Tag: video

A Black Heart & White Lies

Amy LaVere (Official Teaser)

Amy LaVere is no stranger to chilling tales told through song. We have seen her sing both classic and original murder ballads with a masterfully woeful cadence. So, when she passed through Harlem on a bright and cold December weekend, it was a perfect opportunity to capture an acetate.

Amy granted our wish, laying down a chilling portrait of “The Railroad Boy” and the unlucky girl he scorned. The teaser tells a tiny piece of the tale of a life ruined by a callous lover, the consequences are to come…

Episode #3 of The 78 Project: The Mynabirds “Roses While I’m Living”

The 78 Project: The Mynabirds “Roses While I’m Living”

It seems like we started another life when we started The 78 Project. One filled with humbling challenges we couldn’t have ever imagined we’d face (a few swipes of a paintbrush and a tiny needle are all that stand between failure and success?) but also overflowing with momentum and awe.

And so it is fitting that The Mynabirds‘ episode should come first in the new year, 2012. The shoot was a celebration of our first week of filming for The 78 Project, and the spirit of the night was one of joy and gratitude. We gathered friends together in Brooklyn for a backyard party, dragged the piano outside and, after dark, The Mynabirds’ Laura Burhenn sang for us. Her song, Dock Boggs’ “Roses While I’m Living,” is about appreciating life while we live it and appreciating those we love while they are around to receive it.

We wish you a Happy New Year with joy and gratitude! We hope 2012 brings you excitement and comfort in equal measure. And we hope to see you in person, perhaps record you, but definitely share with you the indescribable beauty of sound captured the old fashioned way.

With deepest appreciation,
The 78 Project

Happy Solstice from The 78 Project: Strings of streetlights, even stoplights, blink a bright red and green…

At the end of a long episode shoot, in a hotel room made tropical by radiators older than our PRESTOs, Vandaveer’s Mark Charles Heidinger and Rose Guerin, with J. Tom Hnatow on banjo, made our season bright with a holiday greeting custom made for The 78 Project.  We brought out a fresh acetate, and they recorded a festive message and beautiful rendition of the classic New York Christmas song “Silver Bells.”

WATCH: Vandaveer “Silver Bells”

From all of us at The 78 Project, our dearest wishes for a peaceful, happy season.  Thank you for listening and watching this year.

Love.

Happening: Watch footage from our secret New York hootenanny on the 7 Train

Last Friday night, December 2, at 9:02pm, forty New Yorkers piled onto a 7 Train bound for Flushing, Queens. Not an unusual occurrence in and of itself, except that these particular New Yorkers had more than commuting in mind. As the subway sped out of Grand Central Station, guitars, drums, banjos, mandolins, accordions, and even a mbira came out and a hootenanny began.

7 musicians and bands each played a cover song in honor of the borough of Queens, and a song of their own, and The 78 Project cameras caught it all.

Starting tonight, we’ll be posting a video from The 7 Train Happening every day for a week on our Vimeo channel. It’s a musical advent with a lucky number of surprises to open; our gift to you.

Check our Twitter for daily updates and for invitations to future hootenannies.

Special thanks to James and Amy of The 7 Train Sessions, a beautiful regular gathering of musicians in Long Island City, our partners in crime and planning.

And thank you to the 7 artists whose spirited song and singing made the 7 Train the most Happening party on a Friday night in New York City.

The Mercantillers
Chris Morrissey
Kara Suzanne
Luke Reynolds
Katie Mullins
Austin McCutchen
The Reverend John DeLore

Episode #2 of The 78 Project: The Reverend John DeLore & Kara Suzanne “Omie Wise”

The 78 Project: The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne “Omie Wise”

The tragic tale of Omie Wise has traveled the generations for more than two hundred years. Murdered rather than married by her beloved and thrown into a river, Omie is a warning to beware the wolf in disguise. In the back of a cozy local saloon in Brooklyn, the afternoon light worked its way through the window and The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne settled in to recount the chilling tale of Omie Wise’s murder. But true to the folk tradition, the duo added their own personal spin to the story.

Buy the music on iTunes.

The Flipside: The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne “Wounded Knee”

Kara and John had another tale to tell once Omie was conjured and put to rest. And their mesmerizing voices and guitars had the assembled historians and barkeeps transfixed. So we flipped the record, and they sang The Reverend’s own beautiful song “Wounded Knee” for a new feature of The 78 Project called The Flipside.

Special thanks to the High Horse Saloon and Salon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for their generosity.

Episode #1 of The 78 Project – Dawn Landes “The Brown Girl”

The 78 Project: Dawn Landes “The Brown Girl”

Under the sweltering late-summer sun, a small crew of filmmakers and audio historians capture Dawn Landes as she sings “The Brown Girl”. Cicadas drone, buses huff to a stop, bees hover lazily, sunflowers loom, and as the acetate spins, a song is carefully carved into its surface.

An age old and brutal choice: to marry for love or money? In the first side of Dawn Landes’ haunting 78, “The Brown Girl,” the noble Thomas chooses a plain brown girl with a dowry over his beautiful but land-less true love Ellender. Story songs like this one – which travelled from Scotland to the Appalachians over three hundred years – were the primetime dramas of the pre-television era. So the verses swiftly build into an epic, bloody tale with a twist. You can stream Side A of Dawn’s acetate here.

Buy the music on iTunes.

Special thanks to The Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the farmers of the Children’s Garden who kindly harvested around us.

Three for the price of one… our teasers collected

It won’t be long now.  By the time the week is out, you’ll be able to listen to a full track from one of our first recordings!  Crackle, hiss, sirens, birds, cicadas, friends, voices, sadness, redemption, our PRESTOs have caught it all.  And we made it digital so that you can hear it for yourself.  Until then, here’s our full library of video teasers so far:

 

Burning for another look…

Hearing your voice made ghostly by a machine from the past can do strange things to a man. When The Reverend John DeLore and Kara Suzanne updated the classic American murder ballad “Omie Wise” for The 78 Project, we warned them that the chip left over from the needle carving a groove into the acetate record was extremely flammable. Ok, maybe we also hinted it would make a mighty beautiful flare. That’s not to say we condone setting the streets on fire. Or take credit for it. John and Kara made the magic, we just remember it.

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