Well That's Cool

It hasn’t been all bad, though. In Alabama I was going to school full time and working 3 jobs. In Texas, The Art of Unemployment: A New Wellthatscool.com Craft Column

This past April, my worst nightmare became a reality. Now, I’m not talking about the tornado that ripped through our beloved Tuscaloosa (although that was pretty damn scary, too). I’m talking about finding myself at age 25, unemployed, and living with my parents. Overnight I went from graduate student with a great set of friends and a cozy apartment to asking my Dad if I could borrow the car on a Saturday night.

I don’t clock in anywhere and I’ve made a significant dent in my pleasure reading list. At first this was absolutely thrilling, but the novelty wore off pretty quickly and I went looking for productive ways to use my newfound wealth of time.

This is where the “Craft Bucket List” comes in.  There are a million and one projects I’ve been putting off for years—doing derogatory needlepoint, making homemade toothpaste, constructing a bottle tree, etc. Now I’m finding all of the coolest DIY projects out there, taking the time to refine them, and sharing them with you.

The inaugural project is an adaptation of the New York Times’ famous No Knead Bread Recipe.  The original recipe calls for an 18-24 hour prep time, but this recipe yields a fabulous loaf of bread in as little as 8 hours. The ingredients are cheap, and the prep is fast.  Once you bake one of these babies, it’ll be hard to ever go back to buying from the store!

You’re going to need:

3 C Bread flour  

1 ¼  TSP Salt

¾ TSP Traditional dry yeast

1 ¼ C Warm water

Mixing bowl

Kitchen towel

Baking sheet

Dutch oven or all-metal pot with lid

Olive oil for greasing pans

Get it together:

A.  Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

B.  Add water and stir until all ingredients are well blended. The resulting dough should still be a little bit sticky.

C.  Cover the bowl with a damp towel and place it in the warmest part of your kitchen to rise for 6-8 hours. I leave my dough outside to rise because the stifling summer heat gives an excellent rise at around 6 hours. Prepping the dough only takes about 5 minutes, so you can set it out before a shift at work, and when you get back it’ll be ready!

D.  Once the dough has risen, transfer it onto a baking sheet that you’ve spread with olive oil. Give the top of the dough a little wipe with olive oil as well, and then cover it with a towel for an hour.

E.   While the dough is expanding, preheat the oven to 450 F. You’ll need to put your Dutch oven or lidded pot in the oven while it is getting hot. The cold dough hitting the hot vessel is what is going to create the nice crunchy crust on the bottom.  It is SUPER important that if you aren’t using a Dutch oven, you are using a pot that with no plastic parts. You can always call the cookware manufacturer to make sure that it can withstand the temperature.

F.  Drop the dough from the baking sheet into the vessel. Don’t worry about the way the dough lands in the pot! The cruder the drop, the more “rustic” the look of the finished loaf. You can carefully wipe the inside of the pot with a little olive oil to prevent sticking if you’d like. Bake at 450 F for 30 minutes with the lid on.

G. At the 30 minute mark, remove the lid from the vessel and continue to bake for 15 minutes. The fifteen minutes without the lid is going to give the loaf a beautiful golden crust on top.

H. After the total bake time of 45 minutes, remove the loaf from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. Now you’re ready to enjoy your beautiful loaf with butter, jam, or whatever your heart desires! Enjoy!

 

Ed. Note  We are so happy to be working with Ally again. Even if she is in Texas now (because she crawled out out her hose with just her backpack left after storm) she is always with us in sprite. We can’t wait to see what else she will craft for your reading pleasure.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Popularity: 16% [?]

Ally is having a MFA in the Book Arts Thesis Exhibition, titled REPRESENT. There will be posters, free books, and possibly hummus, we all know if it’s free David Smith will be there. Get there early & you’ll get the bound book that goes along with the poster portion of the show. The book features all handmade papers, letterpress replicas of mundane ephemera, and a selection of writing by Brian Oliu (I think that is the bright shirt wearing MFA dj guy from Egans). If you don’t know Ally shame on you first but let us give you some background.

• She’s smart, I mean we had to look up what ephemera was, for those not in the know it’s “ transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day.” , Thanks Wikipedia.
• She works at Oz music and is our music writer here at WTC. We are getting to old to know what the kids are into these days, it’s hard when you spend most of your free time shaking your fist at neighborhood kids and keeping their Frisbees.
• She is working on pursuing two degrees – one a MFA in book arts and another in library science. I know we felt double lucky to get one and for some of us that elusive associate degree still vexes us. Yet still she has had time to be apart of the local arts community.
• She is one of the most positive people we have had the chance to be around and has some really cool tattoos.  
• She drove through snow covered icy roads to bring Bo homemade tamales. Which ranks right up there my friend Martin bringing me a Dark Lord Saban signed box of oatmeal creme pies.
• Her motto on her business cards ” This bitch can print” which makes Mikey’s ” this man can film” seem kinda lame.
• She “aint never been any thing but a winner” as is evident by her trophy almost as big as she was as a child

Does that not sound like someone you want to know? Why not come by the Alabama Art Kitchen(2626 University Blvd) and see some of her beautiful work.  She had this to say in a recent inview with The Crimson and White

““They’re more ‘zine’ in that they’re about components,” she said. “Each piece has a corresponding poster and a corresponding piece of ephemera (glad we gave you defination now aren’t you), like a sticky note. As you walk through the show, you look at a poster, pick up a piece of ephemera that helps decode the poster and put the piece in your book. It gives [exhibit goers] a physical representation of their experience of walking through the exhibit….A lot of what I do involves repurposing, which involves reusing T-shirts and other things as material for making paper,” she said. “For artwork, I might reuse a linoleum block by manipulating an image, changing a color or layering, but the idea is to have it be used more than once.”

The event starts at 6pm and last till 9pm, there are free books, hummus and I have a hunch some mighty cool people what more could you ask for!

 

Popularity: 15% [?]

When the HBO series “How to Make it in America” premiered earlier this year there was a lot of buzz—and it was mostly about the theme song. “I Need a Dollar” is the first track off of Aloe Blacc’s 2010 release Good Things (Stones Throw Records) and it’s certainly noteworthy. The swanky beat paired with Blacc’s vocals about the struggle to earn a living undoubtedly resonated with more than a few of the viewers who tuned in and caught the opening credits. I still don’t know much about the show, but I do know that this album is stellar.

His sound is vintage R&B, and his voice is sincerely soulful. While he could have

easily used lyrics to put a modern shine on the rhythms of the album, his language

stays true to the classic genre. He tells stories on the tracks “Miss Fortune”

and “Mama Hold My Hand” with a startling, sorrowful presence. “Hey Brother” is a

warning to a friend about his two-timing lady friend and the approach to this tried

lyrical premise is funky and refreshing.

Surprisingly, what brings the album home is Blacc’s cover of the Velvet

Underground’s “Femme Fatale.” The song was originally released on the The

Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967 and is famously based on Edie Sedgwick, the

ill-fated socialite who ran with Andy Warhol in his prime. An iconic song, I could only imagine it being forcibly sculpted to fit the flow of the album with butchered results. In actuality Blacc re-imagines the tune, coming at it with a soulful touch and arranging pregnant pauses alongside a few extra eighth-notes. He brings a new and impressive drama to the song.

Good Things easily sounds like it was recorded 35 years ago. His old school

sensibilities make this album a narrative that has been absent from popular R&B for far too long. I recommend this album to fans of Bill Withers, Bobby Womack, and Raphael Saadiq. As always it will be available at OZ music on my employee picks.

Happy Listening!

— Ally

Popularity: 8% [?]

Despite being an employee at a record store and having a bevy of impressively music obsessed friends, I am often behind in listening to new albums. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I get stuck on one album for weeks. I want nothing else but to listen to that one record at all times—in my car, on my iPod, when I’m working at school, etc. And it’s usually not “new” music either. Too often it’s an old Elliot Smith album, or the Pixies’ greatest hits, or even the Toadies’ Rubberneck. One minute I put in Figure 8, and then before you know it September is half over and I just got around to putting the new Big Boi in my CD player.

The second reason is something I like to call “The Vampire Weekend Vortex.” By all accounts, I should adore Vampire Weekend. I like kitsch. I like indie rock. I like cardigans. I especially like cardigans when paired with literary references. And yet, I loathe Vampire Weekend. They repulse me. This has caused me to arbitrarily form opinions about certain bands on the basis that they may be something like Vampire Weekend. Examples of bands that have fallen into the V.W.V.: Beach House, Animal Collective, The Dum Dum Girls, She & Him, and Wavves. Sometimes a band is stuck there forever (i.e. She & Him), and other times I grit my teeth, push play, and am pleasantly surprised when I actually enjoy the album (i.e. Beach House’s Teen Dream). And then sometimes I listen to the album and I fall in love. While this seldom happens, it was certainly the case when I heard Sleigh Bells’Treats (2010).

Treats is grandiose. It’s bombastic. It’s fast. It draws beats from across genres, and then lets them go like confetti in your speakers. And it’s hard to believe all this noise is coming from just two people. Alexis Krauss layers diverse vocals on top of Derek E. Miller’s energetic guitar and elaborate production to deliver a unique sound. Krauss is two parts cheerleader, one part mean girl on the deliciously infectious track “Riot Rhythm.” “Straight A’s” is nothing short of raucous, while “Crown on the Ground” is the bona fide dance party number. The title track “Treats” punctuates the album precisely, running the closing the credits as if saying, “Now, I want you to sit quietly and think about what you just heard.”

Trying to fit this album into a genre is a difficult task. It’s not straightforward dance pop, nor is it to-the-letter rock music. The best categorical description I’ve come across is “noise pop,” which suits the muscular guitar playing, without denying that the music is indeed bubbly. If The Chemical Brothers and Liars had a lovechild, they would name it Sleigh Bells.

Treats was released jointly by Mom + Pop Music and M.I.A.’s N.E.E.T Recordings and is Sleigh Bells’ debut album. I’m seriously eager to hear how they plan to follow this sonorous gem. You can always listen before you buy at OZ Music, so stop by and check it out. You’ll find Treats on my employee picks shelf, for a limited time sale price. Sleigh Bells defied my expectations, and once again proved my Vampire Weekend Vortex to be a faulty construct. I hope you delight in its distinctive sound and raw energy, too.

—Ally Nevarez

Popularity: 9% [?]

I’d be fooling myself if I said that I didn’t have a weakness for front women in rock bands. My music collection is busting at the seams with Heart records, Karen O’s unmistakable growls, and everything that Jenny Lewis touches. So it’s no big surprise that it was love at first listen when I heard The Ettes’ “Shake the Dust” (Sympathy for the Record Industry, 2006). The Ettes are a Nashville based band with a pretty straightforward garage rock sound. However, they’ve got Lindsay “Coco” Hames in their corner and her salty voice changes their game big time. Backed by the raucous drumming of Maria “Poni” Silver and the confident bass playing of Jeremy “Jem” Cohen, Coco shells out the lyrics with gusto and it pays off. The album “Shake the Dust” is a bright listen all the way through. The starting track “Reputation” lets the listener know that this album is a party, not afternoon tea. It’s delightfully brash and, like the rest of the songs that follow, barely flirts with the 3-minute mark. The songs “No More Surprises” and “It Ain’t You” flaunt Coco’s commanding vocals with aggressive lyrics. The twangy “Soft Focus” serves as a welcome reminder that the record was produced under Liam Watson, the man behind The White Stripes and The Kills.Their newest release “Do You Want Power” (2009, Ingrooves) is tighter, cleaner, and more booming than “Shake the Dust” as a whole. They make the transition to a more refined sound smoothly, including numbers like “Love Lies Bleeding” to show that even without the rock star static they still have the power to write a great song. The tracks “No Home” and “Red in Tooth and Claw” preserve their edginess and keep Coco spitting grit with the best of ‘em. If you like The Slits, Gossip, or The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, you need to check out The Ettes. Take a look at the videos for “No Home” and “Dead and Gone” to see just what I mean about this scrappy ensemble, and then remember to visit OZ Music where these albums, and much more, are available for your listening pleasure!

Ally Nevarez-

Popularity: 7% [?]