The Clumsy Lovers, a Vancouver, British Columbia, band, plays at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood. (Ron Wurzer/WPN for the Boston Globe)

As I mentioned the other day, I went to hear the Clumsy Lovers last night, and they were even better than I remember. They’re infectiously peppy, they combine genres that are fun even when they stand alone (bluegrass, Irish, thumping straight-up rock), and they just seem to be having a damned good time. Beside, you have to admire the cojones of any band that tackles AC/DC with banjo and fiddle.

The eclectic crowd was stomping and clapping, hoedown-style, setting aside PBR tallboys to fully join the fun.

Which got me thinking: what makes a great concert? Is it the mood? The songs? The energy? The venue? The beer? All of the above, of course. Specifically, I’ve found certain things to be good predictors of a better-than-average show:

banjo

fiddle

accordion*

upright bass

PBR

floors made of natural material (cork, wood, grass)

a smallish to mid-sized venue

club-style, not seated audience

spontaneity (last night, for example, the band let a woman come from the audience and sing her choice of song because it was her birthday)

I could go one. And this is, of course, just my own opinion. If you have thoughts of your own along this line, please comment below and, as always, feel free to send a private message.

Here’s my latest story for the Seattle Times. If you’re reading this because you followed the link from the Times, welcome! Please do let me know (via the form on this page) if you or your organization is doing something I should check out. My aim is to make this a compendium of the things that, on any given day, make life worth living – especially helpful on particularly gray ones.

By the way, in my earlier stories, I discussed the Moondoggies, a local band in MTV’s $5 Cover series. They played at the Seattle film-industry party at Sundance and both impressed onlookers and reminded us of home. Here’s a YouTube shot of the band at the Crocodile:

I spent the day at a fiction writing workshop presented by Mary Buckham, one of many (many, many) successful writers who live in the Puget Sound region.

Yes, I’m going to start writing fiction, too. Everyone else does.

And tonight, I’m dashing off to the Tractor, our home away from home, to hear the Clumsy Lovers. I’ve seen them before; honestly, there was a lot going on that night, so I don’t remember all the details. I do know that I had a great time. And I expect to again: You really can’t go wrong with the Tractor.

the Clumsy Lovers

I’ve finally figured out how to link my blog to Facebook. Now all my stalkers can follow me (sorry, stalkers – it’ll be more about things going on in the world than about me. Just kidding – I don’t friend my stalkers. As far as I know).

Most years, by the time the Sundance Film Festival’s over, I’m really ready for it to be over. This year, the snow and the work flew fast during the first weekend, while it was hard to tell which movies were really turning audiences on. By the second weekend, though, a few films were standout favorites, and of course I hadn’t seen some of them. And of those, some may never get U.S. theatrical distribution, so this was my last chance.

But it was time to get back to Seattle, leaving me to wonder what I’d missed.

One of these years, I’ll become one of those champion film-watchers, like Sean P. Means at the Salt Lake Tribune. Or Jeremy Mathews, who talks about all things movie on his Same Dame podcast/blog. By the time I saw him at the festival, he’d watched 40 or so movies, which averaged out to 7 a day or so. These guys have butts of steel. Alas, I didn’t bring my donut cushion – and I’m still young enough to care about parties, panels, and other assorted goings-on to sit through that many movies. I’d rather let the iron butts figure out which ones I should see and try to catch those. Avoiding the “dogs” has always been a good strategy for me.

For my take on Sundance overall, as well as the state of the Seattle film community in general (well, as much as I can fit into 500 words), see my story in Sunday’s Seattle Times.

James Rolleston played the title role in the movie "Boy," a charming New Zealand film you may never have the chance to see after Sundance. (photo by Jill Orschel/Sundance Institute)

"Tucker & Dale" Q&A with director Eli Craig. Photo by Brandon Joseph Baker for Sundance

If you love campy horror that gives uppity teenagers their due, or hillbillies, or movies that simultaneously take the piss out of and show a lot of respect for classics in their genre – or if you just want a crazy bloody hilarious good time, then “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” is the Sundance movie for you.

It was for me. After many hours over the last couple days dealing with email, Web, photo, AND phone malfunctions (why do all these blow up at the same time – and of course right when lots of people are trying to reach me…or at least I think they are, but how do I know, when they can’t?), I was ready for some blood.

Every year, the festival’s Midnight series gives us some doozy genre movies that make up with enthusiasm what they lack in budget, and this is a classic example. “Tucker & Dale” concerns a couple humble hillbillies who get on the wrong side of some snooty college kids when they both head for the deep, dark, possibly killer-infested woods. Although it supposedly takes place in West Virginia (of course), it was filmed in Canada (of course).

The leads are sympathetic and funny and never cheesy. The movie features a few great lines (“I should have known that when a guy like me talked to a girl like you, somebody would end up dead”) and scenes that had everyone laughing out loud even as they cringed.

Another nice touch: Writer/Director Eli Craig’s entertaining Q&A after the film, which was also both sweet and hysterical. Craig said the reason his movie ended up low on the nudity scale was that none of his Alberta-based cast was willing to take her shirt off. A local stripper volunteered to be a stand-in for one of the actresses, but when she appeared on the set, “She was about 40 years old and extremely rugged-looking,” Craig said. So the shot ended up being filmed from a distance – a great distance.

Turning more thoughtful, Craig mused on his film’s underlying themes of “our classist society” and marveled on getting into Sundance: “I can’t believe the things people always told me would pay off – hard work, believing in yourself, never giving up – all paid off.”

(A scene from "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil." Photo by Dan Powers)

Listen to me on RadioWest here (I’m the first 20 minutes or so):

Thanks again to Elaine and Doug for having me on the show.

More of Sean’s awesomeness…

http://blogs.sltrib.com/sundance/index.php?p=10097&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

(Director Tony Scott drops his hat and gestures to co-star Kristin Stewart and Melissa Leo of Welcome to the Riley in the press line at the Racquet Club Theatre at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City Utah, January 23, 2010 Live at Sundance/Calvin Knight)

I was a guest on Radio West this morning (Tuesday), discussing my impressions of Sundance. If you missed it, you can catch it again at 7 p.m. on KUER FM90, or you can download the podcast anytime from kuer.org.

I had a lot more material than we had time, so I thought I’d add a few thoughts on how the festival’s gone so far.

Celebrity sightings:

Joseph Gordon Levitt (you may remember him as the kid from the TV show “Third Rock from the Sun”) is doing a couple of projects – the film “Hesher” is getting pretty good reviews. He also did a presentation as part of the festival’s Frontier on Main on his venture called Hit Record, which is a place where people can come together and collaborate on projects and then share the profits. His website is www.hitrecord.org.

As he describes it, “In a nutshell: we create and develop art and media collaboratively here on our site; we use my position in the traditional entertainment industry to turn that creativity into money-making productions; and then we share any profits with the contributing artists.” He seemed genuinely nice and won over a lot of people at the festival this year.

Then there’s “The Runaways,” a retelling of Joan Jett’s early years in an all-girl rock band. For celebrity watchers, it was notable because it starred Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. Some others were more impressed that Joan Jett was in town (she was executive producer of the film).

I’m still bummed about The Roots, but Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt were in town for a Sundance concert celebrating music in film, and it was nice to see them in an intimate venue. (Lyle Lovett wrote music for a movie here.) After that, I headed for the Seattle party to hear the Moondoggies, a tight band featured in $5 Cover, the project I’m writing about for the Seattle Times.

And Jimmy Smits is apparently super nice.

As for the overall vibe: It’s John Cooper’s first year as director of the festival. He’s done some new and different things – disagreeing on if it’s good. For one, he re-categorized some movies. There’s the “Next” section, focusing on low-budget films. Some people thought this would backfire and become a sort of ghetto, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. Some of the most talked-about movies are in that section.

There’s a visual theme with every festival. This year, it’s kind of got an off-kilter, rough-edged, edgy, grungy feeling. I think that theme is ugly and the whole “Rebel!” thing is a little cheesy, but that’s just my opinion. Obviously, the movies are the most important thing.

A couple movies have been bought by distributors, including “Buried,” which stars Ryan Reynolds as a guy who gets buried alive and has to figure out how to escape. Obviously not a good movie for anyone with claustrophobia.

My friend Clayton Chase Fullmer took this great photo of Bill Murray for WireImage, the festival's official photographer.

I never thought celebrity-seekers would be as excited about seeing Bill Gates as they are about starlets.

He made a couple events difficult to get into when he decided to go to them. Apparently, he was partying pretty hard this weekend, dancing and flirting with young women way past midnight. I know it’s hard to imagine. I’m glad he got the Sundance experience, but it meant a lot of people didn’t get into these events because they were taken over by Gates and his entourage.

The Roots performed with John Legend at a party for “Waiting for Superman.” Because Bill Gates was there, I didn’t get in to hear it. I was deeply, bitterly disappointed. The Roots are one of my favorite bands to see live, and since they joined Jimmy Fallon as his house band, they haven’t toured much.

So I stood outside, with snow piling up on me, cursing. “Stupid Bill Gates!” I said. And I trundled off to catch a shuttle home. On the shuttle, I ran into my dear friend Sean P. Means, movie critic for the Salt Lake Tribune. Like me, he was covered with snow. Also like me, he’d been waiting to get into a party and had given up. We shared a friendly gripe about our thwarted efforts.

I soon realized that if I’d gotten into that event, I would probably not have made it home. And as I slid along at 10 miles an hour through a sideways blizzard, gripping the steering wheel and gritting my teeth as cars slid off the road all around me, I thought about what’s really important in life. Not Bill Gates. Not even The Roots (though they’re up there). It was important to me at that moment that I made it home without dying or crashing my mom’s car. It was important that I made it back to my sweetie in Seattle. And chatting with Sean was a lot more fun than party conversation would have been. Friends and family, that’s what’s important. And good music, when you can get it.

The snow was just starting when this photo was taken at the Eccles Theater. (Photo by Brandon Joseph Baker, courtesy of Sundance Film Festival)