Little Red Riding Hood

Next Friday, May 11, Anna Trodglen, creator of the online comic strip Biscuits & Bellyrubs, will unveil her translation and illustration of Little Red Riding Hood, the classic children’s story, from the original German. The book celebration is set to be held at the Young Blood Gallery (636 N Highland Ave. Atlanta, GA 30306/404-254-4127), from 6 to 9 PM. As befits a children’s book, kids are encouraged to attend (bring the parents of course) the gathering, where snacks and sodas will be served. As an added bonus, Anna’s musical collaboration with husband Dugan Trodglen and John Armstrong (aka the legendary band, DQE) will perform a set. In anticipation of the event, Anna and the book’s designer/letterer Anthony Owsley allowed me to email interview them. (Eagle eye readers will note this marks the second time I have gotten to interview Anna [the first time being in 2010]) My thanks to Trodglen & Owsley for the interview.

Tim O’Shea: What inspired you to tackle Little Red Riding Hood, rather than translating one of the myriad other German folklore tales?

Anna Trodglen: I wanted to do Little Red Riding Hood because I was really drawn to the Wolf. He seemed very interesting and as a dog relative he was appealing to me. I also liked the limited number of cast in the story and that there were three distinct female characters.

O’Shea: Was there any aspect of the translation that proved more daunting than expected?

Trodglen: For the most part the translation went well but there were a couple sentences that had so many pronouns in them that I couldn’t figure out what was going on, so I just let those sentences go.

O’Shea: In translating the story, were there nuances you learned that you had not heard in previous versions of the tale?

Trodglen: There’s a postlog that’s a little different and surprising.

O’Shea:  How did you and designer/letterer Anthony Owsley decide upon a design for the book? Were several fonts considered before you settled on the final one?

Anthony Owsley: When Anna showed me the drawings she was working on, and explained how she wanted a completely traditional approach to the storytelling, I immediately got the idea of an old letterpress edition storybook. Anna and I are both big fans of late 19th Century/early 20th Century storybooks and often give each other old picture books as gifts, so that was an approach we both readily agreed on.

I wanted to color it in a way that would not distract from, or obscure Anna’s line work, which is often uniform width and highly detailed. I decided to use a limited color palette with large areas of broad flat colors which, again, would harken back to turn-of-the-Century letterpress drawings and early comic strips.

Font selection was pretty easy and I got it right the first time. I wanted something that looked antique, traditional and slightly fairytale without looking too Ren-fair. Thomas Paine has always been one of my favorite fonts and it fit the bill perfectly. It’s rustic and earthy, with enough flourish to fit into a fantasy settting. It also looks good in the 12-16 point range needed for young childrens’ storybooks. Anna loved it immediately.

O’Shea: How did getting Anthony involved make the book a stronger project?

Trodglen: Anthony has lots of experience making books and doing design so I knew I wanted to get him on board. Also Anthony is very meticulous and precise, where I am more slapdash; and he’s a lot more laid back than I am, which is an asset in working with a terrier like me. I knew Anthony could do a great job, and he did.

O’Shea: Anthony, what is it about Anna’s work that made you want to be involved in the project?

Owsley: Anna and I have been friends for many years and always wanted to collaborate on something, but nothing suitable ever came up. This was a chance to finally do something together. Also, when I learned that she was going to produce this through CreateSpace, I saw it as an opportunity to learn a few new technological skills that could help me on later freelance jobs.

O’Shea: The book will be officially launched at Young Blood Gallery in Virginia Highlands on May 11, what makes that gallery an ideal place for the launch?

Trodglen: Young Blood is a really classy place and has tons of nice looking, solid art, so it’s exciting to get to work with them. It has a gallery and boutique. The book will be on sale at the gallery at the opening and into the future. I will have greeting cards and prints as well and I think Anthony will have stuff for sale too.

Owsley: I used to have a studio space near Young Blood’s original Grant Park location so I would often drop in and look around. I always liked their DIY attitude. When I finally caught up with them in their new space, I was impressed. They had a nice boutique in the front part to sell artwork, and a huge open space in the back suitable for a live band to play. I thought it was perfect.

O’Shea: Given your many talents, am I correct in assuming there might be some live music at the book launch?

Trodglen: Dugan and John (Armstrong) and I will play a honky tonk acoustic set at 7 pm. The opening is from 6 to 9.

O’Shea: How satisfying was it to get to the finish line with this book, and to hold the finished product in your hands?

Trodglen: It’s a little scary to get to the finish line with a project, because that means it’s over, but I think we’re both pretty happy with it. The fi al stretch with multiple proofs and problems was so stressful too that when it finally got cleared up it was really a relief. All of that last bit of design and proofing fell to Anthony and he was really patient about it, which I appreciate.

Owsley: There were a few frustrating periods in the production of the book. There was a bit of a learning curve with formatting the book to CreateSpace’s template. We had to go through several proofs before getting it the way we both liked it. But the hard work paid off. I think it looks great!

The Rainmakers
Let My People Go Go

Flags will be lowered across the state Friday in honor of Arkansas native and celebrated musician Levon Helm…

Then there’s the A.P. reporter Mary Esch covered the wake, which included the following quote from Al Caron:

He was an icon, but also the guy next door…

Dear Friends,
Levon is in the final stages of his battle with cancer. Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey.

Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration… he has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage…

We appreciate all the love and support and concern.

To celebrate him as he is still with us, I share a couple of things.

This February 2012 interview was held after he’d spent two hours of playing drums. I loved around the six-minute mark when Helm said: “I am not the poster boy for good health, but I am not doing too bad.” That man has always possessed a great smile, throughout all his adversity/triumph in recent years.

Watch Quick Hits: An Interview with Levon Helm on PBS. See more from Sound Tracks.

Also, from 2009 at the Ryman, Helm singing The Weight with John Hiatt (and Buddy Miller playing with them along with many, many others).

I love that the author advises viewers to check out the 50-second mark on this video (for Charlie Watts’ reaction while playing in a song that he has very little to perform).

Then there is this video, at the 2-minute mark, where Charlie clearly does not want the documentary maker filming him as he is seeemingly disengaged.

Please check out the whole Tumblr site, if for nothing else this Rick Moranis as Michael McDonald bit.

What recently garnered my interest about this seemingly obscure club of the early 1980s? Well I stumbled across a YouTube video of Allen Ginsberg appearing at the club. I am hoping to find out more about the club in the coming weeks (looking at the folks on the fan page, it appears that many of the folks are friends with many of my Atlanta art scene fans–so I am hoping to mine their collective knowledge). But for today, I offer the video (plus a link to the second part). Enjoy.

What really surprises me about my ignorance of this club? Less than 10 years later in the early 1990s, my then girlfriend and I rented an apartment less than a mile from the club’s former location.

These are busy times for musician J.D. McPherson, seeing as this week he will be making the rounds at SXSW, then next month will see Rounder Records re-release his album, Signs & Signifiers (initially released by his bass player Jimmy Sutton’s HiStyle Records in 2010). McPherson is a singer/songwriter who clearly has an affinity for music’s history, but with a distinctive voice that defies any comparison and that is garnering him an increasing amount of attention. Last week he learned that his music had been nominated in the rock/hard rock category by the Independent Music Awards. This was on the heels of learning last month that Decca Records will be releasing his Signs & Signifiers in the United Kingdom, news that pleased him so much that he tweeted “This is more special than gold to me”. McPherson was recently kind enough to answer a few of my questions about the making of his album in this email interview. After reading the interview, be sure to check his tour page to see if he’s playing near you.

How important was it to you to be able to record Signs & Signifiers in 100% analog?

It was my first experience recording in this way, and I can promise you that I have no interest in recording in any other environment from here on out. It was a completely exciting and rewarding process.

How early in the CD’s development did you realize you wanted to record a cover of Country Boy?

It was a couple of weeks before I had left for Chicago. I was listening to Tiny Kennedy’s version of Country Boy in the car. I really liked the groove of the song, and the repetitiveness of the lyrics. During recording, we had discussions to make it have more of a hip hop influence, in the way that the music mimics a “loop”. It’s a very sparse arrangement, one of my favorites on the record.

Does it creatively liberate you to avoid being labeled/classified as any particular musical genre?

Getting classified is unavoidable, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. We are very clear about having a starting point in 1950s Rhythm & Blues and Rock N’ Roll, but we’re trying to write songs and arrangements that are forward-thinking.

In what ways does your album benefit from collaborating with fellow musicians, Jimmy Sutton (Bass, Guitars) and Alex Hall (Drums, Piano, Organ)?

Jimmy is my collaborator, as well as the bass player and producer of the album. His greatest strength is his ability to inject style into a recording, and discovering hooks to make a song infectious. We are told quite often that there’s not a lot of filler on this record, and I attribute that to Jimmy’s input. Alex is also a huge part of the process… he’s a brilliant engineer, and a musical prodigy as well! He’s also a great contributor to the creative process in the studio. I’m the luckiest kid in the world to be working with these fellows.

Signs & Signifiers also features a number of appearances from guest artists, including Scott Ligon on piano, as well as Susan Voelz on violin and Allison Chesley on cello. In the case of guest artists how much effort does it take to establish a rapport with the artist in a short amount of time?

As far as Scott Ligon (piano) goes… I didn’t know him from Adam. He came into the studio, sat down at the piano and started producing the most brilliant piano playing I’d ever heard… He’s not afraid to really push the envelope, and he’s also this amazing blend of traditional and avant garde! He plays guitar with Terry Adams in NRBQ, and I know that Terry’s playing is a huge influence on him. I look up to Scott in a major way. He’s such a musical guy. I never met Susan and Allison personally, but I’m so moved by their contribution to “A Gentle Awakening”… their playing is so beautiful.

Can you walk readers through the experience of making the video for A Gentle Awakening?

We wanted to shoot something in Oklahoma, on the ranch where I grew up. We had already shot North Side Gal in Chicago, so we wanted to get the other side as well. Jimmy and our buddy James Ventrella drove down from Chicago in early February, and we shot nonstop for three days straight, waking up before the dawn to try to take advantage of the beautiful light that happens just before the sun rises. We did the same thing at sunset. At night, we’d talk about what we were going to shoot the next day. Jimmy has this beautiful vintage portable Ampex recorder, and we used it in the shoot. It’s sort of an homage to the [Alan] Lomax field recordings. Everything you see in that video is on the McPherson ranch, still operated by my parents in Southeast Oklahoma.

Speaking of that video, when did you find out that it had been selected as AOL Spinner’s video of the day?

That was great news! It wasn’t too long after we had released the video. People seem to enjoy it.

In 2011 you played a series of dates in Spain, how is your music perceived abroad?

As it stands right now, the folks in Spain are the most enthusiastic fan base! Each show on our Spanish tour was sold out, or even oversold. We played very large halls in Barcelona, Bilbao, Santiago, and Madrid, and it was an incredible response. A very diverse crowd, as well. Things are also going well in Germany and the Benelux area.

Recently, we were named one of the Top 5 bands to know about in 2011 by NPR here in the states, and that has been a huge help getting things going here at home! A dream of mine is to play Cain’s Ballroom here in Tulsa… It’s the most amazing venue in the world. Here’s hoping for 2012!!!

Man, the audio production on the video is just exquisite.