There's a lot going on in Juli/Evangenitals land these days. The "day job" is just crazy as hell, so I won't go into that particular mouth of madness at the moment. The rest of it is full to bursting and only getting puffier every day.

This past weekend I went up to Vegas to meet up with my brother, Jaisen Crockett, the bomb-ass photographer, who was flown out there from New York to shoot a band -- KOR! Kinetic Origins of Rhythm (website, myspace page, and really awesome band photo taken by my brother forthcoming). I also got to see "Spamalot" which was lots of fun, play some video poker, go to the Ghost Town Calico, and take a bunch of silly photos with Ptryxxx, who was paying his first visit ever to sin city and did not leave disappointed.

We even went to an oxygen bar, which I has wanted to do FOREVER, and it was awesome. I wish I could get an oxygen tank for my house... as pure oxygen is the best cure for a headache and left me with zero desire to drink coffee and feeling like I was walking on the moon. Good stuff!

I raced home from Vegas on Sunday to make it back to LA in time for band practice. With Lisa Dee and Georgie out of town for this next gig, we're playing Molly Malones with an alternate lineup which always makes me a little nervous and a LOT excited for the new interpretations of old songs that always results when we shake things up. Brett's going to be singing more in this set, which is fantastic, Salad and Bryan Landers are coming on board once more, and the project of begging every person I know on my hands and knees to help us make the minimum draw and make this night a success seems to be going well. Good to know that honest desperation sometime does work. We'll see how it all pans out at the door.

TODAY I had to leave work early to meet up with the Genitals and go to Time Warner studios to do a little cable show promoting the upcoming Lummis Day Festival in Highland Park that we'll be playing at on June 3rd.

Much like our Q TV live television experience in the past, this one was equally disorganized, impromptu, and TOTALLY fun. We did end up getting to play two full songs on the show as well as talk about the origin of the band and the meaning of "Evangenitals". We also got some good video footage for our own documentary purposes and some cool pictures for the website thanks to Patrick Ian Moore, our resident flier artist, videographer, photographer, and budding webmaster.

Check out the pics here: www.evagenitals.com/photos.html

In other news, on Thursday Brett and I are meeting with Nirvan to discuss the Evangenitals being the theme band for the Road Trip to Oprah expedition... it's all sounding a little crazy, and therefore I like it very much!

You folks can look forward to my new song "Andy the Mushroom" which is causing me a whole lot of giggles and joy lately as I create new verses whilst driving in the car.... which Andy the Mushroom could never do, because he had no HANDS, man!

I love you all. If you can, please come out to the Molly Malones show on Saturday May 19th and help us get famous. I wanna hump on your eardrums for a living, people. Only you can make that happen!

xo
julio

1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline

2. A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails

3. Achieving the goal or "boon," which often results in important self-knowledge

4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail

5. Application of the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world

Let's do this!

xoxo

The Evangenitals (aka The Love Punks)

I just saw The 11th Hour yesterday and it was incredible. The only disappointing thing, for me, is that neither The 11th Hour nor An Inconvenient Truth really got into the tremendous impact that factory farming has on the environment, deforestation, etc.

All that aside... I highly recommend seeing the film. It was moving, intense, beautiful, disturbing, yet optimistic. Let me know what you think of it.

I finally uploaded my Road to Oprah road crew jumpsuit fitting and bus conversion pics to Flickr.

Check it out:

Hello everyone! 

I'm booking this crazy Road to Oprah (www.roadtooprah.com) tour and I have a couple of holes to fill and I NEED HELP!!

If anyone has any venue ideas (and especially CONTACTS) in:

Las Vegas, NV (October 5th!)
Charlotte, NC (October 19th)
Chapel Hill, NC (October 20th)
New York, NY (October 25th)
Philadelphia, PA (October 23rd)
Chicago, IL (October 30th - November 1st)

We are looking for clubs, bars, universities, house parties, other bands to jump on a bill with, etc.

Please let me know if you've got any suggestions!

Here's some information about this whole project, which you may really dig:

The 1 Second Film is a non-profit micro-collaborative art project employing new media to create social change. This fall, we are touring the country on the "Road to Oprah" with a documentary crew and the popular Los Angeles-based folk/Americana band The Evangenitals (www.myspace.com/evangenitals).

What are we doing on the Road to Oprah? We are making a movie, playing shows, doing presentations, creating art, video blogging (thanks to a generous sponsorship from Apple computers), and collecting producers in an attempt to bring the world together through micro-collaborative art while en route to Chicago to ask Oprah for $1 in order to join the 7,900+ producers of the 1 Second Film.

The best part is that the whole thing is non-profit and bio-diesel and all funds go to charity when it is all said and done. What could be better than that?

Our school bus has sleeping cots and kitchen, awesome and attention-getting exterior paint job, credit-stand caboose, and a bunch of other down-home features that will help to make the experience of 8 people living together on a bus for a month a bearable one. We simply need assistance finding places to park while in different towns, groups of people to present our music and message to, and the occasional hot shower.

We have, can, and will present and perform at bars, clubs, schools, houses, cafeterias, dorm rooms, hospitals, tattoo parlors.... you name it, we'll play it! We simply need a space and a time and we supply the rest.

For a sample of our videos and more information about the project, please check out our YouTube channel: youtube.com/the1secondfilm

Below is MORE information about the project, the presentation, and our Road to Oprah tour.

Project Links:
www.roadtooprah.com
www.the1secondfilm.com
www.the1secondfoundation.org

About The 1 Second Film:
The 1 Second Film is the start of a 5 Phase Plan to bring the world together, one second at a time, using collaborative art and media to create social change. The film is micro-financed; for $1 anyone can be credited as our producer alongside celebrities like Kiefer Sutherland. We currently have over 7,900 Producers from 51 different countries, and have raised over $200,000 dollar-by-dollar. A feature-length making of documentary will play during an estimated 90-minutes of credits, detailing how art can bring people together. Our documentary will culminate with our Road to Oprah tour.

About the Road to Oprah:
This fall, our documentary crew will embark on the "Road to Oprah," a 45-day 10,000 mile bio-diesel journey that will end in Chicago where we hope to ask Oprah Winfrey for $1 to join our producers. Along the way we will be presenting The 1 Second Film and our 5 Phase Plan at 30+ universities and house parties, while fundraising to finish our documentary.

The Presentation
The presentation is a 1-hour multi-media keynote given by director/creator Nirvan Mullick, an award winning animator who began the project while a graduate student at California Institute of the Arts. Nirvan weaves together entertaining videos, photos, and stories, detailing the viral growth of the project through unconventional marketing and open source tools. The presentation is followed by a Q&A session and a live-performance by our road band, The Evangenitals.

The Band:
The Evangenitals ( www.evangenitals.com), a popular Los Angeles-based "cow-punk love-rock revolution" band, will be traveling in our bio-bus, performing songs about The 1 Second Film's Road to Oprah, and the epic quest to bring the world together for one second. The Evangenitals' first album, We Are The Evangenitals, has a 5-star rating on both CDBaby and iTunes. Their much-anticipated 2nd album, Everlovin, hits the streets on October 9th.

Downloads (PDF):
• Road To Oprah Tour Kit:
roadtooprah.com/files/Road...TourKit.pdf (*dates may have shifted, please see website for current tour dates)

• Our 5 Phase Plan:
the1secondfilm.com/files/5_..._plan.pdf

And please let me know some news of what's going on in your world these days!

Cheers,
Juli

Juli Crockett
Producer -- The 1 Second Film
Lead Singer of the Evangenitals
juli@the1secondfilm.com

Day One: Road to Oprah Tour

The mission was to conquer our own town first. The plan: hit the set of Stephen Nemeth's new movie (a Phillip K Dick novel that Ptryxxx has actually been cast as a featured extra in!) then off to Hollywood Blvd, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Venice Beach for the sunset.

We made it as far as Hollywood Blvd, where Darth Vader leaped into the Road to Oprah bio-bus just as an electrical fire broke out, causing lots of stink and smoke, melting the wires, and making the bus immovable from the curb in front of the legendary Chinese Theater. Not a bad place for a film crew to break down!

We made the best of it, called a giant tow-truck/flat bed, and had the truck towed of to Chuy's (our awesome electricians) and waited for news. The bright side of it was that we got some great footage of costumed characters, skateboard tricks on top of the bus, an awesome street band, and other goodness that you'll soon be able to see on YouTube.

Right now we're crossing the Hoover Dam after driving to Vegas late last night, getting kicked out of a parking lot this morning, and meeting new producers at a grocery store in Boulder City. At the Hoover Dam inspection checkpoint, Officer Rivera of Homeland Security became the newest producer of The 1 Second Film. Awesomeness!

We're now headed through the desert and on to the Grand Canyon!

More news soon. In the meantime, check out the new photosets on Flickr and videos on YouTube!

Love,
Juli & the Genitals

**

Day 4: Road to Oprah Tour

Brett is behind the wheel of the bio-bus and we’re driving to Albuquerque right now, after spending the day at the Grand Canyon. We intended to go see the giant meteor crater in Flagstaff after the Grand Canyon, alas… the canyon proved too grand and we had to stay there for hours and hours. It was amazing and it was my first time seeing it.

The shuttle drivers of the Grand Canyon National Park gave us the 411 on THE prime spot to park the bus right next to the canyon for the ultimate photo op. We played on the roof of the bus for tourists from Florida, Alabama, Sweden, and North Carolina. We shot a music video (Home) on the very edge of a cliff. We saw a rainbow and sang the “Rainbow Connection” which inspired a woman to give us a dollar. The moment was so beautiful it made Lisa Dee cry. That was the second time the kindness and open kindheartedness of a stranger made her cry today. I’d say that’s a pretty good day!

Sarah made another amazing dinner (vegan pasta!), Brett and Nirvan did the dishes, Lisa chopped the veggies (I helped), and Levi and Mike hung out with the missionaries in the converted school bus parked next to us (George was sleeping). It turned out that the missionaries (who seemed, at first glance, more like leftist hippies than missionaries) didn’t like the name of our band (The Evangenitals). So, we improvised a new song about the forgiveness of Jesus Christ that the folks back home in Los Angeles will truly love.

We’ve written two new songs so far about the trip, the film, and Nirvan (the creator of this whole beast!) that I’m pretty excited about. One is seriously gypsy inspired, and the other reminds me a bit of old Poi Dog Pondering.

Tomorrow night in Albuquerque is our first “official” performance/presentation at the STOVE gallery from 7pm-11pm. I hear there are going to be breakdancers and I’m pretty excited about that. Everybody is getting along well, so that’s awesome. You never know how it’s going to turn out when you put 8 people in a bus for several days with not a lot of sleep, not a lot of space, and no showers so far. Thankfully, in Albuquerque we’ll be staying at Nirvan’s sister’s house and there will be hot showers, hot meals, and beds that are bumpy and on wheels.

What an awesome town Albuquerque is... at least the Knob Hill area/few blocks that we explored during our stay.  We rolled into Albuquerque really late Monday night/really early Tuesday morning after driving all night and pulled up in front of what the GPS thingy told us was Nirvan’s sister (and awesome jewelry designer) Dream Mullick’s house.  Unfortunately, it was NOT Dream’s house that we pulled our noisy Road to Oprah tour bus in front of at 5am-ish.  It was Susan’s.  Fortunately, Susan was a real sweetheart.  A stewardess for Southwest Airlines who offered us coffee, cereal, and a bed to sleep in if we needed it.  No wonder her garbage man has a crush on her!

We all hit the hay pretty quickly after saying good morning and good night to Nirvan’s Mom, sister, and boyfriend Sterling.  While I slept until the smell of food cooking woke me up in the afternoon, Brett (who slept on the bus), was awakened by Susan bringing him a cup of coffee.  She then took him on a tour of Albuquerque.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that she left 3 boxes of cereal and a carton of milk on the steps of our bus for us?  God bless Susan the stewardess!

Upon awakening, we were off for some local promoting of that night’s event at the STOVE Gallery.  There was a big animation festival in town, so we figured we’d hit that, and then the college.  En route to the Animation Fest, we attempted an ill-advised U-turn, which caused our trailer to jackknife and busted the hitch.  We stashed the caboose in a High School parking lot and called Dream, who proved to be our guardian angel on this stop.  She took Levi to the auto shop while the rest of us hit the animation fest where we met some  awesome folks from the Adobe company (who may donate some software for The 1 Second Film and website) as well as some nice Volunteers who really dug the project, the tour, and engaged us in a much-appreciated hug-fest.

Everything got fixed and we all regrouped to head to the space and set up, where we got to have our first “official” band practice with the current lineup (for 30 minutes) before the show started.  At first it didn’t seem like many folks were going to turn up, but then the trickle turned into a stream and at one point in the evening we did have quite a nice, packed house.  

At one point we had a crowd of people sitting at the edge of the stage (just like the old days!) playing all kinds of instruments – from tambourines to xylophones to sleigh bells to kazoos – for one of my favorite renditions of Home that the Evangenitals have ever played.  Everyone was playing and singing at the top of their lungs and we got it all caught on tape… coming soon to YouTube!

It is my great hope that Mike and Nirvan will get the illusive “intro video” up on YouTube today so that we can start sharing the VIDEO version of all of our various and sundry adventures and encounters on the Road to Oprah, as well as my random ramblings.

It’s wonderful: I miss LA and I’m loving this life on the road.  Ah, the miracle of simultaneity.  We’re in the midst of a few brutal days of driving and playing. Texas is huge, and it’s where we’re heading and right smack in the middle of where we go after that.  Right now, we’re closing in on Roswell, NM to shoot some footage of the Evangenitals and the Aliens (and impromptu Ode to Scientology video perhaps?) and then to Carlsbad Caverns to play in the caves.  After that, we drive as far as we can before passing out for the night, in the hopes of behind close to Austin in the morning.

Oh Austin!

Please spread the word and tell your friends in New Orleans...

The 1 Second Film’s <a href="http://www.roadtooprah.com">Road to Oprah</a> tour is set to arrive in New Orleans on October 13th where they will be presenting and performing at the Café Rose Nicaud (632 Frenchmen Street) at 5 PM. Everyone is welcome to come see the Road to Oprah road show (www.roadtooprah.com) and learn more about this art project/film that is being called the “largest collaboration in filmmaking history.” There will be live music by the popular Los Angeles-based folk/Americana band The Evangenitals (<a href="http://www.evangenitals.com">www.evangenitals.com</a>) who are traveling with the documentary crew on the Road to Oprah tour and composing music for the documentary, and a presentation detailing the collaborative effort to change the world one second and one dollar at a time.  Attendees will have the opportunity to appear in the film’s “making of” documentary and to play with the band. Admission is free.
 
The 1 Second Film (<a href="http://www.the1secondfilm.com">www.the1secondfilm.com</a>) is a grassroots non-profit collaborative film that anyone can produce by donating $1. From Kiefer Sutherland to Kevin Bacon, thousands of producers from around the world are chipping in to help make a film that makes a difference... will Oprah? That is the question the filmmakers and accompanying folk/Americana band are prepared to drive 10,000 miles to find out.  Starting October 5th of 2007, The 1 Second Film embarked on a 10,000-mile journey across America in pursuit of a dream. Their dream: to unite the world through collaborative art making while addressing various social-issues. The 1 Second Film's road-trip ends in Chicago, where they hope to meet Oprah and ask her to join the producers of The 1 Second Film by donating $1. Along the way they will be visiting Universities, high schools, house parties, night clubs, skate parks, and even Veteran's nursing homes to perform original music by The Evangenitals which will accompany the “making of” documentary and present their 5 Phase Plan to bring the world together, one-second at a time. The full Road to Oprah road show schedule can be viewed at: <a href="http://www.roadtooprah.com/map">www.roadtooprah.com/map</a>. 

So much has happened in the past few days, it’s hard to find time to write about it all!  Nirvan’s sister Dream surprised us in Austin by flying down to the show to lend a much-needed hand.  The venue in Austin – The Brentwood Tavern – was really homey and cute.  Outdoor wooden stage with an Oak Tree growing right through the middle of the stage, adjacent playground and you can even bring your dog there.  I loved it.  I could totally see myself moving to Austin someday, especially if I was going to have kids and needed to get them to some fresher air than Los Angeles has to offer.

Our hosts, Brian and Jeremy (Jeremy is his wife, and a woman… confusing, no?) were AWESOME!!!   They fed us, bed us, and took such good care of us it was silly.  Brian has some connection to SXSW and is going to try to pass some copies of the Evangenitals new album Everlovin’ (which is about to be available online at CD Baby and iTunes!) into the right hands.  That would be awesome, as I’m eager to get back to Austin very soon.  It is a great, great town full of music lovers and warm southern souls.  

We also got to meet Chad there, who was an Evangenitals fan from Myspace.  It was wonderful to have cyber-friend turn real-time friend and have the opportunity to play a live show for him… though we didn’t play “Never Again” which was the song that first made him fall in love with us.  I think the “Work Song” made up for it, though, as both he and his friend Kelly, an Austin artist who works at Apple in customer service, were feeling the message of the corporate grind.  There is a social revolution afoot and those two are hip to it.  It was really nice to get to sit and talk with them for a bit.

Dream surprised us again by accompanying us on the bus to Houston, where Nirvan and her dad, Shaman Mullick, was spearheading our event at Lucky’s Pub.  We decided to keep that on the down-low and surprise both her dad and Nirvan’s grandmother with her presence.  En route she helped us with hammering down our production schedule, set-up/break-down procedures, etc.  In a bus full of artists, organization and punctuality are not proving to be our strong suits.  However, we’re getting pretty good at faking it!

Open, honest communication and frequent check-ins are critical when living in a bus with 8 people, 4 bunks, 2 couches, and a whole lot of driving to do.  So is being as clean as you possibly can.  ☺

Houston’s event was big, loud, and drunken.  We performed like we were doing a stadium show, and it seemed to break through the ruckus and transmit the message.  I was wearing one of The 1 Second Film’s “I’m on top of Christina Ricci” shirts and it made me feel pretty tough.  Our group version of “Home” for the epic music video that is developing was incredible – we had Brett’s grandmother on stage dancing a jig with Nirvan’s dad, grown men playing tambourines, xylophones and slide whistles, and I was playing the bass.  This video should be awesome in the end.  

Early in the day, Lisa and I did an Evangina version of Home for Nirvan’s grandmother, which was quite an experience.  The tender quite of the whole thing got me all choked up and I almost cried mid-song.  

New Orleans deserves it’s own entry, as so much happened on Freemen street last night it’s going to take me a while to process it all.  In fact, I’m still enjoying the experience on the inside, so I don’t want to muck it up with articulation just yet.  I’m going to snuggle up with it for a while longer.  

We’re about to pull into Tallahassee where we’ll set up for tonight’s presentation and show at FSU, then we’re driving all night to my mom’s house in St Pete, where we will pass out for a few hours before doing a show at St Pete High.  After that, we get to have an evening off and some much needed sleep.  And a hot tub!  Woo hoo!