April 2012
6 posts
4 tags
WatchPast Blasting: Rhianna Larocque
She’s coming to Chicago this Summer folks to perform at what’s rumored to be a perfect summer evening’s house show. When I met her it was neither Summer, nor in Chicago. It was a blustery Boston session.
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WatchPast Blast: Lily & The Parlour Tricks
I met these ladies and gentlemen in a Greenwich Village brickstone way back in Winter 2011. Since then they’ve been all over the place— from performing what I’m told was 700 shows at SXSW this year, to debuting their first official music video. Go find the Parlour Tricks, they’re worth it.
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WatchPast Blasting: Nina Ferraro
My first shoot in the Chicago suburbs with the supremely talented (and still touring the city, folks!) Nina Ferraro. From March 2011.
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WatchPast Blasting: Manors
Brooklyn, New York City in Winter 2011. Manors challenged me to actually fit a band in a living room— they complained that just doing solo artists in living rooms was too easy. From March 2011.
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WatchPast Blasting: Emily Warren & The Betters
From our New York City road trip, February 2011.
6 tags
WatchPast Blasting: Filligar
Dear Spuds, we’ve been away for a long time, and we’ve missed you. In preparation for a top secret, you didn’t hear it here Summer Remount Tour (shhhhh), we thought this would be a good time to repost some of our favorite videos from our first year making videos in living rooms. This one, from January 2011, featured the boys from Filligar in a van.
...
March 2012
3 posts
1 tag
5 tags
WatchI AM A ROCKET SCIENTIST: A Live Movie Event
From the producers of The Sixth Bullet. Premiering March 24th at The Den Theatre, with live music from Exit Ghost and Dolphins! Check us out on Facebook.
December 2011
1 post
4 tags
WatchCheck Out The Trailer For Screen Door Presents: The Sixth Bullet
Sorry this site has become of late the occasional post consisting of the same basic combination of a) some kind of video and b) some kind of self-promotion.
That being said, this Saturday, December 10th, a new live show is going up at The Den Theatre in Wicker Park. The Sixth Bullet: A Live Movie Event combines live concert (w/ The...
November 2011
2 posts
4 tags
WatchBehind The Scenes With Exit Ghost
A video Sneak Peak of some SD footage shot for Jack Lawrence Mayer’s upcoming music video with Chicago’s own Exit Ghost for their song, Like I Did Before.
Exit Ghost on CP//LRS Presents
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September 2011
7 posts
6 tags
WatchFound Little Pieces
For your friday enjoyment, a teaser for Jack Lawrence Mayer’s new video series, Found Little Pieces.
passing fancies & other collectibles: The Treaty... →
katmayer:
Sometimes, when I’ve been awake since 6 AM and can’t go back to sleep because I’m in too much pain, I write letters to my uterus. This is the best one yet.
Dear uterus,
This is an abusive relationship, and it needs to stop. I am tired of begging to you and praying to you every month to grant me…
2 tags
5 tags
WatchCP//LRS Raw Bar Series Presents: Snaarj
(for slow connections, turn HD off)
Performing 600 900
7 tags
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Summer & Smoke at The Den Theatre
The Den, one of our favorite Chicago theaters, is about to launch their first production of the 2011-2012 season, Tennessee Williams’ Summer & Smoke.
There are a plethora of good reasons to see this show, starting with this video shot by our own Jack, going onto the fact that Tennessee Williams is an American genius, and Summer & Smoke is probably one of his few plays that you do...
6 tags
August 2011
5 posts
5 tags
How To Say I Love You With Video
Hey Spuds! Big news: Portable.tv, the online channel dedicated to fashion, film music and art, debuted our own Jack Lawrence Mayer’s short film, “How To Say I Love You With Video” on Friday.
The film, a comedy about a bumbling filmmaker named Jack Lawrence Mayer trying to win his ex-girlfriend back by making the perfect video, features music and appearances by CP//LRS friends...
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If You're In Dallas and Like Music
For the last seven summers, our artists have gathered together in Dallas for one night of incredible fun. Our goal has been to put on a concert showcasing our wholly self-made music, and to invite our best and closest friends to come and enjoy. From our first showcase, set on the intimate stage of a church youth room, we’ve progressed, gaining audiences as we hone talents. Every...
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WatchAngel Olsen Performing On Celluloid. In Triplicate.
Angel Olsen would make a music video using experimental techniques in 16mm film. The singer/songwriter, friend of CP//LRS and lo-fi, old school lover put together this beautiful music video for her song Tiniest Lights by triple exposing a strip of celluloid with the help of filmmaker Randy Sterling Hunter.
Check out her piece on CP//LRS here...
6 tags
The Couch Potatoes/John Paul Session
—by jack
John Paul Thompson is a gregarious, funny, intelligent and warm guy. You know all this within like a minute of meeting him. His big smile, the way his eyes crinkle when he asks a question as if he’s genuinely interested in the answer, and finally his music all communicate to you immediately the kind of guy he is.
Keep that in mind listening to his song, listening to his...
2 tags
Follow Jack at His New Site!
Hey Spuds, if you’re interested in the going’s on of our video guy Jack Lawrence Mayer, you can go over to jacklawrencemayer.com now and follow his tumblr for videos, photos and news!
July 2011
3 posts
Rhianna Larocque releases Hotel Songs
Rhianna Larocque, the lovely and talented singer/songwriter from Boston who we featured on our blog back in May, has dropped her new EP on the world and each and every god-fearing reader of CP//LRS should go check it out (here, here, or here).
The EP, Hotel Songs, features five tracks from Rhianna and her backing band. They show off her clever songwriting,...
1 tag
Watchhowtosayiloveyouwithvideo:
Teaser Trailer for How To Say I Love You With Video
written & directed by Jack Lawrence Mayer
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WatchCouch Potatoes//Living Room Songs Presents: The Names That Spell
(for slow connections turn HD off)
*Performing Taking A Leak
June 2011
26 posts
Passing Fancies
will.i.am-ism of the day
this time from an even more deluded douchebag, allen west:
We need you to come in and lock shields, and strengthen up the men who are going to fight for you. To let these other women know on the other side—these Planned Parenthood women, the Code Pink women, and all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible...
3 tags
The Couch Potatoes/Jonah Gaster Session
—by jack
I parked illegally in a North Chicago neighborhood near Loyola University on a little residential street in order to not be quite-as-late-as-I-already-was for the Jonah Gaster session. Jonah is a kind and talented jazz guitarist who I hear is also kind of a math genius and who I know has a really charming family and a great living room.
When I showed up, Jonah, the Clarinetist...
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WatchCouch Potatoes//Living Room Songs Presents: Jonah Gaster
(for slow connections turn HD off)
*performing Aroyskumen Zolstu Mayn Meydl
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Passing Fancies
will.i.am, what in the hell…?
an interview with Will.i.am, as analyzed by my comedic idol michael k. fromDlisted:
ELLE: If you walked into a woman’s house, what one item would convince you that you weren’t compatible?
W: If she had condoms in her house, that would just fuckin’ throw me off. That’s just tacky.
ELLE: Well, okay, I could see if she had a candy bowl full of them on...
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WatchCP//LRS Raw Bar Series: Jonah Gaster
(for slow connections turn HD off)
*Raw Bar fun fact: this Raw Bar is partially defined by my own extended cameo in the mirror behind the clarinetist’s head.
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KATHLEEN’S ULTIMATE 90’S PLAYLIST: SONGS I...
21. All My Life- K-Ci & Jojo
Oh god. Oh god. This is so good and bad at the same time. This song is rivaled only by Brian McKnight’s “Back At One” as the #1 Couples’ Skate song. Once in middle school a girl I knew had on her AIM info all the lyrics to this song prefaced with “I’m going to dance to this song at my wedding!” and I thought she was such an idiot! Little did I realize that...
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WatchCouch Potatoes//Living Room Songs Presents: Wolf In A Spacesuit
(for slow connections turn HD off)
*Performing “After You.”
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The Couch Potatoes/Wolf In A Spacesuit Session
—by jack
It was snowing in late April when I found myself on the door step of Wolf In A Spacesuit’s frontman, Algebra Huxley. Fitting with their carnivorous band name, the plan was to play music and grill, but the distinctly non-Spring weather put a damper on the meat and so there was just a lot of music playing.
My favorite shoots are always the ones with an element of the...
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KATHLEEN’S ULTIMATE 90’S PLAYLIST: SONGS I...
16. You Oughta Know- Alanis Morrissette
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and damn does this song prove it. I definitely shouldn’t have been listening to songs that beg the question “Would she go down on you in a theater?” in 1995 or whenever I finally heard this piece of music history, and maybe I never understood the metaphor about the “cross that she bears” and so I imagined bears...
6 tags
WatchCP//LRS Raw Bar Series Presents: Sullied Accolades
(for slow connections turn HD off)
*performing “9 Times”
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KATHLEEN’S ULTIMATE 90’S PLAYLIST: SONGS I...
11. 3 A.M.- Matchbox 20
Is there anyone who doesn’t love this song? Anyone? You’re wrong.
12. Steal my Sunshine- Len
I just think it’s kind of obligatory to put this on any 90’s playlist. Plus you know you love singing along to that part that goes “L-A-T-E-R that week.” Spelling + singing = winning. Perhaps I’m a little biased as someone who did spelling bees in elementary school...
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KATHLEEN’S ULTIMATE 90’S PLAYLIST: SONGS I...
6. Barbie Girl- Aqua
Specific memory: singing this song aloud with the neighborhood girls at the 1997 block party. It combined my favorite things at the time—Barbies and awful pop music. Plus I secretly got kind of giddy thinking about the sexual innuendo of “You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere,” even though I didn’t really want to go party with the creepily deep-voiced Ken...
4 tags
WatchCouch Potatoes//Living Room Songs Presents: Sullied Accolades
(for slow connections turn HD off)
*performing “Train Tracks”
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The Couch Potatoes/Sullied Accolades Session
—by jack
The Sullied Accolades session was easily one of the most memorable and wild shoots I did during the New York Sessions. With a lead singer with a deep and earnest passion for how bits of metal can build big things and a barking voice like Tom Waits, a violinist who insists that the whole band wear wigs before furtively taking her own off, and a back story that took the whole group...
4 tags
Kat's Top 25 Songs of the 90's (Intro)
It’s been awhile since I’ve written original, music-related content for this site. It’s not because I don’t love you—it’s because I really love naps. But seriously, I have a very busy life. Today I was in a play in which I spoke in an awful Russian accent and then attended sorority bequests and gave away (among other things) a thong leotard, a Confederate flag lighter that says “REBEL” that I...
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Kathleen’s Ultimate 90’s Playlist: Songs I...
1. Don’t Speak- No Doubt
This song came out right around the time I figured out what it meant to struggle with possibly unrequited crushes. I say “possibly” because the furthest I went to act on my crushes was to write “I love Joel” on my folders and bring him goldfish at lunch. Actually, that’s way ballsier (or should I say cuntsier? I should) than anything I do now. But the point is, I...
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Passing Fancies
despite its suffocating misogyny/violence/insensitivity to AIDS/general repulsiveness, this is still my favorite rap verse of all time (at 2:25).
you might wanna rewind for some priceless lines like “pubic hairs lookin’ like some sour cream dip” and “pussy tighter than conditions of us black folks” from obie trice.
i’m also going to start signing off of everything i do with the phrase...
4 tags
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The Couch Potatoes/Angel Olsen Session
—by jack
I remember the Angel Olsen shoot real well. I’d been travelling for awhile and was just back in Chicago after two days on an Amtrak with my nose deep in a history of the Civil War. Some combination of the bloody narrative from 160 years ago, the train madness and the dissociative feelings one always gets after a long way from home left me feeling not really myself. I was...
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Passing Fancies
you know that game where people take turns showing each other funny youtube videos? yeah, i always win that game.
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WatchLakesigns Live Tonight at The Subterranean
Lakesigns, good friends of CP//LRS and good people generally (along with exceptional musicians), is headlining tonight (Thursday) at The Subterranean in Wicker Park. They’re great. Check them out. Watch this video. Info here.