Hammer No More the Fingers headlined at the Duke Coffeehouse last night as part of Viking Storm II. Here’s video of “Viking Storm.” We’re working on some technical issues right now, but we should have more video coming soon so be sure to check back.
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country took the top prize at Full Frame this weekend. Last year’s winner, Trouble the Water, went on to be nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. Burma VJ was a finalist in the documentary category at Sundance this year. The film also picked up the Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award and Full/Frame Working Film Award.
Update: Full Frame sent the official press release out just around 6 p.m. Here is the full list of winners with the full name of each award.
2009 Full Frame Winners
Anne Dellinger Grand Jury Award: Burma VJ
Special Jury Award: Unmistaken Child
Audience Award: The Way We Get By
Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short: 12 Notes Down
Honorable Mentions: The Flying Shepherd and La Chiorola
CDS Filmmaker Award: Burma VJ
Full Frame HBO Emerging Filmmaker Award Competition Films: Love on Delivery
Honorable Mentions: 45365 and California Company Town
Charles Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award: Voices from El-Sayed
Full Frame Inspiration Award: Unmistaken Child
Full Frame President’s Award: Oil Blue
The Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights: Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech
The second night of Hammer No More the Finger’s “Friends of Hammer festival”/CD release party (for debut LP Looking For Bruce) dominated the Coffeehouse last night. The event—comprised of five bands over a lengthy but energetic five hours—featured Viking Storm Ale brewed by sponsor Triangle Brewing Company, the UNC-Villanova game projected onto a screen behind opening-opening act The Beast and a number of concertgoers dressed up in their best Viking attire. Attendance was somewhat sparse at the beginning, but over the course of the evening the Coffeehouse grew filled to capacity, culminating in a packed mosh-pit environment for Hammer’s set.
Durham’s The Beast—taking the stage first of the five, around 9 pm—got the festival started on an upbeat note. The band’s fusion of jazz and hip-hop was a fitting showcase for MC Pierce Freelon’s politically love-oriented lyrics and his lively stage presence. Freelon made multiple references to the Viking theme, obtaining on separate instances an axe and a horned helmet from the audience, and his best piece of crowd banter came when he urged the crowd to “put your motherf—ing Viking Ales in the sky!” He sported a gray tank-top with “VS”, for Viking Storm, written on it in big, bleeding letters, and The Beast finished their set with a rendition of Hammer’s death-metal ode to the weekend’s motif, “We Pray for Viking Storm.”
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A lot of great stuff has happened at Full Frame this week. It’s all sort of whirled by thus explaining the lack of blog posts, which we will make up for in the coming days with reviews, Q&A bits, etc.
Unrelated to the festival, the most exciting thing might have been my Orlando Bloom sighting outside the Armory Saturday morning. Main Street bonanza is on its way.
Courtesy Merge Records.
Sorry to be a little late on this (Full Frame all day). Merge has released some details on its 20th anniversary festival, XX Merge. The event is a centerpiece of the local label’s year-long anniversay celebration.
Four nights of the July 22-26 festival will be held at the Cradle, with a fifth at UNC’s Memorial Hall. Bands include Spoon, Superchunk (0bviously), the Broken West, the Rosebuds, Polvo (!!), Destroyer, Guv’nur, Spent, M. Ward, Connor Oberst, Pipe and “many more expected & unexpected.” It’s a solid set list, but who else is still holding up for a Neutral Milk Hotel reunion?
Five-day passes are available for $150. Passes go on sale April 8 at 10 a.m. More details are available here.