james welling
dan flavin
christian patterson
me
go see CHRISTIAN PATTERSONs BLOG
and DAN FLAVINs RETROSPECTIVE
Last Saturday morning I woke up in a strangers house somewhere near Coney Island. Its a convoluted story on how I got there and I’ll save you from the details, mostly because it sounds a whole lot more interesting for me to only say, “I woke up in a strangers house somewhere near Coney Island” than actually give you the circumstances and what-for’s and why’s. Anyway, after leaving the mystery house I went looking for the N train to get back to Manhattan and found myself on Bay Bridge Ave., home to a menagerie of cast iron electrical tethered mechanical animals…
today christmas came early. santa came by driving a beat up cadillac…you know the kind…an old white one thats half as long as a city block and begs for bull horns to be tied to the grill. come to think of it, did he have reindeer antlers duct taped to that thing? from a mile down pennsylvania you could see the cloud of black billowing out from behind him like a locomotive…it hissed and wheezed and rattled down the road…mustve thrown a rod somewhere north of here. the air smelled like burnt oil. when he pulled up he didnt say nothing but was grinning with a mouth full of gravel and grit as he threw a bottle into the backseat, its previous contents now hanging heavy on his breath. he reached into a dirty bag that was more matted brown than red velvet, and from it he tossed me this record before peeling off in a scream and squaw and blast of black exhaust with a honk honk honk that nearly drowned out a gutteral howl that sounded a lot more like a manic ha ha ha than a jolly ol’ ho ho ho.
NYC 11.18.06
Found behind a red-tinted window in a Chelsea gallery, and yes it is art.
And by art i mean the umbrella installation, not the photo. more from this weekends trip to NYC to come.
Somehow with the fierce wind and spitting rain of Sunday came Califone from the west. You know CALIFONE. I wont stop talking about them and posting links to videos of them performing in man troughs. This year they released ROOTS & CROWNS, a fantastic record, and have done some touring with a frequent collaborator, film-maker BRENT GREEN. Green will show his films whilst califone provide a live soundtrack accompaniment. The music performed is mostly improvisational, yet knowingly cued in for the right moments to provide apropos sound affects. Green provides live narration for each of the films, adding an extra sense of spontaneity and improvisation. He had the quirkiest, quakiest, most frenetic, passionate delivery…like a schitzo beat poet meets a helium baloon sucking tom waits. He played a saw, too, and it all makes for an incredibly visceral experience. In the end, i cant decide which part of the show was better…the green films with califone, or just califone playing some of my favorite songs from their catalogue.
I really wish you all couldve been there to see it. For all our b’ham friends, califone is playing bottletree on the 17th and you shouldnt, shant, shall not miss it.
here is an excerpt from one of the films presented/performed from the other night, “hadacol christmas”
By:Brent Green/Nervous Films
Here is the latest Marvelous poster design, once again for Bottletree…this time promoting the quirky-harp-strumming-baroque-pop-playing-Elven-like-sprite JOANNA NEWSOM. Her new record comes out tomorrow and we can’t wait to hear it. I am a big fan of her first release, The Milk-Eyed Mender, but its not really Joe’s cup of tea. We’ll forgive him though because he did some really great illustration for this poster. For more on Joanna, go to MILKY MOON.
