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    Seryn Truth Serum

    Seryn's Nathan James Allen talks new album, touring highs and the brink of the big time

    Blair Lovern
    Sep 30, 2013 | 10:15 am
    Seryn's Nathan James Allen talks new album, touring highs and the brink of the big time
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    What does it take for a band to hit the big time? Hard work, luck, ambition, brains, money, rabid fans, a solid music catalog, television appearances, luscious beards?

    Denton's Seryn, the headliner for CultureMap's first anniversary party October 10, has some of that stuff right now. Vocalist/guitarist Jenny Moscoso can't have one of those things without hormone injections. That could be asking too much. Everything else cannot be ruled out. Maybe, just maybe, big times are around the corner.

    The six-member group is putting the finishing touches on its second album for release next year — a follow-up to their 2011 debut, This Is Where We Are. Also in 2014, an Austin filmmaker plans to release a Seryn documentary called A Canvas of Sound.

    If a bluegrass/folk band and gospel choir got married, their kid would be Seryn.

    "We’re really looking to blow it out next year," said guitarist and singer Nathan James Allen.

    If you've seen them live, you know they can blow it out performance-wise. If a bluegrass/folk band and gospel choir got married, their kid would be Seryn. And the kid would play a ukulele. And an accordion. And a trumpet. And a banjo. And an electric guitar. And a xylophone. And the drums. And a kalimba.

    What’s a kalimba? I don’t know; the kid asked for one for Christmas. Google it. Thumb piano, thank you. Kalimba is the fancy name for that.

    Since its formation in 2009, Seryn has toiled. This year, that work earned them West Coast tour dates with the Polyphonic Spree. An invite to South by Southwest. Plus more shows than ever before, and in places they've never played.

    Not just cities. Some outfit in in Avon, Colorado, said, "Let's cram some bands in a Vail Valley ski gondola and record it." Okay, let’s applaud that, because not everyone gets invited to bring the house down in a gondola, or bring the gondola down. Ah, wait. Let’s make sure that stays in the land of idioms. (See video above.)

    "I think this is it," Allen says of the group’s fortune. "This is the time when it’s either going to happen or it won’t. But I don’t know. If I were going to start a band right now, the things I would be thinking about doing would be like, get on Letterman, get a big corporate sponsor and a picture of you with logo in the bottom corner, get everyone talking about you.

    Singer Nathan James Allen compares the relationship between band and crowd to a drug deal. "Except the drug dealer is getting higher than his customer,” he says.

    "When does all that happen? Well, it happens when you have a new record. It’s this weird deal that everything starts coming together for people only when you have a new album to put out."

    That didn't happen when Seryn's first album came out. But that’s okay. Be patient, right? Recording the second album was a grind compared to the first.

    "It took a while to finally do," he says. "We had to deal with a lot of internal stuff between everyone in the band, with group dynamics that we hadn’t faced before. In order to get to that second record, it took a long time for us to bring something new to the table. But now that we’ve recorded it, we’re already stoked to start the third one."

    The group rehearses in Argyle. Allen used to fret about everyone being on time for practices. Now everyone knows to just roll in earlier than the planned time, and they start when they start. They’re also mellower on the road.

    "It used to be, every time you go on tour, it’s like you’re going to see a movie you’ve been dying to see for a while," he says. "Everyone says, 'Man, this movie is going to be freaking incredible,' and you’re so stoked. Then you watch the movie, and afterward you realize you weren’t expecting it to be that sad or that loud or that serious.

    "In the past, when we go on tour we’d expect a big take-off, and it starts off great and doesn’t let up until it’s over," he says. "But the reality is that it goes up and down, and you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I think we were kind of surprised about that. It’s the same when we play. We’ll play great one night and then one time you’re just not going to be on.

    "This last time we went on tour, we were expecting the ups and downs. Going on tour will wear you out, but secretly everyone in the band loves it."

    Openly, everyone in the crowd loves the band. At least it's nice to think so. Maybe it’s not just love but an enslaving demand to be entertained. Allen compares the relationship between band and crowd to a drug deal.

    "Except the drug dealer is getting higher than his customer,” he says. “When you’re playing for someone, and even if it’s just 100 people or even 20 people, if you perform the best you can and put all the love you can into it, and all the people clap, it’s just an amazing feeling.

    "It’s like, 'We've got music for you, and all we what we want in return is cheering and applause.' When you’re playing and you look into the crowd and think, I don’t even know any of these people, that’s what makes it all worth it."

    ---

    The CultureMap first anniversary bash takes place October 10, 8-11 pm, at the Crow Collection of Asian Art. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $25 for VIP and can be purchased online.

    Denton band Seryn performs at the CultureMap first anniversary party October 10.

    Denton band Seryn
      
    Photo courtesy of Seryn
    Denton band Seryn performs at the CultureMap first anniversary party October 10.
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    Movie Review

    Ana de Armas brings John Wick-level violence to spinoff Ballerina

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 5, 2025 | 2:38 pm
    Ana de Armas in Ballerina
    Photo courtesy of Lionsgate
    Ana de Armas in Ballerina.

    The John Wickfranchise has been successful due to two things: The hyper-violence inflicted by its protagonist, and its star, Keanu Reeves, who has used a bare minimum of words to create a great antihero. Trying to capitalize on its popularity, Lionsgate - the studio behind the franchise - has made Ballerina, a spin-off focusing on a character inspired by another minor character from John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum.

    That convoluted set-up is the first of a variety of missteps for the film. An opening scene introduces the audience to a young Eve (Victoria Comte), who gets taken in by a criminal group known as the Ruska Roma after her father is killed. The bulk of the film takes place 12 years later when a now-adult Eve (Ana de Armas) is finishing her training as a ballerina/assassin-for-hire, led by The Director (Anjelica Huston).

    Hungry to prove her worth, Eve starts going out on various jobs. One of those jobs puts her in the orbit of the group responsible for her father’s death, and she dedicates herself toward finding the leader known as The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) and exacting revenge. Oh, and for funsies, the film - set between John Wick 3 and 4 - also brings in Wick himself to juice the action.

    Directed by Len Wiseman and written by Shay Hatten (who’s written the last two John Wick films), the film is at its best when the filmmakers are going all-in on the action. Like all films in the series, the actual body count soon becomes negligible, with the film more interested in how inventively Eve can slaughter everyone in her path. And there are some creative methods employed, including ice skates, hatchets, and - most memorably - a flamethrower.

    What Wiseman and Hatten are not able to do, however, is make us care about Eve herself. The main John Wick films got increasingly complicated, but they were tolerable because of how compelling a character Wick was. There’s no such connection with Eve, and for all her personal tragedy, she might as well be a faceless person. A lack of explanation as to why Ruska Roma is training women as ballerinas - you know, the title of the movie - only underscores how little the filmmakers cared about creating a good story.

    Consequently, despite plenty of gory kills, the film is actually quite boring to watch play out. The film goes through the paces of having Eve take on all-comers, but the end result is never in doubt and most of the action runs together. The inclusion of Wick into the story feels like the afterthought, whether it actually was or not. It also has the unfortunate effect of comparing a character fans know and love to one who hasn’t been given a chance to establish herself.

    Although her character as a whole is lacking, De Armas shows that she can easily handle the physical aspects of the role. The 37-year-old actor is oddly asked to play a 24-year-old (or so), but she mixes it up with the best of them. Byrne makes for a so-so new villain, while Reeves, Huston, Ian McShane, and Lance Reddick (making his final film appearance after passing away in 2023) all reprise their roles well.

    Ballerina has the look and feel of the four previous John Wick films, but it fails to be as compelling of an action film as any of them. True, it has just as much violence as fans have come to expect from the series, but its lead character is one that never reaches the level of John Wick, and it doesn’t seem like the filmmakers even tried to accomplish that goal.

    ---

    Ballerina opens in theaters on June 6.

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