Charles Bradley: Soul of America

"This is the OFFICIAL TRAILER for the documentary feature Charles Bradley: Soul of America, which will have its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in March 2012. Charles Bradley: Soul of America captures the incredible late in life rise of 62 year old aspiring soul singer Charles Bradley, whose unprecedented debut album rocketed him from a hard life in the projects to Rolling Stone magazine's top 50 albums of 2011."
YouTube

2011 October: Charles Bradley

Patti Smith featured in the Janet Hamill Archive

"The Janet Hamill Archive offers a rare glimpse into the life and work of Patti Smith as seen through the letters, manuscripts, photographs and documents collected by Janet Hamill during her and Patti's 40-year-long friendship."
Granary Books

James Welling

"James Welling was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1951. He grew up in nearby Simsbury where, in 1963, he began to study art with Julie Post. In 1965 he took drawing classes at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford and began to work independently in watercolor. Welling was deeply influenced by the work of Charles Burchfield, Edward Hopper and most importantly by Andrew Wyeth."
James Welling
artnet
artforum
YouTube: New Pictures 3: James Welling

Typewriter

Wikipedia - "A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the sorts used in movable type letterpress printing. From their invention in 1868 through much of the 20th century, typewriters were indispensable tools for recording the written word."
Wikipedia

Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to last week

"Sperone Westwater presents an exhibition of white marble sculptures dating from 350 B.C. to the present day. This survey includes Greek and Roman antiquities, Neoclassical sculptures, and works by modern and contemporary European and American artists. Marble is one of the oldest and most fundamental materials of sculpture with wide-ranging use in the fine arts, decorative arts, and architecture."
artdaily
YouTube: Marble sculpture from 350 b.c. to last week at Sperone Westwater

The Billboard Project - Zoe Strauss

"The Billboard Project is a series of photos by Zoe Strauss, displayed on 54 separate billboards, traversing dozens of neighborhoods in Philadelphia. The billboards will exhibit Zoe Strauss’s photos without informative text, branding or logos. They effectively eliminate 53 spaces available for commercial advertising. The Billboard Project is for both residents and visitors, and can be seen simultaneously as a homecoming and a journey."
The Billboard Project - Zoe Strauss
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art: Billboard Project
A new kind of neighbourhood watch (Video)

78 78s: In Search Of Lost Time

"Made of ground stone mixed with carbon black and the secretion of the South Asian lac beetle, 78 RPM discs were the dominant sound-recording medium for a half-century. Nowadays, we often think of them as containing obsolete, rinky-tink pop tunes or loamy, backwoods roots music — which isn't wrong, but it isn't the full story, either. In the early decades of the 20th century, the major record companies scattered sound engineers and A&R men all over the earth to gather sounds from a staggering array of traditions that could be sold back to their communities."
npr (YouTube)
What Was Left Behind: Music of the Ottoman Empire
amazon: To What Strange Place : The Music of the Ottoman-American Diaspora, 1916-1929
amazon: Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Musics 1918-1955
City Paper: Distant Transmissions
YouTube: Marika Papagika - Bournovalia, Marika Ninou - Çoban Kızı, Konyalim - Rumca

America a Prophecy (1974)

"Rothenberg and Quasha’s brilliant anthology America a Prophecy (1974), proposes a new way of reading poetry, through a transitive poetics that insists that poems realize themselves not through solo reading nor through the intercontexualizations of biography, schools of poetry, or even aesthetic positions; only when poems are read as contributions to collective enquiry, political challenge, and the subscription of sacred powers, can they reach their potential."
Samizdat Magazine
W - George Quasha
W - Jerome Rothenberg
amazon

Live Video: The Best Ambiance 25th Anniversary with King Sunny Ade

"The Best Ambiance, KEXP’s African music show on Monday nights, is continuing its long run into its 25th this year, and host Jon Kertzer celebrated the anniversary with one of the artists who started it all for him, King Sunny Ade. The Chairman, as he is known, is now in his sixties but continues to be a vital force long after he pioneered the concept of 'World Music' by bringing Nigerian Yoruba juju music to parts of the world outside of Africa, particularly to the West."
The KEXP Blog (YouTube)

Black Cadillac - Rosanne Cash

Wikipedia - "Black Cadillac is an album by Rosanne Cash, released in 2006. The album was a reflection on the passing of Cash's mother, Vivian Liberto, father, Johnny Cash, and her stepmother, June Carter Cash, who all died within a two-year period. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk album in 2007."
Wikipedia
amazon
wormholes
yahoo: Black Cadillac etc.
YouTube: Burn Down This Town, Burn Down This Town - 1, Radio operator and I was watching you, House On the Lake, The World Unseen, Dreams Are Not My Home

2010 March: Rosanne Cash

From Ritual to Romance (1920)

Wikipedia - "Jessie Laidlay Weston (1850-1928) was an independent scholar and folklorist, working mainly on mediaeval Arthurian texts. Her best-known work is From Ritual to Romance (1920); this book is now available as an online text, as are others of hers. In it she brought to bear an analysis harking back to James George Frazer on the Grail legend, arguing for origins earlier than the Christian or Celtic sources conventionally discussed at the time."
Wikipedia
From Ritual to Romance by Jessie L. Weston
amazon

Van and the Caledonian Soul Orchestra - London 1973

"Turn up your radio and let me hear the song
Switch on your electric light
Then we can get down to what is really wrong
I long to hold you tight so I can feel you
Sweet lady of the night I shall reveal you"
YouTube: Caravan, Domino, I just wanna make love to you, Here comes the night, Moonshine Whiskey

The Nature of Islamic Art

"The term Islamic art not only describes the art created specifically in the service of the Muslim faith (for example, a mosque and its furnishings) but also characterizes the art and architecture historically produced in the lands ruled by Muslims, produced for Muslim patrons, or created by Muslim artists. As it is not only a religion but a way of life, Islam fostered the development of a distinctive culture with its own unique artistic language that is reflected in art and architecture throughout the Muslim world."
MetMuseum
ARTFORUM: Nasser Rabbat
Islamic Art Galleries Reopen At The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Video)
NYT: Islamic Treasures
YouTube: Islamic Art Gallery Views with Commentary by Sheila Canby and Navina Haidar

Wire - On the Box 1979

"Despite recent efforts, the late 1970s remains Wire's most fondly remembered period. During this time, the band crafted a trio of albums that left fans and commentators breathless. However, live releases were conspicuous by their absence; until now, the only 1970s Wire gigs available were bootleg recordings. Wire on the box: 1979 is the first of PinkFlag's 'archive research' releases, which is a fancy way of saying 'old stuff repackaged'. This particular set provides us with a newly restored and remastered edition of Wire's infamous Rockpalast performance—the only surviving 1970s Wire television appearance of any real interest."
wireviews
Pitchfork
amazon: On the Box 1979
YouTube: another the letter Rockpalast 01/18, 15th 02/18, practice make perfect 03/18, two people in a room 04/18, i feel mysterious today 05/18, being sucked in again 06/18, once is enough 07/18, blessed state 08/18, question of degree 09/18, single KO 10/18, Mercy 11/18, forty version 12/18, "A touching display" 13/18, french film blurred 14/18, Men 2nd 15/18, map ref 43 degrees N 110 degrees 16/18, heartbeat 17/18, rappel 18/18

2009 January: Wire

Negativland (sound collage)

"Since 1980, the 4 or 5 or 6 Floptops known as Negativland have been creating records, CDs, video, fine art, books, radio and live performance using appropriated sound, image and text. Mixing original materials and original music with things taken from corporately owned mass culture and the world around them, Negativland re-arranges these found bits and pieces to make them say and suggest things that they never intended to. In doing this kind of cultural archaeology and 'culture jamming' (a term they coined way back in 1984), Negativland have been sued twice for copyright infringement."
Negativland
Suits, Lawsuits, and Art: Negativland Takes On The Man by Deuce of Clubs
amazon
YouTube: Christianity Is Stupid, Gimme the Mermaid, Stealing, Richard Nixon Died Today, Helter Stupid (newscast), Car Bomb, The Sample Show" (excerpt), Chicken Diction, Clowns and Ballerinas

2009 March: Negativland

The Peech Boys

Wikipedia - "The Peech Boys, also known as the New York Citi Peech Boys or NYC Peech Boys, was a band that comprised Bernard Fowler, Steven Brown, Robert Kasper, Darryl Short, Larry Levan and Michael de Benedictus. The group formed at the Paradise Garage, being influenced by Larry Levan."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Don't Make Me Wait, Don't Make Me Wait (Larry Levan Remix), Stay With Me (Larry Levan Mix), Life is Something Special, Stay With Me (Latest Craze Vocal), Don't Make Me Wait (Acapella)

Selected Letters of William S. Burroughs

"WSB [Paris] to Laura Lee and Mortimer Burroughs [Palm Beach, Florida][ca. November 17, 1959] Dear Mother and Dad, I am sorry.. Can only say time accelerated and skidded—No time to eat as you see in the photo—(Taken by my friend Brion [Gysin] the painter, certainly the greatest painter living and I do not make mistakes in the art world. Time will bear me out.. Brion used to run The 1001 Nights, restaurant night club in Tanger but at that time we barely spoke disliking each other intensely for reasons that seemed adequate to both parties.. Situation and per­ sonnel changed.."
The Paris Review
amazon: The Letters of William S. Burroughs, Vol. 1: 1945-1959

2009 May: Cut-up technique
2010 March: Cut-up technique - 1
2010 December: The Evolution of the Cut-Up Technique in My Own Mag
2011 February: William S. Burroughs, Word Horde 2.0
2011 March: William S. Burroughs: A Man Within

The Hip-Hop Family Tree: A Look Into the Viral Propagation of a Culture

"The Hip-Hop Family Tree: A Look Into the Viral Propagation of a Culture (part two, part three) is a 'semi-regular, ongoing feature' currently running in the comic Brain Rot by Ed Piskor. flex"
boingboing: part 1, part 2, part 3

Chen Yujun and Chen Yufan

Wrong Room No. 2, 2008
"'Mulan River Project' is a comprehensive installation by the artists and brothers Chen Yufan and Chen Yujun, which began to develop over four years ago as a collaborative research project into the history of their cultural heritage. The title refers to the mother river in their home town of Putian, and thus the creative source of their collaboration. Their multi-disciplinary approach to art practice allowed them to navigate their ideas through a variety of mediums with the current installation comprising of intricate abstract painting, sculptures and layered topographical constructions."
artnews
INEZ

The Greatest Grid: How Manhattan’s Famous Street Map Came to Be

"For the first two hundred years of Manhattan history, the Collect Pond, a lovely, spring-fed reservoir that bubbled up on the border of what is now Chinatown and the Financial District, was the main water source for most city dwellers. The streets grew up organically around it, private roads bounded by a vacant, rocky, wasteland to the north, from what is now 23rd to 90th streets. These were the city-owned Common Lands, and after the revolution they were something the debt-ridden city needed to parcel out and sell fast."
brain pickings
anazon: The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011
Museum of the City of New York

Johnny Otis

Wikipedia - "Ioannis Alexandros Veliotes (December 28, 1921 – January 17, 2012), better known as Johnny Otis, was an American singer, musician, talent scout, disc jockey, composer, arranger, recording artist, record producer, vibraphonist, drummer, percussionist, bandleader, impresario and pastor. Born in Vallejo, California, he is commonly referred to as the 'Godfather of Rhythm and Blues'."
Wikipedia
Johnny Otis
YouTube: Hand Jives, Willie & the Hand Jives, Johnny Otis with Marie Adams and the Three Tons of Joy - Ma (He's Making Eyes At Me), Harlem Nocturne, Linda Lu, Sittin' Here Drinkin', Can't you hear me callin', Castin my spell, Johnny Otis & Group - Voodoo Woman '59, Call Operator 210, Barrelhouse Blues, Low Down Dirty Dog Blues, The Watts Breakaway-Johnny Otis Show, Johnny Otis with Shuggie Otis & Roy Buchanan Live

The Tropological Space of Locus Solus

"The five issues of Locus Solus, edited by Harry Mathews, John Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch, are yet another example of the magazine as alternative space. If Robin Blaser viewed Pacific Nation in terms of mapping and nations, in terms of open space, I see Locus Solus as a form of Kunstkammer (a Cabinet of Wonder), a closed in hermetic space akin to Cornell's and Duchamp's boxes. A closed space, yet one that opens into an endless labyrinth of choices, options, and possibilities. Locus Solus was named after Raymond Roussel's 1914 novel."
Mimeo Mimeo

2009 September: Raymond Roussel
2010 June: Locus Solus (RealityStudio)
2011 April: Locus Solus

Weegee, the Photographer Who Gave Murder Style

"Weegee, who dramatically shaped America’s perception of the crime scene, only really started working as a professional photojournalist when he was close to 40. I mention this not only to make all us late starters feel better about ourselves but also because it puts the 100 prints currently on display at the International Center for Photography in New York in perspective."
Slate: Weegee, the Photographer Who Gave Murder Style
NoirCon (YouTube)
Wikipedia

The Knee Plays

"Welcome to the official website for David Byrne's 2007 Nonesuch Records reissue of the Knee Plays. Here you will find all things Knee Plays -- from its original conception, as part of Robert Wilson's epic play the CIVIL warS, to the groundbreaking stand-alone album it became. On the site, you'll find exclusive, never-before-released bonus material and works-in-progress, including photos, essays, reviews, and sketches."
The Knee Plays
WHAT’S A KNEE PLAY? by David Byrne
Wikipedia - The Knee Plays
YouTube: The Knee Plays
YouTube: Knee Plays - Live (1 of 10), (2 of 10), (3 of 10), (4 of 10), (5 of 10), (6 of 10), (7 of 10), (8 of 10), (9 of 10), (10 of 10)

(OvO)

Janine Niépce, Paris, 1950s
"'Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone.'"
(OvO)

Jean Follain: 130 Poems

"The poetry of Jean Follain (1903-1971) is increasingly seen, by poets and critics in France and by his foreign admirers, as central to French poetry’s change of course after Surrealism. The writer Henri Thomas spoke of Follain as a poet 'qui parle d’autre chose', who speaks of things outside himself; he admired his freedom from rhetoric. Follain’s short, down-to-earth, subtle poems, many of which set out to preserve the lost rural world of his pre-war Norman childhood, have influenced a new generation of French poets. To anyone who still believes that modern French poetry is abstruse and over-cerebral, Follain’s memorable poems are the answer."
amazon
Wikipedia
Hard-Wired

2008 Janurary: Jean Follain

Dubstep

Digital Mystikz
Wikipedia - "Dubstep ... is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London, United Kingdom. Its overall sound has been described as 'tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals'. The earliest dubstep releases date back to 1998 and were darker, more experimental, instrumental dub remixes of 2-step garage tracks attempting to incorporate the funky elements of breakbeat, or the dark elements of drum and bass into 2-step, which featured B-sides of single releases."
Wikipedia
BBC: MistaJam (Video)
YouTube: Westbam - Bam Bam, Westbam - Celebration Generation, Westbam - Terminator, Digital Mystikz and Loefah - Twisup, Digital Mystikz - Third One, Digital Mystikz - Clash, Burial - Ghost Hardware, Burial - Broken Home, Whoa-B - Ten Minute Dubstep Mix

Dennis Sheehan

"Dennis Sheehan was born in Boston, MA in 1950, has works are in major public & private collections, including the White House. Sheehan paints in the Barbizon mode with remarkable authority & faithful adherence to his 19th century precursors. In the tradition of the tonalist painters, Sheehan creates landscapes of mood, affected by nature's changing seasons."
Dennis Sheehan
artnet
YouTube: Painting demo

Jimmy Cliff – Sacred Fire EP

"Bob Marley will forever remain the ubiquitous face of reggae, but Jimmy Cliff came before to inspire generations of musicians and introduce the world to the genre he and fellow Jamaicans called simply 'makin’ music.' On his latest release, Sacred Fire, Cliff turns around to give a reverent nod to songs he originally influenced — looping the sequence of influence full circle. He also covers some early Bob Dylan and unveils a new song of his own. Produced by Rancid’s Tim Armstrong and recorded on vintage equipment, the five-song EP is a buildup to a full-length anticipated next year. It’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s first release since 2004′s Black Magic."
Consequence of Sound
amazon
YouTube: Ruby Soho, Guns of Brixton, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Brixton Version, Ship Is Sailing

Etta James

Wikipedia - "Etta James (born Jamesetta Hawkins; January 25, 1938 – January 20, 2012) was an American singer whose style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz. Starting her career in the mid 1950s, she gained fame with hits such as 'Dance With Me, Henry', 'At Last', 'Tell Mama', and 'I'd Rather Go Blind' for which she claimed she wrote the lyrics. She faced a number of personal problems, including drug addiction, before making a musical resurgence in the late 1980s with the album The Seven Year Itch."
Wikipedia
YouTube: I'd Rather Go Blind, Something Got A Hold On Me, Tell Mama, Take It To The Limit, Misty, At Last, Baby, What You Want Me To Do, Good Rockin' Daddy, Dance With Me Henry, Please no more

2011 February: Etta James, Keith Richards, Robert Cray - "Hoochie Coochie Gal"
2011 July: Record Row: Documentary of major Chicago Soul labels

The Man from London

Wikipedia - "The Man from London is a 2007 film by Hungarian director Béla Tarr. It is an adaptation by Tarr and his collaborator-friend László Krasznahorkai of the 1934 French language novel L'Homme de Londres by prolific Belgian writer Georges Simenon. ... The plot follows Maloin, a nondescript railway worker who recovers a briefcase containing a significant amount of money from the scene of a murder to which he is the only witness. Wracked by guilt and fear of being discovered, Maloin sinks into despondence and frustration, which leads to acrimony in his household. Meanwhile, an English police detective investigates the disappearance of the money and the unscrupulous characters connected to the crime."
Wikipedia
amazon
Reverse Shot
BFI: The weight of the world
NYT: Slowly, Slowly in the Fog to Noir, via Simenon
YouTube: The Man from London, Bela Tarr - The Man From London

Heroic Africans

"This major international loan exhibition challenges conventional perceptions of African art. Bringing together more than one hundred masterpieces drawn from collections in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Portugal, France, and the United States, it considers eight landmark sculptural traditions from West and Central Africa created between the twelfth and early twentieth centuries in terms of the individual subjects who lie at the origins of the representations. Analysis of each of these considers the historical circumstances and cultural values that inform the artistic landmarks presented."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
NYT: What Leaders Look Like: A Continental Shift
The New Yorker: African Icons - Peter Schjeldahl(Video)

The David Johansen Group Live

Wikipedia - "The David Johansen Group Live was originally a promotional-only LP released by David Johansen to help promote his solo career away from the New York Dolls. The nine tracks from the promotional LP were recorded on July 21, 1978 at the New York's Bottom Line. In 1993, a CD was released of the full 18 songs from the 1978 concert."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube:Cool Metro, Reach Out (I'll Be There), Girls, Frenchette, We Gotta Get Outta This Place / Don't Bring Me Down/ It's My Life, Personality Crisis, Build me up buttercup, Lonely Tenement, Donna

Sean Landers

Why So Panicky? (2004)
Wikipedia - "Sean Landers (born 1962) is a contemporary artist working and living in New York, United States. Sean Landers was born in Palmer, Massachusetts. He is known for paintings with a central painted picture surrounded with text. ... His written paintings are written usually on either skies, or plain black or white. One series he did based on the seven deadly sins, using a pig for gluttony, cow for lust and horse for pride."
Wikipedia
Sean Landers
frieze: Sean Landers: Onwards!
YouTube: A Discussion with Sean Landers, New Paintings at ANDREA ROSEN Gallery

Lou Harrison - Music from Canticle No. 3

"Lou Harrison has for fifty years been in the vanguard of American composers. An innovator of musical composition and performance that transcends cultural boundries, Harrison's highly acclaimed work juxtaposes and synthesizes musical dialects from virtually every corner of the world. Born in Portland, Oregon, on May 14, 1917, Lou Harrison grew up in the culturally diverse San Francisco Bay Area. There he was influenced by Cantonese Opera, Gregorian chants and the music of California's Spanish and Mexican cultures. Harrison also developed an interest in Indonesian Gamelan music through early recordings."
New Albion
An interview with Lou Harrison
YouTube: Music from Canticle No. 3, La Koro Sutro (1973), Main Bersama-Sama (1978), Varied Trio (1987), Song of Quetzalcoatl (1941), Fifth Simfony (1939), Fugue for percussion (1941)

2008 September: Lou Harrison