Big Head Todd And The Monsters DVD in Best Buy

My friend Kelly directed a documentary about the band Big Head Todd And The Monsters. It was released yesterday (exclusively at Best Buy I believe) and during lunch today we drove over and picked ourselves up a few copies. It looks really great so maybe you should check it out.

Here's a sneak peek that the band posted online:



Oh, and if you watch the credits you'll notice that Kelly gave me my own page in the credits as the Director of Photography. If you do happen to check it out look for my super 8mm footage of Albany NY and Burbank CA. (my two homes over the past few years).

The Dodos, Cloud Cult, Fleet Foxes, My Warehouse & Indie Rock

Why do scenesters and hipsters always look the same? Why do you have to have a beard, tight jeans and some faded overpriced vintage t-shirt on in order to be taken seriously by the "independent scene"? Why do you have to look any part? I'm a casual dresser, jeans, shirts, shoes, and underwear but people look at me like I'm some disease at cool little rock shows. My friend Kelly and I talk about this all the time. We're just happy being ourselves looking like the dorky filmmakers that we are. I mean look at Julian Schnabel. He wore sweatpants and a flannel shirt to the SAG awards where his film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was honored. When he stood up to accept the award he remarked that he didn't know anyone in the room yet the place was full of the current who's who of Hollywood. That's reassuring to me. I've always been proud of the work I do. I meet so many people who just dip into their trust fund all the time to make their projects. I meet so many people who just know people and never actually create any art. I see these hipsters buried three deep at the Hi Dive bar and wonder how hard they actually are trying to look like they are some eccentric creative genius. Then I remember that I've never seen any of their work, heard any of their music, and all they are is just someone who's trying too hard.

My three new favorite bands are Cloud Cult, The Dodos, and Fleet Foxes. I owe the tip of Fleet Foxes to my new friend Laurie. She hit the nail on the head with that one. The Dodos are playing in Denver on Monday. I'm a little "showed" out right now but I'm trying to reach out to them to see if we can go take some photos and shoot a little acoustic performance in a car wash during the day.

Last night my friend Jimmy's band Dualistics played at the Bluebird in Denver. Yet another venue afflicted with poor lighting.



Do these photos of my room and living space make me "hip"?

Mike vs Aaron

Bicycle, Denver, Film & a Lady

I got my mountain bike back up and running again today. It had been sitting in storage since last September when it rode on the roof of my car from upstate NY to Los Angeles and then back to Denver. I’m not much of a biker in the fixed gear hardcore biker scene sense of the word but I do like riding.


This is me, circa the fall of 2005 in Crested Butte, CO. This photo is tough and cool, although the fact that I’m posting it on my blog calling it tough and cool probably negates all original intention. I’m going to have to call my lawyer on this one.

There is a giant mesa across the road from my studio and everyday I look up this nice gravel road that goes to the top and wonder what the view of the Front Range looks like. I’m going to find out tomorrow. Out the front door of my afore mentioned warehouse is an access point to the Platte River and Cherry Creek trail systems. This is a whole new side of Denver that while I knew existed had no real concept of what it looked like. I rode for miles without seeing any cars or the hustle and the bustle of a city, just other bikers, runners, dog walkers and beautiful girls. As long as I can remember the warm weather always brings the beautiful girls out of the woodwork. Granted it was almost in the 80’s today. Back in college (does that sound a little too old to be said like that) when spring hit the quads were always full of dirty trust fund hippies throwing the Frisbee around listening to crappy reggae music pumped out of the third story of some nearby dorm room. I hate reggae music. I use the word hate here in every strong sense of the word. But then there were always the girls sunning on the quad that we’d never seen before. Its like they’d been locked in the basement of some obscure academic building and then brought out with the warm weather as to ensure that we all would no longer want to study and therefore fail our courses. This was for sure a scheme instituted by the institution in order to force us to return for an additional semester so that they could once again pillage my bank account.

Speaking of beautiful girls I’m sure someone might be wondering what happened with my whole Valentine’s Day date search thing. Here’s what I can tell you. I met this great girl from Texas, we hung out a few times, but it didn’t seem natural and we both kind of feel apart in a completely normal way. We haven’t talked in a bit but there is a chance she might be reading this. She was great but obviously it wasn’t the right thing and that’s okay sometimes. Have to try to know right?

I did however meet this great woman two weekends ago at the Vail Film Festival. My friend Chris flew into town so we could go paint the mountains red as his film about the Damnwells, Golden Days , was playing in Vail. I was having a crappy time at the closing night party (its tough watching a room full of less than exceptional wanna be filmmaker patrons talk to themselves about how cool they are for supporting independent film) when all of a sudden I happened to start talking with these two women. Long story short I meet Kristen (she might be reading this too). She’s 37, lives here in Denver and I’m totally smitten. She thinks its kind of weird that she’s 10 years older than me. On Sunday we got a bite to eat and then saw Juno. I e-mailed her today to see if we could see the film Chansons D'Amour this weekend:



Anyway, I like this girl.

(is that an appropriate way to end this blog?)

Hopping Freight To Denver

After having been gone for most of February and all of March I arrived back in Denver two weeks ago in need of a place to live. My eight boxes of assorted clothes, books, records and movies were in storage at my friend Patrick’s warehouse, and seeing as there were already two other people renting space from him I said why not. I’m sure that the hopeless romanticism associated with warehouse living will probably soon come to pass as I approach the end of my late twenties in the next few years and so perhaps this occasion will be my only chance to live in the oddest of spaces.

The former Pride Electric Company, which went bankrupt in 2004, is situated almost directly off the interchange of I-25 and I-70, the two major North South and East West Highways that meet in Denver. Globeville, as this area of town is known, also includes the small communities on the eastern side of 25 just off Washington Ave. When industry was booming in Denver post World War II there was a smelting factory just north up Washington that spewed pollutants into the Denver air, unregulated for years. Once the factory closed down it was discovered that the homes in this area had become highly contaminated with a myriad of bad stuff that had been falling from the sky. I don’t live on that side of the highway.

My new roommates include the musician Eric Bachmann. You should probably know his band Crooked Fingers. They’re on MERGE Records, a small true indie label that incidentally also happens to be home to Spoon and the Arcade Fire among others. His mere presence in the warehouse increases the appeal of my warehouse living experience, although he is currently away producing a record for a friend. There are occasionally packages in the front lobby from his other record label, Saddle Creek (yeah, he’s a Saddle Creek solo artist too). I’d like to think to myself that he’s receiving super top secret transmissions from Conor Oberst regarding either the state of the Omaha underground music scene or highly classified and rare Bright Eyes recordings. I mean I know that they aren’t but its kind of nice to imagine.

On the western side of Globeville are the railroad tracks that technically separate my part of the ghetto from the Highlands. As I was driving back from my studio today to the warehouse I noticed, an out of place man walking down a dead end street that dead ends at those tracks. He was wearing a heavy jacket and shouldering a knapsack, the old fashioned kind. He was trying to blend in but without any other foot traffic or cars in the area he was hard to miss. The nervousness of his pose and glances as he cross Fox Ave in my rear view made me wonder if he was hopping freight. Then about 15 minutes later as I was headed downtown to meet my friend for dinner and a movie I noticed a few other random individuals scattered about through the industrial void that exists along Park Ave between 25 and the ballpark. The train tracks also run right along the Platte River through there and then it occurred to me that all these guys were hopping freight and a train must have just come in. They were all walking away from the vicinity of the rail yard, hands jammed in pockets, heads down, looking their best to look like they belonged there, ducking in and out of holes in the chain link that hides the rails from the rest of the gentry.

Last night at the Hi-Dive, where my friends Elin and Audrey were playing, I ran into the Denver photographer, Gary Isaacs. Gary is a creative and visual force and as we met for the first time he asked me if I’d like to join him on some street walking missions around the city. He suggested that I film his encounters with random people as he tries to convince them to let him take their photograph. I eagerly said yes. I stumbled through my conversation with him and felt like an idiot for not fully being able to express my knowledge of film and photographs like I wanted to be able to. He’s taken photographs of everyone from Garrison Keillor to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Over the course of the past few weeks, as I left Sausalito and headed down to sunnier parts in Southern California, I began writing down some adventures that I’d like to embark on. While the idea of a Greyhound Bus adventure coast to coast does sound nice I’ll have to admit that there is a small fear of the claustrophobia of being stuck next to the recent parole who’s headed to Sandusky to scare up rent money by selling his body. Greyhound has its charms but its unpredictable makes it totally out of my control. So I proposed to my friend Brian that I hop in a van with him and Bon Iver on his summer/fall tour for two weeks. I’ll take photographs and shoot super 8mm. We will shower in truck stops, share one hotel room a night, and drink like fish. Nothing makes me smile more than the thought of driving around the country at the end of summer when the nights are short and the days are long. I’m hoping that they say yes.

ALESANA from the Marquis Theatre

Wednesday April 9th
Alesana, The Marquis Theatre, Denver, CO

this is slightly embarassing

but why not. we found it today whilst looking through several thousand photographs for the coffee table book. i'm okay with the fact that i look like an idiot.

Chevelle Photos

Dear you,

Too much time has passed since I last wrote. However today I just want to share a photo composition from a show I photographed last night here in Denver. Been ages since I'd been to a rock concert and as my friend Rikki is on the road with Finger 11 and Chevelle she hooked it up with the photo pass. There is one subtle difference in the pictures below. I'd love to know which one you like better. Until then be well. I promise I'll write soon.

Love Rod

I'm Always In Love

photographs

if you're bored you can visit The Fray to see some new photographs. if you keep reloading the page new images will appear.

i took some photos of my friends recently and need to share them with you.

caught grazing 1


caught grazing 2


"this might be the game of my life"

Mike Rowe Was Once An Opera Singer Too

Seals Around Sausalito: Spring in San Francisco

San Francisco smelled today the way I always remember it.

I've taken to eating breakfast at Fred's Place, this diner that resembles the country store from O Brother Where Art Thou in the scene where George Clooney's character finds his wife and his daughters trying to convince him that she's marrying someone who is "bonafide". My first morning there the old men in the corner were all reading the newspaper whilst carrying on a conversation about public radio, their noses still buried in their respective journals. If the counter is full you share the four large oak tables with the other customers. On Friday morning Dave, Jeff, and I sat with a set of odd looking twin brothers and their wives. We didn't say anything to each other but we were talking about roughly the same thing (what it would be like to be living in Brooklyn). Odd right? The coffee cups are made of thick white ceramic. I've only ever seen them at the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, NY. I've taken a few photographs with my new medium format Bronica but they won't be ready for a bit. Need to take them to the lab and get some contact sheets made. This is a poor man's develop. I love hash browns with breakfast because I can smother them in hot sauce. Breakfast food is a vehicle for hot sauce. I don't put hot sauce in my coffee though. Just cream.

The sun has paid us visit every day this past week but the nights are still crisp. There are seals in the harbor which is no more than one hundred yards from the studio. The salt air does wonders for your mental state. We've all been drinking Kombucha. Smells like the bottom of a bar trash can, doesn't taste much better, but does great things for your well being.

We're living in a giant house in the San Rafael hills.



There are three huge sliding glass doors in my room that open to the north, onto the deck and every morning I watch the valley that has filled with fog overnight burn off as the sun slips back into our lives. I won't be depressed when the rain comes, because this is San Francisco, and it will come. It'll be a nice change of pace. I've been feeling under the weather for the past two days. Could this be the old-man-in-the-rocking-chair-on-the-porch me talking?

This morning we all cooked breakfast. I made croque madames for Isaac and myself. Lavery and I picked up Jeff and we drove to the upper Haight where we had coffee at my favorite communist coffee shop. Then I spent $219 at Amoeba Music. My purchases include The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses on vinyl. I've been trying to find this record for six months. Amoeba had four copies.

We all showed up back at the house tonight heavily laden with our purchases, books from SFMOMA, movies, records, new leather boots, and hard to find organic soaps. Our home away from home feels rich. I'm happy.

************************************************

Back around Thanksgiving I was hired to direct a short documentary about new Columbia Records artist Newton Faulkner. So I flew over to England where he was on tour and spent 4 days on the road for the piece. Guess the powers that be liked the video so much that they asked me to create a viral video for his first American single, Dream Catch Me. Newton told me while on the road with him that the song is about "waking up one day and realizing how much the person next to you (married to) has become a part of you". My concept was to create a neo-american gothic image of the harsh upper American midwest during the dead of winter combined with the images of a couple that had been married for 54 years. Everlasting love and disappearing America.

We also threw in a few special effects. Kelly helped me create this scene in our studio in Denver. The "folks" in the video are also his grandparents.







Here's what I came up with...

When You Get Stranded In A Snow Storm In Wyoming This Is What You Think About

untitled

Me (Rod) Needs Your Help Looking for a Date

This is crazy. We should all know that from the start but the other day as I was flying back home from shooting this reality TV episode in Southern California I thought to myself “Why not?” The idea is simple. I have 218 friends on myspace, 51 of these include 45 bands/artists/musicians, 1 TV channel, 1 radio program, 3 film festival and industry associations and 1 comedy troupe. In order for this to work I need you, my 167 friends, to repost this entire bulletin. Yes, this is crazy because it functions like a pyramid scheme but without the sketchy family friend or uncle trying to get you to sell light bulbs door to door. Once you post it I need your friends to read it and then for them to post it again. And so on and so on. Of course I don’t know your friends or your friends friends but I’m asking for your help in finding me a girlfriend, or at least a date, by Valentine’s Day. I’m going to put all my information below and all people will need to do is send me an e-mail we'll see what happens.

About Me:

My name is Rod Blackhurst. I’m a 27 year old filmmaker living in Denver, CO although this has been the third state I’ve lived in this year, the others including Albany, NY and Los Angeles, CA. I’ve spent the better part of the last two years touring with the band The Fray as their photographer, filmmaker, and even the “t-shirt guy. I’ve made ski films, documentaries, low budget projects for friends, and been paid to shoot two weddings. My true love is narrative film and could watch anything by JP Jeunet, Joel & Ethan Coen, Terrance Malick, PT Anderson, and Wes Anderson.

I’m a secular realist and a humanist idealist all at the same time. I like brushing my teeth twice a day and staying hydrated. I have a degree in French Literature from Colgate University and almost made a career in architectural theater design after graduating. I’ve lived in Dijon, France, Lake Tahoe, CA and Burlington, VT. I’ve worked at MTV and spent two years waiting tables at a snobby overpriced restaurant. As a teenager I loved Third Eye Blind and still keep it in my list of acceptable bands. My current musical favorites include The National, Josh Ritter, and Broken Social Scene. I started collection vinyl two years ago and only purchase hard to find records that should be listened to on vinyl (ie originally recorded in the 60’s, 70’s, and early 80’s). I don’t buy digital music, I like the case art. I’m a casual dresser who likes to cook when possible although I can never afford my dream grocery store, Whole Foods.

I buy lots of books, journals and magazines, but never have time to read them all. Saturday evenings are given over to episodes of Prairie Home Companion and Sunday afternoons to This American Life (or Podcasts). My favorite magazine is the New Yorker but I’m about two months behind on issues right now. I’m concerned about the environment but also concerned that I’m not doing much to help. I love playing tennis but enjoy watching football.

I like small towns, the rust belt, abandoned structures and would like to spend a summer driving a beat up car through Eastern Europe working on old farms and staying in run down cottages.

In the future...

I’d like to have a large family. My family is small and I would love to find someone whose family I can share with them as my own extended family.

I’d like to live and work wherever we want to live, not necessarily where we have to work.

I’d like to build my own house or at least restore some old gas station or piece of a barn into a creative and original living and working space.

I’d like to live in and around a community of like-minded creative individuals who support and feed off each other.

I don’t need to be wealthy, only make enough money to support my family and to find creative fulfillment in my work.

Who I’m Looking For:

Women who don't drink a lot and never ever want to go to Las Vegas on a vacation, only if we’re old and with nothing else to do.

Intelligent, self-motivated, kind hearted and nurturing women.

No social climbers or “scenesters” who are trying to be hip.

Attractive, elegant women with an understated beauty and the girl next door.

That’s it for now. MySpace is HERE. I was going to post some photos here but I’m hoping maybe you’ll just visit my page and then click on the photos if you’re interested. Send me a message or write me an e-mail to rodblackhurst@hotmail.com It doesn’t matter if you live in Denver or not. I know I know, this whole idea is rather far fetched but I need your help (my initial 167 and your friends beyond…). I’ll respond to you all. Then we’ll set a date for Valentine’s Day and see where that takes us….

Rod

This is the last thing I'll say

As I tried to decide between Ry Cooder and Ryan Adams on the record player I found myself thinking of the men who shovel the snow at the Washington & Emerson St light rail station. Through blistering cold and white out four men keep the sidewalks and station entrance clear and clean. Nary a wayward snowflake can land without one of the four attacking it with a vigor that would make the criminals from Home Alone scared. They lurk in the bus stop over the interstate, eyes peeled for rogue flakes. While the rest of the city struggles to keep up with the seemingly never ending snowfall these four men shovel in the dark and through the day to keep the façade of the transit system ready to receive the passengers that she never will. Nobody rides the light rail, I’m sure that it is some bureaucratic wear-it-on-your-sleeve public works program that some self proclaimed liberal Subaru driving, Ben Harper CD listening politician earmarked in some state budget somewhere to make himself feel better about the plight of the atmosphere. As if he even knew where to begin. But this idea looked good on paper. At least it keeps four anonymous snow shovelers employed.

The delicate sounds of Love is Hell Part 2 creep out of my bedroom from Washington Park I’m wondering if I really want to be writing this all down. I’m superstitious. I do things because once those things led to good things. This is my way. I also don’t like to reflect out loud that often on what good has come my way in fear that perhaps it will only lead then to bad. But I do want to say a few things before I officially sign off for 2007.

I left some friends behind this year. I was rude and disrespectful to a few folks along the way and I’m sorry for that. Often it was because I wasn’t mature enough to know when to stop leading you astray. More often than often it was because I was going to let you down at some point and that would have been harder if I’d kept leading you astray.

I calculated my existence in frequent flyer miles. As an official Silver Medallion Delta Sky Miles customer and a Premiere United member I must say that I do enjoy the perks of being a regular. Flying first class is great and all when it happens but perhaps the best part about being a frequent flyer is that I can cut the security line and board the plane first always ensuring that my rather large camera bag carry on can fit in the overhead. And I never sit in the wrong seat.

I made some great new friends. Some is the wrong word. I made a lot of great new friends. What a blessing to cross paths with so many wonderful people and to reconnect with long lost friends. If I hadn’t written an e-mail to a man named Mark Cunningham as a 17 year old college freshman I’d never be where I am right now. Truly unbelievable and amazing as I think that I owe a fair bit to this connection that I made ten years ago.

Nobody will ever write a better blog than my friend Alex. He’s a wordsmith, a songsmith and a gem of a friend. You should read his blog. He’s got a lot to say and the right to say it all.

I must now do some laundry and pack my bags for a shoot over the next five days in Big Bear Lake, CA. You probably haven’t heard of the Block or the G4 network but from my understanding its about a group of Scotts and Todds who didn’t quite make the cut at the Real World living and working in a hotel called The Block who spend their days snowboarding and their nights partying. Maybe they don’t actually work. I’ve heard that all they do is party and chase women. Should be funny at least. I’ll have a camera in my hand. And boy oh boy the things people do for the camera. I do find it rather reassuring that I’ll close out the last seconds of my year shooting an awful reality TV show for an equally as awful cable TV channel. There’s no glory there, there’s no guts, just excess that I’m witnessing through the lens of my camera. Going out the way I came in. And that’s a good feeling. No pressure right up to the end, just doing my job, paying the rent and looking forward to the coming year.

a photo of a friend

He's going to hate me, but I just found this photograph of him. And I love it. You should too.

this is how i feel this morning

Falling out of touch with all my
friends are somewhere getting wasted,
hope they're staying glued together,
I have arms for them.

Take another sip of them,
it floats around and takes me over
like a little drop of ink in a glass of water.

Politics, Religion & The Presidency

To those non-secular friends of mine.

Mitt Romney yesterday said that "No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."

In the same speech he then went on to add that he "do not define my candidacy by my religion" and eventually went on to add that he "will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."

How then, would Mitt Romney, or any other non-secular candidate, including our current President, in their next breath explain their views on Abortion and Gay Marriage, issues which for them are clearly explained through their religious views?

Is this not serving not just one religion, but most religions?

What about the majority of Americans who are secular like myself?

Why does no reporter or person ever ask this simple question of non-secular politicians? You believe in a separation of church and state yet your religious views cloud your judgment on such major issues as abortion and gay marriage; how is this separation of church and state and how do you then seek to include the majority of your constituents who would then be cast aside by your non-secular views?

a small piece of fiction

The gray was nailed tight to the sky above Old Sodom. Winter was fast coming and the late afternoon air was sharp, getting sharper. Musing under his breath that the Quality Inn was not quality, and therefore either pretentious or ironic, Dan wondered if he should write that bit down, save it for later, in some short story or something that he'd never actually get around to writing. He hadn't written anything in years and it was going to be years till he did. It just sounded good, on paper.

Letting the bath fill, Dan beat the love out of his lap in the next room. Returning to the bathroom he drained the tub and sat down to let it fill up again. That was the best part about taking a bath, listening to the water gurgle out the faucet. Soaking was disgusting, just laying there in your own dead skin cells and soaped suds. But listening to the water, that was about as good as it got, at least in the Quality Inn. The ash tray tub side hadn't been cleaned since the tub's last occupant had laid there in their own filth but Dan wasn't about to complain. He was lucky to have the room for the night.

He had two things to accomplish that night. First, he was going to go see Ree down at Sportsman's, ask her where the fuck she'd be for the past two months. Then he was going to work on getting his handicap down up at the Bowl-a-Lane. Figured with a whiskey or two in him he'd have a good game there as well.

Funny how things work out like this he thought.