Wire - Pink Flag (1977)

"Wire were born at the dawn of punk, but they became the quintessential art band. In the three closing years of the 1970s, the English quartet had one of the greatest opening runs of any band, shifting to post-punk before punk began to go stale and forging three masterpieces in a creative furnace so hot it burned out by the end of 1980. ... Pink Flag was a fractured snapshot of punk alternately collapsing in on itself and exploding into song-fragment shrapnel. The record's minimalist approach means the band spends only as much time as needed on each song-- five of them are over in less than a minute, while a further nine don't make it past two. ..."
Pitchfork
W - Pink Flag
allmusic
facebook
YouTube: Pink Flag (Full Album)

2009 January: Wire, 2012 January: On the Box 1979., 2013 September: Chairs Missing (1978), 2014 June: 154 (1979), 2014 July: Document And Eyewitness (1979-1980), 2015 April: The Ideal Copies: Graham Lewis Of Wire's Favourite Albums.

Handiedan Sets a Pinup Tone for Wall\Therapy 2015 in Rochester

"Rochester, New York is the home of the Wall\Therapy festival and BSA is partnering with the team and Urban Nation (UN) to bring you coverage of the grass-roots mural festival for 2015. It will begin in a few weeks but the Amsterdam-based Handiedan got into town early due to being in New York for her show with Jonathan Levine Gallery. Her curvaceous pin-up girls and orientally adorned femme fatales from noir films and rockabilly imaginations intricately layered with patterns and designs from currency – sometimes it is all about getting that paper. In this case the paper in use is covering the facade of a beautiful brick building dating back to 1890 that was originally a church and later became a machine shop and home to the Rochester Community Players theater group for a half century or so."
Brooklyn Street Art

Books in the Films of Wes Anderson: A Supercut for Bibliophiles

"There’s something about Wes Anderson films that prompts people to get creative — to start creating their own video essays and supercuts exploring themes in Anderson’s whimsical movies. You can find a list below. The latest comes from Luís Azevedo, founder of The A to Z Review. ... or a detailed explanation of the video, bibliography, filmography and more visit this page. I would also encourage you to watch the book animation that Anderson himself created for Moonrise Kingdom, which sadly never made it into the film. Find it here."
Open Culture (Video)

2013 November: Wes Anderson Honors Fellini in a Delightful New Short Film, 2013 November: Rushmore (1998), 2013 Decemher: Hotel Chevalier (2007), 2014 March: Wes Anderson Collection, 2014 April: The Perfect Symmetry of Wes Anderson’s Movies, 2014 July: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), 2014 August: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), 2014 December: Welcome to Union Glacier (2013), 2015 January: Inhabiting Wes Anderson’s Universe.

Elmer Nelson Bischoff

Buildings, 1969
Wikipedia - "Elmer Nelson Bischoff (July 9, 1916 – March 2, 1991) was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract painters and found their way back to figurative art. ... While distinct from expressionist art that came from Europe, art of the Bay Area Figurative Movement displays the immediacy and warmth that one sees in abstract expressionist painting. Elmer Bischoff was older than Diebenkorn, and he had experiences in the world that led to his taking an independent turn in painting. Bischoff's quiet and lyrical paintings were serious in a different way from the painting which was being taken seriously at the time; and which saw the rise of Abstract expressionism."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Review: Elmer Bischoff, ‘Figurative Paintings’
George Adams Gallery

Tartit - Abacabok (2006)

"Nothing is more evocative of the fascinating expanses of the Sahara desert than the music of Tartit, a Tuareg band consisting of five women and four men residing in the Timbuktu region (Mali). Unlike that other renowned Tuareg band, Tinariwen, Tartit play quiet, hypnotic, trance-inducing music: the women sit down, sing, and play cyclic rhythms on their tinde drums, while the men accompany them on string instruments, acoustic and electric. The men are veiled, the women aren't. Tuareg society is one of the few throughout Africa in which women are allowed to choose (and divorce) their husbands. Tartit have toured Europe (a.o. as part of the Desert Blues shows alongside Afel Bocoum & Habib Koite)."
Crammed Discs
W - Tartit
Robert Christgau
Dusted Magazine
Spotify
dailymotion: A Take Away Show
Try Our New Player
YouTube: Chachare Akale, Ofous D'ifous, Tihar bayatin (Live)

Calvin and Markov

"I’ve spent the last few days building a random generator internet toy called Calvin and Markov. It generates random new weird variations on Bill Watterson’s classic, wonderful comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, using a Markov chain process and a few hundred lines of Perl code. It’s a fun, odd machine to just play around with, but if you’re interested in how it works, I’ll detail that below, and include some thoughts on C&H itself and why I built this thing. ... People who know me won’t be surprised that I’m messing around with Markov chains; it’s one of my favorite little intersections of math and linguistic/artistic weirdness, a fairly simple way of analyzing the frequencies of events (like the order in which words appear in a bunch of written text) in order to produce new, novel, semi-coherent output. I’ve built a lot of little Markov-related things over the years. ..."
joshmillard

2011 January: Calvin and Hobbes, 2015 March: Bill Watterson talks: This is why you must read the new ‘Exploring Calvin and Hobbes’ book

Edith Lake Wilkinson

"Some time back in the early 60's, my mother was having one of those bored, restless days, visiting the in-laws in Wheeling, West Virginia. So she proposed to my Aunt Betty that they go up to the attic of Grandma’s old three-story house and see what treasures they could dig up. They found a couple of old trunks that had been sequestered there for years. They belonged to Uncle Eddie’s long-forgotten maiden aunt. No one in the family ever talked about poor Aunt Edith. She had been shut away in a mental institution for years and back in those days, that was just something that nice families didn’t talk about. But when my mother opened the trunks, she found dozens of Edith's light-drenched canvasses tucked in with her moldering clothes. This wasn’t the work of an amateur painter or a mentally unstable naïf. ..."
Edith Lake Wilkinson
Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson (Video)
Finding Edith Lake Wilkinson: After 90 Years, Provincetown Artist Returns
facebook

Henry Miller Interviews

"Henry Miller, author of Tropic of Cancer, was interviewed by Bradley Smith in 1969. This is an excerpt from those interviews... This is how Henry got the money to move to Paris..."
YouTube: Henry Miller Interviews - Episode 1: How Henry Got the Money to Go to Paris, Episode 2: First Impressions of Paris, Episode 3: Henry's Thoughts on Women
W - Tropic of Cancer
Reality Studio: Henry Miller and William Burroughs: An Overview

2010 March: Dinner With Henry (1979), 2011 December: Asleep & Awake (1975), 2013 April: Henry Miller, 2014 April: Henry Miller, Brooklyn Hater.

Odyshape - The Raincoats (1981)

"It's well documented that plenty of oddities were snapped up and issued by major labels during the grunge era, but the fact that DGC released four albums by post-punk artists the Raincoats (including re-releases of their first three records and the then-new Looking in the Shadows) remains a confounding footnote of that time. David Geffen clearly didn't swell his already sizable bank balance by reissuing the band's second album Odyshape, as it quickly became as hard to find as the original 1981 Rough Trade version. ... That feeling is partially shaped by the distinctly un-rock approach, with the core trio of the band (Ana Da Silva, Gina Birch, and Vicky Aspinall) occasionally utilizing African instruments including a balophone and a kalimba to get the job done. ..."
Pitchfork
An interview with The Raincoats as 1981 album Odyshape is rereleased on We ThRee
DROWNED IN SOUND
Dusted
W - Odyshape
Spotify
YouTube: Only loved at night, "Go Away" and "No Side to Fall In", Odyshape, Shouting Out Loud, Baby Song, And Then It's OK, Red Shoes

Summer with Monika - Ingmar Bergman (1953)

Wikipedia - "Summer with Monika ... is a 1953 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. It sparked controversy abroad for its frank depiction of nudity and, along with the film One Summer of Happiness from the year before, directed by Arne Mattsson, it helped to create the reputation of Sweden as a sexually liberated place. The film made a star of its lead actress, Harriet Andersson. Bergman had been intimately involved with Andersson at the time and conceived the film as a vehicle for her. ... The film's story begins in the bleak working-class milieu of Stockholm. Harry (Lars Ekborg) and Monika (Harriet Andersson) are both in dead end jobs when they meet. Harry is easygoing, while Monika is adventurous, but they fall in love. When Monika gets in trouble at home, Harry steals his father's boat, and he and Monika spend an idyllic summer in the Stockholm archipelago. When the end of the summer forces them to return home, it is clear that Monika is pregnant...."
Wikipedia
Criterion (Video)
NY Times: Bergman’s Bittersweet Ode to Youth’s Sunset
New Yorker (Video)
YouTube: Summer with Monika

Clifford Gibson

"While the music of artists such as Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton and Son House, to name the most obvious, have been endlessly dissected, analyzed and debated there are many artists of comparable talent who have been left in the dust. Clifford Gibson's name doesn't have the romantic glow of the above artists; he wasn't from Mississippi, didn't die young or lead a life filled with mystery, yet he left behind a small batch of superb, highly creative recordings that deserve wider attention. Clifford Gibson cut ten sides (four have either never been found or were never issued) in June 1929, four sides in November 1929, eight sides in December 1929 and two sides in 1931. In addition he did some session work and lasted long enough to wax a few scattered post-war sides in the 1950's and 60's.  ..."
Sunday Blues
Wikipedia
Clifford Gibson discography
Spotify
YouTube: Don't Put That Thing On Me, Old Time Rider, Tired of Being Mistreated, Blues Without A Dime (1929), Ice And Snow Blues, Sneaky Groundhog (1951), KEEP YOUR WINDOWS PINNED (1929), Drayman Blues, Bad Luck Dice (1929), Jimmie Rodgers with Clifford Gibson - Let Me Be Your Side Track (Take 2), It's Best To Know Who You're Talking To, No Success Blues, I Don't Want No Woman, The Monkey Likes To Boogie, Let Me Be Your Handy Man, Jive Me Blues, Society Blues

2015 Tour de France

"The 2015 Tour de France is the 102nd edition of the Tour de France. It started in Utrecht, Netherlands, on 4 July 2015, at 12:00 GMT. It is the eighteenth race of the 2015 UCI World Tour. It will be the sixth time the Tour de France starts in the Netherlands, after 1954 (Amsterdam), 1973 (Scheveningen), 1978 (Leiden), 1996 ('s-Hertogenbosch) and 2010 (Rotterdam). This is a record for a country that has no direct border with France.
W - 2015 Tour de France
"Every Tour route juggles economics, logistics, history and the need for enthralling racing. This year’s continues a recent trend: short mountain stages, mininal time trialling and more 'étapes pièges', 'pitfall stages' to catch the favourites napping"
Guardian: Tour de France 2015 Stage by stage
Guardian: Tour de France 2015: our team-by-team guide
BBC - Tour de France 2015: Geraint Thomas's stage-by-stage guide
Letour
Telegraph: Tour de France 2015: Stage-by-stage guide
Steephill
NY Times: At the 2015 Tour de France, the Route Could Favor the Home Team
Velogames

2008 July: Tour de France 2008, 2009 July: Tour de France 2009, 2010 July: Tour de France 2010,  2011 July: Tour de France 2011, 2012 July: 2012 Tour de France

Ricky & Doris: An Unconventional Friendship in New York City (with Puppets)

"Doris Diether is a former journalist and longtime activist in New York who is often seen strolling through Washington Square Park chatting with just about everyone. Ricky Syers is a musician and marionetteer who encountered Diether the first week he arrived in the park with his marionettes several years ago and was struck by her outgoing nature. He immediately created a puppet in her image and the two have since become staples of the neighborhood who frequently appear in photographs and interviews together. Filmmaker David Friedman made this great documentary short for AARP detailing the roots of their friendship and how they first met."
Colossal (Video)

The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes

"Usually, when we say 'American slavery' or the 'American slave trade,' we mean the American colonies or, later, the United States. But as we discussed in Episode 2 of Slate’s History of American Slavery Academy, relative to the entire slave trade, North America was a bit player. From the trade’s beginning in the 16^th century to its conclusion in the 19^th, slave merchants brought the vast majority of enslaved Africans to two places: the Caribbean and Brazil. Of the more than 10 million enslaved Africans to eventually reach the Western Hemisphere, just 388,747—less than 4 percent of the total—came to North America. This was dwarfed by the 1.3 million brought to Spanish Central America, the 4 million brought to British, French, Dutch, and Danish holdings in the Caribbean, and the 4.8 million brought to Brazil. This interactive, designed and built by Slate’s Andrew Kahn, gives you a sense of the scale of the trans-Atlantic slave trade across time, as well as the flow of transport and eventual destinations. ..."
Slate
The Enslaved - What They Endured
W - Slave ship
Aboard a Slave Ship, 1829
NY Times: Grim History Traced in Sunken Slave Ship Found Off South Africa
International Slavery Museum: Extracts from John Newton's journal
YouTube: Public Enemy - Can't Truss It

2012 April: Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy - Robert Farris Thompson, 2013 September: Slave Capitalism, 2014 April: 12 Years a Slave, 2015 March: The Life Of A Slave From Cradle To The Tomb.

The Man Who Saw America

"Last May, Robert Frank, the world’s pre-eminent living photographer, returned to Zurich, the orderly Swiss banking city, cosseted by lake and mountain, where he grew up. When an artist who made his reputation by leaving returns home, mixed feelings are inevitable, and that was especially true for Frank, whose iconic American pictures are notable for their deep understanding of human complication.‘I know this town, but I certainly feel like a stranger here,’ he said. As he walked through the immaculate Zurich city center, with its many statues, gilded shop signs and fountains, Frank was ‘just amazed how well organized everything is, how perfect everything is.’ The Swiss, he explained, do not throw coins into fountains, because ‘they have everything they need. They don’t believe in wishing wells. Only the poor have to hope.’ Deciding he wanted to ride a streetcar, Frank surveyed the different lines. ..."
NY Times

2014 May: “Walker Evans and Robert Frank – An Essay on Influence by Tod Papageorge” (1981)

King Tubbys ‎– I Am The King

"During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Tubby was responsible for turning dub into an art form, the creative re-mixing he pioneered at a tiny front-room studio in the Waterhouse ghetto making a long-reaching impact. Like his friend and sometime rival, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Tubby was one of a handful of Jamaican visionaries whose innovations not only changed the shaped of reggae in unprecedented ways, but which also formed a template for so much contemporary music production, be it in rap and hip-hop, jungle, garage and grime, or various forms of electronic dance music — especially dubstep, the British bastard offspring of Jamaican dub. ..."
A beginner’s guide to King Tubby, the producer who turned dub into an art form (Video)
Manwel T meets King Tubby & Marshall McLuhan – Dub Music in a virtual age
Discogs
facebook
YouTube: Black Skin Dub, Teardrops Dub, Neville Blythe - Morning Train b/w King Tubby - Morning Dub, See Me Yah Dub

2009 December: Augustus Pablo, 2011 November: King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, 2011 May: East of the River Nile, 2013 January: King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, 2015 April: Valley of Jehosaphat (1999)

A Global Neuromancer

"Neuromancer is now more than 30 years old, a considerable time to remain a classic. Its publication in the Orwellian year will seem ironic and laden with symbolism only for those who think Orwell has remained a classic, or that he had anything to do with science fiction or reflected any serious political thought. But at least in one respect the juxtaposition is useful in showing how dystopia can swing around into the utopian without missing a beat, the way depression can without warning become euphoria. Indeed, I’ve suggested elsewhere that much of what is called cyberpunk (which begins with Neuromancer) is utopian and driven by the 'irrational exuberance' of the ’90s and a kind of romance of feudal commerce; but I had Bruce Sterling in mind rather than the more sober Gibson, whose postmodern overpopulation ('the sprawl') comes before us rather neutrally, even though its tone is radically different from the older Malthusian warnings of Harrison and Brunner. ..."
Public Books
W - Neuromancer
amazon: Neuromancer

2010 September: Cyberpunk, 2010 October: Bruce Sterling, 2011 July: William Gibson, 2015 May: Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology - edited by Bruce Sterling (1986)

Anna Pavord

Wikipedia - "Anna Pavord (*20 September 1940 Abergavenny) is the gardening correspondent for The Independent and the author of a number of books on plants and gardening. She is an associate editor of Gardens Illustrated magazine, has written for The Observer for some twenty years, and contributed to Country Life, Country Living and Elle Decoration. Besides gardening her interests include sailing, black and white films, Evelyn Waugh and the rainforests of Central America. ... 'The Rectory', her rural garden in Dorset, has been both a healing influence and source of inspiration for more than thirty years. She took up writing about gardening in order to finance the revamping of the building and garden. The one and a half acres of garden of this 300-year old estate in Dorset was used as a nursery for her ideas on horticulture. In the beginning the garden was overgrown and the building dilapidated. It was here that she first planted tulips, and intrigued by their beauty, planted many thousands more."
Wikipedia
Independent: Anna Pavord
amazon: Books by Anna Pavord
YouTube: Talking to Anna Pavord
NOWNESS: The Writer’s Garden: Sunnyside Farm (Video)

Prepared guitar

Wikipedia - "A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitarists do not hold the instrument in the usual manner, but instead place the guitar on a table to manipulate it. The idea of altering an instrument's timbre through the use of external objects has been applied to other instruments as well, most notably John Cage's prepared piano, which preceded the prepared guitar. ..."
Wikipedia
facebook
13 great Prepared Guitar Videos (Video)

2011 May: Keith Rowe, 2012 August: Derek Bailey, 2014 June: Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.

Gordon Parks’s Harlem Family Revisited

"In March 1968, Gordon Parks published a portrait of an African-American child with disheveled clothes in Life magazine. His lips were swollen and cracked from eating plaster, in a futile attempt to ward off hunger. His eyes were plaintive and haunting. Richard Fontenelle was too young to understand, but he and his family became the faces of urban poverty for millions of Americans. The photo essay Mr. Parks produced — 'A Harlem Family,' which is now on exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem — changed Mr. Fontenelle’s life, and the lives of every member of his family, forever. It sparked in him a desire to succeed, and a lifelong friendship with Mr. Parks. ..."
NY Times
Gordon Parks: "A Harlem Family," Life Magazine, 1968
NY Photo Review
amazon

2015 January: Gordon Parks, 2015 May: Segregation Story

Social Isolation, Isaac Cordal, and Neighbors (Sasiedzi) in Łódź

"Berlin-based Spanish sculptor and street artist / public artist Isaac Cordal has just completed another poignant installation that speaks volumes to viewers, if they look up from their phones as they walk past. His sad little men are customarily detached from a sense of hope, now stranded out on verandas that are attached to a bland, beige stucco wall. Many are mounted together at once, yet the effect is one of isolation, individuals banished to a vast disconnect. 'SĄSIEDZI' means 'neighbors' in Polish, a name he chose for this installation for the, Łódź 4 Culture Festival in June. ..."
Brooklyn Street Art
Isolation in the City, by Isaac Cordal
“SĄSIEDZI”, Trauguta 10. Lodz, Poland. June 2015.

Cafe Wha?

Wikipedia - "Cafe Wha? is a club in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York City that has been home to various musicians and comedians. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, The Velvet Underground, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, Kool and the Gang, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and many others all began their careers at the Wha? Although Cafe Wha? was sold by its owner, Manny Roth, in 1968, the club remains at its original location, 115 MacDougal Street, between Bleecker and West 3rd Streets. Roth is the uncle of David Lee Roth. The original Cafe Wha? opened in 1959 and closed in the late 1960s, when the room was taken over by Menachem Dworman, who ran the Cafe Feenjon in the location until 1987. The Feenjon featured Israeli and Middle Eastern music."
Wikipedia
Cafe Wha?
NY Times: Manny Roth, 94, Impresario of Cafe Wha?, Is Dead
facebook

New York Dolls (1973)

Wikipedia - "New York Dolls is the debut studio album by American hard rock band the New York Dolls, released on July 27, 1973, by Mercury Records. The band formed in 1971 and developed a following while playing regularly in lower Manhattan. However, they were unappealing to record companies because of their onstage cross-dressing and vulgarity, while most record producers were reluctant to work with them. For shock value, the band was photographed in exaggerated drag on the album cover. ... The album features carefree rock and roll and Brill Building pop influences in its hard rock songs. Their lyrics were written by lead singer David Johansen and touch on themes such as urban youth, teen alienation, adolescent romance, and authenticity. ..."
Wikipedia
allmusic
Rolling Stone
YouTube: Personality Crisis, Looking for a kiss, Trash, Jet Boy, (There's Gonna Be A) Showdown, Bad Girl, Stranded in the Jungle
YouTube: New York Dolls (Full Album)
YouTube: All Dolled Up: A New York Dolls Story - Found Tapes 1:38:03

2012 January: The David Johansen Group Live

Portfolio by Patrick Goddard

"Patrick Goddard (b.1984/UK) is an artist working in East London, completing an MFA at Goldsmiths University in 2011. Recent works have taken the form of video, publication, performance, and installation, exploring politically loaded issues whilst attempting to avoid the platitudes of didactic simplification. Saturated with a sense of pathos, narratives undermine themselves with a self-defeating humor, playfully calling into question the authority of the narrator and through this, the artist."
BOMB (Video)

"White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)" - Grandmaster Flash + Melle Mel (1983)

Wikipedia - "'White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)' is a hip-hop-funk song by Melle Mel, released as a 12" in 1983 on Sugar Hill Records. The song, which warns against the dangers of cocaine, addiction, and drug smuggling, is one of Melle Mel's signature tracks. The bassline is sampled from a performance of the Sugar Hill house band (featuring bassist Doug Wimbish) covering 'Cavern', a single by post-punk band Liquid Liquid. ... The song was co-written by Melle Mel and Sylvia Robinson. Originally, it was intended to be an ironic celebration of a cocaine-fueled party lifestyle, but it was abridged with the 'don't do it' message as an anti-cocaine song as a concession to commercial considerations. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Grandmaster & Melle Mel - White Lines (Don't Don't Do It), Grandmaster Melle Mel-White Lines Live, Duran Duran / Grandmaster Flash - White Lines (X-Mix), duran duran - white lines (don't don't do it) (remix)

An American Experiment George Bellows and The Ashcan Painters

"With 12 paintings never before seen in the UK, this exhibition introduces visitors to the American artist George Bellows and his artist friends, the Ashcan Painters: William Glackens, George Luks, John Sloan and their teacher Robert Henri. The Ashcan School was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. American painters, principally in New York City and Philadelphia, began to develop a uniquely American view on the beauty, violence and velocity of the modern world."
National Gallery
An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, National Gallery, London
An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters, National Gallery
amazon

Lou Reed ~ Capitol Theatre Passaic, NJ 9/25/1984

"Full Concert Setlist: 0:00:00 - Sweet Jane 0:04:05 - I'm Waiting For My Man 0:08:15 - Martial Law 0:12:57 - Down At The Arcade 0:17:22 - Legendary Hearts 0:20:48 - There She Goes Again 0:24:48 - Turn Out the Light 0:29:58 - My Red Joystick 0:35:19 - Average Guy 0:38:50 - Street Hassle 0:44:24 - Sally Can't Dance 0:50:10 - Walk On The Wild Side 0:56:09 - Satellite Of Love 1:03:21 - New Sensation 1:11:08 - A Gift 1:14:56 - Doin' The Things That We Want To 1:19:12 - Waves Of Fear 1:22:27 - I Love You Suzanne 1:25:35 - White Light / White Heat 1:29:54 - Turn To Me 1:34:40 - Kill Your Sons 1:40:19 - Coney Island Baby 1:45:46 - Maybe - The Chantels 1:49:35 - He's Gone 1:53:18 - People Who Died - Jim Carroll 1:58:47 - Rock 'N' Roll Personnel: Lou Reed - Vocals, Guitar Robert Quine - Guitar Fernando Saunders - Bass, Vocals Peter Wood - Keyboards Lenny Ferarri - Drums"
No Depression
YouTube: Full Concert - 09/25/84 - Capitol Theatre (OFFICIAL) 

2010 August: Heroin, 2011 June: All Tomorrow's Parties - The Velvet Underground, 2011 June: The Velvet Underground, 2012 November: Songs for Drella - Lou Reed and John Cale, 2013 October: Lou Reed (1942 - 2013), 2014 June: The Bells (1979), 2014 August: New York (1989).

David Lynch: ‘I’ve always loved Laura Palmer’

"If you follow David Lynch into the woods he will not hold your hand. He cannot guarantee you will find your way home. He truly hopes that you’ll emerge unscathed. The director, painter and transcendental meditation disciple has never been one to explain his work and, on the occasion of the release of the Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery box set, no measure of nostalgia will sway him. He’s sitting on a chaise longue in a hotel suite not far from his Los Angeles home when we meet, exuding charisma and an egoless confidence. At 68, Lynch looks vital, present. He’s dressed in his usual uniform: dark jacket, white shirt buttoned up, a blaze of rockabilly hair atop his weatherbeaten face." 24 July 2014
Guardian

2008 September: Twin Peaks, 2010 March: Twin Peaks: How Laura Palmer's death marked the rebirth of TV drama, 2011 October: Twin Peaks: The Last Days, 2014 October: Welcome to Twin Peaks.

Zoe Leonard: Analogue

Analogue detail. 1998–2007
"This exhibition presents Zoe Leonard’s Analogue—a landmark photographic project conceived over the course of a decade—which documents, in 412 color and black-and-white photographs, the eclipsed texture of 20th-century urban life as seen in little bodegas, mom-and-pop stores with decaying facades and quirky handwritten signs, and shop windows displaying a mixed assortment of products. Shooting with a vintage 1940s Rolleiflex camera, a tool 'left over from the mechanical age,' as Leonard puts it, the artist took her own neighborhood of New York’s Lower East Side as a point of departure. She then followed the global trade of recycled merchandise—used T-shirts, old-fashioned shoes, discarded Coke advertisements, the old technology of Kodak camera shops—to far-flung places in Eastern Europe, Africa, Cuba, and Mexico...."
MoMA

2014 June: Available Light

A Food Tour of Seinfeld’s New York

"It’s no secret that 'Seinfeld,' arguably the most 'New York' comedy in recent television history, was actually filmed in Los Angeles. But that hasn’t stopped tourists from flocking to the Upper West Side of Manhattan to see if they really can order a 'big salad' from the 'Seinfeld restaurant.' With the show making its streaming television debut on Hulu this month, New York food spots like Tom’s Restaurant that have become synonymous with “Seinfeld” could see an increase in business from nostalgic fans. Just don’t try to get a bagel from H & H, Kramer’s one-time place of employment. The Kenny Rogers Roasters and its blinding red neon chicken is also long gone, as is the Royale Pastry Shop (called Royal Bakery and Schnitzers on the show), the bakery responsible for a marble rye worth mugging an old lady for and a black-and-white cookie that could bridge racial divides."
NY Times

2011 August: Seinfeld

Leaving Alaska

"The trail is barely visible, unless you know it’s there. I step off the dirt road and into the woods. The ground receives me with the familiar caress of home. I float down the trail—my feet intimately familiar with each little dip and rise, each stray root protruding from the ground. The trail is worn smooth. But on both sides the powder-light glacial soil is blanketed with a thin layer of moss and lichen, low-bush cranberry, and Labrador tea. For one week each spring, the color and perfume of wild roses fill these woods. There are paper birches and spruce, both black and white. But the predominant tree here is populus tremuloides—quaking aspen. ..."
New Yorker (Video)
YouTube: Echoes of Inhabitance - John Luther Adams, A Sonic Geography Of Alaska

The Newtown Pentacle: far within

Continental Iron Works
"A bright, light, sunshiney day, in Today’s Post. Recently, the Federal NOAA agency placed a plaque at Bushwick Inlet’s U.S.S. Monitor Museum site, signifying the launch site of the United States’ first ironclad war ship from the spot in Greenpoint. One made it a point to arrive early, there was an event planned which involved dignitaries speaking and children singing, and take a bit of time to get 'artsy – fartsy' with the camera and grab some shots. The one above is a stitched panorama, representing around 200 degrees of view. Just to the right of center are some of the big condo buildings in Williamsburg, and at far right are the tanks of Bayside Fuel. That’s Franklin Street on the other side of the fence, btw, behind an overgrown fence line which one didn’t explore except with a zoom lens. ..."
The Newtown Pentacle

David Behrman - Wave Train

"From the Italian avant-garde reissue specialists Alga Marghen comes this early experimental recording from American composer David Behrman, all of which was previously unreleased. A collection of works recorded between 1959 and 1968 with members of his Sonic Arts Union performing on many of the tracks, big names in avant-garde -- Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley, and Alvin Lucier -- all contribute to the realization of these astonishing early electronic works. Renowned pianist David Tudor and new-music percussion extraordinaire Cristoph Caskel appear on the 1959 recording 'Canons,' an exquisite short piece that begs the question why this material was never available earlier. A 12-page color booklet accompanies the CD with photographs of the performers and instruments that created this futuristic wonder-world of electronic compositions. An important archival discovery from the American avant-garde."
allmusic
Smithsonian: If Clouds Could Make Music, What Would it Sound Like?
Discogs
Spotify
vimeo: Grove, Cloud Music (excerpts)
YouTube: Installation of "Cloud Music"

2010 October: Roulette TV: David Behrman, 2012 January: The Siren Orchestra, 2014 May: On the Other Ocean/Figure in a Clearing (1977).

Bill Berkson with Jarrett Earnest

Alex Katz, “Shining Leaves” (1969)
"I met the legendary poet and critic Bill Berkson as a bratty 19-year-old art student in his final class at the San Francisco Art Institute, where he is professor emeritus after teaching writing and art history for 25 years. Around that time I interviewed him about taste for a zine I made with my then boyfriend—one of the first in a format that has become a major part in my intellectual life. Shortly after, the artist Isabelle Sorrell and I began to compile a book as an homage to him. All these years later, the new volume For Bill, ANYTHING: Images and Text for Bill Berkson has just been published by Pressed Wafer, bringing together new and archival writing and art works by 75 contributors, covering aspects of Berkson’s work and life, including collaborations with friends like Joe Brainard, Philip Guston, Jim Carroll, and many others. ..."
Brooklyn Rail
W - Bill Berkson
PBS: Be like poet Bill Berkson and start kissing anyone you can find (Video)
Poetry Foundation
amazon: Bill Berkson

There Was a Time: The History of Uncle Tupelo

"If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: One man’s lazy embedding of YouTube videos is another man’s history of Uncle Tupelo. Consider it a documentary, minus all the boring interviews, montages, and the Ken Burns move where a voice intones dramatically as a camera slowly pans across a black and white photo, and a lonesome banjo picks underneath. Here all you’re getting are videos and my liner notes. Don’t act like you don’t love it. ..."
adios lounge (Video)
YouTube: St Louis, Mo 1994 05 01 [Full Gig]

2011 July: Uncle Tupelo, 2012 December: No Depression, 2013 August: March 16–20, 1992, 2014 January: Still Feel Gone (1991).

The Punk Singer - Kathleen Hanna (2013)

Wikipedia - "The Punk Singer is a 2013 documentary film directed by filmmaker Sini Anderson and produced by Anderson and Tamra Davis. The film is about feminist singer Kathleen Hanna who fronted the bands Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and who was a central figure in the riot grrrl movement. The title of the film is taken from Julie Ruin song 'The Punk Singer', from Hanna's 1998 solo effort. Using a combination of interviews and archival footage including live band performances, the film traces the life and career of Hanna from her troubled upbringing and her start in spoken word performance poetry, through her riot grrrl zines, her prominent punk and dance-punk bands, her coining of the phrase 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' for Kurt Cobain, her solo career as Julie Ruin, her feminist activism, her marriage to Beastie Boys member Adam Horovitz, and ending with Hanna's 2010 diagnosis of late-stage Lyme disease and the severe treatments she endures to combat it. ..."
Wikipedia
NPR: Silent For Years, A Riot Grrrl Steps Back To The Mic
Roger Ebert
YouTube: Documentary - THE PUNK SINGER - TRAILER, Bikini Kill, Girls to the Front, Kathleen Hanna is....The Punk Singer, a documentary

Hugh Mundell & Augustus Pablo - Jah Will Provide + Hungry (Dub Version)

"... What is perhaps most notable about 'Jah Will Provide' is the performance, both lyrically and vocally, that Augustus Pablo coaxes out of a 16 year old Mundell, who brings the word, sound, and power of an old soul to the session. It is clearly evident that this song and performance are divinely inspired because it does not seem possible that such an inspired recording could come solely from the mind, heart, and soul of a 16 year old youth. But hey, that’s Pablo’s gift, right? Bringing inspired music out of talented, yet unexperienced youths. Just look what he was able to do with Jacob Miller, another young man who wrote and performed on a higher plane."
Midnigh Traver Blog (Video)
YouTube: Jah Will Provide + Hungry (Dub Version)

2010 September: Hugh Mundell, 2009 December: Augustus Pablo, 2011 November: King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo and King Tubby, 2011 May: East of the River Nile, 2013 January: King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, 2015 April: Valley of Jehosaphat (1999).

Hotel Melancholia by Suzanne Joinson

Western Motel, Edward Hopper, 1957
"There was a period in my life when I spent a lot of time in hotel rooms. It was normal to skit from Shanghai to Dublin via Vilnius and Rome in a month, and then begin the loop all over again: Athens, Novosibirsk, Kuala Lumpur. I travelled alone to these cities and when I got there I was required to stand on stages, sit on panels and talk endlessly. ... I lived in a hotel in Moscow called the Cricket for a month. In European countries, I stayed in compact three-star rooms, while in the Middle East it was always big chains: the Sheraton, the Radisson or the Hilton Nile. Here and there, depending on local deals and the nature of my stay, I’d take a room in one of the iconic, colonial-style hotels from the novels of Graham Greene or Agatha Christie: the American Colony in Jerusalem, the Pera Palace in Istanbul or the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai. I travelled like this from my mid-20s for a decade. Sometimes I was single, other times in a relationship, and the eternal transience suited me at the start. It was fun, for a few years, until suddenly it wasn’t."
aeon

Tom Johnson - The Voice of New Music: New York City 1972–1982

"The emergence of new music in New York City was 'followed closely by Tom Johnson in his weekly columns in the Village Voice. In some cases, especially in the early 70's when the music was still largely unknown, his articles were the only published reports of events and premiers that are now of historical importance.' This music's 'evolution in New York lofts was more complicated, and involved far more people, than is generally understood today.' These articles put the whole story back together. Johnson was a long-time admirer of his teacher, Morton Feldman, and of John Cage, who might be considered the patron saints of the movement, but he focussed his critical attention on the new forms of music evolving among composers of his own generation such as Philip Corner, Alvin Lucier, Charlie Morrow, Phill Niblock, Pauline Oliveros, Charlemagne Palestine, Steve Reich, Frederic Rzewski, and many others. And sometimes his style of writing was as innovative as the music. - Theseus"
The Voice of New Music: New York City 1972–1982
[PDF] The Voice of New Music - Editions 75
Soundcloud: The Voice of New Music by Tom Johnson (for Matt Hinkley)

2011 February: Tom Johnson, 2012 May: Rational Melodies, 2013 March: Tom Johnson In Los Angeles, 2013 May: An Hour for Piano (1985).

New Steps - Sun Ra Quartet (1978)

"New Steps is one of several albums done with this basic lineup in January of 1978. This album is billed to the Sun Ra Quartet, but it sounds like there's a bass player present on at least some of the cuts (it could be Ra, but he'd need three hands). There are two standards amongst a program of Ra originals, and things get started with a stellar version of 'My Favorite Things.' ... In fact, the remainder of the album is on the mellow side ('When There Is No Sun' is the only track with vocals), and features some great statements by John Gilmore and Ra. Michael Ray is in fine form as well, if somewhat less exuberant than usual. With such a small group, solo space is ample, and Luqman Ali's understated drumming really holds things together nicely. New Steps is another fabulous release from Sun Ra, but all the Horo albums can be difficult to find."
allmusic
W - New Steps
Spotify
YouTube: My Favorite Things, Moon People, Sun Steps, etc.

Dance at Bougival - Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1883)

Dance at Bougival, 1883
"The open-air cafés of suburban Bougival, on the Seine outside Paris, were popular recreation spots for city dwellers, including the Impressionist painters. Renoir, who was primarily a figure painter, uses intense color and lush brushwork to heighten the sense of pleasure conveyed by the whirling couple who dominate the composition. The woman’s face, framed by her red bonnet, is the focus of attention, both ours and her companion’s."
MFA (Video)
New Yorker: Renoir at The Frick: Go See “Dance at Bougival”
Renoir's Paintings Dance Together Again (Video)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir: Paintings, Biography, and Quotes

Basketball’s Obtuse Triangle

"The sacred text arrived at dusk on a Thursday in November. I opened the package and found a 216-page, red hardbound book with worn buckram corners that brought to mind something used to teach high school geometry 50 years ago. The previous owner had inscribed his name on the flyleaf and made sufficient notations in the margins throughout that I recalled a story about an old N.B.A. player whose teammate asked him why he underlined every sentence in the books he took on road trips. 'That’s so I know I’ve read them,' he said. The University of Kansas’ union bookstore had stamped the book 'USED' and then penciled in a secondhand price, $5.50. Yet my Amazon third-party seller had charged me more than $160. ..."
NY Times
NY Times: Three Sides to This Story (Oct. 27, 2014)
W - Tex Winter
Tex Winter and the pursuit of perfection (Video)

"Fever" - Little Willie John (1956)

"'Fever' is a song written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, who used the pseudonym John Davenport. It was originally recorded by American R&B singer Little Willie John in 1956 and released as a single in April of the same year. ... Little Willie John reportedly disliked the song, but was persuaded to record it, on March 1, 1956, by King Records owner Syd Nathan and arranger and producer Henry Glover. 'Fever' is a soul and rhythm and blues minor key opus with an arrangement consisting of low saxophones played by Ray Felder and Rufus 'Nose' Gore and a jazz guitar by Bill Jennings. The vocal style of Willie John is similar to moaning and he is backed by finger snaps."
Wikipedia
Re-Viewing influences: Little Willie John, Albert Ayler, late 'Trane
YouTube: "Fever" (1956), "Fever"

Anywhere in Time: A Conlon Nancarrow Festival

"In the eighteen years since his death, the music of composer Conlon Nancarrow has steadily grown in influence and infamy. Viewed as a fascinating anomaly during much of his lifetime, Nancarrow created staggeringly complex pieces with rhythmical structures—borrowed from boogie-woogie and the atonal avant-garde, and, eventually, formed in his own unique language—that he achieved through highly unusual means. After fighting in the Spanish Civil War against Franco’s fascist regime, Nancarrow returned to the United States but was refused a passport renewal on the basis of his political beliefs. He responded by relocating in 1940 to Mexico City, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Working in near isolation, Nancarrow ceased writing music for live performers and instead turned to the only means of realizing his musical vision in the precomputer era: composing for the player piano. ..."
Whitney (Video)
NY Times
Conlon Nancarrow’s Math-Mad Music (Video)
W - Conlon Nancarrow
Conlon Nancarrow: A Chronology By Kyle Gann
facebook
YouTube: Study for Player Piano No. 37, Study for Player Piano No. 21 (Canon X), 3rd Study for Player Piano 'Boogie Woogie Suite' Audio + Sheet Music, Studies 2B, 3a, 3e and 5 for Player Piano
YouTube: A Sense of Place: The Life and Work of Conlon Nancarrow (Documentary) 28:48

A Fine Blend: The Quietus Writers' Favourite DJ Mix Albums

"Almost 20 years after the release of Coldcut's 70 Minutes Of Madness mix album, Joe Clay recently spoke to the members of Coldcut's about the mix's production and legacy - you can read the interview here. Now, a large selection of tQ contributors have come forth to offer up their favourite DJ mixes for your perusal, accompanied by their thoughts on each choice. It's a wide-reaching list taking in a vast array of officially released mix albums, mixtapes and free-to-download online mixes across a number of genres, so keep reading and you could possibly discover a mix or two you're yet to uncover. So here, in no particular order, are tQ writers' favourite mixes. ..."
The Quietus (Video)

Summer solstice sun rises on gathering of 23,000 at Stonehenge

"Thousands of people descended on Stonehenge to mark this year’s summer solstice. Police said around 23,000 were at the neolithic site in Wiltshire on Sunday, down on the estimated 36,000 who attended last year and the 30,000 expected. Other revellers – including hippies and pagans – visited the nearby Avebury stone circle to witness the sun rising on the longest day of the year. Despite cloud in the area, visitors were able to get a glimpse of the sun after it came over the horizon at 4.52am. People beat their drums and pointed their cameras at Stonehenge just as the sun appeared. Some visitors said this year’s solstice sunrise was one of the best they had seen. ..."
Guardian (Video)
BBC: Stonehenge summer solstice celebrations see thousands gather
W - Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Smithsonian: New Light on Stonehenge
History: Who Built Stonehenge? (Video)

“Rubble Kings” Opens Today: Gangs, Graffiti, Hip-Hop in 1970s NYC

"... An outstanding recounting of the fierce gang culture born of despair and 'white flight' that blighted New York City, Rubble Kings helps put in perspective the evolution of a people being pushed out of the American Dream grabbing it by the balls and reclaiming it as their own, remaking it in their image. That may be the overly romantic view of an unjust and needlessly brutal time full of violence and murder, with innocent everyday people caught in the middle as victims. And certainly as oppressed as these former gang members were, the thought may cross your mind that the heroic roles depicted in this story are reserved for one gender almost exclusively. That said, props to the director Shan Nicholson that Rubble Kings presents a meaningful and compelling context for the unwinding of the social, political, institutional constructs that shook folks to the bone; an economic violence that decimated neighborhoods and communities. ..."
Brooklyn Street Art (Video)

Doris Salcedo

Shibboleth - Form of a 167-metre-long crack in the floor of the gallery.
"This major retrospective will survey the searing, deeply poetic work of Doris Salcedo (b. 1958, Bogotá, Colombia). Over the past three decades, Salcedo's practice has addressed the traumatic history of modern-day Colombia, as well as wider legacies of suffering stemming from colonialism, racism, and other forms of social injustice. Originating in lengthy research processes during which the artist solicits testimonies from the victims of violent oppression, her sculptures and installations eschew the direct representation of atrocities in favor of open-ended confluences of forms that are fashioned from evocative materials and intensely laborious techniques. ..."
Guggenheim
Wikipedia
PBS: art21 (Video) 54:30
NY Times: From Doris Salcedo, Domestic Vessels of Trauma and Loss
SF MoMA: Doris Salcedo discusses her artistic identity
YouTube: TateShots

SNUB TV

"SNUB TV – the creative partnership of Brenda Kelly and Peter Fowler – burst onto TV screens via Janet Street-Porter’s BBC 2 DEF II slot in 1989. It was not ‘youth TV’ but it had the attitude, confidence and style of the blossoming independent label scene of the late ‘80s. These were the days that saw the first indie stars begin to have crossover radio hits: The Smiths, New Order, Depeche Mode. But where could you hear this music outside John Peel’s R1 show? It wasn’t easy. TV and radio had no place for new music – even giants like New Order were ignored. MTV wanted glossy, high-end videos – a financial and aesthetic anathema to most left field music of the day. There was nothing represented the vibrancy, eclecticism and artiness of the music scene that was thriving out of the limelight. SNUB was going to change that. ..."
SNUB TV
Wikipedia
‘Do you remember ‘Night Flight’?’ (Video)
Sights Unheard: SNUB TV (Video)
YouTube: SNUB TV

The Residents - "My Window" (2005)

"Steven said, 'Little Ted was dead'
I read in a letter today
The same for Monica's monkey he said
Quietly it passed away

Mister Coo Coo has fallen asleep
His eyes were black and his beak was brown
Mister Coo Coo has fallen asleep
But soon his home will be underground

The wind was cold and the world was old
When I went to my window today
The sky was dark as a hopeless heart
When I went to my window today"
YouTube: "My Window"