videomusics

Here's my most recent blog on local happenings in Salt Lake music.

Click on Salt Blog if you'd like to see what City Weekly turned this into. It's pretty much the same, just in their fancy format that may be easier on the eyes.


Two things happen when a bearded man starts hanging a sheet in front of a bar stage. You either hope for some naughty shadow play from a backlit woman, or you prepare for the disappointment of somebody showing some crap visuals to go with their crap music. Alexis Gideon did neither last Tuesday night so I was pleasantly surprised.

The guitarist for Portland's CarCrashLander performed solo along with his animated and claymation infused tribute to Hungarian myths he's named Video Musics. I actually bought a copy, it was that interesting, and I plan on absorbing it again in the future. I'm just waiting to do some mescaline* and watch it at some point in my mid-40's: I dream big people. The last tour stop of Gideon's, along with tour mate Shelley Short, featured local openers The Black Hens and was not a let down in the least. I wish more people were there to appreciate the performance, but judging by the size of the crowd and the group actually engaged in the act of watching the piece, I assume most Utah residents just wouldn't get it. And if I hadn't been exposed to cinema like the Buñuel/Dali piece Un Chien Andalou, I would have probably thought Gideon's work was ridiculous. The guys playing ping-pong while it was being performed obviously thought so.

But, it isn't ridiculous. Gideon performs his magnum opus with guitar, rap and "normal" vocalizations along with xylophone plinks during some really interesting projections: a bad ass lizard (Brimstone Blaine) on a motorized vehicle harasses trains, another lizard creature seduces a fox princess by catching an elusive apple, and a cat-headed woman ventures through constellations into another dimension where spacemen dislocate her head–that's just a small sample of the genius of the work that is loosely based on some sort of animal theme from Hungary. Click here for "Brimstone Blaine" if you'd like to see what I mean. It will require a second viewing for me to really get it, most definitely. A first visceral viewing still resonates though, enough to recommend that you find this piece if you like avant-garde cinema, or if you have some mescaline* on hand. And if you have the latter, email Jamie Gadette and have her get back to me. I could push my goals forward a few decades. For scientific purposes, of course. Thanks must go to Slowtrain records for helping put the show on and for The Woodshed for hosting it. And see Gideon the next time he comes by. You won't regret it.

*Jon Paxton does not endorse intake of mind-altering substances of any kind. Especially peyote.


-jon paxton