As I posted the footage that I got from Audiofeed Festival 2015, I received a message from Mama Linda (Olson) asking if I could possibly document through film, the ministry of Road Dog Cafe. I agreed that I could & I asked her to just let me know what she wanted. I never necessarily was told what she wanted so the week before Audiofeed Festival, I decided to pay Mama Linda a visit as she, Tara, & Tony tried to prepare for the impending festival. They had a few days left & A LOT of work to do...what I witnessed with my eyes left me doubting it could all get done in time. By God's grace it did!
So, I spent that Saturday at Mama Linda's house as she & Tony discussed the menu. Mama Linda also told me how this feeding of the bands got started through her daughter Amanda feeding & ministering to kids at a skate park in North Carolina. Later, they would do the same thing at Cornerstone & through that Audiofeed Festival was born & the serving has continued. Mama Linda also discussed the feeling that God's called her to step back a little bit & raise up others to carry on the ministry but she was still trying to understand exactly what God was saying. She said all these things while preparing screens for the next round of prints for the official Audiofeed Festival merchandise through her screen printing company - Ugly Lily. Tara continued the printing process from the other screens & Tony continued to prepare for the meals.
Elphie & I arrived early at Audiofeed Festival for the 2016 edition. We were planning to help with GothiCon & the Asylum but when we arrived & got set up, there wasn't much to do so we helped with the preparations of the Road Dog Cafe & continued to document. This year would be different. The Annual Pig Roast was not held on the "Early Access" day as it had been the previous years but on the last night of the Fest which happened to be the Fourth of July. I captured some footage from each of the dinners throughout the duration of Audiofeed then documented the preparations for the Pig Roast. Mama Linda & Tara Trefzger captured a fun moment during breakfast that I was able to include. I was not awake at breakfast time so I missed that. On the Fourth of July, I captured as the pig was removed & the volunteers pulled it in preparation for the rest of us to consume.
It was a rainy week during Audiofeed Festival 2016 which made things somewhat difficult. I had several things going on in the months since the Fest as well as some technical difficulties which delayed the editing process. As this project began to take shape, I asked a few folks to provide a short clip of the impact that Mama Linda & her ministry has had either personally or that they observed.
So what I was able to create in the end was a short film documenting the preparations for ministering to hundreds of artists & bands through hospitality, feeding them, & giving them a space to fellowship while on the road. The film also includes the history & impact of Mama Linda's Kitchen & Road Dog Cafe, preparing the official merchandise of Audiofeed Festival through Ugly Lily - Mama Linda's Screen printing company as well as the preparation of the annual Pig Roast. The footage was mostly compiled during the week leading up to & during Audiofeed Festival. Additional footage was compiled in April & May of 2017.
The Soundtrack is "Dumpster Divers (Breaking of Bread)" by Psalters & "Come All You Weary" by Thrice. These songs were chosen because the subject matter seemed appropriate to what Mama Linda & the Road Dog Cafe do. I suppose there are quite a few other songs out there that fit the mold as well & I could have taken the time to dig up a few other tunes instead of repeating these over & over through the project but I did not feel I had the time to spend doing that. As it was, I had hoped to get the finished project out much sooner than this.
Footage was filmed by Adrienne Michelle, Tara Trefzger, Mama Linda, Elphie, & Joel A. Swanson. Footage was compiled & edited using Final Cut Pro on a Mac Mini by Joel A. Swanson
The original cut of the project now called the "extended version" is also included. There is about 14 minutes of extra footage that I cut out from this one. I hoped to cut it down further but I could not figure out where else to cut.
After returning from Washington, there was a Catacombs show that I considered to be the end of the summer (for video work purposes). The next day, Saturday October 1st, we celebrated fall & the Halloween season with the annual house party. The weather wasn't great & seemed there was a lot going on that night but we had fun with those who came. I unfortunately dropped my phone that night damaging the screen. It seemed to also effect the video a little bit but I did get some footage that night & it has worked alright since then. On Wednesday October 5th, Some friends we met through Rise Above in San Antonio when we went there in 2014 for Death Or Glory Fest flew into O'Hare. Elphie had offered them a place to sleep so we picked them up that night & took them to Huck Finn's for dinner. Throughout the footage, there are clips I will call Stein's Shenanigans filmed by Elphie of our cat. We made a trip downtown on Friday October 14th to Luke's Lobster after searching for places to get Lobster Rolls. We got not only Lobster Rolls but also Crab & Shrimp Rolls. We also got invited to attend a birthday party for James in Lombard on Saturday October 15th. On a couple nice evenings, Elphie took the time to explore the nearby McKinley Park after living here for a couple of years. On Friday, October 21st Westboro "Church" decided to protest down the street from where I work at Weiss Hospital. I decided to walk by & see it but they were leaving around the time I arrived which was supposed to be when their protest started. Clearly, they are not a church as they arrived early & there was no food. What kind of church isn't late & doesn't have food?! The next day, Saturday October 22nd, Elphie & I went to the Wheaton Haunted Flea Market then to the Brauerhouse for a show (footage below). Before the show started, the Cubs beat the Dodgers to get into the World Series. On Wednesday October 26th, there was a donor appreciation dinner for Cornerstone Community Outreach. on Friday October 28th, Elphie captured some World Series sights in Wrigleyville before Nocturna that night. On Saturday October 29th, we went to Saved By The Max on tickets we won through a raffle at the Cornerstone Community Outreach donor appreciation dinner. Mr. Dewey was there! The food was pretty good & a cool concept of a restaraunt. We went downtown for a while then headed back north to Logan Theatre for a showing of Nosferatu with a live score. That was pretty cool too. On Halloween I took the day off work to spend it with Elphie but wasn't feeling so great. I ended up sleeping most of the day. That evening we went to Public House to get a dessert - a cake drink. It was a strange thing...but good. Stewart had a birthday on November 1st then the darn Cubs won the World Series on November 2nd. I filmed some fireworks & such in the neighborhood & the aftermath on November 3rd. On November 13th, the Supermoon occured then on November 20th we went to Disgraceland Wasteland Suspensions for Disgracegiving.
On October 8th, we drove to Rock Island for Gary's Suprise 50th Birthday Bash in his backyard with Leper playing a set until the cops shut it down. There was a little bonfire as well. I had forgotten to charge my camera so the footage cuts off a couple of times while switching between the camera, my iPhone, & Elphie's iPhone. A bit of an embarrassing mistake.
Setlist:
1. Intro
2. Photosensitive
3. Head-Case (Casca)
4. God-Hater
5. Monster
6. I Would Die Tonight For My Beliefs (No Innocent Victim Cover)
7. 13 Silver Bullets
8. Playground (Spielplatz)
During a previous Nocturna, Elphie won tickets to see Midge Ure of Ultravox & The Mixture @ Martyrs' on October 12th. I was not aware of either of these artists prior to this night.
The following evening (October 13th) I had purchased tickets for us to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Death From Above 1979, & Deap Vally @ House of Blues. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club encountered some equipment problems which may have effected their set list somewhat. While they continue to put on a great show, the first time I saw BRMC was definitely one of the best shows I ever saw. I captuired "Red Eyes & Tears."
I previously saw Deap Vally before with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in Pittsburgh. They had a different drummer for this show but still a good set much like I recall from before.
The Run Around played a song called Keep Your L.A. which also was fitting for this night as the Dodgers had just lost to the Cubs for the right to play in the World Series.
Prior to going to Nocturna, I drove out to Palatine to see mewithoutYOU at Durty Nellie's. I filmed the song "I Never Said That I Was Brave" since they were celebrating 15 years as a band & just put out the "I Never Said That I Was Brave" ep on vinyl.
On November 5th, 2 Minute Minor had their debut show at The Mutiny. Wiley asked me to get pics of them playing. I tried but at the time only had my iPhone so they didn't turn out so well in the dimly lit bar. I did get video of the song "Goon Crew" though.
This was the first time I watched Chris Bernstorf even though we've been at the same events several times now. It was a good performance of slam poetry. He had a lot to say.
Shaun Hays came up to Chicago to see Project 86 with me at the Elbo Room on November 17th. I ended up filming the first song of the set which was "P.S." It was a pretty cool rendition of the song. The space was pretty small but the crowd who showed up seemed to enjoy the set. There were several other bands on the bill which I could have gone without seeing.
The next night, on November 18th, The Soil & The Sun played their last show in Chicago at the Beat Kitchen. I've always enjoyed their song "Raised In Glory" so I captured that one last time. I kept starting my camera at the beginning of songs to ensure I would get this one & I did! It was a lot more fun when they had the other members in the band but those who remain still put on a great show.
While working with The 86, I tried to film at least one song from each band who took the stage. In 2011, our first year open, a band was booked on my birthday from Columbus, Ohio. While I wasn't particularly happy with the lineup for that night (my preference would have been towards a punk show), I could see the potential of Twenty One Pilots on that night as could just about everyone else who was fortunate enough to be in the room.
I decided to work through the holiday footage now & get back to other things in the weeks to come. I figured it might be nice to post it while the 2016 holidays aren't quite such a distant memory. For posting to YouTube, I split the footage into four sections. I also included some LIVE footage from shows in December in this post as well as a couple projects I finished or were posted during this time.
Thanksgiving 2016
Contained in this video is footage of our traveling from Chicago to Warren, Pennsylvania through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, & New York. We got to my parents house just before sunrise on Thanksgiving so we went to bed to get as much sleep as we could before heading to my cousins house for Sorensen Thanksgiving dinner in Clymer, NY. We brought our cat, Stein with us. He pretty much stayed in his crate the entire trip & hid under the bed when we got to Warren. We did get him out to explore in the living room though so I included some of the cat footage (of all the cats, Stein, Mu, & Gracie). On Saturday, we traveled to Pittsburgh for the hockey game between the Penguins vs Devils. Penguins got a last second goal from Sid Crosby then won it in the Shootout!. We made a stop at Klavon’s Ice Cream on the way into the city then at Roland’s Seafood Bar & Grill before we left. On Sunday, after having family dinner, we returned to Chicago.
On December 3rd, Elphie & I caught the CTA holiday train as we went on a grocery run. We caught it at the Western Orange Line station. This year, there were two trains. We got some footage of each. I played around with editing on some of the footage. On December 4th, we experienced our first snow in Chicago. Elphie documented this for the most part. There are quite a few clips of cat shenanigans with Stein. On December 7th, a new television show, Chicago Justice, was filming outside of my work. That evening Elphie & I went to the International Museum of Surgical Science for a tour. Afterwards, we stopped at Millenium Park to see the Christmas tree. December 9th there was a Catacombs show. That footage will be edited then posted later but I did get some footage of the city Christmas lights. December 16th was a Christmas party at Cornerstone Community Outreach for the staff where Santa Stewart & the Grinch showed up. December 18th, we decided to cook a mystery meat. It turned out to taste great! Thank God! Elphie got some more silly Stein footage as well. On December 19th, we had the coldest day of the year so far which I documented on my commute to work for another Christmas party. On December 21st, we went to the ChristkindlMarket & the Lincoln Park Zoo Lights.
Also in December, I caught a couple concerts. On Friday, December 2nd at Double Door, I went to one of the two Cock Sparrer shows. I decided on the Friday show because the openers were friends - Brick Assassin & Flatfoot 56. It was packed & a bit crazy but a great show.
I decided to film Brick Assassin doing Entitlement Generation because they brought back Kevin Pflanz to do the vocals since he was in town. It was a great performance in a fun set.
I filmed "Working" by Cock Sparrer but easily could have picked just about any song in the set. The crowd was into it the whole night & interacting. This was the first time I had a chance to see Cock Sparrer & the way 2016 has treated celebrities & the music world I figured it might be the only chance to see them. The show had a feel of what I love about punk shows - community. It was a great time crammed in that space hearing lots of good music all night!
Filmed LIVE at Double Door in Wicker Park, Chicago, Illinois on Friday, December 2nd, 2016 using an iPhone 6. Edited using Final Cut Pro on a Mac Mini.
On Thursday December 15th, I rushed out of work to get to the Bottom Lounge so I could see the Farewell Tour of For Today. While I'm not as big of a fan as I was in their early career (I got somewhat bored by the style they play), I did want to see them one last time. It was a good show. The opening acts were My Epic, Silent Planet, & Norma Jean
I got in the door as My Epic was playing their last song. I filmed what I could of it...it isn't much but it's something. It bums me out that I missed this set
Silent Planet was next. I love their social justice message. Their Christian worldview is similar to mine which seems at odds quite often with the Christianity we see portrayed in media, politics, & the mainstream church. They spoke about how hard it must be in Chicago to be homeless with weather that "wants to kill you."
I filmed a song called 10,000 Watts from Norma Jean. It's from a new album they recently put out that I haven't yet heard. It seems to be an interesting song. While the original Norma Jean will always be my favorite lineup & sound that they created, they still do a decent show.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to capture from For Today for the last time that I would see them. I thought it would be fun to get their song (Joel) The Watchman for a couple reasons...the name being one & the message being the other. They did not play it so I ended up getting Devastator which was one of the last songs of the night. I really liked this song when it came out as well as the album it was on as a whole. They played a great set & spoke what was on their hearts as they do.
Filmed LIVE at Bottom Lounge in Near West Side, Chicago, Illinois on Thursday, December 15th, 2016 using an iPhone 6. Edited using Final Cut Pro on a Mac Mini.
I finished a project requested by Wiley Willis of October Bird of Death which was a compilation video of each of their songs from their upcoming release "Death Made It's Offer" early in December. Each of the songs were filmed live at different locations throughout 2016. It was a pretty simple project to make but it was fun!
1. This Is Our Lives LIVE @ An Seanachi (08.14.16)
A project I finished months ago also found it's way to youtube in December on the page of Destroy Nate Allen. It was a compilation of live clips for the song Vegetables from their last full tour. It became the first "official" music video I've done. It was fun to do!
We left for our Christmas travels on December 23rd. Santa Stewart saw me off in the morning while I finished some work things. We traveled from Chicago through Indiana. We stopped at a Meijer where another one of Indiana's fine drivers did a hit & run denting my bumper. This extended our stay at the Meijer while I waited for the police to file a report. We stopped at a Skyline Chili in Batesville, Indiana as well before stopping at the Sheehy's in the Cincinnati area for the night. We visited a bit before getting some sleep & resuming our travels on Christmas Eve through Kentucky, Tennessee & into North Carolina. We had a Christmas celebration with the family on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we watched the Pittsburgh Steelers clinch the North division versus the Ravens. On December 26th we got some R.O’s Bar-B-Que, & hung out with family some more. December 27th, Elphie & I went to her mom's to do Christmas with them. Our trip was officially extended to deal with Elphie's dad dying so we spent New Year's Eve cleaning out some stuff, watching kids do some go kart riding then rang in the New Year. We attended the funeral & spent more time with family through the rest of the week. We also made our the annual South Carolina fuel stop.
We made our trip north to my parents home in Warren, PA after the extended southern stay, traveling through the mountains of North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia & into Pennsylvania. We decided to once again make a pizza stop at Gavino’s in Mckees Rocks near Pittsburgh. After sitting to eat for a bit, we resumed our journey & encountered a bit of snow just north of Pittsburgh. We arrived in Warren after midnight so we unloaded. We celebrated Christmas with family the following evening. We visited with my grandma for a bit then on Friday Elphie gave my northern family a little southern food taste test consisting of RO's Bar-B- Que slaw, Pimento Cheese, & Liver Pudding. Later that evening we played a game with my brother called Exploding Kittens. On Saturday, we returned to Chicago through the snow in New York & Pennsylvania but mostly dry, cold conditions in Ohio, Indiana, & Illinois. We reunited with Stein after being gone for two weeks. He seemed to be happy to see us.
This video consists of clips from Destroy Nate Allen's 2012 full US Tour documented in another blog. This took me all through the summer to finish after the editing & documenting of each show. As I documented those shows, I would also create a file of the footage of just the song "Vegetables" from each performance. I would also create another file if there was something that would catch my eye from another part of the show that I felt might work well in this video...be it dance moves, crowd or band reactions...anything that felt right. As I went along, I started getting the idea to built an intro from the beginning of the shows as well as something to end the video with from the end of some of the shows. This would be the intro & outro to this music video...it was my "artistic" liberty that I'm glad Nate & Tessa didn't ask to be cut, ha!
I would watch The Vegetables clips through sometimes several times each...Nate had asked me to capture the unique dance moves from each night so I did that as much as I could. I tried to sync up certain parts to the lyrics of the song as well. I probably drove my wife nuts having to hear the song so many times...and more as I started to put the clips into place. Thankfully, she is a fan of Destroy Nate Allen & we are all friends so I think she handled it pretty well...hahaha!
The "bicycles" scene was the first part I worked though...I found all the clips I could of people miming the riding of bicycles & used as many of the clips that I could to fit into this section I had to use the clip I had of a guy on a unicycle in this. Next up, I worked through the "hardcore breakdown" getting the best "pit moves" I could find. Other parts I focused on were people miming what appeared to be shopping, a guy using actual exercise equipment, & the guy who decided to do pushups. I felt each of these were highlight moments...some even were mentioned by Nate & Tessa during the shows. I did try to get as many different clips of as many different shows as I could. Some did stand out more than others so some shows are represented better than others. Overall, I felt I did the best I could when it was done. I gave it a couple days before I sent it off to Nate & Tessa...I wanted to ensure I was satisfied with what I created first while remaining open to constructive criticisms & making any edits or adjustments they may feel needed to be done. Nate did give me a few ideas he would like to see done differently & those changes were made over a week...as each change was made, a new file was sent to Nate for his approval. Some changes were removed if it was found to not be as appealing while other changes were made as needed. I believe it was toward the end of September when the final approved file was created & sent to Nate to be uploaded.
Now it is available for all to see!!
This was a lot of fun to work on & I hope to do something like this again one day soon! I am thankful for the opportunity Nate & Tessa gave me with this.
Here is the blog I wrote about working through the footage from the 2012 Full US Destroy Nate Allen Tour which includes the playlist of the tour footage as well as that of bands who played on tour dates with Destroy Nate Allen.
All this has been the first official work I've gotten to do for others & I am happy it turned out well enough for it to be used. Enjoy!
Doing these videos & booking shows over that years has allowed for opportunities to open up for me recently.
One of those has been to go through the archives of video footage filmed by fans from the last US tour by Destroy Nate Allen which occurred 3 and 1/2 years ago in 2012 & upload them to the Destroy Nate Allen Youtube channel. As of June 27th, I have finished editing, documenting the set lists, & uploading each show from this tour. Here is the playlist of that tour:
Because the footage is by fans, the video quality is not always the greatest (for instance, quite often the camera work is shaky) but each show is documented to the best of the ability of both Destroy Nate Allen and the fans. As I understand it, Nate wanted to get this footage out to the fans who attended these shows for quite some time, he just hasn't had the time to go through all the footage which was filmed over a 3 month tour & upload it. So that is what I have done so far. More or less, in this case, my job has been to find the best starting & ending points (cutting the excess footage as necessary), adding a title which includes the date & location of the shows, & making the set list for each night to include in the video information on YouTube.
This project, though time consuming, was interesting & fun. It was cool to see the crowd interaction in the different parts of the country as well as see some folks I happen to know at the different shows. I learned a few new things while working through this project as well. I had to convert the files in different ways than I had before to be able to do the editing but it now should make it possible for me to edit other projects in the future that will be coming along now having this knowledge.
I am also going to attempt to make a music video compiling clips from each performance of the song "Vegetables" from this tour after I have gone through all the footage. I hope it will turn out well. This is yet to be done but I hope to have it done soon. That will come in a future update.
I also edited footage captured of some of the bands that played with Destroy Nate Allen while on this tour. I added this footage into a previously made playlist titled "Friends of Destroy Nate Allen" which is linked below:
Anyway, hope you enjoy this project I am doing for someone other than myself for a change...especially if you are a fan of Destroy Nate Allen.
JUST ADDED!! The official music video for "Vegetables" by Destroy Nate Allen is now available on their YouTube channel as well as at the High Endurance Records website. This video consists of clips from the 2012 full US Tour documented above. This took through the summer to finish & is now public for all to see.
https://youtu.be/cLcTnojlojs This video compilation of the LIVE footage of October Bird Of Death after attending several shows & filming different songs each time. The idea was to get all the songs from an upcoming release filmed live & put in order. I don't know what the album order will be so instead, I put it in order of the set list they have most recently been playing. I had originally figured I'd just make a playlist but Glenn Willis asked if it was possible to make one video of all the songs. So I did that instead.
As noted in the previous blog...I included it with the DVD of the video footage from the Wilson Abbey show on 10.30.16 due to my mistake that resulted in the loss of the 6'10 video files from that show. So if anyone is interested in having a DVD copy of this, contact me & I can get it to you.
Here's a list of the footage included & where it was filmed:
