Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids

"Big Shots: Andy Warhol Polaroids provides insight into the artist who sought to capture the world like a camera. The exhibition includes about 250 Polaroids and 70 silver gelatin black-and-white prints taken by Warhol from 1970 to 1987, many of them on public view for the first time."
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Weatherspoon, Imagine Peace, YouTube - Curator's Insights, One Step Big Shot

Yoshihide Otomo

Wikipedia - "Yoshihide Otomo (... born August 1, 1959 in Yokohama, Japan) is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the noise rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde and contemporary classical. He is also a pioneering figure in the EAI-scene, and is featured on important records on labels like Erstwhile Records. He plays guitar, turntables, and electronics."
Wikipedia, Yoshihide Otomo, Interview by Jason Gross (May 1998), YouTube - The Many Moods Of Otomo Yoshihide, Guitar solo Tokyo 1994, Fred Frith & Otomo Yoshihide, Otomo Yoshihide & Tori Kudo, Ground-Zero

Millet and Rural France

Path Through the Wheat
"Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) is one of the great French artists of the 19th century. His images of rural life are among the most recognized and beloved in the history of art, and his innovative treatment of light and color anticipates Impressionism."
Boston Low Brow, MFA, Google

Cairn

Wikipedia - "A cairn (carn in Irish, carnedd in Welsh, càrn in Scots Gaelic) is a man-made pile of stones, often in conical form. They are usually found in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, or near waterways."
Wikipedia

Meredith Monk: A Voice For All Time

"When I think about Meredith Monk, I think of her alone, on a stage bereft of instruments or props or other people. Whether in a cavernous concert hall or in a tiny club, the vision of her lone self is dramatic. With a slight tilt of the head and a grounding of the body, she opens her mouth and begins to sing. In this simplest of actions, she reveals extraordinary power."
npr, amazon, Authentic Voice: An Interview with Meredith Monk, Bryn Mawr - Video, Text: Meredith Monk interviewed by Isla Leaver-Yap, facebook

SHINDIG! - Legends of Rock & Roll

The Righteous Brothers - "KoKo Joe". Jerry Lee Lewis - "High School Confidential". Aretha Franklin - "Mockingbird". Tina Turner - "Goodbye, So Long". Bo Diddley - "Hey Bo Diddley". Little Anthony & The Imperials - "Hurt So Bad". Johnny Cash - "Orange Blossom Special". The Everly Brothers - "Wake Up Little Susie". Chuck Berry - "Back In The USA". James Brown - "Night Train".
YouTube - 1, 2, 3

Hip-Hop History Volume 6: 1984

"LL Cool J – I Need A Beat
Whodini – Friends
Donald D – Don’s Groove
The World’s Famous Supreme Team – Hey DJ
Run DMC – Rock Box
UTFO – Roxanne, Roxanne
Roxanne Shante – Roxanne’s Revenge
T La Rock – It’s Yours
Kurtis Blow – AJ Scratch
The Fat Boys – Jailhouse Rap
Whodini – Freaks Come Out At Night
Kurtis Blow – Basketball
Davy DMX – One For The Treble (Fresh)
Doug E. Fresh – Original Human Beatbox
Doug E. Fresh – Just Having Fun
Master O.C. & Krazy Eddie – Masters of the Scratch
The Fat Boys (Disco 3) – Human Beat Box
Whodini – Five Minutes of Funk
Newcleus – Jam On It
DJ Hollywood – Hollywood’s Message"
The Rub

New works by Various & Gould

"The work above, as well as those in the video, are from Various and Gould's Rabotniki series as well as one about modern saints, called 'Sankt Nimmerlein' (Saint Neverever?!). Saint Redundus is the saint of the homeless and unemployed. Saint Spekulatius is the patron of the bankers."
Wooster Collective

Black Music in America - ca. mid-1970's

"This tremendous educational documentary from the mid-1970's examines the priceless contributions of African-Americans to musical heritage, so closely tied to their unique history in the United States. From Africa upon slave ships captive immigrants brought with them melodies, cadences and rhythms that inarguably gave rise to music considered 'modern' today. Beginning with the genius Louis Armstrong's triumphant return to Ghana in the late 1950's, we trace the evolution of music from West Africa to the Virginia colonies of the early 1600's. Over the next 400 years, as this distinct root of American culture takes hold, incredible clips of filmed performances by Mahalia Jackson, Josephine Baker, Bessie Smith, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, and Duke Ellington illustrate the black experience."
YouTube - Black Music in America - ca. mid-1970's, Smithsonian Institution, amazon

The Kingston Lounge

"Guerrilla preservation and urban archaeology. Brooklyn and beyond."
The Kingston Lounge

Egypt Burning - Al Jazeera

"This film tells the story of five days in January 2011 when the people of Egypt broke through a barrier of fear they had known for a generation and rose in revolt against their president. Anger had long been brewing in Egypt - strikes, unemployment and sectarian tension were on the rise. Small networks of activists had been agitating against Hosni Mubarak's autocratic rule for years. But it was only when another Arab country, Tunisia, rose up against its tyrant that the Egyptian activists attracted mass support."
Egypt Burning - Al Jazeera, Egypt Dilemma - Al Jazeera

Greenwich Village

Wikipedia - "Greenwich Village ... in New York often simply called 'the Village', is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families. Greenwich Village, however, was known in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries as the bohemian capital and the East Coast birthplace of the Beat movement."
Wikipedia, the alleys of greenwich, YouTube - Video Tour of Greenwich Village, A 7 MINUTE TOUR of GREENWICH VILLAGE

Obscure Records

Wikipedia - "Obscure Records was a U.K. record label which existed from 1975 to 1978. It was created and run by Brian Eno, who also produced the albums (credited as executive producer in one instance). Ten albums were issued in the series. Most have detailed liner notes on their back covers, analyzing the compositions and providing a biography of the composer, in a format typical of classical music albums, and much of the material can be regarded as 20th century classical music. The label provided a venue for experimental music, and its association with Eno gave increased public exposure to its composers and musicians."
Wikipedia, Time Out, facebook, YouTube - Obscure Records favorites

Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe

Wikipedia - "Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe (March, 1936 — May 11, 2007), often referred to as just Osadebe, was an Igbo Nigerian Highlife musician from Atani. His career spanned over 40 years, and he is one of the most well known Igbo highlife musicians. His most popular hit was the 1984 'Osondi Owendi' (Igbo: One man's meat is another man's poison.), establishing him as a leader in the highlife genre being the most popular record ever in Nigeria."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - Osondi Owendi, Ndi Ochongonoko, Yoba Chukwu, Ife Onye Metalu, Nwanne eje na eje na

William S. Burroughs, Word Horde 2.0

"A substantial archive of manuscript material, correspondence, and books and printed matter, mostly signed. The manuscript material comprises some hundreds of pages, mostly from the 1950s to the 1980s, much of it unpublished, including..."
William S. Burroughs, Word Horde 2.0

TNR's Egypt Coverage

"For almost two weeks, the world’s eyes, ears, and hearts have been focused on Egypt, where protestors have amassed to demand an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorial regime. TNR has been covering the events closely, gathering some of the best commentary and on-the-ground reporting on this history-making event. Here, we have compiled our Egypt coverage, though look for more in the days and weeks ahead..."
TNR

Derrick Morgan

Wikipedia - "Derrick Morgan (born 27 March 1940, Mocho, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica) is a musical artist popular in the 1960s and 1970s. He worked with Desmond Dekker, Bob Marley, and Jimmy Cliff in the rhythm and blues and ska genres, and he also performed rocksteady and skinhead reggae."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Miss Lulu, Rudies Don't Fear, The Conqueror, Tougher Than Tough, Blazing Fire, Reggay Train

Dorothée Smith

"Seen On The Streets Of Paris (2004) - The photo above is from Paris, France in June 2004 (at the time of the European elections) it is from the same artist as 'Usher Simpson' shown in the Liberation Billboard section. The photographer of the photo is Dorothée Smith."
Wooster Collective, DOROTHEE SMITH, video

Etta James, Keith Richards, Robert Cray - "Hoochie Coochie Gal"

"Etta James has made it to her 73rd birthday: and for that, here she is with Keith Richards, Robert Cray, Chuck Berry and Johnnie Johnson on 'Hoochie Coochie Gal'."
YouTube

The Star

Wikipedia - "The Star (XVII) is the seventeenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination. A naked woman kneels by the water; one foot is in the water, one foot is on the land. Above her head a star shines out. In each hand she holds a jug. From one jug she pours a liquid into the water. From the other jug she pours a liquid onto the land. In other, older decks, a woman (or sometimes even a man) is simply looking and sometimes gesturing at a large star in the sky."
Wikipedia

September 2008: Rider-Waite-Smith

The New York School

Larry Rivers and Frank O’Hara, Portrait and Poet Painting, 1960
"In this week’s issue of the magazine, Peter Schjeldahl writes about the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and the time, beginning in 1950, when it served as a salon for the New York School of poets. “A deceptively easy-seeming urbanity marked the group, which projected New York as a new Paris of sociable aesthetic zeal,” Schjeldahl writes.
New Yorker - The New York School, New Yorker - Peter Schjeldahl

Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide

"This exhibition will mark the first U.S. solo show of Beijing artist Wang Qingsong, one of China's most highly regarded contemporary artists. Trained as a painter at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Art, Wang Qingsong turned to photography in the late 1990s in order to convey a distinctive and often acerbic vision of Chinese society during the country's current economic boom."
ICP, Wang Qingsong, artnet, YouTube: Propaganda

Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970s Funky Lagos

"Today I went back to the Amoeba Music store in Hollywood and gushed my gratitude to Lance the clerk for strongly recommending that I pick up a copy of Nigeria 70: The Definitive Story of 1970s Funky Lagos. He smiled knowingly and gestured towards the sky: it just so happened that it was this very album that was blasting out from the speakers above. I gave him his props, then turned to survey the store. The African music section was thronged with the curious, ears ablaze, their eyes eagerly searching out the source of these throbbing grooves."
must hear, amazon, Nigeria 70 - Eniaro (Igbo) by Ofo & The Black Company, Rex Williams - You Are My Heart, William Onyeabor - Better Change Your Mind, The Funkees - The Dancing Ti

Raï

Wikipedia - "Raï ... is a form of folk music that originated in Oran, Algeria from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms, which dates back to the 1930s. Singers of raï are called cheb (shabab, young) as opposed to sheikh (shaykh, old), the name given to Chaabi singers. The tradition arose in cities like Oran, Relizane, Oujda and Mostaganem, primarily among the poor. Traditionally sung by men, at the turn of the 20th century, female singers became common. The lyrics of raï have concerned social issues, such as disease and the policing of European colonies, that affected native populations."
Wikipedia, Planet Folk, Raï - Rebel Music from Algeria

BBC - Rai music in Oran and the Kasbah of Algiers (Video), Cheb Mami, a tribute to Cheb Mami in Pictures of Historical Algeria, Rai History Part 1 (France), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Laurie Anderson - Home studio (late 80's)

"Laurie Anderson - Home studio (late 80's). Collected Videos (1990)."
YouTube - Home studio (late 80's) - 01, 02

"I Want You" - Bob Dylan

Wikipedia - "'I Want You' is a 1966 song recorded by Bob Dylan which appeared on the album Blonde on Blonde. It was also released as a single with a live version of 'Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues' in June, reaching number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100 and number sixteen in the UK."
Wikipedia, "I Want You" - Bob Dylan, PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: BOB DYLAN, YouTube, videos

Helen Caldicott

Wikipedia - "Helen Mary Caldicott (born 7 August 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war and military action in general."
Wikipedia, Helen Caldicott, Google

Art Project

Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Garden, John Constable
"Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces."
Art Project, YouTube - Visitor Guide, Behind the Scenes

The Holy Forest

"Robin Blaser, one of the key North American poets of the postwar period, emerged from the 'Berkeley Renaissance' of the 1940s and 1950s as a central figure in that burgeoning literary scene. The Holy Forest, now spanning five decades, is Blaser's highly acclaimed lifelong serial poem. This long-awaited revised and expanded edition includes numerous published volumes of verse, the ongoing 'Image-Nation' and 'Truth Is Laughter' series, and new work from 1994 to 2004."
University of California Press - The Holy Forest, Both Both Series - Feb 15, 2007, interview with Robin Blaser that originally appeared in The Poker #5, amazon, Google: The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser

November 2007: EPC
November 2009: Robin Blaser (1925 - 2009)
March 2010: The Moth Poem, Les Chimeres

Glenn Branca - "The Ascension"

"The Ascension was written in 1980, but this reissue also contains a video clip of Glenn Branca playing electric guitar in 1978. Branca bangs his head wildly, thrashing at his guitar. The actual sounds produced, however, seem to bear a closer relationship to Branca’s proximity to his overdriven amp than to what he’s actually playing."
Dusted Magazine, W - The Ascension (Glenn Branca album), amazon, The Sirens Sound, YouTube - The Ascension Part 1, Part 2

Milton Babbitt

Wikipedia - "Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer. He was particularly noted for his serial and electronic music."
Wikipedia, NPR Music Premiere: New Documentary On The Late Composer Milton Babbitt, An interview with Milton Babbitt, G. Schirmer, Village Voice, OHM- The Early Gurus of Electronic Music - PERFECT SOUND FOREVER
YouTube - Lagniappe (1985), Composition for 12 instruments (1948), Arie da Capo, part 1 (1974), part 2, Fourplay, part 1 (1984), part 2, Composition for Guitar (1984)

Hip-Hop History Volume 5: 1983

"Jimmy Spicer – (Money) Dollar Bill Y’all
Fresh 3 MC’s – Fresh
Run DMC – Jam Master Jay
Fantasy 3 – It’s Your Back
Crash Crew – On The Radio
Lovebug Starski – Live at the Fever
Run DMC – Sucker MCs
Kevvie Kev – All Night Love (Waterbed)
Gigolette – Games Females Play
Sweet G – Games People Play
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – New York, New York
The B-Boys – 2, 3 Break
Treacherous Three – Action
Dimples D – Sucker DJ’s (I Will Survive)
West Side Mob – Break Dance – Electric Boogie
G.L.O.B.E. and Whiz Kid – Play That Beat Mr. DJ
The B-Boys – Cuttin’ Herbie
Africa Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force – Renegades of Funk
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – White Lines
The B-Boys – Rock The House
Run DMC – It’s Like That
Run DMC – Hard Times
Double Dee & Steinski – Lesson 2 The James Brown Mix"
The Rub

‘Tomorrow, to Tahrir Again’

"On Thursday evening, January 27, activists in Cairo were on Twitter discussing the second wave of protests, which were supposed to begin after Friday’s midday prayer. Two days earlier, tens of thousands of people had taken to the streets and, despite a violent response by police and thugs, succeeded in occupying Tahrir Square; this time, it was hoped, many more would join in the peaceful revolt."
NYR Books

The Last Poets

Wikipedia - "The Last Poets is a group of poets and musicians who arose from the late 1960s African American civil rights movement's black nationalist thread. Their name is taken from a poem by the South African revolutionary poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, who believed he was in the last era of poetry before guns would take over."
Wikipedia, Umar Bin Hassan and Abiodun Oyewole, PERFECT SOUND FOREVER, last.fm, YouTube - Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution!, Last Poets with Pharoah Sanders, The Last Poets True Blue 1970s, Made in Amerikkka, The Last Poets (Full Version), When The Revolution Comes, Black People, What Ya'll Gonna Do?

Eugène Leroy

Poissons au bord de l'eau, 1997
"Eugène Leroy (1910-2000), with his singular identification to painting, expressed in a masterful manner the need to paint. The simplicity and natural style with which he pursued his research, the complexity and sheer scope of the pictoral range he offers spectators of his works, the generosity with which he treats the question of matter, which he confronts with his eternal search for absolute light and tone, all add up to make Eugène Leroy a unique painter."
e-flux, Museum Publicity, dailymotion