April 24, 2008

Everyone But You: Eric and his pack of “back-talking Chihuahuas” make the indie film festival rounds

“I really just made the film to draw more attention to the music” - Eric Shiveley

So we’re a culture thirsty for the gritty, raw details of other peoples’ lives, and to feed that need blogs and podcasts and YouTube videos have become the “new TV”, with millions of window shades pulled opened every day for consumption.

Most never rise above the blurb-o-phony, and anyway, documentary films exist well outside of that bubble — all that much stronger a testament to talent that Eric Shiveley’s first-ever, barely-intentional film, Everyone But You (see here), has garnered so much attention and acclaim at film festivals like the Oxford International, the Jackson Hole and the Indie Spirit, where Shiveley’s film kicks things off tomorrow night.

Aside from his (oddly third-person) news narrative, Shiveley isn’t a blogger. And he’ll tell you he isn’t a filmmaker, either, and maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s that naked, pretenseless, unproduced way he tells a story that makes him so endearing to watch and listen to on camera and taps into that compulsion we have to be voyeurs of something real.

But as good and as funny and as poignant and very very personal as Everyone But You is, and as much as I’d love to see him do something else in film, he’s right — Shiveley is a first and foremost a musician. I’m increasingly excited for him every time I get an email telling me about the latest kudos or press coverage or film festival inclusion, and squealed when I learned from a friend that the folks at NPR had taken notice of him, but all the while I’m sitting here thinking “I hope that these folks are listening.”

Because it really is Shiveley’s music — in an uncategorizeable league of its own — that subtly steals the show, those of us in the audience barely aware that that’s really what we’re responding to.

I posted the film trailer in the last entry; this time I wanted to go straight to the source with a track that was destined to be my favorite of his before it was ever recorded. If you like it, too, you can email Eric for a copy of the CD (and maybe the movie).

With his always humble permission, the clip is below — a dusty, road-worthy tune about a girl heading south from the San Luis Valley on remote and enchanting Hwy 285, over the border into New Mexico, in search of something that I think Shiveley, perhaps unintentionally, both offers up and holds just out of reach.

Listen.

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5 Comments

Erin on April 24th, 2008
1
Hi Tonya, I really like Eric Shiveley’s music. I have the youtube clip favorited. How can I get a copy of the CD and movie also? I was not able to view the email address. talk to you soon. Hope the snow is melting some!

Erin
eric on April 25th, 2008
2
Yo yo yo Tee! I’ll never be able to thank you enough for your kindness and for just listening. And please never stop with your photography. I’m very glad you’ll (hopefully) have more New Mexico sky as your backdrop.
Marilyn on April 25th, 2008
3
He sent me a couple of mp3’s the other day…and this was one of them. I’m not kidding when I say (and I rarely listen to music anymore…all NPR, all the time in the car) that I’ve noticed several times this week that I’m hearing this song in my head…when it’s not playing. It’s a GREAT song. Twitter pal Laura C at BPP (NPR show) tweeted me today that she was listening to his music and that she’d watch the film last week.
tonya on April 25th, 2008
4
If anyone else wasn’t able to see it, Eric’s email address is eshiveley@gmail.com.
SLV Dweller on April 26th, 2008
5
Everyone But You: Film and Score…

Eric Shiveley’s career choices aren’t for the faint of heart and his movie, “Everyone but You,” charts the path of the musician and former technical writer after his decision in 2005 to abandon his day job and pursue life as an artist and musician …