Greetings from the first annual Marfa Film Festival

I got on a bus in Los Feliz yesterday at about 1 p.m. headed for Marfa, Texas, to attend the first annual Marfa Film Festival. If you've been to the movies, you know Marfa as a smalltown Hollywood, where both There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men were filmed recently, and where Giant was filmed in 1956. The bus is a whole funny story that you'll hear about soon enough (I'm working on a feature), but the reason I'm writing about this in the music section and not the film section (besides the obvious) is because on the bus were Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, the erstwhile project of Ima Robot lead singer Alex Ebert.

A Marfa room. There are a lot of filmmakers here this weekend, apparently

But also then a funny thing has happened that has made me really happy I'm here. We were setting up for an art show in this oddball complex called Building 98 on the outskirts of town yesterday, where last night, after a screening of There Will Be Blood at the site of what remains of the film's main Marfa set (a frickin' amazing sight), Sharpe and his Zeroes, eleven members strong, performed.

So we're setting up the equipment and a really nice band is rehearsing in an adjoining space. At first I'm not paying attention; the sound is in the distance and I figured it was some locals banging around. But the songs were so good, nice three piece with a British lead singer. The more I heard them, the more I liked it, until finally I just walked into the room and sat down. They gave me little notice, nodded and kept playing. Sounded even better in the same room. After I left, I discovered the band was LA-based Victoria, and the singer was Antony Langdon of Spacehog. They've got a new CD coming out, and are playing here this weekend. Langdon's also working on a record with Joaquin Phoenix.

Yeah, so that was a pleasant little surprise. The other one is that Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond will perform this tomorrow afternoon at something called the Marfa Tea Party. Here:

If you happen to be in Texas, swing by.