MM&M at Hardywood: Live Music

With an event with so many moving parts the schedule is subject to what happens. So if you want to be sure of seeing a particular band's entire performance don't plan on the show running behind. It may, somewhat, but here's the schedule we hope to follow, as far as the live music is concerned.

The Red Hot Lava Men will start at 1:00 p.m. 

The Red Hot Lava Men are a surf-rock band that formed in 1997. They play righteous covers of classic surf guitar instrumentals from the late-'50s/early-'60s. Personnel: Mark Golden; John Gotschalk; Doyle Hull; Greg Weatherford.
Video 

Happy Lucky Combo will start at 3:15 p.m.

Tarras + Marx Bros + P.T. Barnum + Emir Kusturica + Raymond Scott + Lawrence Welk + Nino Rota + John Phillip Sousa + Maria Montez in Gypsy Wildcat + Hoosier Hot Shots + 3 Tries for a Dollar = Happy Lucky Combo. The group originated 10 years ago as a trio of street musicians: Barry Bless; Pippin Barnett; Dave Yohe.
Samples of music.

Avers will start at 4:30 p.m.

Serendipitously, members of various bands with projects aplenty fell together a couple of years ago. Now they're a tight, six-piece, sort of psychedelic rock band that just knocked 'em dead at the South by Southwest Music festival (SXSW) in Austin. Tyler Williams, James Mason, James Lloyd Hodges, Alexandra Spalding, Adrian Olsen and Charlie Glenn are Avers.
Cover story in Style Weekly. NPR story with video.

Thanks to MM&M's Sponsors

Our third fundraising event is set to happen on Sunday, May 17, 2015 at Hardywood Park. It will feature performances by musicians, a magician and we'll throw a few short films on the screen. There will also be an exhibition of the film transfer process, Super 8-to-digital, with equipment similar to what we hope to be using soon, once we reach our $15,000 fundraising goal to establish our film transfer operation.

Once again we are fortunate to have lined up the sponsors for the event that make it possible. For the Music, Movies & Magic show the logos for those folks are show below.

Links are here: Candela Books + Gallery, Christopher's Runaway Gourmay, Crossroads Coffee and Ice Cream, Don't Look Back, Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, Michael Harl, Plan 9, Portrait House, Triple Stamp Press.

To visit the Bijou's Facebook page go here.

 

Thanks for Noticing

The Bijou Film Center takes its name from 
 Richmond's Bijou pictured here in 1929.

Two of Richmond's most persistent and prominent arbiters of cultural worthiness, especially when it comes to the local entertainment scene, have weighed in on the Bijou's variety show to be staged on Sunday at Hardywood Park. Chris Bopst and Harry Kollatz have said (on the Facebook event page) they are coming to the Music, Movies & Magic show (noon 'til 6 p.m.). In a couple of pieces published this week they offer some easons why their readers should join them. 

Here's an excerpt of Bopst's Event Pick at STYLE Weekly:

To kick off the Bijou’s fundraising drive to launch its film transfer business, they’re holding Music, Movies and Magic at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery on Sunday, May 17. The variety show will feature performances by local music groups the Red Hot Lava Men, Happy Lucky Combo and Avers...

To read the rest of it click here.

Here's an excerpt of Kollatz's "Hooray for Hardywood." 

What’s got two Chaplins, a Keaton and a Bugs Bunny, with music in between and an actual practitioner of legerdemain and prestidigitation? Find out on Sunday, May 17, during the Bijou Film Center’s event "Music, Movies & Magic" staged at the Hardywood Park Craft Brewery.

To read the entire piece in Richmond Magazine click here.

Thanks for the ink, real and virtual, Chris and Harry. See you there.

Image from Richmond Magazine.

The Look of Three-Part Harmony

On Friday, I picked up the Music, Movies & Magic poster from Triple Stamp Press, and I'll have to say it's one of the best posters I've had anything to do with for quite some time. It also reminds me how much fun it is to collaborate with others on a creative project. In this case, the collaboration was with Terry Rea, my Bijou partner, and Michael Harl, local musician, WRIR deejay, graphic designer and longtime collaborator -- a trio.

I first met Michael when I was running the Richmond Flicker, a bi-monthly screening of short Super 8 and 16mm films by area filmmakers. Fairly early on I secured a studio space at the Hand Workshop (now Visual Arts Center of Richmond) with a combination of money and barter. I agreed to teach an "Intro to Super 8 Filmmaking" class in exchange for a discount on rent.

Michael attended Flicker and decided to take my Super 8 class. Soon after he offered to help design the Flicker zines I produced for each show. During the first year or so I did them myself using the old paste up method and photocopy machines. Michael and several other designers offered to take over the design duties. Then, much later, I was able to return the favor and offer him a paying gig doing graphic design work for the VCU School of Nursing.

So, Michael was the first guy I thought of when Terry and I were kicking around ideas for a poster. Having done posters for two previous events, we knew that we wanted to strip the poster down to the basics: who, what, when and where. And we wanted a clean, crisp design that evoked an earlier part of cinema history.

All it took was one meeting of the three of us to get on the same page. Terry brought his Speedball Book and after flipping through it and geeking out on some old school type and design, Michael and Terry zeroed in on a look for the poster. Michael gave us two designs for Terry and me to choose from, we picked one, and then we all made a few tweaks. Michael took the file to Triple Stamp and, with their advice, selected the paper.

As I loaded the posters in my car on Friday and gazed at the hot-off-the-press poster, I smiled and thought to myself, "I've always loved the sound of three-part harmony."

Turns out it looks good too.

-- James Parrish