Button Up

"Button Up is the brainchild of Garry John Kane. Garry is currently the bass player with Scottish legends The Proclaimers and has also played with Marianne Faithfull, The McCluskey Brothers and Justin Currie to name but a few. Button Up first came to life in 1998 when Garry, joined by drummer Ross McFarlane and keyboardist Paul Gallagher, started gigging around Glasgow with a unique hammond driven mod/soul sound that quickly gathered them a loyal following."
Buttonup Records
iTunes: Button Up
YouTube: If I Could Only Be Sure, Listen To Your Heart Beat, Inhaler, Same Time, Same Place, Keeps On Burning

Cotton Tenants: Three Families

"... The origins of Agee and Evan's famous collaboration date back to an assignment for Fortune magazine, which sent them to Alabama in the summer of 1936 to report a story that was never published. Some have assumed that Fortune's editors shelved the story because of the unconventional style that marked Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, and for years the original report was lost. ... Published here for the first time, and accompanied by thirty of Walker Evans’s historic photos, Cotton Tenants is an eloquent report of three families struggling through desperate times. Indeed, Agee’s dispatch remains relevant as one of the most honest explorations of poverty in America ever attempted and as a foundational document of long-form reporting."
amazon: Cotton Tenants: Three Families
NYT: A Paean to Forbearance (the Rough Draft)
BookForum / artforum
Knoxville: Summer of 1915 by James Agee (1938)

2011 June: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Wildflower

Blue-flowered penstemons. Mt. Harrison.
Wikipedia - "A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. Yet 'wildflower' meadows of a few mixed species are sold in seed packets. The term 'wildflower' has been made vague by commercial seedsmen who are interested in selling more flowers or seeds more expensively than when labeled with only its name and/or origin. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the way it appears in the wild as a native plant, even if it is growing where it would not naturally."
Wikipedia
Wildflower Identification
MyWildflowers
Wildflowers of the United States

Billy Bragg - Tooth & Nail (2013)

"'January Song,' the bluesy leadoff track from veteran English folkie Billy Bragg's first solo outing since 2008's Mr. Love and Justice, begins with the lyric 'I'm so tightly wound in tension' and ends with 'This is how the world ends,' signaling a shift from the stalwart political activism of previous outings to a more internalized dialogue that suggests a subtle re-positioning of the magnifying glass. Bragg has always tempered his political leanings with matters of the heart, and the weepy 'Chasing Rainbows' and sad and soulful 'Your Name on My Tongue' rank as two of his more intimate offerings, suggesting a recent emotional upheaval that needed a basement in Pasadena, California to find catharsis."
allmusic
W - Tooth & Nail
COS
Spotify (Video)
YouTube: Tooth & Nail, No One Knows Nothing Anymore, Handyman Blues, Ideology, I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore, Another Man's Done Gone, Greetings to the New Brunette, January Song

2011 November: Billy Bragg, 2012 November: Strange Things Happen (Live on The Tube 1984), 2012 December: The Internationale, 2013 May: Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions

Curtis Mayfield - Roots (1971)

"Curtis Mayfield's visionary album, a landmark creation every bit as compelling and as far-reaching in its musical and extra-musical goals as Marvin Gaye's contemporary What's Goin' On. Opening on the hit 'Get Down,' the album soars on some of the sweetest and most eloquent -- yet driving -- soul sounds heard up to that time. Mayfield's growing musical ambitions, first manifested on the Curtis album, and his more sophisticated political sensibilities, presented with a lot of raw power on Curtis Live!, are pulled together here in a new, richer studio language, embodied in extended song structures ('Underground'), idealistic yet lyrically dazzling anthems ("We Got to Have Peace," "Keep On Keeping On," and, best of all, the soaring 'Beautiful Brother of Mine'), and impassioned blues ('Now You're Gone')."
allmusic
W - Roots
amazon
YouTube: Keep On Keeping On, Get down, We Got To Have Peace, Underground, Beautiful Brother of Mine.

Suzanne Treister

"HEXEN 2.0 looks into histories of scientific research behind government programmes of mass control, investigating parallel histories of countercultural and grass roots movements. HEXEN 2.0 charts, within a framework of post-WWII U.S. governmental and military imperatives, the coming together of diverse scientific and social sciences through the development of cybernetics, the history of the internet, the rise of Web 2.0 and increased intelligence gathering, and the implications for the future of new systems of societal manipulation towards a control society."
HEXEN 2.0
Suzanne Treister
NYT: Suzanne Treister: ‘Hexen 2.0’
Interview: Suzanne Treister, capturing the essence of gaming since the '80s
YouTube: PPOW GALLERY, Hexen2.0 Seance remix, Alchemy

Sam Durant - Proposal for Public Fountain

"Sam Durant’s third exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ, Proposal for Public Fountain, centres on a fountain sculpted from black marble – a prototype for a larger installation in a public setting – together with a series of related graphite drawings. The structure features a reproduction of an armoured water cannon, which sprays a jet of water onto a hooded figure bearing an anarchist flag. Its note of polemic is a defining aspect of Durant’s art. Poised between detached commentary and acerbic critique, it recasts a contemporary episode of state authoritarianism in the ‘stately’ aesthetics of public stonework."
Wall Street International
Sadie Coles
Sam Durant on Scaffolds, Fountains, and Abstracting the Political

Some Sort of Alchemy

"His names were many: christened Herman Blount, he reinvented himself as Sonny Blount, H. Sonne Blount, Le Sony’r Ra, and, finally, what he called his 'vibrational name,' Sun Ra. Ra’s band, too, was rich in appellation—one could compile a dizzyingly poetic list of its nearly fifty names, including the Myth Science Arkestra, the Intergalactic Research Arkestra, the Cosmo Drama Arkestra, the Transmolecular Arkestra, and the Love Adventure Arkestra. As many names, Ra might have said, as there are stars in the sky. This jazz visionary was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and not on Saturn, as he often claimed; in Chicago, in the late forties, a young Sonny Blount played piano with Fletcher Henderson, sharpening his formidable skills as a composer and arranger with the big-band legend."
Paris Review

2008 September: Sun Ra, 2010 August: Disco 3000: Complete Milan Concert [1978], 2010 August: Sounds from Tomorrow's World: Sun Ra and the Chicago Years, 1946-1961, 2010 October: Sun Ra on Artbeat, 2010 November: The Magic Sun (1966), 2010 November: Space Is the Place (1974), 2010 December: Sun Ra in Egypt and Italy, 2011 April: A Joyful Noise (1980), 2011 August: Lanquidity, 2012 Thursday: BBC Documentary: Sun Ra, Brother From Another Planet, 2012 July: The Paris Tapes, 1971, 2012 November: Sun Ra Arkestra - Points On A Space Age, 2012 December: Super-Sonic Jazz.

Colors - Dennis Hopper

Wikipedia - "Colors is a 1988 American police procedural crime film starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall, and directed by Dennis Hopper. The story takes place in South Central, North West and East Los Angeles, and centers on Bob Hodges (Duvall), an experienced Los Angeles Police Department CRASH Police Officer III, and his rookie partner, Danny McGavin (Penn) who try to mitigate the gang violence between the Bloods, the Crips, and the Hispanic street gangs. Colors relaunched Hopper as a director 18 years after Easy Rider and stirred some controversy over its depiction of gang life and gang violence."
Wikipedia
Guardian: I was Dennis Hopper's henchman
NY Times: Police vs. Street Gangs In Hopper's 'Colors'
YouTube: Colors Official Trailer #1 - Robert Duvall Movie (1988) HD, The Car Chase Scene, Intro - One Time One Night In America

2009 November: Easy Rider (1969), 2010 May: Dennis Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010), 2010 November: The American Friend (1977), 2012 November: Dennis Hopper Documentary (90s), 2013 May: The Lost Album.

Cedar Tavern

Wikipedia - "The Cedar Tavern (or Cedar Street Tavern) was a bar and restaurant in New York City last at 82 University Place between 11th and 12th Streets. It was famous as a former hangout of many prominent Abstract Expressionist painters and beat writers. The establishment was located at 24 University Place in its heyday, but closed in April 1963 and reopened three blocks north in 1964 in a more upscale pub style."
Wikipedia
Nostalgia (or Not) for The Cedar Tavern
NY Times: Bye-Bye Bohemia
An Inside Look at the AbEx-ers
WNYC - Audio Download: Downtown at The Cedar Tavern (Video)

"You're The One For Me" - D. Train

Wikipedia - "'You're The One For Me' is a 1982 dance/soul single by D. Train, a New York based duo. 'You're The One for Me' was a number one dance hit for three weeks early in 1982. The single also made it to number thirteen on the soul singles chart."
Wikipedia
W - D. Train
allmusic
YouTube: You're The One For Me, You're the one for me, vinyl 12" extended version

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road - Lucinda Williams

Wikipedia - "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is the 1998 album by singer-songwriter and guitarist Lucinda Williams, her fifth professional release. Issued by Mercury/Polygram Records, it was recorded in Nashville and Canoga Park, California. Williams co-produced the album, which includes guest appearances by Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris."
Wikipedia
allmusic
Rolling Stone
YouTube: Right In Time, Drunken Angel, Lake Charles, Still I Long For Your Kiss, Greenville, Metal Firecracker, Can`t Let Go, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, Concrete and Barbed Wire

2008 January: Lucinda Williams, 2010 May: Lucinda Williams - 1, 2011 March: Blessed, 2011 November: Austin, Texas, 1989, 2012 May: World Without Tears, 2012 October: Honky Tonk Women: The Changing Role of Women, 2013 January: "Can`t Let Go", "Pineola", "Changed the Locks"

Nunca New Mural In Berlin, Germany

"After a quick stop by London, UK, Nunca is now in Germany where he just completed this massive Berliner Punk mural for the Urban Spree Festival in Berlin. Nunca's frank and figurative work is characterized by a bright spectrum of colors and his use of hatching lines to give the forms volume and definition. Traditionally seen in old prints like etchings and woodcuts, the artist resourcefully uses this technique to cover large surfaces with skillfully spray-painted lines."
StreetArtNews
NUNCA

1939 New York in HD Color

"A just released, amazing film clip brings back to life the colorful life on the streets of New York City - from the summer of 1939, that's right you read right that's 1939. The color footage, which comes from Romano-Archives and was recently released on the Web, is 74 years old."
WJCT
1939 New York in HD Color (Video)

The Rite of Spring

Wikipedia - "The Rite of Spring ... is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky, with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation and almost a riot in the audience. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as a concert piece, and is widely considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century."
Wikipedia
W - Igor Stravinsky
W - Sergei Diaghilev
Guardian: How Stravinsky's Rite of Spring has shaped 100 years of music (Video)
The Rite of Spring at 100 | Carolina Performing Arts (Video)
Slate (Video)
BBC: Did The Rite of Spring really spark a riot?
YouTube: "The Rite of Spring", The Mariinsky Theater Orchestra and Ballet, Maurice Béjart, Joffrey Ballet, Vaslav Nijinsky, Georges Momboye

2009 September: The Rite of Spring - Pina Bausch

A New Chapter of Dub - Aswad (1982)

"The strongest album of Aswad's CBS period, a powerful roots-and-culture program entitled New Chapter, was followed shortly by what would turn out to be the strongest dub album of several that were produced during the group's career. A New Chapter of Dub was produced by Aswad in collaboration with the up-and-coming dubmeister Mikey Dread (credited here as Michael [Reuben] Campbell), whose work as a radio DJ had made him a household name among London's West Indian expatriate population even before he began establishing himself as a top studio producer."
allmusic
YouTube: Dub Fire, Ghetto in the sky, Truth, Bammie Blow, Tuffist, Zion I, Shining Dub

Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog

Wikipedia - "Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known as Fitzcarraldo in Peru, who has to pull a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. The film is derived from the real-life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert
amazon
MUBI (Video)
Fitzcardboardaldo: A Classic Film Recreated with Cardboard (Video)

2008 August: Popol Vuh, 2010 December: Aguirre, the Wrath of God, 2011 May: Abschied (1972)

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000) - PJ Harvey

Wikipedia - "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is the fifth studio album by English alternative rock musician PJ Harvey, released 23 October 2000 on Island Records. Recorded during March to April 2000, it contains themes of love that are tied into Harvey's affection for New York City."
Wikipedia
allmusic
YouTube: Good Fortune, A Place Called Home, Big exit, One Line, This Mess We're In

2009 November: PJ Harvey, 2011 May: Let England Shake

Hand Drawn Map of New York

"Hi everyone, so here is the Hand Drawn Map of New York that I've been working on for what seems like FOREVER! It was once again commissioned by the lovely Evermade.com and was just as hard as the Map of London, if not harder... Anyway, I'll let the images speak for themselves as I have lost the ability to think about anything other than buildings."
Jenni Sparks Illustration
Guardian: 10 of the best hand-drawn maps – in pictures
Daily Mail

Jorge Luis Borges

Wikipedia - "Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges (24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986), known as Jorge Luis Borges ..., was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. His work embraces the 'character of unreality in all literature'. His most famous books, Ficciones (1944) and The Aleph (1949), are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes such as dreams, labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, animals, fictional writers, philosophy, religion and God. His works have contributed to philosophical literature and also to both the fantasy and magical realism genres."
Wikipedia
Paris Review: Jorge Luis Borges, The Art of Fiction No. 39
The Poetry Foundation
The Garden of Jorge Luis Borges
NY Times
amazon: Jorge Luis Borges

2009 August: Jorge Luis Borges

Shaped on all Six Sides

"'Shaped on all Six Sides' is a fascinating mini documentary on the philosophy and craft of wooden boat carpentry, as told by boat carpenter Andy Stewart of Emerald Marine in Anucortes, Washington. The film was directed by Kat Gardiner."
laughing squid (Video)

Mike Kelley

Memory Ware Flat #35, 2003
Wikipedia - "Michael 'Mike' Kelley (October 27, 1954 – January 31, 2012) was an American artist. His work involved found objects, textile banners, drawings, assemblage, collage, performance and video. ... Kelley was born in Wayne, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, to a working class Roman Catholic family in October 1954. His father was in charge of maintenance for a public school system; his mother was a cook in the executive dining room at Ford Motor Company."
Wikipedia
Gagosian Gallery
PBS: art21 (Video)
Whitney
BOMB 38/Winter 1992, ART
NYT: This Ranch in Detroit Is Not for Sale. It’s Art.

Johnny Cash- 4 Classic Sun Records

"4 Titles from Tex Ritter's Ranch Party. Classic Vintage Johnny, and Luther Perkins at his frightened best....."
YouTube: 4 Classic Sun Records

Saint Dominic's Preview - Van Morrison

Wikipedia - "Saint Dominic's Preview is the sixth solo album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. ... The diversity of the material on the album highlighted Morrison's fusing of Celtic folk, R&B, blues, jazz and the singer-songwriter genre. 'Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)' and the title track were blends of soul and folk, while lesser known tracks such as 'Gypsy' and 'Redwood Tree' continued to display a lyrical celebration of nature's beauty."
Wikipedia
W - Saint Dominic's Preview
YouTube: St Dominics Preview (1979, Dublin and Belfast), St Dominics Preview (1996), Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile), Redwood Tree, Listen to the Lion, Almost Independence Day

The Maximus Poems - Charles Olson

"... He began work on his opus, The Maximus Poems, in the mid-1940s, and continued to expand and revise them until his death in 1970. Formally similar to Ezra Pound's Cantos, the Maximus poems are, in Olson's words, 'about a person and a place.' The person, Maximus, represents Olson's alter ego, and is named after the second-century Maximus of Tyre, as well as a fourth-century Phoenician mystic, and may also refer to Olson's impressive stature (he was six feet seven inches tall). The place is Gloucester, Massachusetts, or more accurately, the small town communal American life that Olson struggled to preserve."
Poets - Groundbreaking Book: The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson (1960)
I, Maximus of Gloucester, to You - Poetry Foundation
For The Birds
Arduity: Charles Olson and the Maximus Poems
amazon: The Maximus Poems
YouTube: Charles Olson NET film 1/2, NET film 2/2

2009 January: Charles Olson, 2009 April: Rockport Harbor, 2010 September: Charles Olson: The Art of Poetry No. 12, 2010 December: "In Cold Hell, in Thicket", NET film, 2011 July: Charles Olson: February 21, 1957, 2012 April: A Trip to Charles Olson’s Gloucester, 2012 June: In Which We Lather Our Sensibilities At Length, 2013 January: Mass.Charles Olson.

Hot Dog

Wikipedia - "A hot dog is a fully cooked sausage, traditionally grilled or steamed. It is typically served in a sliced bun, as a corn dog dipped in corn batter and deep fried, or as an ingredient in other dishes like beanie weenies. It is often garnished with mustard, ketchup, onions, mayonnaise, relish, cheese, chili and/or sauerkraut."
Wikipedia
The Brooklyn Hot Dog Company
America's best hot dogs
YouTube: How It's Made - Hot Dogs

John Renbourn - The Lady and the Unicorn

"Renbourn's last solo album for the next six years overlaps with his Pentangle work, featuring Terry Cox playing hand drums and glockenspiel, with future John Renbourn band member Tony Roberts and violinist Dave Swarbrick. The repertory consists of medieval and early classical pieces, interspersed with the expected folk material -- keyboard works from the Fitzwilliam virginal book (transcribed for guitar) stand alongside traditional tunes such as 'Scarborough Fair,' which turns up as part of an 11-minute track that also incorporates 'My Johnny Was a Shoemaker,' with Swarbrick at the top of his form on violin. The album is entirely instrumental, but as with other Renbourn releases, one hardly misses the vocals."
allmusic
anazon
YouTube: The Lady and the Unicorn 1970 [FULL ALBUM] 42:33

2011 September: Faro Annie, 2011 April: Cruel Sister (1970) - Pentangle, 2012 November: John Renbourn - Sir John Alot.

Coffeehouse

Café de Flore, Paris.
Wikipedia - "Coffeehouse, coffee shop, and café are related terms for an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the same characteristics of a bar or restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on providing coffee and tea as well as light snacks. Many coffee houses in the Middle East, and in West Asian immigrant districts in the Western world, offer shisha (nargile in Turkish and Greek), flavored tobacco smoked through a hookah. Espresso bars are a type of coffeehouse that specialize in serving espresso and espresso-based drinks."
Wikipedia
W - Coffee culture

Go Home Productions

Wikipedia - "Go Home Productions (also known as GHP) is the alter ego of Mark Vidler, a producer/remixer/DJ based in Watford, Hertfordshire, England. GHP has produced well over 200 mash-ups since May 2002, many of which have been played on both national and independent radio stations around the world. GHP creations have been heard regularly on Xfm London's The Remix and The Rinse radio shows, and are heavily played on the New York City area station WFMU."
Wikipedia
Go Home Productions
YouTube: Supreme Evil (ELO vs The Supremes), Downtown Octopus (Petula Clark vs The Beatles), "Virgin O'Riley" (Madonna/The Who), Rock in black (Ac/Dc and Queen), Smells Like Rockin' Robin (Nirvana vs Michael Jackson), "Imagine The Band" (Lennon/Wings)

Duke Ellington’s Symphony in Black, Starring a 19-Year-old Billie Holiday

"In September of 1935 Paramount Pictures released a nine-minute movie remarkable in several ways. Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life is one of the earliest cinematic explorations of African-American culture for a mass audience. It features Duke Ellington and his orchestra performing his first extended composition. And perhaps most notably, it stars Billie Holiday in her first filmed performance."
Open Culture (Video)

2010 April: Billie Holiday, 2011 November: Duke Ellington - "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)", 1943, 2011 September: "Take the A Train" - Duke Ellington, 2012 June: The Sound of Jazz (1957).

"Sessions at West 54th" 1997 - Patti Smith

"Recorded live on September 27, 1997 at the Sony Music Studios in New York City, NY for the 'Sessions at West 54th' television program."
YouTube: Beneath the Southern Cross, About a Boy, Wing, Don't Say Nothing

Mel Bochner: Proposition and Process: A Theory of Sculpture (1968-1973)

“Five by Four” (1972), of stones and chalk, “Theory of Sculpture” series
"The excellent exhibition of Mel Bochner’s mind-bending, defiantly modest early Conceptual sculptures at Peter Freeman is a post-Minimalist time capsule. It provides a startlingly real sense of the attitude and physical ethos of SoHo’s experimental, artist-generated beginnings in the late 1960s and early ’70s while showcasing some of the most singular art that the era produced."
NYT: A Calculus With Chalk, Stones and Walnuts
Peter Freeman, Inc

2009 September: Mel Bochner

Junior Byles - 129 Beat Street: Ja-Man Special 1975-1978

"A collection of four Junior Byles tracks from his post-Lee 'Scratch' Perry era and seven tracks from lesser-known artists like Rupert Reid, Pablo Moses and others, 129 Beat Street highlights some of the best cuts from the little-known House of Music studio operated by Dudley 'Manzie' Swaby and Leroy 'Bunny' Hollett. In addition to that unifying theme, all the classic roots tracks are held together by thumping bass, exquisite singing and strongly conscious Rastafarian messages."
allmusic
Blood And Fire
Wikipedia
YouTube: Junior Byles & Rupert Reid - Chant Down Babylon, Dave Robinson - My Homeland, Remember Me (Extended), Bim Sherman - Mighty ruler, Pitchy Patchy, Know Where You're Going, U Brown - So Long, Rupert Reid - See The Dread Deh

Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada New Mural In Vitry, France

"Cuban-American artist Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada just completed this brilliant and massive mural somewhere on the streets of Vitry, France. The intense beauty of Jorge Rodriguez- Gerada's artwork is heightened by the artist's obsession with picture surface- Jorge's pieces are painted directly onto our manmade environment, yet appear to spring forth so organically from the bubbling paint and crumbling brickwork. The artist stresses his artworks should work 'in harmony with their location.'"
StreetArtNews

2012 May: Identity Series by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada

Ronald Reis

New York City: Washington Square Park
"Ronald Reis began taking photographs as a youngster with an Argus A2. ... Influenced by the work of Helen Levitt, Louis Stettner, and Cartier-Bresson, Reis became a passionate street photographer, honing his eye and his ability to compose and capture photographs on the fly. This decisive quality is reflected in his contact sheets filled with single exposures."
Duke: About the Ronald Reis Photographs Collection
Duke: Ronald Reis Photographs