Evan & Rachel's Magnets Mix

This mixtape was created for you by both Evan Rowe & Rachel Gainer, who will be husband and wife this coming August ... don't they make a happy couple?!

(photo by Wes Frazer)

Needless to say, this mix is just chock-full of songs old & new about love, happiness and pure, giddy excitement ... I'll let Evan and Rachel give you more of an inside scoop on the whole thing:

"Music is an integral part of the courtship process. New lovers exchange mix tapes--or CDs or playlists, depending up their technological bent--expressing their taste, style, and often including secret messages about how they feel about one another. That message is almost always "I can't believe I like you this much already." In fact, I had to show a lot of restraint to keep "You you you you you," a song with exactly that message, off of the first mix I ever made for my now fiancee." -evan

"A few things to do while listening: practice writing your new last name. test the strength of magnets. get lost in atlanta. save the date: 08.28.2010" -rachel

Very well put, kids! I must say that, aside from Charlie's mix last week, this also makes quite a swinging & flowery Spring mix ... Congratulations, Evan & Rachel! and thanks! HERE is their mightily magnetic mix.

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So this week I decided that I wanna tell how everything went more with pictures than with words ...

My own private Cheshire cat, Charley's been rather restless and

distracted (and moody, as you can see!) these last couple of days ...

She's a 100% inside cat, but watches the bedroom window as if

it were a thrilling Tv show ...

I think the ever-chirping Springtime birds are teasing and tempting her

... haha

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Oh yeah, I have no pictures for this (although I AM in the process of editing the new BNB video) but anyway my softball team, the Bad News Bearons are having a Kick-off Party is this Saturday, April 3rd at Magic City Wholesale, which should be tons of fun ...

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Speaking of tons of fun, Friday night I attended the opening of Jonathan Purvis' amazing art show, "Bible Skillet" at Boutwell Studios ... You should go by there ... it has to seen to be believed ...

The whole experience was rather colorful psychedelically invigorating ...

Jon himself seemed pretty pleased with the turn out ...

Jon asked me, along with other B'ham artists Merrilee Challiss, Daisy Winfrey & Dick Jemison to collaborate with him on a piece each and this is how mine turned out ...

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The previous day, Thursday was pretty epic ... and exhausting! As previously reported, I'd done a paint-by-number version of one of my paintings (for school kids to paint) to be presented at the Operation New Birmingham breakfast briefing, where they would raffle the finished product off to some lucky business person ... Well, the kids didn't get to finish it (because they had a lot of testing) so here's what appeared at the briefing ...

Anyway, the kids will finish it later and then I'll re-ink it blah blah blah ... So when I got to the Harbert Center, the whole place was packed with suits and ties, which made me feel a bit like "country mouse / city mouse", on top of the meeting being at 7:30 AM, which made the whole thing sleepily surreal ... there were actually tons more folks there (than in the following photo) ... I was just too shy to turn around and oddly photograph everybody ...

Anyway, they raffled off the painting and later posted the following on the ONB website:

Congratulations:
To the Winner of the the
Collaborative Paint-by-Number Work
by Artist Paul Cordes Wilm and
Christopher McClendon's 4th Grade Class
at Phillips Academy

Charles Ball

As the "guest artist" there, I got to stand up and wave to all the suits, which was even more surreal! Here's a view of the painting from the table where I was sitting...

Speaking of surreal, later that evening Nancy Tran and I went to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra's production of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" where, beforehand we sat at a table in the lobby and talked to folks who bidded on the actual painting that I did for the poster for the event ... I also displayed 3 other examples of my work there and handed out my business cards ... yippee!

Nancy and I had a really fun time sipping wine and chatting with folks ... the piece ending up going for $350 and it was really cool watching the different orchestra members work as a giant "human machine" performing all the music that night ...

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Also, painting-wise the big Magic City Art Connection festival (which was actually the main focus of that ONB meeting Thursday) is slowly but surely creeping up (the weekend of April 23rd) and I have some commissioned works I need to wrap up ... So I am and will be really busy painting for many moons! Here's some foundations & works in progress ...

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In video news, can you tell I'm a big fan of Jonsi from the Iclandic band Sigur Ros? Well, just in case you didn't get the hint, here's a nice "acoustic" version of his song "Go Do" with the amazing Nico Muhly (I really dig his music too) doing accompaniment:

And here's a nice watery one from YACHT:


Laura recently turned me on to Bear In Heaven's new album ... and even though I don't particularly care for this video, I think the song is incredible (the video might get cut off so click it if you wanna see the full picture):

By the way, did I mention that I like Jonsi's music? haha:

And lastly, fellow Bearon Steve Olson turned me on to this astonishingly beautiful and very playful animated piece by Art Clokey (best known for his Gumby cartoons) ... enjoy:

Charlie's Spring Mix

THIS MIX IS GOOD FOR:

Doing as much as you can

Being with people

Silly-string-ing

Starting a garden

Having fun

Jogging fast (I think they call it running)

Playing in the grass

Calling up an old friend

Driving to a picnic

Cleaning

Overall Kicking Ass

It was created for you by Charlie Sanders, who you last heard ringing in the icy cold season with his excellent Falling Into Winter Mix ... and speaking of seasons, it seems that each one this year will be magically unveiled with a new mix by Charlie ... for indeed he plans on doing up a Summer one as well ... hurray for Charlie!

This Spring one is quite exciting and contains many unexpected surprises ... my favorite being a sudden crackly-good Spanish children's record! The best thing about this mix, i think, is that it refuses to stay in one solid area for too long ... It's happily a bit all over the place ... Here's Charlie himself with a few words about it:

"I'll be honest. I had a different vibe going at first, kind of a clash between heavy and happy. Pissed Jeans & The Beatles kind of a theme. Then I started adding things to it and by the middle of last weekend I had gotten lost. So I stepped away from it all week last week then just piled through it on Sunday. Also I crammed the Big Star and Sparklehorse in the mix only because I was pretty torn up over both losses. The Calypso tracks are what really pull the mix together. ;)

My summer mixes will be much easier to identify."

and now, with no further ado, HERE is Charlie's very wonderfully colorful Spring Mix.Thanks again, Charlie!!!

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Charlie mentioned Big Star and Sparklehorse in the same sentence because yet another very sad rock n roll death is upon us: musical legend Alex Chilton passed away this past Wednesday of a heart attack ... Here is fitting tribute to him, complete with songs and videos by The Box Tops, Big Star and solo Alex ... R.I.P.

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So, this Thursday night I get to go to the symphony at Alys Stephens Center for free cuz I did the art for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra production of "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" ... I'm gonna take Nancy Tran with me ... that should interesting ...

I also ended up doing a paint-by-numbers version of one of my paintings for school kids to paint at the upcoming "ONB Breakfast" ... I'm excited about how it'll turn out ... hopefully I'll have "before and after" photos on here next week

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And now, feast yer eyes on all of these great & beautiful

(and in some cases, funny as hell!) videos ... enjoy:

Kara's Boss Man Mix

This mixtape was created for you by the amazingly talented Kara Cassidy who also provided the lovely photos after the videos down at the bottom (except for the 1st & last ones, which I took) ... It was a completely unexpected mix, and a bit of a life saver one as well ...

you see, Monday the 15th, I'm going off to Atlanta with my friend Bob to an Air concert and we'll be gone till Tuesday evening ... so I not only needed to go ahead and have this blog done early (set to automatically publish at 12AM Tues. Mar. 16th), but I was slightly worried that I wouldn't have a decent mix ready before I left ...

Well, I was sitting in Bottletree drinking coffee last (Psychic) Tuesday and in walks Kara, who turned out not only to have a mix to give me, but also revealed to me via Flickr that she & I have an incredibly similar eye when choosing our photographic subject matter ... It was in short, a very psychic Tuesday indeed! Thanks a ton, Kara!!!

HERE is her epic Boss Man Mix, which she originally made for (surprise!) her boss ... Enjoy.

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So Spring is approaching rapidly and the weather has suddenly gotten insanely wet and windy and wild ... 2 days ago, giant balls of hail started pummeling everything in sight and from inside, it sounded somehow like 1,000 tree branches were falling to the ground ... weird

I took these 2 pictures from the bottom bunk of my bed on one of those rain-tossed afternoons:

On a completely different note, I'm excited about the solo Jonsi (Sigur Ros) record "Go" coming out next month, so I was looking stuff up about him and found this cool and unique player thingy with a lot of Jonsi stuff on it ... dig:

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In video news, 1st up I found two TV show diamonds ... of Montreal did a really catchy song for the kid's show "Yo Gabba Gabba"

& Joanna Newsom played the whole 6 minute "Soft As Chalk"on Jimmy Fallon ... she makes the best faces while singing, too:

The rest is a collection of funny, bizarre and/or classic clips ... In this one, the band Real Estate play at an actual real estate agency's Christmas party:

And this video by Eric Copeland (of Black Dice) is simply bizarre and wonderful, as is all of his music:



Here's an old and quite spooky one by electronic pioneers, Kraftwerk:

And finally, to bring the TV show theme full circle, we have this strange one by Pink Floyd in 1968 from some French show ... the band doesn't seem remotely interested in miming the vocals or playing their instruments, for that matter ... they do however seem to be rather enjoying themselves ... haha: