This is good news from JJ at Team Clermont!

“WOOT! Aficionado had a stellar week! The record moved up 43 spots to land at #125 on the CMJ Top 200! I’m glad that more stations are wising up and getting on board. We have a lot of great folks supporting the record and I suspect we should pick up some more as stations pop back up on the air. ALSO! In Aaron Ross News: Shapeshifter showed up on the spins chart this week . “Looking Glass Mass” was #60 on the Independent Tracks chart and the album was #78 on the Independent album Spins chart. WOOT!”

By Eddie Jorgensen

See, kids, it’s only safe to stand in the middle of the road when you’re not actually there.

9 p.m. Saturday with Red Tape, $7. Old Ironsides, 1902 10th Street; (916) 443-9751; www.myspace.com/themhills.

Several years ago, the thought of Nevada City being home to a “formidable” music scene would have been met with skepticism and, perhaps, a little laughter. While there were indeed some great bands from up in the hills that frequented Sacramento’s downtown venues, their ventures were few and far between. More recently, however, thanks to Nevada City’s own Grass Roots Record Company, many bands and solo artists from around “the N.C.” have made considerable headway into the NorCal and greater Bay Area music scenes.

One act in particular, Them Hills—Dan Elkan (vocals/guitar), David Torch (drums), and Thaddeus Stoenner (bass)—has upped the ante not only for bands from their own high elevation town, but also for bands from around the entire Sacramento Valley, as well.

While many Sacramentans will know Elkan and Stoenner from their previous group, Pocket For Corduroy, drummer Torch is a relative newcomer to the local scene and a recent transplant from Reno.

Notes Torch: “I had recently moved to Nevada City for a job at the local newspaper, where I met Thad and began to play with him in one of his projects. Up until then, I had sort of quit playing for a while to focus on photography. To be honest, I’d grown tired of what I was working on and needed a change.”

Elkan had an idea of the sound he wanted and a clear reason for forming the band—he wanted a trio that was something larger than the sum of its parts. “[Thad and I] were into the idea of a trio as a means to approach music in a simpler way, one that would allow for more musical space. When I returned home from two months as a touring musician with Hella, I got together with Thad and David and we began to work on some of the demos that I had put down on the four-track. I left for tour again for another three months and when I returned around Christmas 2005, we dubbed ourselves Them Hills and began to focus.”

Though Them Hills had a song featured on Grass Roots Record Co.’s excellent Family Album compilation, this time ’round the band chose to keep its business closer to the vest, putting out the latest record independently.

“We have no distribution and no label,” explains Elkan. “This first pressing is small, so for now we’ll get it in some local record stores and have it available at shows, and it’ll be available through cdbaby.com and digitally through iTunes.”

Additionally, the band recorded the full-length album in two different studios: Brighton Sound and the newer Station To Station, both owned by the multitalented producer/musician Dana Gumbiner. Aided by Gumbiner and Hella’s Zach Hill, the band launched into the sessions that would make up this new album, Greener Grassing.

While the band’s influences are many, they agree that groups like Wire, Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine and Brian Eno share a place in their collective hearts. Adds Torch, “We all love Soundgarden and we’re making our best effort to convince Thad to give reggae and dub a chance. I love John Fahey and hip-hop.”

One listen to the many intricate layers of sound and spatial placement of the overdubs on Greener Grassing is enough to grab anyone’s attention. While Them Hills’ brand of music may be hastily categorized as “emo” or “indie,” it relies solely on the listener to partake in their experience. Songs like “All Aboard” and “Grow Down” nearly dumbfound the senses with alarming melodies and keen arrangements.

With the release of its first full-length CD pending, the band will be celebrating the glorious event with two special shows: Saturday, August 11, at Old Ironsides, 1901 10th Street; and Friday, August 17, at the Miner’s Foundry in (where else?) Nevada City.

If you’ve been forced to prioritize your concert viewing, the Them Hills CD release show should be high on your list. Visit the band’s lovely MySpace page for music samples and you’ll see why.

Indie spirit reigns at film festival
By Jill Bauerle
Staff Writer, jillb@theunion.com
» More from Jill Bauerle
3:16 p.m. PT Aug 13, 2007

Making an independent film takes time and money, but what a budding filmmaker needs most is gumption and a compelling story, two filmmakers with a success story said.

“You need to get hooked,” said Shane King, co-director of the documentary, “Girls Rock,” which will be screened Sunday afternoon during the Nevada City Film Festival.

The festival will present more than 30 local and international independent films over four days, starting with an opening-night gala at the Nevada Theatre on Thursday and wrapping up with an awards ceremony at the National Hotel at 3 p.m. Sunday.
King and co-director Arne Johnson had wanted to make a film together since their grade school days in Portland, Ore.

But it wasn’t until nearly three decades later, when Johnson learned how Portland’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls was transforming the lives of its young attendees, that the two friends shot their first frame.

“The camp was really this life raft for modern young women in America,” said King, adding that the time he spent at the camp taught him how rough it is to be a pre-adolescent girl today.

“The pressure to be quiet and skinny can be devastating to self-esteem and personality,” King said.

To finance their film, King, 39, mortgaged his Bay Area home, and Johnson, 39, cashed out his retirement funds.

The two directors can afford to laugh about the risk now, having signed a national distribution deal in the U.S. But back when the film was just an idea, they felt the story’s importance outweighed their doubts about losing money.

The film has garnered a lot of attention since its premiere this summer at the Seattle Independent Film Festival. This weekend, Nevada County residents will get an opportunity to see it long before the film’s nationwide release in March 2008.
The film festival will also feature panel discussions on topics such as Internet storytelling and independent filmmaking.

Time-lapse view of Placer County

On Saturday, the creators of the YouTube sensation, “Lonelygirl15,” will talk about how artists can use the Internet to find an audience for their work. The talk will take place at the National Hotel at 5:30 p.m.

Fans of short films will have a choice of three different programs, including works by local filmmakers and films about local subjects.

On Friday at 7:30, Nevada City native Corey Creasey will screen his paean to domestic life, “Children are a Gift,” during an hourlong shorts program at the Miner’s Foundry.

Friday evening’s program at the Miner’s Foundry also includes “Placerqatsi,” by Mike Posehn, which takes a look at the wonders of Placer County through a time-lapse camera. It is among many movies inspired by Godfrey Reggio’s visually rich 1983 film, “Koyaanisqatsi,” which was titled after Hopi words.

Sacramento band featured

The Sacramento-based band Hella is the subject of the hourlong documentary, “Portals,” by R. T. Thomas, of Huntington Beach.

Thomas followed Hella members around backstage at Arco Arena last summer when they played their first arena show with a nationally touring band.

For an indie band used to playing small venues, the arena shows were both “exciting and weird,” Thomas said.

The same might be said about a growing film festival in a small town like Nevada City, which promises to bring four days of eclectic visions from artists around the globe.

For more information about the Nevada City Film Festival, go to www.nevadacityfilmfestival.com, or call 265-8034.

The Epic of Mariee Sioux’s Faces in the Rocks: The making of an album and what it can mean to Artist and Listener.

Get out there and see this. my goodness.

by Alison Schmidt

This new Aaron Ross record is going to be drop-dead, ding-dong, dirt-dog DOPE.

I was just thinking about the first time I ever saw/heard him.

Before they tore it down to build a Holiday Inn Express, there was a little ivy-covered theatre on Bank Street in Grass Valley, California. (There were also a few other righteous businesses, including the best bowling alley ever, Gold Bowl, and its bar, The Flume Room. But I won’t get into those now. I also won’t get into the fact that even before those ancient relics of my youth were there, there was Chinatown.)

The Studio Theatre was home to many of my firsts—nothing pervy, just dancing as a little kid at Nelda and Lennie’s dance studio, my theatre debut in The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and the first time I saw Aaron Ross. Cooool.

It was May 1, 1999 at the Studio Theatre, and it was the CD release show for The Gears’ Today and Tomorrow. The Zombots and In Memory of Radio opened. Amazing. The Gears! Ever heard of Adam Kline and Jason Graham of Golden Shoulders? Ever head of Neal Morgan? The Zombots! Ever heard of Bill Kiley? The Eloi? In Memory of Radio! Obviously, have you ever heard of Aaron Ross?

So anyway, although In Memory of Radio was a very young band, there was an unmistakable quality to the songs—super amazing pop songs with a bonkers singer/songerwriter vibe. Aaron’s talent was not hard to see, and soon enough he was onto his actual singer/songwriter solo thing at J@ck’s Internet Cafe (RIP—again). Dang! “Take note,” I told myself. “Take note,” everybody else told themselves.

Some other bands told themselves that between then and now, too, for we saw Aaron as the ever-engaging and ripping frontman of some very cool—if too short-lived—bands, like Let Go and Fresh Young Blood. But his own amazing powers as a one-man show never stopped ribboning through everything else. There are a few recordings of various projects out there, and although you must be sly and coy to get some of the older ones, his fantastic 2003 release, The Hallelujah Side is still available, I think.

Currently, we can see him fronting Hella, and now this new album, the truly, truly incredible catalog of songs, SHAPESHIFTER, will be out on Grass Roots Record Co. come summertime. Indeed, we’ll be BBQing to it in no time. I think the album will do a great job of entertaining the many ideas of what Aaron can do—it’s a happy marriage of every musical aspect we’ve seen from him thus far, and adds even more that blows the mind and scratches the back.

Hey now, do yourself a favor: Take note.

by Alison Schmidt

Can we just take a moment and think about how many amazing shows have happened at Cooper’s in Nevada City? Do you know that there is live music there six nights a week? Every single day that Cooper’s is open, there is a show to go see. I can think of tons of rad shows that occurred there, and I’m not even scratching the surface.

Let us honor booking dude Mikail Graham for the last five years of heavy-hitters!

As you may have guessed, all this reminiscing and praise is to soften the blow when I tell you that Cooper’s as we know it is finished after February 18, 2007. It has been sold, and although the new owners claim they will continue the live music tradition, Mikail will not be booking.

Thank you so much to Mikail Graham and owner/manager Rick McKenzie for building a terrific live music scene at Cooper’s. I can only hope the new management can live up to the legacy they have left behind.

But “left behind” nothing! Mikail and Rick have a new undertaking called Nevada City Music Events that will pick up where Cooper’s left off—its goal is “to bring a diverse range of multi-cultural LIVE MUSIC to Nevada County and make each occasion a unique and fun celebration…while donating a portion of every show’s profits to a worthy local charity.”

FAR OUT!!

The charitable nature of this team has already been proved by several benefit shows at Cooper’s, including the recent show for Heifer International that raised enough money to provide a family in a developing nation with a cow, and another that raised $4,910 for Hospitality House of Western Nevada County, a local homeless shelter.

Another really awesome thing about Mikail and Rick’s new project is that they will be able to hold all-ages shows, which is something we always want in our area. KIDS MUST ROCK!!

Nevada City Music Events already has at least five shows booked, one of which is a Grass Roots Record Co. showcase on Saturday, April 7th at the Miner’s Foundry, AKA the coolest building in Nevada County.

Anyhow, thanks again to those two guys. It was really inevitable that they would continue booking bands considering the list of bands they have worked with just during their relatively short tenure at Cooper’s. DANG!