Sugarfix Mix

This is a music video heavy installment, so let’s go ahead with links to band websites:

First we have Lemming Malloy, who are currently steam punking their way across  the mid-west playing rock shows and Sci-Fi Conventions.  Can’t wait until they get back home so they can watch this episode.

The little chicken episode is from a Baby Huey cartoon.

Americans in France, Impossible Arms and The Kingsbury Manx are all best found at odessarecords.com.

Waumiss is best found at Littleramonarecords.com.

Ron Liberti is best found at gigposters.com.

The last video is mine, and it is a blatant attempt to persuade one and all to come out to the Cat’s Cradle on Sept. 12 for the release of my first solo album, Summer Tempests.  Visit billysugarfix.com or just check back here at the Sugarfix Mix for more details as they arise.

The opening sequence footage was culled  from the home movie collection of Randolph Shillingpound.

All other archival footage was taken from films at the Prelinger Archives.  If you would like information on the specifics of these films please email me and I will answer any question you have about them.

Hope you like the show!

Intermittently throughout this show we have snippets from a film called Libraries Are for Sharing, which was released by the Board of Co-op Educational Services, I’m guessing some time in the sixties.  My projector runs at a slow speed thus adding the  sluggish deep voiced quality so many of us are familiar with via playing records at the wrong speed.  It is the only old film I own that employs sound.

The South By Southwest stuff includes a lot of cool stuff that you might want to check out:

Felix Obelix

The Physics of Meaning

We Are Dios

Steve Burns and the Struggle

Cathedral of Junk

Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata

All footage for Mother’s Day segment was gleaned from my families stash of home movies.  It’s funny, I bought a batch of old films on ebay hoping to find weird/surreal stuff for the show, and none of it really compared to that of my family.  Oh those Sugarfixes!

This brings us to the piece on the Pin Projekt, which I shot at the 2008 event at which artists decorate/re-create bowling pins for auction.  It was one of the first things I ever shot and edited.  This year’s event will take place   Friday, May 29 8:00p at Pinhook, Durham, NC.  For the third year in a row, I will be the auctioneer.  The Pin Projekt is a fundraiser for the Troika Music Festival.  Oh, and by the way, I’m aware of the fact that I spelled Project wrong (which is to say correctly) in the opening credits.

With the Birds and Arrows piece, I had the luxury of helping shoot it but did none of the editing, which is roughly the equivalent of eating and not having to do the dishes.  Big thanks to Brian Risk and Jonathan Durlam for making this happen, and of course to Birds and Arrows for making such fine music.

Birds and Arrows

Scratch film was done by Rachael Fiorentino and her classmates.  Rachael also contributed  a piece on the Recyclery for Sugarfix Mix 4.  The music for this segment was done by Shit Ton who record on cassette tapes and do not put music up on-line.

So, I guess that about covers it.  Any questions?

I’d like to give a shout out to all of those who scolded me because the Opening Sequence/Theme Song was too long.  Hope you like the latest version, it should work nicely with your tight schedules.   Here’s the skinny on the rest of the show.

“I Even Hate Myself” is a piece I made using clips from the cartoon A Ride For Cinderella (1937) along with a hodge podge of stuff that I shot myself.

The segue that follows features my Mother and Sister.

Next, we have a video for the song “Ominous Bird” by Schooner.   I can say with all honesty that this is something I did in my spare time just for fun.  It also served as a wonderful excuse to listen to this GREAT SONG over and over again.  It is composed entirely of clips from two films:

Spring Comes to a Pond

Adventures of Junior Raindrop

YOU CAN CATCH SCHOONER AT NATHAN OLIVER’S CD Release Party,   Saturday, March 7, Local 506!

Postremo Sugarfix is an alter ego that I came up with in order to play the Golden Girdles One Night Stand.  I filmed this as a means of rehearsing and liked it enough to include on the show.  Hope you like it as well!

Next we have a really top notch feature on The ReCYCLEry which was all shot edited and everything else by Rachael Fiorentino, with some FANTASTIC music by Mike Walters.

The BizArt piece was shot by Matt Hedt. The BizArt Exhibit will be at Fleet Feet/Bleeker Street Gallery until March 10.  It really is worth seeing!

Next we have a little bit of that ole demon self indulgence.  The Busby Style Marching Band feature was done entirely by me and for me.  Maybe you’ll like it too!  Here’s a link to all of the songs from The_California_Aggie_Marching_Band_Non_Album_1987.

The Cowbell Cemetery thing was shot summer 2008 while I was visiting my family in Kentucky.  It is a fascinating place and  this footage was jut plain burning a hole in my hard drive, so, much like the Schooner video, I did this in my spare time for fun.  The song is incredible and is by the now defunct Eyes To Space.

Nothing really to say about the Green Hands piece, except that I’m sorry there was no Green Goon to go with them.

Finally, the closing segment was a performance I did at the ArtsCenter  filmed by the Chapel Hill/Carrboro auteur known as Betsy.

Leave comments!  It’s always great to hear from ya!

Sugarfix Mix Episode 3 from Billy Sugarfix on Vimeo.

Links and Show Notes:

Music:

This episode features  the music of Felix Obelix-an experimental mix of classical and contemporary pop music.  DON’T MISS THE FELIX OBELIX CD RELEASE/TIME CAPSULE STUFFING PARTY-JAN. 23-ARTSCENTER-CARRBORO

I’m also very stoked to have included a segment by Matt Hedt on North Elementary-DON’T MISS THEIR CD RELEASE PARTY-JAN. 9-CAT’S CRADLE-CARRBORO

Archival Footage:

Clothes Changing sequence and Dreamy Car sequence from the film Design for Dreaming-a hyper surreal car commercial from 1956- I LOVE THIS FILM-WATCH IT!

Knife Throwing at children sequence from Knife-Thrower and Children-an excerpt from a 1950s Universal-International Newsreel.

From Felix Obelix “Heart Monitor”

Precisely So- Yet another surreal film from the fine folks at Chevrolet, AND it even has a Part 2!

The Heart- An informative film about the heart, with just a little (but very tasty)  kitsch thrown in for good measure.

How a Watch Works-Stop motion animation and other techniques demostrate the inner workings of a wind up watch.

Door to Heaven-An INSANE religious film from 1941 with some beautiful imagery.

All of these films come from The Prelinger Archives at Archive.org

Odds and Ends:

Olive’s Adventure-Featuring Olive, the world’s most lovable dog, was filmed at Shangri-La Stone Village in Prospect Hill, NC (just north of Hillsborough on 86).

Shannon Bailey was filmed in the Big Chairs of Hillsborough (Take Exit 261 off I-40 at the Hillsborough exit. Go South 100 yards and the chairs are on your left)

A BIG THANKS to Nicole Triche, Rob Koegler and Amy Waller for the use of their film MELT.

Questions?  You can contact me via email: billysugarfixATgmailDOTcom, but I’d rather you leave a comment because THEY MAKE ME HAPPY (yo).

Hope you enjoy(ed) the show!

Billy

Sugarfix Mix Episode 2-THE HOLIDAY SPECIAL! from Billy Sugarfix on Vimeo.

This episode starts out with a song by Mindy Carson called Television Christmas.  During the opening, we see exerpts from two films: Snow Fooling- a Cartoon from 1949, and A Visit To Santa-a must see holiday oddball, quite possibly directed by Ed Woods’ less talented younger brother.

Throughout the episode, we have footage of camera operators from around the world sending their holiday salutations, these are from the film Pathe News Christmas with Their Cameramen and Crews ‘Round the World.

Next, we have the first ever music video from my band of over a thousand years-EVIL WIENER! In the early 1890s we released a Christmas EP on vinyl which was recently re-released and is available in all sorts of modern formats-with two new bonus tracks! The label that put the record out is Thinking About the Needle records, which is the brain child of Ned Norland of No Love For Nedfame.

PURCHASE THE EVIL WIENER CHRISTMAS CD

And now for the feature on Krampus.  Many of the images and some of the information used was garnered from the book The Devil In Design: The Krampus Postcards by Monte Beauchamp.  Krampus is one of the many obscure European Christmas Characters that I am obsessed with.  Krampus, though, looks like he’s about to break big-with a short film  by Cameron Jamie and possibly a feature? More Krampus links coming soon!

The short film that follows, “The Little Lamb: A Christmas Story” was released in the 30s for home viewing, and its appearance on The Sugarfix Mix is the only place to view it on-line (or anywhere unless you have an 8mm projector). The song that accompanies it was recorded in 1919 and originally released on Phonograph Cylinder. It is available here: Robert Gaylor-Christmas Bells.

The Christmas 1949 segment is actually my family.  The girl in the glasses is my Mother, the guy who chops down the tree is my Grandfather, and the curly haired lady of the house is my Grandmother. I’ve recently acquired a treasure trove of old home movies so look for more from this cast on future episodes!

The Green Goon was especially time consuming this time around because of the music. I originally (and stupidly) used lots of music for the segment that would never have been able to clear legally (No Doubt, Band Aid etc.) and ended up having to redo it all with the additional task of goading the mice to come out when the cat is away to record the thinly veiled parodies that are in place. I’ve actually watched both versions of this Green Goon segment and am happy to say that you’re seeing the better of the two. In addition to the wonderful incidental music of these rodents, we also use a 1912 version of Silent Night, and the excellent Rock and Roll Santa by Little Joey Farr.  Both this song and its singer are very under documented, anyone with any information about either please contact me!

Happy Holidays to all, and CONSIDER BUYING AN EVIL WIENER CD for anyone on your list!

Sugarfix Mix Episode 1 from Billy Sugarfix on Vimeo.

Here it is Ladies and Gentlemen-the FIRST EPISODE OF THE SUGARFIX MIX!!

Featuring poster artist Ron Liberti, more screen prints by Shannon Bailey, a song by my band Password to Larkspur Lane, tips on saving water from THA GREEN GOON,  plus a bunch of cool archival footage and silly stuff I’ve shot at home. Enjoy and PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS! After you’ve watched you’ll probably want to check out the following links:

Ron Liberti’s Page at Gigposters.com

Password To Larkspur Lane’s Myspace

Archival Films:

Design for Dreaming (1954)

Printing (1947)

Vision in the Forest (1957)

Corrections:

Matt Hedt ran the camera, did lighting, and essentially shot the Password to Larkspur Lane sequence.

Shannon O’Neill is the singer standing to the right of me in PtLL.  I mispelled her name (O’Neal)  in the credits.