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Nightlights

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Au Revoir Simone's excellent, slightly darker third album Still Night, Still Light came out last week. Here's an interview I did with them a few years back for vmagazine.com.

5 QUESTIONS FOR AU REVOIR SIMONE

Brooklyn girls Heather D'Angelo, Erika Forster, and Annie Hart are out with their second album as Au Revoir Simone, and with equal parts romantic natural world and '80s new wave winding its way through the keyboards, it feels like the perfect accompaniment to summer in the city. They took a little break from their current tour (with Peter Bjorn & John and Voxtrot) to answer our questionnaire.

1. How did Au Revoir Simone come together as a group?
We wanted to form a keyboard collective, drinking tea and chit-chatting and staying up late learning cover songs.

2. What are you working on right now?
We are touring to support our new album The Bird Of Music, and having a lovely time! We played a BBC radio session today and we're playing a really fun party in London tonight. We have our sights on Japan this summer and festivals in Europe as well as our first U.S. headlining tour.

3. What has been inspiring you lately?
Erika: Meeting people who are exceptional. Also, reaching the state of delirium which often brings lots of creativity with it.
Annie: Gandhi
Heather: Gliese 581c

4. Describe your aesthetic.
Erika: Timeless, universal
Annie: I don't know
Heather: Magical realism, if that makes any sense. Renaissance fairs and the like.

5. Who are your heroes?
Erika: John and Yoko
Annie: Gloria Steinem
Heather: Dr. Charles Liu, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Dr. Maggie Turnbull, and my little brother, Jonathan

Still Night, Still Light is out now on limited edition 10" vinyl among other formats. More info and sound clips at aurevoirsimone.com


An older favorite:
Au Revoir Simone Through the Backyards mp3
(live version from PRI's Fair Game)
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Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the cross-hairs. And take them down.

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Jim Dine, Five Feet of Colorful Tools, 1962

I just saw the artist list for the Seattle Art Museum's upcoming show, Target Practice: Painting under Attack, 1949-78, and it looks incredible: John Baldessari, Lynda Benglis, Mel Bochner, Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, Lucio Fontana, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Lee Lozano, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Richard Pettibone, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, and Lawrence Weiner, among many others too numerous to list here.

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept, Waiting, 1960

Not only is it an impressive group of artists both passed on and presently working, but I'm happy to see that the curator (SAM's Michael Darling) apparently saw fit to focus this show not just upon artists whose attacks on the conventions of painting occurred at a literal, physical level, but also those who challenged the privileged position of paint on canvas on more fundamental – ideological and conceptual – grounds. While it would be an understatement to say that it's a lot of territory to cover in one show, I'm definitely excited to see how it comes off.

Dan Flavin, Untitled (to Henri Matisse), 1964

Darling will present an overview of the exhibit on June 5 as part of SAM's First Fridays lecture series. The show opens to the public on June 25.

Mel Bochner, Language Is Not Transparent, 1970

Memorial Day

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Palouse, WA

Between Two Ferns with Bradley Cooper

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The Media is the Message

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John Wood Loon Drawer and Bomb, 1987

Images from two current shows exhibiting the work of photographic manipulator John Wood (1922–).

John Wood My Lai Massacre, 1969

John Wood: Quiet Protest is up at ICP through September 6th, and On the Edge of Meaning at NYU's Grey Art Gallery through July 18th.

John Wood Cooling Tower and Cactus, 1989-90. Karen Rosenberg in today's New York Times: "These works mimic the typological approach of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s studies of water towers, but with a conscience."

Many more images here.
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Your Weekly Mr. Littlejeans

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meh

Pray for Pills

I don't really give dictation or whatever but if I had this little Chill Pill iPod microphone maybe I would start. There are honestly not that many gadgets I want right now but I might have to lay down $15 for this. More info at Turntable Lab.
They also have these Chill Pill portable speakers which believe it or not are supposed to be pretty loud.

Modeselector : Review

Berliner techno monster Modeselektor was in Seattle to play a show last night (exclaiming via twitter "everything in Seattle is Organic!"). We showed up way early, way tipsy and got ready to rave. Just a few thoughts before I segway into the pictures (which are more fun anyway):
Modeselektor can be hit or miss. When his beats are ON you want to go crazy and jump around, adrenaline-gone-wild kind of thing, especially with the sound system on crank. (See: Weed Wit The Macka, the Happy Birthday Remix EP, etc.) But when he's off, like last night, (See: Moderat- his collaboration effort with frenemy Apparat) things can get a bit fuzzy and lose their grip. I'm not writing him off though, I'd see him again...


On a side note, he does have a talent, albeit somewhat bizarre, for good album cover art. Get on itunes and look at not only his latest cover art but the cover for the Moderat album. Good stuff.

myspace links:

http://www.myspace.com/mdslktr
http://www.myspace.com/teapartiesgunsnvalor
http://www.myspace.com/nordicsoul

Man on the Edge

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Yesterday's Loner, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 12-film Steve McQueen festival, opens today at the Walter Reade Theater. Even when we lived in New York, Lincoln Center seemed as far away from Brooklyn as it does now from Seattle, but many of the films in the festival are on DVD, and the list provides a good study guide for packing the queue with McQueen classics:

-Bullitt
-The Cincinnati Kid
-An Enemy of the People
-The Getaway
-The Great Escape
-Love with the Proper Stranger
-The Magnificent Seven
-Nevada Smith -Papillon
-The Sand Pebbles
-The Thomas Crown Affair
-The Towering Inferno

Of course the big screen is always better though, and if you're at the actual festival (as opposed to the homemade one in your living room), an added bonus is that a number of guests will be on hand to introduce the films: Candice Bergen for The Sand Pebbles, David Forster for The Getaway, Norman Jewison for both The Cincinnati Kid and The Thomas Crown Affair, Robert Vaughn for The Magnificent Seven, and more. Click here for more info.

While we're at it, some stills and other photos to round it out:

McQueen at the California Junior Boys Republic reformatory in Chino Hills, 1963. He credited the school with turning his life around when he was a juvenile petty thief, and would often return to visit and hang out with the kids.

McQueen's first wife, Neile Adams, was born in Manila and spent 18 months during the war imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines.

McQueen with his cat, "Kitty Kat"

McQueen with Natalie Wood

With Peggy Moffatt in front of McQueen's 1963 Ferrari GT Berlinetta Lusso. Photo by William Claxton

Steve McQueen and Tuesday Weld

McQueen with Ann Margret and Tuesday Weld

McQueen with Faye Dunaway and Norman Jewison on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair

Steve McQueen and Jacqueline Bisset in Bullitt

McQueen on set with Ali McGraw (who would become his second wife) and Sam Peckinpah

McQueen on the covers of Harper's Bazaar (photo by Richard Avedon) and Sports Illustrated

Click here for more info on the festival .
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Good Guy

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A few images from Unseen Guy Bourdin, an exhibition of 32 previously unseen Bourdin photographs currently on at The Wapping Project in London.



More images and info here.

Legal Downloads of the Mind

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The Kills' Allison Mosshart and Jamie Hince stopped by TBTL to chat with Luke Burbank before their show here on Friday, and they played a few songs to boot. Interesting, funny, and worth a listen.

Also worth checking out: The Kills have a bunch of cool photos (and other info) on their website.