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.

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)

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!

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).

March 9, 2010 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall w/ Funeral Singers screening
March 10, 2010 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall w/ Roommate
March 11, 2010 – St. Louis, MO – The Luminary Center for the Arts w/ Funeral Singers screening

They’re also still on tour with Wilco in Canada. For their full list of tour dates, click here.

I leave for Park City, Utah in five days. Other than a half-day of skiing and a couple of parties, I’ll mostly be sitting next to other “Press & Industry” inside dark hotel conference rooms converted into movie theaters. Some come for the glamor. We come for the films. Oh, Yarrow Screening Room, next to the Albertson’s parking lot, I’ll be with you soon enough.

But Sundance has also always been a time to experience great music. The ASCAP Cafe and Harry O’s always put on great shows. I—and the world, I think—first heard the duo of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, who would later become The Swell Season, perform songs from their film, Once. I first saw Cary Brothers, Meiko and so many others on the Hotel Cafe stage at Sundance. I even got to break bread with Suzanne Vega, Alexi Murdoch, Mary Gauthier and Nickel Creek at an ASCAP dinner. This year, music plays a particularly big role in several films, and these are just eight that I’m going to try to see:

2. All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
As if Tim Rutili, the frontman for Califone, wasn’t accomplished enough, he’s the writer/director behind this film about a fortune teller, Zel, who lives with ghosts. They help her help her clients, but begin to get a little restless, and Zel doesn’t want to see them go. Califone, of course, provides the soundtrack.

Read more at Paste.

Califone’s Sundance dates:
anuary 26, 2010 (9pm) – Park City, UT – New Frontier On Main (live music to film)
January 27, 2010 (9pm) – Park City, UT – Egyptian Theatre (film only)
January 28, 2010 (2pm) – Park City, UT – Holiday Village Cinema II (film only)
January 29, 2010 (7:30pm) – Salt Lake City, UT – Broadway Centre Cinemas IV (film only)
January 30, 2010 (3pm) – Park City, UT Park City – Yarrow Hotel Theatre 1 (film only)

Califone’s film, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is going to Sundance. The band is “shocked and amazed” (and, of course, excited). They’ve been touring behind the film and their acclaimed new album since October.

In addition to Sundance, the band will go northward this February, in support of Wilco’s Trans-Canada tour. It’s gonna be chilly. Dates are below. Woot!

Sundance Film Festival

January 26, 2010 (9pm) – Park City, UT – New Frontier On Main (live music to film)
January 27, 2010 (9pm) – Park City, UT – Egyptian Theatre (film only)
January 28, 2010 (2pm) – Park City, UT – Holiday Village Cinema II (film only)
January 29, 2010 (7:30pm) – Salt Lake City, UT – Broadway Centre Cinemas IV (film only)
January 30, 2010 (3pm) – Park City, UT Park City – Yarrow Hotel Theatre 1 (film only)

With Wilco (no film)

February 07, 2010 – Missoula, MT – Adams Center
February 09, 2010 – Portland, OR – Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
February 10, 2010 – Seattle, WA – The Paramount Theatre
February 12, 2010 – Victoria, BC – The Royal Theatre
February 13, 2010 – Vancouver, BC – David Lam Park
February 15, 2010 – Edmonton, AB – Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
February 16, 2010 – Calgary, AB – Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium
February 17, 2010 – Saskatoon, SK – TCU Place
February 19, 2010 – Duluth, MN – Duluth Entertainment & Convention Center
February 20, 2010 – Madison, WI – Overture Center for the Arts
February 21, 2010 – East Lansing, MI – Wharton Center for the Performing Arts
February 23, 2010 – Hamilton, ON – Hamilton Place Theatre
February 24, 2010 – London, ON – Centennial Hall

• The old green and blue colors of the Roots & Crowns vinyl have been replaced by the fall colors of Funeral Singers.
• I added Funeral Singers‘s lyrics, an MP3 of the title track, and links to purchase the album to the discography page.
• I added some Funeral Singers-centric news links to the sidebar. If you come across anything else that belong there, let me know!

All of your horoscopes show good Califone in the future. Tour starts Saturday!

It’s a rare feat: the venerable site has reviewed ten Califone records over the years, and no single one has ever ranked below an 8. Of All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, they said:

“Giving Away the Bride” is one of the most radical deconstructions of normal rock production in the band’s catalog, eschewing even their normal roughly recorded acoustic guitars for a spaced-out beat and a monster of a distorted electronic bass figure, over which Rutili floats dreamily, intoning like a blues singer from the 1930s who got lost and tripped into the 21st century. The otherworldliness is so well-developed that it’s genuinely startling when the piano drops almost four minutes in or the live drums take up the rhythm a minute after that. If the band had hits, this would be among the greatest…

Yes, All My Friends Are Funeral Singers is just another Califone album, but it’s also a reminder of just what a special thing that is. They’ve carved a place in the rock landscape by discovering a previously ignored way of building a record and perfecting it over time through repetition. In my mind, it puts them in a lineage that includes bands like Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis, and This Heat, not sonically but artistically. If you’re already switched on to them, you have to hear this. If you’re not, well, what’s keeping you? The debate over which Califone record is their best just got even more complicated.

The record will be released in just a few days (Oct. 4). You can pre-order it on CD or 2xLP at Dead Oceans, Insound, or elsewhere. Pre-order customers will receive a link to download the MP3s right away. Speaking of MP3s, you can download the title track, free of charge, immediately, if you like. You can also pick up a copy of the album at of their shows, beginning 10/10 in Chicago. It’s Califone season!

10-10 Chicago, IL – Museum of Contemporary Art #
10-11 Chicago, IL – Museum of Contemporary Art #
10-13 Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum #
10-14 Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom #
10-15 Buffalo, NY – Mohawk Place
10-16 Ithaca, NY – Cornell Cinema #
10-17 Montreal, Quebec – Ukrainian Federation #
10-20 Northampton, MA – Iron Horse Music Hall #
10-21 Portland, ME – Space #
10-22 Cambridge, MA – Brattle Theater #
10-23 New York, NY – 92Y Tribeca #
10-24 Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
10-25 Washington, DC – Rock and Roll Hotel
10-26 Charlottesville, VA – The Southern #
10-27 Atlanta, GA – The Earl
10-28 Birmingham, AL – WorkPlay Theatre #
10-30 Bloomington, IN – Bear’s Place #

# Film screening