Linda Holmes of NPR called it “delightful,” while the must-read publishing blog GalleyCat called it “a loving parody” and Alan Sepinwall of the HitFix blog, What’s Alan Watching? tweeted “Love this Fountains of Wayne/Stieg Larsson mash-up.”

All of that is pretty cool considering the video’s a hobby project that got out of control. Here’s the video:

I was driving home late one night in July from one of my library programs when Fountains of Wayne’s song, “Red Dragon Tattoo” from the classic 1999 album, Utopia Parkway, popped into my head. Since I had read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo recently, it didn’t take long before I shoved two Tattoos together and started rewriting the song to pass the time. When I got home, I tried singing a few funny lines to my wife. As you may have noticed from the video, I’m no Freddy Mercury; sung a cappella, the new words only garnered a raised eyebrow.

In the days that followed, however, the idea kept coming back; I’d see someone reading the book on the train and inevitably, the song would start playing in my head. I had to hear my parody song for real! Soon, I decided to use some audio software to remove the vocals from “Red Dragon Tattoo,” turning it into a karaoke track so I could finally sing my version to my extremely patient wife and show her how brilliant I was.

Um, yeah. So brilliant that I had somehow ignored the fact that there’s a lot more syllables in the phrase “Girl with the” than in the word “Red.” There was no way to make my lyrics fit with the real track; if I was ever going to hear them with the song, I’d have to re-record the tune—so I did.

I used Apple’s Garageband program to record my cheap-but-effective Xaviere XV-700 guitar; aged-but-awesome Ovation Elite acoustic; tiny Akai LPK25 MIDI keyboard; and for the solos, a vintage, circa-1984 Sequential Circuits Six-Trak synthesizer that gets pulled out of my attic once every two years. I even threw caution to the wind and recorded priceless memorabilia from the band Too Much Joy’s final gig: a kiddie tambourine with a sticker on it that reads “20 F—— Years.” Priceless I tell you.

I don’t play any of these instruments well, of course, but what I lack in ability, I make up for in blind—or in this case, deaf—enthusiasm. I figured it’d take an afternoon to hash it out.

After recording for a few weeks, I had put so much effort into what was supposed to be a quick, throwaway project that I had to share the result with the world, if only to rationalize to myself that I hadn’t completely wasted a month’s worth of precious, non-existent free time.

When I showed the final result to my wife, she laughed a lot and was impressed. I beamed. Kind words from NPR and GalleyCat since then have been wonderful, but for me, those laughs were Grammy and Oscar Awards rolled into one.

And now you’ve heard and seen it too—thank you and I hope you enjoyed it.

Robbins has a slew of fun stories, only a few of which wound up in the book. In his chapter, you can find out about the Tarzan movie he made with his brothers way back when—and the sequel they made in 1974, when they were all in their 50s. During the years in between, the first film became something of a family treasure, brought out at holidays and parties to be shown amidst hoots and hollers, all the while narrated by Robbins’ sly, understated wit.

Visiting with Robbins and his wife, Meg, it was easy to see how they enjoy sharing a lifetime’s worth of amateur films with the world (you can check out 16 of their movies online at archive.org). One of them is about as famous as a home movie can get: Disneyland Dream, which was named to the National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress in December, 2008. You can watch it online HERE and even buy it on Amazon HERE.

They screened the 30-minute flick for us—my restless 5-year-old, Ava, was entranced—and it’s special. The film recounts the true story of how in 1956, the Barstows won a Scotch Tape contest for an all-expenses-paid trip to the then brand-new Disneyland, following every step from flying over New York City enroute to California, to trying every ride in the park. It’s all told and shot with great humor—for instance, every member of the family comically faints on the front lawn when they learn they’ve won the contest. The opportunity to see Disneyland in its earliest incarnation, as well as 1950s Hollywood (including the famed concrete handprints) and the Universal Studios tour, is also a treat.

One of the most enchanting things about the movie, however, is that it has taken on a life of its own, continuing to resonate and give back to the Barstows more than half a century after it was made. For decades, Robbins showed it to friends and family, travel clubs, on local public access cable TV, and so on, and it was accepted to be preserved forever by the Library of Congress. But then the story gets more unusual; in 2009, he got an email from Steve Martin—yes, that Steve Martin—letting him know that Martin had seen the movie, and spotted himself in it as a pre-teen, selling guidebooks at the front gate. You can find out more about that story HERE.

Filmmaking is just one of Robbins’ many past-times, however, which include everything from saving the whales to science fiction. During our interview years ago, he asked me, “Say, have you ever heard of Star Trek?” Um, yes, yes I have. He then launched into a great story about how Catherine Hicks (the cetacean biologist from Star Trek IV, but best-known as the mom on 7th Heaven) wound up staying over in their guest room one night.

Meeting Robbins and Meg was a fun experience, and we were grateful for their kindness and hospitality. Over the last year, I’ve finally met a lot of the people I wrote about in the book, and chatting with Robbins proved once again that discovering these folks in person has been the most enjoyable and rewarding part of the whole process.

See, John is from Knoxville, TN, which means he drove a loooong way to get to the ‘burbs of New York City where I live. Luckily, I was just one stop on his whirlwind, self-appointed Northeast tour, which includes visits with Dan Poole (who once swung off a six-story building for his own Spider-Man movie), Adam Bertocci (fan filmmaker/author of the viral hit Two Gentlemen of Lebowski), James Cawley (head honcho of the mindboggling Star Trek Phase II series); Michael Wiese (producer of the legendary Hardware Wars); and others. And that’s just this journey—over the last few years, John’s interviewed everybody in the fan production community; take a look at Backyard Blockbusters‘ Facebook page and you’ll see what I mean.

If anyone is qualified to make a feature-length documentary about fan movies, it’s John. After all, this is a guy who won awards from the Lucasfilm Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge two years in a row. Then there’s the fact that he co-wrote/directed American Scary, a film about TV horror movie hosts that just won this year’s Rondo Award for Best Documentary. The guy knows what he’s doing, and he’s coming to the topic of fan films from the right place.

I had never met John before, despite the fact that we’ve traded emails since the late 90′s and I interviewed him for the book. When he turned up on the doorstep Friday night, weary from doing battle with the infamous Belt Parkway, we devoured a round of Thai food, then settled in for two hours of chat and shop talk. Over the course of the evening, we wound up exploring nothing less than the history, psychology and greater meaning—if such a thing is possible—of fan productions. We had a great time, and I can hardly wait to see the finished film; I suspect that our respective alliteratively titled projects will complement each other very well.

We did the interview with me simply sitting in front of a makeshift ‘green screen’ made out of construction paper. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly a big budget production, but I’m all for scrappy independent efforts—after all, I wrote a whole book about ‘em.

Marc Edlitz

Marc peppered me with questions about my own interest in Star Wars and fan films in general, trying to figure out what would drive people to put so much effort into home movies based on someone else’s creative ideas. I don’t remember much of what we talked about now, but I know it was contentious at points—like the part where I suggested his documentary was in fact a fan film. That went over real big.

Overall though, we had a good time and Marc seemed like a pretty smart guy who had big dreams for his fledgling project. He wasn’t the only one thinking big; I mentioned at the end of the interview that I was thinking of writing a book on the history of fan films.

Time went on, I never heard from Marc again and eventually I forgot that I’d ever done the interview. A few years later, that fan film book I was dreaming about, Homemade Hollywood, came out, and now Marc’s movie is coming out, too. These days, the flick has a name—Jedi Junkies—and it’s premiering online May 20 at Dailymotion.com. As for me, that hour of questions boiled down to approximately 15 seconds of screen time where I define the term “fan film”—and that’s cool because I figured I was a shoo-in for the cutting room floor.

For now, it’s a free download, so check it out. If you’re a Star Wars fan, or just like gazing at Olivia Munn—a fellow talking head in the film—you’ll dig Jedi Junkies. Plus you’ll get to hear the mellow strains of my pals, Aerosith, the world’s only Star Wars death metal band. Entertainment doesn’t get any better than that, folks.

A phenomenally talented guy, Owsley recorded his 1999 solo debut over the course of a few years at home, playing most of the instruments himself. Released on Warner Brothers’ Giant Records during the label’s death-rattle phase, the self-titled album sold about 100,000, but wound up nominated for a “Best Engineered Album” Grammy award—not bad for a home recording done with gear that was perpetually breaking down.

More importantly, the debut album has come to be regarded as a stone-cold classic pop record–one of those joyful rarities that unloads one great, hook-filled song after another. Listening to it for the first time is a treat because you keep waiting for the first clunker to show up—can he really have this many good songs on here?—and the clunker never comes.

I got to interview Owsley in 2004 as he was promoting the much-delayed follow-up, The Hard Way, playing solo gigs in between tour legs with Amy Grant (he was her road guitarist for 16 years). Any music journalist will tell you, one of the perks of the gig is that occasionally you get to talk to your musical heroes: the people who made the stuff that inspired you so much that you had to tell the world about them–and thus became a music journalist. The downside, of course, is that a lot of heroes turn out to be…well, let’s settle for the term “jerks.” That was not the case with Owsley; the guy was as unassuming and friendly as he was talented.

The resulting article (reprinted below) turned out fairly antiseptic—his withering comments about Warner Brothers executives were far too profane, albeit hysterical, to print—but it seems only fitting to run it here in memoriam. A better way to pay tribute, of course, is to check out his albums, which highlight the musical joy he was so adept at creating and sharing.

From Pro Sound News (June, 2004)
Recording The Hard Way
by Clive Young

Lots of musicians daydream of self-recording an album in their home studio, and since they’re dreaming, the disc would of course be released by a major label to critical acclaim. Pop singer/songwriter Will Owsley, however, actually pulled off that stunt in the late Nineties with his self-titled Owsley debut album, which–going into daydream overdrive–wound up nominated for a “Best Engineered Album” Grammy as well.

Five years after those heady days, Owsley has now released his follow-up, The Hard Way, on upstart indie label Lakeview Entertainment. The disc has a decidedly heavier bent than his debut–part of why he’s no longer on that major label; after years of butting heads over whether he’d written The Big Hit Song yet, artist and record company mutually called it a day, and Owsley left with his tracks in tow. Now The Hard Way, released in February, is gathering steam and its lead single, “Be With You,” is garnering respectable airplay at AAA radio.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the album, however, is its cohesive sound, despite being recorded over the course of three years at different studios in a variety of recording formats. “I started out on 16 track 2-inch and did a lot of the basic tracks,” he recalled. “Then I made slave tapes, putting drums and bass down to two tracks of a MCI JH16 track 2 inch at 30 ips, since it would be easier for me to overdub at 30 getting in and out. I did that on about half the record and then the machines broke down.”

The result was that his ever-evolving studio suddenly began accumulating gear at a ever-quickening pace. First, Owsley’s tape machines were replaced with an Otari Radar II (“It’s incredible and it has never ever blinked”) and later, a Digidesign Pro Tools rig.

Then came a new console: “I was talking with Richard Dodd, who’s an awesome mixer, and I said, ‘Man, I just cannot find a console under 50 grand that is great.’ He goes, ‘Dude, the Soundcraft 1600 is the most unsung hero; I mixed Tom Petty’s ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ on one. It’s discreet, it’s old, brown and ugly, the EQ sounds like the Lord–and you can probably get one for $2,500.’ I found one up at Odyssey Pro Sound in New England, flew up, rented a van, loaded this big console in the back, and drove it back down to Tennessee; it was fun as hell.”

While much of the album was done in Owsley’s home studio, a move to a new house necessitated the creation of a new facility in his basement, which was designed by studio vet Chris Huston and built by Tri Star Contracting Company. Since creativity waits for no man, however, tracks were recorded in the meantime around Nashville, including “Rise,” which went from drums to mix in a hectic 24 hours at Emerald Tracking Room. “We never left until I was falling asleep at the console at 7 AM,” said Owsley with a chuckle. “There’s something really great about going all the way through a song in a period like that versus stretching it out over days. You don’t lose that center of gravity about what you’re going for.”

Other songs were recorded at Sound Kitchen, and also at The Bennett House in Franklin, TN (including the first single, “Be With You”), where Paul David Hager mixed the album.

Now with his home studio together, Owsley finds he’s writing and recording simultaneously. “When I’m in that moment, I just can’t help it,” he said. “When I’m writing, I’m sitting there thinking about what the kick drum pattern’s going to be. I think my whole life I’ve been an engineer/producer. I’ve done both and so now I don’t know how to make demos. I only know how to do the best I can. I can’t operate like, ‘OK, this is going to be a four-track bullshit recording.’ I need to make it sound great, because I want to blow people’s doors off. When I send songs to a record company, I’m not only selling my songs, I’m selling my engineering and my production–and in this day and age, you can’t send in crap.”

With his sparkling album now comprised of just a few of the 30-plus songs he recorded over three years, that philosophy has clearly paid off. For now, Owsley’s touring behind the CD is done between road trips playing guitar in Amy Grant’s band, but one suspects the hard way that he traveled along may be finally getting easier.

I did the phone interview a few days earlier, speaking with their intern, who was the only one in the office who knew English (She actually spoke very well, but was convinced that she was unintelligible). We talked for about 10 minutes, she translated it all afterward, and someone else read the translation over audio of me speaking. That’s a lot of work for three minutes of radio!

“Grace Dominion” is a moody, late-night tale of kids doing bad things in a graveyard. The story debuted in Grassroots Literature, a literary magazine with a twist: It’s a free iPhone app (download here). Here’s how the editors behind GL describe their publication:

A literary magazine designed as an iPhone app, Grassroots Literature features writing by new and emerging writers on an international scale. Our stories cover a variety of different genres and styles, and speak to the experiences of every man and no man. It is our intention to draw the reader into the experiences of characters that are as familiar as an old pair of shoes, but as exotic as a piece of fruit from a distant land. Join us for a journey that starts at your doorstep.

I love the “lit mag app” concept, because it answers two major problems: People don’t have time to read, and many small publishers are having trouble staying afloat in the face of spiraling overhead costs. In this case, if readers download the Grassroots Literature app, they’ll always have the latest issue everywhere they go without having to carry a magazine around. Meanwhile, the editors can release each new issue to a steady readership—you’ll open your app one day and discover the latest edition is on your phone—without backbreaking printing and distribution costs.

If you’d like to find out more about the app—or even better, read “Grace Dominion”—head to grassrootslit.com or simply download the app for free in the iTunes store.

Want the inside scoop on how they tackled sound for U2′s PopMart and Elevation tours? Dive into my book, Crank It Up: Live Sound Secrets of the Top Tour Engineers, which goes behind the scenes on more than 30 tours, gaining insights more than 70 audio pros. Check out the overview, or the rave reviews, or just buy it.

A whole world exists under the stage; there's everything from guitar and bass workshops, to bathrooms for the band, to the monitor mix area (shown; I'm far right). There, I interviewed the engineers who create the specialized mixes the group hears while performing.

Some of the 40-plus guitars ready each night for the Edge--two for each song, with one reserved as a backup.

Adam Clayton goes through about six basses in the course of a show, so there's roughly 15 set up in his bass work area.

Me (right) learning about the concentric rings of sub bass loudspeakers that ensure you hear the low-end even at the top of the stadium.

With a show as complicated as U2 360, the crew always needs to know what's next, so there's both songs and notes on the set list.

When it was first announced a few years ago, I was unimpressed, largely due to the title which, let’s face it, implies that it’s going to be a two-hour bash fest. Since then, the filmmakers have made it clear that they want to explore why fans take such adamant positions on Lucas, and in turn, why he’s such a polarizing figure. Backing that claim, they’ve corralled an interesting slate of interviewees; some of the folks slated to be in the flick include:

• Gary Kurtz, the estranged producer of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back.
• Sandy Lieberson, ex-head of production at 20th Century Fox.
• Dale Pollock, author of the go-to Lucas biography, Skywalking.
• David Prowse (Darth Vader).
• Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca).
• Neil Gaiman, sci-fi/comics legend.
• Joe Haldeman, Hugo award-winning author.
• Bill Plympton, cult animator.
• Chris Gore, founder of Film Threat.
• Ian Freer of UK film bible, Empire magazine.
• Henry Jenkins, author of Textual Poachers and Convergence Culture.
• Glenn Kenny, editor of the essay collection, A Galaxy Not So Far Away.

That’s a hell of a think-tank right there, and simply putting a slew of thoughtful viewpoints together in a film that won’t be vetted by Lucasfilm is a very promising start. So when they asked me for an interview, I was surprised, but I said sure.

The result was an enjoyable evening under the bright lights, answering questions for director Alexandre Phillipe, producer Vanessa Phillipe and director of photography Robert Muratore. Will any of it wind up in the final cut? I guess we’ll find out when the flick premieres sometime next year.