Burn to Shine

Burn to Shine is a film series produced by Fugazi's Brendan Canty and directed by film maker Christoph Green. Traveling from town to town to film bands performing in houses that are about to be demolished or burned to the ground. They document the doomed house, the bands, and the demolition, put it together in a 45 minute movie, and put it out on DVD.

Each DVD/town has a different curator that is entrenched in the respective music scene and who can pick out what he or she considers their favorite bands. This allows us to put the bands in a geocentric context.

The bands in Volume 1: Washington, DC, set up in a vacant bungalow on January 14th 2004. The bands play in this marginal, domestic environment: a tiny freezing cold room in front of an unlit fireplace on what turned out to be the coldest day of the year. Each band churning out one song, at full volume. The songs were recorded on a multitrack recording unit and filmed in HD with multiple cameras, which gives the film an incredibly crisp, clean look and sound.

All the filming was done just before the house was burned to the ground by the fire department. It features live performances by Bob Mould, Ted Leo, Ian Mackaye's new band The Evens, Weird War (ex-Make Up), Q and Not U (Dischord records), Canty's band Garland of Hours, Medications (ex-Faraquet), and French Toast (featuring James Canty of Make Up, and Jerry Busher of Fugazi).

The DVD also contains footage of the burn wtih original music by Brendan Canty, and an extras section with beautifully shot still photos of all the bands, outtakes and incidental sounds, and a very groovy tune from our boys in the French Toast Band.

A second film, due to be released in July, was shot in a house in Chicago and features Wilco, Shellac, Tortoise, Freakwater, Tight Phantoms, Pit er Pat, The Ponys, The Lonesome Organist, and the Red Eyed Legends.

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The above is practically a word for word exerpt from the about section of the Trixie DVD webpage.
[Kinda edited for better flow.]

Anyway...

A Volume 1 order has been placed and will be reviewed for your pleasure here... as soon as I get it in the mail.

It's an interesting concept. As I'm sure NYC will eventually get one... I hope Detroit and/or Kalamazoo get on the ball, find a proper curator and produce their own volumes.
*ahem*
[hint, hint.]

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I think more updates on this here blog are in order.
Let me remedy that thought soon with:

LCD Soundsystem and ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead DVD/Album reviews.