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

Paul Bowles: Halfmoon (1996)

"The exotic world of expatriate American writer Paul Bowles, artistic colleague of Beat poets and writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, is brought to the screen in this beautifully photographed anthology based on three of his short stories."
amazon, allmovie, Independent Film Quarterly

2008 August:Tellus #23 - Paul Bowles, UbuWeb
2007 November: The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site

James Brown, Bologna Italy April 1971

JAMES BROWN - Sex Machine (1/3), Sunny (2/3), Give it up or turn it loose (3/3)

Flexi disc

Wikipedia - "The flexi disc (also known as a phonosheet or sonosheet) is a phonograph record made of a thin, flexible vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable. Flexible records were commercially introduced as the Eva-tone Soundsheet in 1960, but were previously available in the Soviet Union as roentgenizdat or bones, underground samizdat recordings on x-ray film."
Wikipedia, WFMU, Stylus Magazine, Polish Flexi-Disc Postcards, I Wish I Was A Flexidisc, YouTube - The Who - My Generation - 7" Flexi Disc, DJ Shadow works the FLEXI DISC on Product Placement Six Days, All My Loving - The Beatles - 1962-1966 Flexi-Disc Promo, Rolling Stones Exile on Main St. Flexi Disc, The Mr. BIl Show - Official Soundtrack Flexi Disc DJ

2600: The Hacker Quarterly

Wikipedia - "2600: The Hacker Quarterly is an American publication that specializes in publishing technical information on a variety of subjects including telephone switching systems, Internet protocols and services, as well as general news concerning the computer 'underground' and left wing, and sometimes (but not recently), anarchist issues."
Wikipedia, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, YouTube - "WikiLeaks is Not One Person" Hacker Magazine Editor Part 1, Part 2

Meredith Monk - "Impermanence"

"Meredith Monk has spent four decades challenging audiences and winning awards with her unusual fusion of song, theater, dance and film. She's won Obie Awards and a 'genius grant' from the MacArthur Foundation. For the most part, Monk composes with herself in mind as the performer. But lately she's begun to consider how her work will last after she's gone. In fact, her latest recording is called Impermanence."
npr - Meredith Monk: Of Posterity and 'Impermanence', ECM, amazon, All About Jazz, Meredith Monk - "Impermanence" (Video)

The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives

"Charlotte Brontë turned to her diary to escape stifling work as a schoolteacher; Tennessee Williams confided his loneliness and self-doubt; John Steinbeck struggled to compose The Grapes of Wrath; Albert Einstein worked out mathematical equations as he traveled the world; Bob Dylan sketched his way through a concert tour. This exhibition, drawn from the Morgan's own extraordinary holdings, presents these personal stories and many more. As today's diarists employ new forms—logging their thoughts outside the traditional notebook—the exhibition explores the enduring human desire to document our lives."
The Morgan Library & Museum, Introduction, See all diaries, Audio Guide, The Diary exhibition blog

Action painting

Jackson Pollock
Wikipedia - "Action painting, sometimes called 'gestural abstraction', is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Jackson Pollock

Santo & Johnny

Wikipedia - "Santo & Johnny were an Italian-American rock and roll duo from Brooklyn, comprising brothers Santo and Johnny Farina. They are best known for their instrumental 'Sleep Walk,' which became a regional hit and eventually reached #1 on the pop charts when it was released nationally."
Wikipedia, YouTube - Sleep Walk

Ray Johnson

Wikipedia - "Ray Edward Johnson (1927–1995) was a seminal Pop Art figure in the 1950’s and 60’s and an important early conceptualist, dubbed 'the most famous unknown artist', a reflection of his deliberate elusiveness."
Wikipedia, Ray Johnson, Father of Mail Art 1927-1995, The Ray Johnson Videos

Ted Berrigan - Two prose poems

"Don’t Forget Anger. Never hits us the day it’s lovely gathers us up in its name who pierced the shower 40 below the heel hidden shoes the ruined exercises the shine is all night again pleasure falling off parting the bed during the biting lust. Today we speak above the noise a spyglass littered with soot scenes from the ruins boys and partners before the big bite imitating that’s the penalty denial of gain through pranks the essence of belief. ..."
Jacket #16

The Best of David Lynch on the Web

"Today is filmmaker David Lynch's 65th birthday. Art Attack is a big fan, having seen The Elephant Man, Dune, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart back in our teens, and we were smack in the middle of high school when Twin Peaks aired in 1990 and changed the game for what was possible on network television."
Houston Press

Fela Kuti - Coffin for the head of state

"Remix of Fela Kuti's Coffin for the head of state Pt.2 by Sneezing Eyes Pop-out Orchestra (Sepo). Footage taken from 'Music is the weapon' documentary."
YouTube

Maxwell Street

Maxwell Street, John Carroll Doyle
Wikipedia - "Maxwell Street is an east-west street in the heart of chicago as they say Chicago, Illinois that intersects with Halsted Street just south of Roosevelt Road. It runs at 1330 South in the numbering system running from 500 West to 1126 West. The Maxwell Street neighborhood is considered part of the Near West Side and is one of the city's oldest residential districts."
Wikipedia, Google, Maxwell Street, Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street
YouTube - Carrie Robinson, Chicken Man, Maxwell Street Polish, Old Maxwell Street Chicago

Maryanne Amacher

Wikipedia - "Maryanne Amacher (February 25, 1938 – October 22, 2009) was an American composer and installation artist."
Wikipedia, Maryanne Amacher, NYT, Chicago Reader, YouTube - Amacher & Moore 1/2, 2/2, Sound characters, Glasgow's Instal festival

Floor of the Forest (1970)

"This is performed in a twelve-foot by fourteen-foot pipe frame across which are tied ropes densely threaded with clothes - sleeves are woven beneath pant legs forming a solid rectangular surface. The audience is free to move around in the periphery of the grid as the performers dress and undress their way through this structure. A normally vertical activity performed horizontally and reshaped by the vertical pull of gravity."
Trisha Brown Company, whitney, YouTube

Massacre (experimental band)

Wikipedia - "Massacre was originally founded in 1980 in New York City by guitarist Fred Frith, bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Fred Maher as an improvising and experimental rock band. They performed live for just over a year and recorded a studio album, Killing Time (1981)."
Wikipedia, W - Killing Time, YouTube - Legs, Killing Time, Gate, Not Person We Knew

Debris from the Cultural Underground

"John Held, Jr. Debris from the Cultural Underground, chronicles four decades of involvement in the international cultural undergrounds of Fluxus, Mail Art, rubber stamp and zine cultures by the San Francisco artist, writer, collector, bibliographer and cultural historian."
ArtSlant, Art Forum Review - “Debris from the Cultural Underground”, Google

Patsy Cline

"Thanks to her vocal versatility, and with the help of Bradley's direction and arrangements, Cline enjoyed both country and pop success. Bradley's arrangements incorporated strings and other instruments not typical of country recordings of the day. He considered Cline's voice best-suited for country pop-crossover songs, and helped smooth her voice into the silky, torch song style for which she is famous."
YouTube - Walkin' After Midnight, Crazy, I've Loved And Lost Again, Lovesick Blues, I Fall To Pieces, Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray, How Can I Face Tomorrow, She's Got You, A Church, A Courtroom And Then Goodbye, So Wrong

June 2008: Wikipedia, Patsy Cline: Honky Tonk Angel, Patst Cline: The Lady, The Legend,

Fauvism

André Derain: Boats At Collioure (1905)
Wikipedia - "Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for 'the wild beasts'), a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain."
Wikipedia, ArtLex, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, YouTube - Fauvist Art - Part 1, Part 2.

Hip-Hop History Volume 4: 1982

"The Treacherous Three – Yes We Can-Can
Fearless Four – Rockin’ It
Fearless Four – It’s Magic
Cold Crush Brother – Weekend
Disco Four – We’re At The Party
Crash Crew – Breaking Bells (Take Me To The Mardi Gras)
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – The Message
Pieces of A Dream – Mt. Airy Groove
Star Quality & Class – Betcha Got A Dude On The Side
Funky 4 + 1 More – Do You Want To Rock
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – Flash To The Beat (Live)
Jimmy Spicer – The Bubble Bunch
Malcolm Mclaren – Buffalo Gals
Just Four – Jam To Remember
Super 3 – Standing on the Top
South Bronx – Bottom Line
Nairobe & the Awesome Foursome – Funky Soul Makossa
Africa Bambaataa – Looking For The Perfect Beat
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five – Scorpio
Africa Bambaataa The Soul Sonic Force – Planet Rock"
The Rub

Astral Weeks

Wikipedia - "Astral Weeks is the second solo album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in November 1968 on Warner Bros. Records. It was Morrison's first album after Warner Bros. had been able to free him from his contract with Bang Records. ... Employing a mixture of folk, blues, jazz, and classical music, Astral Weeks received critical acclaim immediately upon its first release and subsequently has been placed on numerous widely-circulated lists of best albums of all time."
Wikipedia, W - Astral Weeks, W - Beside_You, W - Sweet Thing, W - Cyprus_Avenue, W - The Way Young Lovers Do, W - Madame George, W - Ballerina, W - Slim Slow Slider

Astral Weeks by Lester Bangs from "Stranded" (1979), npr

YouTube - 1973.07.27 - Old Grey Whistle Test Interview, Van Morrison on Astral Weeks: why I had to go back to my soul classic, YouTube - TIME Magazine Interviews: Van Morrison

YouTube - Cyprus Avenue, live 1970, Cyprus Avenue (1), Beside You, Ballerina - Live

Propaganda goes exploring the Rough Guide To Graphic Novels

"It’s pretty obvious what this book is all about. The Rough Guide series is a universally recognisable brand. After years of travel guides, they’ve expanded into other areas, providing reference books for various subjects. I suppose the Rough Guide To Graphic Novels, given the increasing popularity of such books, was practically inevitable."
forbidden planet, amazon

Landscape with Philip Glass (1975)

"Landscape with Philip Glass. The Music of Philip Glass - Music in 12 Parts; Part 2; Act 1, Scene 1; Einstein on the Beach"
UbuWeb

stylus (2010) - Ann Hamilton

"As a visual artist whose contributions to contemporary art span three decades, Ann Hamilton's installations are notable in part for their capacity to weave a broad palette of media into engaging sensory environments. Conceived in response to the Pulitzer's mission to be both sanctuary and laboratory, stylus is structured around live acoustic elements. The sound design was developed in collaboration with composer and sound designer Shahrokh Yadegari."
e-flux, Ann Hamilton - stylus, AFC, minimal exposition, Saint Louis Art Map, michael salcman's posterous, Department of Art, YouTube - In Your Own Words: Opening of stylus: a project by ann hamilton, stylus: The Bell Speakers, stylus: The Disklaviers, stylus: Lila and the Voice

Roots, Rock, Reggae. A Documentary

"Documentary about Roots Reggae(1977)"
YouTube - Roots, Rock, Reggae. A Documentary part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

Bumper sticker

Wikipedia - "A bumper sticker is an adhesive label or sticker with a message, intended to be attached to the bumper of an automobile and to be read by the occupants of other vehicles - although they are often stuck onto other objects."
Wikipedia

The Chocolate Watch Band

Wikipedia - "The Chocolate Watch Band, was a psychedelic rock and garage rock band formed in San Jose, California in 1965. The band had finally broken up indefinitely by 1970 but then reunited in 1999 at a 66/99 show Mike Stax organized in San Diego. They continue to play today at garage rock shows in Europe as well as the States with Little Steven and the Electric Prunes." Wikipedia, The Chocolate Watchband, Sitting There Standing, Don't Need Your Lovin', Misty Lane, In the past, Dark side of the mushroom, Let's talk about girls

John Cage In Norway

"CD in 64-page hardcover book with photos, interviews with the musicans and a transcription of Cage’s Q&A at the Oslo Art Academy."
tumblr

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten

Wikipedia - "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten is a 2007 documentary film directed by Julien Temple about Joe Strummer, the lead singer of the English punk rock band The Clash, that went on to win the British Independent Film Awards as Best British Documentary 2007."
Wikipedia, amazon, YouTube - THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN 1 of 11, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

Art Machines Machine Art at Museum Tinguely

"Starting with Jean Tinguely's drawing machines from the 1950s, the exhibition jointly organized by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and the Museum Tinguely presents art machines from different ages and contexts through to the present day."
Art Machines Machine Art at Museum Tinguely part 1, part 2

5 Poems by Jack Spicer

"Jack Spicer was born in Los Angeles on January 30, 1925. Both of his parents were from the Midwest. He met Robert Duncan and Robin Blaser at the University of California at Berkeley. Spicer considered his meeting of Duncan so important he would refer to 1946, the year they met, as his real birth date."
YouTube - 5 Poems by Jack Spicer, amazon - "Collected Books of Jack Spicer", amazon - "The House That Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer", amazon - "My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer"

November 2007: EPC/Spicer, PENNSOUND
February 2010: PoemTalk
April 2010: Mimeo Mimeo, Jacket 7 — April 1999
November 2010: The Sienese Shredder

Holding Patterns

Nathan Harger, Untitled (Holding Patterns), Brooklyn, New York
"This the graphic answer to living in a city like New York. It’s an environment where I see the same objects and structures repeating themselves everywhere: They are somewhat different, yet still they look interchangeable."
The Paris Review

Skip Blumberg - Nam June Paik: Lessons from the video master (2006)

"Nam June Paik was the first video artist and did almost everything in video art first. His work broke the rules of art, television, graphics, and, because TV can use all possible art and information, practically everything else, too."
UbuWeb

Marlene Dietrich - Falling in love again (1930)

"In 1929, Dietrich landed the breakthrough role of Lola-Lola, a cabaret singer who causes the downfall of a hitherto respected schoolmaster, in UFA's production, The Blue Angel (1930)."
YouTube

Banjo Spirits

"Banjo Spirits explores the legacy of the banjo through the eyes of Don Stover and Stephen Wade. Don Stover learned to play the banjo from his mother in Artie, West Virginia, where he was born in 1928. Don grew up and worked in the local coal mines, but the banjo proved to be his ticket out of the area. Don played with Buzz Buzby, the Lilly Brothers, and Bill Monroe."
folkstreams

Zeena Parkins

Wikipedia - "Zeena Parkins is a harpist active in rock music, free improvisation and jazz. Parkins plays standard harps, as well as several custom-made one-of-a kind electric harps; she also plays piano and accordion."
Wikipedia, Zeena Parkins, vimeo - Roulette TV: JANENE HIGGINS & ZEENA PARKINS, YouTube - ZEENA PARKINS + BOBBY PREVITE DUO, Matmos & Zenna Parkins, Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins / sound. at REDCAT pt. 1/4, Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins / sound. at REDCAT pt. 2/4, Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins / sound. at REDCAT pt. 3/4, Ikue Mori and Zeena Parkins / sound. at REDCAT pt. 4/4, ZEENA PARKINS / IKUE MORI - PHANTOM ORCHARD - Teatro Fondamenta Nuove Venezia

The Fool

Wikipedia - "The Fool or The Jester is one of the 78 cards in a Tarot deck; one of the 22 Trump cards that make up the Major Arcana. The Fool is unnumbered (sometime represented as 0--the first—or XXII--the last—Major Arcana in decks). It is used in divination as well as in game playing."
Wikipedia

Let them eat cake

Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin
Wikipedia - "'Let them eat cake' is the traditional translation of the French phrase Qu'ils mangent de la brioche, supposedly spoken by a great princess upon learning that the peasants had no bread. As brioche is a luxury bread enriched with eggs and butter, it would reflect the princess's obliviousness to the nature of a famine. Although they are commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette, there is no record of these words ever having been uttered by her."
Wikipedia

Exit Through the Gift Shop

"The film is relentlessly entertaining, a fascinating document of work whose life span is commonly determined by city councils and cleanup crews. New York Times - Jeannette Catsoulis"
Banksy

Magnum Opus

"I am besotted with a new book that is also an old book. This is The H.D. Book, by Robert Duncan, a wild, dazzling, idiosyncratic magnum opus that the poet composed between 1959 and 1964 and that is only now being published in its complete form, by the University of California Press. What began with a request for a brief birthday homage to the American poet known as H.D.—she had been born Hilda Doolittle—morphed into one of the greatest of all meditations on the nature not only of modern poetry but of the modern artistic imagination in its bewitching complexity."
TNR, amazon, Google - The H.D. Book By Robert Duncan, Michael Boughn, Victor Coleman

DJ Handi's Archive Picks: Captian Beefheart 1941-2010

"Hi: I'm DJ Handi: Each week, I’ll be picking an archive, or aspects of shows I found compelling and hope you also do. This week is about how different WFMU DJs handled Captain Beefheart’s death at age 69. If you are new to Beefheart, learn about his importance in this article."
WFMU

The Ventures

Wikipedia - "The Ventures are an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. The band, formed by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, two masonry workers, has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide, having sold over 100 million records, and are to date the best-selling instrumental band of all time."
Wikipedia, last.fm, YouTube - The Ventures Live 1966. Pipeline, Diamond Head (1/1), The Cruel Sea, Walk Don't Run'64, Apache (2/2), Slaughter On 10th Avenue, Bumble Bee Rock, Bulldog (3/3), Wipe Out, House of The Rising Sun, Telstar (4/4). Hawaii Five-0, Perfidia

Peak Oil and a Changing Climate

"The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out?" Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and the other scientists, researchers and writers interviewed
The Nation - Peak Oil and a Changing Climate, The Nation - Video

Calvin and Hobbes

"Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. The pair are named after John Calvin, a 16th-century French Reformation theologian, and Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century English political philosopher."
Wikipedia, Go Comics, amazona, 25 Great Calvin and Hobbes Strips, Calvin & Hobbes Search Engine, Google - The complete Calvin and Hobbes, Volumes 1-3 By Bill Watterson