Calvin Johnson of K Records will be in attendance to perform a couple of songs as well as answer questions.
In an intellectual title weight bout, raucous music writer Chris Estey goes toe to toe with cagey music maverick Calvin Johnson about beards and other mysteries of life.
Have you ever had a beard?
is a study in contrasts, illuminating the lyric heavy songwriting of Calvin Johnson vs. the ebullient music journalism of Chris Estey. The film documents their first meeting ever, in which both men perform on the stage of a vintage 1910 theater, Columbia City – a Seattle theater that’s played host to everyone from Bessie Smith to Jimi Hendrix.
Standing at ground zero of a series of music movements from Rriot Grrls to Grunge, singer/songwriter Calvin Johnson and his label K Records, spawned a music scene unrivalled in the indie music world. Both raconteur and sensitive artist, Calvin’s deep baritone booms across a generation of inspired vinyl. Despite his history, this film documents Calvin performing his new work, singing solo as he spits literary bop prosody in the form of three songs.
In contrast, bearish Chris Estey, with his boisterous laughter and almost masochistic need to be irrepressibly self-confessional, reads stories from his life, each memory spurred by a song on his favorite album, “Phil Ochs’ Greatest Hits.” In parallel tangents, his life story unfurls from mobile homes to LA flops, all to the soundtrack of a Phil Ochs’ seminal album.
Also in attendance will be Directors Kathy Wolf and Pat Thomas. This project is their co-production movie debut; Kathy Wolf is an aspiring screenwriter best known as “chickalou66” via her YouTube animation clips utilizing found footage and stop motion animation. Thomas is an A&R consultant for Light in the Attic Records as well as the author of a forthcoming book on Fantagraphics.