March 22–29, 2001

six pick

Songs for Cassavetes

Indie works more subtly than other music movements, fueled mostly by word of mouth, tours and sacrifice. It has many epicenters, one of which is Olympia, WA, where Calvin Johnson’s K record label continues to show off some of the brightest bulbs in music’s underground one tape, CD, 7-inch and all-ages show at a time. Justin Mitchell’s 1999 documentary Songs for Cassavetes seeks not to define indie, punk or K’s impact on the two, opting instead to examine, through interviews and lengthy concert footage, the K artists trying to make it work. Shot in black and white 16mm, the film looks the way the music sounds: raw, pure, intense. There are some slower parts — you have to sit through some moderately engaging sections on The Peechees, Unwound and Henry’s Dress to get to the fun stuff like Some Velvet Sidewalk, Tullycraft, Johnson’s Dub Narcotic Sound System and Sleater-Kinney, the little band that actually did.

—Patrick Rapa

Fri., March 23, 8 and 10 p.m., $6, Moore College of Art and Design, 20th Street & The Parkway, 215-568-4515, ext. 4099.