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AFF preview: ‘Echotone’
Christ first started lensing his feature in the spring of 2008, and the project — which tackles the collision of commercialism and music — really snapped into focus later that year, as Austin’s Live Music Task Force met and Christ first learned about the then-day job of garage soul sensation Black Joe Lewis: a seafood deliveryman.
“He’d just been signed to Universal and by day he was slinging fish and by night he was selling out concert venues. It was just so weird,” Christ said before the Marfa premiere. “So we strapped a camera to the front of his fish truck as he drove around and shot him ranting and raving all day long about not having any money, right as he was blowing up.”
Lewis forms one-third of the central focus of “Echotone.” Christ also focuses his lens on former Sound Team member, victim of major label politics and Sunset visionary Bill Baird, and Cari Palazzalo, of the electropop outfit Belaire, using the three blossoming local musicians to examine larger questions surrounding the intersection of art and commerce.
“Bill’s story was kind of a microcosm of the greater American music industry — the focus on the bottom line. He’s kind of been through it all and was reclaiming his voice and his muse,” said Christ. “And then you have Cari from Belaire, who doesn’t really want to sell her music at all. She has this ability to really blow up commercially and she just really doesn’t want to do it.”
The economic pressures on the music industry in Austin — presented against the backdrop of a booming skyline and an increasingly wealthy downtown district — form the central log line of “Echotone.”
“The life of a musician is a hard one. I heard even Danzig doesn’t make money off his music!” laughed Christ. “Our thesis is that about 75 percent of working Austin musicians make about 15,000 a year off their music in Austin, and that’s in the live music capital of the world.”
A perspective like that makes the film sound a bit academic, but Christ said he made a special effort to craft a documentary that was lyrical, visual, and more concerned with the music of Austin than any talking heads. Although the film does feature interviews and conversations, it places a higher premium on performance footage — and a veritable Red River Street’s worth of artists make appearances in the movie, including the Octopus Project, Dana Falconberry, the White White White Lights and Ume. That, Christ said, was part of a conscious attempt to avoid becoming too dry.
“There’s a lot of polemics and rants in documentaries these days, and I didn’t want to go there. I have been so sick of music documentaries that are full of talking heads,” Christ said. “It’s almost like they destroy the music, with a bunch of people saying ‘Oh, you should have been there,’ or people talking about this or that, when I just want to see the music. It’s like a show-don’t-tell thing.”
‘Echotone’ screens at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Alamo Ritz and 10 p.m. Oct. 26 at the Texas Spirit Theater (inside the Bob Bullock) as part of the Austin Film Festival.
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