BL'AOW! THE INTERNET DEBUT OF THE TOTAL FEST FILM.
If you're an alumnus/alumna of Total Fest, you know that hanging out, checking in, talking, catching up, getting to know, joking, laughing, eating food, offering beer to dogs, and shooting a potato gun named (unoficial TF mascot) Donny America are all activities on equal par with enjoying rad tunes by great bands. Total Fest is a social, community event that takes its fun as seriously as its music. This is the internet debut of Andy Smetanka's Total Fest Forever, a piece of work spanning what looks like largely Total Fests III, IV and V, and maybe some VI, back in 2003-2006. The music accompanying it's from the excellent Cajun Gems from Portland. Cajun Gems are exactly one half of the Joggers, we think. Ben Whitesides and Darrell Bourque if we're remembering correctly.

People we immediately recognize in the film include: Niki, Becky, Joanna, Justin, Jim, Lana, Jeff, P.J., Bill, Craig, Sean, Colin, Lana, Sharif, Coady, Jared, Britany, Beau, Joey, Wendy, Lou, Kyril, Lindy, Suzanne, Linda, Bacon, Bryan, Milli, Count, Matt, Kelly, Ian, Syd, Doug, Jen, Don, Justin, John, and Cristina.

Bands: the Narrows, Last of the Juanitas, the Lights, Big Business, International Playboys, Yakima Nation, Federation X, Volumen, Fireballs of Freedom, Mico De Noche

Who's missing?

..... PLEASE ENJOY MISSOULA'S FINEST, WHILE YOU WAIT.
So, yeaaaaaahhh, the time before we start having some actual line-up announcements to make can get to be a bit awkward and tedious, we know. Thanks for being patient! To pass the time, and ease with the excessive nail biting, label peeling, cigarette smoking and uh, squirming around, we've decided to offer you the following wonderful and excellent piece of Cinema Missoula-te: welcome to Snakes, a music video for the Missoula band Volumen, directed by Missoula animator, film-maker and one-time Totalist (Humpy, 2005?, yep, same guy) and all-round oft-seen-lending a hand behind the scenes with various wordsmithery, heavy lifting and general improvements, Andy Smetanka. That laundry list doesn't really start to do justice to Andy's quality of craft.

While Smetanka's stuff's only starting to get the notice it deserves (Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg, Big Sky Doc. Film Fest), it's beautiful and deserves a larger audience. You can help! This is an early work, and if you like it, use Youtube's search engine and check out his Le Force Le Wizard video, and the tons of other excellent pieces out there. The Volumen song's from their Wantage debut, Cries From Space. Smetanka, like many Missoulians, has been at every Total Fest since we started. He's housed bands, played music, covered TF in the Indy, and most recently, debuted a super 8 film documenting the barbecue and river scenes of Total Fest. This piece of work should be up on the intro-net real soon, and expect to see a notice here when it is. Thank you, carry on.