How Dan Deacon ended up on Broke-ass Stuart's IFC show "Young, Broke & Beautiful"
A new IFC show, "Young, Broke & Beautiful," filmed a couple of warehouse shows last week in Baltimore for an upcoming episode about the city.
On Monday, host and creator Stuart Schuffman e-mailed a few cursory responses, via IFC, to questions I'd sent last week.
He writes that he was "stoked" to be in Baltimore and that he came to film here because of "all the amazing underground things going in the city."
"Young, Broke & Beautiful" sounds like IFC's take on Vice's travel series. Schuffman "infiltrates the underground of American cities to find the hidden, cheap and carefully guarded secrets that aren't in any guidebooks," according to the network, which has ordered six episodes.
The other five episodes will cover Boston, Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans, San Diego.
In Baltimore, Schuffman and his producers filmed a Double Dagger show on Wednesday and a show at the Bell Foundry the next day that featured Dan Deacon, Jimmy Joe Roche, Ed Schrader, the Creepers and several members of Wham City.
When I found out about the shoots Wednesday, I e-mailed Schuffman via his website and IFC to see where else he went and why he chose Baltimore as one of the first cities profiled.
After all, it wasn't clear if he had ventured outside of the city's DIY music scene or if these cities were again being portrayed as glamorously destitute.
Below is what he wrote back.
On why he filmed Wham City:
"We did a ton of research about Baltimore and all the amazing underground things going on in the city, and since we all thought Dan Deacon is the s**t, we figured we'd reach out to him. I'm stoked he was kind enough to give us his time.
On where else he filmed:
"We filmed in SO many cool places and I got to meet an amazing array of wonderful characters. If I told you everything we did, it would ruin the surprise, but let's just say we did a lot more than just hit
up warehouse parties (even though we did a ton of that too)."
Schuffman didn't elaborate on the other filming locations or why Baltimore was among the first chosen cities; maybe St. Louis was unavailable. He is traveling and shooting other episodes at the moment, but will be available for interviews in the future, IFC says.
There's also ready some criticism of the show.
Michael Byrne, who was at the Bell Foundry Thursday, writes in in this week's City Paper that Schuffman's show promotes poverty tourism culture and glosses over Baltimore's inequity problems.
He has also reached out to Schuffman and IFC with questions but has not received a response. Update: Sarah Takenaga, an IFC spokeswoman, insists she tried contacting Byrne several times but that he responded only after his piece was posted.
Photo: Schuffman peddling one of his $15 t-shirts (via)
Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "
Comments
scoring a coppola movie=not exactly broke
Posted by: ran reacon | March 31, 2011 12:55 PM
It's a 30 minute show highlighting elements of culture that are relatively inexpensive and probably not covered by your average tour guide. I don't think the aim is to gloss over inequity or portray destitution as "glamorous." Those topics deserve much more time and detail.
Posted by: SF mission | June 20, 2011 5:58 PM