Music:
Member Since: 5/6/2005
Band Website: drunkenbees.com
Band Members: DRUNKEN BEES: shot, edited, directed, produced etc.. by Marianne Dissard, co-produced by Jean-Michel Dissard, bankrolled by by Brad Singer (rip). All music by Howe Gelb/Giant Sand.
DVD EXTRAS: "Searchlight" directed by Chris Wagganer. "Giant Prequel" directed by Marianne Dissard.
"Marianne who..?", you ask? " Wasn't she that French Rose Girl downtown?" Yes indeed, the one and only Official Downtown Tucson Rose Girl. So I made documentary films for a while. Now I mostly write lyrics (Amor, Amor Belhom Duo, Françoiz Breut, Giant Sand on "..Is All Over The Map"). This year, I'm recording my first album , produced and composed by Joey Burns of Calexico and Naim Amor.
There's been poetry published too, here and there.
Rest of the time, I like to keep very busy doing complicated things so I dont have to do the things that come naturally. "She is French, vous savez".
Influences: PRESS wrote: "Drunken Bees, the Marianne Dissard film chronicling Giant Sand circa 1994 is a fascinating glimpse at a "classic" Giant Sand lineup: Howe Gelb, Joey Burns, John Convertino and Bill Elm. The title is taken from a particularly excoriating review of the band's 1994 album "Glum", which appeared in Rolling Stone; in one scene, the band dissects the review with grim humor. Clocking in at one hour, the film supplies a tantalizing glimpse of the band's creative process and their Tucson stomping grounds. Unlike many rockumentaries, some of the offstage banter is surprisingly entertaining. In a similar vein as much of the band's music, Dissard's film pieces together an overall impression from fragmentary bits of materials; she prefers vignettes linked by common themes to overarching narrative. While you might wish for lengthier portions from live performances and studio sessions, Drunken Bees is a gentle, affectionate portrayal of the witty humor and lo-fi inventiveness of Giant Sand" Signal To Noise "Entirely less polished, intended to be utterly lo-fi - and succeeding on those terms quite well - is Giant Sand's Drunken Bees (www.drunkenbees.com), which amounts to a chance to hang out around Tucson with Howe Gelb, Joey Burns, John Convertino (Calexico) and their gangs circa 1994. They're not bad company at all and the title film (one of three on this disc is effective in showing how the style of the place leads to the sounds of their music" No Depression "Dissard made the pilgrimage all the way from France to make this documentary about her favorite band, and her video has all the unpredictable, do-it-yourself spontaneity of the music itself. Dissard manages to take the mundane details of her subjects'lives - like sitting on a stoop, fending off a drunken rambler - and transform them into a fairy tale about artistic creation." Tucson Weekly "Speaking of boffo, head-expanding stuff, this odd but oddly compelling, film is a brief (27minutes) history of a moment in the life of Howe Gelb and Giant Sand, a veteran Tucson outfit that plays sand-blasted punk'n'western. The movie's title is derived from a Rolling Stone dis of one of the group's recent albums, which is recited onscreen by one bandmember: "Gelb's an ardent trash picker who can't or won't cobble his scraps into form...Things buzz and bump and crash as randomly as drunken bees". In ways both bad and beautiful, this pretty much sums up both the band and the flick." Phoenix New Times "Dissard's 27 minutes flick is a decent little rock doc. Settings move from the lonesome streets of Tucson to the legendary Club Congress to an Air Force airplane graveyard where Giant Sand leader Howe Gelb meets a military man to read aloud from The Little Prince. Drunken Bees opens with a fine instructive bit from Gelb on how to install a swamp cooler in the trunk of your car. Classic segment of the band members interacting with a carload of thick-headed drunks passing through town "looking for a little action". Suffice to say, they get no help from Gelb and co." Mesa Tribune.
Sounds Like: "Things buzz and bump and crash as randomly as drunken bees" (Rolling Stone review of Giant Sand's "Purge And Slouch" album)
Record Label: To purchase a copy, drop me a line.
Type of Label: Indie
