Backtalk: Martin Guigui, Brooke Wetzel, Phish, Brad Searles, Sharry Underwood

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FILM CONTRACT: Burlington musician Martin Guigui has worked a lot of weddings. Enough to fill an album with anecdotes about the “funny shit that goes down” behind the altar. But he wasn’t sure he was onto a “bankable” idea until a call came from acquisitions at Paramount Pictures. “I have dreamed this movie,” Guigui says of Wedding Band, which he describes as the Spinal Tap of wedding receptions. The trick is turning that reverie into a feature-length comedy. By April. Guigui is teaming up with Brooke Wetzel on this one — the only other producer in the area with comparable chutzpah and manic energy. And the project has come a long way since their one-inch ad in the Hollywood Reporter brought in 400 resumes from Tinsel Town and beyond. The couple has already snagged a director of photography who shot Barfly and Down by Law. Randy Quaid has agreed to be the best man. But most of the cast, including the band, hails from Vermont: Nectar Rorris is the cook, and Vinnie DeToma does a convincing barstool loser. The job of screenwriter is still open. So is the production studio — of seven companies that have approached them, only Paramount and October Films are still in the running. Says Guigui, “We want to do it our way, keep it to Vermont investors and give it to them ‘as is’ to distribute.” Sounds pretty high-minded for a movie that captures some of its best scenes through a vent in the bathroom. But there’s no sex, says Guigui — until the end. Only in Vermont . . . If things keep moving along at this rate, Burlington College may have to add Guigui and Wetzel to its new Vermont filmmaker series. The dynamic duo could probably learn a thing or two from Jay Craven, who will share his cinematic secrets Friday night.

FLYING PHISH: Two weeks ago, Alan Parshley was playing Beethoven with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra at the Flynn. Wednesday night the French horn player will be blowing in a much bigger venue with saxophonist Dave Grippo, trumpeter Joey Sommerville and trombonist Dan Glasgow. Phish summoned all four Vermont musicians to Chicago Tuesday to sit in on their Halloween concert at the 18,000-seat Rosemont Horizon. Every year the band covers an entire recording — last Halloween it was the White Album. Sounds like a heck of a lot of horns for anything other than…Chicago? Nice to know our boys have it all over the competition in Illinois. Says Parshley, “I am sure Dale Klevenger of the Chicago Symphony would have something to say about that.”

IN BRIEF: Brad Searles has been collecting photographs of Burlington for as long as he’s been putting out singles of local bands on Split Records — each captures the Queen City from a different point of view. Now he’s going for the big picture with an aerial shot of the local music scene — Burlington as seen from a helicopter. The snap will be the centerpiece of a limited-edition poster of his urban images, soon-to-be published in conjunction with the release of the first split CD. Burlington City Arts is kicking in cash for the printing, Mansfield Heliflight hauled him up there Tuesday morning — for free… Susan Kelley couldn’t have picked a worse time to leave the Free Press, with Vermont in full cultural swing. But in two weeks arts presenters can start bugging the new arts writer, Florida native and former dancer Melissa Garrido. “There is some sort of offshoot of Alvin Alley down there that she was a member of,” says features editor Joe Cutts. Her Vermont connection? “Her brother’s a Phishhead.” …. the Vermont Times has sunk to a new low in “community” journalism: anonymous call-in letters to the editor. Peter Freyne got skewered last week, along with Seven Days, in “Speak Out Vermont.” Last we checked, newspapers still required people to own up to their barbs.

OVER THE HUMP: You can read all about dance pioneers like Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. Or you can get it straight from Sharry Underwood, the only dance critic in Vermont who dates back to Denishawn days. Underwood’s first real dance class was at Jacob’s Pillow, then a fledgling experiment in barefoot ballet led by Ted Shawn. Underwood took classes from Humphrey in New York. The modern dance mistress, who would have turned 100 this year, is the subject of her lecture Saturday at Patrick Gymnasium. And don’t go home before the master class. Promise, no pirouettes.