It’s no longer an aberration for artists to collaborate in the cloud, given the ease with which most of the world accesses high-speed internet. And A Sunny Day In Glasgow—collectively based in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Sydney, Australia—creates the sort of impressionistic guitar pop that feels ripe for working in the ether. But that doesn’t mean the process of writing fine new album Sea When Absent (Lefse) across three cities and two hemispheres was ideal. In fact, the method was so present that it became a centerpiece of its narrative. The band will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on the band.
Josh Meakim: So I really want to make a movie about a ventriloquist who has tourette syndrome. He’s a really terrible ventriloquist when he is trying his act, but when he has outbursts he’s really quite good. As you can imagine, being able to throw your voice involuntarily when screaming obscenities leads to various uncomfortable situations, and he seeks help from a ventriloquism guru, who will most likely be portrayed by a digitally generated Shari Lewis (RIP). This will be a surprise at the ending. Anyway, there’s some love interest, probably a Zoey Deschanel type, although, my dream actress would be Lizzy Caplan, because she’s awesome. Lizzy, if you have google alerts, “Hi” (winks).
Anyway, this ventriloquist goes on this epic quest, or “Ventriloquest,” in order to cure his affliction. By the end he somehow saves his love interest by using one of his outbursts in some life-or-death situation, and decides he doesn’t need to cure himself after all! It’s so predictable it hurts, but hopefully Steve Buscemi can be the lead, and we can get cameos of various famous ventriloquists in it. I mean, when are they ever going to get the chance to be in a real movie anyway? In case you didn’t catch it, it will be called Ventriloquest, which is the greatest title I’ve ever created for anything, so please don’t steal it. Honor system, guys. I have a whole notebook full of this stuff, so if any people have connections, I’m ready to roll on this movie. Have your people call my people.
