David Moss - "Terrain" (1980)


"This is David Moss' first solo LP after he took part to a few collective albums and a duo during the 1970s, all involving guitarist Baird Hersey."
UbuWeb

Tom Lehrer


"Thomas Andrew 'Tom' Lehrer (born April 9, 1928) is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. Lehrer is best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s."
Wikipedia, YouTube - The Vatican Rag, Pollution, Element, New Math

Ed Sanders - Henri Matisse


"Ed Sanders performing his poetry in 1982 film Poetry in Motion."
YouTube

On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century


"Drawing conventionally has been associated with pen, pencil, and paper, but artists have drawn lines on walls, earth, ceramics, fabric, film, and computer screens, with tools ranging from sticks to scrapers to pixels. Looking beyond institutional definitions of the medium, On Line (on view from November 21, 2010 to February 7, 2011) argues for an expanded history of drawing that moves off the page into space and time."
MoMA, amazon, YouTube

R. Steven Moore


Wikipedia - "Robert Steven Moore (born January 18, 1952) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. In addition to having numerous albums released on labels around the world, the prolific Moore has self-released over 400 cassette and CD-R albums since 1968, as well as dozens of home videos, mostly through the R. Stevie Moore Cassette Club, a home-based label. His eclectic work incorporates a variety of musical styles, both popular and experimental.'
Wikipedia, R. Steven Moore, last.fm, PERFECT SOUND FOREVER, YouTube - Back in Time (1986), I Need Your Love (1974), State of Affairs (1981), Irony (1977), The Winner (1975), Human Race (2000), Another Day Slips Away (2006), I Like To Stay Home (1986)

The Clash - Bankrobber


Wikipedia - "Bankrobber is a song, and a single by The Clash. The song was not released on any of their studio albums, instead appearing on their compilation Black Market Clash."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Bankrobber, The Clash and Mikey Dread, The Clash, Mikey Dread, In New Jersey - Bankrobber

Nebula


Wikipedia - "A nebula (from Latin: 'cloud'; pl. nebulae or nebulæ, with ligature or nebulas) is an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen gas, helium gas and other ionized gases. ... In these regions the formations of gas, dust, and other materials "clump" together to form larger masses, which attract further matter, and eventually will become big enough to form stars. The remaining materials are then believed to form planets, and other planetary system objects."
Wikipedia, Hubble Site, YouTube - Tour of our galaxy's visible nebulae

Helen Petts


"Helen Petts is a film-maker, a photographer and a painter who often works in collaborations with improvising musicians, but who also makes very solitary work alone in the landscape. Her work explores rhythm, texture, sound and chance events and often involves long, intense, close-up images."
Helen Petts, YouTube -Marclay, Beresford, Lee, Butcher, Okkyung Lee and Steve Beresford, Okkyung Lee and Christian Marclay, Bass. (Guillaume Viltard - solo 1), Guillaume Viltard - solo, Akio Suzuki, Akio Suzuki and John Butcher, John Butcher, John Russell, Dominic Lash, Alex Ward, Aleks Kolkowski, Chris Burn

Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects


"Ann Hamilton: An Inventory of Objects is a major new publication of the work of one of today's most important and influential artists. The book is a comprehensive catalogue of Hamilton's object-based work from 1984 to 2006. The more than 130 color plates document photographs, sculpture, video, audio and language pieces (both unique and editioned), as well as multiples and prints."
amazon, Google, Charlie Rose - Ann Hamilton

Moyra Davey - Speaker Receiver


"Kunsthalle Basel is delighted to announce 'Speaker Receiver', the first institutional show in Europe of works by Moyra Davey. Born in Canada in 1958, the artist lives and works in New York. Davey's practice encompasses photography, film and video, as well as reading and writing. She conceives of the latter two activities as inseparable and equally significant techniques of working: her alert, incisive readings of philosophy and literature prompt new writing, which in turn reflects back on already existing texts, building, as it does, on fragments, memories and quotations."
like you, Sternberg, Duke, KUNSTHALLE, YouTube - Moyra Davey on Choosing Photography, Moyra Davey on Finding Ideas and Working with Multiple Media, Moyra Davey on Documentation and the Transition from Analog to Digital

The City Lights Pocket Poets Series


Wikipedia - "The City Lights Pocket Poets Series is a series of poetry collections published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books of San Francisco since August 1955. The series is most notable for the publication of Allen Ginsberg's literary milestone 'Howl', which led to an obscenity charge for the publishers that was fought off with the aid of the ACLU."
Wikipedia, City Lights

At San Quentin - Johnny Cash


Wikipedia - "At San Quentin is a recording of a live concert given by Johnny Cash to the inmates of San Quentin State Prison. As well as being released on record the concert was filmed by Granada Television."
Wikipedia, YouTube - San Quentin, Folsom Prison Blues, Wanted Man, Boy Named Sue, He Turned The Water Into Wine, June Carter & Johnny Cash - Jackson, June Carter & Johnny Cash - Darlin' Companion

On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972


"A video documentary combining exhibition footage of the Situationist International exhibitions with film footage of the 1968 Paris student uprising, and graffiti and slogans based on the ideas of Guy Debord (one of the foremost spokesmen of the Situationist International movement)."
UbuWeb

Censorship



Nikolai Yezhov, standing to the right of Joseph Stalin, was shot in 1940. He was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors after his execution as a form of damnatio memoriae.
Wikipedia - "Censorship is suppression of speech or other communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the general body of people as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body."
Wikipedia

Van Doesburg and the International Avant-Garde


"For van Doesburg, there was an underlying unity between the anarchic Dada movement and the more ordered aesthetic of De Stijl. ‘The Dadaist spirit pleases me more and more’, he wrote to Tristan Tzara in October 1921."
Tate, Antonio Miranda, Google - "Letters from the avant-garde: modern graphic design"

Gilligan's Island


Wikipedia - "Gilligan's Island is an American television situation comedy created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The series featured Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Jr., Jim Backus, and Tina Louise, and aired for three seasons on the CBS network, from September 26, 1964, to September 4, 1967."
Wikipedia, Slash Control, YouTube - Gilligan's Island, Gilligan and The Skipper are Killed

The Sonics


Wikipedia - "The Sonics are an American garage rock band from Tacoma, Washington, originating from the early and mid-1960s. Among The Sonics' contemporaries were The Kingsmen, The Wailers, The Dynamics, The Regents, and Paul Revere & the Raiders. This movement is credited with founding Seattle's music scene which survives to the present."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Psycho a Go-Go, Boss Hoss, Strychnine, The Witch, Have Love, Will Travel

Che Guevara in popular culture


Wikipedia - "Appearances of Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara (1928–1967) in popular culture are common throughout the world. Although during his lifetime he was a highly politicized and controversial figure, in death his stylized image has been transformed into a worldwide emblem for an array of causes, representing a complex mesh of sometimes conflicting narratives. Che Guevara's image is viewed as everything from an inspirational icon of revolution, to a hipster logo of radical chic."
Wikipedia

Parliament Funkadelic - Mothership Connection - Houston 1976


"It was Halloween night and Parliament Funkadelic was about to tear the roof off the Houston Summit, ready to bless the crowd with their cosmic brew of interplanetary funk. George Clinton, Bernie Worrell, Bootsy Collins and the rest of the P-Funk collective were riding the success of their first Top 5 R&B hit, 'Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker),' a track that had earned them the kind of radio play that would bring the masses out to see them live in a stadium-sized arena."
YouTube - Swing Down Sweet Chariot, Dr. Funkenstein, Cosmic Slop, Do That Stuff, Gamin' On Ya, Standing On the Verge of Gettin' It On, Undisco Kidd, Give Up The Funk, Funkin' For Fun, Night of the Thumpasorus Peoples, Children of Productions, Comin' 'round the Mountain, P-Funk Wants to Get Funked Up

Fresh Stuff From Michael Aaron Williams in Austria


"From Michael: 'some of them had white roses in them to symbolize how street children are vulnerable to losing there innocence on the streets.'"
Wooster Collective

Myst, Riven


Wikipedia - "Myst puts the player in the role of the Stranger, who uses a special book to travel to the island of Myst. There, the player uses other special books written by an artisan and explorer named Atrus to travel to several worlds known as 'Ages'. Clues found in each of these Ages help reveal the back-story of the game's characters. The game has several endings, depending on the course of action the player takes."
Wikipedia, W - Riven, Myst Worlds, amazon, YouTube - Myst, Riven

Ho Chi Minh Trail Project


"In cooperation with the Long March Project, the Ho Chi Minh Trail project will be run in Beijing from June to September, 2010. Its theme is ‘from creation to rehearsal’. The Long March Project is one of the most influential curatorial projects in China promoting the development of Chinese contemporary art and discourse."
Ho Chi Minh Trail Project, (1), Photo Gallery

Ernest Cole


Wikipedia - "Ernest Cole (1940 - February 19, 1990) was a South African photographer."
Wikipedia, NYT, YouTube

The Shrine – Lagos


"In the past week the Nigerian authorities have finally succeeded in closing the legendary Shrine venue in Lagos. The Shrine club originally formed part of the 'Kalakuta Republic' founded by Fela Kuti in the early 70s (which also included a recording studio and commune), and was the stage where Fela developed the Afrobeat sound. It’s not the first time the venue has been closed by the authorities – The original Shrine was already destroyed in 1977 – but unfortunately it appears this latest closure may be final."
Laboca, Aphrodesia, amazon, YouTube - Lagos Jump - Visit to Fela's Shrine, Live at the Africa Shrine(Fela Death)

Orson Welles - The One Man Band (1995)


"ORSON WELLES: THE ONE-MAN BAND is a fascinating glimpse at this extraordinary man's final years - made with the cooperation of Oja Kodar, Welles' longtime companion, to whom he bequeathed a wealth of unedited films and fragments when he died in 1985. Granted exclusive access to Welles' heretofore unseen archives - and drawing from almost two tons of film cans containing fragments, shorts, project ideas, and sketches - the filmmakers are led by Kodar through the rich but unfulfilled Welles legacy."
UbuWeb

The Subway Issue


"The Subway in Pictures. A gallery of New York Times photography documenting 10 decades of New York City’s subway system."
NY Tiimes

Classified X


"A history of the racially stereotyped portrayal of African Americans in cinema. Written and narrated by Melvin Van Peebles, director of 'revolutionary' film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Van Peebles is no angel, his films have been called exploitative, but this history is powerful. Watch ALL 6 PARTS to see how stereotyped representations have evolved from early cinema to today."
YouTune - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy


"A mammoth cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the last three years, provides an unprecedented look at bargaining by embassies, candid views of foreign leaders and assessments of threats. The material was obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations in advance."
NYT - State's Secrets, Wikileaks, Guardian, Spiegel, YouTube - Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Upcoming Iraq War Wikileaks Docs (Part 1 of 2), (Part 2 of 2)

Vintage Curt Teich linen postcards 1930s-50s


"A portion of my collection of linen postcards from the 30's and 50's"
flickr, Wikipedia - Curt Teich, jitterbuzz

Pills and Thrills: Fred Tomaselli’s Transports


Car Bomb, 2008
"When Motherless Brooklyn author Jonathan Lethem announced in April that he would be relocating from Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, to the white-collar, academic enclave of Claremont, California (where he’d take over David Foster-Wallace’s teaching slot at Pomona College), the borough felt a twinge of old-time, Brooklyn Dodgers–style rejection. Fortunately for dwellers of Kings County—and others who hold resident New York bards dear—Fred Tomaselli was simultaneously putting the finishing touches on the installation of his latest crackerjack show: his unabashedly gorgeous, conceptually expansive midcareer retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum."
The Paris Review, Wikipedia, James Cohan Gallery, white cube, BOMB, YouTube - Fred Tomaselli

Graffiti


Wikipedia - "Graffiti (singular: graffito; the plural is used as a mass noun) is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is any type of public markings that may appear in the forms of simple written words to elaborate wall paintings. Graffiti has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. In modern times paint, particularly spray paint, and marker pens have become the most commonly used grafitti materials."
Wikipedia, playdo, YouTube - Graffiti Tools

Funk History


Funk History 1/8, 2/8, 3/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 8/8

Skip James


Wikipedia - "Nehemiah Curtis 'Skip' James (June 9, 1902 – October 3, 1969) was an American delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Devil Got My Woman (1966), Skip´s Worried Blues, Cherry Ball Blues, Crow Jane, I'm So Glad (1931), Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues

Marwencol


"After being beaten into a brain-damaging coma by five men outside a bar, Mark built a 1/6th scale World War II-era town in his backyard. Mark populated the town he dubbed 'Marwencol' with dolls representing his friends and family and created life-like photographs detailing the town's many relationships and dramas."
siff, IMDb, Netflix

Sun Ra - "Space Is the Place" (1974)


Film still from Space is the Place, 1974
"Avant-garde jazz musician Sun Ra stars in the movie version of his concept album Space Is the Place. Not following a linear plot line, this experimental film is a bizarre combination of social commentary, blaxploitation, science fiction, and concert performance."
UbuWeb

Robert Palmer


Wikipedia - "Robert Allen Palmer (19 January 1949 – 26 September 2003), born in Batley, Yorkshire, was a Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter. He was known for his distinctive voice and the eclectic mix of musical styles on his albums, combining soul, jazz, rock, pop, reggae and blues."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Addicted To Love, Simply Irresistible, I didn't mean to turn you on (remix)

The American Friend (1977)


Wikipedia - "The American Friend ... is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley coerces into becoming an assassin."
Wikipedia, amazon, YouTube, 1

Ohio Players


Wikipedia - "The Ohio Players were an American funk and R&B band, most popular in the 1970s. They are best known for their double #1 hit songs 'Fire' and 'Love Rollercoaster'."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Love Rollercoaster, Fire 1974 Live , Skin Tight, Who'd She Coo

100,000 Fleeing Hilda - Boke Press 1967


Mimeo Mimeo

A Thanksgiving Prayer - William S Burroughs


"Thanksgiving Day, Nov 28,1986 first appeared in the chapbook Tornado Alley, with illustrations by S. Clay Wilson. Gus Van Sant then made a short film of Burroughs reading the text. This poem resonates today as exposing what has gone horribly wrong in the USA, or maybe what has always been wrong."
YouTube - Thanksgiving Prayer - William S Burroughs

Pet Shop Boys - 1985-1989


Wikipedia - "Unperturbed by the low chart position, the band returned to the studio in August to re-record 'West End Girls' with producer Stephen Hague. Released in October 1985, this new version initially entered the charts at a similarly low position, but began a slow rise, so that, by January 1986, it achieved the top spot."
Wikipedia, YouTube - West End Girls (Live 1986), West End Girls, It's A Sin (Live at The Roxy 1987), Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money), Suburbia, I Want A Lover, One More Chance, It couldn't happen here 1988, Two Divided By Zero, Love Comes Quickly

The Upsetters


Wikipedia - "The Upsetters was the name given to the house band for Jamaican reggae producer Lee 'Scratch' Perry. The name of the band comes from Perry's nickname of Upsetter, after his song 'I Am The Upsetter', a musical dismissal of his former boss Coxsone Dodd. The Upsetters were originally Gladdy's All-Stars, led by pianist Gladstone Anderson and it was they who originally recorded the international hits 'Live Injection' and 'Return Of Django'."
Wikipedia, last.fm, Roots Archives, YouTube - Return of Django, Holiday Dub, Dry Acid, Guns of Navarone, One Step Dub

Jazz Age


Wikipedia - "The Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s or the Roaring Twenties from which jazz music and dance emerged. The movement came about with the introduction of main stream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has lived on in American pop culture for decades. With the introduction of jazz came an entirely new cultural movement in places like the America, France and England. The birth of jazz music is often accredited to African Americans but expanded and modified to become socially acceptable to middle-class white Americans."
Wikipedia, Jazz Age Culture, Jazz Age Chicago, YouTube - To Live In The 1920's, Flappers - The Roaring Twenties

Gert Jan Kocken


Gert Jan Kocken

Old School Hip Hop Mega Mix


"This video and mega mix is dedicated to all pioneers of Hip Hop Culture from the East Coast to the West Coast from 1967 - 1985. We thank you for everything you have created for us. We also thank you for showing the world that creativity, ingenuity, inspiration, practicality, and perseverance with limited resources can shock the world... quell racism...and eventually construct peace."
YouTube - Old School Hip Hop Mega Mix

Jason Eppink's The Shadow Machine


"The Shadow Machine is a hand-made analog projection system that reanimates two blacksmiths from the late 1800’s, photographed by Eadweard Muybridge and compiled on plate #374 of his Animal Locomotion series."
Wooster Collective

Hindsight is Always 20/20 - R. Luke DuBois


"An interview with R. Luke DuBois, the creator of 'Hindsight is Always 20/20' on August 23, 2008, near the Pepsi Center on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. Luke's artwork is part of the innovative 'Dialog:City' project curated by Seth Goldenberg and coordinated by the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs. Luke's project is brilliant, well worth putting on your must-see list if you are in Denver for the convention."
blip, Hindsight is Always 20/20, R. Luke DuBois

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" - Joy Division


"Recorded a mere two months before lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide but released a month after his death, 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' is the sound of despair in musical form. At the time of writing the song, Curtis’s marriage was under considerable strain, due in part to his ongoing affair with a Belgian woman. And whether autobiographical or not, the lyrics are clearly the work of a troubled soul."
BBC, YouTube - Love will tear us apart

Werner Herzog Reads Curious George


"Ok, it’s not really Werner Herzog. Just a little playful satire. A guess at how the German director might reinterpret/read the children’s classic Curious George. This version is dark and existential."
Open Culture