Chainestereo Review

It's up at the website right now (click here). I'm not ecstatic about the edits. It seems to me the more interesting bits of language were excised. We'll chalk this one up to experience.

Here's the original version, cut down already by 200 words:

Chainestereo's been running around North Georgia for the past year, and they're about to hit the East Coast–despite the fact they’re young, as in high school seniors. Their age explains the touch of parentology in their lyrics; it’s the kind of thing that makes you wince ex post adolescentia, when drinking wine's no longer revolutionary. But their youth also rewards them with stark apprehension. Little can match the sense of romantic paralysis in the line, “The whole sky’s a minefield, but she’s just a girl.”

The boys are just learning the Tommy Tutone Rule, that it’s often not what you say but how you say it. Silent lacunae and absurd inflections are often better ends of the vocal instrument than keeping time. When Nathaniel Higgins elongates and chops up the syllables in “Appomattox,” he sinks the line deep in your cerebrum, amplifying its evocations in an album called The Magnetic South. Suddenly, the albatross mentioned in “Chance Wedding” touched down in Thomas Wolfe after leaving the Ancient Mariner.

Musically, Chainestereo’s EP is remarkable polished. “Gretchen, you’re a...” compares to a Pixies rant, with bassist Philip Frobos almost matching Frank Black for tonal insouciance and devil-may-care. The rest consists of playful guitars a la Pavement, with jangles peppering the background and refrains surmounted by quasi-pubescent boys. The same could take a harmonizing course from, say, Panda Bear, and they're lacking the gemlike precision of a Kinks’ song—although that's a daunting constellation to set your compass by.

It’s still fun. As expected, the band’s finding solid ground, full of good ingredients, just looking for the right recipe. If Chainestereo can maintain its promising direction through the pratfalls of growing up, The Magnetic South feels like the kind of primordial stuff that evolves into stellar Indie rock.

Chainestereo's playing at the Caledonia next Thursday.

Brookie!

Happy Birthday!

Erin Mckeown, from Sing You Sinners:

Local Foods + Athens, GA

The Flagpole article is online.

I've got second thoughts about certain choices. But such, such is life. Enjoy.

Local Foods, Local Farms: Athens Tills the Rich Soil of a Nationwide Movement.

Call Your Congressman

From Georgia Organics:

ATTRA FUNDING NEEDS YOUR HELP!!
PLEASE CALL CONGRESSMEN KINGSTON AND BISHOP IMMEDIATELY!

Next week, the U.S. House of Representatives agricultural appropriators will vote on funding levels for The Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) program, which provides information to farmers, ranchers and others practicing sustainable agriculture. This is an invaluable resource for Georgia Organics and all of our country's sustainable and organic farmers. Funding for ATTRA was drastically cut for FY07 from $2.5 million, to $935,000, which has required major staff cuts. Even prior to FY07, ATTRA had had no increase since FY02.

We need to protect ATTRA’s Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) funding, and a call to Georgia Congressmen Jack Kingston and Sandford Bishop can help make that happen. Congressman Kingston is the top ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, and Congressman Bishop has newly joined that crucial subcommittee this year. Please immediately call their offices – preferably today, but no later than this Thursday, May 10!!

The message is simple: Please ask Congressmen Kingston and Bishop to fund ATTRA at $3 million for FY08. This restores ATTRA’s funding after its big FY07 cuts and provides a very modest increase of $500,000.

It’s easy to write or call. Congressman Kingston’s aide is Ms. Merritt Meyers and can be reached at (202) 225-5831. Congressman Bishop’s aide is Michael Reed and can be reached at (202) 225-3631. If either aide is unavailable, please leave a message with your key points, name and phone number.

Background Information:

Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) program is a well-evaluated national information service answering practical questions about sustainable farming practices from farmers and others who call its 1-800 telephone number, get help from its website, or attend its workshops. For more information, check out the website: www.attra.ncat.org

Thank you for calling Congressmen Kingston and Bishop’s offices today, if possible, but no later than Thursday, May 10th!

[Photo by Emily Hall.]

Athens Tour de Farm 2007

Official flier as promised:

Athens Tour de Farm 2007

I'll have more on this soon.

“ATHENS Tour de Farm 2007 is a remarkable opportunity to see, touch, taste and explore a broad diversity of local farms during a three day bicycle journey across the North Georgia landscape. Over the course of the journey 30 riders will visit 8 farms in three counties, traveling nearly 100 miles, providing a host of stories to tell about great food, interesting farmers, and the secrets of our rural landscape. The event is held on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday on June 8th-10th. In that brief span of time we’ll visit an array of farms featuring cattle, quail, chickens, goats, alfalfa, wheat, organic fruits and vegetables, a dairy cow, blueberries, and even a farm powered by a mule named Luke. We’ll pass by small towns, antebellum homes, and even a covered bridge. Delicious farm fresh meals will be provided, and each night will camp in the pastures beneath the stars. Athens Tour de Farm promises to be a one of kind experience for the whole family; an educational opportunity wrapped up in an adventure! Now tell me that don’t sound neat! For more information on registration visit the website at http://www.farmlandconservation.org.”

Southern Foodways Update

Gravy # 23, Winter 2007--Atlanta to New Orleans and Back Again

What I missed:

"SFA kicked off 2007 with the first annual Potlikker Film Festival in Atlanta on January 6. For the measly price of $35, 300 ticket holders were treated to three documentaries by filmmaker Joe York and bottomless pints of Sweetwater Brewery's finest beers. Movie concessions included potlikker shots by Virginia Willis Culinary Productions; pig on a stick by Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene; catfish popcorn by Anne Quatrano of Bacchanalia; sazerac tassies by Sonya Jones of Sweet Auburn Bread Company; and Dirty South Crackerjacks by Steven Satterfield of Watershed Restaurant. The Potlikker Film Festiaval (and its amazing concession stands) will soon hit the road. Look for a July stop in Houston."

Crescent City Cuisine:

"And keep in mind that you can join our New Orleans' oral history initiative by sharing a defining New Orleans food memory (call 888-841-6153) or by browsing our Web site to read samples of the poignant oral histories that Amy Evans has already collected, thanks to the generosity of the McIlhenny Company and the Fertel Foundation."

On the Reading List:

Southern Cooking. R.S. Dull. Foreward by Damon Lee Fowler. Athens: University Press of Georgia, 2006. $24.95.

P.S. It finally rained this weekend. The belated and temporary pavilion of Spring adorns the air. I'm reminded of Blake: "let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee."

Somehow They Deserve Even More Blame

This is what I said in the Oxford American in an attempt to qualify Spike Lee's heavy-handed onslaught against the federal government's indolence, disregard, and titanic clumsiness.

"Lee hammers the tardiness of the federal government home a few too many times. It’s a point that footage of the Superdome or the Convention Center makes by itself. That Canadian Mounties showed up at St. Bernard President Jr. Rodriguez’s office or that the anti-American Hugo Chavez promised aid to Harry Belafonte’s delegation–all before FEMA had made a peep in the area–are just broad, easy shots at the White House. Lee opens the threads but never ties them up, and we find out nothing about their actual impact. Most of the missteps and omissions, however, can be forgiven in a film about an event that’s still perversely complex and white-hot."

Let's tie some of those threads up and solidify some of Lee's allegations. From the Washington Post:

Of $854 million offered after the storm -- in cash and oil that was to be sold for cash -- only $44 million has gone to disaster victims or reconstruction so far.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that most of the money went uncollected, or the offers were withdrawn or redirected to private groups."

The Senate plans to investigate the matter. I'm not sure Lieberman and Landrieu can do much at this point other than rap a few hands. Given an either/or option, the folks of New Orleans would surely prefer the money to the censure.

(HT: Derek Jenkins).

From "Daddy Francis"

"I could never understand the Byzantine network of pumps that kept New Orleans dry or the numinous underground utility grid downtown.

"As a city engineer he knew the place better than anyone. When my mother wanted to move near Lake Ponchartrain, he nixed the idea. Those neighborhoods had been a feat of ingenuity and labor, pulled from the deepest recesses of a malarial swamp. With the sober logic that helped carry him to Presbyterianism, he distrusted engineering miracles as mere legerdemain: You can't trick the water forever. Katrina would prove that on a scale he could never imagine."

"Black Night" from James Booker's King of the New Orleans Keyboard: