just how good of a songwriter Crane is. Musical moments that combine the warm-and-fuzzy with goosebumps are rare, but they happen, as this loveable moment proved.

-K. Petersen

Why You Should Go to Shows is a projected blog series that describes the specific joys of certain live performances rather than providing a strict review of the show in question or speaking of the joy of patronage in the abstract. Kind of.