Laura Ballance (musician in Superchunk, co-founder of Merge Records) brought a careful array of records and had CAM Raleigh‘s kissa spinning last night, the latest edition of our Big, Bent Ears kissa experiment. Here are a few remnants. First, her set list for the BBE archives. Then a few snapshots by RFS friends.
Mac McCaughan’s Kissa Playlist from New Zealand
Last Thursday night July 9 at CAM Raleigh‘s underground Big, Bent Ears kissa, a collaboration with Rock Fish Stew, Mac McCaughan, the musician (Superchunk) and record label co-owner (Merge Records), spun a two-hour set of vinyl tracks by bands from New Zealand. Where else in America could you have heard these tunes last week? Dead C […]
Sonny Clark and the Japanese Kissa
At CAM Raleigh’s kissa night this Monday, June 15, I’ll be playing the swinging blues of the great jazz pianist Sonny Clark, tracks featuring him as a leader and sideman, 1955-1962. It’s Week 2 of an exciting collaboration between CAM Raleigh and Rock Fish Stew that will extend through the end of the year. Something […]
Big Ears & Joseph Mitchell Mixing in Downtown Durham
At Rock Fish Stew, there’s nothing we like more than blending elements of our projects, hence our name. Last month, when we saw that guitarist and composer, Steve Gunn, who is part of our Big Ears documentary project, was playing a show in downtown Durham, we couldn’t resist the opportunity. We invited him to take […]
RFS Seeks Summer Interns
RFS seeks two self-starting interns for summer 2015. Interns will help support current documentary projects, help manage the website and social media, contribute ideas and material, research and help write grants, transcribe interviews, and participate in fundraising. An interest in literature, film, and/or other creative endeavors is a plus. Video, photography, film editing, web design, creative research and […]
Mary Oliver, Molly Malone Cook, and Real Attention
Last Thursday I made a routine stop in downtown Durham’s Letters Bookshop, five doors down from Rock Fish Stew offices, and I noticed a slim, paperback volume of photographs by Molly Malone Cook with text by Mary Oliver, a book called Our World (Beacon Press, 2007). Oliver’s name drew me, a long admirer of her observations. Flipping […]
The Big Ears Doc: One Year Later
It’s hard for us to believe it’s a year since we first met Ashley Capps. We reached out to him because an article in the New York Times indicated that the adventurous Big Ears music festival, which Capps founded and runs through his company AC Entertainment, was returning after a three year hiatus. One reason […]
A Seasonal Helping of Rockfish Stew
Last night, Rock Fish Stew Institute of Literature and Materials held its second annual tasting of rockfish stew at our offices in downtown Durham. Chef Ricky Moore, owner of Durham’s Saltbox Seafood Joint, took honors again this year, making a stupendous stew with a rockfish (aka striped bass) caught the day before in the Pamlico […]
Pilgrimage to Lexington
Last month we wrote about our experience at the Cy Twombly exhibition, currently on view at the Morgan Library in New York City, documenting a concert by the JACK Quartet. The music, by composer Matthias Pintscher, was inspired by Twombly’s “Treatise on the Veil”. There are two versions of this painting; No. 2, stretching 33 feet, hung […]
Cy Twombly and the JACK at the Morgan
Yesterday was one of those days that made us feel lucky to be documentarians. Rock Fish Stew spent twelve hours at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. The occasion was the renowned JACK Quartet playing music composed a decade ago by Matthias Pintscher inspired by Cy Twombly’s epic, 33-foot painting, “Treatise on […]