Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980

"Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980 chronicles the vital legacy of the city’s African American artists. The work of these practitioners was animated to an extent by the civil rights and Black Power movements, reflecting the changing sense of what constituted African American identity and American culture. The power of the black community strengthened nationwide as racial discrimination began to lessen as a result of new legislation and changing social norms."
Hammer
amazon: Now Dig This!: Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980
LA Times - Art review: 'Now Dig This!' at the UCLA Hammer Museum
YouTube: Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960 - 1980 Trailer

Comicopera - Robert Wyatt

Wikipedia - "Comicopera is an album by Robert Wyatt released on 8 October 2007, available on both CD and double vinyl formats (the vinyl's fourth side contains no music and has a poem etched into its surface). It is Wyatt's first release on the Domino Records label. It features many other musicians, including Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Gilad Atzmon and Phil Manzanera, and was recorded in Wyatt's house and Manzanera's recording studio. The song Del Mondo is a cover from Ko de mondo, the debut album of Italian post-punk band Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti."
Wikipedia
amazon: Comicopera
Pitchfork
Guardian: Robert Wyatt, Comicopera
YouTube: Stay Tuned, Just as you are, On The Town Square, Out of the Blue, Be Serious
YouTube: Q & A, Purcell Room, London 15th Oct 2007 1:30:08

Trouser Press

Wikipedia - "Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name 'Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press' (a reference to a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and an acronymic play on the British TV show Top of the Pops). Its original scope was British bands and artists (early issues featured the slogan 'America's Only British Rock Magazine'). Initial issues contained occasional interviews with major artists like Brian Eno and Robert Fripp and extensive record reviews."
Wikipedia
Trouser Press

Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962

Otto Muehl, Untitled, 1963. Sand, plaster, stockings, and emulsion on sackcloth.
"Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949–1962 focuses on one of the most significant developments in contemporary abstract painting: the artist’s literal assault on the picture plane. Responding to the physical and psychological destruction wrought by World War II—especially the existential crisis resulting from the atomic bomb—artists ripped, cut, burned, and affixed objects to the canvas in lieu of paint. Destroy the Picture emphasizes this internationally shared artistic sensibility in the context of devastating global change and dynamic artistic dialogues, offering an innovative and expansive view of art making in the postwar period."
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
LA Times - Review: MOCA's 'Destroy the Picture' boldly steps into the void
SFAQ: “Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962″ at MOCA, Los Angeles
amazon: Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void, 1949-1962

Au Pairs @ Pinkpop 1982

"New Wave/Punk band The Au Pairs from the UK playing live at the Pinkpop festival on 31-5-1982. 2 Songs: Set Up & Dear John."
YouTube: Set Up & Dear John, Armagh, America, Stepping Out Of Line, You, Pretty Boys, Diet, We're So Cool, Unfinished Business
YouTube: Topic - Au Pairs

2008 May: Au Pairs

Tommy Johnson

Wikipedia - "Tommy Johnson (1896 – November 1, 1956) was an influential American delta blues musician, who recorded in the late 1920s, and was known for his eerie falsetto voice and intricate guitar playing. ... By 1920 he had become an alcoholic and itinerant musician, based in Crystal Springs but traveling widely around the South, sometimes accompanied by Papa Charlie McCoy. In 1928 he made his first recordings with McCoy for Victor Records. The recordings included 'Canned Heat Blues', in which he sang of drinking methanol from the cooking fuel Sterno. The song features the refrain 'canned heat, mama, sure, Lord, killing me'."
Wikipedia
Tommy Johnson
Tommy Johnson - Delta School (Video)
amazon: 1928-1929 Complete Recorded Works
YouTube: Canned Heat Blues, Cool Drink of Water Blues, Big Road Blues, Big fat mama blues, Maggie Campbell Blues, Alcohol And Jake Blues,

Caravan Palace

Wikipedia - "Caravan Palace is a French Electro swing and Gypsy Jazz band based in Paris. The current band line-up consists of Sonia Fernandez Velasco (vocals and clarinet), Arnaud Vial (guitar), Hugues Payen (violin), Camille Chapelière (clarinet), Charles Delaporte (double bass) and Antoine Toustou (electronics and trombone). The group of suda bolas formed in 2005 after three of the band members were hired by a film production company called 'The Succiona Pichulas-Lagarto' to provide the soundtrack to silent pornographic movies."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Rock It For Me [LIVE @LE TRIANON], Jolie Coquine, Suzy, Clash - Live au Trianon Mars 2012, Minnie the moocher - Karlstorbahnhof Heidelberg 2009, Brotherswing, Chocolate - Karlstorbahnhof Heidelberg 2009
YouTube: Karlstor Bahnhof Heidelberg 1:14:09

Le parti pris des choses - Francis Ponge

Wikipedia - "Le parti pris des choses is a collection of 32 short to medium-length prose poems by French poet and essayist Francis Ponge first published in 1942 (see 1942 in poetry). The title is often translated into English as The Voice of Things, The Way Things Are, or The Nature of Things (perhaps to echo Lucretius, though the book's philosophical underpinnings are more often associated with phenomenology)."
Wikipedia
scribd: The Nature of Things, Francis Ponge (Lee Fahnestock)
amazon: The Nature of Things (Lee Fahnestock)
Ponge: Taking the Side of Things

2008 February: Francis Ponge
2011 September: Soap
2012 March: Things

Tommy McCook

Wikipedia - "Tommy McCook (3 March 1927 – 5 May 1998) was a Jamaican saxophonist. A founding member of The Skatalites, he also directed The Supersonics for Duke Reid, and backed many sessions for Bunny Lee or with The Revolutionaries at Channel One Studios in the 1970s. ... In 1954 he left for an engagement in Nassau, Bahamas, after which he ended up in Miami, Florida, and it was here that McCook first heard John Coltrane and fell in love with jazz. McCook returned to Jamaica in early 1962, where he was approached by a few local producers to do some recordings."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Dynamite - Tommy McCook & The Supersonics, Deep Roots, African Jumper, The Rooster, Sweet Lorna, Our Man Flint, Goldfinger, Indian Love Call, The Blazing Horns (Roots Dub)

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

Wikipedia - "Things Fall Apart is an English-language novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe published in 1958. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English, and one of the first African novels written in English to receive global critical acclaim. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and widely read and studied in English-speaking countries around the world. The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats' poem 'The Second Coming'."
Wikipedia
Guernica: How Things Fell Apart By Chinua Achebe
amazon: Things Fall Apart
William Butler Yeats - "The Second Coming"
YouTube: An Evening with Chinua Achebe 1:12:06

PhotoSeed

"PhotoSeed, representing an evolving online record of this early fine-art photography movement, is a private archive with simple goals: beauty, truth, scholarship and enjoyment for all who visit."
PhotoSeed

Escif New Mural In Prague, Czech Republic

"Fresh off his epic mural in France (covered), Escif is now in the Balkans where he just completed this new mural on the streets of Prague, Czech Republic. Entitled 'Pomoc' (Help), the Spaniard delivers yet another large-scale piece with this half-buried face which can be seen on Pod Vitkovem 2. Check back with us soon for more by Escif..."
StreetArtNews
Escif

Radio-Activity - Kraftwerk

Wikipedia - "Radio-Activity ... is the fifth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in October 1975. Unlike Kraftwerk's later albums, which featured language-specific lyrics, only the titles differ between the English and German editions. A concept album, Radio-Activity is bilingual, featuring lyrics in both languages. The hyphenated album title displays Kraftwerk's typical deadpan humour, being a pun on the twin themes of the songs, half being about radioactivity and the other half about activity on the radio."
Wikipedia
W - Radioactivity
YouTube: Radioactivity, Radioactivity - MoMA 2012, Airwaves, Antenna

2008 April: Kraftwerk
2011 March: Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution
2011 March: Kraftwerk - Documentary
2011 April: Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany
2011 May: Autobahn
2011 October: Trans-Europe Express
2012 February: Retrospective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The Smallest Graveyard In Manhattan

"One of my favorite cemeteries in New York is so small, I must have walked by it dozens of times in my travels before I first noticed it. Don’t feel bad if you’ve missed it too. ... Not that I expect anything to be different. In fact, that’s what makes the little graveyard on West 11th Street so special: the final gasp of existence of a West Village that is no more, a time when cow pastures were just down the street and local children would hop the fence to steal fruit from the apple trees growing in the cemetery. In fact, it really isn’t hard to picture this brick path continuing on for a ways."
Scouting NY

The Address Book by Sophie Calle

"Never before published in its entirety in English, The Address Book is a key and controversial work in Sophie Calle’s oeuvre. Having found a lost address book on the street in Paris, Calle copied the pages before returning it anonymously to its owner. She then embarked on a search to come to know this stranger by contacting listed individuals—in essence, following him through the map of his acquaintances. Her written accounts of these encounters with friends, family and colleagues—juxtaposed with Calle’s photographs—originally appeared as serial in the newspaper Libération over the course of one month in 1983."
Siglio Press
Harpers: The Address Book
amazon: The Address Book
Gallerist NY
vimeo: In-Print Photobook Video #3 (Video)

Essential Logic

Wikipedia - "Essential Logic is an English post-punk band formed in 1978 by saxophonist Lora Logic after leaving X-Ray Spex. The band initially consisted of Lora on vocals, Phil Legg on guitar and vocals, William Bennett (later of Whitehouse) on guitar, Mark Turner on bass guitar, Rich Tea on drums and Dave Wright on saxophone. Turner was later replaced by Jon Oliver on bass. The band split in 1981 and reformed in 2001."
Wikipedia
amazon - Fanfare in the Garden: Essential Logic Collection
Essential Logic ...music is a better noise
YouTube: Music is a Better Noise, Hiss and Shake, Fanfare in the Garden, Wake Up, Aerosol Burns, Quality Crayon Wax O.K.

66 “Bob Lee Junior Blues” by The Memphis Jug Band

"On the 19 and 20th of October, 1927, in Atlanta, Georgia, The Memphis Jug Band recorded six sides for the Victor company, including 'Bob Lee Junior Blues'. Around Will Shade, leader of the band, on guitar and vocal, were Ben Ramey on Kazoo and Vocal, Will Weldon on guitar and vocal, Vol Stevens on banjo/mandolin and guitar, Jennie Clayton (Shade’s wife) on vocals and Charlie Pork on jug."
The Old, Weird America (Video)
Where Dead Voices Gather: The Anthology of American Folk Music Project (Video)
Bengt Olsson issued
amazon: Memphis Jug Band with Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers

Scanner

"Some 600 hours of previously unreleased material, newly digitized and awaiting a broader set of ears — this is the status of Scanner’s archival project, which has him diving into his earliest recordings, dating back to 1977, as he describes the situation in a brief liner note to Colofon & Compendium 1991-1994 (Sub Rosa), a compilation that has resulted from this ongoing effort. ... This music dates from the era when Robin Rimbaud earned the name Scanner, in that he used a police scanner to pull voices from the ether and then, in real time and in the studio, would add music to dramatize the overheard conversation, lending emotional and narrative weight and context. Scanner doesn’t employ the scanner as often as he once did, but for longtime listeners to his work, this early eavesdropping gives additional meaning to his subsequent employment of spoken and sung information."
disquiet: Scanner 1/4: Voices in the Ether (Video), Scanner 2/4: Joy Re-division (Video), Scanner 3/4: Vertical Sound (Video), Scanner 4/4: God Sample the Queen(Video)
scanner (Video)
Soundcloud: scanner - Robin Rimbaud, London, Britain (Video)

Angel Hair magazine: The sixties and seventies

"When and where the new wave of poetry began: A sampler of writing selected by Jacket editor John Tranter from the 630-page Granary Books anthology of material from the collection of Angel Hair magazine and books edited by Lewis Warsh and Anne Waldman between 1966 and 1978."
Jacket2
Project MUSE: Angel Hair Magazine, the Second-Generation New York School, and the Poetics of Sociability
amazon: Angel Hair Sleeps with a Boy in My Head: The Angel Hair Anthology

Peter Sacks

Migration 19, 2009
Wikipedia - "Peter M. Sacks (born in 1950) is an expatriate South African painter/poet living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Normandy, France. ... In 1999, during a period of indecision, Sacks began painting over photographs using thick white acrylic. This led to an interest in what he might be able to accomplish as a painter. He now exhibits his work in France and around the world."
Wikipedia
What It Is Like to See a Sack by Louis Menand
Daniel Tiffany:: Sampler and Sediment: The Art of Peter Sacks
artnet
vimeo: PAINTINGS :: Gallery Tour

Dr. Strangelove - Stanley Kubrick

Wikipedia - "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, commonly known as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 black comedy film which satirizes the nuclear scare. It was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, and featuring Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, and Slim Pickens."
Wikipedia
NY Times
Roger Ebert
amazon
YouTube: Dr. Strangelove trailer, Precious Bodily Fluids, "You'll have to answer to the Coca-Cola company", Doctor Strangelove - Doomsday Machine, Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove

2008 August: Stanley Kubrick
2010 September: 2001: A Space Odyssey
2011 February: A Stanley Kubrick Odyssey - A Tribute
2011 April: Killer's Kiss (1955)
2011 December: Chicago (1949)

The Payback - James Brown

Wikipedia - "'The Payback' (sometimes known as just 'Payback') is a funk song by James Brown, the title track from his 1973 album of the same name. The song's lyrics, originally written by trombonist and bandleader Fred Wesley but heavily revised by Brown himself soon before it was recorded, concern the revenge he plans to take against the man who betrayed him and stole his money and his woman. The song is notable for its spare, open instrumental arrangement and its use of wah-wah guitar - a relative rarity in Brown's previous funk recordings. Released as a two-part single (featuring a radio announcer at the beginning of part one) in February 1974, it was the first in an unbroken succession of three singles by Brown to reach #1 on the R&B charts that year - the last chart-toppers of his career."
W - "The Payback" (song)
W - The Payback
Julian Cope’s Album of the Month
YouTube: The Payback 1974 (Live), The Payback, Live - Zaire 1974, The Payback part 1 & 2 polydor records 7''

Ikue Mori

Wikipedia - "Ikue Mori ... (born 17 December 1953, Tokyo, Japan), also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, composer, and graphic designer. Ikue Mori was born and raised in Japan. She says she had little interest in music before hearing punk rock. In 1977, she went to New York City, initially for a visit, but she fell into the music scene, and has remained in New York since."
Wikipedia
Ikue Mori
vimeo: Roulette TV
YouTube: Bhima Swarga, Tropical Riodnid, DNA - "5:30", Musashi plain moon, Ikue Mori with Robert Quine and Marc Ribot - Mojave

The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa

Wikipedia - "The Book of Disquiet published posthumously, is a work by Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935), signed under the semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares. With a preface by Fernando Pessoa, orthonym, the book is a fragmentary lifetime project, left unedited by the author, who introduced it as a 'factless autobiography'."
Wikipedia
amazon
the harvard advocate - Four Ways of Seeing: Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet
Guardian: A man of many parts
Benjamin Kunkel - "A Cold In the Soul: Reading The Book Of Disquiet In Apartment 62"

2008 March: Fernando Pessoa
2010 October: disquiet: ambient/electronic
2011 October: "Autopsicografia"

Jah Shaka, Bim Sherman, African Princess, 12inch

"... Start on the bottom with Exile Dub, so you can see the bass as it prowls… wait for the part where it drops those three high notes. Bim bim boooo. That is one fine predatory bass line. The horns add a sweetness, reverb’d guitar could swirl a surf listener in. The happiness is more subtle on the dub side, it springs out as the minor riff blooms briefly into a major. The roller rink key boards are added in later and also a nice touch…"
KFJC 89.7 FM
W - Jah Shaka
YouTube: Exile Dub 12inch, Bim Sherman - Happiness, Revelation18 12inch, African Princess - Jah Children Cry 12', Peace Maker Dub, The Right Dub, In the Beginning Dub

Allies - Fred Frith

Wikipedia - "Allies (Music for Dance volume 2) is a studio album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It is the second of a series of Music for Dance albums Frith made. In 1989 Frith was commissioned by choreographer Bebe Miller to write a suite of music for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 'Next Wave' series. Frith composed and recorded the suite, Allies, in October 1989 with musicians Tom Cora and George Cartwright, with whom Frith had been collaborating for a number of years. The percussion on the recording was provided by a drum machine that Frith had programmed. Allies premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 1989."
Wikipedia
amazon
all about jazz
YouTube: Rifka
Track 02 - Small Mercy I

Hervé Guibert

Wikipedia - "Hervé Guibert (14 December 1955 - 27 December 1991) was a French writer and photographer. The author of numerous novels and autobiographical studies, he played a considerable role in changing French public attitudes to AIDS. He was a close friend of Michel Foucault."
Wikipedia
The Truth in Photography: The Work of Hervé Guibert (Video)
amazon: Hervé Guibert
vimeo: Revoir Hervé Guibert

Alone Together - Dave Mason

Wikipedia - "Alone Together was the debut solo album by former Traffic member Dave Mason. Performing with Mason was a roster of guest musicians, including Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, Leon Russell, Jim Capaldi, Rita Coolidge, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon. ... The LP record itself was not the traditional black vinyl as about 30% of the albums produced were a swirled mix of pink, brown and beige."
W - Alone Together
amazon
Great but Forgotten
YouTube: Look at you look at me, Only You Know And I Know, Sad And Deep As You, Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave, Just a Song

Doug Aitken: Altered Earth

iTunes
"Created by the artist Doug Aitken, the ALTERED EARTH App takes the viewer on a surreal and hallucinogenic journey. ALTERED EARTH was created entirely in one region, the desolate Camargue area in Southern France. ALTERED EARTH creates a distinctly modern exploration of landscape and the space between man, nature, and technology. The Camargue’s mysterious quality is the setting for ALTERED EARTH : a naturally sculpted land emitting a rough beauty and unique individuality. This is a setting where German bunkers are being re-claimed by migratory birds and African winds spread the Mediterranean Sea over shallow lagoons revealing salt mines that appear like crystal landscapes from another world."
Hidrazone
Nowness (Video)
Doug Aitken (Video)
Doug Aitken Delves Into Land Art For A Digital World
vimeo: ALTERED EARTH 12 Screen Layout (Video)

Materializing "Six Years": Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art

"This exhibition is devoted to examining the defining impact Lucy R. Lippard’s groundbreaking book Six Years had on the emergent Conceptual art movement. Published in 1973, Six Years simultaneously catalogued and described the development of conceptual art practices in the late sixties and early seventies, and is now widely considered an essential reference work for the period. Using the book’s content to structure the exhibition, Materializing “Six Years” showcases the artists brought together and championed by Lippard, and demonstrates how her curatorial projects, critical writing, and political engagement helped to redefine exhibition-making, art criticism, and the viewing experience."
Brooklyn Museum
amazon
ArtInfo

Capogrossi: A Retrospective

Superficie / Surface 406, 1961
"This retrospective explores Giuseppe Capogrossi’s (1900–72) unique contribution to 20th-century art, tracing the evolution of his signature glyph in grandiose orchestrations of abstract mark and color. In collaboration with Rome’s Fondazione Archivio Capogrossi and with support from the President of the Italian Republic and the Italian Ministry of Culture, Capogrossi: A Retrospective brings together over seventy paintings and drawings in a long overdue examination of the artist’s career."
Guggenheim
amazon
Long overdue Giuseppe Capogrossi retrospective opens at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Guggenheim (Video)

Honky Tonk Women: The Changing Role of Women

June Carter
"Honky-tonks: places for music, dancing, drinking, and, sometimes, rowdy behavior which originated in white dance halls of the southwest. They offered a place for hard-working people to unwind at the end of a long, hard day on the job. The music that developed in these dance halls served as country music’s backbone for more than half a century. And the honky tonk dance halls spawned an incredible group of singers, among them Floyd Tillman, Ernest Tubb, Al Dexter, Hank Thompson, Hank Williams, Ray Price, Kitty Wells, Webb Pierce, and Carl Smith. ... Women were remarkably important in the evolution of honky tonk music. Patsy Montana, Rose Maddox, and Texas Ruby, among others, helped establish both the honky tonk sound and a new country music sound in which women took the lead and sang laments."
Honky Tonk Women: The Changing Role of Women (Video)
Women in Country Music
Mixtape | Queens of the honky tonk (Video)
TNR: The Horrific Racism of Kitty Wells’ Cyrano
Guardian - Honky-tonk women: the female artists who made it big in country music
Female Performers in Country Music
Project MUSE: Lonesome Cowgirls and Honky-Tonk Angles: The Women of Barn Dance Radio (review), amazon
YouTube: Patsy Montana - I want to be a cowboy's sweetheart (1937), Maddox Brothers And Rose - Honky Tonkin (1949), Kitty Wells - A Woman Half My Age, Wanda Jackson - Hard Headed Woman, Jean Shepard - The Root Of All Evil, Bonnie Owens - Philadelphia Lawyer, Tanya Tucker-Delta Dawn,
Lucinda Williams - Drunken Angel

Victor Baltard (1805-1874). Iron and Paintbrush

"Baltard's name still evokes in all Parisians a symbolic landmark in the capital city which has now disappeared, the Halles de Paris (the Paris market). This extensive edifice made of iron and glass, so often imitated, was the origin of the architect's immense fame but also caused him to be misunderstood by some historians who refused to consider him the inventor of the project."
Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay: At the Ecole des beaux-arts

The Isley Brothers

Wikipedia - "The Isley Brothers are an American musical group consisting of brothers Ron and Ernie Isley. The founding members of the band were Ronald Isley, older brothers Rudy and Kelly and younger brother Vernon. Originally formed as a gospel quartet, following the death of brother Vernon, the remaining trio launched a career into doo-wop scoring with their first million-selling hit single, 'Shout', in 1959."
Wikipedia
Discogs
YouTube: Shout!, Stagger Lee, This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak for You), Nobody But Me, I Turned You On, Keep On Doin', Get Into Something, Twist & Shout, Who's That lady

Ori Gersht - History Repeating

"Ori Gersht is a conduit between the past and the present. With the latest digital technology, Gersht’s work poetically revisits sources ranging from 19th-century romantic landscape painting to the Holocaust, which imbue his work with a compelling tension between beauty and violence, memory and history. In twenty-five works, including large-scale photographs and films dating from the late 1990s to today, Gersht examines the evolving relationship between cultural, political, and art histories to shape an exhibition The New York Times describes as 'beauty, tender and fleeting, amid history’s ire.'"
MFA Boston (Video)
NYT: Beauty, Tender and Fleeting, Amid History’s Ire