For those of you already familiar with our film, you'll be sad to hear that John Akin, the so-called/falsely accused "Devil Worshipper" of Green County, recently passed away.  His brother Leonard also recently preceded him in death.  

This just in,

Hi folks,



while our Seven Signs website is being re-designed, here's how you can
order a copy of the film.  Just Paypal $20 to merch@jdwilkes.com and
expect a delivery of JD's southern-fried documentary ("starring" Scott
Biram, Slim Cessna, The Pine Hill Haints, the John Strong Sideshow and
the Legendary Shack Shakers) in 3-4 weeks or less.



For rush delivery, email your request to films@jdwilkes.com and we'll get it out right away.

Thanks and happy viewing



Yer pal JD

The day has finally come! Order your DVD copy of JD's southern, musical documentary "Seven Signs" today and beat the Christmas rush!

Just click here and visit JDWILKES. COM

ORDER NOW!

Tally Ho, what!

It is official. "Seven Signs" has been accepted into the UK's largest film fest, the Raindance Film Festival (sister to our own Sundance event).

Earlier this year, a screener copy of "Seven Signs" was actually solicited by festival promoters for a look-see. Now word has come in that our little movie will screen in London sometime between October 1-12th of 2008.
So stay tuned to this page or the Legendary Shack Shakers' MySpace page for more details.

Off you go, then.
JD

Well,

We've recently learned that "Seven Signs" has picked up the "Best Documentary" award at the Interrobang Film Festival, part of the Des Moines Art Fest. Who says those Iowans are all wet?

Yep, another feather in the ol' cap,
Now its onwards with the film to the west coast... on tour with the Legendary Shack Shakers!

JD

In the first of what shall surely be a long line of accolades and awards, the "Best Featurette" award was presented to "Seven Signs" by Philadelphia's Backseat Film Festival. As a result, our film will soon be traveling to the illustrious Cannes Film Festival in France, included in the official catalog of films for sale.

For those wondering, "Seven Signs" is still seeking a distro deal. The film will NOT be available to purchase on DVD until proper distribution has been obtained. For now, your best bet is to attend a film festival or a local Legendary Shack*Shakers performance advertising an additional "7S" screening.

Stay tuned for more great news and updates.

FYI:

Be sure to catch JD's film "Seven Signs" at this year's South by Southwest (SXSW) Austin Texas music conference. The film will be shown in the Obsolete Industries screening room, Tuesday March 11 from 6-9, with a short Q&A with Colonel JD following the presentation.

Come on down and be a part of the fun!

Friday, 12/28/07
Film casts artful light on South
Premiere screening is free at Belcourt

By BILL FRISKICS-WARREN
Staff Writer

J.D. Wilkes' new documentary, Seven Signs: Music, Myth and the American South, takes us to a haunted house, a ghost-inhabited bridge, an old-time picking parlor and a cemetery for coon dogs.
Without a note of condescension, the film lifts up all four places as remnants of a rural culture that has been distorted or pushed aside by the homogenizing and sensationalistic impulses of mass marketers, TV and movie producers and the media.




"It seems if (Southerners) can prove to the rest of the world that we're just as edgy, materialistic, sexy and ironic as Hollyweird, then we can be accepted as equal," he said. "But in the process, we've set aflame (a) bonfire of our collective myths, music, culture and identity, all in the name of progress.
"Count me out."
Best known as the frontman of neo-Southern Gothic rock band the Legendary Shack*Shakers, Wilkes will premiere his film at a free screening at the Belcourt Theatre on Sunday.
The impetus for the movie, he said, was his outrage over Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, a documentary made by noirish singer-songwriter Jim White that fans of Wilkes' band had urged him to see.
"The cinematography and the actual documentation of honest-to-goodness Appalachian folk music (were) terrific," Wilkes admitted. "But there were too many oddly staged moments where some gawky, art-damaged idiot would poke his head into a scene and fawn over the local yokels.
"I was so incensed that I swore that I'd do my best to make a documentary that let actual Southerners — interesting, creative ones — tell their own story."
As understated as it is empathetic, Seven Signs does precisely what Wilkes promises, and to disarming and dignified effect.
"All the problems in the world is caused by religious freaks," declares Felix Bellar, a teetotaling Dobro player and man of faith who has made his living as a sign painter in and around his hometown of Adams, Tenn., for more than six decades.
Similarly prophetic is a comment from Jamie Barrier, a native of Northern Alabama who sings and plays guitar in the alt-country band the Pine Hill Haints.
A Christian himself, and one who would like to believe that dogs go to heaven, Barrier thinks it's wrong for churches to receive tax breaks from the government.
He also rebukes those among his fellow believers who want to "fire a missile at anybody that barks at them."
As these comments suggest, an apocalyptic thread runs through the film, beginning with the opening segment, in which a toothless young man enumerates the seven signs from the book of Revelation that herald the end of the world.
'The anti-Borat' film
According to Wilkes, all the subjects who appeared in the movie did so with the understanding that what they had to say would be left to stand on its own merit and not be twisted into something else during the editing process.
Occasionally, though, he had to reassure doubters that this was the case.
"As a result," he said, "we've made a film that I've come to call 'the anti-Borat.' "
In large part, Wilkes looked for his moral and aesthetic compass to Flannery O'Connor, a writer whose stories capture "the Christ-haunted soul of the South without ever swerving into sanctimony or mockery."
Not only that, he added, like Edgar Allan Poe, O'Connor "skillfully employs just enough of 'the grotesque' to keep it interesting, without it devolving into pure horror or gore."
Gothic or not, Wilkes' main hope is that people who see his film will come away from it with the sense that Southerners are smart and discerning enough to speak for themselves.
"And that perhaps it's not too late to listen to your grandmother's old stories, to write them down and pass them on. On paper and on film."

Following the tremendous success of our Belcourt premiere, we've decided to carry the film onward into Kentucky for TWO showings at Lexington's ivy-league Transylvania University campus. So for those of you who missed the Nashville premiere, jot this down:

Where:Transylvania University's Cowgill screening room (room 103).
When: Tuesday Jan. 29th from 6p-10p. With 2 screenings, one at 7pm and the other at 830pm EASTERN Standard Time.
Directions in Lexington: Cowgill is the building off Broadway on Third Street next to Old
Morrison and facing the Library.

There is a chance for a quick Q&A after the show, so be sure to make it to this "Seven Signs" double feature!