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Films by Traci Hercher / Reading and Music by Bill Direen

Traci Hercher is an experimental filmmaker, programmer, and educator from Illinois. She holds an MFA in Film and Video Production from the University of Iowa Department of Cinematic Arts where she was awarded the Iowa Arts Fellowship in 2016. In 2018, She received the Non-fiction Shorts Prize from Northampton Film Festival in Massachusetts for her film Diana. Her work has screened internationally at festivals and venues including San Diego Underground Film Festival, Experiments in Cinema, Process Festival, Revolutions per Minute Festival, AcreTV.org, Artists’ Television Access, the Nightingale, and the Poetics and Politics Documentary Research Symposium at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Reading and Music by Bill Direen.

"I am a New Zealand musician, who has toured and released music since the early 80s, touring solo in November to celebrate a double-LP titled Bill Direen A Memory of Others , soundtrack of a documentary about me. The double LP was released this month by Sophomore Lounge of the USA. http://sophomoreloungerecords.com/amemoryofothers.html. You will note that the liner notes, quoted on that page, were written by esteemed rock journalist Byron Coley. 

My music is a balance of rock-informed electric guitar and soft electric ballads. Here is a trailer for the documentary which is backed by a quieter ballad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPBDIGV8fc


On stage, I play electric guitar and electronic keyboards. I sing. I also read three brief extracts from poetic works. A percussionist (Chris Davis) accompanies me on a last few songs.

“Electric celeste, garage fuzz, carousel organ, zonked-out flute, surf riffs or Thinking Fellas guitar, cutting through a tune like a butcher's cleaver.” (Jud Cost, MAGNET).

“Bizarre juxtapositions of reality and nightmare gives off a sense of lucid, unrelenting hallucination” (Phil Pegg, PUNCTURE).

Direen is a sharp-witted and skilled writer of crafty and finely-crafted songs on a par with masters like Chris Knox and Mayo Thompson.” (David Newgarden, CMJ)

“Eclectic, endearing pop ditties that get under your skin.” (Fred Mills, OPTION).

http://william.direen.online.fr/