2011/2012 Brazil Vacation Moleskin

"I took this watercolor moleskin, my first one in fact, and turned it into a travel log (kind-of) of my Winter Vacation to Brazil. I was really excited because I never had the chance to do much watercoloring, so it was great practice. During this vacation I visited family in Ribeirão Preto (state of São Paulo), stayed with cousins in São Paulo (city), and went hang gliding and exploring Rio de Janeiro with my cousins from Niterói. Finally, I've been able feel complete with my travel sketchbook enough to post it and share."
Moleskin (Video)

The Robert Fripp String Quartet

"The Robert Fripp String Quartet. Principally recorded live during tours of California, Italy, England and Argentina in May and June, 1993. After the staid acoustic concerns of the League of Crafty Guitarists, Fripp’s latest ensemble indulges, thankfully, in both electric and electronic applications. Fripp is accompanied here by longtime associate Trey Gunn (on grand stick) and by The California Guitar Trio."
last.fm
YouTube: Kan Non Power, Contrapunctus, Yamanashi Blues, Passacaglia, Chromatic Fantasy-Contrapunctus

Buddy Holly,

Wikipedia - "Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as 'the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll.' His works and innovations inspired and influenced contemporary and later musicians, notably The Beatles, Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton, and exerted a profound influence on popular music."
Wikipedia
Buddy Holly Center
YouTube: Peggy sue, That'll Be The Day, Rave on!, Oh, Boy!, Everyday, Maybe Baby, I'm Gonna Love You Too, Ting - a - ling, Moonlight Baby, Rock Around With Ollie Vee, Ready Teddy

2011 May: Charles Hardin Holly; Clovis, New Mexico; May 27, 1957

Tim Hawkinson - Uberorgan

"Imagined and created by artist Tim Hawkinson, the Uberorgan (or Überorgan) was initially created for a 15,000 square foot gallery at MassMOCA in 2001. The challenge of filling the volume of the gallery is what gave birth to the Uberorgan: how to create something that had a strong visual presence in such a large volume of space while simultaneously having strong auditory presence. The result was accomplished by Hawkinson adjusting his process by building models of the space to study how he would accomplish filling the space and avoid being caught 'shorthanded'. The final product involved a series of large scale balloons that were effectively large bagpipes producing music."
Odd Music
MASS MoCA
Acousmata (Video)
PBS: Tim Hawkinson (Video)
art 21: Uberorgan

Concertina

30-button Stagi A30, English concertina
Wikipedia - "A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it. Also, each button produces one note, while accordions typically can produce chords with a single button. The concertina was developed in England and Germany, most likely independently. The English version was invented in 1829 by Sir Charles Wheatstone and a patent for an improved version was filed by him in 1844. The German version was announced in 1834 by Carl Friedrich Uhlig."
Wikipedia
Concertina Connection
Concertina Library
YouTube: Concertina (Niall Vallely), Noel Hill, Tony MacMahon - The Concertina, Come West Along the Road, The New Mown Meadow, Bunclody (Irish tune) on Anglo Concertina, Reel - The Keel Row, Kyckling (Chicken) polka on Wakker Hayden

Johnny Cash - Ain't No Grave

"There ain't no grave can hold my body down
There ain't no grave can hold my body down
When I hear that trumpet sound
I'm gonna rise right out of the ground
Ain't no grave can hold my body down"
YouTube: Ain't No Grave

The Souljazz Orchestra

"Canada's hardest-working super-group, the Souljazz Orchestra, have been perfecting their signature sound for over a decade now: a percussive explosion of Soul, Jazz, Afro, Latin and Caribbean rhythms, driven by majestic horn-drenched melodies, all backed by an arsenal of overheated primitive keyboards."
The Souljazz Orchestra
Wikipedia
YouTube: Ya Basta, Bibinay, Kapital, Secousse Soukous

Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror - John Ashbery

"The critic Harold Bloom places John Ashbery in his canon of the American Sublime places along with the likes of Emerson, Whitman, Eliot, Stevens. Ashbery is certainly among America’s greatest living poets. The article contains a brief overview of Ashbery within the American literary canon, followed by a piece on how to read Ashbery’s post-modernist verse and finally is his great poem (one of the great poems of the the last half of the 20th century) that in 1975 won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award) Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror."
Posthuman Destinies ("Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror")
E-rea: The Poetics of Vision and the Redemption of the Subject in John Ashbery’s Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
amazon

2007 November: John Ashbery

John Walker - Seal Point Series

Seal Point Series #12
"These small paintings come from a specific place—Seal Point—in John Walker’s adopted homeland, Maine. They are painted on old bingo cards that Walker undoubtedly encountered in his foraging sorties in the Maine countryside. Hints of numbers linger beneath the surface, and the faintest memory of the printed grids sometimes paradoxically suggest a kind of aleatory structure, very much of our time. But also, not very much of our time."
Brooklyn Rail
Outside the Genre
Seal Point Series
Seal Point Series #V VIII and XVII

Sound of Channel One: The King Tubby Connection

"Sound of Channel One: The King Tubby Connection album by King Tubby was released Aug 03, 1999 on the Guava Jelly label. This generous two-CD collection of rare recordings features the work of both established and lesser-known reggae figures, but the real star is King Tubby, the studio innovator and remixing master who is credited with inventing the dub style. Sound of Channel One: The King Tubby Connection songs At Jamaica's Channel One studio, King Tubby perfected the 'version,' an alternate take in which he deconstructed songs, added layers of reverb and echo, and stripped the vocals down to a few phrases, leaving the song's essential rhythm to form the basis of the new track."
CD Universe
Roots Archives
amazon
YouTube: Calvin Stuart & King Tubby - Babylon a Turn Dem Back + Dub, Dub You Must Go Down, Calvin Stuart & King Tubby - The Alphabet Song + Dub, King Tubby - Stop Look Dub, Headlines Dub

The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic

"More than 400 abandoned suitcases, covered with dust and pigeon droppings, were stacked for decades in the attic of an empty building on the grounds of a mental hospital in upstate New York. They were discovered by workers shortly after the facility closed in 1995. The luggage belonged to individuals who had been patients at Willard Psychiatric Center at one time or another during a period of almost a century. Most of the suitcases looked as if they hadn't been opened since they were packed. It was as if time had stopped in each owner's life once he or she crossed the hospital threshold."
Crosscut Tout
The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
Abandoned Suitcases Reveal Private Lives of Insane Asylum Patients
Jon Crispin's Notebook
Voice: What They Left Behind
NYT: Forgotten Suitcases, Emotional Baggage
amazon: The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
Kickstarter: Willard Asylum Suitcase Documentation by Jon Crispin (Video)

Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe

"Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe invites visitors to explore the roles of Africans and their descendents in Renaissance Europe as revealed in compelling paintings, drawings, sculpture and printed books of the period. Vivid portraits from life both encourage face-to-face encounters with the individuals themselves and pose questions about the challenges of color, class, and stereotypes that this new diversity brought to Europe. Despite the importance of the questions posed for audiences today, this is the first time they have been addressed in a major exhibition."
The Walters
The Walters: About
The Walters: African Renaissance
NYT: A Spectrum From Slaves to Saints

Sun Ra Arkestra - Points On A Space Age

"Offers rare insight of the Arkestra and examines their current work (in the physical absence of Sun Ra) under the direction of Marshall Allen (now age 86). - Points on a Space Age (filmed from Spring of '06 to Spring of '07) explores the recent activity of the remaining members of the influential Sun Ra Arkestra. The Arkestra, is an experimental big band formed in the mid 1950's around the teachings of, musician, philosopher, and spiritualist Sun Ra. Sun Ra, according to himself and his disciples believed that he was sent to this planet to prepare human beings for the world for the future, a future centered around space travel, and the human capacity to evolve with ever changing demands of a highly technological world."
YouTube: Sun Ra Arkestra - Points On A Space Age
GameVortex
amazon: Points On A Space Age (2009)

David Thomas And The Pedestrians - Variations On A Theme

"Two songs from David Thomas' masterpiece: 'A Day At The Botanical Gardens' and 'The Rain'. The Pedestrians was Richard Thompson, Jack Monck, Paul Hamann, Jim Jones, Anton Fier, Chris Cutler and Lindsay Cooper."
YouTube

2008 April: Pere Ubu
2010 July: Pere Ubu - 1

"Urban Masters" London Group Show

RONE
"Opera Gallery and Butterfly will be opening a new group show entitled 'Urban Masters' later this week in London. This new show will present an homage from 33 artists to the masters, masterpieces and muses that have influenced their journey through the world of art."
Street Art News
PDF: A STREET ART SHOW SUPPORTING - Opera Gallery

Dennis Hopper Documentary (90s)

"A documentary on Dennis Hopper I recorded off TV a few years back, a bit rare I think."
Videos for: Dennis Hopper
YouTube: Dennis Hopper Documentary - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

2009 November: Easy Rider (1969)
2010 May: Dennis Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010)
2010 November: The American Friend (1977)

Duke Vin, Count Suckle & the Birth of Ska in Britain trailer

"London in the 1950’s was a cold place in more ways than the obvious. Or so it appeared if you were one of the thousands of newly arrived Jamaicans. Many were overqualified for their menial jobs. Thousands of others quite simply could not get work. Discrimination and racial tensions culminated in fierce riots in both Nottingham and Notting Hill Gate. It was in this environment that the Jamaican soundmen; Duke Vin and Count Suckle arrived in the UK. They both stowed away on a boat from Kingston and brought with them a sound that was sweeping across the small Caribbean island and would later change the face of music in the UK. This was the sound of ska!"
uncarved
YouTube: Duke Vin, Count Suckle & the Birth of Ska in Britain trailer

Alternative Histories New York Art Spaces, 1960-2010

"This groundbreaking book--part exhibition catalogue, part cultural history--chronicles alternative art spaces in New York City since the 1960s. Developed from an exhibition of the same name at Exit Art, Alternative Histories documents more than 130 alternative spaces, groups, and projects, and the significant contributions these organizations have made to the aesthetic and social fabric of New York City. ... Beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s, it was within a network of alternative sites--including 112 Greene Street, The Kitchen, P.S.1, FOOD, and many others--that the work of young artists like Yvonne Rainer, Vito Acconci, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ana Mendieta, David Wojnarowicz, David Hammons, Adrian Piper, Martin Wong, Jimmie Durham, and dozens of other now familiar names first circulated."
MIT Press
Exit Art
amazon
YouTube: Alternative Histories at EXIT ART

Every Woody Allen Movie

"The purpose of this blog is to watch, review and discuss every film ever made by Woody Allen. I’m not really sure why I’m doing this. Mostly because I’ve always wanted to be able to legitimately describe myself as an 'expert' in something. Anything. I’d also like to be able to answer the question 'What do you do?' without mumbling something inaudible and changing the subject (although I will likely continue to do that). Woody Allen would probably call this blog a pathetic attempt to avoid looking directly at the meaninglessness of my life. He would not be inaccurate."
Every Woody Allen Movie (Video)
W - Woody Allen filmography
W - Woody Allen
Ranked: Woody Allen Films from Worst to Best (Video)
Slate: I've Seen Every Woody Allen Movie

The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966, Vol. 2

"Songs: Bye Bye Bird, My Younger Days (Sonny Boy Williamson), Come On Home Baby (Sunnyland Slim), Nervous (Willie Dixon), Mojo Hand (Lightnin' Hopkins), Black Snake Blues (Victoria Spivey), Everyday I Have the Blues (Memphis Slim), Don't Throw Your Love on Me so Strong (T-Bone Walker), Tall Heavy Mama (Roosevelt Sykes), Sittin' and Cryin' the Blues (Willie Dixon), Murphy's Boogie (Matt 'Guitar' Murphy), Stranger Blues (Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee), Shake for Me, I'll Be Back Someday, Love Me Darlin (Howlin' Wolf), Down Home Shakedown (Big Mama Thornton)."
amazon: The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966, Vol. 2
YouTube: The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966 Vol. 2, 1:03:37

2012 June: The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966, Vol. 1

Sun Blindness Music - John Cale

Wikipedia - "New York in the 1960s: Sun Blindness Music, better known as Sun Blindness Music, is an album by John Cale released in 2001. It is the first of a loose anthology of experimental albums recorded during Cale's tenure with the Theatre of Eternal Music during the mid 1960s. The pieces included on the album were recorded between 1964 and 1966. Albums following in the anthology include the collaborative effort Day Of Niagara, and the Cale compilations Dream Interpretation and Stainless Gamelan. Each song in the trilogy is an exemplar of the burgeoning minimalist music genre, emphasizing atonality, drone, and noise."
Wikipedia
W - Dream Interpretation
W - Stainless Gamelan
Pitchfork
Album Reviews: Sun Blindness Music
YouTube: Sun Blindness Music pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, pt. 4, pt. 5
Dream Interpretations: Ex-cathedra
Stainless Gamelan: Stainless Steel Gamelan

Bruce Springsteen - "Thunder Road" - Live At Hammersmith Odeon, 1975

"There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
  in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
From your room you hear their engines roar on
But when you get to the porch
  they're gone on the wind, so Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling outta here to win"
YouTube: Thunder Road
W - "Thunder Road"

Olek

"My crocheted version of Martin Luther King’s. 'Injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere' (video) is more personal than one can imagine. To read the full story and support this case, please click here. It has been a very busy year. It was a year of unknown future. Here is a video brilliantly edited by my assistant, Shir Lieberman with sound by Freakatronic. It is a visual story documenting my steps from August 2011 till the end of September 2012."
Olek - vimeo: Olek Reel 2011-2012

Chico & Rita

"Sexy, sweet and laced with a sadness at once specific to its place and time and accessible to anyone with a breakable heart, 'Chico & Rita' is an animated valentine to Cuba and its music. Shuttling between Havana and New York and conveying the blend of soul and scholarship that signifies true jazz devotion, the film brings alive an almost unimaginably rich and resonant moment in musical history. The fictional couple at its heart — star-crossed lovers and sometime artistic collaborators — encounter bad luck in various forms, but Chico and Rita also have the good fortune to mingle with real-life legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk and the great Cuban conga player Chano Pozo, a crucial figure in the era’s mixing of styles and genres."
NYT: A Pianist and a Honey-Throated Chanteuse in the Heart of Havana
YouTube: Chico & Rita - Official Trailer, Courtyard Rumba, Clip de Chico y Rita, New York, Guardian: directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal, Un peculiar estilo de animación (Spain)

2011 July: Fernando Trueba on Chico and Rita

Patti Smith: Camera Solo

" ... Patti Smith: Camera Solo will be the first museum exhibition of her photography in the United States. The exhibition will include seventy photographs, one multi-media installation and one video work. Also on view will be a number of objects depicted in the photographs along with a selection of original Polaroids."
Patti Smith: Camera Solo
Camera Solo: See Patti Smith's Photos of Rimbaud's Spoon, Mapplethorpe's Slippers, and Other Obscure Arts Relics
amazon: Patti Smith: Camera Solo
Soundcloud - Audio Tour for Patti Smith: Camera Solo (Video)
YouTube: Letter to Mapplethorpe, The Tiger (by William Blake)
CT: The Photography of Patti Smith at the Wadsworth in Hartford (Video)

Turntablism

Wikipedia - "Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and a DJ mixer. The word 'turntablist' was coined in 1995 by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who performs by touching and moving the records, stylus and mixer to manipulate sound. The new term coincided with a resurgence of the art of hiphop-style DJ-ing in the 1990s. ... Some turntablist DJs use turntable techniques like beat mixing/matching, scratching, and beat juggling. Some turntablists seek to have themselves recognized as traditional musicians capable of interacting and improvising with other performers."
Wikipedia
last.fm: Turntablism
turntablism: beat juggling & scratching (Video)
allmusic: Turntablism (Video)
The History of Turntablism
Guardian - Hey, what's that sound: Turntablism (Video)
14 Videos of The World's Best Turntablist DJs (Video)

Autoconstrucción: The Film - Abraham Cruzvillegas

"Through his interest in autoconstrucción ('self-construction'), Abraham Cruzvillegas explores economies of the makeshift, the handmade and the recycled. His recent work gravitates toward an examination of his childhood home and the neighborhood of Ajusco, a district in the south of Mexico City founded by migrants who, like his parents, settled in what was deemed uninhabitable land in the 1960s. Ajusco’s landscape of volcanic rock is a work in process. Structures are in a constant state of transformation as materials become available and necessity dictates. The sense of ingenuity and improvisation that created this vibrant, self-reliant and politically active community is the impetus for the artist’s own exploration of the roots of his practice."
REDCAT
[PDF] self-building autoconstrucción
Modern Art Oxford
MuseoMagazine
W - Abraham Cruzvillegas
YouTube - TateShots: Abraham Cruzvillegas

Wayne Thiebaud

“Pies, Pies, Pies” (1961)
Wikipedia - "Wayne Thiebaud (born November 15, 1920) is an American painter whose most famous works are of cakes, pastries, boots, toilets, toys and lipsticks. He is associated with the Pop art movement because of his interest in objects of mass culture, although his works, executed during the fifties and sixties, slightly predate the works of the classic pop artists. Thiebaud uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work."
Wikipedia
Smithsonian: Wayne Thiebaud Is Not a Pop Artist
NGA Classroom
YouTube: Wayne Thiebaud - CBS Sunday Morning, Wayne Thiebaud: Beyond the Cakes

This Heat

Wikipedia - "This Heat were a British experimental music group formed in early 1976 in Camberwell, London by multi-instrumentalists Charles Bullen (guitar, clarinet, viola, vocals, tapes), Charles Hayward (drums, keyboards, vocals, tapes) and Gareth Williams (keyboard, guitar, bass, vocals, tapes). This Heat were active in the ascendancy of British progressive rock and punk rock, but stood apart from those scenes due to a radically inventive approach that touched on numerous different styles and genres, but was always confrontational and politically charged."
Wikipedia
The Quietus - This Heat Interview By Simon Reynolds: A Totally Wired Outtake (Video)
Stinking Hellebore
amazon: This Heat
YouTube: Health and Efficiency, Testcard/Horizontal Hold, Suffer Bomb Disease, 24 Track Loop, Twilight furniture 1978, The fall of Saigon (Peel Session) 1977, Not Waving (Peel Session), Triumph, Paper Hats, S.P.Q.R.

What Sandy Sounded Like

"The storm we’ve come to call Sandy hit the East Coast of the United States last night, and this morning I found myself looking at photos of the Victoria Secrets lingerie model (and Transformers threequel actress) Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. This was because my anxious pre-dawn searches on Twitter for updates regarding my hometown of Huntington, Long Island, were apparently yielding nothing of particular value. I live in San Francisco, and Huntington felt very far away."
disquiet (Video)
CBS: Superstorm Sandy: State-by-state snapshot (Video)