High School Muse

I believe the children are our future. You should teach them well, but then you've got to let them lead the way. And perhaps they'll lead you to the Salt Lake City Main Library (210 E. 400 South) tonight (March 27) at 7 p.m., for the Poetry Out Loud state finals.

Representatives from 10 area high schools -- including Judge, Skyline, Lone Peak and Layton -- will recite memorized poetry for a chance to advance to the national finals in Washington, D.C. next month. There, around $50,000 in scholarships and prizes await. And you thought there was no money in poetry.

Alex Caldiero and 2007 state champ Amanda Fujiki will warm up the crowd for the competitors. Bring your snaps and support the idea that "high school" and "the arts" need not be contradictory terms. (Scott Renshaw)

Dead Zephyr: Week 228

(Bill Frost)

I AM AN IDIOT, AND SO IS THE COMPUTER

So this week I wrote about Salt Lake City's glorious Purr Bats, but in the article's info box the computer failed to register the change of date from Saturday, March 28 (which doesn't exist this year) to Friday, March 28. I apologize for the error on behalf of InDesign.

And then...

I plugged These United States in Music Picks, leading readers to believe the band is playing Slowtrain and The Urban Lounge (as part of the aforementioned Purr Bats gig) on Thursday, March 27. This is not the case. They are playing both shows on Friday, March 28

FRIDAY, MARCH 28

You should go. It will be fun. Oh, and proceeds go to the Utah Pride Center. Yay!

(Jamie Gadette)

Baby 4 Cheap

[Ad Strategies] Based on this story KUTV ran last night, I can see a whole new promotional campaign for our City Weekly Classifieds:

Photo of a cute and wealthy young couple (think Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner in Juno) sitting primly on an overstuffed sofa:

"We were looking for a previously owned Porsche Cayenne. Instead, we found an adorable and barely used baby! And now we're going to name her Porsche Cayenne! Thank you CWlistings. com!

City Weekly: NEED A BABY? YOU WANT IT ... WE'VE GOT IT! (Holly Mullen)

Un-Endangered Democrats

[Party Caucus Review] You know the old saw about the Democrats being an endangered species in Utah? Always the snail darter or Yellowstone cutthroat trout of politics, the precious few Demos in this state seem to always be dodging rocks and current in their regular swim upstream.

Well, for the first time in 10 years, it didn't look so depressing last night at my Democratic Party caucus. According to today's news accounts we had more than 400 people at the meeting at Salt Lake's Dillworth Elementary. Talk was floating around the Dillworth gym/lunchroom (where we met as a leg. district and then broke into our smaller precincts to elect delegates and other officers) that this was the largest Demo Caucus turnout in the city. Even more than the Avenues! Ha. Take that--you pinot noir sipping, cashmere and pearls-wearing Avenues-livers!

We had 22 people in our precinct group. By contrast, two years ago, we had six. At that time we had to beg someone to run for delegate to the county and state conventions. Last night, we had three candidates scrambling for the delegate post. And it wasn't some budget-basement effort, either. Each candidate had prepared an actual speech.

So we elected Katy Macey delegate. In comparison to her two opponents, who were longtime party water carriers, Katy is a relative newbie. She gave her pitch and described her growing interest in politics: She wants to see a change in the White House. She's a former intern from the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics. For the first time in her adult life, she can actively participate in politics because her kids are finally grown.

She won in a landslide.

This morning, a couple of radio talk show hosts were bleating on about the train wreck that has become the Democratic race for president. Hillary Clinton lying about her reception in Bosnia. Barack Obama struggling to distance himself from his vitriolic pastor. On the national front, the Demos look like their usual self-destructing gang.

But here in the Utah trenches--the place where real people live real lives--I'd offer what I saw last night at Dillworth School as exhibit A for this fall's election. Even in this blood-red state, the tide is shifting, if gradually. Rank and file Democrats are engaged and enthused. It's true that most of them have a favored candidate for president, but in the end ABAR (anyone but another Republican) will get their vote. They are determined to wipe out every last trace of Bush-politik come November. The national press can blather on about the in-fighting among Democrats, but I did not see Chris Matthews or Tim Russert reporting from Dillworth last night. And as always in America, what's happening in our own back yards is the real story anyway.

Did you go to your caucus meeting last night? Which party? Feel like sharing your report with the rest of the class? (Holly Mullen)

Protest Time

[protest news] Who will protest now that Rocky’s out of City Hall? The answer is George Muller, of Veterans for Peace.

Muller, retired Air Force and Vietnam veteran from Eden, Utah, will be in Salt Lake City Thursday to protest outside the Grand America Hotel where John McCain is holding a fundraising event.

Muller is easily recognized by the display he brings with him: a trailer covered with combat boots, one pair for every Utah soldier killed in Iraq. He’s been protesting since President Bush’s 2005 visit to Salt Lake City.

I Get Older, They Stay The Same Age

Two consecutive nights at Kilby Court does weird things to you. Being surrounded by so much jailbait not only turns you into a resident Matthew McConaughey-from-Dazed-and-Confused, it affects your taste in music too. Cases in point: Beach House on Friday night and Tokyo Police Club on Saturday night.

Beach House is a pretty band. They have a pretty singer with a pretty voice who makes pretty sounds on her pretty keyboard–but it wasn’t beautiful. Now, I have no problem with slow music (shoegazing, dream pop, or however else you can euphemize it), but I am a firm believer in the notion of The Performer. If bands aren’t going to present their live show as a spectacle, then it should be incredibly moving—physically, mentally, etc. It seems that this should be no problem for a band like Beach House, whose new album, Devotion, is filled with lovely, haunting melodies. Despite some lovely moments from singer Victoria Lagrand (“enough of this Goth stuff, here’s a happy song”), I didn’t feel moved enough to endure standing in the sold-out Kilby crowd.

Afterwards, a friend and I were discussing the hype machine that produces a lot of buzz bands these days. He said that it felt like Beach House was peddled too aggressively to the indie crowd, that Pitchfork told us to like them. I can’t really argue because, as pretty as Beach House is, I can’t imagine the band would have garnered a sold-out crowd otherwise.

But then again, I like My Chemical Romance. Non-ironically.

Saturday night in SLC was the kick-off of Tokyo Police Club’s US tour, fresh from their abridged performances in SXSW—and they played like it. Feeding off the crowd (“I want to go around the room and write everyone’s name down” said singer Dave Monks, in polite-Canadian fashion), the band ripped through an hour set of New Wave/Strokes-inspired material from their two EPs and their forthcoming LP. They even had a synchronized light show on the small stage–a treat that’s rare for the lo-fi charm of Kilby.

Perhaps it’s a testament to my musical taste/intelligence (and a vague explanation for my reaction to the Beach House show) but I’m such a sucker for light shows.

The crowd’s enthusiasm was infectious, especially when their encore had Monks screaming “Hello operator? Give me the president of the world!” into the microphone—the floor began to tremble with people jumping/dancing. One cute, dancing girl accidentally bumped into me and mouthed “hi.” I weighed the odds of her being over 18 and figured that she probably wasn’t.

Don’t pull a McConaughey, Bradford. Keep focused on the light show.

(Ryan Bradford)

State vs. Guyon--Chapter 1

[The Law] Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has been hopping around the radio talk show circuit today, trumpeting his views that the Republican Legislative Caucus and other elected officials should hold open meetings, even when the law doesn't require it.

We journalists can't argue with that.

But as chance might have it, over at 3rd District Court today in Salt Lake City, a hearing is underway on several pre-trial motions in the strange case of State of Utah vs. Rachel Guyon, on which City Weekly recently reported. Shurtleff and his office have worked hard to downplay their part in the case case--including identifying the people in his office who are involved only by their initials on court documents.

Guyon, 25, is a former employee of an escort service and one-time criminal justice student at Salt Lake Community College. She faces 11 Class B misdemeanors related to her allegedly harassing nine of Shurtleff's deputy district attorneys with piles of sexually-oriented e-mails while the men were moonlighting at the college and taught Guyon's classes. Additionally, an attorney general's investigation into the case brought Shurtleff into the matter, as well. The state's top prosecutor is claiming Guyon harassed him with unsolicited e-mails from The Doll House, a Salt Lake City escort service.

Once the A.G.'s probe was complete, the Salt Lake District Attorney's office took over the case for prosecution.

In today's hearing, Guyon's defense attorney, Kristine Rogers, argued that the state cannot prove that nearly 200 e-mails entered into evidence originated with Guyon, and therefore, the documents should be inadmissible. Assistant District Attorney Greg Ferbrache produced Agent David White, an investigator with the attorney general's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, as an expert on e-mail and other forms of electronic communication. Febrache said he would confirm that the e-mails in evidence came from Guyon.

Rogers spent two full hours questioning White, who repeated dozens of times that he could not
confirm which "port," the e-mails came from. Nor could he tell what "protocol" the e-mailer used or whether the transmission was secure or not. It was slow going, and appeared to be going nowhere.

Rogers' point is to show how anyone, really, could have sent the e-mails, and simply looking at the header field is not sufficient to pinning the act on her client.

Meanwhile, the state withdrew evidence today that the attorney general's investigation uncovered with access as crime fighters through the Homeland Security Act. Guyon's lawyers have argued that the A.G. used the act inappropriately in gathering evidence against Guyon--sort of like wielding a sledgehammer when a flyswatter might have done fine.

But the finest moment of the morning took place before the proceeding even started. It was a heated exchange between defense attorney Rogers and Heidi Nestel, director of the Utah Crime Victims Legal Clinic. Nestel is representing the victims--nine deputy a.g.'s with cell phones, leather brief cases and sharp wool gabardine suits--to make sure their rights in court are protected.

Nestel approached Rogers, arguing she would fight a defense motion for the A.G.'s office to give up personnel files of the men Guyon is accused of harassing. "They are public record," Rogers snapped back. The two women then argued over whether Nestel's victims had ever received notice of the motion for the personnel records. Rogers said she did, indeed, send copies of the motion to the deputy attorneys general and if Nestel wasn't satisfied, she could file a motion to quash the request with presiding Judge Vernice Trease.

Nestel wouldn't let it go. "Those records are private," she said. To which Rogers threw up her hands and exhaled, loudly. "Mark Shurtleff is all over the stinkin' radio this morning talking about opening meetings and records to the public, and you want to tell me these records from his office are closed?
"Take it up with the court," Rogers said. "Now go away, Heidi. Just go away."

The jury trial for Guyon--complete with a full parade of lawyers with their feelings hurt as witnesses--is set to begin in Trease's court March 27. (Holly Mullen)

Statement from DA Lohra Miller

[Follow-up] Salt Lake County District Attorney Lohra Miller did not respond to City Weekly’s requests for comment for a story that ran in the 3/20 paper, but issued the following statement to several other media outlets:

"I am very proud and honored to be elected by the people of Salt Lake County to be their District Attorney. My staff and I have made great progress in reorganizing and reforming this office, including our efforts in prosecuting domestic violence and alcohol-related offenses.

"Unfortunately, public officials are sometimes forced to face accusations that may be used to distort and misrepresent their lives. Those accusations, whether initiated for personal or political motives and regardless of the manner in which they are made, distract us all from continuing our important work. I will not let that happen. I will continue to ensure that criminals in our community are aggressively prosecuted."

(Ted McDonough)

Revelation: The Trib watches KSL

[Local Media] ... but the Trib obviously doesn't read City Weekly, or else it would have known that we were the ones who broke the Lohra Miller story -- hours before KSL did and in much greater detail.

We understand. It must be hard for a daily to admit it got scooped ... by a weekly. (Brandon Burt)

Music at Main

Who says libraries have to be quiet all of the time? City Library employee Andrew Shaw, aka Chanticleer, the Clever Cowboy, certainly doesn't agree with the age-old sentiment. Passionate about his local music scene, Shaw recently developed a new series at the downtown library called Music at Main. Scheduled to run every third Wednesday, the series will feature various Utah-based artists performing and discussing their work with selected interviewers. Tonight, singer/songwriters Chaz Prymek and James Miska kick off the series with an intimate set of acoustic melodies showcasing their divergent styles. Shaw will host the gig which will also be broadcast live on KCPW. Come on down or stay home and listen in. You won't be disappointed. Oh, and mark your calendars for future Music at Main events including April with Bob Moss (hosted by Brandon Griggs) and May with Glinting Gems (hosted by moi).

(Jamie Gadette)

A Trip Down Sex-Scandal Memory Lane

You know back in the day when a politician wanted to have a good extra-marital romp, they had the common decency to challenge the press to come after them and then pick an inconspicuous spot for their said steamy action, on say, a yacht called Monkey Business. Ah Gary Hart, where have you gone now?

If you're like me and are feeling a little nostalgic about the sex scandals of yesterday, you'll wanna check out this nice little piece done by the folks at govcentral.com, chronicling some of our greatest public sex scandals--which politicians never recovered and who did surprisingly. Ahh the good ol' days...(Eric S. Peterson)

Lohra Miller's Wild Parties

[SLWeekly.com Exclusive] It's past midnight and all the house lights are dimmed in a faceless South Jordan neighborhood. All the houses, that is, except one. There's a party going on. Young people noisily come and go at this McMansion set in an otherwise sleepy cul-de-sac. Vehicles fill the home’s driveway and line the narrow streets. At 4 a.m., one neighbor, awakened by the sound of slamming car doors, has had enough and begins to call the police.

But she doesn't.

She's been down this path before. This party is taking place March 14, 2008, at the home of Lohra Miller, Salt Lake County district attorney. On Nov. 6, 2007, Miller angrily denounced as “lies” allegations she condoned underage drinking, operated a secret law firm and ran an unlicensed day care, all inside her home. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff cleared Miller of the allegations. Shurtleff must not have looked very hard.

The parties at Miller’s place died down after neighbors’ complaints attracted attention from the press and authorities late last year, next-door neighbor Jen Zielinski says. But now the neighbor claims it’s back to every weekend ... Read the rest of the story here >>

But Where Was Bret?

[Celebrity Sightings] Or non-sightings: Last week, a film crew took over Sam Weller's Books downstairs from the City Weekly offices, shooting interiors for a 2009 feature called Gentlemen Broncos, by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess.

No big deal; we didn't think too much of it. Until today, when someone in the office revealed that, on a java run to the Coffee Garden within Weller's, she was told that Flight of the Conchords co-star Jemaine Clement (the tall one with the glasses) was among those being filmed downstairs!

Deep-voiced and somewhat robotic, Clement is a geek-chic sex symbol 'round these parts--had the female (and some male) contingent of the City Weekly office known he was so near, there would have been a riot. Seriously. Crisis averted. (Bill Frost)

Dead Zephyr: Week 227

(Bill Frost)

SXSW Clips: It's ... Computers

[Music Festing] My friend Chris took a bunch of cool video footage of various SXSW performances with his fancy schmancy camera. He won the technology race, with me trailing a distant 3,092.

Check it


(Jamie Gadette)

What Women Want

[Talk Show Time] If you're not positively sick of every person with a pulse weighing in on Hillary and/or Barack, then tune in tomorrow (Tuesday, March 18) to KRCL (90.9 FM) and get an earful.

I will be yakking it up about the Democratic presidential candidates with frequent Salt Lake Tribune op-ed columnist Barb Guy (Obama supporter) and Donald Dunn, chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign in Utah.

We'll be live with host Brandie Balken on the public affairs program RadioActive from noon to 1 p.m. Originally, we were asked to offer a female point of view on the two Democrats--afternoon chick talk. But then how would we explain the presence of Donald Dunn?

Just to put everything up front, I remain a Clinton supporter--though I'm starting to read the tea leaves on this deal. No matter how many lives Hillary has, the delegate count is not looking good for her. But I always love the scrappy underdog in a fight--so if you tune in, I promise to make a good case for Hills.

And the illustration I've included here about sums up the way the world feels about Clinton. Bitchy Devil or Dreamy Angel--nothing in between. (Holly Mullen)

The Useful World of Web

[Better Living Through Technology] WhitePages.com has a feature that allows users to generate a map of the United States color-coded to represent the population density of people who have a particular name. Finally!

To demonstrate how the magic of color-coding can allow us to visualize data in new and interesting ways, I generated a map showing the distribution of Bill Frosts across this great nation of ours:

Bill Frost population by state

As you can see, it's impossible to swing a cat in Texas without hitting a Bill Frost; they're everywhere down there. (And they're big-'uns, too!) We understand there is also a sizable Bill Frost colony in Kentucky.

No telling why our own Bill Frost--the best Bill Frost--doesn't show up on the map. Utah is certainly not Frost-free.

Possibly, like most celebrities, he's glamorously unlisted. (Brandon Burt)

Honk For Tibet

[Protest] It's sometimes easy to forget about the troubles people suffer when they're on the other side of the world, that's why a band of local Tibetans here in Salt Lake have started taking their protest of the Chinese violence in their homeland, to the streets of SLC. Today a group chanted "Free Tibet Now!" outside of the KUTV 2 building on Main Street today, right next to the Gallivan Center Trax stop.

The groups bore signs protesting the violent crackdown on Tibet's recent protests of it's 57 year occupation by China. Violence in Lhasa, has forced a repressive curfew, and exact numbers of injured or dead haven't been determined, although Tibetan Association leaders in the United States have heard unverified claims that thousands of protesters have been arrested and that 70 have been killed.

Lob Sang, one of the Salt Lake City protesters admits that he has heard of draconian tactics in play back in Tibet. "When protesters would get hurt, they would go to the hospitals, so they [Chinese police] started arresting anyone coming into the hospitals."

In Salt Lake, the Tibetan community has staged this latest protest, of many, they hope will help bring more attention to the crisis. Young Tibetan children laid on the ground outside the Channel 2 News station, covered in fake blood and wearing cardboard cut-outs of the symbol of the Olympic Games (referencing China's sponsorship of the upcoming Summer Olympics) while the rest of the crowd waved Tibetan flags and shouted facts about the casualties of the more than half a century plus Chinese occupation of their home country.

There presence may be small in Utah, but they are loud "There may be only 150 or 200 of us here in Salt Lake," Sang says. "But we are part of a much wider demonstration. We may be small, but we must do our part." (Eric S. Peterson)

SXSW '08: Day 4

[Music Festing] I decided to wrap up my SXSW experience at Waterloo Park Saturday for the second annual Mess With Texas party, a free event open to the public featuring three stages of music, comedy and musical comedy. I stood, unwisely sunscreen-free, for three hours at the Super Deluxe stage to laugh my ass off with comedians Eugene Mirman, Brian Posehn (who lost his voice and had Mirman translate his set), Human Giant, Paul F. Tompkins, Leo Allen (whose vegan jokes received an icy reception. Come on! Baby Sauce is funny), Hard N' Phirm (who reminded us in a stirring power ballad that "anything is possible ... unless you're a girl") and others.

At Waterloo, I also caught Grand Ole Party, a San Diego trio with a killer female vocalist/drummer whose soul-punk delivery got half of the hungover, heat-stroked crowd to at least attempt to boogie. Atlas Sound followed shortly thereafter and though I was never a fan of Bradford Cox's former project Deerhunter (seeing him throw a hissy fit at last year's SXSW soured any interest I might have had in the experimental indie rockers), they absolutely entranced with cool atmospheric compositions that tempered the blazing afternoon sun.

I later ditched the windy Waterloo dustbowl, passing up a chance to see The Breeders (who are coming to The Depot May 27) and Thurston Moore to watch a deceased legend on the big screen. I joined SLUG's Angela Brown and Rebecca Vernon for a screening of the Joy Division documentary Closer at the Alamo Ritz, a former concert venue turned pool hall turned cinema pub (sort of a cross between Brewvies and The Tower). Angela's SXSW buddy Chase recounted stories of getting maced in the pit now outfitted with cushy front tier seats. Things change, he said with a shrug. At least it didn't meet the fate of another Austin venue which now operates as a credit union. And at least it's not just rotting like our dead Zephyr.

Closer helped put SXSW into perspective. "One of the last true stories in pop," the journey of Joy Division is absolutely rooted in context. Without the bleak, economically depressed confines of 70s-80s Manchester, the boys to men who formed the band might have simply ended up selling life insurance--or working at a credit union. Instead, they did the only thing that brought them any kind of vibrancy. They made music. At first badly, then well, then ground-breaking. Their sound enjoyed a completely organic evolution free of today's pressure to sell out and conform. Toward the end of Closer, the filmmakers toss in images of Joy Division's posthumous branding: the iconic cover art of Unknown Pleasures, for example, now affixed to skateboards for mass distribution.

At SXSW, no surface is safe from sponsorship logos. And the communities that informed featured acts' sounds are largely forgotten in the crazy kaleidescope of Sixth Street. Watching 1,500 groups perform at foreign venues lends a disjointed quality to the festival. Most of the time you walk into a bar not knowing the band's history. What's their hometown like? Is it industrial and depressed like Manchester? Wide open like the cornfields of Nebraska? Does each member play in five other bands like a typical Salt Lake City group? It might not seem important, but sometimes it helps to understand what a band is going for. It helps to read between the lines. Consider the fact the Joy Division's bi-polar, epileptic lead singer left pretty obvious clues about his clinical depression in his dark lyrics before he hung himself in May 1980.

Imagine seeing Joy Division as an unknown at SXSW. Would you stay or walk away (in silence) to catch the next group over?

Of course, like speed dating, there's something exhilarating about seeing 30-40 bands in four days. You get a good idea of what's out there. And who knows what might have become of Joy Division if they'd made their first U.S. tour and maybe heard something that changed the way they thought about music.

My night ended on a bittersweet note when a bartender gave my debit card to a woman named "Janine," which I suppose sounds very similar to "Jamie" in a loud, crowded bar. Sadly, "Janine" apparently skipped town. But I still had my ID and a coveted badge so I went across the street to see Jason Collett at the Parish. The Broken Social Scene guitarist did not disappoint. Turns out his band is equally talented, especially the lead guitar player. Wouldn't be surprised if he came out with his own project any day now. You can read my review of Collett's latest album here.

Oh, and I found this footage from the Muncipal Waste show on Day 3. Now you know what a Wall of Death looks like.



(Jamie Gadette)