Do It For Johnny

 

   OSTROW & COMPANY AND THE COLFAX GUITAR SHOP are proud to represent a true story about “In-Deppendent Filmmaking”: Do It For Johnny.

     When four Hollywood hopefuls set off from Colorado in a second-hand RV nicknamed the “Turtle” to get their script (entitled "Narcophonic", based on the real life story of Colfax Guitar Shop owner Scott Baxendale, who hand crafted and designed the Depp custom guitar), encased in the back of a $4,000 custom-built guitar, into the hands of one of the Industry’s biggest stars, Johnny Depp, they didn’t realize that it would be the beginning of a two year, 14,000 mile odyssey through the landscape of the contemporary movie business. This amazing journey is a true example of the innovative spirit and passion of the independent filmmaker. 

     Is Hollywood as impenetrable as notoriously thought? Indie filmmakers, Haylar Garcia, Darcy Grabowski and Scott Baxendale spent two and a half years finding out. In 2004 they completed a bio-script based on the colorful life of Baxendale as a celebrity guitar builder and musician turned vicious criminal. Longing to do the story justice they dreamed of attaching a big star, and even more importantly a star who could actually play guitar. It wasn't long before their sights became transfixed on ex-musician turned actor Johnny Depp, who at the time was just off a career-catapulting role as Captain Jack in the first Pirates film.        
     As they brainstormed ways to get the script to Depp, something dawned on Garcia (Writer/Director). The process of three nobodies from Denver, Colorado trying to get the attention of one of the biggest stars on Earth, and more specifically getting him to read their unknown, unsolicited, and unfunded screenplay would all make for a great documentary. Knowing their pitch would have to be simple and powerful, and wanting to stand out from the masses competing for Johnny's attention, the actual subject of the screenplay (Scott Baxendale) built Depp a custom, one of a kind electric guitar and in the spirit of fusing the two art forms of film and music, Baxendale would construct a special chamber into the back of the instrument, a chamber without words, the guitar and script would say simply to Depp: "Look, this is what the film is about". What followed was a two plus year adventure, which took them almost 14,000 miles around the US in search of their hopeful star. This amazing journey is a true example of the innovative spirit of the indie filmmaker, the urge to follow your dreams no matter the odds, and a document to the state of the contemporary film and entertainment industry.
      In 2002, filmmakers/musicians Haylar Garcia and Scott Baxendale began work on an epic screenplay, which takes place over 30 years in Rock & Roll history, and chronicles the true-life events of Scott Baxendale's life as a well-known "Master Luthier" (guitar-maker). As the team of independent filmmakers began to envision the script's jump to film, they knew first and foremost that not only would they need an incredible actor to achieve the twisting lead of Scott Baxendale, but the film would require something more from it's leading man. It would require someone with an absolute passion for music, someone who could actually play a guitar. Someone who knew firsthand the innate evils and frustrations, as well as the artistic rewards and dreams of the Rock & Roll lifestyle. After researching all that they could about countless musically inclined actors, the name "Johnny Depp" could not be denied. But was this choice even a choice at all? Could these two filmmakers and their small indie production team find a way to get the attention of one of the busiest, most sought after and most elusive thespians in the world? They needed a plan... 
     As the fourth draft of the script became finalized in late 2004, Garcia and Baxendale hatched just such a plan. What better way, they thought, to show Mr. Depp the importance and vision of this film than to have him look into the fine mirrored finish of Baxendale's workmanship itself. Maybe Depp would look at it and say, "I want to be the man who made this guitar." So the blueprints were drawn up and wood shavings began to fly as Scott Baxendale began work on a masterpiece. 
     Over the course of the next few months, Baxendale would build a custom design, solid-body electric guitar for Johnny Depp. And to top it off, in the rear of the instrument would be a special chamber, meant to house and display the film script they so desperately wanted Johnny Depp to read. The filmmakers hoped that this original and unlikely method of approach and delivery might be enough to get Mr. Depp to consider them. But then arose another problem. Nowadays, a Baxendale guitar sells for anywhere from three to six thousand dollars, and having this masterpiece instrument valued easily at four grand or above, the problem became the preservation and protection of the guitar. After all, how would they get it to him? Pop it in the mail to an address in the French countryside and hope for the best? Send it to his agent or manager and pray it didn't get filed with the mounds of fan mail streaming in every week? Of course not. And so began the hunt. With the help of their indie production team and Johnny Depp fans around the world, Writer/Director Haylar Garcia and Master Luthier Scott Baxendale would set out on a quest to hand deliver this guitar and script to Mr. Depp himself. After all, how hard could it be to track down one man and hand him a guitar case? Then they asked themselves, "Why not film the process, the search, and the outcome as well?" Thus was born the documentary... 
     The filmmakers wish to thank everyone along the way who helped them out, believed in their dream and a shout out to all the amazing people they’ve met along the way!

Bax on the 'Fax

 

Master luthier Scott Baxendale (once long-time owner of the Colfax Guitar Shop and now has his own shop and lutherie academy in Athens, Georgia) has repaired or restored guitars for a ton of legendary players over the last four decades, including Billy Gibbons, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Jr., Steve Howe and Elvis Costello. Now he can add Elvis Presley to the list, as Baxendale was recently commissioned to restore and maintain the King's Graceland guitar collection. Here are some highlights from his days on Colfax Avenue, as told by the man himself!!

 BAX on the 'FAX By Scott Baxendale  

If you are smart you will look at Colfax like music: "If you don't C sharp you'll B flat". That is a quote from the great Charlie Louvin as he came into the Colfax Guitar Shop. This brings me to my pet peeve: DON'T USE THE TURN LANE as a place to stand while waiting for traffic to pass by. You are stupid to think assholes on cell phones at happy hour, in the bright sun will see you. In my decade on Colfax I have seen people hit and cars sideswiped over and over. Please use the cross walks or at least wait until you can cross all the way at once. Don't believe that you are somehow safe standing in the turn lane.


Have you noticed the red meters conspicuously place at the bars on E. Colfax? Under close inspection you will see that these aren't really parking meters, but are meters to collect money for the homeless. "Denver's Road Home" is the latest campaign by the city to make it easier for you and me to give away our hard earned "spare" change. Are the Homeless are now too lazy to collect their own change and have enlisted Denver's help so they don't have to stand in one spot for too long? Or has the City seen what a windfall these homeless people are getting and have decided to get their own piece of Colfax's lucrative panhandling business.

     Perhaps, some homeless entrepreneur has decided that having these devices all over town will make his job easier so he can collect change in several places at once and run the competition out of the area. What clever Homeless guy figured out that if the City can get you every time you park then why can't he get you every time you sit down to eat? First, the Denver Boot, then the Denver Homeless Meter...what could be next, vending machines for air? 

     
I woke up early last Sunday to get a prime seat on my Colfax Stoop to watch all the marathon runners run by. I waited and waited, thinking that I had the wrong day, I finally looked it up on the internet only to discover that for some reason, said to be based on comments from last years runners, the race completely bypassed the "Bluebird District" (Denver’s newest, hottest, coolest area?).

I discovered a map showing the race beginning and ending at City Park, with some runners running to Aurora and back and others running to Lakewood and back. WHAT THE HECK!!! I thought this was the "COLFAX MARATHON”? This, I thought, was supposed to be a premier running event where runners run from one end of Colfax to the other. The whole idea of Colfax being the longest straight street was the big attraction and whole point of this event in the first place. What makes more sense than a competition to see who can run from one end to the other? This was poised to become an event that could approach the stature of the Boston Marathon and other world class events.

The rumor is that some runners complained that the last couple of miles were uphill? Do the whiners call the shots? Those hills were in Golden not Colfax and Detroit. Do you really think that running in a circle should be called the COLFAX MARATHON? I mean tri-athletes run a full marathon after swimming and biking for several hours first, and I have never heard one of them complain about a few hills. I never heard Lance Armstrong complain that racing his bike up mountains making the Tour De France too hard.

    
I really don’t think it is much of a coincidence that this event was changed this year to start and end at City Park at the same time that Pretentious Towers is over running the park and neighborhood. This is about putting on a show to all hoity toities who have bought into the Fluorescent Gym atop the hundreds of half mil plus apartments who now think City Park is THEIR front yard!

Until they race from one end of Colfax to the other, the Colfax Marathon should be called the “Pretentious Towers Pansy-thon”.

I know that my last few columns have been on the negative side and as I was thinking about what to write for this month’s installment I began to think of what I like about living and working on Colfax. There is so much that is great about Colfax that it certainly offsets the negative things about this street that has such a rich history. I do believe it is important to know and respect the history of this marathon length avenue. The new breed of developers around here would do themselves a big favor to understand and respect the Fax for its rich history and diverse culture.

First of all I know more of my neighbors on this street than I ever did living in a subdivision or condo. Most of them are very nice and friendly from nearly all ethnic backgrounds. We like socializing with each other too. I like walking to work, never experiencing a traffic jam or rush hour. I still usually spend less than $20 a week on gas. There are small shops that provide nearly all my needs within basically walking distance. There are at least twenty excellent restaurants, an ice cream store, two cup cake shops, Caribbean bakery, coffee shops, Greek bakery, three or four hair salons, movie theaters, book and record stores, guitar shops, recording studios, comic book shop, bicycle shop, auto repair, used cars, computer repair, a nice park, zoo, golf course, museum with Imax, a Russian lady who sells really nice clothes for cheap, several art galleries, great concert venues,…….etc., etc.

I love to sit on my porch and watch the fax go by on a nice evening. I saw the Olympic torch pass within a few feet of my front door. To imagine how the Fax has evolved just since I have lived here has been interesting in both good ways and bad, but there is an old school sense of personal service that still thrives in nearly all the small businesses on this street that is becoming hard to find in other areas. I have seen about everything from hookers to the pope on this avenue, rock stars, politicians, pimps and weenie dogs, actors, comics, beauty queens and kids. I realized recently that I have lived here longer than I have ever lived in one place in my entire life, which says a lot for a wandering soul like me. Never boring…..that’s for sure.

 
     What is really on my mind is losing one of our neighborhood businesses "Barb's Flowers". Barb Probst closed down her flower shop last month. She had been there for 4 or 5 years and sold flowers to the people of Colfax and around the city. I used to love to go there in the summer because had the best air conditioning in town. This giant unit on the celing kept her shop nice and cool and on a really hot day you could go in there and cool off and hang with Barb and her cohorts. Then on the way out she would charge a dollar for the cooling fee. Ha! She had a great sarcastic sense of humor and we could always make each other chuckle with our comments and stories.

      She loved being on the Fax. It was fitting that at her closing party (which was on Aug 16th, 2008, the 31st anniversary of Elvis's death) that me and The Velvet Elvis performed all the early Elvis rockabilly classics in a tribute to the death of the King and the death of Barb's Flowers. It is sad to walk by every day and see the space empty and I just hope that someone else cool will move in there that has the neighborhood spirit that made Barb's Flowers a great place to visit.

      It is important that as residents of the Fax we need to support each other's businesses on the Fax, I try to do my businesses in the small shops here on Colfax and in the neighborhood. I will always pay a couple of dollars extra to shop at Fairfax Hardware than go to Home Desperate. You can always get someone to help you and they are family owned. I feel that my money means more there and I enjoy the friendly service. Life is good on Colfax.

Abraham Lincoln and Colorado

     Abraham Lincoln never visited Colorado, but Colorado and the other western territories were constantly on Lincoln's mind, notes William Convery, Colorado Historical Society State Historian. Lincoln hand-picked some of Colorado's most notable names-Gilpin, Evans, Colfax, Weld and others-who helped establish and administrate the territory and laid the groundwork for it to become a state in the Union.
     "Colorado was important to Lincoln because the West was important to the Civil War," Convery says. "It was vital that the West remain loyal to the Union and Lincoln firmly believed that Colorado's mineral wealth would save the United States from the debt accrued during the Civil War. As a result, Lincoln personally selected many of the individuals who would later create Colorado."
     Lincoln had a conversation about the Colorado mining regions on April 14, 1865 with former Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax only a few hours before he left for Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., where he was assassinated. Colfax was charged with inspecting the transcontinental railroad route that would transport Colorado's gold and silver to the East. Lincoln gave Colfax a personal address to deliver on his behalf to miners in Colorado. Colfax delivered the speech, among Lincoln's last public addresses, to a gathering of miners in Central City six weeks later. In gratitude for his efforts to bring statehood to Colorado, Denver city leaders named Colfax Avenue after the Indiana Congressman in 1868. The Colorado State Capitol Building also sits on the corner of Colfax Avenue and Lincoln Street.

     History Colorado hosted the first public appearance of Abraham Lincoln: Self-Made in America mobile exhibition, back in April-May, 2008 at the Colorado History Museum.

Caffe Sanora

Caffe Sanora, at 1201 E. Colfax Avenue, is a local, independent coffee shop serving Rainforest Alliance Certified and organic coffee. The owner, David Boyan, wants Caffe Sanora to be part of a solution. By only serving coffee with the highest fair trade and ecological standards, he can make sure his business helps the environment and the life it supports.

When you walk into Caffe Sanora you know you are amongst friends. Dave and his team aren’t just trying to sell you coffee, they are there for the community. Sit and enjoy a chat with friends, play a board game, read the paper, do some work, or just surf the ‘Net using the free wi-fi.  You can even order a cold beer or a good glass of wine, a perfect way to start the after-work party.

As you sit and enjoy the experience you can feel good about the impact your coffee consuming is having on the world, and also feel good about the positive impact on your own body. Good health is important at Caffe Sanora, and we only use coffee beans free from additives and rich in antioxidants. That means you get coffee the way Mother Nature intended it to be while keeping free radicals in check, which are both great things.

The next time you want a cup of delicious, healthy, and responsibly produced coffee, check out Caffe Sanora.

Colfax: Day & Night Limited Edition Artist Book

Colfax Day & Night
Limited Edition Artist Book
by Laura Russell
$375 or $150 (see below)

     Colfax Avenue is a special street in the hearts and minds of all Coloradans. Its past is a colorful history of roadside landmarks and infamous travelers. Its present is a different kind of colorful—still vibrant and very much alive. Colfax Day & Night is a photographic journey down Colorado’s infamous Avenue. Nighttime and daytime photographs of fast-disappearing vintage neon signs are presented side-by-side to see how the soul of the street transforms day to night. The book is double spiral bound at left and right edges with the pages split down the middle and includes an original text by the artist.

     The Deluxe Version Spiral-bound book sits inside a hand-bound case with Plexiglas covers that open left and right. Archival digital printing on Mohawk Superfine paper. 10” x 8.5” 19 pages on each side, 34 original color photographs. Presented in a clamshell box. ©2003 Signed and numbered. Edition of 100.
     Soft Cover Version: Spiral-bound interior book without the Plexiglas cover. $150

Colfax Day & Night: Cover Closed

Colfax Day & Night: Interior Spread Open

Colfax Day & Night: Satire Lounge

Colfax Day & Night: Top Star Motel

Colfax Day & Night: Trail's End Motel

Colfax Day & Night: Rocky Mtn. Motel

Colfax Day & Night: Pete's Kitchen

If you would like to purchase any of Laura’s artist books, contact her at:

Website

Phone: 503-927-4409
Email: simplybooksltd@gmail.com
Mailing Address:
Laura Russell
Simply Books, Ltd.
621 NE 23rd Avenue
Portland, OR 97232

Modern Architecture in Aurora

JD McPherson Coming to Colfax

     As a visual artist, Broken Arrow, Okla., native JD McPherson is well versed in the process of working within clearly defined formal parameters, and he employs a similarly rigorous discipline with his music. On Signs & Signifiers (Rounder, April 17), McPherson’s seductively kickass debut album, produced by JD’s musical partner, Jimmy Sutton, this renaissance man/hepcat seamlessly meshes the old and the new, the primal and the sophisticated, on a work that will satisfy traditional American rock ’n’ roll and R&B purists while also exhibiting McPherson’s rarefied gift for mixing and matching disparate stylistic shapes and textures.
     “There are little subcultures within the roots scene, where people are really into rockabilly, traditional hillbilly stuff or old-timey music,” JD points out, “but there aren’t a whole lot of folks making hard-core rhythm & blues hearkening back to Specialty, Vee-Jay or labels like that. That’s what Jimmy and I really like, and our only intention going in was just to make a solid rhythm & blues/rock ’n’ roll record. But I didn’t want to make a time-machine record, so we tried to make something relevant but with all the things we love about rock ’n’ roll and rhythm & blues and mesh it all together. We both have eclectic tastes; Jimmy likes the Clash as much as he likes Little Richard, and I like the Pixies, T.Rex, hip-hop and all kinds of stuff. So we came up with a couple of weird songs and put them on the record, hoping that it wouldn’t scare off any of our ultra-selective fanbase.”
     JD needn’t have worried. It’s highly unlikely that even the most discerning listeners would guess that the arrangement on his cover of Tiny Kennedy’s R&B chestnut “Country Boy” incorporates not only the tambourine beat of Ruth Brown’s 1955 Atlantic single “Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean,” but also Raekwon and RZA’s “abstract, out-of-tune piano loops” on Wu-Tang Clan’s innovative ’93 LP Enter the Wu-Tang; or that the mesmerizing churner “Signs & Signifiers” is powered by an unchanging tremolo guitar figure modeled on Johnny Marr’s part on the Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now.” Then there’s “Firebug,” which JD “wanted to sound as if Stiff Little Fingers had recorded at Del-Fi Records.” And while it may not have been specifically what McPherson and Sutton were going for, the haunting dreamscape “A Gentle Awakening” seems to chart a course from “Heartbreak Hotel” through Terence Trent D’Arby to Amy Winehouse.
     Never has an album of so-called “retro” music been laced with such a rich payload of postmodern nuance. But that was precisely the intent of what JD describes, only half-facetiously, as “an art project disguised as an R&B record.”
     “It’s weird,” says Sutton, “when you grow up being a fan of ‘older’ music and all of a sudden you’re making a record, you’re thinking, are we just recreating something—a museum piece—or are we actually bringing it forward? It’s interesting, because if you make something today and it moves you today, in that sense it’s contemporary. I like that juxtaposition of classic and fresh, something old yet new that can actually take you somewhere now.”
     Of course, pushing the genre envelope doesn’t work unless the artist has the chops and feel to capture the form in its pure state to begin with. Check out, for example, “Dimes for Nickels,” McPherson’s vital evocation of the very moment when R&B and hillbilly music had a baby and they called it rock ’n’ roll, or the Jackie Wilson-meets-Elvis exuberance of “Scratching Circles,” or the lascivious ecstasy of the Little Richard doppelganger “Scandalous,” (although the “gold-capped tooth” reference in the first line is lifted from the Leiber-Stoller Coasters classic “Love Potion #9”). But for all we know, these tracks, too, may have been secretly embedded with elements from far afield, their stylistic twists hiding in plain sight. This cat is wicked-clever—and man, can he ever deliver this righteous shit.

     McPherson took a circuitous path to get to this point. Broken Arrow butts up against Tulsa, a cultural oasis in the Heartland that has long been not only a musical hotbed but also a bustling center of the contemporary arts. “Tulsa’s got a lot of resources for people who are into weirdo art,” JD points out. And he gravitated toward it. “I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Oklahoma in experimental film,” he says. “I wanted to paint, do installation, make video art, performance stuff, sculpture. I’ll bet I’m the only person to have received graduate credit hours in card magic.” He wound up with an M.F.A. from the University of Tulsa in open media, a discipline designed specifically for his interests and ambitions.
     But all along the way, music was an integral part of McPherson’s life. His dad introduced him to Delta blues and jazz as a kid, and after getting into Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and punk rock during high school, he picked up a Buddy Holly box set. “Something about that scratched an itch,” he says. “Then I started getting into the black side of rock ’n’ roll: Larry Williams, Little Richard, Art Neville’s stuff on Specialty, then soul and Jamaican rocksteady.” While studying visual arts, he also played in bands, doing everything from punk to western swing. JD was still scratching that itch when he recorded some originals with his previous band and took a shot in the dark. Well aware of Sutton’s status as a heavy hitter on the roots scene and the leader of R&B group the Four Charms, he fired off a MySpace friend request and asked if the producer/bassist would listen to his demos.
     “I get sent stuff all the time, and it’s always the same,” says Sutton, “but I checked JD out and there was definitely something there. He wowed me—his voice, his songwriting. So we started talking, and we were always on the same page about the music we dig and where we wanted to take it. He had great ideas but he was still an open book. I was just trying to push him to stay true to himself. So the idea became to create a record that was honest and live.”
     Six months into their budding partnership, JD arrived at Sutton’s newly completed home studio in Chicago—a sort of working shrine to all-tube recording as it was practiced a half-century ago, right down to Jimmy’s collection of vintage mics and his early-’60s Berlant/Concertone quarter-inch tape machine. Also on hand was Sutton’s go-to guy Alex Hall, “a Brian Eno type” according to JD, who multitasks as engineer, drummer and keyboard player.
     “I showed up and I said, ‘I got this song ‘Dimes for Nickels,’ and I want it to be like a Chess Chuck Berry thing, slowed down, with a flat-tire beat,’” JD remembers. “Jimmy and Alex are from Chicago—they know that stuff backwards and forwards—and we nailed it in two takes.” Within a week, they’d banged out a dozen tracks, recording during the day and writing at night with a guitar and a laptop.
     In order to make sure the album got heard by JD’s potential core audience, Sutton threw some chum in the water, pressing up a limited run on his brand-new Hi-Style label and directing it at the roots community. JD and Jimmy, who’s also a visual artist, then applied those skills to the making of a striking video for opening track “North Side Girl,” which has now registered well over 350,000 YouTube views.
     “When the album came out, we immediately got a really strong response from that crowd,” JD recalls. “Then we put that video out, and it went all over the place within a week. Not too long after that, we started getting calls from managers, prospective booking agents, and it turned into this weird journey. By early last year, we were talking to some major labels and the folks at Rounder, who found out about us from the video. What made it the perfect storm was, as all that was happening, I lost my job—I was a middle school art teacher. I loved that job but, sign of the times, they started laying off the art department and I was part of the fallout. So I collected my paycheck through the summer and toured.” After which he signed with Rounder.
Having finally decided on his artistic direction, JD isn’t looking back. “Although I grew up wanting to be a visual artist, I’ll tell you what: the most satisfaction I’ve ever had as an artist is right now,” he says. “Because as much as I love artists like Joseph Beuys, I love David Bowie and Little Richard more. I was doin’ OK, I had some things going, but I’d rather do this, make music the priority. There’s more instant gratification—you play a show and right away you feel like it’s something worthwhile, and a lot of people are in on it. So I’m definitely into continuing to explore all this stuff. It’s really exciting—knock on wood.”
     JD has no doubts about the viability of the choice he’s made. “Working within a genre has been done in all kinds of mediums—look at Alfred Hitchcock,” he points out. “It’s been established that rock ’n’ roll is a viable form—it’s hard-wired into American brains to understand swinging blues stuff. So it’s not surprising to me that kids are into the Black Keys and Adele. It just had to be presented to them.”
     So now it’s JD McPherson’s turn to step up to the plate and give it a good whack. Go get ’em, tiger.

 JD McPherson at the Bluebird Theater

• Day: Thu, Apr 17, 2014
• Showtime: 8:00 PM
• Doors open: 7:00 PM
• Days until show: 79
• Ages: 16 & Over
• On sale: Sat, Feb 1, 2014 10:00 AM
• Advanced Ticket Prices*: $16.75
• Day of Show*: $20.00
• On Sale Feb 1

Websites

• Official Website
• Amazon
• iTunes