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Here’s Some more film my friends and I made. In this one, I was cast as the main character, Moe Green. The movie was to be a series of vignettes built around the character. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, the film was never completed. However, several scenes were shot and edited. The following was the fifth scene and was to be the location of several reoccurring gags.

In my opinion, it was the best scene we made.

The Fountain: Thirst from Karl Tsakos on Vimeo.

My friends and I had the great idea to make a second movie. The movie was to be a series of vignettes centered around one character. Basically a day in the life where the character goes through a series of odd adventures.

This scene is the first of three scenes that take place at a water fountain and the fifth scene of the movie. It is the longest of the three and the most complete scene from the movie.

Obviously, the movie was never finished, but some scenes were. We had some really good ideas for some of the scenes, but producing the entire movie was a little ambitious of us.

Unfortunately, I was cast as the lead in the movie. I’m allowed to say this because it’s about me. Also, I believe my strengths lie behind the camera, not in front of it. Also, in the cast for this scene is a world renowned mathematician.

Here for those of you who haven’t checked out my Vimeo channel, is part two of F.R.A. – 8711.

F.R.A. – 8711 Part 2 from Karl Tsakos on Vimeo.

In this tale of monsterious proportions, two mad scientists get involved in murder. Well, actually creating a robot. But there’s death none the less.

This is part two of a twenty minute film my friends and I made and released in the summer of 2001. It actually showed at the Westchester Film Festival.

As promised in an earlier post (a much earlier post), I uploaded my movie to my Vimeo account. You’ve seen the trailer, now see the movie the trailer is based upon. Of course, to make things a little harder on you, I am posting it in two parts. So sit back and enjoy part one of F.R.A. – 8711.

F.R.A. – 8711 Part 1 from Karl Tsakos on Vimeo.

In this tale of monsterious proportions, two mad scientists get involved in murder. Well, actually creating a robot. But there’s death none the less.

This is part one of a twenty minute film my friends and I made and released in the summer of 2001. It actually showed at the Westchester Film Festival.

(Continued from “Rock On, Part1: The Early Years.”)

After things had settled down, my friends from college, post college friends, and siblings would get together every Tuesday for ten cent wing night at a local bar. Sometimes we would get together afterwards and have acoustic folk jams at my brother’s and my apartment. Tom was still around and usually played with us. This common song reference actually resulted in one of my first public performances. Ridgefield, Connecticut was having a street sale where all of the stores opened their doors and setup stands to attract patrons. Tom was friends with the owner of the local music shop who happened to have a band setup on the sidewalk for people to try the instruments. Tom and I picked up the guitar and bass while the owner played drums and his son joined in on keyboard. We played for around an hour and attracted a small crowd.

My musical endeavors got even folkier when wing night dissolved. We discovered that my sister’s friend Liz also played guitar and sang. We wound up playing mostly cover songs and some original stuff with her. Every Thursday we would play open mic night at Jimmy’s Seaside in Stamford. Always the same group of people both in the audience and on stage. Often My brother would join in on vocals. This venue is where the tradition of picking a new band name for each performance started. The only name I can recall off the top of my head was “We Know a Cop.”

Actually, I’m not sure that was what happened next. It’s quit possible this next bit happened first but to be honest, this period of time was sort of amorphous and didn’t have any one particular style or outlet. Anyhow, I started to play lead guitar with my sister and Liz playing rhythm guitars. We tried a couple of bassests and a couple of drummers. We played at someone’s party once, and I can’t recall who was playing bass and drums. I think it was Kemmet on bass and Teague on drums.

Towards the end of that incarnation, I believe Jim M. started playing bass for us. As that band thinned out, it became just Kia, Jim M., and me. We started writing some original music. In our search for a drummer, we came across my other friend Jim D’s friend Dave. I didn’t really know it at the time, but this was the first time Dave had played drums in a band. He had played other instruments in several bands, but never the drums. This band actually gelled and we managed to make some multitrack recordings. We were all set to publish them with a fixed band name, “Rex Mundi” until we learned there was another band using that name. We decided to take the name of the CD for our band as well. Thus we were “Vufu.”

“Vufu” came to an end when my sister had her first child. That’s when Jim D. Started singing for us. The band became Me, Jim D., Jim M., and Dave. We eventually added Sean as a percussionist. The band also lost it’s name. We had become what could be best called an eclectic cover band, doing everything from country to metal. So it made sense to re-institute the tradition of picking a new name for every performance. And we did perform. Our band names included: “Piper Down,” “Autopsy Turvy,” “Tranz-Phat,” “Monkey-X Mystery Attack,” and “Hypnotoad.” I’m probably missing one or two.

As was becoming a new tradition, this band fell apart when our bassist, Jim M., and his wife had their first child.

As things were slowing down, Dave had started another band so he could play keyboards again and get out from behind the drums. Dave has had the closest thing to a musical career of anyone I know. His last band broke up because it was too hard to kept replacing the guitarist. This new band consisted of long time collaborator Edz on drums and one of his many guitarists Shaun. Dave asked me what I thought of the music and I said it was good but it lacked bass. He said they needed to find a bass player. I said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” Dave followed my bad impulse with the unwise, “Okay.” I say “bad”and “unwise” because it could have turned out poorly for our friendship.

As it turns out, we were a good match and I became the fourth member of the band. Because Dave didn’t want to be the singer this time, we started a search for a female singer. Thus, Christine joined the band.

I keep saying “the band” because we have yet to all agree on a name (although Dave and I both like “P.C.M.A.”). We will need one soon. We’re almost done recording our first album and then will want to play some gigs to promote it.

So, there you have the history of bands I’ve been in. Look for future installments where I will discuss some of the bands in a little more detail and provide some example recordings if I have any.

I once had a band. No, I had several bands. More to the point, I was
in several bands. Let me clarify.

I wanted to start posting some of the songs from the various bands I’ve been in. I realized to do so it would make sense to include a history of said bands. This history turned out to be a bit longer then I thought so it is broken into two installments. Here’s Part 1.

My first band was a high school band. My sister Kia and her friend Tania decided to write some songs. Punk songs if my memory serves me. My sister played guitar and Tania played keyboard and they both sang. Our neighbor down the hill, Benjy hosted the band and played the drums. I was drafted to play the bass guitar (which Benjy also had). Until then, I don’t think I ever consciously thought of the bass as an instrument. I may have been able to tell you someone was a bass player, but didn’t think of it’s sound as something distinct and not just part of the overall sound of the band. My first bass part was all whole notes, which in punk music is kind of slow. Not bad considering I had never really played a stringed instrument until that point. They told me it was played using the index and middle finger of the right hand, no pick. I gave it my all and during the first few practices played those whole notes hard enough to get blisters.

The band was called “Have a Nice Day” and our logo was a smiley face crossed out with a bloody slash (this was before “Watchmen”). The band was the first of many I have been in that never performed anywhere. It was also one of the most successful bands I’ve ever been in. We wrote or learned somewhere between five and ten songs. We would record ourselves playing in Benjy’s basement on a single microphone to a cassette tape. Then make copies of the tapes for each other to listen to. Needless to say, the audio quality was often substandard.

So, how was this a successful band? I guess you could say it was the precursor to viral marketing, it was 1983 after all. We would play the tapes for our friends or tell other people we were in a band. Pretty soon, people I hardly knew would comment about the band or somehow had heard one of the songs. We had a buzz. And that was that. My sister and Tania both graduated high school in 1984, and thus ended the band.

I didn’t really play anything else through high school. When my sister would come home from college, she would borrow a friends bass for me and we would write some songs during summer vacation. I’m afraid nothing has really survived from that era.

While I was in college (my sister had graduated from her college) we formed another band called “Zod.” We recruited my friend Curtis to be the drummer. He said he knew how to play and that was good enough. We played all cover songs from bands like “The Dead Kennedys,” “Flipper,” and the “Sexpistols.” This band even performed once at some late night college party in some dark room where beer was being served. We sucked. Our friends were nice enough to cheer us on. Really – they were being nice. Our drummer got drunk to calm his nerves which didn’t help his performance or song retention. Kia’s underpowered practice amp screamed through the performance whether or not she was playing. I can’t even remember my own performance, I’m pretty sure it’s because it wasn’t memorable.

Post college, we still had “Zod,” but it again was just for our own pleasure. Kia, Curtis, my brother Yani and some other various friends rented a house together where we had a permeant band setup in the basement garage. By this time our friend Tom, who was a real guitarist, was playing with us. My bass playing had been improving and we were moving on from the three chord punk and playing harder songs like “Thin Lizzy’s” “The Boys are Backin Town.” My friend Paul (whose bass amp I used for the “Zod” gig and used for practice) would occasionally join in with us as well. Even though he was a bassist first, he played guitar as I was playing bass.

Somehow, Paul, Curtis, and I wound up playing alone and started writing our own songs. We had worked up enough songs for a set and Paul scheduled us for our first gig at The Beat in Port Chester as “The Gilberts” (named after comedian Gilbrt Gottfried). The same The beat where Moby had DJed early in his career. We were practicing hard and perfecting our songs for the upcoming first performance. Somewhere around a week before the gig, my sister and curtis had a large fight which not only resulted in the end of the rented house, but the band and ultimately my friendship with Curtis. Looking back, I feel terrible for Paul. We tried to stay together for the gig and even practiced again but ultimately it was too uncomfortable. I think Paul got another bass player and drummer together to play the gig. I don’t really remember as I was distracted at the time.

Interestingly enough, The recording of the last practice survived. It had some great fights and arguments on it. A couple years ago my friend Dave (who I didn’t know in the time of The Gilberts) was looking for an argument to put in the background of one of the songs his band “Copperman” was recording. I mentioned the tape and he went with it. So, somehow without ever performing, the music, or more to the point the arguments of “The Gilberts,” lives on.

In part two I will cover everything post Gilberts to today.

(Continued in “Rock On, Part 2: The Later Years.”)

So, some updates.

My whole running plan which I talked about at the beginning of the year sort of fell by the wayside. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I was running and I was on track. Then, I came down with one of the worst colds I ‘ve ever had. It lasted for about three weeks. I coughed for threes weeks. It was pretty miserable. But then I got over it. I started running, picking up where I left off. That lasted a week. Then I got my second chest cold of the year. That lasted about two weeks.

I decided that I was pushing it with the cold, dry air. Now that I’m feeling better I’m taking a new tact to get the cardio going again. I cleared a space in the spare room (which is still box storage for items I haven’t unpacked) and setup my road bike on a stand. I’ve started riding again while watching Futurama on my laptop. So far, so good.

What else? The house. Winter time; not much to be done during this season. I’m planning several projects though and will see how much I can do myself. I’m planning a vegetable garden based on the French kitchen garden concpt. Inside, there’s rewiring the upstairs so the majority of the house isn’t on one circuit. Then, I want to insulate the attic. I’m planning a new layout for the kitchen which will most likely require tearing down the walls to the studs and the moving of a door. Then there’s the worlds smallest bathroom. Oh, and the drainage problem with the plumbing.

I just made myself sad. No, overwhelmed.

Then, there’s the band with no name. We’re finishing up recording an album and writing stuff to follow it up. But that’s all I’m going to say about it so as not to upset Dave by talking about the band.

Finally, I’ve been thinking of reviving the Hudson Highlander. I’m thinking of getting a smaller HD camera which I hope will be more convenient to use (and less bulky) than my current camera. I did recently get a gorilla pod which will be great to use in the field. I’m also thinking of breaking the show out from just hiking. I may do a five borough bike ride with my brother and niece. It might make for a fun episode.

Well, that’s it for now.

Yes, I did it. Something for which I know some will look down upon me and for which I make no apologies. I went to the 2009 New York Comicon at the Jacob Javits convention center in Manhattan. An event which in four short years has grown to become the second largest comic convention after San Diego. And, a large convention it was. I have been to Jacob Javits before to attend other conventions including Mac World (while they were still held in New York). This convention was as large as I recall Mac World being. For comparison, at the same time as Comicon, the New York Times Travel Show was being held in a hall almost half the size as the Comicon’s.

The Comicon is a place first and for most for comic book collectors and fans. It is an opportunity to meet some of their favorite authors and writers from the genre. From the elderly statesmen who helped mold comics into the widely appreciated art form it has become to the independent writers and publishers of today. There is a giant section of the hall dedicated to the artists where the loyal can try to commission drawings of their favorite characters from their favorite artists. I would have said, “where they can commission,” but due to the sheer number of attendees, the artists were backlogged by the second day. That didn’t stop them from chatting with their fans or autographing a drawing or book.

Among my favorite autographs was one my friend Jim received. Jim brought the cover from the DVD for the movie Mystery Men based on the comic by Bob Burden. Even though the movie was live action, Bob signed the front cover. He then proceeded to flip the paper over and, while balancing the paper on the edge of a box, drew the head of Casanova Frankenstein, the villain from the books and movie. He then handed it back to Jim saying, “secret drawing,” because of course you’ll never see it unless you take the cover out of the DVD’s case.

Other attractions included acre upon acre of comic book sellers where you could buy everything from one dollar back issues of your favorite series to tens of thousands of dollar collectables. They also sold paraphernalia including figurines, games, and costumes.

There were other attractions such as the video game companies which occupied almost half the floor. I didn’t really spend much time in that area. There were also celebrities from the television and film industries. Although I didn’t see him, Joss Whedon was there. I did see Lou Ferrigno and Marina Sirtis who were there to sign autographs.

Other then meeting your comic and occasional film idols, the draw was the community. As with any gathering of fans, you had a great sense of fellowship despite the thousands of people on hand. You could stop anyone and strike up a conversation and have a common background from which to proceed.

That wasn’t the case for me. To be honest, I’ve never been a very big comic book fan. I’ve read a few in my time and enjoyed them. My friends often will recommend something I should read and I do and I enjoy it. But, I never seem to go and seek out new material on my own. I could name maybe four or five comic artists or authors and that’s it. More exposure than many, much less than the real fans.

So why did I go? Three reasons really. First, Jim invited me. Second, Having never been to such a convention I thought it would be fun. And third, and most importantly, for the fans. And what I mean by that is the fans who like to go dressed in costume.

It’s not like you think. These people aren’t crazy. These people are showing their devotion to their favorite pastime. They are sharing their favorite fantasies with the other attendees. There is a knowledge of what they are doing and that it’s silly and funny at times. Ultimately, they are doing it because it’s fun.

I thought it would be a great photographic opportunity to go and get some shots of people in costume and I wasn’t mistaken. There was everything from the serious, to the ridiculous, to the sexy. You can see the photos I took at the convention and see what I mean. Enjoy.