Hipsville 29 B.C...

...is the title of a song originally recorded by a West Texas band called THE SPARKLES that was active in the '50's and '60's. They seem to have started out like most groups of the time playing early rock and roll, which was an mix of country(and western), and blues that sometimes careened into rockabilly. They stayed together long enough to change with the times and this song in particular is the only one I'm actually that familiar with. It sounds like a lot of "garage" type songs with simple fuzzed out guitar, and the singer channels a little James Brown to great effect, but the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts as they say.

I'm going to record my own version of it with the help of some friends in the next few weeks and I'm getting pretty amped about it. I haven't recorded music in any form since college and never in a manner approaching professionalism. I may end up playing a majority of the instruments but I will at least play rhythm guitar and sing lead. The motivation into these largely uncharted waters came in the form of a call for entries in the Shakin' Street forum on Garagepunk.com. They are asking for '60's covers focusing on garage rock. They seem to be pretty lax in their standards though I think they're expecting people to suprise themselves which I hope is the case. I remember the reference to something like "a guy with a tape recorder and an out-of-tune guitar" and this can be a beautiful asethetic if you are at all familiar with tastes that run toward the LO-FI or RAW/PRIMITIVE. This is not to say that there aren't some certifiable "legends" of various eras involved, like Tom Kirby of TONTO AND THE RENEGADES fame whose song "Little Boy Blue" is a very well known example of the genre. The tentative title for the compilation is Under the Covers, and I like it.

I also wanted to mention the fact that my big screen debut occured on Wednesday night at of all places The Studio Movie Grill in Plano, Tx. I had a walk-on in my friend Justin's short film THE HISTORY OF THE LURKERS which is going to be part of an anthology of shorts based on H.P. Lovecraft stories. This is just a warm up for the debut of his feature length POT ZOMBIES in which I have a larger role. This should come out in the next few months.

http://www.thesparkles.net/

(Check out Pot Zombies at Myspace!)