Studio Apartments

In 2002 at SCAD I made a short documentary as a final project for my advanced editing class. It's called "Studio Apartments," and it follows three musicians as they explore writing and recording music at home. The three musicians were, of course, friends and roommates of mine, but regardless of that bias, I still think it's a pretty decent video piece, and the music is good.

Almost all of my friends in Savannah were artists and/or musicians, and we were all playing around with writing and recording music with a different approach. At the same time, we were constantly bouncing our ideas off of each other. So when I decided to make a documentary, it was a logical step to focus on friends of mine who were also friends amongst themselves. The piece consists of separate interviews and recording footage, so you don't necessarily know that they know one another, but it's evident in other ways.

One reason that this is still interesting to me in the first place is that it's an early look at where these guys were coming from. They've all gone on to do some really great stuff, and are actively continuing to do really great stuff, so it's interesting to see what they were like when they were just starting to figure out what direction they would go in.

Everyone influenced everyone, and there was (and still is) a lot of overlap; during the production of this documentary, Paul Duncan was beginning to record his first album, To an Ambient Hollywood. He lived two doors down from me and Mickey Ladd, so we (and Joe) were all in on early critiques. After graduation, Paul and I were roommates in Atlanta, where he finished the first album and started work on his second. Home-Tapes, an indie label started by two other friends of ours, debuted with that record, and has gone on to become a really awesome, highly respected, successful endeavor; this year they had a showcase stage at the CMJ fest.

Meanwhile, Joe Stickney had moved to Brooklyn and was playing with several bands. My documentary focuses on his electronic music, but Joe is also THE bad-ass drummer. Joe currently plays with Bear in Heaven and just finished a tour with Rhys Chatham as the drummer for Rhys Chatham's Essentialist. After Atlanta, Paul joined Joe in New York, so nowadays Joe also drums in Paul's live band and contributed a lot to his second and third albums.

Since then, Mickey Ladd has kept it pretty low-key on the music tip, but he's still writing and recording little eagles of songs. He sends me mp3s from time to time, and it's really just a matter of time before his stuff will be in your ear, too.

Anyway, for those of you that already know these guys, personally or not, I thought you might get a kick out of seeing what they were doing a few years ago. I emailed Paul a clip and he said it was embarassing, but I beg to differ. Sure, they weren't as far along or musically developed as they are now, but this is historical stuff. I'm preserving it for posterity. Hopefully Paul won't mind too much.

If you've never heard of these folks before, check 'em out. Go to Home-Tapes and buy Paul's stuff. It is VERY GOOD. While you're there, buy some other stuff. Everything Home-Tapes has put out so far has been incredible. They have finely-tuned tastes.

Go to Paul's, Bear in Heaven's and Rhys Chatham's Essentialists myspace pages. Have a listen. I don't know if the latter dudes have anything for sale yet, but keep checking.

Mickey,(1, 2), doesn't have any records out yet, either, but I'll let you know as soon as he does.

so without further whatever, here's the documentary, (in 3 parts thanks to You Tube's file size limit.) Hope you enjoy; let me know what you think.

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