Eric Ayotte

I first met Eric one day, randomly, in boxcar books in bloomington. He was with my good friend Cathy (of PIX fest) and he was on tour with his band, AIR RAID BARCELONA. I didn't go to the show. I feel pretty bad about that. Later, he booked a show for plan-it-x fest 2005 (the one where we took 9 bands/35 people on tour in a school bus) in Newburgh, NY. He did a really great job and i watched his new band, HALO FAUNA play. I also attended his DIY film making workshop, in which we made a movie staring SPOONBOY. the punch line of the movie was, "burritos cold outside" get it?, burr-it-is-so cold outside. Anyway, it didn't take long to figure out that Eric is an amazing person. He is the perfect blend of nice and funny. He will be so sweet to you and is also willing to make fun of you until you can't help laughing at yourself and feeling better about life when it's all over. Pretty much every man and woman in punk rock has a crush on him and if you meet him, you will too. Eric also does an awesome project called the GADABOUT TRAVELING FILM FEST. He takes submissions of short films from indy/punk/lo-budget film makers and picks the best hour or so of them and takes them on tour. He books these tours just like a punk band does and shows the films at punk shows/coffee shops/acoustic shows/movie nights etc. The project is totally DIY and totally inspiring and supports an idea that i have been working on for a long time now. That idea is that DIY punk should expand and start producing all of our own media. I would love it, if all of our book shelves were stocked with DIY books written by punks (and i am not just talking about political rants or travel 'zines. i mean everything: science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, um...action, romance...um) and our DVD shelf full of DIY movies. It has always made me laugh when i think about the fact that most punks would not pay for a record on a major label but they usually have less of a problem with buying transformers on DVD at target.

My point is Eric rules.
He plays solo/acoustic under his name and is still in the band HALO FAUNA (also on PIX)

His songs are heartfelt and passionate. He's been playing shows recently with his traveling film festival, combining it into a 1:2 punch of music and movies.

His newest release is an album of songs he wrote to his grandfather's poetry. His grandfather died some time ago and no one knew that he wrote poetry. Eric found a book of his poems and thought it would be nice to try to put them to music.