Mind-bending animations, confetti-spouting balloons and drudging psychedelic rock were the aesthetics of Friday evening when The Flaming Lips shook the St. Augustine Amphitheater and sent it into a dimensional vortex that defied not only space and gravity but the laws of logic and communication as well.

Photos by Matthew Ricer and Scott Bufis

Jim James and the boys of alt-country outfit My Morning Jacket took over the stage of the St. Augustine Amphitheater on April 27. The show was full of organ sounds, tripped-out visuals, crazy lazer lights, donkey heads, and plenty of jamming. A special thanks to Dan Larsen of the St. Augustine Amphitheater. All photos courtesy of Eric Streichert.

This episode presents hand-picked gems from the decade of synthesizers, strobe lights and pleather pants.

Click HERE to listen!!!

Name of show: Plasticity (80`s Set)

Host: Scott Bufis

Co-Hosts: Dylan Pembleton, V. Amadeus Hill

Show: Plasticity brings and broadcasts music that transcends genres and breaks the formulaic mold that commercial radio shows fall into straight from the warm, fuzzy format of the vinyl record.

Tack List:

Rush – Limelight

The Pretenders – My City Was Gone

Love and Rockets – Ball of Confusion

Depeche Mode – I Feel Loved (Danny Tenaglia remix)

Talking Heads – Radiohead

Devo – Gates of Steel

So, the whole time I was at the second annual Harvest of Hope Fest last weekend I couldn’t help but constantly compare it to the last year’s HOH Fest – and how much more fun and organized it was this year!

Admittedly, last year’s event was the fledgling of (what is now) a series of annual HOH Festivals, and, of course, first runs are always a bit rickety. It was surprising to me to discover that the festival did not make any money last year. It’s strange to think that an event in the name of charity doesn’t actually raise funds for its cause, but after some discussions and research, it turns out that most festivals don’t in fact make it in the black their first years. So, I guess we can view last year’s festival as a kind of “trial run” that was really meant to raise awareness for migrant farm workers, the Harvest of Hope Foundation and future HOH Festivals. In this regard, last year was a huge success. I think all of NE Florida now knows about the HOH Foundation and Festivals.

But let’s get down to the gritty, shall we? Last year’s festival was chock-full of Gainesville punk bands like Against Me! and Less Than Jake (click here to check out the interview I did with Less Than Jake last year), and, really, appropriately so considering HOH’s connection with Gainesville punk label, No Idea Records, and the socially-progressive theme of the festival. But the destructive anarchy of punk rock came out of the fans camping at the festival as well last year when a large group of tattered and drunk punks tore down cardboard signs and pieces of wood, lit the pile on fire and danced around it for hours in the middle of the dirt-pit camp site chanting charming tunes like “Fuck the Police” while the surplus of hired security watched with their walkie-talkies handy ready for these kids to burn down half of St. Johns County. And who said “punk’s dead?”

This year was chiller and less… angry. To start, the downpour on Friday night that cut Dr. Dog off halfway through their set and flooded everyone’s tents seemed to cool the heads of the firebrands. Of course, the rain didn’t stop Dead Prez from finishing out his set, but to be fair, all the equipment he had on stage was two turntables and a microphone, which is harder to ruin than four guitars, a drum set and numerous amps. Thankfully, the rain avoided us the rest of the weekend, and everyone was free to enjoy the shining sun and lineup of great, albeit many unknown, acts. Personally, I was much more excited about the headliners this year – I would take Broken Social Scene and Man Man over The National and Propagandhi any day.

Even the organization of the festival was much tighter this year. The campgrounds weren’t swarming with security guards, VIP and press got free parking (yay for being a part of the media!) and instead of waiting around to see if our band interviews would get the green light, bands like Matt Pond PA, Man Man and Mucca Pazza held press conference-style interviews.

I’m still trying to find out whether last weekend’s HOH Fest made any money for migrant farm workers, but it’s clear that awareness has been raised and lots of fun was had, if nothing else.

Stay posted to St. Aug News for more on last weekend’s HOH Fest including interviews with Look Mexico, Man Man and Matt Pond PA.

For more info about the Harvest of Hope Foundation, its work with migrant farm workers and the HOH Festival visit www.harvestofhope.net.

Want to see anime fans dressed in pink wigs and outrageous cosplay outfits become even more animated and hysterically energetic than they already are? Just add a live-gunman-on-the-run to their anime/ horror convention. This was ZonaCon 2009.

Alright, maybe I should back up a bit. When we arrived at the convention center, a gunfight broke out – a Nerf gunfight. My photographer, Sally Evans, was a casualty as she was shot in the face in a drive-by Nerfing.

Inside the main room of the convention center at the Holiday Inn on International Drive in Orlando, only about 25-30 booths – artists and vendors alike – lined the walls. I have never seen a convention so tiny. As I strolled around the room, I took the opportunity to chat with a few of the illustrators present. I first came across Ted Techlin whose comic-board displays included inked drawings of recognizable characters like Wolverine, Master Chief from the HALO video games, Thanos, and Batman.

Alfonso

After the not-so-surprisingly awkward conversation with Alfonso, I came to a booth in which a certain cover of a comic caught my eye. It was a cover illustration I have seen in numerous comic book stores and plays to the popular theme of super humans living normal lives. The cover itself contains an image of a man standing on his front lawn in the morning holding a newspaper clothed in a blue bathrobe, pink bunny slippers and an ominous chrome helmet. “This guy’s actually not in the comic at all,” the cover’s illustrator, Greg Kirkpatrick, told me. Living in Infamy takes place in a sleepy town called Infamy where super villains go to gain protection from other super villains. Think of it

Greg Kirkpatrick

like a witness protection program for people with superpowers. Kirkpatrick penciled all four issues of the miniseries. He told me that the concept was first created as a pitch for a movie. The creators are still waiting on the word whether that will become a reality or not.

When Sally and I step outside for some fresh air, a barrage of costumed teenagers ran passed us, and I could hear excited shouts – something about there being a guy with a gun around. It wasn’t until I noticed the police helicopter and the numerous bike cops that I realized they weren’t talking about the drive-by Nerfers. Apparently, there was some dude running around I-Drive with a loaded gun. Of course this made all the cosplayers run – loudly, I might add – in fear of being shot by something besides Nerf darts. When we walk back into the convention center, just before the screening of Repo! The Genetic Opera, one of the head organizers of the convention is on stage telling all the scared kids that there is a shooter in the convention, adding more confusion to the situation. It took Terrance Zdunich, creator of Repo!, to tell the lady to back off and calm the crowd down.

Obviously, no one was shot at ZonaCon 2009 (except for Sally, that Nerf dart to the face really shook her up). And I got to snag an interview with Zdunich, but that’s next time.

Coming Soon: An interview with Terrance Zdunich – creator of Repo! The Genetic Opera.

All photos by Sally Evans.

Terrance Zdunich and a cosplayer

Click here to listen!!!

Name of show: Plasticity

Hosts: Scott Bufis, Dylan Pembleton, Amadeus Hill

Show: Plasticity brings and broadcasts music that transcends genres and breaks the formulaic mold that commercial radio shows fall into straight from the warm, fuzzy format of the vinyl record.

Record sleeve collage by Matthew Salazar

Track List:

1. The Clash – Ghetto Defendant
2. The Specials – Stereotype
3. The Ska-Flames – Bredda
4. Jimmy Cliff – Hypocrites
5. J Dilla – Love
6. DJ Shadow – Six Days
7. Aesop Rock – Daylight
8. Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson – A Toast to the People

Contact the show at allvinylshowstaug@gmail.com

Plasticity is brought to you by The SOP Radio Network. For more info. email judy@thesop.org

Exploring the Landscape of Vinyl Music with “Plasticity” (Click Here to Listen)

From the oak-shaded town of St. Augustine comes music that equals its town of inspiration in style and antiquity. Spotlighting international power acts, lesser known underground artists, and locals alike, Plasticity has no walls to contain it – except format. Plasticity is dedicated to the vinyl record format – an output that is both unique and tangible.

Name of show: Plasticity

Hosts: Scott Bufis, Dylan Pembleton, Amadeus Hill

Show: Plasticity brings and broadcasts music that transcends genres and breaks the formulaic mold that commercial radio shows fall into straight from the warm, fuzzy format of the vinyl record.

Original record sleeve collage by Matthew Salazar

1. The Velvet Underground – Rock & Roll
2. The Beatles – She Said She Said
3. Bob Dylan – Tonight I`ll Be Staying Here with You
4. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – Wooden Ships
5. Pink Floyd – Sheep
6. Frank Zappa and The Mothers – Dirty Love

The Next Show Will Feature:

7. The Clash – Ghetto Defendant
8. The Specials – Stereotype
9. The Ska-Flames – Bredda
10. Jimmy Cliff – Hypocrites
11. J Dilla – Love
12. DJ Shadow – Six Days
13. Aesop Rock – Daylight
14. Gil Scott Heron and Brian Jackson – A Toast to the People

Plasticity is brought to you by The SOP Radio Network. For more info. email judy@thesop.org

By the time we got to the Amphitheatre, we could hear the band jammin’ and the folks singin’. We pushed our way through long-hairs with red eyes and new jacks wearing Neil Young t-shirts, making it known to all observers where the roots of their music taste lie. The crowd finally peeled back and revealed three men well into their 60’s singing in unison into their respective microphones.

During the initial set, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash pumped out expected classics like “Guinevere” as well as a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band” which the band dedicated to the Dead’s late front man, Jerry Garcia.  Also, a new song emerged from the set list called “In Your Name” – a song of which its lyrics scream anti-war sentiments.  As I listened to the gray-hairs sing the words “Lord, can you help me deal with this pain? … Stop all this killing in your name,” I thought of today’s enthusiastic pro-peace youth searching for a cause and contrasted this idea with the youth of CSN’s day.  These old hippies were singing about peace backed by faith in God while today’s rebellious youth readily sheds any religious feelings, replacing religious with spiritual or simply accepting a lack of rhyme or reason in the universe.  I was thrust back into the present moment when I heard Graham Nash sitting at a piano saying, “If anyone tells you it’s [being a rock star] about fame and the money, they’re lying.  They want to get laid.”  They proceeded to play “Our House.”  The crowed jumped out of their seats and cheered uproariously.

            Intermission eventually came to fruition in which the entire audience either filed to the grassy knoll in the back of the Amphitheatre for a smoke or browsed the merch tables purchasing jalapeno-covered nachos and $30 t-shirts.  I wandered around the lobby area looking for a much needed restroom.  As I browsed the crowded corridors and long lines I encountered the likes of kids getting busted by the cops for drug possession and Flagler College professors.

After the band took the stage again, the moon smiled crooked as night fell, and the crowd rocked with the aid of booze and other substances. The band grabbed hold of their microphones and cried, “Let’s all go down to Morocco and smoke a big one!”

 The remainder of the show was an outpouring of Woodstock-era rock n’ roll and old dudes killin’ it on guitar. More classic CSN songs made their way through the numerous amplifiers like “Love the One You’re With,” “Lone Time Gone,” and “Déjà Vu.” Bob

Dylan’s “Girl From the North Country” was covered along with the show-stopping encore of Buffalo Springfield’s ultra-famous “For What It’s Worth.”

40 years after the monumental Woodstock festival, Crosby, Stills and Nash, with the help of their St. Augustine fans, proved the spirit is not dead… at least not yet.

In March, during the Harvest of Hope Festival at the St. Johns County Fairgrounds, I got the chance to talk with Chris Demakes, singer and guitarist for Less Than Jake. We sat down for a few minutes and chatted about the new album, the unpopularity of ska music today, the charity toward migrant farm workers from the Harvest of Hope Festival, and hypothetical fights between classic claymation characters.

Scott Bufis: You’re new album is titled “GNV FLA” (pronounced “Gainesville Florida,” the band’s hometown). Is this album a “going-back to the old school?”

Chris Demakes: Umm… It’s going back to the new school. (Laughs) I don’t know, some people say that. I don’t think… It’s hard for me to talk about our albums in that context. It’s like, you know, I think people think it sounds older just because we made a really fast punk rock record with lots of horns, but all of our albums to me… when I listen to them and I hear them, it’s unmistakable. When you hear Vinnie play drums and when you hear Roger and I sing I think that you know what the band is – whether that’s good or bad. So, to me, I don’t know if it’s going back to old school, but I definitely know it sounds like our band. It’s a good representation of where we’re at right now.

SB: So it’s a kind of “living in the present moment” kind-of-thing. You kind of feel what the energy is at that moment.

Chris: When we go to write a record, I mean, I bring ideas to the table that the guys are like, “Dude, that’s not gonna work on a record.” I mean, I write some songs that are really slow and trippy and just stuff that, uh, I don’t know, fuckin’ Matchbox Twenty might record and people are like “What the fuck?”, you know? But that’s all about being a musician. I don’t like getting pegged into a hole. If people like the new record – great – but some of my favorite songs and favorite stuff that we’ve done have been stuff that the fans go, “I can’t stand that.” And I’m like, “You know what? Then, that’s cool.” But, you have to do what comes from the heart, and the new album is just a natural step for us.

SB: Most bands that started out ska bands or ska-punk bands ditched their “two-tone” roots, but you guys keep it real and keep it alive. Is there a lot of pressure in the music industry to drop the ska aesthetic?

Chris Demakes at Harvest of Hope in St. Augustine.

Chris: I wouldn’t say so much “pressure.” I think what people tend to not remember about our band, at least, is that we always – if you go back to our first 7” we ever released, we had songs that didn’t have horns in them and weren’t “ska.” So, we were always a punk band, a pop band. We always had melody, we had, certainly, ska elements, but, you know, for us there was never so much quote-unquote “pressure” to drop the ska sound. It was more of, you know, is this what we want to be doing? When it came to the end of the ‘90’s and early 2000’s you gotta think of the glut of bands that were sounding alike. You know, the six-piece bands with the horn sections that were playing ska-punk. I was probably the one guy in the band that was like, “I don’t want to write that shit anymore because everybody else is writing it.” Well, it was a breath of fresh air on the new record because it was like, all of the bands we ran with back then – there’s only a handful of them around anymore, you know? I actually see kids on MySpace all the time: “Hey, we’re in a ska-punk band now.” They’re like 14 or 15 year-old kids, and I’m like, “Okay.” So everything comes in cycles and comes around, you know? For me, it wasn’t about the major label or anybody telling me that “ska’s not in” or “this or that.” It was more of: I can see not playing upstroke guitar and horns in every song. That was more about what it was.

SB: You guys were once signed to record giant Capitol Records.

Chris: Yup.

SB: Why go off on your own?

Chris: …and Warner Bros.

SB: And Warner Bros.!

Chris: Yes. Let’s not forget. …and Fat Wreck Chords.

SB: The list goes on.

Chris: Fat Mike’s a millionaire, too – you fuckin’ bastards. You know what it is? It got to the point where we’ve been on a ton of labels – major and indies. Our drummer started Fueled By Ramen which became a major label. We’ve run the gamut with that. It got to the point where Warner Bros. was flat-out, “Look, we can’t do anything with you. We’re not going to get you on the radio. We’re not going to put any money into a new record.” And we’re like, “Great. Can we leave?” They were just as ready to get rid of us as we were to get off the label because, for us – I don’t care what band it is – if you’re on a major label, if you’re on any label, you want to sell records. You want to get out there and get your music out to people. For us, we were on a major, and it was like, “Cool. We want to have the money behind us. Push us to radio. Do the whole thing.” And, it wasn’t happening, and it was like, “Okay, great. Can we get out of our contract?” Boom. We were out of it, and there’s no reason to go with another label at this point. People aren’t selling CD’s anymore, okay? Go to a record store. Actually, you can’t find a record store hardly anymore, and if you do, no one’s in it. For us it was just logical to start our own label and to put our own records out.

SB: Who would win in a fight: Gumby or the Pillsbury Doughboy?

Chris: Umm… I would say Gumby just because he would keep tickling the Pillsbury Doughboy’s bellybutton, and he’d get him on the ground and start kicking the shit out of him.

SB: No defense on the Pillsbury Doughboy. He’s got nothing, huh?

Chris: He’s got nothing. Once he starts giggling, he’s done.

SB: Name a few bands that you think deserve some more exposure.

Chris: A band called “The Swellers,” if you’ve heard of those guys or not.

SB: Where are they from?

Chris: The Swellers are from Michigan. They’re a great band in the vein of Propagandhi – really fast punk rock. They’re awesome. I like “A Wilhelm Scream.” Those guys are good friends of mine. They’re fun. What other bands? Umm… A band from Gainesville called “No More.” They’re actually at this festival. Friends of ours. Great band. That’s about it off the top of my head.

SB: And just one more. The festival, Harvest of Hope, it’s about aiding migrant farm workers. What are your thoughts on this kind of charity that this festival’s putting on?

Chris: Well, I mean, you know, money’s tough right now so if people are doing some stuff for charity, then I’m all about it. It’s cool to be able to help people in need in these times. More power to them because most people that put on festivals – it’s a cash grab. There’s no secret about that. We’ve played a number of festivals across this planet. You know, very few – if any of them! – have been a benefit so this is cool.

SB: Cool cool.

www.lessthanjake.com

City officials are trying to find new ground in the debate about use of the Plaza de la Constitucion in the city’s center as a place for free expression.

On Monday, city commissioners stated that they want a new policy for the Plaza that would allow free expression but keep the cheap sunglasses and flea market vendors at bay.  At a workshop on the issue, City Attorney Ron Brown called upon other policies in other tourism-rich cities.  “San Antonio requires permits. They cost $750 each and there are only six of them,” he said. “Los Angeles allows political, philosophical, religious or ideological (objects), and all items created by the vendor. The city doesn’t allow housewares, auto parts, oils, candles, jewelry and toys.”

In the past, street artists and musicians were allowed to perform directly on St. George Street – St. Augustine’s main tourist strip -  but because of complaints from shop owners the performers were banned from the strip and relocated to the Plaza.

The debate has come down to a black-or-white decision: Is everyone allowed to perform in the Plaza or no one?

Some officials like Commissioner Leanna Freeman say that an all-or-nothing policy is the safest legally, but adds that “it’s really lazy. This is an evolving process. We’ve tried all or nothing. Nobody seems to be excited about either one. It’s summer. It’s the perfect time to do it.”

Disagreeing with a proposal to make the Plaza a place for free speech and artists, Mayor Joe Boles said: “The northwest corner of the Plaza – closest to St. George Street – is where the most traffic is and where vendors want to cluster. Everything we have tried has not worked.”

The commission has asked Ron Brown to come up with a sample ordinance within the next few weeks.

Commissioner Don Crichlow said, “Where we’re going is where we’ve gone before. (But) we need to do something pretty quick.”