On Les Stroud’s release of his transitional roots rock album Bittern Lake, comes one of the album’s biggest surprises: a version of Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” that strips away the original’s catchy chorus and sunny acoustic guitars in favor of a bluesy take featuring a rich slide guitar along with Stroud’s own dark and scorching harmonica licks. While the bar is set monumentally high for covering Mitchell’s material, Stroud approaches the level of the original while vastly surpassing the more famous rendition from Counting Crowes.
Director Biography – Matt Mahurin
Over thirty years as an illustrator, photographer, film director and teacher.
Political and social illustrations for Time, Newsweek, Mother Jones, Rolling
Stone, Esquire, The London Observer and New York Times Op-Ed pages.
Photographic essays on The Homeless, People With AIDS, Texas Prison
System, Abortion Clinics, Mental Hospitals, Nicaragua, Haiti, Belfast, Mexico,
Japan and France.
Published three books of fine-art photographs.
Photographs in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York City.
Filmwork in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Directed music videos for Peter Gabriel, U2, Tom Waits, REM, Tracy Chapman,
Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Ice-T, Metallica, David Byrne, and Joni Mitchell.
Documentary “I Like Killing Flies” chosen 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
Wrote and Directed the feature film “FEEL” which premiered on The Sundance Channel 2010.
Wrote and directed the feature film, “Mugshot” which won best film at the 1996
Hamptons Film Festival.
Gold and silver medals from The Society of Illustrators.
Continues to teach workshops and lectures on the craft of imagemaking at
schools and professional organizations.
Lives in California.
