Feel Your Love Tonight

Tonight I'll be playing records and my brother Sky will be tending bar at Arrow, aka The Rook, in the East Village. There is no format except for me playing my favorite songs, both of all time and of right this second—so you can expect to hear Gang Starr next to The Emotions, Cortex after Kevin Drew, Beat Happening and The United States of America and Don Pierce. Maybe even some Sillhouettes and Chips. A gigantic jukebox that is yours truly.

Please stop by for some drinks and good-time feelings.

Arrow aka The Rook
85 Avenue A (between 5th and 6th)
Friday, May 23, 9pm—

Surely You're Happy

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Today is Morrissey's 49th birthday. Happy birthday, Morrissey.

The Smiths are not my favorite band of all time or anything, but I am a huge fan, and they are one of the few bands I will happily listen to over and over. Still, I am regularly surprised at the level of obsession grown people are capable of when it comes to this person—it has really gotten out of control. The cult of Morrissey in New York seemed to hit a frenzied peak maybe four years ago when Sway was in full swing, and has waned since. But when you least expect it, freakish obsession still rears its head from time to time.

Apparently there IS a light that never goes out!

(Admittedly lame, couldn't help it, the exclamation point tells you I know it's lame... !)

With all of that in mind, this week Wonting asked friends to name their favorite Morrissey songs. I never got that into his solo stuff much, so all of mine are Smiths songs, and here they are.

1. What Difference Does It Make?
There was a period of time working at Visionaire when we literally listened to The Smiths all day every day, and by the end this was the only song I still wasn't tired of.

2. Half a Person
The first time I came to New York, I stayed in the YMCA, so for whatever reason I retroactively feel some kind of connection with this song, though I never engaged in back-scrubbery.

3. How Soon Is Now
I borrowed this record from my friend Michelle and never gave it back. Is that stealing? How can you say? (! -ed.)

4. William, It Was Really Nothing
Being from Seattle I feel a weird kind of angsty pride when he sings "the rain falls hard in a hum-drum town/this town has dragged you down."

5. (3-way tie!)
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore
What She Said
I think I like these songs for the same reason I enjoyed reading Less Than Zero six times in a row in high school. "I've seen this happen in other people's lives, and now it's happening in mine." There's a sort of salty detachment there that I identify with for whatever reason. I think a lot of my feelings about Smiths songs would best be described using sentences that end with "for whatever reason."

This image is from Irregular Regulars (Team Gallery, 2007), Ryan McGinley's series of crowd photographs from Morrissey shows. (More images and an interview at vmagazine.com.)

In Deep Concentration

No time for a gigantic original post today, so here's an interesting excerpt from a 2004 interview with DJ Premier I ran across while working on a book for Wax Poetics:

Andrew Mason: How important is it when you’re making hip-hop music to be well rounded in the culture?

DJ Premier: To me, it’s very important. That’s why I keep it funky like I always do. I don’t care if people criticize and say my stuff sounds similar to this or this, it don’t bother me none. I’m a true DJ and I know a good record when I hear it. Everybody doesn’t have the ear for this. I have an ear that’s beyond most human beings’ ears when it comes to music. My library, all hip-hop put aside, what I listen to at the crib, you can’t front on it. I play nothing but raw shit. I like rock music, all that. AC/DC, Rush, Pat Benetar, Joan Jett, Simple Minds, Yes, Led Zeppelin, the Cars, I know my shit! Blue Oyster Cult, I can go any direction!

I used to be one of the only people in my high school who would wear the punk rock gear, with the double belts, the boots and all that! I wasn’t afraid of that at all. At that time, that was the rebel style. That went into hip-hop culture too, because I remember how Flash and them was dressed, with the leather and spikes and all. That punk rock and New Wave era was dope. You can’t even compare it to the “punk” that’s out now, you gotta know about groups like Fad Gadget, Tones on Tail, Bauhaus, old Depeche Mode, the Smiths. Morrissey is gay and I understood his lyrics for what they were saying, but at the same time I liked his music. It was dope and you can’t front on it. I respected him with an open mind. Most people who are homophobic have some problems that way anyway, so I wasn’t really afraid of it. They’re just human beings and that’s their preference. But I was into the Smiths, I was into Souxsie and the Banshees, Devo, the B-52s, Talk Talk, I went to all those concerts. As a matter of fact, I found my memory book from high school and I got mad concert tickets of all kinds of shows I went to. I’ve been to see AC/DC millions of times, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, Genesis, all that.

And here are some of my favorite Premier-produced tracks:
Jeru the Damaja Invasion MP3
Krumbsnatcha Gettin' Closer to God MP3
Chubb Rock, OC, and Jeru Crooklyn MP3
Notorious BIG Machine Gun Funk (unreleased Remix) MP3

Hedz Ain't Ready

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Wes Lang, Tits and Flags..., 2008, mixed media on antique paper, 22 x 27 inches

Are You Ready for the Country?, the third show at ZieherSmith gallery by Brooklyn artist Wes Lang, opens this Thursday. Again, not to get all repetitive, but ZieherSmith is kind of killing it right now, in my humble opinion.

I'll Sail My Ship Alone..., 2008, mixed media on antique paper, 13 5/8 x 11 5/16 inches

The Taste Of Life's Sweet Wine..., 2008, mixed media on antique paper, 22 x 27 inches

Buy US Bongs..., 2008, mixed media on antique paper, 22 x 26 7/8 inches

ZieherSmith is at 533 West 25th Street in Chelsea, NYC.
More images from the show at ziehersmith.com.
Wes Lang's CV and past exhibitions here.

Streets of Glory, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 22 inches (from Home at Last, 2004)

Blue Turning Gray

Mount St. Helens erupted 28 years ago yesterday. I was nine at the time so I guess I didn't totally understand the magnitude of it, but I remember we got sent home from school early, and I remember hearing from my cousins that Aberdeen was covered in ash. My grandpa's cattle were also dusted over in Ellensburg—the ash blowing everywhere affected the entire Northwest. I saved a little vial of the stuff, I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

These black and white photos are by Frank Gohlke, and are collected in his excellent book Mount St. Helens, published by the Museum of Modern Art on the occasion of his exhibition at the museum in 2005.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Blue Turning Gray MP3

Not long after Mount St. Helens erupted we got two kittens. Our first cat, Mama Kitty, had just died at the age of 19. To this day she still shares the title of Best Cat Ever with Betty Whiskers and Mr. Littlejeans. She was much older than us—my mom had gotten her some time in the sixties—and it always seemed like she was taking care of us. In this picture, taken a few years earlier, my brother returns the favor:

And here are the kittens. My brother and I named the gray one Toutle—after the color of the Toutle River, which they kept showing on the news, filled with ash from Mount St. Helens.

Raise the Roof

Mini burgers, beers, green jell-o and good times for all on a mostly sunny Saturday at Anna's house for Janice and Lisa's Birthdays.
More pictures on my Flickr page

The Sporting Life, part two

At the Preakness, Big Brown pulls off another impressive victory—one more to go for the triple crown. On to Belmont!

The Sporting Life, part one

Bright and early Saturday morning at Floyd for the FA Cup finals (Portsmouth-1 Cardiff-0), and then next door at Chipshop for full English.

The Great Curve

David Byrne has a good piece on The New York Times op-ed page today—a remembrance of his friend Robert Rauschenberg, who died this week at age 82: "His openness and way of seeing was contagious and inspired others in their own work — not to imitate and make pseudo-Rauschenbergs, but to see the whole world as a work of art." Musically I'm a David Byrne fan more in theory than in practice, but I have a lot of respect for his overall aesthetic and way of thinking about design and the world. It probably comes as no surprise that I am a huge fan of Rauschenberg, and this is a nice send-off. Read the rest at nytimes.com and check out David Byrne's website here.

CAMERA OBSCURA.

I'm so bummed, it seems the flash on our camera is broken again. I just had it fixed in January. This proves again that digital technology totally blows. Richard Avedon dragged his Leica through the mud and paddies of Nam but if you so much as poke a digital camera in the wrong place, it just shuts down. Anyway it's going back in the shop asap and the ol' Pacific Standard will be new-photo-free for God knows how long. Here's the last picture I took, of our good buddies Jason and Aoife, at the Cherry Tavern for Jason's birthday party. Happy birthday lil' buddy.

Curiouser and Curiouser

It wasn't even very long ago that I posted about The Stranger's In/Visible podcasts, and now I'm doing it again. Still, this one is really good: art critic Jen Graves talks to artist Dario Robleto about his exhibition at Seattle's Charles and Emma Frye Free Public Art Museum, symbolically re-constructing the interesting but seemingly pretty sad life of Emma Frye. The show sounds amazing but Robleto's various digressions (sampling, The Smiths, fandom, the magic of realism), though they take a little patience, are what make the the podcast worthwhile.

Click here to check it out.

Living Free or Dying

My brother just got back from a trip to New Hampshire. He and a bunch of other firefighters hiked up a mountain (6000+ vertical feet) and skied some chutes at the top. Looks pretty nice—here are some pictures.

Respect the Architect

Tom Kundig, of the Seattle architecture firm Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen, has won a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for architecture. I first became aware of his work a few years ago when The New York Times Magazine featured the Delta Shelter (pictured above, in Mazama, Washington), The Brain (below, in Seattle), and the Ridge House (bottom, in Eastern Washington).

Sometimes artists and architects in the Northwest are so overwhelmed by the beauty of the natural surroundings that elements of nature are included in their work in a far too obvious way. But while Kundig uses materials and shapes that respect their locations, and is clearly influenced by Northwest masters such as Roland Terry, he's not held back by these references—and in fact he uses them as springboards for all kinds of genuine innovation.


Click here to see more of his work.

Say What You Mean

This was the first record I picked up at the flea market yesterday, and I think we can all agree, it's creepy as hell. (Literally as creepy as hell.) They're just coming right out with it, aren't they? It's like "see you when we're dead" but they're all smiles. The music is awful but I had to buy it for the cover.

Same goes for this—had to have it for the cover and the album title—but the music is great too.

The rest were $1 or $2 each, nothing to shout about but some good disco and mild psyche. The big score of the day was probably The Hot Dogs' Say What You Mean, a side project of Terry Manning that came out on Ardent, a division of Stax, in 1973 (click to enlarge the photo above, and you can see it in the middle of the top row). Manning was a prolific engineer, handling the boards for such minor artists as Isaac Hayes, Led Zeppelin, Albert King, and David Porter. I found his first record Home Sweet Home several years ago at the Orcas Island sanitation department's pay-what-you-think-is-fair thrift store, and am still blown away every time I listen to it.

Terry Manning "Savoy Truffle" (Listen to the whole thing but if you can't, skip ahead to around 7:00 for some nice drums)

Home Sweet Home was re-mastered and re-issued a few years ago with an additional track, "One After 909," also a Beatles cover. The story goes that Manning, being on the inside, got hold of a demo version of the song and recorded his bugged-out psychedelic take on it before the Beatles' version came out on Let It Be.

Check for Home Sweet Home at your local record store or order it from amazon.com.

Pay What You Wish

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Emily and I finally made it up to the Whitney last night, so at long last, I am happy to announce the winners of the coveted Strath's Choice Awards for Best Artists of the 2008 Whitney Biennial. To keep things pure there will be no prizes and no award dinner this year and criteria for judging will be known only to the judge. Without further fanfare, here are the winners.

1. Mika Tajima/New Humans for their sculpture and video piece with Vito Acconci and C. Spencer Yeh (who has a new record out as Burning Star Core). I don't really know what to say about it other than that it's an all-encompassing audio/visual/environmental experience that is kind of aggressive-feeling and beautiful all at once. Get more info at newhumansnyc.com.

2. Matthew Brannon (who is originally from Idaho...represent represent), for his letterpressed and screen-printed works that to me recall an early-sixties graphic language mixed with a feeling of isolation or weirdness between individuals? I don't know. It reminded me of Holden Caulfield-era New York.

3. Mika Rottenburg for her video/sculpture piece Cheese.


4. Charles Long for Poem of the River (2005), a collection of detritus collected from the LA river, covered in plaster and shaped into sculptures that emulate the giant great blue heron and white egret droppings he photographed there. Watch this video.

5. Carol Bove for her sculpture The Night Sky over New York, October 21, 2007, 9PM. The hanging bronze rods aligned with the stars over New York at the exact time in the title of the piece.

Congratulations to all the winners.
Sorry, losers, but there's always next time.

The 2008 Whitney Biennial is up through June 1st so high-tail it over there pretty soon if you haven't seen it yet. Check out this video by the curators for an overview:

Now You're Swimming

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Did you know that Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You is now available as an audio book? We have a couple big roadtrips planned for later this year so I'm definitely snapping this up. You can too, at amazon.com, or wherever you, uh, buy your audiobooks (hey, first time for everything).

Also: Listen to an interview with Miranda July on KCRW's Bookworm.

And: Here's a short interview I did with her for V magazine in December 2006, just before the book came out:

5 Questions for Miranda July

1. What are you working on right now? My next screenplay and a related performance that I will do at The Kitchen in early March. Also a book version of my website learningtoloveyoumore.com. And soon I will begin promoting my book of short stories that comes out in the spring.

2. What has been inspiring you lately? Dave Eggers' new book, What is the What and the new album by The Blow, Paper Television.

3. Who are your heroes? There are many, but last night I re-watched An Angel At My Table, Jane Campion's movie about the New Zealand writer Janet Frame. I hadn't see it for years and realized that I had really really identified with this story when the movie first came out, despite my life being totally different from Janet Frame's life. My heroes are always people who find a way to tell their story, against all odds.

4. Describe your aesthetic. The best is to wear/ make something that is almost not working, but somehow pull it off. To walk that line.

5. What's your favorite way to keep warm this winter? [give me a break, it's a fashion magazine -ps] Well, I am going to some truly cold places this winter, so I broke down and bought a bunch of hi-tech stuff. Stuff that is not really my style. But I am into it because I am really over being cold.

More info, including an endorsement of Barack Obama, and voting in general, may be found at mirandajuly.com.

TV Party

My old buddy Mike Sacks has a new blog wherein he posts photographs of the television, proving time and again that a picture is worth a thousand words.


Check it out at mikesacks.com, and while you're there, have a look at some of his humorous and informative writing for publications such as Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire, McSweeney's, and The New Yorker.

Creative Control

Joe Newton, who some of you know as the drummer from Gas Huffer, or as former art director at The Stranger and Rolling Stone, or as the guy who does all the illustrations for Dan Savage's syndicated sex advice column Savage Love, or as just an all around good-timey dude, is now over at Veer, heading up their illustration department. Yesterday he sent me a link to a new animated film, The Control Master, which Veer put together with Run Wrake, a London-based animator and illustrator. The entire thing is assembled from Charles S. Anderson (CSA) images—and when you see it you can only imagine how much time went into making that work as smashingly as it does. Check it out at ideas.veer.com/features/controlmaster

And just for old times: