Josh Willis, Viral Sound, and Fungus Amungus - "No Tomorrow" - Providence Sound Session 2010

Josh Willis - vocals
Ariel Moore - Viral Sound - Drums
Stephen Howell - Viral Sound - Keyboard
Zachary Fenner - Fungus Amungus - Guitar
Mike Sperduti - Fungus Amungus - Bass
Jarrod Valenti - Fungus Amungus - Sax

Providence Sound Session 2010
Blake's Tavern
July 24th, 2010



Spotlight: Roger Mulcahy Jr.

Our latest Spotlight features local documentary filmmaker and a good friend of mine, Roger Mulcahy Jr. Roger and I went to college together and spent many, many hours working away in the multimedia lab on campus. He has recently finished his documentary Thompson Chemical and is working on two more docs. As if he is not busy enough, he and his longtime girlfriend Kim planned a wedding and are getting married next month. Without further ado, I present Roger Mulcahy Jr.

Tell me about yourself.

I am a documentary filmmaker that tells stories of subjects that are generally misunderstood or unknown by the public and shed some light on them and giving the audience a different viewpoint. I think documentaries have the potential of being stale if the filmmaker doesn’t look at a subject with a fresh gaze. There are a lot of docs that have similar subject matters but you can go down different avenues with the topic and produce something different. I real enjoy that process.

When did you realize you wanted to be a filmmaker?

It was when I made the decision that I was not going to be a writer anymore (at least full time). I was heavily into the writing process but then I took a media course in college and saw the power visual media could have on an audience. I fell in love with it and I started to play around with images rather then words.

Who are your influences?

So many to choose but I really admire filmmakers who are able to pull off setting a mood in their films. To me thats the bread and butter, to be able to give off a feeling in a skillful way. My influences are Errol Morris, Frederick Wiseman, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, Jean-Luc Godard.

Tell me about the first documentary you made.

I was in college and I wanted to make a film using videos I had from high school. My friends and I use to record ourselves doing an extreme sport that we made up called Scabbing (we would wear helmets and lay down face first on skateboards and go down hills all over Providence). We had a good size crew and we would all go after school to find places. Neighbors were annoyed, kids loved us, and the police thought we were crazy. So I had over ten hours of footage and I made an experimental documentary titled “Flesh Wounds and Scabs”. I am very proud of it. When I have some free time I want to revisit it. Some of my friends who were in it want me to make a longer version.

What are your current projects?

I have a few projects that I am working on. I had my directorial debut last month. Itʼs a historical documentary titled “Thompson Chemical” about a chemical explosion in 1964 and the effect it had on a small community in Massachusetts. We are currently shopping it around to festivals for next year. I am also editing and co- producing a doc on the tent city that was up in Providence, R.I. last year with my friend and fellow documentary filmmaker David H. Angell called Hope City. Lastly, I just finished shooting a doc in July about an older gentleman who is trying to promote the next Christmas character Blinker the Bunny. I followed him around on and off for a year and documented his trials of getting people behind him and his dream of getting character blinker to the children. I was attracted to the project because I thought it would be very interesting to follow another artist around trying to get his work seen by an audience. I found some similarities with him while documenting him. I will be working on Blinker & Bill and Hope City this fall.

What are your goals for the future?

After I finish up on all these projects I want to start researching and looking into producing short documentary vignettes on the web while I am in between projects. A lot of times the documentary process can take a year to get to a finished product and you can get consumed by the project and the world keeps spinning. I want to do something on a smaller scale so that I can keep my filmmaking chops and stay relevant. I think mixing the web and documentaries will be a good way to keep me experimenting.

To keep up to date on what Roger is up to follow him on Twitter and visit his website RogerMulcahy.net.

SlyShuga and The Spot Collaborative - "Girlfriend" - Providence Sound Session 2010

Sly Shuga and The Spot Collaborative - "Girlfriend"

G and Muffin - vocals
Josh Fullford - guitar
Conner Rollins - bass
Richard Cullen - drums
Sidy Maiga - djembe

Providence Sound Session 2010

The Spot Underground

July 22nd, 2010

Providence Sound Session 2010

July 18th through the 24th was Providence Sound Session here in Rhode Island. Musicians of all genres came together in an all week music festival produced by the Providence Black Repertory Company in collaboration with the City of Providence Department of Art, Culture & Tourism. Some highlights for me were Tevellus featuring a belly dancer at the Black Rep and the SOL Soldiers of Life show at The Spot Underground. Here are a few pictures I took. I took a lot of video this week. I'm a little overwhelmed by it all but hopefully I will get it up soon.

Check out more photos here and for more coverage check out my friends' blogs: Sully's Cafe and 401 Sounds.

An update of sorts

I haven't posted a Week in Photos post in three weeks and I'm so sorry about that. Instead of making a million excuses, I'll just update you all on what I've been up to.

Model & Styling: Mandy | Makeup: Lauren O'Jea  | Hair: HeadsWillRoll | More photos of Mandy here

Model & Styling: Bright Side | Makeup: Lauren O'Jea  | Hair: HeadsWillRoll | More photos of Bright Side here

I've recently started a four part series of women wearing various forms of menswear and lingerie. I had my third shoot for the series today with Boston model Haley Giovannani so be on the lookout for those photos.

Model & Styling: Miss Mischief | Makeup: Lauren O'Jea  | Hair: HeadsWillRoll | More photos of Miss Mischief  here

Model & Styling: Bright Side | Makeup: Lauren O'Jea  | Hair: HeadsWillRoll | More photos of Bright Side here

I also shot siblings David and Vanessa. It was their first time modeling but they were comfortable and easy to work with so we all had a great time and I got some nice photos of them.

Model & Styling: David

Model & Styling: Vanessa

I shot a local Rhode Island band called The Random Band at AS220.

I have two Spotlights coming up very soon of two people in the video production business in Rhode Island. One person works on documentaries and the other makes web videos for businesses.

I'm writing more articles for Examiner.com. Every time a new one is up it will appear in the column next to my blog so be sure to come back to see if a new article has been published.

The blog will definitely be updated more often. I just took a little hiatus but I am back in the swing of things and will have many more photos to share will all of you! Thank you to all the new visitors of my blog. Thanks for spending a few moments of your day here with me.