Film

Tom Waits: Coffee and Cigarettes – Somewhere in California (short film)

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California (also known as Coffee and Cigarettes III) is a 1993 black-and-white short film directed by writer/director Jim Jarmusch shot in Northern California. The film consists primarily of a conversation between Tom Waits and Iggy Pop in a coffee shop. The film would later be included in the feature-length Coffee and Cigarettes released in 2003.

The film won the Golden Palm at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival as best “Short Film”. We love the deadpan humour and the awkward dialogue. It gets better with age.


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6 Great Americana videos summer 2017

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

It’s time to present some of our new favourite videos, collected here for your convenience. When I say new it just means that they’re new to us. We just found’em and want to share them. They may be from the 30s and up to the present. Enjoy!

Colter Wall’s performs songs for CBC Music’s First Play Live. Set list:
0:00 Railroad Bill
2:57 You Look to Yours
8:14 Codeine Dream
11:47 Thirteen Silver Dollars
14:54 Motorcycle
17:24 Mule Skinner Blues
20:59 Kate McCannon

King Leg – Great Outdoors (directed by Gregory Alosio & Dwight Yoakam), new to me but clearly a Yoakam influenced act, with a bit of Roy Orbison thrown into the Bakersfield stew:

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Georgia Blues: Blind Willie McTell , Blind Willie’s Blues (Documentary) 1997

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Blind Willie’s Blues

A 54-minute documentary film about the life, times, and music of blues legend Blind Willie McTell.
With music masters Taj Mahal Stefan Grossman,historian Daphne Duval Harrison,and Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun.
Written and produced by David Fulmer

“Nothing less than the economic, social, and
historical evolution of America’s indigenous music.”
— Video Librarian

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Classic Documentary: Neil Young Don’t Be Denied BBC

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Don’t be Denied: Neil Young (BBC)

I have a lot(!) of Neil Young documentaries/films/concert footage lying around, and this is the best of them all (…no, it was not me who uploaded it on YouTube, thanks to the original uploader). Neil Young really opens up and the live footage is spectacular. Young is very much aware of his “difficult” personality, his quest for great art is his most important task in life. The film explores how Young’s unflinching dedication to the muse has created an impressive body of work and bruised a lot of people along the way. But he is also a warm and funny person. This docu was also shown in the American Masters series on PBS in the US.

The film ends with Neil Young playing an anti-Bush anthem to a Republican audience in the South, still refusing to be denied.

Neil Young – Don’t be denied (BBC):

  • Hallgeir

Documentary: John Prine on Creativity

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

“Prine’s stuff is pure Proustian existentialism. Midwestern mind trips to the nth degree. And he writes beautiful songs. I remember when Kris Kristofferson first brought him on the scene. All that stuff about Sam Stone the soldier junkie daddy and Donald and Lydia, where people make love from 10 miles away. Nobody but Prine could write like that. If I had to pick one song of his, it might be ‘Lake Marie.’ I don’t remember what album that’s on.”
– Bob Dylan

“Prine has always appealed to me,I can remember first hearing him, playing his records late at night and thinking that he was writing about everyday life, people like us.”
– Mike Leonard (director)

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July 17: Yellow Submarine the film was released in 1968

Posted on by Hallgeir Olsen

Yellow Submarine is a 1968 British-American animated musical fantasy comedy film inspired by the music of the Beatles.

The film was directed by animation producer George Dunning, and produced by United Artists and King Features Syndicate. Initial press reports stated that the Beatles themselves would provide their own character voices; however, aside from composing and performing the songs, the real Beatles participated only in the closing scene of the film, while their cartoon counterparts were voiced by other actors.

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