Saturday, May 24, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Darth Vader is Bob Dylan
So I saw the film La Dolce Vita by Fellini a little while ago, and it was good, and as my Netflix note indicated it featured an extended cameo by Nico of Velvet Underground fame. Her voice always cracks me up. The next movie I had to watch was Factory Girl, by George Hickenlooper, which is about Warhol superstar Edie Sedgewick, and features someone portraying Nico. Her imitation of Nico's voice cracked me up, too. It also features Hayden Christinasen as who is ostensibly supposed to be Bob Dylan. Yeah. Darth Vader is Dylan. Anywho, the next movie I have to watch is I'm Not There where several different people portray Dylan. I've avoided watching it because I do not wish the hyperreality of this peculiar cinematic situation to end just yet. Furthermore, I understand that someone in that film portrays a character that is supposed to be Edie Sedgewick, but, like Christiansen's Dylan, has a different name. So I waited.
I sit down at my computer to read a scanned copy of one of the later issues of classic 80's out of print comic Miracleman. I'm still reeling over Alan Moore's original issues (better than Watchmen) and sit down to read one of the Neil Gaiman-penned stories, and who is one of the main characters of this particular issue? Andy-fucking-Warhol. No shit. It won't end. I went from seeing Nico playing someone named Nico in a movie, to seeing someone play her in a movie with someone playing Warhol, and Dylan, and Sedgewick to holding off watching someone else playing Sedgewick and 7 other people playing Dylan, only to have Warhol show up in a comic book I'm reading instead.
What does it all mean?
Saturday, May 17, 2008
A Haunting Wave of Slow Burning Love
Portishead -- 3rd -- So I managed to obtain this a couple months in advance and forced some of my friends to listen to its brilliance. Specifically the last 30 seconds of the 8th track ("Machine Gun"). The Blade Runner-esque Vangelis style synthesizers lay waste to my soul every time. A haunting wave of slow-burning love from beginning to end.
No Age -- Nouns -- I missed their free show at the library with Mika Miko....shameful, really, I walk to it every other day. An increase in accessibility from Weirdo Rippers, but their representin' LA and local music haunt The Smell while they're blowing up. Good shit, though it all kinds of blends together sometimes.
The Smell -- Sometimes its lame, sometimes its cool, sometimes it destroys the fucking universe (Monotonix, anyone?). Best locals I've seen so far was Her Girl Friday, and they already broke up. Its down the street, its arty, noisy rock, its five dollars every time. Word.
Monotonix -- Power trio from Israel. Showed up on a Tuesday night at the Smell and went super-fucking-nova. Last number had me and some of the other audience members holding the bass drum over our heads with the drummer IN IT continuing to pound the song out. Best. Live. Show. Ever. 5 bucks. CD's ok.
Magazine -- Late 70's British band. They are to the Buzzcocks what PiL is to the Sex Pistols. Sort of. First track on Real Life I cannot get sick of. Nor the last track of Second Hand Daylight. Who hasn't been looking for a song that has a chorus of "I will drug you and fuck you?"
Captain Beefheart -- Don't get into Beefheart unless you're prepared to realize that Tom Waits is overrated. Cuz this is who Waits' been doing a watered-down imitation of for the past 30 years. This dude was too weird for Zappa, apparently. I dig it. Trout Mask Replica. Lick My Decals Off, Baby. Bat Chain Puller. Yeah.
Crystal Castles -- Their full length is out, and its good. I play it during the Photoshop class I teach.
McAllistar's Hostile Makeover -- This is radio show on KXLU on Thursday mornings that I roll with during Photoshop class. Her play list is from some other amazing planet, and KXLU in general is a great LA station for discovering new music
Marnie Stern -- Imagine if Lighting Bolt and Sleater-Kinney somehow all had a baby together and it learned to finger-tap on guitar Eddie Van Halen style, but was all avant-garde and arty. Marnie Stern's full length, In Advance of the Broken Arm will show you what that sounds like. New album is on the way, apparently.
Pandora radio -- It works too well, sometimes. I can't get anything done when its on, because I keep hearing new stuff I want to know more about. I've started a list that will break my budget if I walk into Amobea records with it. "Excuse me, do you have any Melk the G6-49?"
The Dismemberment Plan -- Anther broke up band I've discovered. Emergency & I from '99 is one the closest things I've found that sounds like Karate, one of my all time other broke-up favorites.
Maybe I'll talk about movies next............
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Rauschenberg
So. Rauschenberg. When I was in community college, say, '98 or '99, (where does the time go...?) this big Rauschenberg retrospective happened in
To understand any contemporary art today, fully, and with maximum cognizance, one must understand the context that a force of nature such as Robert Rauschenberg occupied. Anyone claiming the title of artist in the 21st century are heirs of him and his ideas, whether they know it or not. It is this unconscious derivation of ideas that, in my opinion, cement the brilliance of those ideas, and their originators.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Frustratingly Elliptical
SS Inspiration seems to have lost its course for now, so I thought I'd talk about the (growing) pile of books by my bed, among other things.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Dark Hand and Lamplight
So last night me and JJ had the delightful pleasure of witnessing a performance by the duo of Shary Boyle and Doug Paisley, AKA Dark Hand and Lamplight. Our advocating of the work of Boyle began more than two years ago, when me and JJ attended one of the fabled Kramers Ergot nights at the Hammer Museum, on the occasion of the Masters of American Comics Show, back in the day. A handful of people that night had their minds blown and their faces melted by the cosmic shenanigans of Shary's live overhead projector animations set to music, concluding with a dance performance incorporating a mirrored bodysuit turning her into a living disco ball. Never have me and JJ looked at each other in stunned disbelief so many times at an art event. Afterwards we approached the event organizer, Sammy Harkham, in speechless disbelief, as he simply replied to the looks on our faces with, "Her name is SHARY BOYLE...we got books on sale over there."