Big House still earns a big room
| Wednesday, Nov 18 2009 05:52 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Nov 18 2009 05:55 PM
GO & DO
What: Big House DVD release party, "Never Ending Train: The Movie"; followed by a Big House acoustic set.
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, 2800 Buck Owens Blvd.
Tickets: $22 and up
Details: 328-7560, buckowens.com
Your own private Big House concert
Want to impress your friends? Invite them over to hear Big House right in your back yard.
The band has donated a private acoustic concert as an auction item in KVPT's online holiday auction. The bidding on this once-in-a-lifetime event begins at $1,000. Interested bidders can visit the Holiday Auction website at kvpt.org/auction and search for Big House. The auction closes at 9 p.m. Monday. The auction item is just one of the band's gifts in support of the valley's public television station. At 8 p.m. Dec. 8, the band's film will have its television premiere on KVPT.
"We are pleased to be the station that brings this to our Kern County audience. Providing local content is one of our primary goals at KVPT, and partnering with a world-class band with local roots makes it even more meaningful," said KVPT Chief Development Officer Michelle Berger.
KVPT is available over the air on channel 18.1 and on Bright House Networks channel 18.
-- KVPT media release
For dedicated fans of Bakersfield's soul-country act Big House, Saturday can't come soon enough. That's when the band debuts "Never Ending Train: The Movie," a 1 hour, 20 minute film that captured the making of 2008's "Never Ending Train" album. It premieres at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, followed by an acoustic performance by the band.
It's also the directorial and video production debut for frontman Monty Byrom, who toiled for three months on the project with little technical experience in the medium. The result is a polished, professional film packed with all the tracks on "Never Ending Train" and plenty of deprecatory humor, like a celebrity roast.
"I'm gonna take myself seriously at 50?" Byrom asked.
Band members don't talk to the camera. In fact, the joke is that Big House doesn't give interviews. So in between tracks, several of Bakersfield's more recognizable figures poke fun at the band. There are snippy comments from Sheriff Donny Youngblood; actor Charlie Napier; radio host Scott Cox; City Councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan; family members and others. Youngblood, for example, warns kids not to follow in the band's footsteps, or they, too, will end up in the "big house."
More than 100 hours of footage was shot while the band wrote, rehearsed and cut tracks from January to July 2008. Byrom became a friend of the cameraman, Michael Vincent, on an earlier project. He set up cameras and rolled wherever Big House happened to be at work. Byrom said the idea was to think of the camera as a fly on the wall. There was serious work to be done, and distractions can destroy a recording session.
"By the second day in the studio, I forgot he was even there," Byrom said.
"He was fairly innocuous," said guitarist-keyboardist David Neuhauser. "In the video, you can see nobody there cared. There's not a lot of mugging for the camera. I like that part a lot."
"Never Ending Train" is Big House's first album featuring the original lineup since 1998's "Travelin' Kind," the followup to the band's self-titled debut that produced three country radio hits and lots of high hopes. But life on the road wore down several members of the group, and things unraveled from there.
Big House reunited in 2007 and found new life with "Never Ending Train," free of Nashville's control and the pressure to tour. The record peaked at No. 11 on the Americana Chart. The video culminates with footage of the first "Never Ending Train" gig at the Crystal Palace.
"We just wanted people to see what it is we do," Byrom said.
Some 5,000 copies of the film will be produced. Some will be available Saturday evening, and copies can be ordered online at bighouserecords.com. Some will eventually be sold though local retailers.
Big House on PBS
And there's more on Big House's horizon: Valley Public Television, a PBS affiliate, will feature the band in the studio for a televised pledge drive on Dec. 8. It will air in the Fresno and Bakersfield markets.
"I'm looking forward to the PBS show," Neuhauser said. "I think PBS and NPR, that kind of thing, they're the only tax dollars where I feel like, 'Oh, I got my money's worth.' I like supporting the arts."
Jerry Lee, vice president of programming and partnerships for Valley Public Television in Fresno, said the Big House event is the beginning of a bigger push into the Bakersfield market. He said noted TV host Huell Howser is planning a big spotlight on Bakersfield and Kern County in January.
The band is also working on a new collection of studio tracks and hopes to have everything wrapped up by the end of this year, perhaps with a new label and some limited touring.
As for the video, Byrom is proud of the work, but he's still a dad, a real estate broker by day and a guitar player by night.
"I don't want people to think I'm now a movie director," he said.
