TAKE 5: Gavin Michael Booth

Take 5 with...Gavin Michael Booth

Take 5 is a new feature on "Musically Speaking", where I'll ask five quick questions to various movers and shakers from Windsor's local arts and entertainment world about their thoughts on Windsor's independent music scene, past and present.

Gavin Michael Booth is no stranger to the local music scene. A fiercely dedicated local film maker, he's offered his services to making music videos for many local bands, such as One Man's Opinion, Ashes of Soma and Ali The Don. With several films (short and feature) under his belt, all locally crewed and shot, Booth has brought Hollywood to Windsor. He even convinced alternative rockers The Afters to come to Windsor from Dallas, Texas to shoot their video for "Never Going Back To OK". His latest film, "Still Here", just wrapped up after shooting around Essex County, his short "Lyebeck's Latte" debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, and his daily webisodic chronicle "How Many Days?" tracks Booth on his quest to meet all his film inspirations (many of whom he's met on record) has been attracting web attention for the better part of the past two years.

The local bands I am most excited about right now are...
Richy Nix and Inoke Errati. (I'm) not even a huge fan of hip hop, or screamo, or most modern rock, but somehow when Richy Nix puts them all together I just really really dig his tracks. Each one he releases or I hear on 89x is catchier than the last. I've been excited about Jake and the guys (in Inoke Errati) for a few years now - my iPod has 3 of their album tracks in the "Most Played" list and I had a sneak preview of some stuff from the upcoming album and I think its going way further than the last album that hooked me as a fan.

The best local album I've heard in some time is...
StereoGoesStellar StereoGoesStellar (2009) - the piano and the vocals win me over. Just good, fun, clean music. Its great with the windows down on a drive as the weather warms up. The album is well produced and song arrangement has the songs flowing so there's never a dull moment when played front to back.

If there's one thing I wish the local music scene would do more of is...
Larger shows! More bands playing together in bigger rooms. Everyone should work together to build audiences and their fan bases as well as give the audience that "concert" feel we all know and love. I also think more acoustic shows. Smaller venues sometimes are just blasted with the LOUD that can be some local bands and stripping it down to acoustic versions of the band's set always shows off a different skill set and range for the artist(s) without making my ears bleed.

Sometimes I wish these local bands was still together...
Ten Indians and Racecar. Ten Indians' The Severed Head Of Something Beautiful is not just (one of the) top albums in the local scene for me but top albums ever. Never a week that goes by I don't listen to something from that record. I haven't seen them live in probably 10 years... would just be an absolute treat to seem the rock the stage again. Forget the album name, (Racecar) had the track "Girl With Two Names" - it was one of my first eye openers to the local scene putting out such great quality recordings... and this is back before everyone had a Macbook and garage band. Their songs were catchy, never got to see them live...never should have stopped playing together.

Note: Ten Indians are making a one off comeback - they're reuniting under the name Shiv & The Shams at Phog Lounge on Tuesday April 28. Racecar's main man was Dean Drouillard who has been busy for more than a decade in Toronto as one of the scene's most sought after session musicians, as well as a stand-out producer and solo artist.

My favourite place to see a band in town is...
The Chubby Pickle. Now that the venue is half the size, a packed show is really packed! I love the new stage, always loved the crowd there... people that love music. I've also loved going there for 4 years not knowing what music I'll be listening to but knowing I'll have a great time regardless of the band. They were also the staging ground venue for a few of the acts that have broken outside of the Windsor area. What Shawn created with The Pickle still holds true and I can't remember a bad night I've spent there... other than the hangovers!

SHORT CUTS: Ali The Don "Arab Blood" Music Video

It seems that Windsor film makers are getting more actively involved in the city's music scene, partially due to the increasing amount of awareness brought on by events such as The Windsor International Film Festival and Harvesting The FAM Festival, and by such contests as WAMM Magazine's upcoming Video Contest (winners announced at preview screening/one-year anniversary at Phog on Thursday April 2nd).

But mainly because the benefits are mutual.

One such film maker who has been working alongside local musicians for years is Gavin Michael Booth. Founder of Mimitec Productions, aside from local videos and feature films, he's been working diligently on his "How Many Days?" video project where he's recording daily (almost video blogging) his quest to meet his twelve film making inspirational heroes (including Kevin Smith, Bryan Singer and Harry Knowles). And while it may seem like a monumental challenge, he's actually met some of them, so he's proving this is working.

His latest project is with local hip-hop artist Ali The Don, and it was filmed here in Windsor, using Windsor extras and Windsor locations. Once again, a great job by Gavin Michael Booth, and it's nice to see Windsor's hip-hop community getting active on a greater scale. Despite their being a great amount of talent in this city, it seems that its the scene that is often most neglected or underpromoted outside of their own circles - many venues simply don't book them and some of those that have been often aren't prepared for full on live experiences. Let's hope Ali can take the exposure from this and launch himself to a great career, helping to blaze the Windsor trails further after such great work by artists such as MicLordz & Sauce Funky, J-Reno/Academy, the whole Goddspeed crew and the efforts of DJ Needle.

Here's the video for "Arab Blood", directed and edited by Gavin Michael Booth, by Ali The Don.