Robert Quine & Fred Maher - Basic (1984)

"Ah yes, the intangible, enduring allure of the 2nd hand record shop! Before I found a copy of Basic in the stuffed racks of this musty emporium last week I'd not previously heard of it. Now, of course, I'm semi-outraged as to why it's been unobtainable for so long - the cursory CD reissue appears to be rarer than the original LP, for God's sake! An instrumental collaboration between Robert Quine & Fred Maher (Material, Scritti Politti), Basic was recorded at Quine's home studio in N.Y.C. in early '84, while both of them were still fresh from their brief tenure as fellow Voidoids (on 1982's Destiny Street) & in Lou Reed's last great live band (during his Blue Mask / Legendary Hearts period, alongside bassist Fernando Saunders). For whatever reason, Quine never got 'round to releasing a bona fide solo album, but Basic comes pretty close - Maher's unobtrusive bass & electronic percussion providing a stripped back, metronomic anchor for Quine's thoughtful, serpentine Fender wrangling. ..."
I Love Total Destruction
W - Basic
YouTube: '65, Stray, Fala, Bluffer, Village, Summer Storm, Despair, Bluffer, Bandage Bait, Pickup, Dark Place

2012 October: Ikue Mori, 2015 June: Capitol Theatre Passaic, NJ 9/25/1984, 2015 October: The Blue Mask (1982), 2016 March: New Sensations - Lou Reed (1984), 2016 March:Film Works 1986-1990 - John Zorn, 2016 October: Ikue Mori (with Robert Quine and Marc Ribot) - Painted Desert (1997)

The Democratic Party Has Failed—We Need a Radical Vision to Defeat Trumpism

"'Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?' Hillary Clinton asked a group of labor organizers in late September, when she and Trump were neck and neck in national polls. It seemed like a fair question. Throughout his entire campaign, Donald Trump utterly humiliated and disqualified himself in new ways almost every day. Tapes of him bragging about sexual assault dominated the final weeks of the campaign. ... For 40 years their wages have been stagnant even as productivity grows. For some groups, even life expectancy is now declining. Many who are living through this have been yearning for some sort of political revolution for years. ... A vote for Trump symbolized burning it all down. ..."
In These Times
New Yorker: Seven Electors Against Trump
In These Times - A Message to Trump: We’re Not Going Back in the Shadows
Jacobin: The Workers Versus Trump

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 April: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA, 2016 November: Scenes From Anti-Trump Protests, 2016 November: Rust Belt, 2016 November: Autocracy: Rules for Survival, 2016 November: Rally in Brooklyn Park Condemns Swastikas and ‘Go Trump’ Graffiti

Sparrows - Black Sparrow Press

"These three attractive essays by Robert Creeley presented as Sparrows 6 (March, 1973), 14 (November 1973), and 40 (January 1976) by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press (1966-2002) were among the stacks at Powell's. 'SPARROW will appear monthly. It will print poetry, fiction, essays, criticism, commentaries, & reviews. Each issue will present the work of a single author. The poet is prophet.' Or profit? Among the small presses of that era, Martin had one of the most successful business models. ..."
MIMEOMIMEO
[PDF] Creeley – Inside Out
Oak Knoll

Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016

"Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 focuses on the ways in which artists have dismantled and reassembled the conventions of cinema—screen, projection, darkness—to create new experiences of the moving image. The exhibition will fill the Museum’s 18,000-square-foot fifth-floor Neil Bluhm Family Galleries, and will include a film series in the third-floor Susan and John Hess Family Theater. The exhibition’s title refers to the science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft’s alternate fictional dimension, whose terrain of cities, forests, mountains, and an underworld can be visited only through dreams. Similarly, the spaces in Dreamlands will connect different historical moments of cinematic experimentation, creating a story that unfolds across a series of immersive spaces. ..."
Whitney (Video)
Whitney: Dreamlands - Screenings and programs (Video)
[PDF] Whitney
NY Times: A Retort to Shrinking Screens, in an Ultra-Immersive Show at the Whitney
NY Times: Diving Into Movie Palaces of the Mind at the Whitney
amazon

Striking Portraits of Lonely Cars in 1970s New York

White Tower car, Buick LeSabre, Meatpacking District, 1976.
"On a snowy night in 1976, a Buick LeSabre was parked outside a White Tower hamburger restaurant in New York’s Meatpacking District. For photographer Langdon Clay, armed with a Leica and some Kodachrome film, it was an arresting moment. In Clay’s photograph of the scene, the empty car looks almost forlorn under the neon strip lighting. Around it, the street is empty. The only signs of life are the blurred figures inside the diner, presumably the car’s owners ordering food. This photograph is just one of many Clay shot between 1974 and 1976. ..."
Atlas Obscura
New Yorker - When Cars Ruled the Night: New York City, 1974-1976
Cars – New York City, 1974–1976 - Langdon Clay
amazon

Lori McKenna - Bittertown (2004)

"Steeped in a kettle of Americana or alt country, Lori McKenna should rank up there with quality performers such as Lucinda Williams, Julie Miller, Kathleen Edwards, and Mary Alice Wood. 'Bible Song,' which sports a guest appearance by Buddy Miller, gives a perfect example of the singer knowing what she wants and getting it right: hints of twang, mandolin touches, and a melody that is just as uplifting as it is dreary and pragmatic. ... Wrapping up another quality and stellar piece of work, the boogie ramble on 'One Kiss Goodnight' recalls Natalie Merchant if she grew up in the heart of the South. The album is rarely bitter but incredibly sweet."
allmusic
Lori McKenna: Bittertown by George Graham
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: Monday Afternoon, Stealing Kisses, Mr. Sunshine, One Man, Bible Song, One Kiss Goodnight

Light in August - William Faulkner (1932)

Wikipedia - "Light in August is a 1932 novel by the Southern American author William Faulkner. It belongs to the Southern gothic and modernist literary genres. Set in the author's present day, the interwar period, the novel centers on two strangers who arrive at different times in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a fictional county based on Faulkner's home, Lafayette County, Mississippi. ... In a loose, unstructured modernist narrative style that draws from Christian allegory and oral storytelling, Faulkner explores themes of race, sex, class and religion in the American South. By focusing on characters that are misfits, outcasts, or are otherwise marginalized in their community, he portrays the clash of alienated individuals against a Puritanical, prejudiced rural society. ..."
Wikipedia
New Essays on Light in August - Michael Millgate
[PDF] Light in August
amazon

2011 September: Southern Gothic, 2014 February: William Faulkner, 2015 October: William Faulkner Draws Maps of Yoknapatawpha County, the Fictional Home of His Great Novels, 2015 November: Interviews William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12, 2016 April: Absalom, Absalom!! (1936), 2016 May: The Sound and the Fury (1929), 2016 October: The Snopes Trilogy (1940, 1957, 1959)

Junior Byles - Fade Away (1975)

"... Although the remnants of Glen's vocals are not as intrusive as Junior's, he's still in there all the way through. You can also discount I Roy's Rootsman (Love 7") that has what sounds like the same Junior B-side as the Jama release. And here's another couple to stay clear of (I know negative responses don't help much, but they might stop you getting excited for no reason if you spot these on the Net!). Jahmali - Long Long Time - A killer updated vocal of the tune in its own right. But despite having 'Fade Away' written on the B-side, it's a completely unconnected rhythm. Horace Andy - 'Fade Away' - despite claiming to have Prince Jazzbo on the flip, this one is a genuine dub! Unfortunately it's not the one you want but an updated digi-version. Never mind, I'll carry on thinking and searching... - Dubac"
Blood and Fire
YouTube: Junior Byles-Fade Away, The Upsetters-Version, I Roy-Rootsman Time

Singles Collection: The London Years - Rolling Stones (1989)

"The three-disc box set Singles Collection: The London Years contains every single the Rolling Stones released during the '60s, including both the A- and B-sides. It is the first Stones compilation that tries to be comprehensive and logical -- for all their attributes, the two Hot Rocks sets and the two Big Hits collections didn't present the singles in chronological order. ... Casual fans might want to stick with the Hot Rocks sets, since they just have the hits, but for those that want a little bit more, the Singles Collection is absolutely essential."
allmusic (Video)
Guide to British Music of the 1960s
W - Singles Collection: The London Years
iTunes, amazon
YouTube: I Want To Be Loved, I Wanna Be Your Man, Stoned, Good Times, Bad Times, Play With Fire (Mono Version), Tell Me, The Spider And The Fly, You Can't Always Get What You Want, Jumpin' Jack Flash, In Another Land (Original Single Mono Version), Honky Tonk Women (Mono Version), Wild Horses

2015 August: Exile on Main Street (1972), 2015 October: "Let's Spend the Night Together" / "Ruby Tuesday" (1967), 2015 December: Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (1971), 2016 January: Some Girls (1978), 2016 January: The Rolling Stones (EP), 2016 March: Five by Five (EP - 1964), 2016 May: "The Rolling Stones: Charlie Is My Darling — Ireland 1965"

The Untold History of the United States - Oliver Stone (2012)

Wikipedia - "The Untold History of the United States (also known as Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States) is a 2012 documentary series directed, produced, and narrated by Oliver Stone. The documentary miniseries for Showtime had a working title Oliver Stone's Secret History of America. It covers 'the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism.' Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes. The series is a reexamination of some of the underreported and darkest parts of American modern history, using little-known documents and newly uncovered archival material...."
Wikipedia
The Untold History of the United States (Video)
NY Times: Oliver Stone Rewrites History — Again
Guardian - Oliver Stone: 'America always wins'

2015 September: South of the Border (2009)

Cometbus #57

"The comics scene is thriving in New York, and comics play an oversized role in the city’s myth. But why? In this special issue of Cometbus we go door-to-door, uptown to downtown, asking the questions that other rags are either too informed or too polite to pose. We visit cartoonists like Gary Panter, Julia Wertz, Ben Katchor, Adrian Tomine, and Gabrielle Bell, but also comics scholars, publishers, shopkeepers, and librarians. Featuring beautiful illustrations by March artist Nate Powell and an unusual Al Jaffee interview that ties it all together in the end."
microcosm
The Comics Journal

Armory Show 1913

1913 “International Exhibition of Modern Art”
Wikipedia - "Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, the first large exhibition of modern art in America. The three-city exhibition started in New York City's 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets, from February 17 until March 15, 1913. ..."
Wikipedia
Culture Night Los Angeles
1913 Armory Show
Walt Kuhn scrapbook of press clippings documenting the Armory Show, vol. 1, 1913
NPR: In 1913, A New York Armory Filled With Art Stunned The Nation (Video)

Watch Come Together, Wes Anderson’s New Short Film/Commercial Starring Adrien Brody

"Why does the holiday season no longer feel complete without a Wes Anderson movie? Several of his features have opened in late fall or early winter, surely the most Andersonian time of year. Some have come out right around Christmas (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou on the day itself), and some, most notably The Royal Tenenbaums, take place partially in the season. While it looks as if we’ll have to do without a full-length Anderson production this Christmas, since the past year has reportedly seen him in pre-production on an as yet untitled stop-motion animated movie, the auteur of poignant and funny anachronism has nevertheless found time to direct Come Together, a brand new not-quite-commercial for 'fast fashion' retailer H&M. ..."
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, 2015 July: Books in the Films of Wes Anderson: A Supercut for Bibliophiles, 2015 November: Moonrise Kingdom (2012), 2015 December: Chapter 8: "The Grand Budapest Hotel", 2016 June: Here's pretty much every song used in a Wes Anderson film.

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven

"From 18 February, Mu.ZEE presents a solo exhibition of the Belgian artist Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (b.1951). In addition to being a painter, draughtsman and a performer, she is also an artist who has assembled a substantial oeuvre of multimedia work over the past thirty years. Mistress of the Horizon is a co-production between the Renaissance Society in Chicago and Mu.ZEE. Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven takes four new bodies of works as the main departure point for this solo exhibition. Video animation, computer generated prints and a large number of drawings are complemented with representative works from her extensive oeuvre. ..."
Contemporary Art Daily
W - Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven
Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (Video)
Zeno X Gallery
art21

Sun Ra & His Arkestra Live at Montreux (1976)

"From 1955, when Sun Ra began recording his Arkestra, one hears not only complex, irregular structures and model improvisation but miscellaneous percussion, odd meters and polyrhythms, electronic keyboards and the use of two keyboards at once. By the end of the 50s Sun Ra and his band were into the whole area of noise elements and collective sonic exploration, while his elaborate stage shows and vocal interludes paved the way for the currently popular Parliament/Funkadelic. A Sun Ra concert is truly something else more than music and more than musical theater, it is a self-created and self-contained mythic universe. Two dozen men and women, dressed in outrageous space garb, carry on for hours without pause, spanning all of jazz history from staples of the original Duke Ellington or Fletcher Henderson books to ethereal child-like tunes and the outraged caterwaulings of the entire horn section."
Inner City Jazz
allmusic
W - Sun Ra & His Arkestra Live at Montreux
amazon
YouTube: Take The A Train, Arkestra, Is A Sound Of Joy, Outer Space Employment Agency (Live), Of The Other Tomorrow

Wheat Fields - Van Gogh series

Wheat Field, June 1888
Wikipedia - "The Wheat Fields is a series of dozens of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, borne out of his religious studies and sermons, connection to nature, appreciation of manual laborers and desire to provide a means of offering comfort to others. The wheat field works demonstrate his progression as an artist from the drab Wheat Sheaves made in 1885 in the Netherlands to the colorful, dramatic paintings from Arles, Saint-Rémy and Auvers-sur-Oise of rural France. ..."
Wikipedia
W - The Wheat Field

2010 March: Van Gogh Museum, 2010 May: Why preserve Van Gogh's palette?, 2012 April: Van Gogh Up Close, 2015 May: Van Gogh and Nature, 2016 January: Van Gogh's Bedrooms.

AD Presents: A Woody Guthrie Companion (A Mixtape)

"In addition to his website American Standard Time, Greg Vandy is the host of the long-running roots radio program The Roadhouse, on KEXP. Based in Seattle, Vandy spent the better part of two years researching Woody Guthrie’s tenure in 1941 with Oregon’s Bonneville Power Administration. In short, Guthrie was employed to promote the benefits of cheap hydroelectric power, irrigation, and the Grand Coulee Dam. While under their hire he penned 26 songs in 30 days. The fruits Vandy’s labor were published earlier this year via Sasquatch Books as 26 Songs In 30 Days: Columbia River Songs and the Planned Promised Land in the Pacific Northwest. ..."
Aquarium Drunkard (Video)

2008 January: Woody Guthrie, 2009 May: To Hear Your Banjo Play - 1947, 2010 June: Dust Bowl Ballads, 2012 July: Woody Guthrie at 100: Celebrate His Amazing Life with a BBC Film, 2013 September: Buffalo Skinners, 2014 September: "The Ranger's Command", "To Hear Your Banjo Play", "Greenback Dollar", "John Henry", 2016 October: Don't Mourn-Organize!: Songs of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill,

Haunted House by Pierre Reverdy, Translated by John Ashbery (2007)

"Pierre Reverdy's short story 'Haunted House,' originally published in 1930 in a collection of prose tales called Risques et Perils, is very different than his typically oblique, allusive and dreamlike poetry. Rife with mock rhetorical grandeur and ironic asides, 'Haunted House' was lauded and included in Andre Breton's list of ten books he would take to a desert island. French poet Pierre Reverdy was born in Narbonne in 1889. In 1910 he came to Paris, where he knew no one, but he soon met Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob, as well as Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and Juan Gris, who later illustrated his books...."
Hyperallergic
Mary Ann Caws on Pierre Reverdy
amazon

2008 January: Pierre Reverdy 1889-1960, 2010 May: Eight Poems by Pierre Reverdy, 2014 October: Pierre Reverdy

Fidel Castro (1926–2016)

"Fidel Castro was, by any standards, a towering figure. In his frail late years his presence still resonated across Latin America, even among generations that did not experience the exhilarating shock of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Before the revolution, Cuba symbolized colonialism at its most pernicious. Its war of liberation from Spain was appropriated by the United States, whose government claimed that victory as its own and rewrote the newly independent country’s constitution to ensure its dominance. ..."
Jacobin
NY Times: Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90 (Video)
NY Times: Castro’s Revolution, Illustrated
W - Cuban Revolution
W - Fidel Castro
Jacobin: Cuba Before the Revolution
History: Fidel Castro (Video)

Deep South Blues (1999)

"Those who believe that the newer, cruder recording of Mississippi bluesmen playing distorted electric guitars is some newly recorded phenomenon should grab this collection and get straight. In it, they'll find 15 superb homemade performances, all of them put down for posterity in the early '80s, proof that the scene was being documented early and excellently. Kicking off with two dynamite sides from Junior Kimbrough, the set moves on with riveting performances from Jessie Mae Hemphill, R.L. Burnside and the Sound Machine, Hezekiah and the Houserockers, Raymond Hill, Hammie Nixon, Waynell Jones, and Ranie Burnette. This is riveting stuff -- not for the casual blues fan."
allmusic (Video)
Deep South Blues CD
iTunes
YouTube: Tomorrow Night · Junior Kimbrough and the Soul Blues Boys, I Feel Good, Little Girl · Junior Kimbrough and the Soul Blues Boys, Going Down · Raymond Hill, The Chicken Song · Waynell Jones, Jaybird Boogie · Waynell Jones, Hungry Spell · Ranie Burnette, Coal Black Mattie · Ranie Burnette, Roll Me, Baby · Hezekiah and The House Rockers, Bottle up and Go · Hammie Nixon

William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master

The Open Air Breakfast (c. 1888)
"William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) was a brilliant observer, an innovative painter, and a leader in international art circles at the turn of the last century. Rediscover this important and overlooked master, praised for his artistic skill in both oil and pastel, as well as for the variety of his subjects: sympathetic images of women, jewel-like landscapes, views of urban parks, and scenes of children at play. The first complete examination of the artist in more than three decades, 'William Merritt Chase' brings together 80 of the painter’s finest works in both oil and pastel, drawn from public and private collections across the US. ..."
MFA (Video)
Arts Journal
W - William Merritt Chase
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dakota Access Pipeline protests

Wikipedia - "The Dakota Access Pipeline protests, also known by hashtags such as #NoDAPL, are a grassroots movement that began in the spring of 2016 in reaction to the proposed construction of Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline. The proposed pipeline would run from the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, as well as part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. In April, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a Standing Rock Sioux elder, established a camp as a center for cultural preservation and spiritual resistance to the pipeline. Over the summer the camp grew to thousands of people. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Officials to Close Standing Rock Protest Campsite
'From Plymouth Rock To Standing Rock': Mass. Activists Stand Against Dakota Access Pipeline (Video)
The media’s Standing Rock problem looks a lot like its Black Lives Matter problem
VOGUE: Standing Rock Rising (Video)

2016 September: A History and Future of Resistance

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005)

"Published in 2005 by Cassell Illustrated. Selected & written by 90 leading international critics, general editor Robert Dimery. In chronological order 1955-2005. Year of release only given here, when considered absolutely necessary. Where there were differences in UK & US (or other) releases for artists, such as the Beatles & the Rolling Stones, the original country of release edition can be taken to be the one listed, unless indicated otherwise. (ie: for the Rolling Stones’ Aftermath & The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, the UK editions are the ones listed). No compilations were allowed, though, the odd one (The Hives’ Your New Favourite Band, for example) did creep in! ..."
Rock List
Discogs (Video)
W - 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
amazon

Liege & Lief - Fairport Convention (1969)

Wikipedia - "Liege & Lief is the fourth album by the English rock band Fairport Convention. It is the third and final album the group released in the UK in 1969, all of which prominently feature Sandy Denny as lead female vocalist. (Denny does not appear on the group’s debut album from 1968.) It is also the very first Fairport album on which all songs have either been adapted (freely) from traditional British and Celtic folk material (e.g., Matty Groves, Tam Lin), or else are original compositions (e.g., Come All Ye, Crazy Man Michael) written and performed in a similar style. By introducing songs of this genre into the group’s repertoire, Denny, who had previously sung and recorded traditional folk songs as a solo artist, was instrumental in this transformation."
Wikipedia
Features: The Liege & Lief Story
Guardian: 'There was a manic feeling in the air'
BBC: Review
amazon
YouTube: Fairport Convention - Liege and Lief 1969 [FULL ALBUM]

2011 April: Fairport Convention - Maidstone 1970, 2012 August: F is for Fairport Convention, 2013 January: A Sailor’s Life, 2014 April: What We Did on Our Holidays (1969).

We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service - A Tribe Called Quest (2016)

Wikipedia - "We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service is the sixth studio album by American hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest. It was released on November 11, 2016, on Epic Records. The album features guest appearances from André 3000, Kendrick Lamar, Jack White, Elton John, Kanye West, Anderson Paak, Talib Kweli, and the group's most frequent collaborators Consequence and Busta Rhymes. The album features contributions from member Phife Dawg, who died several months prior to the album's release. After The Love Movement, A Tribe Called Quest split up due to relationship issues between group members, effectively rendering The Love Movement as the supposed final album. ..."
Wikipedia
NY Times: Loss Haunts A Tribe Called Quest’s First Album in 18 Years
Pitchfork
iTunes, amazon
YouTube: We The People...., We The People....(Live on SNL)
YouTube: We Got It From Here... Thank You 4 Your Service [Full Album Preview]

2011 May: A Tribe Called Quest, 2014 October: The Low End Theory (1991), 2015 June: Midnight Marauders (1993), 2016 June: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (1990)

Irish pub

Temple Bar - Dublin
Wikipedia - "An Irish pub is an establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. They are characterised by a unique culture centred around a casual and friendly atmosphere, hearty food and drink, Irish sports, and traditional Irish music. Their widespread appeal has led to the Irish pub theme spreading around the world. Irish pubs have existed for roughly a millennium, with the title "oldest pub in Ireland" held by Sean's Bar in Athlone, County Westmeath which was established in the 10th century. ..."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Dublin Pubs, Dublin pubs of the past

Africafunk: Return To The Original Sound Of 1970s Funky Africa

"The second Africa funk compilation is similar to the first, in appearance, sounds as well as artists. If there is a difference it is that the most R&B-influenced numbers have left place for purer funk. But that is just a little shift, and an artist like Fela Kuti of course plays Afro-beat and nothing else. As a dance record, this is more solid than the former collection, but doesn't reach the same ecstatic heights. And in a way that makes it a little less interesting, and the distance to American '70s funk a little shorter. The question is probably if you want to discover how modern African '70s music was, and how close to its counterparts across the seas, or if you want to discover unique African sounds. This album is a little more geared at the first."
allmusic
Discogs
YouTube: Africa Funk - The Original Sound of 70´s ( Full Album )
01-The Rwenzori's - Handsome Boy (E Wara) (Pts. 1 & 2) 02-Buari - Ku Ka Maria 03-Matata - I Feel Funky 04-Ice - Time Will Tell 05-Kongas - Anikana-O 06-Vecchio - Nsambei 07-Wisdom - Nefertiti 08-Fela Kuti - Roforofo Fight 09-Tony Allen - N.E.P.A. (Never Expect Power Always) 10-Manu Dibango - Big Blow 11-Antibalas with Jojo Quo - Uprising (Pts. 1 & 2)

John Cage: Lecture on the Weather (1975)

Lecture on the Weather, 1975
"In the lead-up to America’s presidential election, Frith Street Gallery and the John Cage Trust join to present a unique iteration of a still prescient work by the seminal American composer, artist, and writer, John Cage. Lecture on the Weather (1975) was originally conceived as a work for either radio or the stage, as a commission from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to mark the Bicentennial of the USA. It will be presented at Frith Street Gallery in a new installation based on materials captured at an important 2007 performance at Bard College in upstate New York, featuring an extraordinary cast, including Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Leon Botstein, John Ralston Saul, and others. ..."
Frith Street Gallery
YouTube: "Lecture on the Weather" 1976, by John Cage (excerpt)

Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction

"Francis Picabia: Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction is a comprehensive survey of Picabia’s audacious, irreverent, and profoundly influential work across mediums. This will be the first exhibition in the United States to chart his entire career. Among the great modern artists of the past century, Francis Picabia (French, 1879–1953) also remains one of the most elusive. He vigorously avoided any singular style, and his work encompassed painting, poetry, publishing, performance and film. Though he is best known as one of the leaders of the Dada movement, his career ranged widely—and wildly—from Impressionism to radical abstraction, from Dadaist provocation to pseudo-classicism, and from photo-based realism to art informel. ..."
MoMA (Video)
WSJ: Francis Picabia at MoMA Review
artbook

Frozen in Time - Gino’s Italian ices

"Every autumn, Italian ice shops like Ralph’s and Uncle Louie G’s close their storefronts. The freezer carts in which Marino’s ices are kept disappear from pizzerias. And local Italian ice factories, like Gino’s in Sunset Park, close for winter hibernation. The last licks of Italian ices mark the end of New York summer and have for over half a century. But every year, tracking down these Italian ices becomes more difficult. Glossy all-glass storefronts replace grungy pizzerias, and white Gino’s signs, with their iconic orange piping around the perimeter, disappear from store windows. Along with the ices, a certain romantic notion of summertime in Brooklyn is disintegrating as well. ..."
BKLYNR
W - Italian ices

Patti Smith - Twelve (2007)

"According to her brief liner notes, Patti Smith indulged the idea of a covers album, considering songs as far back as 1978 on the back pages of Jean Genet's Thief's Journal when she was still assembling her groundbreaking early catalog; it's evident she feels that covers have been part and parcel of her recording experience from the outset. Her debut, Horses, has her own apocalyptic version of Van Morrison's 'Gloria' as well as a healthy portion of Chris Kenner's 'Land of a Thousand Dances' inside 'Land.' On 1979's Wave she covered the Byrds 'So You Want to Be (A Rock and Roll Star),' and scored with the single. Her intuitive reading of Bob Dylan's 'Wicked Messenger' was a beautiful aspect of Gone Again in 1996, and she paid tribute to Allen Ginsberg by using one of his poems in 'Spell,' on 1997's Peace and Noise. ..."
allmusic
W - Twelve
amazon
YouTube: Changing Of The Guards, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Gimme Shelter (Live), Within You Without You

A love letter to the lyrics of Levi Stubbs’ Tears by Billy Bragg

"That is not your average opening line. Most pop songs don’t get all in your face from the get-go, certainly not with a masterpiece of compact, single-sentence story telling such as this. Billy Bragg dispenses with the pleasantries in favour of a narrative gauntlet. He throws down the most heavily loaded of lyrics. It is a complete and self-contained twelve word story, but it begs so many questions about possible pasts and possible futures and possible protagonists. You could rewind from here, or fast forward. You could pull out or zoom in. You want to do all of these things. ..."
The Spectator (Video)

2011 November: Billy Bragg, 2012 November: Strange Things Happen (Live on The Tube 1984), 2012 December: The Internationale, 2013 May: Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions, 2014 June: Tooth & Nail (2013), 2014 September: Peel Session, 2014 December: Don't Try This at Home (1991), 2015 April: Between the Wars EP (1985), 2016 August: Workers Playtime (1987).

Venezuela, a Failing State

"... Public health in Venezuela is, in fact, getting rapidly worse. In 1961, Venezuela was the first country declared free of malaria. Now its robust malaria-­prevention program has collapsed, and there are more than a hundred thousand cases of malaria yearly. Other diseases and ailments long vanquished have also returned—malnutrition, diphtheria, plague. The government releases few statistics, but it is estimated that one out of every three patients admitted to a public hospital today dies there. State mental hospitals, lacking both food and medications, have been reduced to putting emaciated, untreated patients out on the streets. ..."
New Yorker

Rally in Brooklyn Park Condemns Swastikas and ‘Go Trump’ Graffiti

"On Friday, swastikas and the words 'Go Trump' were discovered in graffiti on a jungle gym in Brooklyn Heights. By Sunday, the scrawl had been erased and in its place was a pile of marigolds, chrysanthemums and tiny paper hearts as a rally echoed across the playground, condemning the failure of President-elect Donald J. Trump to address a rash of hate crimes linked to his name. ... At the rally on Sunday, his longtime bandmate Adam Horovitz, known as Ad-Rock, called on New Yorkers to reject the hateful messages of the defacement and many other episodes in New York in recent weeks against Muslims, blacks and other minority groups. ..."
NY Times
The ‘Alt-Right’ Is A Hate Movement, And It’s Scarier Than You Think
NY Times: Alt-Right Exults in Donald Trump’s Election With a Salute: ‘Heil Victory’
W - Alt-right
NY Times: ‘White Nationalism,’ Explained

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 April: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA, 2016 November: Scenes From Anti-Trump Protests, 2016 November: Rust Belt, 2016 November: Autocracy: Rules for Survival

Top 10 Clash Songs

"These aren’t the only songs that matter for 'the only band that matters,' but the Top 10 Clash Songs are a decent place to start. It’s not easy representing every facet of this British band, which began as a punk outfit then – at lightning speed – began to take on reggae, ska, rockabilly, power pop, R&B, dance music and even hip-hop. The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long and the Clash could only hold its core lineup together for a few years. But while they did, they burned so very, very brightly. Here are 10 shining examples. ..."
Ultimate Classic Rock (Video)
The 10 best songs by The Clash (Video)
StereoGum (Video)
The Top Tens (Video)
10 Best Clash Songs (Video)
The Clash: 10 of the best (Video)

In Oakland, an Arts Space Bounces Back From a Shooting

"Naming Gallery in Oakland, California, is a multi-purpose arts space where people congregate on Saturday nights. This 360 documentary explores the how the arts center has become a staple for young artists to congregate, despite the fact that it exists in a historically beleaguered neighborhood. In August 2016, a fatal shooting occurred outside the gallery where hundreds of people were celebrating. ..."
The Atlantic (Video)

Gasoline Alley - Rod Stewart (1970)

"Gasoline Alley follows the same formula of Rod Stewart's first album, intercutting contemporary covers with slightly older rock & roll and folk classics and originals written in the same vein. The difference is in execution. Stewart sounds more confident, claiming Elton John's 'Country Comfort,' the Small Faces' 'My Way of Giving,' and the Rolling Stones' version of 'It's All Over Now' with a ragged, laddish charm. Like its predecessor, nearly all of Gasoline Alley is played on acoustic instruments -- Stewart treats rock & roll songs like folk songs, reinterpreting them in individual, unpredictable ways. ..."
allmusic
Rod Stewart’s Unequaled Masterpiece (Video)
W - Gasoline Alley
Rolling Stone
amazon
iTunes
YouTube: Gasoline Alley (Live)
YouTube: Gasoline Alley, Country Comfort, Cut Across Shorty

Is Rock ’n’ Roll Dead, or Just Old?

Watkins Glen in 1973
"This has been a bad year for music legends. First David Bowie, Glenn Frey and Maurice White. Then Prince and George Martin. In the most recent sobering sequence, Leonard Cohen and Leon Russell. We have to face it — rock has grown old. Nothing brings out the indignation of a certain kind of rock ’n’ roll fan like the suggestion that the music of Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and other iconoclasts has aged with its audience. It’s like telling people they are someday going to die — it may be true, but no one wants to hear it, and anyway, why spoil the party? ..."
NY Times
Like It Is: Bob Dylan Explains What Really Killed Rock ’n’ Roll
W - Summer Jam at Watkins Glen

The Best American Comics 2016: Roz Chast, Bill Kartalopoulos (2016)

"I read this year’s Best American Comics on the train and I loved it all the more for doing so–but more on that later. Bill Kartalopoulos is the series editor and this year’s editor is Roz Chast. Even if you think you don’t know enough about the contemporary American comics scene, you probably know Roz Chast’s work in The New Yorker. So nothing to worry about, even Roz Chast doesn’t think of herself as exceptionally knowledgable about the current comics scene. However, Bill Kartalopoulos knew right away that, no matter how splintered the comics scene may be, here was a legendary cartoonist, with a wealth of experience, insight, and a very special kind of irreverence. ..."
Comics Grinder
amazon

John Mayall - Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton (1966)

"Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton was Eric Clapton's first fully realized album as a blues guitarist -- more than that, it was a seminal blues album of the 1960s, perhaps the best British blues album ever cut, and the best LP ever recorded by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Standing midway between Clapton's stint with the Yardbirds and the formation of Cream, this album featured the new guitar hero on a series of stripped-down blues standards, Mayall pieces, and one Mayall/Clapton composition, all of which had him stretching out in the idiom for the first time in the studio. ..."
allmusic
W - Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton
BBC
amazon
YouTube: Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Full Album)

Skerries

SKerries Harbour, photographed by Robert French between 1865 and 1914.
"Located on the east coast of Ireland 18 miles north of Dublin, Skerries is a town comprising part of the coastline and a group of islands in the Irish Sea. The seaside locale is mentioned twice in Dubliners as a vacation destination frequented by the Kearney family in 'A Mother'. ... Although it is referenced as a place the Kearneys visit, like all such destinations in Dubliners, it is never an actual setting where the story’s events happen. All the action in Dubliners takes place, appropriately though perhaps disappointingly to the Dubliners themselves, in Dublin. ... Skerries by itself seems, as a reference, somewhat insignificant. It’s a small fishing town on the coast that, in Joyce’s day, served as both an industrial and leisure center. ..."
Mapping Dubliners Project

2011 March: Passages from James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" (1965-67), 2010 March: Ulysses Seen, 2013 February: ULYSSES “SEEN” is moving to Dublin!, 2013: Dubliners, 2014 May: The Dead (1987 film), 2014 May: “Have I Ever Left It?” by Mark O'Connell, 2014 July: Digital Dubliners, 2014 September: Read "Ulysses Seen", A Graphic Novel Adaptation of James Joyce’s Classic, 2015 January: The Mapping Dubliners Project, 2015 February: Davy Byrne’s, 2016 January: Port and Docks, 2016 February: Hear James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake Read Unabridged & Set to Music By 17 Different Artists, 2016 April: Nassau Street, 2016 May: Stephen’s Green, 2016 October: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916).

The History of Rhythm and Blues 1942-1952

"... Rhythm & Blues was one of the most identifiable musical art forms of the 20th Century, with an enormous influence on the development of both the sound and attitude of modern music. The History of Rhythm and Blues series of CDs investigates the accidental synthesis of jazz, gospel, blues, ragtime, country, pop and latin into a definable form of black music, which in turn would influence pretty well all popular music from the 1950s to the present. It is the first attempt to put together a cross-label compilation showcasing the most important and influential records in the rise of Rhythm & Blues. Volume Two investigates the transition from race music through sepia to Rhythm & Blues; the growing importance of radio; the rise of the independent record labels, the 45rpm record and the jukebox and looks at the rhythms behind the blues from shuffle and jump through rumba to rock’n’roll and beyond. ..."
Acrobat Music
Discogs
amazon
iTunes
YouTube: The History of Rhythm & Blues Part Two: 1942-1952, Vol. 1, Vol. 2

Edward Dorn Reads from The North Atlantic Turbine (1967)

The North Atlantic Turbine (London: Fulcrum Press, 1967).
"... Edward Dorn comes from Villa Grove, Illinois, a small town on a secret confluence of the Wabash. he was born in the Spring of 1929. There was no flood that year, all the noney haveing been carried off by a few men of vision. In fact that year was the beginning of a long spell of dry weather all over the world. ..."
UbuWeb (Video)
MIMEOMIMEO
Jacket2 - With what geometry (PoemTalk #101)(Video)

2007 December: Edward Dorn, 1929-1999, 2014 September: Tom Clark - Edward Dorn (1929-1999), 2015 November: The Collected Poems 1956 - 1974, 2015 December: Recollections of Gran Apachería (1974), 2016 April: By the Sound (1965), 2016 July: Gunslinger.

Political Fiction: Music and Partisan Violence in Jamaica

"The Caribbean island of Jamaica has long been blighted by unacceptably high levels of politically motivated violence, a nightmarish by-product of its firmly entrenched two-party political system. This podcast reveals the early beginnings of Jamaica’s dramatic partisan divisions, and highlights the role that the island’s music has played in commenting on and challenging such divides. Produced and hosted by David Katz and Saxon Baird."
Afropop (SOUNDCLOUD)

L.A.M.F. - Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers (1977)

Wikipedia - "L.A.M.F. is the only studio album by the American band The Heartbreakers, which included Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Walter Lure and Billy Rath. The music is a mixture of punk, R&B and rock and roll. ... The original, vinyl release of the album has been criticised for having a lackluster sound, despite several attempts to remix it. The Heartbreakers had been trying to get a record contract in the United States since their formation in 1975. In the fall of 1976, Malcolm McLaren, who had informally managed the New York Dolls in their waning days, invited the band to come to England and participate in the Sex Pistols' Anarchy tour, along with The Clash and The Damned, who were replaced by Buzzcocks shortly after the tour commenced. ..."
Wikipedia
"L.A.M.F.T.M.J.B. - A Mixed Attempt For The Best Mixes", "L.A.M.F. - Original U.K. Cassette Mix" (Cassette/Tape, Track - 1977)
amazon: L.A.M.F.: The Lost '77 Mixes
Discogs
YouTube: Born To Lose (Live), Chinese Rocks
YouTube: L.A.M.F. (full album, original cassette mix) 33:46, HEARTBREAKERS 'LAMF - definitive edition' 3xLP gatefold & booklet - the inside view

Here Comes the Whitney Biennial, Reflecting the Tumult of the Times

Henry Taylor in his downtown Los Angeles studio.
"FOR the first time in 20 years, the lead-up to the Whitney Biennial coincided with the presidential election, a background that could not help but inform the selection of artists and artwork that will be on view when the biennial opens on March 17, the first in the museum’s new downtown building. ... On Thursday, the Whitney revealed the 63 participants in its sprawling survey of what’s happening now in contemporary art — the new, the influential and the potentially provocative. ..."
NY Times

Autocracy: Rules for Survival

"'Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.' ..."
NYBook
NY Times: Scenes From Five Days of Anti-Trump Protests Across a Divided Nation (Video)

2016 January: Donald Trump and the Joys of Toy Fascism, 2016 January: Sanders Is Not Trump, 2016 January: Donald Trump’s Twitter Insults: The Complete List (So Far), 2016 April: Lost in TRUMPLANDIA, 2016 November: Scenes From Anti-Trump Protests, 2016 November: Rust Belt

Edith Schloss Burckhardt Archive

Alvin Curran, Caspar, Edith Schloss Burckhardt, Richard Teitelbaum, Barbara Mayfield, Nicole and Frederic Rzewski in the Piazza Navona in Rome, ca. 1970.
"Avant-garde composer and musician Alvin Curran has written about his meeting with artist, writer, and critic Edith Schloss Burckhardt during his first years in Rome: 'In that same settling-in period I met Edith Schloss, an Offenbach-born New York painter just divorced from photographer-painter Rudy Burckhardt. She arrived on a cloud of combustible materials which included the entire New York Abstract Expressionist movement, the Cedar Bar, Art News, MOMA, the Art Students League and Balanchine Stravinsky the Carters Edwin Denby de Kooning Twombly Feldman Cage Brown Rothko Cunningham Pollack her beloved Morandi and of course ‘Piero’ (della Francesca)...'"
Granary Books

Paris: One Year On

A wounded man was evacuated at the Bataclan concert hall on Nov. 13, 2015. In all, 90 people were killed in the attack there.
"The night of Nov. 13, 2015, Islamic State militants attacked eight places in and around Paris, killing 130 people and wounding nearly 500. It was the most lethal attack in France since World War II. Confusion gripped the city as two teams of attackers struck nearly simultaneously. One struck at the Stade de France, just outside Paris, while the other shot up cafes and bars in the hip 10th and 11th Arrondissements. About 20 minutes later, a third team of attackers entered the Bataclan concert hall in the same neighborhood, taking hostages and killing scores. The New York Times interviewed 27 people who witnessed parts of those events and asked them to recount what they experienced: suicide bombs, gunfire, the terror of near death. ..."
NY Times (Video)

2015 November: Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS, 2015 November: After Paris Attacks, a Slow Reawakening for City’s Cultural Offerings