a good band of my time, probably the best!

i

 love

the avett brothers

seth and scott avett are the avett brothers. they released their first cd, Country Was, in 2002. i recently started listening to them, and with every album i discover just how honest and harmonious they are. they are a very talented folk band and lyrical geniuses! i think everyone should get a taste of what they have to offer. they have a beautiful outlook on life and i really connect with their music.  

biography from their official website

There is no harmony like brotherly harmony. Something indelible in the weave of voices and play of sensibilities is stamped into the fraternal DNA and also stems from a lifetime of shared experiences. You can hear it in classic brother acts across the musical spectrum, from the Louvin Brothers to the Everly Brothers and on down the decades through the Wilson brothers (Beach Boys), the Davies brothers (Kinks), the Allman Brothers and even the Brothers Gibb (a.k.a., the Bee Gees). You can clearly hear fraternal magic at work in the songs of Scott and Seth Avett, better known as the Avett Brothers, as well.

That magic is abundantly evident on I and Love and You, the Avett Brothers’ big-label debut. Its 13 songs are delivered in a style that defies pigeonholing but might be described as a rootsy amalgam of folk, country, bluegrass, rock and pop – even a jab of punk-style dynamics here and there. Drawn by the naked honesty of their songs and the rousing intensity of their live shows, legendary producer and talent scout Rick Rubin signed the Avett Brothers – consisting of siblings Scott and Seth, plus bassist Bob Crawford - to his American Recordings label in 2008.

“As soon as I heard the depth in their singing and songwriting, I was in for the ride,” says Rubin, who has worked with some of the most talented mavericks in the business, including Johnny Cash, Tom Petty and The Dixie Chicks. “The Avetts’ songs have such a sincere emotional resonance. The purity of the messages stops you in your tracks. It’s unusual to hear such open-hearted personal sentiment from young artists today.”

For their own part, the Avett Brothers instantly felt at home in the studio with Rubin. “While growing up, his work influenced us in some weird way to do what we do, and it influenced our sound quite a bit, too. I mean, from the Beastie Boys to the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Johnny Cash, we explored all those records he did in depth. We felt comfortable working with someone we had faith in based on his credentials and track record. We wouldn’t be that way for anybody, we really wouldn’t.”

By the time Rubin found them, the Avett Brothers had compiled their own impressive track record. They’d already issued five full length albums and two EPs, on their manager’s Ramseur Records label. They debuted in 2001 with a self-titled six-song EP and then issued a full-fledged album, Country Was, a year later. The heart of their catalog is the albums that followed: Mignonette (2004), Four Thieves Gone (2006) and Emotionalism (2007), which offered a generous 49 songs among them. The Avett Brothers’ latest release, an EP called The Gleam II, reached #82 on Billboard’s Top Albums chart in 2008 – quite a showing for an independent CD with minimal marketing and publicity.

Over the years, the Avett Brothers built up a sizable following based on their rowdy, infectious stage shows. In concert, the high-flying ensemble tears through tunes with unbridled energy, popping banjo and guitar strings right and left while inciting stomping singalongs among audiences that appear to know every word. At times they would seemingly create their own subgenre onstage - “punkgrass,” for lack of a better word. This much is for certain: the Avett Brothers are a grassroots phenomenon, built from the ground up. I and Love and You marks the point at which they’re poised, with perfect timing, to break through to a broader audience.

I and Love and You was rehearsed and recorded at the Document Room, located high on a hillside in Malibu, California. After cutting discs at various spots around their native North Carolina for eight years, the Avett Brothers were ready to take on the challenge of making an album at a top-of-the-line studio on the far side of the continent. The brothers were hardly unfamiliar with the Golden State, as they’d been visiting family in the Sacramento area since childhood and had gigged around California in recent years. But working with Rick Rubin in Malibu represented a giant step forward.

“A benefit of making the record in California is that it switched everything up,” says Seth. “It helped put us in the mind set that we’re starting a new chapter. We’re looking to make a record in a different way than we have in the past, and we want to be open to these new methods. There’s no better way to try something new than to work in a place you’ve never been.”

The results speak for themselves. From the 17 songs they cut with Rubin, 13 made the final cut. Rubin sequenced I and Love and You – the only time the Avetts have delegated that task to someone else. “This is the first time we have not been critical of the song sequence,” Scott noted approvingly.

In fact, the Avett Brothers are rightfully proud of I and Love and You in every aspect. It is, they feel, an album they’ve been building toward. “Years ago, Seth had told me that he someday wanted to make a record where everything was as crisp and clear and well-produced as it could possibly be,” recalls bassist Crawford. “And with the help of Rick Rubin and [engineer] Ryan Hewitt, we’ve done that.”

“It’s how I’ve always wanted our band to sound,” affirms Seth. “What I like is an absolute presentation of clarity. It’s not that I want to be glossy, and I don’t know that we ever could be glossy in the way that some pop artists are. But I love music you can grasp hold of because there’s no mistaking what the person is saying and presenting, and I feel like we’ve come the closest to that on I and Love and You.”

Themes that recur on the album have to do with commitment, maturity, and moving forward through life with a positive outlook. I and Love and You has little to do with the ephemeral world of latter-day pop, even if several songs (notably “Kick Drum Heart” and “Slight Figure of Speech”) are tuneful and catchy enough to merit radio play. The Avett Brothers mean to create music of substance for the long haul. Seth Avett is just under thirty years of age while Scott is slightly over. A lot of what they’ve been writing about lately has to do with transitioning from youth to adulthood. You can hear this clearly on such songs as “The Perfect Space” and “Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise,” thoughtful disquisitions that serve as the album’s thematic centerpieces.

“It’s hard to tell where some of these songs are coming from and they can have many meanings,” Seth allows, “but I think on the whole the album makes some comment on the fact that we are young men, but that youth is fleeting and it goes by very quickly. When you’re moving out of your twenties and into this time when you’re hoping to build something, it’s a beautiful thing and a scary thing. It still feels like things are up in the air like they were in your twenties when everything was up in the air and you didn’t know what the hell was going to happen and who you were going to be. But during that time you start gaining the tools you’re going to use in the rest of your life.”

The Avett Brothers have spent much of the past decade nurturing their skill as songwriters, along with their proficiency as vocalists and musicians. Although Seth and Scott are principally identified with acoustic guitar and banjo, respectively, from their live shows, both brothers also play piano, drums and most anything else with strings. (The brothers possess formidable artistic skills, too, and their sketches and paintings adorn their albums.) Clearly, however, songs are the center of the Avett Brothers’ universe. The brothers turn out songs in profusion. They write them individually, and they write them together. Each might write an entire song, or credit might be split down the middle or any conceivably fractional way. There is no set method to their songwriting. The point is, Seth and Scott generate songs constantly, because that’s what they feel that they were born to do.

“There’s not an option,” explains Seth. “It feels like a living thing, and if we want to keep it alive, we have to nourish it. There are so many things we have to consider now - the stage show, business issues, our relationship to different people and our fans - but at the heart of it is the songwriting and the connection we have with ourselves and others through that writing. It’s an essential and imperative element to our existence.”

“On top of all that, it’s just exciting,” Seth continues. “Scott and I and Bob get these new songs going, and that is our lifeblood. It’s obvious we’ve got to keep rolling with it. Whether the records come out or don’t come out, and whether there’s a market or not a market, the important thing is that we’re writing songs. They’re not just for a release date; they’re for posterity.”

The Avett Brothers formed in 2001 in Charlotte, North Carolina when banjoist Scott Avett and guitarist Seth Avett joined forces with standup bass player Bob Crawford. At the time, the brothers fronted a neo-punk band called Nemo. They enjoyed blowing it out on electric instruments but eventually began feeling the tug of the acoustic music they’d heard growing up. They were raised in the textile town of Concord, about a half-hour north of Charlotte. Their dad, Jim Avett, had a box of eight-track tapes that Scott and Seth picked through, listened to and digested. It included albums by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Jim’s own folksy duo, Common Decency. Other roots musicians from the folk and country realms filtered into their subconscious, too. Thus, in 2001, the brothers launched an acoustic side band, called Nemo Back Porch Project, for which they added upright bassist Crawford. He recalls the initial meeting with Scott and Seth:

“They were wanting to do some of the music they were raised on via their dad, which was old songs by Rambling Jack Elliott, Kris Kristofferson, Hank Williams and Tom T. Hall. I met up with them on a Sunday night in an empty parking lot. I got out my bass, and these two guys showed up in a gold Ford Taurus station wagon wearing flannel shirts and cutoff pants. They were total grunge kids. We sat in the parking lot, just the three of us, and played ‘Going Down the Road Feelin’ Bad’ and ‘More Pretty Girls Than One.’ Then they showed me an original song called ‘Kind of in Love,’ and it was very interesting. It wasn’t like any of those traditional songs. Different chord structure, with all these minor substitution chords. I was like, ‘This is really unique.’”

From there, Nemo’s acoustic sideshow blossomed into the main attraction, and the Avett Brothers were born out of it. Still and all, while they built up a loyal following around their home state in places like Charlotte, Greenville and Chapel Hill, they weren’t exactly setting the woods on fire beyond those pockets of regional fandom, and Scott and Bob forged ahead with plans to attend graduate school in the fall of 2002. However, there was one unfinished piece of business in Crawford’s mind.

“I said, Listen guys, I’ve always wanted to go on the road with a band,’” Crawford recalls. “’If I book a tour, will you guys go? Can we just go on the road for a couple weeks this summer?’ And they were like, ‘People have said things like this to us before, but if you do it, we’ll do it.’” And so Crawford got on the Internet and booked a month-long 21-city tour. They camped out or slept in the truck when they couldn’t find a floor to sleep on, subsisted on peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and returned home with $4,000 and a flock of new fans in 21 cities. The Avett Brothers were off and running, and grad school got shelved.

Live shows remain the Avett Brothers’ calling card. In the spring of this year, they opened selected dates for the Dave Matthews Band. On their own, they’ve filled a 7,000-seat venue in Cary, North Carolina, and sold out two nights at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon – one of their strongholds. In June 2009, they performed back-to-back sellouts at New York’s Fillmore East.

With I and Love and You, they’ve also taken a giant step forward on the recording front. Whereas they’d previously opted for a first-take freshness, now they wanted to proceed at a more deliberate pace, taking advantage of the options that Rubin’s wisdom, a bigger budget, a better studio and more time allowed them. In short, while they’d always tried to bottle their live magic in the studio, this time they set about making a more nuanced and well-crafted record.

“We were totally up for spending more time on it,” says Scott. “As time goes on, you become more critical about your work. And the more critical you become, the more willing you are to explore the options. We did a lot of revising and reworking in the studio. For instance, it was like ‘Let’s try drums in this part.’ ‘No, that won’t sound good.’ ‘Well, how do you know, we haven’t tried it?’ ‘Okay, you’re right, let’s try it.’ There was a lot more of that going on.’”

In harnessing the tools available to them in the service of the strongest set of songs they’ve written so far, the Avett Brothers have surpassed themselves on I and Love and You. There’s really no great secret or magic formula for what they’ve achieved here. It comes down to honoring inspiration with an awful lot of hard work. “The brothers have an incredibly strong work ethic,” affirms Rick Rubin, “and they continually worked at honing their craft. Hearing brothers who have sung their whole lives together – singing the truth – was a revelation each new day.”

“We know what we’re worth, and we’ve been campaigning for a long time to be heard,” notes Scott without false modesty. “Rick is helping that by sitting up and saying, ‘Let me work with you.’ We can tip our hats and pat ourselves on the back momentarily and say, ‘Good job guys, we have been heard by somebody who’s been heard by a lot of people, and he’s let us in his camp.’ I really look at it as a positive thing and a good milestone. And when it comes time for the next step, we’ll do our best again and keep moving.”

“We’ll just keep writing our songs and making our records, and how it goes is how it goes,” concludes Seth. “We’re trying our hardest and having some fun doing it, and that’s all it needs to be.”

MANAGEMENT
Dolphus Ramseur
Ramseur Records
704.262.3469ramseurrecords@ctc.net

BOOKING
Paul Lohr
New Frontier Touring
615-321-6152paullohr@newfrontiertouring.com

advice to young artists in a postmodern era, chapter 4

tradition and the new in current art

i really like this chapter because he stresses the idea that young artists should be taught old traditions, but also given the option to choose which ones they want to focus on.  dunning also says that teachers should not just teach what they are experts at, but give the students an opportunity to learn a little of everything.

i like the suzi gablik quote he opens the chapter with, "the history of art begins with tradition. traditions give us something upon which we can operate: something. . . we can criticize and change."  this is so true, we must learn to respect the past and it's traditions, but find a new take on those traditions.

he also talks on the subject that many art schools focus too much on realism, instead of concept.  and i agree with dunning, those artists who understand concept are more likely to be successful over those who concentrate more on rendering technique.  he believes that "if the ideas are there, technique will follow."

sidewalk chalk guy

i love sidewalk chalk! it is definitely a favorite pasttime of mine, but this guy's work is phenomenomal.  he does all his images out of side walk chalk alone.  they look so realisitic and appear to be 3D.  i found this guy while stumbling, and it didn't give any info on his name, other than "sidewalk chalk guy." check out his killer work below

tornado time

(photo from weather.com)

well it's tornado time again, yay. hope you sensed the sarcasm.  northeast texas has been getting all kinds of storms for the past few weeks, one that began in denton and travel all the way to north carolina and killed 26 people!!! i like storms and think they are fascinating, but they scare me.  yesterday, tuesday april 26th, i saw my very first tornado hit the ground! we watched it form, hit the ground, and go back up from our storm cellar.  it was the wildest thing i have ever seen. luckily it went to the side of us and was miles away.

i read this article on the storms and found out that one woman was injured in Edom, Texas when the twister destroyed her mobile home. i feel very sad for this woman and hope that she recovers very soon.

i really hope that the storm season ends soon.


article below

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7538702.html

cubism

my record player

candlestick holder

everybody needs a little hippie love <3

advice to young artists in a postmodern era, chapter 3

artists and teachers

this chapter is about the relationship between art students and their instructors.  when a student signs up for a class, the first thing they should do is determine what they want to learn from the class.  they should also decide what their expectations of the teacher are. some students will see their teachers as mentors, they truly want to learn all they can from the teacher.  others will expect their instructor to do everything for them. then there are those students that join a class, yet they feel there is nothing the teacher could teach them that they don't already know, and that their ideas should just come out of nowhere and need no guidance.

the chapter goes on to discuss how teachers often tend to get lazy, or unenthused.  the author says this is due to the fact that students have stopped wanting to really learn. teachers have grown tired of seeing the same old apathetic attitude with each new class they meet.

another topic discussed in the chapter is critique.  how should instructors critique their students? constructively is the answer, although many teachers will go beyond constructive and beat the artists work down to boost their own ego.  while saying this, many teachers do hold their critiques in a constructive manner, but often the students will not know how to respond to any kind of critique because new artists tend to be insecure at first.

basically, this chapter stresses the importance of the "give" and "take" aspect in the relationships between artist and their students.  in order for the relationship to go smoothly each party has to respect one another.

website ideas/artist statement/resume

next assignment: build a website. 

i'm pretty excited that vaughn made this a requirement for our class, otherwise i would have put this off and it would be a million years before i actually had my own site.  

below are just a few layouts i'm working with

resume

Education

Texas A&M University at Commerce

    Studying photography

    Spring 2011 to present

         

Northeast Texas Community College, Mount Pleasant, Texas

    Associate of Science

    Fall 2009 to Fall 2010

    3.6 GPA

Paris Junior College, Paris, Texas

    Fall 2006 to Spring 2009

Rivercrest High School, Bogata, Texas
Graduated 7th out of 77 students
*youth for christ
*spanish club
*FFA
*lady rebel athletics
-softball
-basketball
-track
-cross country
-golf
-cheerleading
*student council
*class secretary
*national honor society

    2003 to 2007

   

Work Experience

Housekeeper, Paris, Texas

     September 2010 to present

Crosswire Club, Paris, Texas

     Server

     May 2009 to August 2009

Smalltown Rags, Paris, Texas

    Tee shirt designer/salesperson 

    October 2007 to August 2008

Community Service

Camp Maxey, Paris, Texas

    Cleaned up around the camp

    2009

Big Brother Big Sister Annual Bowl for Kid’s Sake, Paris, Texas

    Helped raise money for the Big Brother Big Sister program

    2007 and 2008

Bogata Food Pantry, Bogata, Texas

    Bagged and delivered groceries to those in need

    2007

Freelance Work

Musician Promotional Shots

     Pearl Street Riot, 2011

     Alex Addy and the Tambourine Machine, 2010 and 2011

Family Portraits 

     Todd family, Jason and Courtney Todd, 2011

     Manetta family, Reid and Danielle Manetta, 2010

Weddings

     Mckee/Williams wedding, Jaycurt and Danielle Mckee, 2010

*Shoot with EOS Cannon Rebel XS

*Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom savvy

artist statement

i am an artist. photography is my art and what i love.  this world is all about perception, and no two people view it the same.  through my photos i can show others how i see this world. i photograph my life, for my life is all i know. i surround myself with music, nature, and love; so many of my subjects fall into these categories. however, i have never been the kind to place myself in a neat little box, and that goes the same with my photos. i strive to find the light, in life and photography. 

   

light painting/night photos

final project

these are a few images that help tell a little about my final project.

the final project assignment was this:

15 matted photos with a theme

i juggled with a few ideas for about a week before finally deciding on a completely new idea last thursday. the idea came to me while driving from school to work.  

my final project will tell the tale of two young lovers, caught between the "real" world, along with all its demands, and a world where they are totally free from everything.  

i chose this theme because it is one issue that i am facing in my life right now and it weighs on my heart daily.  my boyfriend and i have been together for five years and lately we have been asking ourselves, what do we really want out of life? and what kind of life do we want to live? who and what do we see as a necessity? we talk of the day we are going to run away and leave everything behind often, but seem to be stopped by this world, its ordinary ways and day-to-day routines.  so my question is why not? why not, live like pirates, gypsies, or outlaws? on the other hand, what is so wrong with living a normal life? 

modern museum of art in fort worth

on wednesday, april 13th, i took my very first trip to an art museum.  vaughn and michael miller took their classes to the fort worth modern museum of art. we ate at the cafe modern and toured the museum afterwards. the modern had a lot of nice pieces. the ladder above was my favorite piece of all.  the ladder had me wanting to to climb it so bad. even though i could see where the top of the ladder ended, i still wondered what was up there and where it was going.  another favorite of mine was "The Ark" by Melissa Miller.  her color choices for the painting were beautiful, i especially liked the deep teals and golden yellows. the visible brush strokes gave a nice texture to the animals fur and made the painting even more pleasurable to look at. sadly, this piece was located no the second floor,where no photography is allowed, so i was unable to get a picture of the painting itself. 

the Ed Ruscha exhibition was nice and i'm glad i had the opportunity to see it, but i must admit i wasn't blown away by his work. i think i feel this way because his work is not something that particularly interests me.

i really enjoyed the day of art and look forward to my next trip :)

student art show

i attended the student art show at texas a&m commerce on tuesday. here is my overall review of the show.

i felt that all the pieces accepted into the art show were very deserving.  there was a good mix of all different kinds of art. the only piece i was not a big fan of was the video piece, it was called "Human Architecture", while i understood the concept and thought it was a creative idea indeed, it just isn't necessarily the type of art that i am interested in.  i was very impressed with the wearable art in the show. there was a white dress that looked like it was crafted from trash bags and coffee filters, which i thought was very interesting because the dress looked very elegant. another wearable art project i liked, was "the roller skating tree". it was a dress, and the skirt of it had lots of leaves attached to it that gave it a nice ruffled look. the shoes were actual rollerblades with tree bark covering the entire skate. the only thing that i thought could have been better with this piece as the presentation.  it would have been really cool if the artist would have made a hanger from tree branches, instead of just using a regular wire hanger. there were many beautiful drawings in the show, my favorite drawing was one of a giant baby screaming.  the artist showed great skill and i really liked that they chose a large scale over a small or normal sized scale.  there was one active art piece that really impressed me, it was titled "For a Slice of my Life, Take Out a Knife." the artist used a knife block and each knife (models of knives, not actual knives) told a story from their life. i thought this was a very personal and interesting piece, nice creativity.  

now to my favs

"Linked" by Robert Turner was one of my overall favorites. this piece caught my eye immediately because as i entered the room i saw two chairs "linked" together and hanging upside down from the ceiling.  one chair was a sea-foam green color and the other was a baby pink color.  each chair had been covered in that popcorn ceiling stuff. the green chair had a light fixture attached to it, the pink had a green air vent cover. they were linked with one of those old light chains that normally attach to the ceiling at one end and the actual light fixture at the other.  in my eye, this piece represented the relationship between a man and a woman. the green acting as the male and the pink as the female. the attached parts were even similar to the male and female genitalia shapes, in some sense.  and the chain that connected the two reminded me of the idea that men and women will always be connected in some way.  i thought this was a very well thought out. way to go robert "ross" turner :)

 "Blue Trailer" by Ginger Cook was another unforgettable piece.  it was a cubism photo of a bright turquoise trailer house in a trailer park with a child's baby doll in the front right corner.  the doll had on a reddish pink color dress.  there was also a nice little pop of color on the turquoise trailer, a bright, very bold red number 5.  i really liked that she used the actual prints of the images she took to make the cubist image instead of digitally doing it in photoshop.  the way she displayed it was very nice too, it was a curved clear frame and this gave the entire image a nice look.  i would buy this piece and hang it in my home. i found myself drawn to it the entire night. this artist also had another photo piece in the show that i really liked, it was called "Man in the Hat." this was an image of an elderly man in a black bucket hat. it was the man's expression, or lack of one, that made it so beautiful. alsdoo the eyes were nice, they told a story of a man that seemed to be recalling a moment from a long time ago. his face made no expression, but his eyes told the story. she did a wonderful job of capturing this moment. jolly good show ginger :)

Joshua Robinson's "Make Me One With...." was pretty groovy. this work consisted seventeen hot dog buns painted or covered in something different. this piece had a nice child-like quality, it made me happy every time i looked at it :) i really liked the fact that each bun was very different from the one next to it.  it's like each bun represented a different type of person in the world.  my favorite bun was the fourth from the left, it was covered in a gold foil and had diamonds in the center of it.  it was pretty snazzy.  i also liked the second one from the right, it was made to look like neapolitan ice cream, which is something i enjoy eating very much.  i can't help but smile every time i look at this work, so thank you joshua robinson :)

the student art show rocked! 

the storyteller

(above photo by me :) i was so close)

on march 25th i got an interesting text from my best pal, danci. she said "hey do you want to be spontaneous and go to the todd snider concert tonight at the granada?" i quickly replied with a "hells yes i do :)" so danci, our good bud chase, and myself made the journey from paris to dallas to witness the "storyteller" in action and it was incredible!!

todd snider is a folk singer with a unique twist, he pretty much just tells awesome stories with music to back it up. he describes himself in one of his songs as a "tree huggin’, peace lovin’, pot smokin’, porn watchin’ lazy ass hippie"but he forgot to mention amazing songwriter.

we got there fairly early, so we scored good standing spots, front and center. 

everyone should definitely give him a listen, but make sure you have your open-mind cap on before you do.  he is very opinionated, but he calls it like he sees it. he isn't afraid to say how he feels, and i admire that.

songs i recommend are below

tension
sideshow blues
play a train song
ballad of the kingsmen
east nashville skyline
money, compliments, publicity
i can't complain
doublewide blues
conservative, christian, right-wing republican, straight, white, american males
ladies and gentlemen
lonely girl
statistician's blues
easy money
the story of the devil's backbone tavern
the devils backbone tavern
i spoke as a child

and there are many, many more

panoramic view

my whip

down by the paris train depot

moo

jesus is the man and the answer

on my way home from work

RIZE UP

How do you define a language?

to me a language is any form of communication, both nonverbal and verbal. in Rize Up they use dancing as their language. one dancer even said it was their way of telling a story.

How do we define art?

ahh, the question that everyone wants an answer to.  well, really anything can be considered art.  one person could consider something as being total crap and another could look at it and think it was a masterpiece.  the dancing in Rize Up was definitely art in my eyes.

How do these people in the video relate to me?

the people in the video relate to me, because like me, they are artists. these dancers are out trying to do what they love and they get persecuted for it by others, but this does not stop them.  they have no limits and believe in themselves and their art.  seeing them strive so hard to get their art out there and make a difference in people's lives inspires me to do the same.