Independent radio artists Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison are working with Califone‘s Tim Rutili on a documentary called Journey of the Asian Carp.

For the uninitiated, the Asian carp is a destructive non-native fish that has wreaked havoc on Midwestern waterways by crowding out native fish and uprooting plants. Notorious for their jumping ability, they also pose a physical danger to fishermen and their feeding habits make them hard to capture.

Meister and Collison hope to weave the documentary with Rutili’s music to create something that is more than the sum of its parts. Rutili’s music will supplement the documentary’s narrative as it follows the invasive carp’s slow migration from the American south “to the brink of Lake Michigan, focusing specifically on communities along the Illinois River that already have been invaded.”

If all goes well (more on that later), Meister and Collison will visit some of the small American communities that depend on their waterways and native fish but have been devastated by the Asian carp’s invasion.

Your contribution will support Meister and Collison’s “low-budget road trips to rural Illinois to collect interviews and audio, photos, video and ephemera. Buy us a diner breakfast! Pay for a tank of gas! It’ll also help with our “rough draft,” which we’ll share with Rutili — enabling him to work his magic.” Contributors can earn all kinds of rewards, including songs by Rutili, Sufjan Stevens and Lambchop, as well as t-shirts, recipes, and many other good things.

They need $5,000 to make this project work, and if they can raise the funding they need, Meister and Collison will be doing the following:

Visiting a town in rural Illinois that’s trying to make the best of the situation by hosting a fishing tournament where hoards of boaters try to catch giant, leaping carp in nets without getting their teeth knocked out.

Hanging out with an Illinois state scientist who’s working on a bizarre “torture device” that allegedly scares the carp, complete with supersonic audio, strobe lights, and a bubbling mechanism. It’s a tool that could be used as a barrier to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan.

Fishing with a commercial fisherman who’s working with a processing house, trying to convince people that Asian carp could be the next tilapia — with a little slick marketing, a fish for every occasion.

With your help, Journey of the Asian Carp will air on NPR and be offered via podcast in late fall 2010. So head over to the project site and contribute now! We already did.

Califone members Jim Becker and Joe Adamik will play constructed and improvised music this Thursday, July 8 (tomorrow) at the Hideout. They go on 9-9:30ish. David Daniell and Frank Rosaly will play afterward, and all four will play together at the end.

6/19/10 – 2:00PM – Chicago, IL – Saki
6/20/10 – 1:30PM – Chicago, IL – Taste of Randolph Street Festival
7/4/10 – 5:45PM – Des Moines, IA – 80/35 Festival
8/26/10 – 8:00PM – Columbus, OH – Wexner Center for the Performing Arts (w/ Film)
8/28/10 – 8:30PM – North Adams, MA – Mass MoCa (w/ Film)

Come celebrate the grand opening weekend event for the lovely new record store in Logan Square — brought to you by the folks at Carrot Top records. A mighty fine record label!

Jim Becker – vox, acoustic guitar, fiddle
Joe Adamik – traps,bass clarinet
Gillian Lisee – bass, vox
Adam Vida – electric guitar, vox

Sunday, May 30th
12:00 Chicago Independent Radio Project DJ
1:00 DJ Barry Phipps (The Coctails)
2:00 Daniel Knox
3:00 DJ Special Guest
4:00 DJ Rian Murphy (Drag City)
5:00 Jim Becker
6:00 DJ Joel Leoschke (kranky)
7:00 DJ Patrick Monaghan (Carrot Top Records)
9:00-? Weegees After-par

If you’ve been dying to see All My Friends Are Funeral Singers but never got the chance to catch the ‘Fone on tour, you may now rejoice! If you did catch the boys on tour but are dying to see the film again (and again and again), you may also rejoice. Everyone else, please rejoice at your own discretion.

All My Friends Are Funeral Singers — Califone’s Sundance-accepted film — is now available for purchase on DVD (LaserDisc coming soon)!

So mosey on over to IndiePix Films or Amazon and get your copy today!

Synopsis:

Zel is a fortune teller. She works out of her century-old house removing clients’ aches and pains, advising gamblers, and channeling cranky spirits for a quick check in with their loved ones. Zel is very good at her chosen profession, but also receives some unique assistance. For as long as she can remember she has shared her home with a group of ghosts — a priest, a bride, a mute child, some washed up vaudevillians and a noisy, sight-impaired group of musicians, who pass on incredible knowledge and abilities from beyond the world of the living.

All goes on at the family homestead as it has for generations, until a mysterious light appears in the woods. The ghosts suddenly realize they are trapped, and forge a rebellion, tormenting Zel with all the aggravation and insanity they can muster. And when Zel uncovers the origins of these spirits, she is forced to choose between her comfortable if strange existence and letting go of the only family she has ever known.

Cal-ee-fone (that’s how my actor/governor pronounces our favorite band’s name whenever he raves about them) will be hitting the road in June for a round trip to Louisville. After that, they’ll make the much shorter commute to Chicago’s RibFest and the Taste of Randolph Street Festival. In August, they’ll play a show at Mass MoCA in The Bay State.

There are a few additional shows floating around (TBA soon), but this could be it for a while. So if you still haven’t seen them — or you haven’t seen them the required 999 times to be in the elite Club Califone (it meets the sixth Thursday of every month on top of The Bean), now’s the time, friends.

Also, don’t forget, Jim, Joe, and the Judy Green have a 10pm Hideout show tonight. Be there!

Califone Summer Dates

6/11/10 – Louisville, KY – The 930 Listening Room
6/12/10 – Chicago, IL – Ribfest
6/20/10 – Chicago, IL – Taste of Randolph Street Festival
8/28/10 – North Adams, MA – MASS MoCA (w/ film)

Jim Becker, Joe Adamik, Gillian Lisee, Reid Coker, Sam Wagster and Al Scalpone will play the Hideout on May7.

The Judy Green will play at 10:00
Jim Becker goes on at 11:00

Hope to see you there!

Check out FreekRadio on March 24th at 10pm (Central Time) to listen to a live performance by Califone, recorded while they were in Austin for South By Southwest. Says Tim, “We had a great time doing it,” so it should be worth your while.

You can also tune in directly through iTunes Radio > Eclectic Genre > Freekradio.

If you can’t catch the broadcast tonight, the show will run again this Friday (March 26) at 10pm. After that it will be made available as an iTunes Podcast!

It’s rare to attend a concert where the musicians’ backs face the audience for the duration of the show, and it’s perhaps even rarer when those same faceless musicians skillfully manage to not only engage but captivate the attention of their listeners. But Califone is not like every other band.

Read more at Time Out Chicago

In anticipation of Califone’s March 9 and 10 shows at Lincoln Hall (2424 N. Lincoln Ave.), the website True/Slant has published an interview with Tim Rutili.

Five Questions and Answers with Califone’s Tim Rutili

Chicago experimental rock band Califone has been challenging music lovers with its eclectic, ambitious, enigmatic grooves since 1997. But with its latest undertaking, “All My Friends are Funeral Singers,” the band is challenging itself, going places few bands have gone before.

“Funeral Singers” is the name of Califone’s latest album, out last October on Dead Oceans, and also the title of frontman Tim Rutili’s film directorial debut, about a fortune teller living in a house filled with spirits. The two go very much hand in hand, to the point that Califone is performing the album as essentially a live soundtrack to the film, including a hometown gig at Lincoln Hall March 9. (Those more interested in the back catalog can see a straight up show March 10).

Chicago Beat contacted Rutili to answer five pressing questions via e-mail.

Chicago Beat: So which came first, the album or the film?

Tim Rutili: Songs started first but once it got rolling both the script and the album fed into each other at the same time. We finished the album in March and shot the film in April.

Read the rest of the interview at True/Slant

Tickets for tonight’s show are here (film/music performance). March 10 tickets are here (rock show).