Wu-Tang x Wooooo Magazine pumpkin by yours truly. (New issue of Wooooo out now with James Franco on the cover... one of the more brilliantly designed magazines I've ever seen.)
Jamie and Annie at Twinline
Jamie's brilliant kitty-cat pumpkin
Jamie and Emily (yes I'm on Instagram now though I don't really know how to use it)
Flowers Emily got me when I came back from New York
Excellent semi-new Seattle stuff – Dude York: Satanic Vs. See also: Gangs of Dude York (Download for free here)
(hat tip Andrew Matson) (photo: Chelsea, NYC, October 2011) Bonus: The Assassination of Kurt Cobain by the Coward Dude York Live at the Comet, June 2011
Chad VanGaalen "Red Hot Drops" from Skelliconnection (2006, Flemish Eye/Sub Pop).
Lots of great shows in Seattle tonight – Gang Gang Dance with Stephanie at Neumos, Pica Beats at the Comet, the list goes on – but I'm a huge fan of Chad VanGaalen and have never seen him live, so we're heading for the Sunset.
Bas Jan AderFall 1, Los Angeles, 1970 – on view through Saturday October 15th in the group show Perfect Man II, curated by Rita Ackermann and Parinaz Mogadassi, at White Columns.
Perfect man can kill a tarantula with a broom in a businesslike manner, half-afraid.
Perfect man is the tarantula and the broom.
One of the best shows I saw this past week in New York City.
...Also a reminder to Strath that I'm going to be super bummed if he doesn't go to the retrospective at MoMA while he's in New York this week. I told him that he'd probably stand in the middle of the first gallery and vomit from the sheer force of it all. (That was before I read Jerry Saltz's review: "the most piercing, inexhaustible, and relentlessly intense full-on career survey I have ever seen in this country.") So, there you have it. Two good reasons to go.
. Free Time Industries' 2012 Naturalist Almanac (Offset print, 23.5" x 23.5"), $43.
Starting at the center, the almanac tells you how to find the North Star, length of daylight, solstices, seasons, daylight savings, important days, living via the astrological signs, and keep track of moon and menstrual cycles. The almanac also gives seasonal information on topics such as hunting, fishing, foraging, building, health, gardening, raising ducks, weaving, raising bees, starting fires, and natural cleaning methods. The almanac is meant to be rotated at each season, creating a new ritual for the passing of time.
. Kind of a controversial figure depending on who you ask, but no one would argue her influence on hip-hop, being the founder of Sugarhill Records. She died yesterday at the age of 75.
Sugarhill Gang "Rapper's Delight" (1979, Sugar Hill 12") It's not what the song is known for but I could listen to the intro on loop for about three days.
Robinson had a bunch of hits of her own and with the duo Mickey & Sylvia, but to me she's most significant for the labels she founded with her husband Joe and the talent they engendered. Here are a few favorites from All Platinum Records, the label they founded before Sugar Hill.
Willie & the Mighty Magnificents "Funky 8 Corners Pt. 2" (1969, All Platinum 7")
Retta Young "Sending Out and S.O.S." (1975, All Platinum 7"). What can I say, I like those little telegraph beeps.
Wood, Brass & Steel "My Lady" from Wood, Brass & Steel (1976, Turbo Records, a subsidiary of All Platinum). Wood Brass & Steel was basically the backing band for the Sugarhill Gang – before samples the labels would hire bands to play music for MCs to rap over. The double-snare in this song kind of kills me.
I think Sylvia Robinson may have also co-founded Stang Records, which deserves its own post. Read the New York Times' obituary here.
. Dries Van Noten Spring/Summer 2012. Really cool with shorts or short pants and a tan, IMHO.
Images via style.com. I haven't had time to check out a ton of shows – and Emily has been completely swamped or she'd be posting this, or something like it – but Dries is one of my favorites so far. Here's the whole thing:
. Draw Blood for Proof is a forthcoming book by photographer Mario Sorrenti, to be published this December by Steidl.
Initially conceived as a personal project on the walls of Sorrenti’s New York loft, the material in Draw Blood for Proof eventually found its way onto gallery walls as a large-scale installation piece in 2004. Papering the site from floor to ceiling with layers of collected snapshots, contact sheets, prints, Polaroids and ephemera drawn from over fifteen years of work, Sorrenti’s collection was a unique look into the artist’s diaristic creative process, going beyond ideas of public and private production.
Sorrenti is one of my favorite photographers, but he has published very few books, so I was excited to find out this is on the way. More info at Steidleville.
A few views of the 2004 exhibition at Andrew Roth gallery are below.
.This doesn't look like much but I was kind of proud of this morning's invention – 2 eggs + oats + canned jalapeños & carrots (a gift from Jillian and Corey but you can use La Moreña). If I had some scallions I would have put those in too.
The Raincoats "Shouting Out Loud" from Odyshape (1981, Rough Trade) – recently re-released by the Raincoats' own label, We ThRee, with liner notes by Kim Gordon. I enjoyed Mikey IQ Jones' review of the album in this week's Other Music Update – here it is in full:
The Raincoats' second album, Odyshape, has long been a personal favorite, a record of strength through failure and of constructing new landscapes from pieces of puzzle whose shapes do not make logical sense, but whose emotional resonances sound deeply. Released in 1981, the group had lost drummer Palmolive before the start of the recording; her primal rhythms were one of the defining elements of the group's debut, and rather than try to replicate her attack here, they instead left her sonic space vacant, constructing songs out of many small, interlocking bits of rhythm, often played on instruments mostly unfamiliar to the band. Many African percussion instruments were used, with kalimbas and balafon utilized throughout, and the girls often swapped instruments as well, adding a greater sense of foreign unfamiliarity to the sounds created. The results were, and remain, striking; folk forms, both of an English and African variety, dominate, but nothing can be traced back to record-collector roots in the way a group like the Slits' love for dub reggae and Afrobeat left such distinct fingerprints on their own catalogue. This album remains one of the most unique and truly forward-looking records of the post-punk era in that it sees the Raincoats creating a new language out of personal need rather than gain; traditional songforms are recognized but never subscribed, and guest appearances by percussionists Robert Wyatt and This Heat/Camberwell Now's Charles Hayward give a nod to the era's other reconstructionists who worked in realms where the personal and political were held with balanced weight, and whose own works from this period (namely Wyatt's Old Rottenhat and Camberwell Now's The Ghost Trade albums) mine similar territory. It's hard to imagine someone like Tune-Yards or even St. Vincent making albums like their last respective works without giving a nod to the bridges built by the Raincoats, and Odyshape is one of the most important yet overlooked pieces of the band's discography.
. Lisette Model: Sammy's Bar, 1945 (Gelatin silver print, 19 5/8 x 15 1/2 inches) on view at Bruce Silverstein Gallery through November 12th as a part of the show Self Reflections: The Expressionist Origins of Lisette Model.
. Lightning People is the debut novel by Christopher Bollen, who I used to work with at V Magazine. Can't wait to read it. If you're in NYC, he'll be appearing tomorrow at 7PM at Barnes & Noble Union Square, along with the electrifying Eleanor Friedberger (Fiery Furnaces), who will perform songs from her recent solo album, Last Summer.
Pick up Lightning People from the Strand, Powell's, or wherever you buy your classic New York novels.
. Willem de Ridder: European Mail-order Warehouse/Fluxshop, Winter 1964–65. From the show Thing/Thought: Fluxus Editions, 1962–1978, today through January 16, 2012, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. More info here. (Photo by Wim van der Linden/MAI; MoMA/Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift)
. Natural Gas "The All Powerful Man" from Natural Gas (1969, Firebird). A semi-cheesy piece of Canadian psych/fusion/prog that for some odd reason has been stuck in my head for the past couple weeks (primarily the breakdown starting at 2:46).
I picked this copy up on a roadtrip through Halifax. Anyway, like I say, kind of cheesy but a pretty listenable album and I recommend picking it up if you find it.
Pacific Standard issue no.1 covers: top, Abby Brothers by Michael Donovan; bottom, Alexis Schuster by Charlie Schuck. Select image above for more information.
Chad VanGaalen at the Sunset Tavern in Ballard
BOO HOO by Theresa
Dalen rocking shit on the turntables at Twinline Motorcycles party
Wu-Tang x Wooooo Magazine pumpkin by yours truly. (New issue of Wooooo out now with James Franco on the cover... one of the more brilliantly designed magazines I've ever seen.)
Jamie and Annie at Twinline
Jamie's brilliant kitty-cat pumpkin
Jamie and Emily (yes I'm on Instagram now though I don't really know how to use it)
Flowers Emily got me when I came back from New York
