“Trams, Jams, and Elvis” Premiers at Indie Memphis Film Festival
October 20, 2010 by Daniel J Russo
Filed under Ardent Studios, Featured, In The Studio, Memphis Events
Famed independent singer/songwriter Robyn Hitchcock made his way across the pond from his native England last year to attend the Indie Memphis Film Festival, which is held every year right down the street from Ardent Studios. While in the neighborhood, Hitchcock came by Ardent to do some recording.
Hitchcock’s stop at Ardent was originally intended to be a very quick trip, including very basic tracking and mixing of a couple songs which were then going to be immediately mastered to vinyl and were to become the first release under Indie Memphis Records. The whole process was to be documented by filmmaker Peter Gilbert. When they arrived at the studio and began tracking, the help of studio manager and Big Star dummer Jody Stephens was enlisted, and the project ended up being extended into a full day in the studio. Hitchcock recorded a simple acoustic version of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line,” and then a song that he wrote called “Thank You, Time Girl” to which Stephens lent his talents in the way of drums, background vocals, and additional percussion. Jeff Powell engineered the tracking and mixing with Lucas Peterson assisting. The tracks were mastered to vinyl the next day by Larry Nix of L. Nix mastering, inside Ardent.
Indie Memphis will be pressing a limited run of 500 vinyls of the recording. A mockup was available for viewing at the premier.
The documentary focusing on the entire experience is called “Trams, Jams, and Elvis,” and was presented by The Memphis Chapter of the Recording Academy and Indie Memphis at this year’s festival.
The screening was at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art on October 23rd. Directly following was a Q&A with filmmaker Peter Gilbert and Recording Academy Board Members Jody Stephens and Jeff Powell.
(In the photo above, L to R: Robyn Hitchcock, Jeff Powell, Jody Stephens, and filmmaker Peter Gilbert.)
Robyn Hitchcock: Trams, Jams & Elvis (34 min.) follows singer / songwriter Robyn Hitchcock on his exploration of Memphis during the 2009 Indie Memphis Film Festival. The film gives a fly-on-the-wall perspective of Robyn’s creative process as he records new songs at Ardent Studios, and culminates with his live acoustic performance, which closed the 2009 festival.
Burning Ice (86 min.) follows a group of 45 world-renowned artists, musicians and scientists as they travel to the High Arctic to witness the effects of climate change. Traveling on a Russian ice-breaker up the west coast of Greenland are musicians Robin Hitchcock, KT Tunstall, Martha Wainright, Lesley Feist, Jarvis Cocker and Ryuichi Sakamoto; performance artist Laurie Anderson; photographer Chris Wainwright and poet Lemn Sissay. As scientists study the glaciers and ocean currents, the sheer beauty of the landscape inspires an extraordinary outpouring of art projects, music and song. The formula is simple yet unique; put a group of musicians, artists and scientists and communicators aboard a boat. Give them a common goal: to learn from each other, influence each other and to stimulate ideas and the production of art founded in scientific research. Using creativity to innovate artists are involved to communicate on a human scale the urgency of engaging with climate change.
