rabbi cosmic: work/thoughts

VOTE NOV 2ND

2010-11-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

Here's where you can find your polling station:

If you need help, want to talk about the propositions, or just want some blind guidance, I've got a voting guide on my facebook page.

CALARTS MFA VIDEO SCREENING AT REDCAT

2010-07-06T10:23:00.001-07:00

Thursday July 15th at 8pm.

Free and open to the public. Cheap parking across the street.

I will be screening the current iteration of my video Classic/Cut, about the local surfers in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

Other participating artists are:

Carrie Rebecca Armellino
Bjarki Bragason
Kelly Cline
Travis Diehl
Vivian Joyner
Karolina Karlic
Zach Kleyn
Keith Rocka Knittel
Sage Paisner
Carl Pomposelli
Rasmus Røhling
Arnoldo Vargas

For more info, please contact me.

Facebook page for the event here

With Love, from Bangladesh

2010-01-21T20:21:00.000-08:00

Lots of People Giving Small Amounts of Money

2010-01-15T11:58:00.000-08:00

Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross Haiti Relief

Text HAITI to 20222 to donate $10 through the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief

Welcome to Los Angeles

2009-08-30T17:31:00.001-07:00

With Love, from Tel Aviv

2009-08-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

MICHAEL JACKSON

2009-06-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

Back in February, I spent several hours with a good friend from Iran watching Michael Jackson music videos. We watched an adorable 11 year-old Michael performing “I Want You Back” with The Jackson 5, the fantastic and other-wordly “Billie Jean” music video (which continues to be my favorite music video of all time), and the 9-minute long “Remember The Time”—Eddie Murphy and Magic Johnson in Ancient Egypt regalia is hard to beat. My friend, an artist who is heavily in my thoughts now as he just flew to Tehran to be with his family, explained how eye-opening it was for him watching Billie Jean in Iran as a teenager. "When I saw this video," he said, "I couldn’t believe the creative freedom. It changed my view of life in the United States.”
--A week ago I was stunned to find 1987’s Bad on vinyl for $1.99 in Amoeba’s clearance section. A friend visiting from D.C. and I spent hours cutting a rug while listening to “Dirty Diana” so loudly that the neighbors finally complained.
--Three days ago my DVD of Moonwalker finally came in the mail, shipped from a video store in Tokyo. With a colleague and a bag of Thai takeout, we spent 90 minutes christening his newly acquired apartment with MJ's 1988 non-linear-short film-music video extravaganza.

I mention these brief moments to emphasize that the reach of Michael Jackson is a current and very present joy; albeit, joy tinged with the dark knowledge of out-of-court settlements and unchecked madness. Perhaps that’s why so many of us feel close to his music—songs like “Billie Jean,” “Man in the Mirror,” “Black or White”—they’re all self reflexive examinations of the singer pleading to better himself. Jackson’s music is pleasure mixed with tragedy, which is why it continues and continues and continues to be enduringly appealing. The opening chords to "I Want You Back" and "Thriller" fill me, and many others, with immediate chills, both euphoric and frightening. Try listening to “Beat It,” or watching the glittery music video for “Rock With You.” I bet you’re gonna be dancing.

Biographers can list all the various struggles Michael had with a physically and psychologically abusive father, a string of doctors that exercised exceedingly poor judgment when he went in for yet additional plastic surgeries without contest (why didn’t anyone say “No!”), the egomaniacal Peter Pan complex housed in a theme park, and the child abuse scandals that further illustrated his lapse from reality and his need to escape to nations like Bahrain.

We were left dumbstruck at his decisions: to send a statue of himself dressed in a leotard around the world in promotion of his album HIStory, to outbid his friend Paul McCartney for the rights to Paul’s own music, to consider a chimp named Bubbles his closest friend, to dangle his infant over a window railing.

The list is endless. The lyrics to “Leave Me Alone” and the tabloid-laden art direction to its subsequent music video can attest to someone living an unfurled existence.

But let’s talk brass tacks here. No American entertainer, save for Elvis Presley, had a more universal, globally powerful effect on pop music. Michael’s music videos, his main vehicle for accessing audiences worldwide, made music videos important—shit, even Martin Scorsese had to get a piece, directing Michael in the 18-minute long music video for Bad.

Michael has been in the spotlight for forty years. He was the first African American musician to make a break on MTV back when MTV mattered. His are the most famous dance moves on Earth. Watching Michael perform his anti-gravity lean and the in-place moonwalk during the “Smooth Criminal” sequence of Moonwalker is astounding enough for multiple hits on the replay button.

The news of Michael Jackson’s death at age 50 is a sad, untimely end to an extremely talented and deeply troubled life. Michael, the seventh of nine children born to Katherine and Joe in Gary, Indiana, was loved, and then hated, and then loved; idolized, and then taunted, and then immortalized; and undoubtedly and uncontentiously an influence on the lives of everyone born between 1950 and 1990. He was able to grow from a life singing in darkly lit strip clubs with his brothers and sisters, to being the enormously gifted crowned King of Pop wherever he moonwalked.

Al Sharpton said it well yesterday on June 25th:

“Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color, way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama. Michael did with music what they later did in sports and in politics, and in television. And no controversy will erase the historic impact…Michael Jackson was a trailblazer.“

As pat a statement as it is, I feel like a part of my life has also expired. There is not one section of my formidable years in which the music of Michael Jackson didn’t filter in and out. Before turning on MTV today to catch their overzealously-stylized news coverage, I hadn’t watched the network in years—but the last time I did, it was for a Michael Jackson music video marathon.

No doubt there will be lists of all MJ's #1 hits and fantastic music videos, but let me put down a few of my favorites here:

I Want You Back
Who's Lovin You
I’ll Be There
Blame It on the Boogie
Rock With You
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
Beat It
Thriller
Billie Jean
The Way You Make Me Feel
Dirty Diana
Leave Me Alone
Remember the Time

Yes. Amazing.

Check out a great write up on Michael by Ernest Hardy here

Photographs from www.mjjpictures.com

thoughts: Marlon Jackson, Slave to Music

2009-02-18T09:15:00.000-08:00

MARLON JACKSON'S NIGERIAN SHRINE TO JACKSON 5 AND/OR SLAVERY. UM, WHAT?
Tuesday, Feb. 17 2009 @ 10:24AM
By Rena Kosnett in news

The Jacksons are a family that keeps on giving, at least for those in the tabloid and psychology professions, what with Michael Jackson's upcoming Neverland auction, and the recent news that older brother Marlon is working on a deal to erect a history of slavery theme park/Jackson 5 museum/luxury resort complex in the Nigerian port city of Badagry. Apparently slavery tourism is big business, and developers, who reportedly include Haim Saban, creator of the hit 90s TV show Power Rangers, are capitalizing on it.

But let's take a few steps back and look at this news. Isn't the inclination to erect a museum dedicated to yourself, um, a little insane? (This is what makes me suspicious of Senator Roland Burris: he chisels everything he does into the walls of a stone mausoleum. It's creepy.) And then to pair a celebration of your family alongside a memorial for something as abhorrent and emotional as the history of slavery, and to make that memorial a theme park, and then to top it off with a five star resort replete with golf course and swimming pool, effectively multiples this crazy pill into a full bottle overdose. Historians and community leaders have been decrying the "capitalistic exploitation of our tragedy" blues, but aren't mentioning the shining display of Freudian psychology in this
project. One reading: Marlon Jackson is placing a history of slavery alongside, literally, a history of the Jackson 5, whose notoriously rigid father, Joseph, was a notorious abuser; this wonderland has got "Fuck you, Dad," written all over it.

One nice side effect of the weirdness: perusing old Jackson 5 videos. Look how cute Michael is here. And talented.

Jackson 5 | I Want You Back from 105.9 KISS FM on Vimeo.

And for that matter, remember how amazing he was in this era? Gorgeous, sigh...

thoughts: Grad school, Grad school, Grad school

2009-01-16T16:37:00.001-08:00

That's the haps right now.

I have an exhibition coming up in March. More info TBA.

RICHARD SWIFT Feature/Interview

2008-10-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

Feature, LA Weekly

Extended Interview- Richard Swift "Not a rock n' roll romantic"

Download his new EP, Ground Trouble Jaw, for free Here

Richard Swift. Photograph from the album Richard Swift As Onasis.

RICHARD SWIFT'S ONE-MAN GENRE

The prolific singer, whose music defies categorization, creates music in his own, Swiftian style.

By Rena Kosnett, Published on October 16, 2008

Fans of Harry Nilsson know that there is only one genre under which his varied catalog can be properly filed: the “Harry Nilsson” genre. Take, for example, his 1971 album Son of Schmilsson: He jumps from Christmas song to droning love story to McCartney-esque pop number to a theatrical number about a spaceman. Nilsson’s bemusing and eclectic tendencies warrant their own category.

The same can be said of Minnesota-born Richard Swift. Like Nilsson, Swift glides fluidly among divergent styles, groups together bold tunes like a clothing designer mixing polka dots and stripes. The evidence is everywhere, from his instrumental album Music From the Films of R/Swift (released under the moniker Instruments of Science and Technology) to his recent Richard Swift as Onasis double EP and his newest, the five-song Ground Trouble Jaw.

Released as a free download in August, Ground Trouble Jaw opens with “Would You,” an airy, warm tune that suggests the Penguins’ doo-wop classic “Earth Angel” — kind of like the Mothers of Invention on their 1968 album Cruising With Ruben & the Jets. Swift continues this mood on the second track, “Lady Luck,” but the tone shifts with the intro of “The Bully,” a funny, monotone spoken-word song in the style of Nilsson’s ironic love song “Joy” or the Modern Lovers’ “I’m Straight.” The final two tracks, “The Original Thought” and “A Song for Milton Feher” (about the famed dance instructor and relaxation coach), channel White Album joviality and Nilsson quirkiness. Swift spoke with L.A. Weekly recently, via telephone from his Oregon home.

L.A. Weekly: Was there a strategic purpose, or a goal, in releasing Ground Trouble Jaw for free?

Richard Swift: I think it was void of either of those two things. I was trying to get around the business of releasing a record. Dressed Up for the Letdown [released February 2007] was finished about a year and a half before it was even released because I was going through negotiations with Polydor the whole time. I grew so tired of waiting around for all these records to be released, you know? Polydor was this major-label situation, always asking you to change stuff on your records, which I was definitely uncomfortable with. I feel really fortunate I was able to get out of my contract with Polydor and have Secretly Canadian put out my records. It made me feel happy about making music again.

With the digital release, I was just trying to break... not the mold with the industry, but to break my mold, to try to do something exciting and last-minute, and not have this big record buildup, like [in a deep, movie-trailer-guy voice] “You just wait until February ’08, when this record drops, it’s gonna change your world.”

There’s something really disarming about just being able to say, “Oh, hey, I’m putting out a record tomorrow.” It deflates the romance of rock and roll, which I appreciate because I’m not a big rock and roll romantic.

L.A. Weekly: I find myself missing the accompanying artwork with this EP. The visual material with your other records is so interesting.

Richard Swift: I do miss that. I mainly just listen to LPs, so you’ve always got this 12-inch object to look at; but there are the Ground Trouble Jaw films, and I do feel like the films are the moving artwork for the EP. Maybe it’s goofy of me to put out footage of me fucking around with a theremin and drinking beer with my buddies, but it’s also somewhat therapeutic — there’s a fondness there. The cover for the new Swift record, which will be titled The Atlantic Ocean, is going to be the most involved album artwork that [video artist] Lance [Troxel] and I have ever done.

L.A. Weekly: One of the tracks on GTJ is “A Song for Milton Feher.” I’m wondering about your connection to him, because my mother was listening to that relaxation record of his while she was going through menopause. Some of his quotes are really nice and meditative: “Feel yourself pressed into the earth,” “Feel the earth holding you up,” “Make contact with the ground.”

Richard Swift: Strangely enough, Milton’s a friend of mine. He’s 96, 97 years old. He is genuinely one of the most amazing human beings I’ve ever been able to hang out with. How we met is phenomenal. You can never write this kind of shit. After my father heard the first record I ever made in L.A., he’s this Spanish guy, and he said [with a Spanish accent], “Oh, Richard, this sounds like you’re walking without trying too hard.” And I was, like, “Well, that makes sense, because I’m going to name the record Walking Without Effort.” Then, probably a week after I finished Walking Without Effort, I was doing my regular thing, flipping through record bins, and I came across this Milton Feher album, Relaxing Body and Mind (1962). I turned it over to look at the back, and one of the audio chapters was titled “Walking Without Effort,” and I was, like, “What!” So I bought the record, took it home, and about a month after that, I started having a dark period of panic attacks. So I started listening to that record in a different light, hoping it would help me to relax my broken mind.

I wanted to sample Milton’s voice for an Instruments of Science and Technology track, so I had to call him to clear the rights for that, and we started talking quite a bit, and we’ve been chatting on the phone ever since. And just this last year, we finally met up. He lives in New York, and I was there recording with Mark Ronson, so before the session started, I was, like, “Oh, I gotta call Milton and let him know I’m here.” Turned out I was staying two blocks away from his apartment! So we met, and I had about a six to seven-hour session with him. I can’t begin to explain how a connection like that works. It seemed life-altering just to be able to talk to him regularly, but to be able to spend a considerable amount of time together. If you wrote that in a movie, no one would ever imagine that it could be true.

L.A. Weekly: Was it a surprise that Stereolab asked you to tour with them?

Richard Swift: Yeah, it was, I have no idea how I got on their radar. I am a big fan of their music, so I feel really fortunate that they asked me to be on their tour. In the last couple of years, I’ve been able to tour with a lot of bands that I have a lot of respect for, and Stereolab’s definitely up there. It started a year ago touring with Wilco, and recording at their loft, making my little documentary films there, and now a year later touring with Stereolab. It’s surreal.

L.A. Weekly: Did you and Jeff Tweedy have a personal connection before he asked you to tour with Wilco?

Richard Swift: There’s a show in England called "Later With Jools Holland," and I was on the show when Wilco was on the show, and so was LCD Soundsystem, and a couple other English bands whose names I am not going to mention. Before I sang my song, Pat [Sansone] from Wilco came over and was like, “Hey Swift, I have your record and I really like it. I’m really happy that you’re here.” So we did our songs and were waiting around, because after the show the bands have the opportunity to re-record their song if they want. So this specific English band tried re-recording their song like five times, it was awful to begin with. So the Wilco guys and I were sitting around really annoyed, and Jeff and I were able to be old sarcastic American curmudgeons together, just like, “Oh, these young kids,” blah blah blah, and we had a couple beers- well, Jeff didn’t have any, he had diet cokes, but I had a couple beers. And we shot the shit, and I just chocked it up to being a cool experience, but five days later it was set that I would go on a month long tour with them across the states. Jeff was aware of my situation—at that point, I had been on the road for two or three years—so it was encouraging of him to ask me to come record at his studio. To have somebody I respect believe in what I was doing—it was a huge shot in the arm.

L.A. Weekly: Why did you decide to drop the "Ochoa" from your name?

Richard Swift: It has to do with me never being completely comfortable with that last name… It gets more into personal family stuff. But Swift is my middle name and my mother’s maiden name, and it was what my mother wanted my first name to be. I was raised, for a large part of my life, by my grandfather Clifford Swift, and he was quite a phenomenal piano player when he was younger. But his family got sick of him practicing all the time, and kind of crushed his spirit and told him not to play anymore, so part of me feels like I’m carrying on that legacy for him, doing something he would’ve liked to do but never had the chance.

L.A. Weekly: What are the differences between the music you make under the Instruments of Science and Technology name and the Richard Swift name, and the older Dicky Ochoa and Company music?

Richard Swift: Ultimately, the old Dicky Ochoa and Company stuff was me trying to pay my rent. I didn’t feel like I was really involved. I felt like I was a studio musician on my own record. The Instruments, and Swift as Onasis music is what I care about. There are definite stylistic differences—there are different elements and experimentations with each project. To me, it wouldn’t make sense to mix Instruments and Swift music or Onasis and Instruments music. In retrospect, though, I think a lot of people were getting annoyed that I was putting out all these side projects.

L.A. Weekly: Who was getting annoyed?

Richard Swift: Well, people would send me press clippings that would say, ‘I don’t know, Instruments Of Science and Technology, and Richard Swift as Onasis aren’t as good as Richard Swift records.’ Well, you know what, fuckers, all of these are Richard Swift records. I’m so surprised at press sometimes, or even blogs, because we live in a day and age when everyone has an iPod or iPod shuffle, myself included, and to think that an artist would only put out one type of record in their career is very narrow. I think most artists should be held to a standard of really pushing themselves to try all sorts of things.

If you look at artists like John Lennon and Neil Young, they made their weird electronic records and '50s records, and the critics panned them, but they had the backbone to push themselves, and to fight boredom. When you put out records, you’re automatically creating a stereotype—from that first record, you become a cartoon. So I find it very inspiring when I can see these musicians trying to develop new music after such long-term careers.

Bob Dylan’s had a recent resurgence, but in the '80s nobody gave a shit about Bob Dylan. If you talked to people about Bob Dylan, they would say, “Oh, his old records were good but his new records are shit. He’s never gonna put out another good record.” But now, he’s making some fantastic music.

L.A. Weekly: Did having kids change the way you approach music?

Richard Swift: I don’t know. I would never walk up to the mic and say, “I wrote this one for my daughter.” But in “The Songs Of National Freedom” there’s a line that says “I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive/So tell my daughters not to cry,” and that’s not just about having kids but it’s also about understanding generational differences, and similarities. I have a lot of respect for guys who play rock n’ roll and then go home and have BBQs with their neighbors and spend time with their kids. Having a family is amazing, and really good for me because I do tend to be self-destructive and they keep me in check. Tom Waits is a family man, and he’s making phenomenal records.

L.A. Weekly: And he’s written a lot of music with his wife.

Richard Swift: That’s so cool. I wish my wife was even remotely musically inclined. She paints, though. There are a lot of guys making music now, living the rock n’ roll lifestyle and they act like pricks to everyone they know, and I just don’t want to be involved in that. It’s not appealing to me at all. I don’t give a fuck about Sid and Nancy or any of that. What’s appealing to me is living in a small town, and being with some really fine people, and being with my special lady friend.

unbelievable

2008-10-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

OK, the bailout bill passed. Obviously these are some dire circumstances and we need $2,000 from every single person in the United States to go to these huge firms to keep them from failing. Of course.

THEN WHY, may I ask, did AIG Executives spend $500,000 of their taxpayer bailout loan at a spa over the weekend?

AND WHY are these men giving themselves millions in bonuses from our pockets? I can't even afford to get my car air conditioning fixed!

AND NOW it is coming out that AIG saw it coming. They saw it coming months ago and they did nothing, because they knew they would get away with it, because they knew they were "Too big to fail."

Something like this happened in the past: It was called Marie Antionette, and it was called "Let them eat cake," and she was tried for treason and she got her head cut off.

I'm paying for this man's vacation?!!

(Martin J. Sullivan, A.I.G.’s chief, said he underestimated the problems.
Josh Haner/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON POST

AIG Spa Trip Fuels Fury on Hill

Pressing Executives to Concede Mistakes, Lawmakers Blast Them About Bonuses

By Peter Whoriskey

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2008; Page D01

For some people at AIG, the insurance giant rescued last month with an $85 billion federal bailout, the good times keep rolling.

Joseph Cassano, the financial products manager whose complex investments led to American International Group's near collapse, is receiving $1 million a month in consulting fees.

Former chief executive Martin J. Sullivan, whose three-year tenure coincided with much of the company's ill-fated risk-taking, is receiving a $5 million performance bonus.

And just last week, about 70 of the company's top performers were rewarded with a week-long stay at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., where they ran up a tab of $440,000.

At a House committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) showed a photograph of the resort, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, and reported expenses for AIG personnel including $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa.

"Less than a week after the taxpayers rescued AIG, company executives could be found wining and dining at one of the most exclusive resorts in the nation," Waxman said in kicking off an angry hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "We will ask whether any of this makes sense."

"They were getting their manicures, their pedicures, massages, their facials while the American people were paying their bills," thundered Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.).

The gathering was planned before the bailout as a reward for life insurance agents, a company spokesman said, and fewer than 10 AIG executives were present.

"Shame on you, Mr. Sullivan," said Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), noting that Sullivan was not giving up any of his $5 million performance bonus.

thoughts: DEMAND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE ACT IN YOUR INTEREST

2008-09-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Here's where you can find out who your representative is to write them a letter about the bail-out plan:

Write Your Representative

You need your zip code and its 5 digit extension. You can find that here:

Zip code finder

And if they do not act in your interest, DON'T VOTE FOR THEM AGAIN. That is really our only recourse for completely being screwed, isn't it?

I live in 90048-2222. This is the note I wrote my representative, Henry Waxman:

Hello Congressman Waxman,

Please represent the concerns of your constituency, and do not vote for a bail-out plan until it specifies for:

1-profits from the money invested to go back to the taxpayer
2-profits from the money invested to be used for affordable housing initiatives
3-a portion of the bail-out money to go immediately towards helping struggling people stay in their homes
4-none of the invested money going to pay increases or bonuses for CEOs
5-strict regulations of the money, to be presided over by a caucus, not just Henry Paulson. His monetary ties to at-risk investment firm Goldman Sachs is a glaring conflict-of-interest.

Thank you,
your constituent, Rena Kosnett
Los Angeles native

god help us: WHAT IS SARAH PALIN SAYING?

2008-09-30T11:13:00.000-07:00

From Newsweek

Katie Couric: Why isn't it better, Gov. Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

Gov. Sarah Palin: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the -- it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

Sweet Jesus.

thank you: FAREED ZAKARIA ON SARAH PALIN

2008-09-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

From CNN

CNN: Does it make you concerned about Sen. McCain as a president?

Zakaria: Yes, and I say this with sadness because I greatly admire John McCain, a man of intelligence, honor and enormous personal and political courage. However, for him to choose Sara Palin to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. He did not put the country first with this decision. Whether it is appropriate or not, considering Sen. McCain's age most people expected to have a vice presidential candidate who would be ready to step in at a moment's notice. The actual odds of that happening are significant, something like a one-in-five chance.

thoughts: BIGGEST MARKET FAILURE IN UNITED STATES HISTORY

2008-09-25T23:16:00.000-07:00

There are many, many things deserving of a thought right now. I've been waiting for a lull in the action, a breather to organize my thoughts, but the shit just keeps on hitting the fan. It's raining shit. A shit storm.

The $700 billion bailout plan is grotesque.

Bankers and speculators who traded and loaned with unregulated greed (a Bush administration idea) are getting billions to stay in their fancy houses, and the people struggling to keep their shitty ones, or pay for their gas, or food, or tuition, or all of the above, are going to pay for it (ANOTHER Bush administration idea).

And now. Of all things to finally fail.

WaMu.

Poor poor WaMu. Always so friendly, so trusting...so colorful. Washington Mutual- I never thought the day would come when we would have to say goodbye...What do you say about a girl like WaMu? ? I didn't see it coming. She was always the life of the party.

So long, WaMu. I hope you've gone to a better place.

ISAAC HAYES*

2008-09-10T21:12:00.000-07:00

Obituary in LA RECORD.

L.A. RECORD’s Rena Kosnett conducted what may have been Isaac Hayes’ final interview for us last week. She sends the following obituary:

Isaac Hayes died today, Sunday August 10th, 2008. I had the great fortune to interview Isaac by phone while he was at his home in Memphis a little over a week ago in anticipation of his headlining spot on the upcoming Sunset Junction festival bill. I was ecstatic for the week leading up to the interview, and stayed ecstatic for the week following it, so not surprisingly I received 4 voicemails, 6 text messages, and 9 emails from people informing me of the sad news.

Isaac was a one-man messianic movement who spoke the gospel of groove and spread the sermon of soul throughout American culture. He served to liberate and advocate American funk and human sexuality the way Timothy Leary articulated acid, the way Hunter S. Thompson obliterated objectivism. I was asked frequently after the interview if I had questioned Isaac about South Park or Scientology, and the answer was ‘No.’ Not because I was afraid or felt he would be uncomfortable, but because what was most significant in Isaac’s life—what was most groundbreaking—was his music. For the few moments I had him, that’s what I wanted to stick to.

Isaac was self-taught. He was a visionary. He went to the recording studio dressed in gold chains and bright green suits when everyone else was wearing black turtlenecks and gray trouser socks. Isaac worked his way up from being a poor meat packer—even his obituary includes some innuendo!—in rural Tennessee to being the driving creative force behind Stax, which, alongside Motown and Sun, has been one of American music’s most critical labels.

His 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul changed how music was produced, opening soul and pop recordings to more interpretation and spoken interludes, and paving the way for Barry White’s and Millie Jackson’s silky mid-song eroticisms—now a staple, and indeed nearly a cliché, of R&B music. But even before Isaac’s throaty classics made it to the turntable, he was heard on the airwaves through the voices of Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, and Carla Thomas. Isaac, mainly with his creative partner David Porter, wrote the hits “Soul Man,” “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” “When Something is Wrong with My Baby”, and “Soul Sister Brown Sugar,” among others, and his orchestral, horn, organ, and bass scores inspired the soundtracks for countless films, blaxploitation and otherwise.

What struck me most during our interview, despite the clear struggles he was working through due to his 2006 stroke, was his exaltation. He was excited about playing the Sunset Junction, excited about his new album, and gracious with his laughter, time, and his unmatched ability to serenade. Even through a cell phone headset, hearing him sing made me swoon.

We have lost our Soul Man, our Black Moses, and his deep voice and deeper vitality will surely be missed.

ISAAC HAYES Interview

2008-09-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Interview in LA RECORD, August 2008

L.A. RECORD’s Rena Kosnett interviewed Isaac Hayes last week in preparation for his performance later this month at Sunset Junction. We were saddened today to learn of his passing in Memphis. As far as we know, this is his final interview.

Rolling Stone named ‘Soul Man’ as one of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Do you think most people realize you and David Porter wrote that song?

Maybe, maybe not. Some people, they don’t connect it—they think it was Sam and Dave, because they made it well known.

You said previously that you wrote it in response to the the 12th Street Riots in Detroit—about ‘man’s struggle to rise above his present conditions’?

Yeah because, you know, the riots were going on and we were watching it happen on TV, and we saw that they had written on the walls of the black-owned stores ‘Soul Man.’ And I said, ‘“Soul Man,” that’s a good title.’ At that time in the ‘60s, there was all kindsa crazy stuff goin’ on. That’s why I wrote it, you know.

The Sunset Junction festival started as a way to bring the Latino community and gay community together in East L.A. after several instances of violence. Would you consider writing a ‘Soul Man’ type of song for the gay and Latino struggles?

Oh, um, I’m workin’ on that one. [laughing] I’ve been working on my new album. I’ll just tell you what, though—this new album that’s coming out, it’s good. It’s probably coming out next year.

Is it all new material?

Maybe some, and some is redone.

Any classics?

Lemme see. Maybe a song by the name of [breaking into a serenade] ‘Tonight’s the night, the tiiiime is right, the things I’ve waited for so long…’

Mmmm.

That tune is good.

Many credit the musical influence you and David Porter had on Stax with saving the label, but some think your leaving almost killed them. Do you think these are fair judgments?

At that time, maybe so. At Stax, there were many things happening then—many struggles and complications. But my new album is coming out on Stax, so I’m still working good with them.

I read in Peter Guralnick’s book Sweet Soul Music that David Porter tried to sell you life insurance when you first met him. Did you buy any?

I didn’t buy any insurance, but he did try to sell me some. He gave me a good deal. I met David long before I started at Stax. I was singing with a group called the Del Reels, and he sang with the King Tones. And we both played for a talent contest in Memphis.

Who won?

I won it one week and then he won it the next week, and we started working together after that.

Do you remember what song you sang in the talent contest?

I think it was ‘Looking Back,’ by Nat King Cole.

Your first Stax session was playing keyboard for Otis Redding. Was it an easy process to develop songs with him?

Well, Otis had a way of doing things—he would write the songs at the same time he was singing them. He would start going [breaking into song and imitating Otis Redding] ‘Na na na na, you got to, got to got to…’ and he was writing the songs at the same time. With me and David… there was an understanding we had between us. With ‘Soul Man,’ he said, ‘Look, man, let’s just do it.’ He said, ‘Let’s write something.’ And we did. That’s just how it worked.

Do you have a favorite Burt Bacharach tune?

I did a lot of songs by Bacharach and Hal David. ‘Walk On By’ was a good one. And ‘The Windows of the World.’

Most of the early Stax records were produced communally. Was it a big transition at the label to start thinking about music as a product?

When we started getting credit for the things we did, I thought that was good, because the songs had a lot of personal meaning. Now, they’re just rapping and all that stuff…

You don’t like current hip-hop music?

I like Alicia Keyes. Mary J. Blige.

You like the ladies.

Well, yeeeah. Anthony Hamilton is also good. I like him too.

Who should really be called ‘Black Moses’: you, Harriet Tubman, or Marcus Garvey? There can’t be three, can there?

I got my name as ‘Black Moses’ from Dino Woodward, a pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York [and one-time Stax executive]. He called me Moses, and I said, ‘Hey, that’s sacrilegious, baby!’ But he just kept up with it, so I was like, ‘OK, I get it.’ I finally gave in.

For the cover photo of Juicy Fruit, did you and the six ladies go home after the shoot or did you stay in the pool and make fruit salad?

Those ladies split.

They didn’t stay and hang with you?

You know… [starts singing lines from ‘Juicy Fruit’] ‘Watching girls come and go, juicy fruit, jump suit…’ It was cool, but you know, they went home.

Did Barry White, may he rest in peace, ever thank you for giving him a career?

No. No, he didn’t thank me. We did an album together, though, because they wanted to call us the ‘Deep Throat Brothers.’

Does anyone understand you ‘cept your woman?

Just my woman. My fourth wife, Adjowa. The kids are something else—that’s a different kind of understanding.

What kind of special treatment do you receive when you visit Ghana?

In Ghana, I’m an honorary king there. They have a big parade. They feed me all kinds of good stuff. They gave me my own island! It takes about an hour to circumnavigate it. Don’t know what I want to call it yet. I was last there about two years ago.

Have you ever dated a Jewish girl?

Yeah, I’ve dated all kinds of girls.

Of course you have. I’m a Jewish girl.

Oh yeah?

Do you think if I went black I’d ever go back?

There were no complaints from my Jewish girls. So from my perspective, you wouldn’t be goin’ back. No way.

BRIAN BRESS short interview

2008-09-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

Video artist Brian Bress talks about the music video he made for Wounded Lion, LA Weekly

Wounded Lion- Pony People

Wounded Lion "Pony People" video, directed by Brain Bress
by Rena Kosnett
July 9, 2008 2:49 PM

The young L.A. band Wounded Lion has put up a new music video online for their song “Pony People,” ahead of the release of their first single on S-S Records. The video was directed by Brian Bress, who just finished a stint at the Getty as part of the “California Video” exhibition. Considering Bress and the Wounded Lion members Brad Eberhard and Raffi Kalenderian are all LA Weekly Biennial alums, and the video has the clear patterned, repetitive, and disorienting imprint of Bress’ other fine art work, the video skirts that gray area between music video and video art, like Target Video, also in the Getty exhibit, and Michael Reich’s Videothing (you can read more about Videothing here: http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/michael-reichs-videothingcom-captures-the-essence-of-las-underground/19032/). Bress answered a few of my questions about the video today.

LA Weekly: You know Wounded Lion through college?

Brian Bress: I know Raffi through UCLA—he was in undergrad while I was in grad school there. I went to undergrad at RISD.

Ok Go commissioned you to make their “Television Television” wallpaper video. Did Wounded Lion commission you to make the “Pony People” video?

No, we had been discussing collaborating on a video for a while when I saw them around at parties and stuff. It wasn’t a commission, it was a pro bono thing. Ok Go had a budget—a small budget, but there was a budget. The “Pony People” video was made more like I make my other videos—very much on a shoe-string budget.

There’s some contemporary history with overlap in music videos and video art—Target Video in the Getty exhibit and Videothing’s work, among others. How does this video configure into that crossover?

If I had to, I would put it in a music video category. But it’s funny that you ask that, because one of the first things video art teachers will tell you is, “Don’t make music videos.” When I’m working, one of the first things I’ll do on set is make a music video, just to warm up. Not even to show to people—just to introduce music into the process. But I don’t often end up making music videos. I think I made a remake of the “Rock Your Body” video.

That process is tangible because your videos “Under Cover” and “Over and Over” have musical elements.

It’s true they do. What I consider a music video is a situation where the music couldn’t change—if the music is the lead and the video is there to serve the music. Music is important to me, but when defining the difference, it’s more about which is the focus. The imagery in “Pony People” is meant to go along with the song—the picture was the supporting cast member while the song was the primary element. Hopefully the imagery doesn’t overpower it.

But at the same time, the “Pony People” video was collaborative. I felt responsible to the band to make an image which reflected what I interpret the band to be about. I couldn’t just pause the song midway and put a segment of me dunking my head in water or something like that. An art video, just like any fine art, wouldn’t need a set purpose. The goal doesn’t need to be so clear.

Why did your teachers tell you not to make music videos?

I think their logic is that music is someone else's art, and it’s pretty powerful. You could take the same shot of a baby crying, and you could put it over heavy metal music, and then you could put it over classical music, and the meaning will change drastically. When starting out with video art, it’s tempting to use music to smooth over your images, to use like a handy cap, when you really should be focusing on the picture. I think my teachers were thinking we would do better to develop work without music for that reason.

Do you feel more comfortable making music videos now that you’ve exhibited your fine art?

I’ve always thought it was okay to make music videos. Even if it were the first video I’d ever made, before the Getty show, before all that, it would be okay. Obviously there’s overlap aesthetically about the way the videos are put together. If I was listing videos I’ve made that have the most personal resonance, I wouldn’t put the “Pony People” video in there, but some of the imagery is very personal. There are images of people who are close to me that aren’t in the band: the two dancing girls are close friends of mine. When I shot some of the earlier footage, when the set up was still in the forest, before we shot in the studio, I didn’t even know that content would be used for a Wounded Lion video. But as soon as I put the band in stripes I knew I had to use it.

Check out more of Brian Bress' videos here.

VIDEOTHING feature

2008-09-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Filmmaker Michael Reich and Videothing feature, LA Weekly

Also: Target Video, TV Party, and video art vs. the music video

Converse and a camera: A still from an online arbiter. Photo by Rena Kosnett

TV party tonight: Michael Reich's Videothing.com Captures the Essence of L.A.'s Underground

By RENA KOSNETT
Wednesday, June 4, 2008 - 3:15 pm

There’s something funny you notice when first visiting videothing.com, the Web site for filmmaker Michael Reich’s local music project, Videothing: Nothing is for sale. Reich’s brief, sharply edited, somewhat scripted but mostly spontaneous films of music performances, band interviews, tour clips and general eccentricities, such as a Health and AIDS Wolf at the Smell, Matt Fishbeck playing his Omnichord over a toilet, and a rambling Jamai-can’t-accented speech about reggae from Ari Up, are laid out in two clean, colorful, user-friendly columns down the length of Videothing’s home page.

This is an inkling of what sets Videothing apart from the recently launched Pitchfork.tv, or Vice’s year-old online channel, VBS TV. In all cases, the content is free, immediate and accessible; but Videothing’s sole objective is to get you to watch the content. Not to buy an album, a festival ticket or the latest T-shirt style from American Apparel.

This puts Videothing more in the realm of an anarcho-punk zine than that of MTV. Videothing.com’s block colors and dark background took cues from the covers of Soul Jazz Records’ New York Noise compilations of experimental no-wave punk music that originally came out on small DIY labels from 1978 to 1988. The same East Coast music and art scene birthed another of Reich’s major artistic inspirations: Glenn O’Brien’s quasi-political New York cable-access show TV Party, which had the tag line, “TV Party is the show that’s a cocktail party but which could also be a political party.” TV Party ran from 1978 to 1982 and made regular guests of Debbie Harry, Mick Jones and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The scratchy Xerox aesthetic of the VHS and cassette-tape faces on Videothing.com is Reich’s inspirational reference to this era of nonproprietary art making, a moment that was more about the sharing of ideas than the copyright of a song. Says Reich: “In that scene, people would make homemade VHS tapes to trade like video zines, but now we get that kind of accessibility on the Internet.”

Each film’s length is determined by Reich’s self-proclaimed attention-deficit disorder, which, he says, is also the reason for his sharp editing style. Most likely because of his background in 2-D art, the power of suggestion — which is commonly expounded upon by figure-drawing and painting teachers — plays largely into Reich’s editing. In the “Crystal Antlers Go to Texas” video, which was shot during the first day of Reich’s hitching a ride to SXSW with the Long Beach band, quick sequential loading-gear/getting-gas/ Mom-closing-the-van-door clips are followed by hand-scribbled titles shot over a few seconds of Dylan and the Band’s “This Wheel’s on Fire.” Besides the British Absolutely Fabulous characters Patsy and Edina, “This Wheel’s on Fire” has become an archetypal song for the struggling on-the-road musician, in part, because of its lyrics about packing, waiting and rolling down the road, but also because of Levon Helm’s autobiography of the same name — and it just happened to be on the mix Crystal Antlers vocalist Jonny Bell made for the trip.

These are the kinds of circumstantial subtleties that make Videothing special. Reich, who also achieved a small level of fame without showing his face as “Hero Robot No. 2” in Daft Punk’s Electroma, is keen to his surroundings and can capture interesting moments without having to dwell on them. A quick toss of room service trays onto a hotel room carpet in Austin, Texas, is all the viewer needs in order to understand Reich’s mood at the beginning of his “On a Bridge” SXSW video: underslept, aggressive and juvenile. Not surprisingly, that particular video is even more clipped than usual, includes a (mild) confrontation with the police, and ends after a few seconds of No Age’s playing, when a crowd surfer slams into the camera lens.

Getting kicked in the face while holding video equipment was also a favorite pastime of filmmaker Joe Rees. With his San Francisco–based operation, Target Video, Rees was the West Coast’s answer to TV Party, bringing punk groups into his studio or orchestrating bizarre shows, the most oft-talked-about being 1978’s The Cramps: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital, during which female patients swarm around Lux Interior as he croons, “Somebody told me you people are crazy, but I’m not so sure about that.”

This year, Target Video was officially snuggled into the bosom of a fine-art institution when it was included in the Getty’s “California Video” exhibition, a generous group show that traced the significant developments of video art in California, and included heavyweights Eleanor Antin, Mike Kelley, John Baldessari, Martin Kersels and eccentric tag team Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn. The valley that separates video art and promotional music videos is vast — the former started in the 1960s as a way for artists to use time as a canvas, while the latter, despite the creativity of directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, are promotional tools. But the resurfacing of music-video art has allowed for crossover between the two genres and can lead to strong differences of opinion. (Getty curator Glenn Phillips believes that Joe Rees’ Target Video has artistic merit, while L. A. Weekly art critic Doug Harvey does not: “... Conspicuous in its absence, especially considering the inclusion of such nonartsy material as the S.F. punk archives of Target Video ...”)

At its core, though, intent is what divides music video art from the music video, which Reich understands. As a paying gig, Reich directs full-production music videos (for, among others, the Shins, Bad Religion and the Brazilian Girls) for Draw Pictures, a commercial film agency with offices in London and Los Angeles. With client-based work, Reich is employed to help sell a product; with Videothing, he is trying to increase awareness of a culture and contextualize the live music within the realm of the club, or toilet, or bus. He’s making it not just for the band but for the people who were there, for the people who couldn’t make it and for his own enjoyment. “We’re all in this together,” he says. “That’s why I never get when bands give me a hard time about doing a five-minute interview. This one night, I waited until 3 or 4 a.m. to get an interview with Japanther. I ended up having to help them load up their gear, which I didn’t mind. But then this one guy in the band said, ‘If we’re gonna do this, you have to go get us some water.’ So I had to drop what I was doing to go find a liquor store and buy them bottled water. Later, though, they e-mailed me to say thank you.”

Because Reich makes these cool little films as his own project, Videothing’s recognizable cardboard signs and duct-tape labels were the handiest way to assemble a portable film set on the cheap. Also, it is just more realistic to carry around a backpack full of poster board signs and vinyl letters while roaming the streets of Austin and Los Angeles rather than a suitcase full of the props he originally used, like the large stuffed tigers he bought for the “Lady Tigre” video. “Basically, the signs came from Bob Dylan and not having enough money, and the desire to make 2-D art again,” Reich explains. The London alley in which D.A. Pennebaker shot a young Dylan dropping paper signs to the beat of “Subterranean Homesick Blues” does look like it could be along the entrance to the Smell, if beats Allen Ginsberg and Bob Neuwirth were replaced with Daniel, downtown L.A.’s most famous bum-security guard.

Target Video screens at MOCA on June 7, and Videothing can be seen in action, out and about, on most nights in Los Angeles, and on the Web site www.videothing.com.

AIDS Wolf in London by Videothing

The Cramps at Napa State Mental Hospital by Target Video

David Byrne on TV Party

Pennebaker

GRAHAM FOREST & CRYSTAL ANTLERS short feature

2008-09-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Short write-ups as part of the 2008 F Yeah Fest feature, LA WEEKLY

F Yeah: Frickin' Yes in the Summertime
This weekend's fest offers a glimpse into the future of rock & roll

By L.A. Weekly Music Critics
Published on August 28, 2008

Crystal Antlers

2008 has been a stellar year for Long Beach's Crystal Antlers. They've released a new EP, gained scores of fans with their fantastic live shows, and signed to the respected Touch and Go Records, where they join the prestigious ranks of Black Heart Procession, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio. The California-cool guitar stylings of Andrew King, shirtless knock-around drumsticks of Kevin Stuart, psychedelic octaves of organist Victor Rodriguez, passion percussion employed by Sexual Chocolate, and Jonny Bell's full-fisted bass and voice have merged to form an L.A. County classic. (Rena Kosnett)

Graham Forest

Rumor has it that Graham Forest sits cross-legged on the ground while entertaining Native American children, strumming his guitar and spinning tall tales. It's also suggested that Graham Forest lives in a trailer in the forests of, um, Fresno, and his quarters are overrun with marionette parts, leatherworking tools and ancient mortar holes. Graham Forest, it is said, hones his powers from the Indian burial ground and nonworking satellite dish that his backyard comprises. Whether all this is true or not, the mostly unknown yet easily embraced Central Valley Neil Diamond known as Graham Forest possesses a wholesome goodness that is greatly appreciated amid much of the F Yeah Fest's chaos. (RK)

Really lovely and cute video of Graham Forest in Fresno, by Videothing

STARLITE DESPERATION record review

2008-09-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

Record Review, LA WEEKLY

Record Reviews: Inara George and Van Dyke Parks, Darker My Love
Also, Hawthorne Heights, the Starlite Desperation

By L.A. Weekly Music Critics
Published on August 28, 2008

The Starlite Desperation |Take It Personally| Infrasonic
Los Angeles trio the Starlite Desperation have accumulated a laundry list of career variations, including: label changes — GSL, Flapping Jet, Cold Sweat, Capitol; locale changes — San Francisco, Detroit, Los Angeles; band-name transformations — Starlite Desperation, Lost Kids, Spirit Army; and a lead singer whose own moniker changes just as frequently — Dante White, Dante Aliano, Dante Adrian, Dante Adrian White. But their music is consistently recognizable, mainly due to Adrian's delicate and sophisticated vocals, which contrast and cut through Jeff Ehrenberg's garage-punk drumming. The high timbre and loose, experimental feel of Take It Personally, their fourth, is most reminiscent of Starlite's first album, 2001's Show You What a Baby Won't. Both have an on-edge intensity and reach their greatest potential with the simpler pop tracks. New songs "Spirit Army," "My Favorite Place" and "I Love This!" accomplish much while remaining deceptively simple, invoking feelings of "Sweet Cherry Wine"–era Tommy James in Starlite's capacity to deliver catchy, dynamic songs by working and reworking accessible pop formulas — and then throwing in a little unexpected texture to shake those formulas up. Take It Personallyis a showcase for what Starlite Desperation do best — writing great garage/pop tunes that stick in your head for days and days and days. —Rena Kosnett

thoughts: GUERILLA SHOW TAKE-DOWN

2008-09-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

The art collective I work with, From Here To There, put up a public installation in an empty private lot on the corner of Micheltorena and Sunset, on Friday, September 12th.

By Sunday, it had been taken down.

But here is a blog that commemorates the process and the show.

It was a beautiful installation, and may it rest in peace.

Statement:
From Here to There presents 3434 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, a guerrilla art show in the empty lot at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Micheltorena in Silver Lake. The installation consists of 10 mounted images placed in the lot and visible from the street. Our intention is to utilize a space that is currently unused and in transition to display art. The images included present our interpretations of what it means to occupy land while making a public space personal.

thoughts: Hugging & Empathy

2008-09-09T03:08:00.000-07:00

Hugs are good. And chimps feel empathy.

BBC News

thoughts: The Olympics

2008-09-08T03:14:00.000-07:00

Opening ceremonies in Beijing: beautiful, yes. But...

What kind of society is it, that can afford to make patterns out of people?

-Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

Good question, Mr. Lane.

Olympic swimming pool after the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
IOC Olympic Museum/Allsport/Getty Images

BEIJING BUBBLES film review

2008-08-10T20:03:00.000-07:00

New documentary about punk and rock music in China's capital screening in Don't Knock the Rock music/film festival, LA Weekly

Beijing Bubbles screening at Cinefamily 7.24.08
by Rena Kosnett
July 25, 2008 9:09 AM

Beijing Bubbles, a new documentary about punk and rock music in Beijing, screened Thursday night at Cinefamily as part of the Don’t Knock The Rock movie line-up. The filmmakers, based in Berlin, both have long-standing connections to the music industry in Germany; George Lindt and Susanne Messmer have been involved in independent record production and music journalism for many years, so it was with a clear passion that they went to Beijing to find “punk rock visions at the other side of the world.” The film follows five bands, which were each introduced with taglines that read as entries in the punk-rock encyclopedia. Joyside, the popular indie punk band: “There is no use to be a hard-working man.” Hang On The Box, the experimental girl band: “We need a quiet mood to think about music.” New Pants, the shaggy-haired skinny boys: “We are still underground.” T9, the hermit throat-singer: “I have isolated myself since a long time.” Sha Zi, the bluesy duo: “We don’t want to be a part of that society.”

In the online synopsis, it says the musicians, although stylistically diverse, have all “retired from the world in which they have grown up.” And that’s exactly it. There are no options for these people: they have retired, at the ripe-old-age of twenty-something. Aside from one band member in New Pants who owns his own toy store, the cameras followed around these musicians doing absolutely NOTHING—they stroll, they browse, they sit, they talk. Some of them have had stints in the accepted “subculture” commodity position of record store and used clothing store clerk; the film makes it clear that, by choosing to pursue a life devoted to Western music, their only choice is to stay at home all day.

But Beijing Bubbles didn’t go in to WHY that is their fate. Why do these girls and boys have no income, no creative jobs, no art collectives, no home made music fanzines? The answer points plainly towards their government, their societal constraints, their country’s fear of independent thought. But you have to come to those conclusions yourself. Perhaps the filmmakers were too timid to ask "Why?" Or maybe they did, but the youngsters were too scared (or drunk) to answer.

With scarcely any cultural context (the absence of which makes the Bubbles in the title seem exceedingly appropriate), the lives of the musicians played out as banal, broke, stay-home-all-day subjects; and while that seems to be the point of their lives--this deviation from an acceptable routine--the monotony didn't have to be the point of the movie. Amidst the looming Beijing Olympics, and the recent violence against Tibetans and their supporters, including journalists, I would have loved to see the filmmakers connect to the root of their subjects’ disenfranchisement. What we got instead was a litany of clichéd catch-phrases: “We are living in a subculture,” “Depression helps me make music,” “All I want to do is sing, drink, and fuck,” etc., etc., etc. Joyside’s new album was even titled Drunk Is Beautiful.

The “Humai” throat-singing feats of T9’s singer Yiliqi, who is the son of a Mongol and a Manchurian, were a delightful inclusion that worked like a shot of espresso, although he doesn’t appear on-screen until the last fifteen minutes. The closest the film came to addressing the larger imprint of the Chinese culture was with two comments made by Sha Zi singer Liu Donghong. In the first, Liu was talking about the proliferation of prostitution in bars during a stroll with his girlfriend, and he asks the crucial question, “Where have all the girls gone?” An interesting societal dilemma with an interesting answer. No time here, but anyone familiar with the One Child law can start to imagine the fate of many baby girls born in China. And the second was during a stroll in Tiananmen Square. Liu looks up at the ominous Great Hall of the People legislative building along the western perimeter, and says simply, “They have many meetings here. They come here, and they make decisions. And then they come out with bad ideas.”

For more info visit www.beijing-bubbles.com

KING KHAN! interview

2008-08-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

King Khan & The Shrines, LA Record (online full interview)

The most fun I've ever had interviewing anyone. I might post the tape of the interview online, because his laugh is so entertaining. Guttural. He talks about Sun Ra's joyful noise at the end, and a smell contest that will supposedly take place at The Echo tonight. And Arthur Lee crying over his steak, etc... He also makes me a special promise after the last question.

King Khan & the Shrines (feat. Sun Ra Arkestra's Dave Davies

This is the erotic splatter film he starred in when he was 22 and he first moved to Germany, and his music video with BBQ for "Why Don't You Lie?" Interview below.

Hombre Fatal

Why Don't You Lie?

Before touring with his electric-magnetic-frenetic 10-piece soul revue orchestra for the new Vice release, The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines, the soul man cosmonaut brother-from-an-Indian-mother of the King Khan & BBQ Show talks with Rena Kosnett about painting babies, knife fights, Arthur Lee crying over his steak, and funkifying Larry Hardy’s house, all while cooking paella. And the good king poppa patriarch throws some dental hygiene advice in at the close for kicks.

Rena K: You do paintings of rock icons as babies. The Little Richard one is very cute.

King Khan: Thank you very much. ‘Baby: of Richard.’ When I first came to Germany I saw those paintings—actually it was in France when I saw the first one—I guess in the ‘60s there was an artist who made a lot of those baby-faced paintings. Often you find them hanging in kid’s rooms and stuff. I used to find them in the flea markets, so I had this idea—why not make baby musicians that I loved? And then what was really cool was when Saba Lou, my youngest daughter, before she was even talking she would play with them like they were dolls, and she would walk around with them—

There’re sharp corners on those things, no?

No, no. I mean, it’s wood, but it’s not super sharp. Anyways, she would play around with them and then when she got older she totally knew who they were and which songs matched which paintings. It was a great way for her to learn. I actually got an offer to do a children’s book with them. I want to do like a CD with one song from every musician.

What are dream dogs? They show up in your paintings often.

Dream dogs are the dogs in my dreams. I basically wanted to paint them and make them known to everyone.

You dream about little fluffy poodles?

Yeah. On tour it would happen often that I would wake up and I just had these dogs in my head, so I put them down. I have a bunch that I didn’t finish. There’s a dog made of spaghetti, and a dog made of circles. I have to keep doing it. It’s hard to find time when you’re touring. I dream about all sorts of different animals. Actually, I had a very disturbing dream just 2 days ago, after I saw There Will Be Blood. When I went to sleep I dreamt that I was going home and I lived in an oil well. It was a bit disturbing, ‘cause that movie’s pretty dark.

Did you intentionally set out to become the first Indian-French-Canadian to front a soul revue orchestra?

Yes. Actually, I killed the rest of them. We were all Siamese twins at one point, and I managed to keep the brains for myself. No, I mean, coming from Montreal, it’s such an international place, so I never really thought of myself in that way. But I guess that is true. I’m a French. Canadian. Indian.

Well, yes. Among other things.

I’m really excited to bring the whole orchestra here. The freak show. It’s crazy because I feel like rock n’ roll has renewed itself again, with the new wave of musicians. I’m really proud to be living right now, in this time. The quality of music that’s coming out from my peers and my buddies, I’m very proud of it. I think that growing up today is not as dismal and shitty as I thought it was gonna be.

Speaking of dismal and shitty, you know how we hear stories about Arthur Lee yelling at members of Love and how James Brown was tyrannical over the people in his band—

I met Arthur Lee! I had dinner like right in front of him. I mean, we hung out. That was really crazy. I was playing a blues festival in Norway and Love was playing also. So I asked the organizer if it was possible for me to meet Arthur Lee, but he said ‘Oh, he’s kind of strange about meeting anyone.’ He said Arthur Lee usually plays the show and then goes directly to the hotel—he doesn’t socialize at all. So I said, ‘If you could give him a CD that would be great,’ and he said no problem, and that he would pass the CD on. So then at dinnertime I went to the hotel to eat, and I got a plate of food and went in to the dining room and Arthur Lee was right there! And I was like, ‘Oh my God!’ So I sat at the table next door to his table and one of the guys from his band was like ‘Hey, King Khan, what are you doin’ here?’ So I felt more like one of them. Then they asked me, ‘Where you from?’ and asked me about my life. I told them I left home when I was 17, so then Arthur Lee was like [lowering and gruffing up voice considerably to do the Arthur Lee parts], ‘I left home when I was 17 too. My daddy bought me a car, and I drooove away.’ So I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool, my dad was a bit of a jerk.’ I told him my dad was addicted to cocaine, that he had a problem when he was young. And then Arthur Lee was like, ‘Really? Where’s your dad right now? I could use some of that stuff right now.’ I didn’t really laugh out loud at that, so he got kinda nervous, so I was like, ‘Oh yeah, haha.’ So then he said ‘Why don’t you come eat dinner over here?’ So I sat next to him and I was eating steak with him. We ate steak together. And then it was really kinda sad, because he asked me what I do, so I told him about the projects with my kids, and he was like ‘Ya know, I don’t have a momma. I don’t have a poppa. I don’t have any kids. I don’t even have a wife. I dance alone.’

Oh, Jesus.

And then, I swear to God, it looked like he had a tear come out of his eye. I was really shocked. In my head, I was like ‘Oh my God.’ We were sitting there eating, and he was almost crying. I was pretty shocked.

I’ve heard he was a tyrannical, crazy man to the members of his band.

Yeah, but he went through a really rough life, I think. Obviously, that kind of tyranny comes out of how happy you are at home. I’m, well—I love cooking for my band, I love being a poppa.

So we’re not going to hear any horror stories about you yelling at the Shrines?

No, not at all. The thing with the Shrines is—it’s really like a dysfunctional family. Everyone has their annoying little behavioral things or smelly body parts.

What’s the smelliest body part?

[laughing] what’s the smelliest body part?

The smelliest body part on the smelliest person.

Actually, if anyone can find out, I’ll give them a free record.

At your show in L.A.?

Yeah, if anyone is brave enough to test the waters.

You know, people are going to take you up on that.

Yeah, I know. [laughing laughing] So? I’ll just line up the Shrines and we can blindfold people and have their noses lead them.

Is the video for ‘Why Don’t You Lie’ based in reality? About BBQ going with you to Berlin and getting jealous and insecure?

The video is actually supposed to be a fake gay romantic art movie.

Really? I didn’t get gay—I just got like, really good friends.

It was supposed to be two gay lovers!

You should’ve kissed.

We made the mistake of doing that like twice in public, and it was really, uh, strange. Especially the second time because we thought it would be really shocking but then we realized that no one was even looking! That video was actually made by the director of the movie I did the soundtrack for—Oliver Rihs—called Schwarze Schafe. The video was the director’s idea. He thought that was really hilarious, to do that.

Does BBQ get jealous when you tour without him?

No, no.

He’s never said, “If I can’t have you no one can!”

[laughing] No, we share. It’s better that way.

What was the one deciding factor that made you want to stay in Berlin in the middle of your Spaceshits tour?

The Spaceshits had been together for five years at that point, and I think all of us were really itching to try something else, do something different. And out of the Spaceshits came a number of bands that were great. My sister started playing with the guitar player, and they got married and had babies. And Les Sexareenos came out of that too, so there were all these offshoots and I think it was a wise decision. I personally wanted to live in Europe because after the tour I was so happy being there, and amazed at how people are treated in general there, especially musicians. All the freaks of rock n’ roll music seem to survive in Europe. It’s been like that for a long time. People who are forgotten and disappear in America are really celebrated in Europe somehow. They might be small circles of people, but in every city you’ll find a couple hundred people who really have a passion for finding rare, odd, crazy rock n’ roll.

Do you ever see Jessie Evans and Toby Dammit around Berlin?

I didn’t know they lived in Berlin. I have a home studio in my house, Moon Studios, and I record there. I rarely go out. Just when friends come out to play shows, or something like that. I’m actually going to be putting out a compilation of the Moon material on In The Red. It’s recordings from the past eight years. I want to have volume one come out hopefully at the end of this year. It’s got Deerhunter on it, and Black Lips, and Saba Lou, and Demon’s Claws. Some solo stuff too. It’s like the family exposing itself. What I like to do mostly when people visit is just record songs. I do that with my family, my brother and sister too. I’ve been recording with them for ten years. I’ve been waiting to put it all together. But this year went really well. Deerhunter came out, and Demon’s Claws, and it all sounded so good. I can’t wait. I think it’s going to be great. And it’s on In The Red Records—L.A.’s finest.

I really like the duet you do with Saba Lou on ‘Passed and Gone.’ It’s very sweet.

Thanks, I just recorded that a couple weeks ago. I was working on that song for the Shrines, and Saba Lou was just sitting and watching, and quietly came up to me and was like [in a little girl voice] ‘I want to sing the song, too.’ It’s amazing because now that she can read, it makes things a lot easier. She’s turning eight on the 19th of July! And Bella is five.

You had kids at a fairly young age.

Yeah, I was twenty-two. I had a baby, me and my wife got married, and we moved into our new apartment, all in the same week. I have it all on the same roll of film. Our wedding, our moving in, and our baby’s birth. It was pretty crazy.

Did your decision to stay in Berlin have anything to do with their general acceptance of sexual deviancy?

Yes, definitely. It’s common for girls here to woo men with hashish and lure them into their dungeons and do wonderful things to them. I think in general Europeans don’t make their kids feel ashamed about sexuality. Growing up, kids are introduced to it in a really nice way, rather than in a way that makes it seem evil and horrible. I can tell just in the way my wife was raised. It’s a completely natural way of discovering things.

Are Berlin sex shops different than Montreal sex shops?

There’s probably a lot more leather in Berlin. Actually, Montreal is kind of kinky in that way too. But I don’t really go into sex shops. I like to be creative on my own.

Oh, yeah. I, umm, don’t go in to sex shops either.

[laughing] Unless it’s someone’s birthday!

The Black Lips list you as a member of the band in the Good Bad Not Evil notes, but it says that you caused major ruckus and distractions for them. What did you do?

Well, I’ve known them for a long time and sometimes I write songs for them. It’s like family antics. Like when a drunk uncle does funny things at your birthday party.

Did anybody end up crying?

[laughing] No, I guess not a drunk uncle—maybe when your cousin pukes on something. It’s like blood family. I go kinda crazy when I see them. I get excited, and like a kid—we all do. I jump on stage sometimes. That’s how I am with music that I love. I wish more people were like that too. There’s been some funny instances. One really funny one was when they played in L.A. recently. Larry Hardy was out of town and he let me stay at his house for a week, and the Black Lips and the Spits were playing in L.A. that week. So he knew that I was gonna have them over, I told him I was going to have them over. But we made a mess. I mean, I didn’t make the mess.

No, of course not.

Cole let a fart bomb off in his house and we had to open all the windows. So they equally make a ruckus when they’re around me too. I’m not always the troublemaker.

So they can’t blame you.

It’s fun to say, but they’re pretty trouble-making themselves.

I want to talk about Hombre Fatal.

Oh, God. That film was made by a really hardcore ex-skinhead punk girl. She’s the girl that’s in the movie with the tattoos all over.

It’s really hot.

It was pretty much her idea. I think maybe she had a thing for me or something, and I guess it manifested itself in the movie. She’s pretty hardcore. Her name is Iris Cuntze. And she was a really hardcore nasty skinhead. And she was notorious for beating people up and stuff. But then she went through this reform and I happened to be there for that.

You were totally cold to that Asian chick who shot Iris for licking your chest.

I know, I know. It’s because my wife was pregnant while that was being filmed. I was going through some shit.

The only part I was able to see was when you were dancing in your little bikini and then the Asian chick shoots Iris.

It’s a short film!

That’s the whole thing?

Well, there are the credits at the end where I’m signing autographs outside my dressing room. That’s kinda funny.

Have you ever met King Khan the Bollywood star?

No! But I really want to play a villain against him. I have this dream of doing this Bollywood film where it would just be villains, where every character gets introduced separately. Like a Sergio Leone movie. Or like El Topo with Indians. I’d want evil people, one after another. But I don’t know about that actor, actually. I’d like to meet him, I guess, but I heard recently that he did commercials for this cream called ‘Fair and Lovely,’ which is a skin cream in India for dark people to become light skinned.

Fuck, that's awful.

Yeah, so I was very upset when I heard that. That’s really horrible to put anything like that on the market. It’s sad. You see that a lot in India—it can be a pretty racist place. There’s still a lot of racism against dark people.

Do you think he’d have a problem with you using his nickname, now that you’ve publicly spurned his product endorsement?

I didn’t know about him when I came up with the name. I began using that name ten years ago because it’s very anonymous. Khan is my real last name, but the name ‘King Khan’ is common—like, if an Indian person moves to, you know, Idaho, and opens up a chicken place, he’ll name it ‘King Khan Chicken.’ Also, when I first moved to Germany I got a German WWI helmet as a present—well, it was made of plastic, it wasn’t a real one—and I would wear it everywhere. I would go grocery shopping with that thing on, and it would freak German people out—an Indian guy wearing a Kaiser helmet. The first time I went to Hamburg I was walking down the street drinking a beer with my girlfriend, and all these street bums were coming up to me and screaming ‘Kaiser!’ And ‘kaiser’ is like ‘king,’ so I thought, ‘Man, I’m a king in Germany!’ So that’s where the name came from.

Did you respond to the bums that were yelling at you?

Yeah, I was drinking a beer and giving them a salute—

Wait, wait, what kind of salute?

What? Oh… no, like a cheer! We don’t have those kind of bums anymore.

If George Clinton and James Brown were in a knife fight, who would win?

Definitely James Brown. James Brown was a boxer, a fighter. I think George Clinton would be trying to distract him by doing some kind of funky dance, and then James Brown would just cold-cock him. And I mean a punch.

How about Long Gone John versus Larry Hardy in a knife fight?

I don’t know if I can answer that. Well, I would say Long Gone. But maybe Larry has some kind of mysterious Tai Chi training or something.

Larry does have youth on his side.

Yeah, but Long Gone’s kind of Larry’s poppa in a way.

So it would be like a Star Wars kind of situation.

Long Gone John is Darth Vader and Larry Hardy is Luke Skywalker.

You’ve worked with Goner Records in the past, and Sympathy For The Record Industry, and In The Red Records. So why Vice now? Why not find a comparably independent record label based in Berlin, or somewhere else close to your home?

I just wanted to get the music out to the masses. It’s great to work with underground labels, and I’ll continue doing that. But Vice has a whole strategy to get it out there and push their shit onto normal people, not just music fans. And I think that it’s time this music gets out of the whole underground thing, and gets to younger kids. It’s done that a bit naturally, already. You’ve got Thrasher magazine writing about us and Jay Reatard and stuff. But I guess with Vice, I’m down with them really pushing it all over the place.

Was it Vice’s idea to release a compilation record or was that you wanted?

That was what I wanted, to test the waters. Also that Shrines material was pretty much an exclusively European thing. I didn’t really tour all over America with the Shrines like I did with King Khan & BBQ.

It wasn’t due to a lack of new material to run with?

No, I thought it would be good for the older stuff to get more exposure. We have a new album—we’re working on it now. But I think that the songs on Supreme Genius still hold up. For example, songs like ‘Torture.’ It’s ten years old. And it’s about time people took notice of those songs. I think a lot of people, especially in the States, didn’t get a chance to hear them. Another thing about Vice, we’ve got this great booking agency working with us, and it’s little things like that—I mean, King Khan & BBQ do really well in America, and I think it’s because of that, that I finally got to bring the whole band—Oh shit, I forgot the rice!

[Sounds of pans crashing. Pause.]

Are you burning your dinner?

I’m checking—I don’t think it’s burned. Okay, it’s good. So the success of King Khan & BBQ enabled me to bring the Shrines over.

Considering that you’re barely out of your twenties, do you think declaring your ‘Supreme Genius’ at this point in time is selling the rest of your seventy or so years a bit short?

That title’s a kind of tongue-in-cheek joke. My dad had a big collection of Indian classical music, and it’s common for sitar players to have the phrase ‘supreme genius’ in the titles of their records. It’s similar to the phrase ‘Popular Favorites’ in the U.S.—like those records that say [making his voice like a 50s radio DJ] ‘Rock n’ roll: Popular Favorites’ from the ‘50s and ‘60s. So that’s where the ‘Supreme Genius’ came from. It didn’t come from an ego problem. Which I don’t have.

It reminds of Korla Pandit—his records.

Did Korla Pandit have a ‘supreme genius’ album too? He looks crazy.

He’s not really Indian! He was a light-skinned black guy.

Yeah, he was from L.A. right? I’m really Indian, though.

I believe you. I want to know about your fashion choices. I really like your bone wear and your grass skirts—and the sparkly gold onesy you were wearing while you were giving your friend a hair cut in New Orleans to make him look like Ghandi.

My wife designs all that stuff for me. We should sell that stuff. It would be great to start a fashion line of my dresses.

Do you pick out outfits for the Shrines like James Brown used to do for his band?

My wife picks out and makes all the costumes, and I help here and there. I’ll wear them and she’ll stick pins in me. It can be quite scary and erotic.

Do you already know what you’re going to wear at your show in L.A.?

I’ve had the same suit that I’ve worn for the Shrines, the white one, for years now. I’ve taken that suit on tour for two months and it doesn’t smell bad. I could wear it every night. But I have to dry it. I’m not really one to bring too much luggage when I go places. That’s actually why I prefer to wear hula dresses with King Khan and BBQ—they’re a lot easier to pack.

So in the smell challenge, you’re not going to be the smelliest one?

No, no no no. Ah, well, maybe. It depends on what time of day it is.

Do you smell worse at night?

I have this musk that comes out, like a beaver. Or a raccoon.

Is it in response to external stimulus? Like a skunk?

I always keep a little pouch of beaver musk wherever I go. Most Canadians do.

Can you explain why you like Sun Ra to me? I ask because he’s someone I’ve always admired, but I have trouble getting to the root of it, since I don’t go for all the extraterrestrial cosmic awareness stuff.

What I always loved about Sun Ra was the way he created his own myth. And then that myth became reality. When I think of Sun Ra, I think, ‘Well, now he’s back in space.’ I really believe that. What he did was musical alchemy in a way. He brought people together in Philadelphia who probably would’ve never played instruments, and told them what they should play, like a pharaoh. He would look at someone and say ‘You should play drums!’ And we don’t know if they would’ve found that without him. He was a catalyst for a lot of people.

He had that one quote: ‘We’re all instruments, and everyone is supposed to be playing their part.’

It was kind of like being a magician, his ability to influence people. Like Anton LaVey—a much kinder, gentler Anton LaVey. LaVey was kind of scary—not scary, evil. What’s beautiful and unique, what I love about Sun Ra was that he preached for people to listen to the music inside themselves, and not the programmed music that was shouted at them to numb their brains. And that whole idea is still applicable now. I especially love the Sun Ra doo-wop stuff that he did—the space doo-wop stuff. I think that music is so psychedelic and wonderful and pure. It’s unbelievable. Like Henry Darger’s paintings.

But, again—kind of scary. Those paintings can be really scary. But some of Sun Ra’s later electronic keyboard compositions are really frightening.

People like that, Henry Darger and Sun Ra, they don’t create for the masses—they create for themselves and their own healing process or whatever it is. They don’t even necessarily want it to be shown to everyone. It’s just beautiful and uninfluenced by stupidity. The first time I really had a religious experience with music was when I was 22 and first moved to Germany. I met this painter and sax player, who was actually going back to America—he gave me a stack of video tapes of Sun Ra. And I flipped out. I had known a little bit about Sun Ra, but I didn’t know the whole philosophy behind it. And after that I found my way. I wanted to do that same kind of joyful noise.

Last question. Do you think your wife would mind if you and I reenacted Hombre Fatal with me playing the part of the tattooed lady that licks your chest?

I think because we had this interview and everything, it’s part of the job, and it would be disappointing if it didn’t happen—so no, she wouldn’t mind. Please brush your teeth before we do that. And don’t forget to floss.

KING KHAN AND THE SHRINES WITH THE JACUZZI BOYS ON THUR., JULY 10, AT THE ECHO, 1822 SUNSET BLVD., ECHO PARK. 8:30 PM / $12 / 18+. ATTHEECHO.COM. THE SUPREME GENIUS OF KING KHAN AND THE SHRINES IS OUT NOW ON VICE. VISIT KING KHAN AT HAZELWOOD.DE/KINGKHAN/ OR MYSPACE.COM/KINGKHANANDTHESHRINES.

I love the news: EVEN FRENCH OYSTERS HAVE HERPES

2008-08-04T10:08:00.001-07:00

NYMPHOMANIAC OYSTERS. French oysters are having so much sex they're dying off from STDs.

The Joy Of, um, Oysters.

BBC News
16:41 GMT, Monday, 4 August 2008 17:41 UK
'Sex link' to French oyster rout
France imported Japanese oysters after a poor harvest in the 1970s

Young French oysters have fallen prey to a killer virus because they have used up too much energy developing their sex organs, scientists believe.
An expert team has been trying to find out why oysters have been decimated in all but one of France's coastal beds, dealing a severe blow to the industry. A warm winter and wet spring left the young oysters especially vulnerable to Oyster Herpesvirus type 1, they say.
They matured too fast, feeding on abundant plankton, the scientists say.
The destruction of oysters aged 12 to 18 months ranges from 40% to 100% in all the French oyster beds except for one area at Arcachon in the south-west.

An expert from the Ifremer institute, Tristan Renault, told the French news agency AFP that "the animal has been using up a lot of energy developing its genitalia and using a lot less to defend itself". Samples collected by Ifremer suggest that the Vibrio splendidus bacteria has contributed to the oysters' weakness. Oyster farms hope to recover some of their stock by getting the uninfected survivors to breed.

France is the biggest oyster producer in Europe and the fourth biggest in the world, after China, Japan and South Korea, AFP reports.

F YEAH FEST/TOUR interview & feature

2008-07-27T19:36:00.000-07:00

F Yeah Fest/Tour interviews with Sean Carlson and Phil Hoelting, LA Weekly

Photos by Tod Seelie/Sucka Pants

Go, Greased Lightning! F Yeah Fest Tours U.S. on Veg-Fueled Bus
Is this the future of touring?

By RENA KOSNETT
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - 4:30 pm

Los Angeles’ independent-music festival the F Yeah Fest just concluded a four-week continental loop around the Eastern, Southern and Midwestern U.S. in a vegetable-oil- and diesel-powered Blue Bird school bus. At various intervals, the inhabitants of this French-fried freight included Monotonix, Team Robespierre, Totally Michael, Josh Fadem, Matt & Kim, the Death Set, Crystal Antlers, Dan Deacon, Microcosm Publishing, Space 1026 art collective, Videothing, Sucka Pants photography and various tour managers, heartbreakers and foreign legionnaires (just kidding, but Monotonix are from Tel Aviv, so they’ve most likely had stints in the IDF).

The F Yeah Tour ended last week, with a show in Brooklyn headlined by the Circle Jerks (singer Keith Morris is one of the festival’s organizers). But Sean Carlson, the festival’s other organizer, and Phil Hoelting, one of the tour managers, have plans to continue this ecological and monetarily friendly way of touring the West Coast and abroad this fall. L.A. Weekly spoke with Carlson and Hoelting via telephone this week.

L.A. WEEKLY: What has surprised you most about touring by bus?

Phil Hoelting: How amazing it is to be able to find vegetable oil, the accessibility of it. Everyone that’s been touring now have their eyes trained to search for veggie oil. We get our hands dirty and dive into these oil troughs behind restaurants. When you find a grease trough filled with hundreds of gallons of oil, it’s like a gold rush. You’d never think these emotions exist. Finding good, clean grease and not being able to take it all in the tanks was the worst feeling. I’ll never forget Amarillo, Texas, for that reason.

Sean Carlson: Each bathroom break takes 45 minutes. The daily drama of getting everyone back to the bus. Everyone scatters at night to be with their friends, so if we have a noon leave time, we have to wake up at 9 a.m. If someone wants to sleep in at their friend’s house and not pick up their phone in the morning, we all end up standing outside the bus and waiting.

Does the bus have a name?

PH: Greased Lightning. The original name was Too Fast For Love. Ami, the singer for Monotonix, came up with that name. But then I was looking on the weather map on my phone and there were lightning storms everywhere, so we came up with the current name.

What’s been the most successful part of your journey?

SC: That the first show happened. That we got out of California. That the bus works. That we haven’t crashed. I don’t want to jinx it, but we’ve made it happen. Putting together a tour isn’t an easy thing. Phil and the crew help me a lot running the day-to-day. But there are a million other things, logistics, that go with it, which I’ve had to fly back and forth from the tour to L.A. to deal with — stuff for the F Yeah Fest.

Also, it’s amazing that we haven’t been pulled over yet, and that the bus hasn’t been broken into. In Atlanta, we had to park in front of a housing project, and it was my turn to sleep in the bus — every night, someone takes the responsibility of sleeping in the bus. But I couldn’t sleep because all night I kept hearing people muttering outside, “What’s in there?” I was holding a baseball bat and lying in the seat, and thinking to myself, “I’m gonna hit someone when they try to come in. I’m gonna hit someone and then they’re going to kill me.” Thankfully, none of that happened.

PH: Not counting oil scores? Well, we broke down three times, and each time, we un-broke down, which was a major success. We were leaving Alabama, after playing this amazing venue, the Bottle Tree, and Donovan [Lenker, one of the tour crew] was making a U-turn into a driveway, and our U-Haul trailer jackknifed and we got stuck. Eventually, we got AAA to come out, but by that time we had tried for so long to get unstuck that the wheels stopped turning. That was the first time the tour “was over.” I literally laid down on the ground and threw my keys, which I consequently lost, and fell asleep. But this local guy shows up, and he’s, like, “Hey, man, what’s the problem here? Let me have a look.” He brought a calm energy to the situation. Turns out we’d killed all the air pressure in the bus by trying to move, so we just had to let it rest.

Another time, about 30 miles outside of Pensacola, we ran out of diesel in a town that, we soon found out, had no diesel fuel. We called AAA, but they told us our best bet was to call 911. They said, “We don’t deliver diesel fuel, and we don’t tow buses.” That was the second time the tour “was over.” But I approached this really nice old man in this very small Christian town we were stuck in, and he made a phone call to another gas station 30 miles outside of town, and they actually brought us diesel fuel.

Anyone who gets on this bus realizes that it’s a lot of work. It’s free fuel, but it’s a hard time. When you go prowling for veggie oil, you just have to act like you know what you’re doing, so you don’t attract attention. We’re all definitely prepared to have “the talk” with police if they ever stop us — there are some issues because we’re not paying gas taxes when we run on vegetable oil. But, hopefully, the police will just be cool about it and let us go.

Describe the scariest experience involving bus nudity.

SC: Man, I’m sober 14 days on the tour, and then one time I get photographed naked and that photo gets on the Sucka Pants Web site and everyone thinks I’m naked all the time.

I didn’t ask about you personally, I just asked about general bus nudity.

SC: Sometimes we get naked on the bus. We got naked in Birmingham after a couple bottles of whiskey. I have a girlfriend, so I don’t really care. The sexual frustration is through the roof on the bus, though. It doesn’t even matter if you’re a boy or a girl anymore. We end up spending a lot of time spooning and holding one another.

PH: Sean’s the only one who gets to answer that.

Do any of the people at the shows already know what the F Yeah Fest is?

SC: Yeah, absolutely. Every city has a lot of press, and it’s going over really well. They know what I do and what Keith does, so it’s nice. Right now, F Yeah Fest is just a show to them, but, hopefully, in a couple years it’ll grow into something that they recognize. Next, we’re planning to go to Japan and Australia with the band Fucked Up in December. We’re also starting the West Coast tour.

Ken Kesey’s bus trip with his Merry Pranksters in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is now symbolic of the psychedelic movement and the beginnings of New Journalism. What will the F Yeah Fest and Greased Lightning come to represent?

PH: Finding a way to give smaller bands opportunities to tour during these unstable [times of] insane gas prices. We can tour the country for very little money by running on vegetable oil. The venues can’t even give bands guarantees to cover gas money right now. With Sean, I want to package tours for bands that maybe couldn’t do it otherwise.

SC: Being young. Being dumb. Having fun. Enjoying your youth for as long as possible. No one helped me when I was 18 and started F Yeah Fest. Everyone thought this tour would be a bust. But we’ve done it.

For more photos and other fun stuff, visit Sucka Pants

video of the week: We Belong

2008-07-24T13:44:00.000-07:00

This gets the award for: Most Unexpected Use of Pat Benatar.

KING KHAN & THE SHRINES live review

2008-07-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

Live review, LA Weekly

All photos by Ignacio Genzon.

King Khan & The Shrines at The Echo 7.10.08
by Rena Kosnett
July 11, 2008 7:15 AM

Touring on the heels of their first kiss with Vice Records, the brother-from-an-Indian-mother King Khan led his keyboard, guitar, bass, brass, rhythm, and booty section through a dozen or so tracks off of their new compilation album, The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines, as well as a Spits cover and a rendition of Bowie's "Rebel Rebel," in the uncomfortably crowded Echo last night. King Khan, a French-Canadian of Indian decent currently residing in Berlin with his growing family of rug rats, usually tours the U.S. with his Canadian counterpart and former Spaceshits band mate BBQ (alias Mark Sultan) as The King Khan and BBQ Show, which has deservedly garnered him a large fan base in North America. King Khan and the Shrines, though, have been playing mainly Europe, until the recent backing of Vice enabled Khan to ship his world-spread band on an American tour; so most of the material on the new record has been released before, but not heard live by KK & BBQ-loving rock n' rollers on this side of the globe. King Khan & The Shrines put up a gonzo-soul act in the tradition of James Brown, Otis Redding, and the Sun Ra Arkestra, and take it to a level that is either extreme emulation or poignant satire, depending on the tune.

My favorite track on Supreme Genius, "Took My Lady To Dinner"--which clearly falls into the latter category, was left off the play list, unfortunately. The lyrics make me crack up every time I hear them ("My baby's sooo fat and ugly"). But the Shrines made high energy feats of “Tell Me,” and “Land of the Freak,” which, with their heavy saxophone and trumpet funkadelics, are two of the most heavily Stax-referential songs on the record. “Welfare Bread,” previously released on the 2007 Hazelwood Records full-length What Is?!, is so smooth and mellow, harkening Joe Tex/Marvin Gaye-style cool, it makes me wonder if people are actually listening to the lyrics, which, again, make me crack up in a way some people actually living on welfare may think is inappropriate: “You don’t have to pay your bills anymore/You can just eat my welfare bread.” Dressed in a cape and sparkly mask (think Blowfly), Khan’s crowning achievement was his signature Shrines call-and-response break about re-entering his lover’s vagina in an attempt to be reborn. Although the motivation of his gospel doesn’t change, Khan’s description modified from previous recordings of the whole-body rebirth sermon: after he finally got his other leg in, the line of the night was “And let me tell ya’, it was all beach. No sand, allll beach.”

COASTAL STATES gallery opening tonight!

2008-07-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

COASTAL STATES, a group photography and video exhibition from the art collective From Here To There, opens tonight in Highland Park from 7-10pm at Monte Vista Projects.

Gilda Davidian, Nacho Genzon, Rena Kosnett, Jeff McLane, Katie Shapiro

5442 Monte Vista Street
(at Figueroa and 54th)

For more information please visit www.montevistaprojects.com

See you there!

thoughts: Proof that Idiocracy lives--The dumbest company ever.

2008-07-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to pay my student loans online, but it didn't go through.

So I called the 800 number for ACS Campus Products and Services.. And I got some guy named Josh. This was a snippet of our mind-bending conversation, word-for-word. NO EMBELLISHMENT.

Rena: "I've been trying to pay my student loan online but it's not showing up on my account or my bank statement."

Josh: "According to my records you never tried to pay your balance. You don't even have an account online."

Rena: "Yes, yes I did, and I do. I have the confirmation number for my payment. It's--"

Josh: "We don't keep confirmation numbers."

Rena: "You don't keep confirmation numbers? Then what's the point of giving them?"

Josh: "They're only filed if the payment goes through."

Rena: "You only keep confirmation numbers if the payment goes through? Then what's the point of them at all? If they've gone through then there's nothing to confirm. You would only need to reference a confirmation number if there was some sort of problem."

Josh: "That's just the way it is."

Rena: "OK. That's the way it is. Can you look up the latest activity on my account and tell me if the payment has been scheduled or if I need to pay again?"

Josh: "You don't have an account online with us."

Rena: "Um. OK. Yes I do. I have emails from my online account and my useless confirmation numbers for my payments, and my user name and login."

Josh: "Well your account isn't showing up in our system."

Rena: "OK. Where do we go from here? Do you have a supervisor that can help me fix the problems with my online account?"

Josh: "I am the supervisor."

Rena: "[Sighh...]"

What is this, Orwellian times Huxley era Idiocracy bullshit? Here's my confirmation number that confirms absolutely nothing? OW, MY BALLS!

SPECTRUM catalogue books for sale

2008-07-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

We're selling these catalogue books of the SPECTRUM Polaroids at-cost. They're really beautiful--put together by Katie Shapiro. The book preview on the Blurb site only shows red, orange, and yellow. There are 2 polaroids of all 11 colors. We sold out of soft-cover books at the opening.

Spectrum

By From Here to There

Book Preview

"SPECTRUM" PHOTO SHOW TONIGHT! & free MAE SHI show!

2008-06-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight! 6-9pm

The art collective I work with, From Here To There, is having a opening tonight. The work is from 11 people and is all polaroids, in celebration of the iconic discontinued format and its framing of our everyday life & extraordinary occurrences.

2 loud bands are going to be playing, the Mae Shi, and Ghiant, and it will be a noisy and fun party.

Sugar Salon/Azucar Gallery, 3022 Sunset Blvd, 90026, right next to the Silverlake Lounge. 323.666.7000

thoughts: Today is the 64th anniversary of the GI Bill

2008-06-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

A little bit of trivia: today is the 64th anniversary of the GI Bill. I wonder what all the vets dropping out of Cal State L.A. due to lack of government-subsidized tuition funds are thinking about these checks...? Food for thought..

Here are some photos of that proud moment:

Franklin Roosevelt signing the GI Bill, aka “The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944”

Veterans in New York City wait for school counseling on the last day to file papers under the GI Bill, July 1951. In a new book political scientist and historian Ira Katznelson argues that the GI Bill, along with Social Security and New Deal labor laws, were racially discriminatory. (Bettman / Corbis Photo)

thoughts: Where did this magic money come from?

2008-06-21T18:46:00.001-07:00

I got this in the mail this week.

And that's cool.

$600 is a lot of money and I can definitely use it.

But where did this magic money come from?

Did a stork bring it?
Did George Bush borrow it from his father?
Did all Guantanamo Bay prisoners start paying rent?

How can the IRS afford to give every tax paying citizen $600? That's billions of dollars. During a recession?

I didn't even have my own text book in my high school Chemistry class. I had to share with another kid. And those were the halcyon days of the US Economy.

Wait, wait...did CHINA loan us the money? (I don't know, I'm just guessing.)

Does anyone know?

MOCA & TARGET VIDEO event review

2008-06-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Link:TARGET VIDEO @ MOCA, 6.7.08, LA WEEKLY

Target Video screens a 2-hour compilation video at MOCA's Geffen Contemporary, as part of the CineMOCA festival.

Photos by Rena Kosnett.

Blood brothers: Germs drummer Don Bolles and the night's music programmer, Henry Rollins.

The turn-out for the Target Video screening was solid, mostly 30 and 40 somethings fanning the flame of the old mohawk spirit, but there were younger curious people as well, many of whom, when asked, had never heard of Target Video. The Gun Club portions of the screening were what really captured my attention, as Jeffrey Lee Pierce's haunting wail has always occupied a chamber in my heart; but I couldn't shake the distraction of the odd setting. On one end there was a film playing highlighting 1980s punk kids and their battle to tape up homemade flyers, and on the other end was an Infiniti for sale.

And an Infiniti salesman.

Talkin' shop.

Not to mention $8 Heinekens, and $6 hot dogs. And the chips? I think they were $2.50. Punk rock.

A confusing mixture of endorsements. Hypocritical? Perhaps. Oxymoronic? Maybe. But it definitely sucked all of what was left of the revolutionary appeal of those Target videos right out. Why hold a screening to pay homage to a certain time when the very thesis of the movement in question is being negated by the surrounding corporate sponsorship? There's nothing wrong with getting paid, and the arts are definitely underfunded in this country--it's just that when you hold the purpose up to be something it isn't...I hate to use the words "douche bag," but if the shoe fits...

More photos:

Target Video founder Joe Rees.

Videothing gets Jim Freek's take.

These kids were saying they're in a band...parents, please stop them or they'll end up like these guys:

But that actually wouldn't be so bad. These people were sweet as hell.

COMMENTS
There are 3 comments posted for this article.

Target Video got zero for this show. Henry Rollins got zero for the show. MOCA made no money from "the bar." It was run by a third party. Nothing would have happened with out sponsorship of the MOCA series. Yes, the arts are indeed under funded. What was your contribution?
The hypocrisy seems to be when one spouts on about something without facts.

Posted on June 12, 2008 9:55 AM by Jackie Sharp

Re: Jackie
One $8 Heineken.
It was Target Video's choice to have the screening at MOCA. There are numerous other "punk" venues around Los Angeles where a screening would have been monumental, and uncompromised, and Target Video may have even been able to walk away with some cash- 6th street warehouse, 1830, The Smell, Tiny Creatures, etc.
I also would have loved to talk to Target Video about the current museum attention, but this reporter's attempts at communication went unanswered. Before the screening, Mr. Rees said it was important to spread the word about DIY art, and punk roots, etc. Kinda hard to take that seriously when chattering about "horse power" and "miles per gallon" are heard over your shoulder.
Museums are institutions. And institutions are antithetical to the very basis of what punk and the subjects of Target Video were about. WIth the clear hand that corporate sponsorship had in the event, I felt I would be remiss to not point out the pink Infiniti in the room.
I appreciate your comment, though. It's hard for the arts right now.

Posted on June 12, 2008 12:21 PM by Rena

Constitutionally, the MOCA and punk rock have very little in common.
Punk rock – and I mean if you want to use Marcus and Kuenzli’s thesis, which I agree with – is rooted in the modernist negation known as dada. (Henri Lefebvre made a similar comment – not about punk rock but stating current events occurring in the negation were indebted to happenings in a Zurich Café in 1916.) Dada – as described by Hugo Ball -- was about anarchism of the spirit. Or it was about nothing (Tristan Tzara), take your pick. The ethos of punk rock -- whether participants are consciously or subconsciously aware of it -- is rooted in this movement (dada). Dada provided a possibility for punk rock to exist; it gave it its lexicon, and without a precedent, without people having the faculty to say “no,” punk rock would not exist: the concept wouldn’t have been born. (Similarly, Surrealism and the situationists would not have occurred without dada, just as dada most likely would not have occurred without the help of Marx and Bakunin.) These events – dada, punk rock, whatever – took place outside of consumer culture (i.e. in the negation). So, as Rena pointed out, having them at the same place – punk rock and consumer culture -- is a paradox. Then again, this gets back to Herbert Marcuse’s theory that capitalism will eventually engulf people/events/happenings on the periphery. In this case, it took Target video about 25 years to get there.
And I mean look at the more conspicuous: Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s mug on a screen in the Getty? Come on. The dude was as iconoclastic as they came. And broke as hell his whole life.
Also, your statement: “The hypocrisy seems to be when one spouts on about something without facts,” is foolish. There are facts there. Beer was $8. That’s goes in someone’s pocket. (Book a show at the artist collective the Cog in Echo Park. Beers are $1 or you can bring your own.) Also, there’s a fucking Infiniti at the gallery. Now, please explain to me the nexus between Jeffrey Lee Pierce and an Infiniti. Because the night relied on some of Pierce’s groundbreaking as a musician, and I can tell you secondhand that Jeffrey Lee Pierce owned one car in his life (a mid-‘60s Mustang) that he drove straight to hell and left abandoned on the 101. He never owned another one. (But not knowing that the 12-year-old kid here might somehow build a connection between "Gun Club and Infiniti," which was the latter's intention.)
And I mean this argument goes back to Marcel Duchamp trying to do away with things like trustees (which the MOCA has) when he was working with Katherine Dreir. He failed in that respect (the institution of the museum is still constitutionally the same – reflecting middle class/upper class culture and ideals).
It takes a lot to stand up and write a critical piece like this. Contrary to what you think, this is one person’s opinion stacked up against many peoples’ who hold this exhibition up as some sort of success. Which it wasn’t. It sucked.
(Although I want to say that people like Henry Rollins and Don Bolles depicted in it certainly do not. I hold their accomplishments in high regard. Target Video in its heyday captured some amazing things – notably the Screamers. Then again, this article had nothing to do with Target as entity but the stupidity of the event.)

Posted on June 12, 2008 1:21 PM by Ryan Leach

I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. photos

2008-06-12T14:17:00.000-07:00

Link:I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. WITH THE CHAPIN SISTERS @ THE ECHO 6.8.08

Photos by Rena Kosnett.

Los Angeles' own country heroes, I See Hawks In L.A., celebrated the release of their 4th album, Hallowed Ground, at the Echo. The Chapin Sisters proclaimed their love for I See Hawks by singing a few numbers with the quartet before the guests of honor wrastled the mic. The first number that vocalist Rob Waller sang, "Yolo Country Airport," had the opening lyrics: "Well I'm drunk, I'm stoned, and I'm tired." Of course I immediately thought, "Me too!" That's the nice thing about I See Hawks--they make you feel right at home. Couples were swirling around the floor, grinning from ear to ear and two-stepping their hearts out. And their senior superfans were right up front, singing along to all the lyrics of the NEW songs! Awesome. If anyone lives in Los Angeles, is a fan of country music, and hasn't yet discovered I See Hawks In L.A., now is the time. They are a county treasure, keeping up the spirit of Gram Parsons and Dillard & Clark.

LANGHORNE SLIM record review

2008-05-22T03:36:00.000-07:00

Langhorne Slim record review, LA WEEKLY

Langhorne Slim | Langhorne Slim | Kemodo

In a recent Razorcake interview, Greg Cartwright of the Reigning Sound theorized that nowadays, musicians who are trying to emulate roots music aren’t capable of delivering effectively because they’re too good. This statement may seem like a grave impropriety, but alas, it proves true: The presentation, the production value, the musicianship are overly perfected and therefore don’t capture the original home-fried palette of the greats being echoed. This Langhorne Slim record falls into that category. He is a damn good musician, but akin to bands like Old Crow Medicine Show, the music is too tame; lovely but bootless. It is easy to envision Langhorne Slim accumulating fans with this record, as tracks “Rebel Side of Heaven” and “Oh Honey” especially have catchy hooks, but as the lyrics in “Restless” state, “I felt restless and I felt soft/I didn’t know anymore who I was ripping off.” Agreed. “Oh Honey” is the gem of the album (also the shortest track), an antilove song in the tradition of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” but sans the stinging poeticisms that make Dylan’s 1963 classic indispensable.

—Rena Kosnett

Photos: Drew Goren : splendidzine.com

DAVID HINNEBUSCH feature

2008-05-15T02:26:00.001-07:00

Santa Monica painter David Hinnebusch profiled in the LA Weekly 2008 People Issue

Photo by Kevin Scanlon

David Hinnebusch
The outsider
By RENA KOSNETT
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - 12:00 pm

For Santa Monica painter David Hinnebusch, artistic exploration has evolved over his 43 years mostly as a solo endeavor. Although he says he has been blessed with amazing friends and supporters throughout his life, he will be the first to tell you that he’s always felt like an outsider.

As a burgeoning African linguistics scholar, Hinnebusch’s father moved his wife and three children, of which David is the eldest, from Pittsburgh to Tanzania, back to Pittsburgh, then Kenya, and finally accepted a professorship at UCLA. Hinnebusch recalls growing up in Africa with mixed emotions. “I was one of the only white kids, and European kids were picked on. It was always ‘Yank’ this, and ‘Yank’ that.” However, traveling back and forth between the United States and Africa during the political tumult of the late ’60s did serve to develop David’s worldly and inquisitive nature at a very green age. He remembers a question he posed to his father at Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport. “I was about 4, and while we were waiting to get on a plane, I went to my father and asked ‘Dad, who’s crazier, Idi Amin or Richard Nixon?’ I think he was stunned.”

As an outlet between the ages of 5 and 11, young David wrote and illustrated his own stories, creating a collection of books filled with the kind of words and imagery that make child psychologists salivate — particularly one storybook written in Nairobi, the title of which reads as a testament to the teasings of his youth: The War Boys of U.S.A.

This brand of heavy introspection followed Hinnebusch through his teenage years as a student at West L.A.’s University High, and manifested in depression, eventually leading to heavy drug use. Bad drugs. The kind of drugs that his professor father and microbiologist mother would not tolerate. From his account, his parents finally broke through their parental denial and confronted him in 1986 on the day the Challenger shuttle exploded. “I was fucked-up and had no reaction to this gigantic, horrific disaster. That’s when they really saw what was going on.” With their help, Hinnebusch struggled through many relapses to eventually reach sobriety in 1989.

Since then, he has been dedicated to his painting. His work can be likened to that of Jean-Michel Basquiat, if Basquiat had lived on the West Coast, been white and succeeded in kicking his heroin habit.

For a brief stint in the late ’90s, after attending the Santa Monica College of Design Art & Architecture for two years, Hinnebusch could be seen selling paintings on the Venice boardwalk, but skin cancer and peer annoyance drove him out of that arena, which was probably for the best. Enough people had already been exposed to his work, however, to generate a strong word-of-mouth following. When reviewing this year’s L.A. Weekly annual biennial, coagula.livejournal.com, wrote, “Even David Hinnebusch was there, so you know it was a scene.”

His projects are numerous, and his thought process scattered — evident in the way he’s built his Web site, fakeart.net, which has a haywire, John Forbes Nash–like layout and equally vexing navigation. But Hinnebusch has put tidbits of most of his endeavors online, in some form or another. He designs a line of clothing adorned with his illustrations, and is the proprietor of a custom surfboard company. He still sings (screams?) in Sunset Strip nightclubs with Entropy, the skater-hardcore punk band he formed in 1983, named after Jeremy Rifkin’s controversial 1980 book Entropy: A New World View.

Most importantly, Hinnebusch adds to the landscape of Santa Monica simply by being part of it. His wide, exceptionally charming grin can be seen from across the room at gallery openings, and he possesses such on-point charisma and impressionable confidence, one could imagine he acquired his magnetism almost as a survival trait (he does seem to have many admirers belonging to the fairer of the sexes).

I asked Hinnebusch if he has any enemies, a question that made him pause and sit back in his chair. His answer included his signature lemons-to-lemonade spin: “Well, there was this one guy who really hated me. He would always walk past me on Venice and yell out, ‘How’s it going with your fake art?’ But I actually liked that phrase so much, I took it as my trademark. So it all worked out.”

DANNY DEVITO feature

2008-05-15T02:19:00.001-07:00

Danny DeVito and The Blood Factory profiled in the LA Weekly 2008 People Issue.

Photo by Kevin Scanlon
Pictured: The Blood Factory Scientists, from left, John Albo, Tkay Garcia, Danny DeVito, Amanda Dragon, Nick Bonamy and Josh Levinson.

Danny DeVito
Inside the Blood Factory
By RENA KOSNETT
Wednesday, May 14, 2008 - 12:00 pm

The last time I went to Danny DeVito’s house, I had trouble parking. There was a huge star-tour van blocking access to his home. DeVito is, of course, exactly the kind of Hollywood royal that tourists come to Los Angeles hoping to see. But in addition to the high-budget movies that have made him famous as an actor and powerful as a producer, DeVito has a fierce independent streak that has led him to projects that have changed the nature of the business.

Consider his project Splatter Cuts, a collection, currently in postproduction, of grotesque yet oddly humorous Webisodes sprung from the mind of writer John Albo in the nothing-is-sacred underground Cinema of Transgression tradition that claimed John Waters and Lydia Lunch as members. It’s not the films’ bloody effects that are game-changing; the evolutionary factor of Splatter Cuts emerges with its accessibility. DeVito says his major goal with Splatter Cuts is to get the material directly from the artist to the consumer. Instead of Dawn of the Dead midnight screenings, Blood Feast drive-ins or homemade Raimi VHS tapes, Splatter Cuts has been produced specifically to reach the audience immediately as Web content. Or as an entertaining break on your iPhone or other hand-held device.

DeVito doesn’t negate the importance of a night out at the movies — in fact, it’s just the opposite. During a quieter moment on set, he entertained his crew with stories about the movie palaces he frequented as a child growing up on the Jersey shore. “The establishment of the grande movie house,” he says, “like the Crest in Westwood, is threatened right now. I don’t think their importance should be negated. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a portable movie experience to send to yourself on the phone.”

Besides its direct-distribution model, the studio-free, alternative-media format gives Splatter Cuts room to breathe ... and bleed. The unencumbered marketing process enables DeVito and his team to forgo any sort of production-code censoring while fleshing out Albo’s well of Grande Guignol.

DeVito’s wife, Rhea Perlman, introduced him to Albo more than 35 years ago when Albo and Perlman were working together in New York. Pretty quickly DeVito and Albo found that they share a deep affection for the darkly comic side of human nature.

“Danny really gives me complete freedom as a writer,” Albo says. “In fact, the more extreme I go, the more he encourages me. There are no boundaries. Splatter Cuts is the ideal situation for me as a creative screenwriter.”

To flush the monstrous out of Albo, DeVito says, “I take John, put him in a blender and turn him upside-down. Really, I do chain him to that typewriter. He also buries himself in War and Peace.”

Tolstoy, however, never had 8-foot-long clit monsters (that’s right) fly out from inside a women’s negligee to strangle her lover to death. Knitting needles used as eye gougers, husbands chopping their wives to bits with axes, patricidal undead Siamese twins — these are all key elements in Splatter Cuts, alongside gallons and gallons of fake blood.

So where do these phantasms come from?

“I don’t know,” says Albo. “People say to me, ‘John, you must’ve had a very strange life.’ But that’s not it. Sci-fi, horror — they deal with universals, the absurdity of the human condition. And I love to go to the extreme. With Splatter Cuts, we’re definitely going to the very end of the style, satirizing the genre itself. In terms of revenge and death, these are things that I pull from my own unconscious. Every human being has a dark side.”

For DeVito, the project has turned into a family affair — daughter Lucy DeVito stars in at least one episode, as does Perlman. And with his company Blood Factory, he’s assembled a talented production and effects crew.

Cinematographer Anastas Michos, a Steadicam superstar who worked with DeVito on Death to Smoochy, Duplex and Man on the Moon, among other films, says, “While working with Splatter Cuts episodes, I constantly have to remind myself that the final image is intended to be viewed on a screen no larger than an iPod instead of the 30-foot silver screen.”

Happily, the absurdity of the material on set was a surefire reminder of the product’s final destination. There were several scenes during which the camera, the trolley, as well as Michos himself had to be entirely sheathed in plastic bags to block airborne blood splashes from bathing the equipment. This was not a downside for DeVito.

“With this project,” he says, “we’re not working for the big cooperative. I have a core group of creatives. There are no superfluous influences, so we’re able to work freely, with Dada controls. Inspirationally, Splatter Cuts is absolutely for the new media.”

TIM & ERIC'S AWESOME SHOW live review, photos

2008-05-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

Tim & Eric's Awesome Show live @ the Echoplex 5.5.08, LA WEEKLY

more disgusting yet amazing photos from the show here

They're so sweet and innocent. Photos by Rena Kosnett.

Writing about the experience of seeing Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job! live on tour would be akin to dancing about architecture—some weird, fucked up architecture. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

One certainty is that the live show is a thousand times better than seeing Tim & Eric on TV, or watching videos on Youtube, because in addition to watching and hearing them, you can smell and taste Tim & Eric as well. Some highlights: an instructional video about properly poisoning your child clown slave, Papa John’s email upgrades, a prayer for Robin Williams, enlarged testicle bodysuits, a video with John C. Reilly eating paninis prepared with horse grease and then saying "Ooh, it smells like horse."

Tim & Eric did indeed kiss. They did indeed throw pizza and hot dogs into the audience, so if you’re planning on going to the encore performance tonight, go hungry (and early, as the Echoplex was entirely sold out). They did indeed vomit. They did indeed physically abuse their stage crew and curse at the audience. There was a naked guy (some of you may recognize his genitals from his one night performance as the naked guy at LA Weekly’s Third Annual Biennial). Awesome show, guys! Great Job. Here are some photos.

thoughts: Sunday Funday Brunch in L.A.

2008-05-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

Frankie and Nacho. Together forever.

Yesterday was one of those days that makes me realize how incredibly lucky I am to be living in this city.

I wake up in the morning, roll out of bed and go swimming with my dog. Who is wonderful.

Then I go over to my friend's brunch in Lincoln Heights, where my dog plays with the neighbor's dog, my friends eat blueberry pancakes in a tee pee which they built with their very own hands and sweat, on top of a hill, and we listen to the Kinks.

Then a few hours later in the early evening, we drive 10 minutes to go see a free show, where my favorite local band is playing, and they are mighty fantastic. And wonderful people. I love them.

After which we go back to the house, cook carne asada, and listen to Neil Young.

And the only thing I paid for all day, besides petrol of course, was a $1 Tecate. Which I guess labels me a freeloader, but also shows the generosity of the people in my life.

YEASAYER live review

2008-05-01T00:15:00.001-07:00

Yeasayer at the Ukranian Culture Center, 4.25.08, LA WEEKLY

I can’t freakin' wait until Yeasayer come back to Los Angeles. I feel itchy knowing that last Friday's show at the Ukranian Culture Center on Melrose was their only L.A. engagement.

Yeasayer is one band that requires you to hold your impressions until you’ve seen their live performance. As interesting as the single “2080” is for the dooming lyrics and the ethereal use of chant-like synthesized vocals, it can seem a little Ren-fair. And that’s totally why many people like it; it’s the Peter-Gabriel-trying-to-perform-like-David-Byrne throwback. Also, during the song “Sunrise,” I just can’t stop thinking of Traffic’s “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” The music could easily slip into the realm of, well, dorky. Compared to their oft-likened kindred spirits TV On The Radio, “Final Path” makes Yeasayer seem like TVOTR’s extremely smart, pimply, Magic: The Gathering little cousin.

But Yeasayer were crowned Ukranian Kings Friday night in that crazy (and really cool) hall, for two reasons. 1) the keyboardist and lead singer, Chris Keating, is a gifted performer, and confident as hell. His face and body contort under the dense pressure of their music and lyrics, almost to the point where he looks pained. It’s hypnotizing. If he hadn't been as entrancing, the live show would've been completely different. And 2) I haven’t seen such an stupendous light display feat since I was 12 years old and went to the observatory to watch the Pink Floyd laserium show. Straight out of Big Brother and the Holding Company. When I saw A Place to Bury Strangers powering through their “Ocean” finale a few months ago, I didn’t want to bob my head or blink because I was afraid of missing something. During Yeasayer, I may as well have been dipped in carbon freeze.

Yeasayer. Go see them. Go to the ends of the earth if you need to. Their music would be perfect along the way.

Groovy. Photos by Rena Kosnett

PORTISHEAD live review, SCOTLAND

2008-04-17T04:29:00.001-07:00

Live review from the Edinburgh Corn Exchange, LA WEEKLY

Portishead at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange, 4.12.08

Photos by Rena Kosnett

Claiming that I just happened to catch a Portishead concert during my recent visit to the UK would fashion me a liar. The trip was pretty much planned AROUND the Portishead show in Edinburgh. I probably wouldn't have gone up to Scotland at all if not for the concert; so for that reason, I thank Geoff and Beth and their booking agent. Scotland was gorgeous and friendly and aside from one little incident involving a chemical plant and my camera, which, through no fault of my own, almost got me branded a terrorist, everything there is glorious. Even the policemen are foxy and nice.

Portishead’s album Dummy was very significant for me 10 years ago (typical for many girls). Every single track is a fantastic duality of the glasslike, pristine vocals of Beth Gibbons and the ultra-styled programming, sampling, and string arrangements of Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley; therefore, I was somewhat fanatical in the days leading up to the show—I refused to listen to any of their new material online (as my laptop wouldn’t be able to effectively present the songs), or watch any grainy digicam videos. I wanted to see them in a pure state, overzealous as that seems.

The New York Times calls the new material “propulsive” and “harsher.” Those are good words. I would also include "melodramatic."

I almost hesitate to write anything along the lines of a critique for this band because they are getting truckloads of skyscraper press. The buzz is deafening. We all remember loving them so much and now they’ve finally come out with new material and we’re all so excited and Coachella Coachella Coachella.

This attention is not undeserved, as Third reaches the outer limits of creative admittance and has a far more diverse make-up than either of their two previous studio albums. As I walked outside the Corn Exchange, though, there was a young man smoking a cigarette who approached me with the following words: “Did you just come from the concert? I’ve never been more depressed in my life.”

I wouldn’t go that far, but my main critique is that the band takes itself too seriously, which manifested in their performance (as well as the title and certainly the very delayed release of Third). It doesn’t seem like they’re having fun. I know that life can’t be all teacups and moonbeams and Apples In Stereo, but there were reels of what looked like old home movies of the band members as frolicking children projected on the back wall during quieter, serious numbers, without irony.

Beth performed “Wandering Star,” which is actually a lighter, moderately bouncy track off of Dummy, without accompaniment, seated, in a white spotlight, with the rest of the stage black, totally bereft of the stellar musical breaks that Geoff arranged for that song originally. Funnily enough, the audience started clapping at a faster pace during this song, seemingly to encourage the band to pick it up a little.

In early April, Pitchfork compared Beth Gibbons to Ian Curtis, and basically asked Geoff and Adrian if they had to be on suicide watch during the making of Third (“Third is sometimes incredibly bleak, lyrically. Did you ever feel the need to check if Beth was all right?"). It’s easy to understand why.

But Beth’s voice is otherworldly, and her powerful delivery during “Machine Gun” and “Glory Box” pushed my heart rate into greyhound pace and started the pounding in my chest. The “Numb" vocal solo was effortlessly monumental, as Beth stretched out the closing phrase “A lady of war” to its crystalline shattering point. Being able to hear that song alone made the entire trip decidedly worthwhile.

THE DODOS record review

2008-04-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

Review of The Dodos new full length, Visiter, LA WEEKLY

The Dodos |Visiter | French Kiss

The magic and the intelligence behind the Dodos’ newest release lies in the clear faith Meric Long and Logan Kroeber have in their audience. Several tracks off Visiter follow a pattern: They begin with a deceptively simple guitar strum and graceful lyric, then build in momentum and percussive elaboration to end up overwhelmingly, powerfully, mind-fuck gorgeous, administered in the realm of S.F. Sorrow’s storytelling operatics and effected with the trademark grace of Liege and Lief. I wasn’t sure that the Dodos’ studio recordings could come close to matching the power of their live performance, the way 2006’s Beware of the Maniacs has a few great tunes but tended to lose steam from time to time. But Visiter tracks “Joe’s Waltz” and “Jodi” are relentless epics, as is “Paint the Rust,” a work that solidifies Long’s compositional genius. The one loose link comes with “Park Song.” Stuck between more intricate tunes, seemingly for filler, it’s definitely unnecessary. But the one track aside, Visiter has already been cleared, stamped and filed in the “Why I’m so damn proud of my generation’s musical accomplishments” archive — a truly special work that demands analysis and attention. (Rena Kosnett)

BILLY CHILDISH live review from LONDON

2008-04-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Billy Childish and The Musicians of the British Empire, live review from London's Dirty Water Club, LA Weekly

Billy Childish at London's Dirty Water Club, 4.11.2008
by Rena Kosnett
April 11, 2008 8:08 PM

Photos by Rena Kosnett

Taking 4 late night buses from Camden down to Brockley, yelling at one stranger who sneezed into my hair, standing for 45 minutes in the rain with a sore throat, and staring helplessly at one of the worst public (drunken) fights I’ve ever seen, are all the unpleasantries I had to endure in order to get home after seeing Billy Childish play tonight. And I'd do it again..... well, I would pay £40 for a cab if I had to do it again, but I would definitely want to see Childish play a second time if given the opportunity.

I’ve been loving my trip to London, but the emphasis on pixilated music here has been drying my eardrums out; so bouncing around at this rough and tumble 60s garage rock palace in North Camden, the Boston Music Room’s Dirty Water Club, made me feel a little homesick. And when Childish and his new band, the Musicians of the British Empire, played the opening chords for The Who’s “A Quick One While He's Away,” I really teared up. Never mind that Childish was in the wrong key and had to start again. I actually enjoyed hearing the beginning exclamations “Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang” more than once.

Childish led his bass player Nurse Julie and his drummer Wolf Howard through garage rock classics (“Lie Detector”), as well as newer material (Nurse Julie sang a tune off their upcoming album that concerns her boyfriend’s adulterous mix tape making, aptly titled “He’s Making A Tape”), but what amazed me the most was Childish’s not one, but TWO a capella performances: Leadbetter’s version of “In The Pines” and Son House’s arrangement of “John the Revelator.” I was told, before making the trek up to Camden, that Childish’s live show has the tendency to disappoint—but I can’t imagine this to be true. After his 100 albums and perhaps as many artistic manifestos, Childish seems to be clearly at home while performing, heckling drunker members of the audience, muttering self-deprecating references to his guitar tuning, and offering a dose of dirty Thee Headcoats brand grit to offset the rest of London’s drum and bass campaign.

Los Angeles' Lily Marlene diggin Billy Childish at the Dirty Water Club
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There are 3 comments posted for this article.

Nurse Julie is actually Billy's wife, seems like the person who wrote this may not have known that. Whoever said that Billy's live shows are disappointing was talking out of their arse.

Posted on April 13, 2008 1:30 PM by Jesse

You're absolutely right, as it clearly states on the Damaged Goods band bio. They keep up a convincing act. The person who made that comment is a Brit, so perhaps he's accustomed to seeing Billy play... I, on the other hand, was ecstatic...and relieved. Cheers.

Posted on April 13, 2008 2:39 PM by Rena

Well, there's no accounting for taste. I'm a brit too, and have seen Billy about a billion times now, I'm always at Dirty Water every month for my fix of Mr Childish and his band. I never get tired of seeing him though. The only reason I wasn't there on Friday was because I had no money. Good to see him still getting good reviews from different parts of the world.

Posted on April 13, 2008 2:48 PM by Jesse

thoughts: Hello from London..

2008-04-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is what I've been dealing with in England.. Snowy flu weather, lovely warm sunniness on the Brighton shore...

I'll upload photos and have stories as soon as I get a moment. xo.

thoughts: Parkinson's Caused by Pesticides.

2008-03-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

Why eat organic? This is one reason why, I guess. (BBC News) I know two people with Parkinson's, and it ain't pretty.

But this brings up another thought: Did they (they being the farmers, right?) think that the killer chemicals they were spraying all over their food to KILL KILL KILL all those little animals would never have an effect on the bigger animals eating the food? This seems as obvious as the Thalidomide Babies thing.

Big lesson here: Don't eat poison.

thought for the day: You know you're fucked when even the Dalai Lama has given up hope.

2008-03-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

Gurinder Osan/Associated Press

I mean, I'm for non-violence as well, and I don't think that Tibetans should throw themselves on the fire when there's no hope of winning, but you're the Dalai Lama, and you say publicly that independence is "out of the question"?
Man, there goes another petal from the flower of life.

Press Trust of India
DHARAMSHALA, March 18: Facing increasing criticism for his "Middle way" policy, the Dalai Lama today threatened to quit as the head of the Tibetan exile movement if the unrest in Tibet got out of control and rejected Chinese charges that he was inciting violence there.
Asserting he did not want Independence for Tibet by wresting control from China, the 73-year-old spiritual leader also appealed to his fellow men to remain calm and not not to resort to violence. The Dalai Lama said he wanted “good relations” with China and that he is opposed to all forms of violence.
“If Tibetans choose violence in their agitation and if things become out of control (in Tibet) then my only option is to completely resign,” he told reporters at his home in Dharamshala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
The Dalai Lama's comments came hours after Chinese Premier Mr Wen Jiabao blamed him for the violence in Tibet and said Beijing would only hold talks with the spiritual leader if he gave up Independence ambitions for his homeland. The Dalai Lama, however, made it clear “Independence is out of the question”. “Even if 1,000 Tibetans sacrifice their lives, it will not help.” Tibet's spiritual leader consistently insisted that he only wanted a high degree of autonomy for Tibet under Chinese rule. But his “Middle Way” policy ~ espousing non-violence and autonomy ~ has made him under attack from younger, more radical exiled Tibetans.

LESLIE & THE LYS, DEVON WILLIAMS live review

2008-03-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

Leslie and the Lys, Devon Williams at the Echoplex, 3/7/08, LA WEEKLY

The Church of Glitter. Photos by Rena Kosnett.

For the rest of this review, body glitter = sweat. Iowa’s mainframe zaftig-white-female hip hop star, Leslie Hall, cleaned house at the Echoplex Friday night with her traveling circus act Leslie and the Lys. It looked like a neon fringe and gold lamè factory exploded all over Echo Park.

More than a musician, Leslie Hall is a movement, because Leslie could not do what she does (and she does it so well) at any other time than the present. She exists now as the result of a culture in whiplash from several pop commodity crashes: Suzanne Somers, Jazzercise, heroine-chic, daytime talk shows, the celebutante, Tony Robbins, and, of course, the Bedazzler.

Leslie rapped about being a Midwest Diva (she insists guys like to please those corn-fed girls in their WalMart jeans), killing zombies, and her ass, which she introduced with: “I’d like to sing a song about my butt cheeks. So round, so ripe.” I got the feeling that she wanted to be more sexually explicit than she was, as her hands kept creeping down from rubbing her gold covered belly to rubbing her gold covered groin; but, the good Midwestern girl she is, Leslie restrained herself, as there were several very young kids decked out in glitter and purple leggings at the show, holding up “We Love You Leslie” cardboard signs.

Hall was hilarious. She even made changing her costume an event by enveloping herself in a sheer sparkly fabric tube, which was held up by her lovely deadpan assistants, and then lingering inside it a little longer than necessary to build up anticipation for the new wondrous spandex concoction her mother had whipped up back in Ames (Momma makes all the costumes). Leslie showed her fan appreciation by talking and cooing to the audience (“I’ve had the chance to fall in love with a few of you”) and then calling individual internet superfans onto the stage—one young man walked up wearing a button T and khakis, but then ripped off his square outfit to reveal a glittery black and gold ensemble underneath. Three gem sweater-clad pre-teen girls were put on display for the Gem Sweater Initiation Process, reminiscent of the de-virginization ceremony new audience members have to undergo at the midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. To officially ordain their gem sweaters, the girls had to defend their diva status, kneel in front of Leslie, and then get knocked on their asses as Leslie plowed into them while screaming the newly anointed name of their particular gem sweater, something along the lines of “clover kitten supreme taco truck” (I couldn’t really catch all the words, it was too insane). They were then lightly sprinkled with glitter and given an official sweater certificate.

Honestly, and I mean this without the slightest bit of sarcasm or irony, I cannot think of a single better role model for young girls. She preaches self-confidence, pride in body type, and being completely unashamed of having interests other people might consider lame. (That’s lame, not lamè.)

But, regardless of all that, she gave an amazing performance. She ended her encore with a freakin’ Coin Drop Windmill! As we all know, that’s one of the hardest breakdancing moves out there. When her lovely assistants ran up to her with a sparkling gold robe a là James Brown, which she kept tossing off before she finally acquiesced, I didn’t think it was at all a stretch, aside from it being made out of lycra spandex.

Devon Williams opened for Leslie and the Lys.

Los Angeles’ own Devon Williams opened the night with his backup band, the Allen Bleyle 3. I was elated when Williams played a cover of “Alex Chilton” towards the end of his set, not just because it's a killer song, but specifically because one of the notes I scribbled down in the first few minutes of Williams' playing was “Waiting for Somebody.” The same feeling of whimsical mischief felt when listening to Westerberg’s love song from the 1992 Singles soundtrack is aroused when hearing Williams’ innocent pop guitar and string arrangements. Just as The Replacements sound like the lighthearted black sheep of the early 90s (compositionally, not lyrically) when occasionally/awkwardly lumped into the same category as grunge superpowers Nirvana and Alice in Chains, Williams’ work stands out as effervescent defiance in the face of the indulgent psychadelia that is getting much of the local attention. Spindrift, Entrance, and Devendra Banhart are all acts that I have written about and very much appreciate, but Williams is unique in that he refuses to be another psych-folk-blues musician in Los Angeles. He’s just not having it. Instead, Williams writes refreshingly light tunes tinged with Westerberg-like self deprecation that could have been fitting on the soundtrack of any My So Called Life episode: songs for being distraught, but laughing about it.

I didn’t get to hear my favorite Devon Williams song, “Elevator,” which is played in house music rotation these days at Spaceland, and I’m not sure if that’s because I walked in a bit late or because he has decided he’s had enough of it and won’t play it anymore. I hope it’s not the latter, Mr. Williams, because that is a damn beautiful, nearly perfect song, clearly crafted with precision and dedication.
Devon Williams will be releasing a new record on Ba Da Bing! this April.

thoughts: It's Always About Pussy (Two Great Videos)

2008-03-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

These are the two greatest music-related videos I've seen so far this year.

The first one, about a giant vagina, brought to you by the creative wonders at Encyclopedia Pictura

GRIZZLY BEAR "KNIFE"

The second one, guaranteed to get this man some ass, brought to you directly from HEAVEN.

SPIRIT ARMY live review

2008-03-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

Spirit Army at Spaceland, 2.29.08, LA WEEKLY

Spirit Army like bubbles. Photos by Rena Kosnett

If you were concerned about local dynamic duo Dante Adrian and Jeff Ehrenberg vanishing from the music circuit because Starlite Desperation decided to call it quits, feel free to un-furrow your brow. Their first L.A. show since garnering new bassist Laena Myers-Ionita, as well a new band name, Spirit Army, the tag team ripped through tracks off their upcoming full length, Take It Personally, Friday night at Spaceland with the talent that sustained Starlite Desperation’s reputation as stellar performers through numerous years, numerous releases, and numerous record labels: Adrian’s vocals and Ehrenberg’s drumming.

Constant as the Northern star, shaggy brunette Adrian will always strain his surprisingly strong and fluid vocal chords to their breaking point, and curly redhead Ehrenberg will always keep a beat while hamming it up—standing, swirling, throwing his sticks in the air, flashing hysterical facial expressions.

The new Spirit Army material is solid garage pop that balances Adrian’s graceful, almost feminine voice with Ehrenberg’s power percussion. There are already a few standout tracks just as stellar as SD songs “What I Want” and “Let It Burn”—particularly, their opener “Spirit Army” as well as “My Favorite Place” are insta-parties, jam-packed full of power chord fire and brimstone.

Myers-Ionita is definitely a member of the “Los Angeles Bass Vixen” club, but it took her a while to warm up—it didn’t seem like she started out the set with the same amount of confidence as her counterparts. That may be due to Adrian and Ehrenberg having so much previous experience as a creative force, or because it was only Spirit Army's second show together; but after ten minutes she was belting backup vocals and facing the audience with more enthusiasm.
Oh, and Ehrenberg has a new stage trick: bubbles.

Take It Personally will be released this summer on Ehrenberg’s label, Infrasonic.

THE LAMPS live review

2008-02-27T14:00:00.000-08:00

The Lamps at the Scene bar, live review, LA RECORD

Full disclosure requires me to state that the Lamps played at my birthday party a few years ago. And that they totally left the room throbbing with pleasure. Montgomery Buckles’ loud gruff voice and Tim Ford’s bouncy bass playing couldn’t have been more appropriate for a packed-to-the-brim room of inebriated young adults. Last Monday night at the Scene, Buckles, Ford, and drummer Josh Erkman took the stage after their future European tour partner Haunted George served up a big ol’ “Pile O’Meat,” but the atmosphere left me nostalgic for my birthday fun. The Lamps thrive in small sweaty basements that don’t have enough clearance for deep inhalations, and the Scene was a Glendale bar on a Monday evening—no more, no less. I was having a blast, though, despite Ford’s opening disclaimer that he doesn’t usually play in “shit mode,” a statement inspired by the unremedied muddy amp feedback apparently left by George’s accomplice Jimmy Hole. Roth took the mic for “Bob the Cat,” a track off their In The Red full length, and Buckles commanded the Lamps’ spasmodic thigh-slapping noise for the remainder. In The Red describes the Lamps as “mongoloid frenzy music,” and when Buckles is straining every vein in this throat to screech out the lyrics to “Eliseo,” the primitive implications are definitely perceptible. Word of advice: book this band for your next party. If you’re lucky they’ll say yes. I’m almost thinking about pushing my birthday up in the rotation just to get the Lamps back where they belong: drunk and smothered by a large mass of happy sticky people.

thoughts: Bye Bye Baby

2008-02-19T04:26:00.000-08:00

Baby Bye Bye! (BBC news)

It's been swell, Fidel!

Thanks for the memories...

Photos from BBC.

BLACK LIPS live review

2008-02-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

Black Lips at the El Rey live review, LA RECORD

The Valentine’s Day Black Lips show was all about LOVE. Teenage sweeties in the audience pushed their way forward to shove homemade valentines into the hands of guitarist Ian St Pe, and there were a surprising number of brave young things who climbed onto the stage explicitly to throw their arms around singer Cole Alexander. Drummer Joe Bradley played with a glowing heart, fastened out of rope lights, inside his bass drum, and Jared Swilley was courteous enough to use his forehead multiple times to bounce back a communal beach ball when it floated his way—until, of course, he smashed it with his foot and threw the deflated carcass back into the crowd. The most endearing part of the evening was Alexander’s chivalrous rescue of a young pink-haired girl —he rushed in to pull the offending arm of a large security guard off of her so she could continue to crowd surf in peace. Actually, throughout the night Alexander—not a large man but certainly a brave and loyal one—had to run to the rescue of so many manhandled kids that his face started to harbor wrinkles of sincere frustration, almost as though he wanted to apologize for subjecting his people to this kind of lame treatment. It did seem like an incredible waste of manpower on the side of the El Rey. When I first heard that the Black Lips were scheduled to play this venue, I was worried. I thought that the space was a) too big and b) not really their style—those who have seen the Black Lips previously would know that hanging chandeliers and candlelit dinner tables aren’t exactly the optimum setting for their cyclonic live show. But the venue ended up being completely and almost uncomfortably packed—due, most likely, to the constant radio play of their 2007 single “Cold Hands.” And as far as the El Rey not being their style, well, I should’ve known from last October’s wild performance at the Troubadour (and the video footage of their gig in Tijuana) that the Black Lips have the power to turn proper community social halls into dens of public masturbation and pleasurable group aggression. Nothing short of shackling each of their eight feet to the floor would prevent the Lips from hijacking control of their performance space, and that power lies in both the strength of their material and their collective adorable charisma. They played a rotating waltz of garage, doo-wop, and southern-punk songs off their last three albums and didn’t lose steam until perhaps their encore performance of “Veni Vidi Vici,” when Alexander’s voice was audibly strained. Exempting the occasions the Black Lips are thrown out of their own shows for lewd behavior, there is nary a band that can guarantee such an enjoyable night out.

BLACK LIPS feature

2008-02-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

Black Lips music feature, LA WEEKLY

There's a good chance that none of these cuties is wearing pants.
Photo by Daniel Arnold.

In a just world, the Black Lips would be as popular now as the Beatles were in their 1967 pre–White Album era. There are four of them, median age 25, and all are known for being cute (one-upping the Beatles). Each member has a unique, identifying personality: Joe Bradley is the quietly handsome, steadfast drummer. Cole Alexander is the pretty-faced, potty-mouthed front man with the vomiting problem. Ian Saint Pe is the smiling guitarist with the full gold grill and the numerous visible tattoos. And Jared Swilley is the bass-playing preacher's son, eternally decked out in short shorts, and occasionally a Freddie Mercury-thick mustache. Like the other quartet, the Black Lips released a massive amount of work early on in their career; the current tally is four studio albums, two live albums, 14 singles and four split 7-inches. And they have an upcoming movie project with Springboard Films, titled Let It Be.

Apparently, the film title is an allusion to the 1984 Replacements album rather than the Beatles' final opus, but the trailer alone provides bountiful comparisons to Richard Lester's 1964 classic A Hard Day's Night, from the mockumentary style to the self-referential script to the inane journalistic questions. Their onscreen band is called the Renegades, which was the name of Alexander, Swilley and Saint Pe's pre–Black Lips band. During a recent phone conversation, Bradley explained that they suggested this moniker to the filmmakers because the script's original band name, the Buck Privates, was less than thrilling, but it's clear that the movie's major theme — making it in the 1980s DIY-era post-punk world responsible for spawning bands like Sonic Youth and Husker Du — finds a kinship with the Black Lips' arduous self-made career, just as A Hard Day's Night depicted the Beatles' frustration with their frantic lifestyle.

A career trajectory such as the Black Lips' seems to bear the imprint of a seasoned record-company impresario, but when I asked Bradley about the existence of a puppet master, he wanted to be clear that their Vice Records G.M., Adam Shore, is no Brian Epstein or Colonel Parker: "Vice provides a lot of opportunities for us, but we know that the hard work won't be done by anyone but ourselves," says Bradley. "We won't ever be forced to do something we don't believe in." There's evidence to support this assertion: Even though much of their time seems spent tumbling, spitting, cursing half-naked, the young men in the Black Lips seem completely self-aware, evident in their sly, upturned grins and sideways glances during interviews (check the hysterical off-the-cuff interview the band did with iFilm at the 2007 SXSW festival).

But their damn good musicianship seems to be eclipsed by all the press they're getting about all the press they're doing. Documentary videos are available of the Black Lips making interview videos after posing for Rolling Stone photo shoots. Perhaps it's a dose of lingering survivor's guilt from the loss of an original band member, Ben Eberbaugh, who was killed by an asshole drunk driver in 2002, that drives them to nonstop heroic displays of rock & roll stamina. Or maybe it's just a desire to succeed: As Bradley told The New York Times in March of 2007, "I ain't makin' no tortilla sandwiches no more for no yuppies."

As collaborative songwriters, the Black Lips have grown tenfold since their self-titled 2003 Bomp! release. Their newest album, Good Bad Not Evil, is a stylistically wondrous record that begins with experimental garage rock, thrives on Southern roots influences and ends on bare choral harmonies. The catchy, bouncy way with which the Lips perform songs on topics of colossal weight — death in "How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died," religious warfare in "Veni Vidi Vici," natural disasters in "O Katrina!" — is incredibly intelligent. It requires an innate understanding of human emotion to successfully reflect on pain so cutting and transform it into party music without losing a shred of integrity. Sure, it's fantastic to be named the hardest-working band at SXSW, but most press coverage regarding the Black Lips gives their tired feet and blistered fingers more acclaim than the increasingly impressive content those sore appendages have been producing.

Unfortunately (and not surprisingly), the Black Lips' October appearance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien didn't create the same effect as the Beatles' performance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964, and there's very little to be done about that. America will probably never unite around a single band that way again; the market's too fragmented. But the lack of unity does make it significantly harder for bands like the Black Lips, and can lead to more focus on the work schedule than on the actual work. "I'd like to think the Beatles had it a lot easier than we did, because the market wasn't so saturated then," says Bradley. "Those types of media outlets were freshly opened for bands. The Beatles were some of the first people to get up and do that circuit. We have a lot more to work against. Plus, the Beatles didn't have to worry about journalists constantly asking questions about them pissing on each other." True, but they did have to answer a shitload of questions about their hair.

For readers picking up the L.A. Weekly on Thurs., Feb. 14, the Black Lips play tonight at the El Rey with Pierced Arrows. Doors open at 8 p.m.

ANAIS NIN short feature

2008-02-07T06:13:00.000-08:00

Hammer Event: Anais Nin Reading pick in LA Weekly

Turns out, Nin was an Angelina. There's a good article on her L.A. days by
Lucinda Michele on Metroblogging here:
http://blogging.la/archives/2007/10/greatest_dead_angelenos_18_ana.phtml

Pick:
Anais Nin would have been 105 this year, and if all the hype is anywhere near accurate, she probably would still be fucking. Every time I overhear or participate in discussions involving Nin, the conversation inevitably turns smutty. Granted, she did submit herself as a cultural galvanizer of female sexual liberation at a time in Europe when there was very little female-authored erotica available; but I've always believed that those diary entries concerning coital relations between her and her father were at best a metaphor inspired by her studies of Freudian psychology, and at most a pretty lucrative insurance policy for keeping her legacy eternally sensationalized. Rumors gold or pyrite, Nin was a powerful and courageous literary figure who happened to make many younger friends during her aging years in Silver Lake. Electronic-music pioneer Bebe Barron, writer and educator Deena Metzger, architect and environmentalist Eric Lloyd Wright, and writer and founder of Center of Autobiographic Studies Tristine Raine are four of these younger friends, now grown-up, who will honor the underdeveloped persona of Nin by reading passages from her work and telling their personal stories about, but not limited to, Nin the publisher; Nin the printing-press operator; Nin the college lecturer; Nin the mentor; Nin the friend. Don't worry, though — sex will surely come up in conversation. Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood; Tues., Feb. 12, 7 p.m. (310) 443-7000.

CRYSTAL ANTLERS record review

2008-02-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

Crystal Antlers Until the Sun Dies/Swamp Song 7-inch review, LA Weekly

Crystal Antlers | "Until the Sun Dies"/"Swamp Song" | BackFlip Records 7-inch

The A-side of Crystal Antlers' newest release, "Until the Sun Dies," is the safer of these two songs — it sticks more to a dirty-guitar-dominant form with front man-bassist Jonny Bell's vocals switching between the larkish and the belted; it is the B-side's "Swamp Song" that really tears up and showcases exactly what Bell and his bandmates have to offer: unashamed, unafraid, gritty hot-mess melodies that take cues from the Stooges, Joe Cocker, Screamin' Jay Hawkins (rest his soul) and Ozzy Osbourne. "Swamp Song" begins in the midst of a high-intensity power-chord argument taking place "under moldy green, downstream, and under willow trees" between Bell and an unknown second party over the apparent state of his soul; after two minutes, the song builds to a deceptive cadence and dumps out after the break with an Aleister Crowley organ and bass line that hones Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi's work on Sabbath's "Electric Funeral" (and many other Black Sabbath songs from 1970 or '71). But the Antlers aren't really a heavy metal band. Our generation browsed in haberdasheries of vintage and contemporary influences, and Crystal Antlers are no exception to this stylistic conglomeration. A young band based out of Long Beach with only two 7-inch releases under their belt, Crystal Antlers have displayed prowess that has propagated support from erudite local media (District Weekly, L.A. Record) and will be graciously blowing their hot mess all over the northern stretches of the Southland to ring in 2008.

JESSIE EVANS & TOBY DAMMIT review

2008-02-02T12:06:00.000-08:00

Jessie Evans at Bordello, LA Weekly live review

thoughts: Anyone need Portishead tickets?

2008-01-28T02:41:00.000-08:00

I know this is somewhat of a long shot, but I have an extra pair of Portishead tickets for an April show in Wolverhampton, UK.

I'll be seeing them in Edinburgh, UK, so the Wolverhampton tiks are not necessary anymore. They're going online now for over 75 pounds ($150) each, and they're only going to go up, but I'll sell the ones I've got for what I paid, which was a little under 40 pounds ($80) each after fees.
Seating charts are available online, but it's basically the standing area in front of the stage. I would liken it to the structure of the now-defunct Hollywood Palladium.
If you're interested contact me. Details below.

PORTISHEAD at The Civic Hall, Wolverhampton on SUNDAY 04/013/2008 at 19.30
2 STALLS STANDING at £ 34.25, Plus a Transaction fee of £ 4.80

On an editorial note, I'm really glad everyone's making such a fuss over them after so many years.

thoughts: A Couple of Bad Ideas

2008-01-28T02:28:00.000-08:00

1) Do-it-yourself Last Will and Testament Kit, to be sold at the Mid-Wilshire 24-hour Kinko's.
I took this photo at 4am. As if being there in the middle of the night wasn't depressing enough.

2) The dumbest car ever.

CRYSTAL ANTLERS review

2008-01-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

link:Crystal Antlers at Safari Sam's, live review, LA Weekly

The sparkling reputation of Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers drew me out to the High Voltage Magazine party at Safari Sam’s last night, and despite the clear lameness of the event (see below for unfortunate High Voltage missteps), Crystal Antlers delivered an outstanding performance of weighty organ and bass flamboyance. They went on as the last of four bands, despite the magazine flyer billing them as second, and they only got to play for twenty three minutes. But in those twenty three minutes, their new percussionist Sexual Chocolate (aka Damian Edwards), formerly of Geisha Girls, had three costume changes, each more scant than the last, and performed pelvic thrusts that gave justice to his stage name and sustained his rep as pure showman. Jonny Bell led the five piece with his scratchy vocals and heavy bass, which he strums like a six string, a stylistic choice that lays the foundation for their overall sound to be on the side of other local heavies Entrance and Tweak Bird, who also take substantial cues from classic rock dramatics Page,Winter, Skynyrd, but whom thankfully have left the underage groupies and hotel room trashing for the boomer generation.

In addition to “Swamp Song,” my favorite (and the B-side) off their new BackFlip 7”, Crystal Antlers performed a surprisingly delicate cover of Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” a song that is eternally lending itself to great covers (Them’s 1966 version has been, and continues to be, in my top 10 all-time favorite songs). They have several other shows in L.A. lined up for the next month—apparently, they need to expand beyond their OC reputation as stellar performers, which has left their audience’s expectations quite high (straight from the Orphan Records blog, December 2007: “Crystal Antlers went on at 10:45 and yada yada, brought down the house, as usual…”), but has yet to be overstated.

The event last night was supposedly a party for the newish music magazine High Voltage, but when my friend and I arrived, there were only about twenty people in attendance; at a large venue like Safari Sam’s, that’s as effective but less humorous then there being two. I could get more people to go to my little cousin Jacob’s Bar Mitzvah in Marina Del Rey. There was no sign of the magazine, no partying (aside from the Antlers), and nothing near the elevation of “high” in terms of voltage. It was really sad. I thought for sure it had to be a launch party and that their green status was the reason behind their paltry turn out, but their site informs me that the magazine has been around since 2003. Five years, and that's all the guster you can muster? I understand that L.A. is a big city and it was a Monday night, but if each of their eight founders invited four people, that would already be a higher count than the crowd last night. Whoever planned that party must’ve begged their friends not to go. Lame-o. Poor vibes for their mag. The least they could’ve done was advertise the party so that their bands wouldn’t have to play to a mostly empty house and would be entertained enough to stick around for each other’s performances. Supposedly the same people also run a marketing firm, High Voltage Marketing. Wow. Not for nothing, but as a band, or any creative enterprise, I would seriously consider cutting and pasting flyers at Kinko’s for 5 hours, before signing on to that gravy train.

Thank goodness for Sexual Chocolate.

LAWEEKLY BIENNIAL OPENING photos

2008-01-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

Photos from LA Weekly's third annual biennial opening at Track 16 gallery.

LA Weekly slideshow

more photos on flickr

thoughts: Frozen Tidal Wave

2008-01-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

The most beautiful slideshow ever.

nature is a wondrous mystery.

WILL ALEXANDER short feature

2008-01-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

There's a benefit reading for L.A. poet Will Alexander this Sunday at Skylight Books (click link below for more information or scroll down).

Will Alexander Benefit Reading, Pick in LA Weekly

He has cancer, but no health insurance. He's good enough to receive a PEN award, a Whiting Fellowship, and a California Arts Council Fellowship, as well as teach at UCSD, Hofstra University, and Mills College, but not good enough to be covered by subsidised health insurance from anyone- LA City, State of California, US of A.

I'm 24 years old, and if I had to apply for health insurance via Blue Cross, etc., I would be turned down, says the family's insurance rep. Why? Because I've been treated for depression. Too risky to insure. Amazing! Lovelies, please vote for someone who is at least making statements about health care. Our system is so broken, broken, broken.

This is an excerpt from one of his poems,The Heliotropic Mandarin. I know I mention Sun Ra frequently in this blog, but this poem is sooooo Sun Ra that it makes me think Will Alexander digs Saturn's servant too:

The black fact, the Heliotropic Mandarin, expressed in spheres between the 7 flames of gold and uranium and oil, between aesthetic speech, and its sudden trunk of revolt. By taking a blade, and sculpting amorphic Asian mountains, he creates in his reign smoke, Saturnian pulsations of darkness, looking throughout the temperature of colour, for a whirling niveous sun, for rubescent nasturtium waves, like a runi exotica inside the horizon, like bleating charcoal harems, like glottally impure emphatic on fire. This is the Mandarin, with his surreptitious stinging crabs, with his haze of grafted wolverine enticements, breaking into the expansion of a singular and rotted aphid, as a moth across the grain of excessive fluidics, like a carved and expressive panther, bickering, like each weightless figment as a source of momentus solitary ire.

Reading pick text:

On Sunday, January 13, Skylight Books will host the third in a series of nationwide benefit readings for Los Angeles poet Will Alexander, who is undergoing cancer treatment without the aid of medical insurance. Originally from South L.A., Alexander, 59, received a PEN Oakland award this year for his fiction/nonfiction work Sunrise in Armageddon (Spuyten Duyvil Publishing, 2006). His prose and poetry, as well as his visual art, revolve around the themes of universal surrealism and human alienation. Even if you’re unfamiliar with his work, the realization that a citizen of his cultural import in our vastly affluent nation could be left to his own defenses to fight off a serious illness surely provides ample fodder for comparisons to the surreal. “L.A. Blueswoman” Wanda Coleman and Sulfur magazine founder Clayton Eshleman are among readers who will perform Sunday. There is a $10 suggested donation, and Skylight Books will also donate 25 percent of all book sales made in the store between 4 and 8 p.m. to the benefit. Sun., Jan. 13, 5 p.m., Skylight Books, 1818 Vermont Ave., L.A., (323) 660-1175.

thoughts: A Stalker is Sending Me Creepy Text Messages

2008-01-07T02:22:00.000-08:00

If you're a fella and you meet a girl and you don't want her to think you're a creepy stalker, don't a) tell her you're her neighbor, but then b) ask her where she lives, c) ask her where she works, d) tell her you would want to go inside if her father wasn't home, and then e) send her a series of ultra-creepy text messages (see below).

This guy pulled in front of my house today when I was getting out of my car, and I, thinking he was my neighbor, stupidly proceeded to answer his questions about where I live and work and agreed to give him my phone number, for emergencies, of course. After I went inside and he started sending me serial-killer text messages, I realised that it was possible I was totally mistaken and he wasn't my neighbor at all. GOOD GOING RENA. Really stupid. So if I disappear within the next few days, he said his name was Matt, he drives a light blue/silver SUV, he's white with short hair, and his cell number shows up as 310.890.2127.

For entertainment value, here are his text messages, in order. They start out not so creepy, but then get creepier, especially because the only time I responded to him was after #4, to tell him I don't date neighbors:

1. Nice meeting you today.
2. U r very cute
3. Why do u[sic] have a gut feeling ur one amazing kisser?
4. Ur passion oozes
5. Ok we will only make out then...:)
6. Done but flirt with me until then...u must be a leo
7. Ok, play with me another time though
8. Ur naughty [ed. note- at 10:18am!]
9. I moved
10. Did we break up?

*Update Sat 1/12: I think it's okay- I haven't received a text message in 24 hours. Maybe that was honestly his way of showing interest. I'm not walking Frankie alone after 11pm again just yet, though.

M.I.A "PAPER PLANES" review

2007-12-31T00:35:00.000-08:00

Part of the LA Weekly Music section's Best of 2007 list, December 2007

Paper Planes review in LA Weekly

Pitchfork interview of reference

Song review (although after reading her ridiculous Pitchfork interview, it ended up being more of a character review.)

M.I.A. is an awesome musician. Her politics, though, are a couple tacos short of a combination plate.
There are a couple more observations below that didn't make it to the print edition:

The grand façade of Sri Lankan–way-of-London hip-hop star M.I.A. is the postulation that she actually knows what she’s talking about. This year, she asserted in Pitchfork that she doesn’t really care about what she’s talking about (Liberia, terrorism, Diplo). Then the press media accuses her of not caring, which is when she gets mad and accuses the press media of thinking she doesn’t care because she’s a woman. Or brown-skinned. Or a brown-skinned woman. Then Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam contends that she understands writers diminishing her achievements out of sexist discrimination, but the comments only really upset her if the journalist is female. Furthermore, she expresses how terrible it is to posses XX chromosomes in America—“In America, that's such a norm, for women to be puppets”—but then advertises her marital availability because she wants to STAY. In. America: “I'm only here on a year visa, so if you could just advertise, I'm looking for a husband."
Whatever.
Her 2007 album Kala harbors one of the most satisfying and fun tracks of 2007. “Paper Planes” has shotgun blasts mixed with cash-register $ka-chings$ and a sample of the Clash’s “Straight to Hell,” all held together by her alluring vocals and airy danceable beats. It’s hilarious. I feel instantaneously happy and cool when I put this song on. Maybe that’s why it’s so disappointing to learn of her convoluted campaigning and nationalistic muckraking. Oh, well. She’s not the first pop star to crow about capitalism while flashing gold-plated teeth. You can check the music video for “Paper Planes” on Spike TV’s ifilm.com. It’s right after the 20-second Sidekick commercial.

OZOMATLI, WEAPON OF CHOICE review

2007-12-31T00:27:00.000-08:00

Live review, LA Weekly, December 2007

I love L.A.: therefore, Ozomatli is Grade A.

Ozomatli & Weapon of Choice at the House of Blues, review in LA Weekly

Photos from the show

CHERYL DUNN review

2007-12-31T00:19:00.000-08:00

Compound art/book/event review, LA Record, November 2007

i have a tendency to glaze over street photography, but Ms. Dunn does some really interesting work.
Especially cool are her photos of professional boxers in Atlantic City .

Cheryl Dunn write-up in LA Record

CHERYL DUNN @ FAMILY

SUNDAY, NOV. 18:

Talking to New York photographer Cheryl Dunn at her Los Angeles book release party, hosted by the Fairfax district’s Family Bookstore Sunday evening, helped me realize why I think photographers are interesting (I am a photographer, but that doesn’t supersede the point): Photographers, even though they function visually, are basically thinkers. In the case of street photographer Cheryl Dunn, who runs in the same artistic and social circles as Chris Johanson and Margaret Kilgallen, little abstracts of life are identified, composed, and frozen on film, consequently forcing a meditation on seemingly unimportant details that would have otherwise evanesced like so much dust. What sets Dunn apart from other urban photographers, apparent in her new photo book Some Kinda Vocation, is that her process of deciding which details to embrace is informed by her romantic notions involving regular people attempting to do something, whether that something is writing on walls, playing the banjo, supporting a political candidate, or defeating an athletic opponent. One of the most striking images in the book is of boxer Merqui Sosa, mid-fight in Atlantic City, 1991. Sosa’s face is bloody, swollen, and dripping with sweat. His left eye, the only one he can see out of, doesn’t harbor the ferocious concentration of a determined fighter, but a look of resigned fear. This photograph, and the social commentaries that can be assigned to it (brutality, desperation, class struggle), directly plays into the irony of the book’s title, which Dunn elaborates on in her foreword: “The idea of a vocation is sold to people as this great opportunity—but it’s used to designate a career or a school that you go to if you have no opportunities and no money.”

What sealed the deal with my affection for Dunn was what she signed in my copy of the book. After talking briefly, as all photographers currently do, about the besiegement of film-based photography by the evil digital monsters in the evil digital world, I confessed that I do use a digital SLR for editorial and journalistic assignments. She took the book from me and asked what I wanted her to write, and a friend of hers said, “Write what you had for breakfast.” When I returned home and opened up the book, I looked on the inside cover and it read: “What you had for breakfast. That is not what I wanted to write. Shoot Film is what I wanted to write. Cheryl Dunn.” A true romantic. (RK)

ENTRANCE preview

2007-12-31T00:13:00.000-08:00

Preview, LA Record, November 2007

My reigning favorite LA band.

low-end theory preview in la record

PETE QUIRK interview

2007-12-31T00:10:00.000-08:00

LA Record, November 2007

Pete is the Cave Singers frontman and formerly played with noisey punk-adjacent outfit Hint Hint.

He was lovely to talk to.

pete quirk interview in la record

CAVE SINGERS reviews

2007-12-30T23:50:00.000-08:00

District Weekly, LA Weekly, November 2007

I did a fair share of work on this Seattle band. I fell in love with their album "Invitation Songs." It's wonderful.

album "Invitation Songs" review in the District Weekly

Cave Singers at the Echo, review in LA Weekly

Music video for "Dancing on Our Graves," directed by Mike Ott, review in LA Weekly

Music video review, and video below:

Evangelical Christians are the new black. Documentaries like Jesus Camp and bands like Sixteen Horsepower have liberally injected the images and language of American spiritual fanaticism into the pop-culture bloodstream. There’s a reason Borat made a pit stop at an evangelical revival. So on first glimpse of the new Cave Singers video for their recent Invitation Songs track “Dancing on Our Graves” (see below), I was a little wary of yet another addition to this pat churchly paradigm. A couple of things, though, caught my attention: (1) A few moments into the video, when singer Pete Quirk first appears and the preacher character starts lip-synching, I realized it was not composed of archival footage, as I initially believed, but was entirely original live action; and (2) unlike many preceding “exposés” of the God fearing, director Mike Ott surprisingly, amazingly, manages to keep the video from being at all tongue-in-cheek or condescending. There is no sarcasm that I can detect. Even the inclusion of a “freak,” a one-and-a-half-armed man who plays the guitar with his stump, leaves little room for abasement. The video is dreamy — enhanced by Ott’s method of hand-processing and distressing film — and an entertaining, rhythmically engaging accompaniment to the song itself. It is also perfectly cast. I don’t know if Ott found these people through a casting agent or just recruited them from a local Newhall community center, but they don’t seem at all out of place in the world of religious zealots. Sure, some may say that it’s not the place of secular West Coast artists to exploit religious zealotry, regardless of the project’s tone, but those people can go to hell.

JON SPENCER, JAIL WEDDINGS review

2007-12-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

Live review, LA Weekly, November 2007

Sorry to all the Jon Spencer fans out there. Jail Weddings, though, has a glowing review.

There was some pretty juicy banter left in the comments section for this review. This was my favorite one:

For the record, rock journalism died with Peter Laughner. Laughner's review of Jonathan Richman's self-titled record has been aped by many aspiring rock journalists; none have touched it (it's the Creem issue where Bangs rips Wings to shreds -- '76, dude)....Just look at the track record: Tosches: quit; Greil Marcus: loves situationists (kudos to him!); Barry Kramer: was so fucked by Creem he died in some freaky ass Sal Mineo sex act gone wrong. Lester was even losing his mind at the end, trying to pull a Burroughs and fuck off to Mexico. ANYWAY, rock journalism is as difficult as creating a great record. Just as there are only a handful of great bands, there are only a handful of seminal journalists, most of whom are dead. I mean, have you read Lou Reed's interview with Vaclav Havel? Terrible. Have you listened to Lester Bang's record? Horrible. They're different disciplines, both equally hard to master. So this idea that critics are just frustrated musicians is stupid. I mean, look what Lester did for the Velvets. What Henry Geldzahler did for Warhol. And on and on...
Also, my theory is that after Bretton Woods was dissolved, making a profitable yet vibrant rock rag became impossible. Only non-profits carry anything valuable these days (think "Monthly Review" or "Z Magazine"). It's all run by four corporations. All are banal and useless.
In regard to this review, it's pretty sound. I never liked Jon Spencer. Most people I know aren't interested in him anymore. Don't know, don't care. At least this reviewer has the balls to call it as she saw it. Jail Weddings, though, is great. Where most bands in Los Angeles are happy to suck up to journalists or court major labels, Gabe's still the amiable, incorrigible friend I made three or four years ago. His music is always top-notch (probably the only LA band I wholeheartedly endorse). And any of this riff-raff about his band trying to steal the floor is bullshit. Dude is a total saint, even to motherfuckers like me.
Get into Guy Debord. All answers can be found there.
-Ryan Leach

Jon Spencer/Jail Weddings at the Echo, review in LA Weekly

Photos from the show

JERRY HOPKINS ON FRED NEIL an observation

2007-12-30T20:41:00.000-08:00

LA Weekly, November 2007

i actually got an email from jerry hopkins himself about this blog posting, all the way from Thailand. He told me i have a "sweet mouth" and signed it "warm wishes." love it.

People have been leaving some pretty amazing comments on this post about Fred Neil and Karen Dalton in the 60s Greenwich Village music scene- very cool.

Fred Neil's legacy has remained under the radar, but he is most noted for penning the song "Everybody's Talkin," made popular by Harry Nilsson's Midnight Cowboy version.

An observation about Fred Neil in LA Weekly

Here is a video of the amazingly gorgeous and unbelievably tragic Tim Buckley performing my favorite Fred Neil song, "The Dolphins." When I first saw this video, I was obsessed with it and kept watching it over and over. I basically convinced myself that Tim and I were meant to be together, and by some tragic twist of fate he and I were alive in disparate times. I never realized before, bu he looks very much like a friend of mine, actor Gabe Dell.

BLACK LIPS review

2007-12-30T20:36:00.000-08:00

LA Weekly, October 2007

Black Lips at the Troubadour review in LA Weekly

Photos from the show

this young lad looks like Freddie Mercury

BEIRUT review

2007-12-30T20:30:00.000-08:00

LA Weekly, October 2007

Contempo-Klezmer: more fun than a barrel of rabbis. This was one of the most enjoyable shows I've been to in the last few years. Definitely high on the totem pole, just under Prince at Staples, and the Pogues at the Wiltern.
Zach Condon has accomplished the almost unfathomable task of making Eastern European Jewishness seem hip.

Beirut at Avalon, review in LA Weekly

Photos from the show

OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW review

2007-12-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

LA Weekly, August 2007

Sorry to all the OCMS fans out there... and there are quite a few of you.
I am, however, pleased that this man was so photogenic.

OCMS at Avalon, review in LA Weekly

Photos from the show

ENTRANCE BAND review

2007-12-30T20:14:00.000-08:00

LA Weekly, August 2007

Unbelievable band. Completely and totally blew me away.

Entrance at Safari Sam's, review in LA Weekly

more photos on flickr

GRIFFITH PARK FIRE PHOTOS

2007-12-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

LA Weekly, May 2007

I hiked through some of the burned areas of Griffith Park with Councilman Tom LaBonge to take photos. He had me meet him at 6am, and when he drove up I was holding a Snickers bar and a bottle of Gatorade. He is in way better shape than I am. It was pretty embarassing. I felt like I was on Survivor. Thankfully, his hiking partner took pity on me and helped me carry my bag. Thank you, sir.

Very nice mention on Curbed LA

LA Weekly slideshow

additional photos on flickr

CHARLIE BROWN FARMS short feature

2007-12-30T20:05:00.000-08:00

Part of LA Weekly's BEST OF L.A., October 2007

Best Escape Vittles, in LA Weekly

When I contemplate the possibility of a nuclear strike on Los Angeles, which I find myself doing more and more these days — thank you, Ahmadinejad — I think about (1) possible escape routes and (2) the animals I would be willing to eat if I were forced into some sort of hunter-warrior Werner Herzog–inspired survival attempt far from civilization. I start by charting a course toward the Pearblossom Highway, a gateway road that leads to desert and mountain hideaways where I could set up camp and hunt in the wild. Then I remember I’m lazy, nearsighted and asthmatic, and there’s no way I would be able to catch anything that moves faster than dripping molasses.

Thankfully, since 1929, the Antelope Valley’s reputedly dangerous Pearblossom Highway has been home to the tourist-trap emporium Charlie Brown Farms, which sells prepackaged, flash-frozen wild-game meat that I would only consider eating if it meant not having to cook my dog/brother/blanket.

Before the Village of Gnomes hut, and right behind the display of gag gifts for seniors — including the key chain with the timeless message “You know you’re getting old when getting lucky means finding your car in the parking lot” — you’ll bump into the meat freezer. There you’ll find a wide selection of vacuum-sealed dead-animal bits. Turtle, kangaroo (available in medallions and ground patties), alligator, rattlesnake and bear (the type of bear is not specified — plain bear, I guess) are some of Mother Earth’s finest that you can purchase and defrost on your overheated engine block when you eventually break down in the middle of the Mojave Desert. But if you’re not willing to eat snake just yet, you can still stimulate your backwoods palate with Charlie Brown’s venison, bison and ostrich burgers, which you can wash down with sweet-potato fries and a date shake. On your way out, pick up a hunting knife — the one adorned with an image of Angelina Jolie, half naked and set against a Confederate flag, should impress any foes you may encounter on your long journey into the backcountry.

8317 Pearblossom Hwy., Littlerock, (661) 944-2606 or www.charliebrownfarms.com.

DO IT IN THE DIRT short feature

2007-12-30T19:59:00.000-08:00

Part of LA Weekly's BEST OF L.A., October 2007

Why Don't We Do It in the Dirt

Top 10 email responses to the question, "Where would you have your last lay in apocalyptic l.a.?"

10. “Krispy Kreme?”

—Derek Thomas

9. “Forest Lawn... ’nuf said. Does it have to be in the city? ’Cause Neverland Ranch comes to mind as well.”

—Scott D.

8. “Hugh Hefner’s bomb shelter.”

—Pandora Young

7. “On Santa Monica Boulevard. They’ll probably be having some really cool party that I don’t even know about.”

—Arthur Carlton

6. “In the kitchen of Canter’s Deli while eating a pastrami sandwich. As George Costanza would tell you, pastrami is the sexiest of salty, cured meats.”

—Matthew Fleischer

5. “In the Scientology castle on Franklin. It just looks comfy in there, and maybe Isaac Hayes would be there to sing about making sweet love during the last moments. There’s also the possibility that the Scientology aliens would actually come down to rescue them and I would be taken along by default.”

—Andrew Vickmon

4. “I’m thinkin’ in the back row of the ArcLight during the 2031 release of the remake of The Man Called Flintstone. I’ll be eligible for free Viagra with my popcorn and Milk Duds, and I’ve always been hot for Betty Rubble. Ever notice that Barney was always smiling?”

—Peter Fletcher

3. “The Jet Propulsion Lab clean room, where they assemble in a completely dust-free and germ-free environment those gazillion-dollar probes they hurl out to Mars and other planets. You could give new meaning to the phrase cockpit.”

—Jill Stewart

2. “ANYWHERE!!!”

—Anonymous

1. “That tranny/prosty doughnut shop on Crescent Heights in Hollywood. I imagine their hookers are like their doughnuts: No matter what you pull out of the bag, chances are it’s going to surprise you, and probably taste stale.

“Or I’d go to the Hollywood Forever cemetery with a lawn chair and some kettle corn and watch all the necromaniacs in the city ‘raise the dead,’ so to speak.

“I’d also go to Target and tear some up in the Home Accents department. What is it about Target (besides Food Avenue) that makes people so horny? If I die while screwing on top of a shattered Isaac Mizrahi bedside table/lamp combo, that will be the first question I ask God.

“You can also mention that I’m a Virgo, I’m 24 and that I’m allergic to shellfish, although I can’t see how that would be relevant.”

—Jason Underhill

MULHOLLAND UNIVERSAL CITY OVERLOOK short feature

2007-12-30T19:54:00.000-08:00

Part of LA Weekly's BEST OF L.A., October 2007

Since this article was published, there have been noticeably more late-night illegally parked cars at this overlook!

Mission: Accomplished. You can't stop the people from wanting a beautiful view.

Above It All, LA Weekly

Nighttime high-altitude views of Los Angeles County have always been my secret aphrodisiac. I crave them, seek them out, drive at all hours during insomniac hazes to find one, and I am almost always lifted to a euphoric state once I reach my destination. I feel grateful, satisfied, happy to be above the city’s miasma in my black cotton sweatpants and gray hoodie, feeling enveloped and healed by the cool, damp air.

Seeing the grid of L.A. at night always calms me down — something about how the tiny beads of orange glow and the lines of red and white car lights creep along. I stand and breathe deep, hands in my pockets, and eventually realize that, yes, I can deal with whatever is keeping me up on that particular night.

Unfortunately, many of our great vistas have been unceremoniously privatized. One in particular, the Mulholland Drive Universal City Overlook, about nine minutes east of Laurel Canyon, has always been the focal point of my rage against the rich who usurp public access to beauty. I was ticketed there many years ago for a variety of transgressions. Of the eight Los Angeles County Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority–posted rules, I was violating perhaps five. I was there after hours and parked illegally. I was smoking and drinking beer. My dog was off leash. And I was 16, with my best friend at the time. A gay German couple also there managed to run off before the policeman made his way over to our bench. But we, being girls, figured it would be better to try to talk the officer out of giving us a ticket. Running from the law just seemed so undignified for a teenage girl. We almost succeeded. He only cited us for parking on Mulholland after 9 p.m., and I am still grateful.

But as he was writing in his notebook, I asked him why it was illegal for us to be there at night. It’s not really a park, after all — it’s just a bench. And it’s on a public street. It’s basically just a bus stop with a tree around it, I reasoned. The officer looked up at me and gestured with his pen to the mammoth private residences on the other side of the road. “They don’t want people here at night.”

I’ve stopped at the overlook many times since then, before 9 p.m., because it is so beautiful. And I always think to myself: One day, this spot will be reclaimed by the general public. When the shit hits the fan, and some great earthquake, fire or flood hits our county, this will be my vantage point to watch the valley self-destruct. I’ll stare at Universal City ablaze, and see smoke rising from Forest Lawn to the east. By then, all the peace officers will be too busy to respond to a call about a 16-year-old girl standing and breathing in a park after 9 p.m.

7701 Mulholland Dr., Studio City, www.lamountains.com/parks.asp?parkid=42.

SPINDRIFT & CROOKED COWBOY music feature

2007-12-30T19:49:00.000-08:00

Young Guns: Spindrift, Crooked Cowboy, and How the New West was Won, LA Weekly, July 2007

This feature was a labor of love. I whole-heartedly endorse Kirpatrick Thomas' projects. He is a true eccentric, an original, and incredibly talented. And just for the record I coined that music genre.

The New West, LA Weekly

Sitting on a hay bale next to a fire pit, staring at smoldering branches and trying (somewhat fruitlessly) to keep the flying embers from singeing my skirt, I listened to Bron Tieman, leader of the band Crooked Cowboy and the Freshwater Indians, tell me how he broke free of a decadelong life as a hermitic touring backup musician after encountering Spindrift, a local spaghetti-Western concept outfit. He explained, outside his converted goat-barn home, that he had finally heard something in that band that he thought was exceptional — his posse had arrived.

Spindrift front man Kirpatrick Thomas had met up with Tieman while sharing a bill at the Echo. Tieman’s burgeoning band, which can have anywhere from six to 12 musicians on a given night, is the fleshing out of the music Tieman says he has been writing and stowing away since hearing Ennio Morricone’s score to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for the first time, at 5 years of age — it played as the musical accompaniment to one of his sister’s cheerleader routines. Crooked Cowboy and Spindrift stage experimental, epic, cinematically inspired music more akin to the textured, symphonic layers of Portishead than the chaps and 10-gallon hat–wearing Riders in the Sky, even though their roots lie with the mysteries and folklore of the West. (As a point, Tieman tells his band not to stop playing during sets, so that the audience can be transported without interruption to another world that lies somewhere between the deserts of Spain and the Mir space station.)

Together, Tieman — who looks as though he should have tumbleweeds rolling at his feet while he walks — and Thomas are at the hotbed of the New West psychedelic-cowboy vibe now pulsating through many Highland Park and Echo Park songbirds. And for the past six months, they’ve been rooming together in Tieman’s historic home, which sits at the base of the Mount Washington hotel currently occupied by the Self-Realization Fellowship. Crooked Cowboy bandmates Neil Schuh and Tyler Thacker (also of the art-rock party bands Totally Radd!! and the Hot Tramps) are among the Highland Park–based musicians constantly flowing in and out of the barn, which is chock-full of pianos, organs, drums and recording equipment, to develop ideas or just to sprawl out on a blanket and nurse a cold beer.

This kinship is the fortunate expansion of the talent I first encountered when I saw Spindrift in the fall of 2003, when my beautiful keyboardist friend, Cameron Murray, lyrically beckoned, “Come out to the desert with me. I’m playing with a cowboy band.” She needed someone to chat with on the drive out, so I agreed to the trip, expecting to sit through a sorta blues, kinda garage rock, somewhat annoying yet tolerable band. But in the cramped, darkened quarters of Highway 62’s Beatnik Café, what I heard was completely unexpected. The way the myriad instruments and stable props are woven together to create Spindrift’s sound masterfully manages to steer the music clear of being cheesy, even while the musicians scream, “Tie them up, whoa!” Instead of feeling like you’re on the set of Maverick, you feel like you’ve been granted access to the distant memories of a two-bit-saloon harlot as she watches her nameless lover ride off into the sunset. In other words, it makes you feel like you’ve just been made love to by a handsome stranger, a genius visceral experience. Kirpatrick Thomas, a Delaware native who blew in from the East Coast as a solitary stranger in 2000, had wrangled a few musicians together, some borrowed from desert dwellers Gram Rabbit, some just taking five from touring with the Warlocks, dressed them in potato-bag ponchos and sombreros wrapped with Christmas lights, and amazed the crowd at the desolate desert café with the performance of his concept album The Legend of God’s Gun, which Thomas described as a soundtrack, even though at the time there was no movie to go with it. The 2003 prototype version of the album (it has since been remastered) that I commandeered from an intoxicated Thomas later during that evening in the desert, liner notes stained with red wine, plays as a Morricone-drenched homage to the West and all that this coast entails: surfer music, psychedelics, movies and cowboys.

After treading water for a few years in the overwhelmingly saturated L.A. music scene, Spindrift have recently been receiving some of the attention they deserve, getting coverage in local media, and credit for their part in the resurrection of the phenomenal love affair with the Wild West currently sweeping Southern California hipsters. Even the high-altitude honky-tonk Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace seems to be getting its fair share of acts like Jonathan Richman, the Watson Twins and Dengue Fever, but when Spindrift play at Pappy & Harriet’s (still mainly a country & western and local-act venue), they seem to be much more in their natural habitat.

And just this past week, director Mike Bruce, of Razor Tree Films, finally completed the heavily anticipated The Legend of God’s Gun — the missing silver-screen accompaniment to Thomas’ 2003 soundtrack of the same title. The film, which Bruce describes as a “rock & roll spaghetti Western, filmed in Southern California, as opposed to Italy, and has no Italian actors in it and sparsely any actors at that,” stars Thomas as El Sobero, the main bad guy, who faces off against a gunslinging preacher in the debaucherous town of Playa Diablo. And on the airwaves, king-of-cool trend galvanizer Steve Jones has been playing tracks off Spindrift’s album Songs From the Ancient Age on Indie 103.1 — Jones seems to have a particular affinity for “Red Reflection,” a synthesized melodic duet between Thomas and guest vocalist Kristin King that would be appropriate as background music if Grace Slick and Clint Eastwood happened to get into a sword fight.

Spindrift plays Wed., Aug. 1, at the Echo. Bring your maracas and wear your petticoats. Just watch out for the coyotes.

For more upcoming Spindrift and Crooked Cowboy gigs, and for more information on screenings of The Legend of God’s Gun, visit myspace.com/thewest, myspace.com/willeep and myspace.com/razortreefilms.

DEVENDRA BANHART short feature

2007-12-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

Part of LA Weekly's People Issue, May 2007

Devendra and Antae in LA Weekly

Enchanter, shaman, guru, sage — these are all words that have been used to describe singer-songwriter Devendra Banhart. And it’s not that I disagree — Devendra certainly is special. The talented young man with the voice he himself describes as a “possum getting a Pap smear” always has been someone to watch, ever since I first met him in ninth grade. It’s just bizarre when strangers start worshipping your high school friends. Rolling around in mud at Cacophony Society parties in the late ’90s, he didn’t even go by Devendra, but by a suitably quixotic nickname (which he asked me not to reveal), and looked less maharishi, more woodland nymph. But he always maintained the air of mystery that continues to inform his music and leaves his fans pleasantly astounded.

When Devendra began to garner press attention after the 2002 Young God Records release of his debut album, Oh Me Oh My... The Way the Day Goes by the Sun Is Setting Dogs Are Dreaming Lovesongs of the Christmas Spirit, I would read interviews with him in big music mags like Spin and get annoyed. More often than not, Devendra would leave out his years growing up in L.A. He would mention Caracas and Texas, also locales where he put in time as a young pup, but failed to mention any of the sordid, raucous calamities that comprised his formidable years as a Malibu teenager.

In my own snarky Hollywood manner, I would show these interviews to my non–rock star friends and make comments like, “Oh, maybe L.A. is just too obvious for a blossoming demigod.” But I can admit that was just my high-school-buddy-is-getting-really-famous jealousy talking, because these days, Devendra is loudly and proudly about the West Coast. He just took up residence in a house here (well, in Topanga, but that still counts). He is recording a new album here. He is making a documentary here. His muse-poet Svengali, the mysterious Antae Bargan, is nearby (Devendra still talks with reverence about the way Antae, pictured here, as always, in a three-piece suit, taught him to play the shoe — apparently it makes a very faint jug sound). And as Devendra told me, “I’ve spent the last four years traveling constantly, and L.A. is where I always want to return. I have strong and certain feelings that Mother Nature is gettin’ on in her years and it sure shows on the East Coast. Her hair is brittle and graying, her beautiful breasts are sloping down toward her mellow and gorgeous gut, but she is still young here. The West is where she is still green, still.”

RAZORCAKE'S TODD TAYLOR short feature

2007-12-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

Part of LA Weekly's People Issue, May 2007

Todd and his records in LA Weekly

Todd Taylor loves to write about punk rock, but don’t box him in. Even though his globally distributed and admired music magazine Razorcake solidified its foundation with interviews and articles on roots punk, garage punk and pagan-core-crust punk, the L.A. music scene’s ubiquitous four-letter word is more than just the bedrock for multi-hyphenated subgenres. If it’s grassroots, DIY and below corporate media’s radar, Razorcake will cover it.

To Taylor, punk was a way out of frustration, a way into a lifelong obsession and has continued to be his guiding voice in a city of hype — in his words, “a way to fly the flag internally.” Taylor’s own adolescent musical messiah, a record store clerk nicknamed Louie the Letch, fed Taylor ear-splitting yet wily melodious anarchy from Las Vegas’ only non-shitty record store at the time, The Underground. His first love: JFA’s Blatant Localism EP. The fervor persisted through his graduate studies at Northern Arizona University and inspired his move to L.A. in 1996 to work at the legendary music rag Flipside, his professional home for five years.

When Flipside’s lights went out in 2000, Taylor was crushed. But he persuaded Sean Carswell, a grad-school friend, to fly out to L.A. from Cocoa Beach, Florida, and together they started up Razorcake with money Carswell raised after selling a house he built while working as a carpenter.

“I knew Sean was up to it,” Taylor says. “He also loves punk rock, is down to earth, a smart guy, a great writer and a hard worker. He’s my closest friend. It felt like we were using the same brain.”

One of their riskiest early decisions was to structure Razorcake as a nonprofit enterprise. That means the 100 or so Razorcake contributors all work totally gratis (Taylor himself makes the equivalent of $1 per hour). Writers must also adhere to Taylor’s highly regimented list of don’ts, including: Don’t ask the band how the tour’s going. Why? Because, Taylor says, he’s going for stories — the other stuff can work itself out. Even if the music isn’t familiar and the band is unknown, Taylor wants readers to be able to pick up Razorcake and fall into an article the way you might with a John Fante novel — wholly, lovingly and tenderly — because the story is good.

The results can be extraordinary. I remember falling wholly, lovingly and tenderly into a 16,000-word, two-part 2004 article on the psychobilly one-man-band wonder that was Hasil Adkins. Piecing together Adkins’ rambling stories and eccentricities, Razorcake contributor Bradley Williams details a pilgrimage to see the infamous originator of the dance known as The Hunch at his polka dot–adorned West Virginia home. The story was the last known interview of the musical pioneer before his death in 2005, and is one of those pieces of writing that I always carry with me.

When Taylor, 35, isn’t busy memorizing international postal regulations so he can distribute the magazine all over the world from his modest two-bedroom home/office in Highland Park, he works on Razorcake’s sister book-publishing outfit, Gorsky Press, and makes a living as a freelance writer — he’s been a regular contributor to Thrasher for six years. He also does odd jobs.

“I just installed some data cables between two houses,” he says. “I’m handy.”

But his latest obsession is organizing zine and writing workshops in Northeast L.A. so others can follow in his DIY footsteps.

“Basically, we’ve taught ourselves a ton of DIY skills, and we want to share them,” Taylor says. “We’ll be hosting workshops with our friends who’re talented photographers, novelists, silk-screeners and zinesters.”

According to Taylor, L.A. is important as one of the last oases of multigenerational artists and rockers; too many people, he says, just don’t see it. With his magazine and now his workshops, he’s trying to blow the blinders off.

24-HOUR PORNY PEOPLE feature

2007-12-30T19:36:00.000-08:00

A Considerable Town section, LA Weekly, April 2007

Porny People in LA Weekly

“Join us, salsa dancing, roller skating, and merry making on east Pico.”

It was already 10 p.m. when the text message came in. Still recovering from Friday night’s bender, we nonetheless dragged ourselves downtown — and it was deep downtown, where they don’t have street lamps anymore, where the city planners seemed to give up.

We parked in the dark lot next door and were immediately chased onto the street by two barking dogs. The gate at the address was locked, there was no one in sight, and my internal monologue was already off this street and onto Burrito King’s chile relleno burrito when a worried young gal in five-inch heels and a sparkly purple dress came clicking down the stairs. “Go on up — the salsa teacher got stuck in traffic.”

Three flights high, it was a typical CalArtsy party — mostly familiar faces standing around drinking and laughing in a huge industrial space. Wandering down the hall, I happened upon what seemed like a Moroccan opium den — lush throw pillows strewn about, dark mood lighting, fans oscillating, curls of cigarette smoke colliding at the ceiling — but turned out to be a porn radio studio.

A 40-something woman in a sheer black top, sans bra, rushed up to me and pressed her finger to her lips as a signal to be quiet.

“We’re live on the air and we’re looking for guests. Do you have any deep, dark secrets to confess?” Past the racks of illegibly marked gray VHS boxes and the TV monitors showing video footage of busty African-American women “acting,” a middle-aged blonde wearing heavy lipstick and a low-cut top talked into a radio mike.

I said I knew someone who would definitely have something to get off his chest and ran back to the party to get a friend. They announced him on the air as “Anton,” and what he proceeded to tell the radio host was an outrageous lie, which, of course, she had to take seriously because in the business of perversion eradication you have to assume everyone is telling the truth.

Anton confessed a childhood of incestuous molestation, which triggered the anger that led to his adolescent abuse of small animals. As retribution for his youthful crimes, Anton said, he has dedicated himself to being an animal-control officer for the city of Los Angeles, helping abused and abandoned cats and dogs. The problem, said Anton, is that he seems to be exclusively attracted to men at the workplace. And he just doesn’t know how to move on.

The professional sex world is so eager to be accepting, nothing can be shocking. A studio technician in his 60s took the mike and said, “Hey, Anton, listen. I’m much older and wiser than you, but I used to take cats, put them in burlap sacks, and swing them around. It’s not right, but hey, we didn’t know any better.” Then one of the breathy female guests chimed in. “Maybe you should date a girl with cats. Then you’ll love her and you’ll love the cats. I have cats...”

After an hour of this feline-focused oral extravaganza (and after being offered the job of associate producer, which I graciously declined), the words “cock ring” were spoken, and it was Anton’s and my cue to get the hell out of there. Miraculously, we escaped from the smothering bosom of sexual acceptance just in time for the salsa instructor to show up, about 1 a.m. With the help of blaring music and partial inebriation, I tried my best to follow the simple back-and-forth cha-cha he demonstrated, to little avail. The rest of the night was spent stumbling over someone else’s feet, and roller-skating with the 24-hour porny people who filtered in from down the hall. It was heartwarming to watch the trust-fund babies, sex workers, video artists, journalists and high school dropouts flourish in each other’s awkward and untalented two-stepping.

A skinny, six-foot-tall professional in a skintight red ensemble introduced herself as a “porn star renaissance woman.” As we stood gazing out of the window onto Pico Boulevard’s black abandon, she told me how she takes care of those ill-tempered parking-lot dogs, leaving them food and water. She was very excited that one of the dogs had recently eaten out of her hand. And then she offered me a job — an editor position to go through the thousands upon thousands of hours of tape she has yet to organize. I graciously declined.

FREAKS AND FREAKS feature

2007-12-30T19:34:00.000-08:00

A Considerable Town section, LA Weekly, December 2006

Sideshow freaks beat me up in LA Weekly

I’d been waiting for an hour outside the California Institute of Abnormal Arts in North Hollywood when the elephant man finally showed up. After an additional hour, Samantha X, the ringleader of 999 Eyes, “the last traveling freak show in the United States,” appeared on the scene with the midget and a young BBC documentarian. Samantha, a woman in her 40s with dirty, colored dreads beneath a moldy cowboy hat, ran toward us in an obvious state of distress.

“The fucking bus broke down! All my freaks are trapped on some street called Sepulveda. Can you help us pick them up?”

I’d always been into the sideshow, its history and cultural markers — Charles Eisenmann’s photographs and Todd Browning’s Freaks were regular fare when I was growing up — so when I learned that 999 Eyes was appearing, I was on the phone asking to photograph them. They had a lobster boy and a lobster girl! And a giant! And a half-girl! This was the real deal.

But things weren’t going exactly as planned. Ignoring the (prescient) advice of the BBC journalist, who whispered into my ear, “Don’t get involved,” I agreed to lead a two-car caravan down to Sepulveda and Jefferson boulevards.

As soon as Samantha got into my car, I noticed a familiar odor — the putrid stink of dirty hippies: old sweat, soiled clothes, cheap vegetarian Thai takeout and stale health-food cookies. Breathing through my mouth, I attempted to converse with Samantha about her craft and the tradition behind it. It turns out that these freaks spend three months out of the year performing at Burning Man. The fear that gripped me at this point was reminiscent of the terror felt when I first realized my chiropractor was a Scientologist.

After much traffic, anxiety and confusion, we made it to the freak bus. A flash of various body sizes, clown makeup, dogs and tambourines, and we were on our way back to North Hollywood. Next to me in my 1995 Nissan Sentra was the 7-foot-3-inch Gentle Giant, scrunched over his taxidermied two-headed calf, while Samantha X, the lobster girl and (thankfully) the half-girl sat in the back, putting on their white face paint.

I tried to break the ice with some Hollywood humor.

“So, do you guys think you can get me on the guest list for your gig?”

Instead of telling me that of course I was getting a free seat, Samantha proposed a swap: I see the show for free, photograph it and send them prints. Ten-dollar admission in exchange for photographing and developing expensive prints and lugging them to their first L.A. performance? I looked at the giant and he looked at me, and after visualizing one of his super-sized hands around my throat, I just mumbled, “Okay, sure.” Damn, damn hippies.

In North Hollywood, 15 minutes past curtain, I was sitting double-parked, waiting for the freaks to finish unpacking their gear, when I heard the midget yell out, “I hate these kinds of trunks — it won’t stay open!” This was followed by a loud, metallic snap. I jumped out and ran around to see my trunk stuck open at a 90 degree angle. It wouldn’t budge. That’s when I started yelling.

“What did you freaks do? My trunk is broken! Someone, anyone, come over here!”

The Gentle Giant inspected the trunk with Lowrent the Clown, pointed to something on the inside and said, “Oh, it’s that part.”

I looked inside to see what he was talking about, when the trunk came slamming down on my head.

“Oh shit, are you okay?” said the Gentle Giant. When I murmured something close to a stunned yes, he added, “I can’t get this to close. Oh well.” And off he went. That was the last I saw of the giant.

I was standing there feeling my head for blood and fighting off tears when four of my friends arrived. Within five minutes my trunk was closed and there was a plastic cup of Jack and Coke in my hand. I tried watching the freak show, but I couldn’t get into it — whether from annoyance or because it sucked, I couldn’t tell. But world-famous dwarf and sideshow performer extraordinaire General Tom Thumb was probably rolling over in his miniature grave.

At home, my pained head and jaw and my bloodshot eyes worried my brother. Four hours later I lay in Cedars-Sinai, diagnosed with a mild concussion. A woman in a business suit and loud blue pumps asked me whether I had been treated there before. “Yeah, I was born here,” I replied.

I was born here, and here I am. My trunk is broken, I have a concussion, and I didn’t get to take any photographs of those freaks. What was I doing with my life? I let out a huge sigh. My brother continued flipping through his copy of Sports Illustrated and said, “This is why Dad wanted you to be a lawyer.”

HISTORY FOR HIRE short feature

2007-12-30T19:27:00.000-08:00

Part of LA Weekly's BEST OF L.A. issue, August 2006

History for Hire in LA Weekly

Rent a War: Best Place to Get Props

The first time I entered History for Hire, I was smacked with bright light; it reminded me of Lou Reed hitting the streets after a six-day amphetamine binge, like the lyrics to “White Light/White Heat.” As my pupils adjusted, I was hit with a kaleidoscope of color: Union blues, bright ’60s psychedelic garb and dreary grays. I immediately felt elated. As I walked through the aisles, the overwhelming smell of must and stale wool hit me like mustard gas, or at least mustard gas was on my mind as I walked through the unending stacks of military-issue camouflage. Coming to this North Hollywood prop house was one of my favorite duties when I worked as prop master for the Greenway Court Theater. I loved walking among the tall, wide and seemingly endless racks of period pieces. Not one shelf was left unoccupied, not one box left unstuffed. You could find everything from Victorian-era cosmetics cases to Revolutionary War muskets to neon 1980s Fender Stratocasters. I always spent more time exploring there than I should have. I loved imagining what movies had used which objects, what kind of characters would need them.

History for Hire started out 21 years ago as a humble living-room operation run by Pam Elyea and her husband, Jim. The first film feature they worked on was Oliver Stone’s seminal 1986 film, Platoon. “Of course,” said Pam, “we had no idea it was going to be such a successful film at the time.” Now, 20 years later, History for Hire has grown into a Hollywood staple, working on 150 still shots, 100 music videos, 50 theatrical productions and 50 feature films a year, with business extending to all seven continents.

Supplying props to film shoots on Antarctica had its drawbacks, however. Production on an IMAX film about the real-life ill-fated 1914 voyage of English explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, in which his boat was seized by ice while attempting to sail past the frozen continent, was halted when the film’s crew ship, carrying all the props and much of the equipment, sank into icy blue oblivion. Pam chalks the experience up to working in an unpredictable industry. Recently, History for Hire has outfitted a pirate documentary for the History Channel, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, and even a private corporate pirate-themed party at the Renaissance Hotel. And what they don’t have, they make — a service aided by Jim Elyea’s experience with design and television product fabrication.

But being at History for Hire seems to radiate a unique feeling of being at home, if home were a huge warehouse full of all the cool stuff you had ever wanted.

History for Hire 7149 Fair Ave., North Hollywood, (818) 765-7767 or www.historyforhire.com

HOLIDAY IN ISRAEL feature

2007-12-30T18:20:00.000-08:00

A Considerable Town section, LA Weekly, August 2006

Dodging rockets in LA Weekly

Upon our arrival on July 12, Nurit Gross, a friend of my mother’s from preschool and an active member of the Israeli human-rights organization Women Against Occupation, greeted my mother and me at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport. My mother and Nurit had seen each other only once in the 30 years since my mother, an expat living in America, left Israel. As Nurit grabbed some of our luggage and led us briskly toward her car, she proclaimed that there had been a special performance to greet our arrival — an attack by Hezbollah that left eight Israeli soldiers dead and two missing.

This wasn’t what anyone — not my mother, her Israeli friends, our family here — had imagined back in April when we purchased our tickets.

“We’re going to be real tourists on this one,” my mother had said as she gleefully flipped through an Israel guidebook. It was to be her first real vacation since a postdivorce flight to Bali in the early ’80s. “It’s going to be all about fun.”

Nurit wasn’t very optimistic about that.

“Now it’s going to get bad,” she said. “It’s going to get bad for the Israelis, and it’s going to get bad for the Lebanese.”

I asked her why Hezbollah had chosen to start an attack on Israel’s soil. With the characteristically Israeli manner of being righteous and aloof at the same time, she tapped the ash off her cigarette, flicked her wrist and said, “Because that is what they are trained to do.”

The rest of the trip played out like a checkers match between us, the willful tourists, and the Katyushas — the rockets of Soviet origin that Hezbollah was lobbing at Israel by the dozens per day. Plans to visit family in Nahariya and Haifa turned into extra days in Tel Aviv. Our sojourn to the beautiful and tranquil Kibbutz Mizra ended one day before a rocket hit the neighboring city of Afula — four days before Mizra itself was struck. My relatives living on Mizra, a kibbutz so secular that we ate homegrown pork chops on the night of the Sabbath, had been so confident in their 100-kilometer distance from the northern border that their bomb shelters were still locked at the time of our visit.

Friends from home contacted me, wanting to know if I was scared. After all, people were being killed at bus stations, on their balconies, even while running for bomb shelters. But I found that soon after arriving, I subscribed to the silently understood pact of Israel’s residents: You go about your business for as long as you possibly can.

Yet daily life in Israel constantly reminds you that you’re in a war zone. Every mall, bank, restaurant, hotel and mobile-phone shop has security in front, equipped with metal detectors. Every television set in every household and every business is continuously fixed on the local news channel, and not five minutes go by without the image of a young soldier carrying an M-16. And, as our trip progressed, the hotels emptied out more and more, giving the advantage to tourists looking for a deal on a cushy room.

The one occasion when I did have a clear twitch of doubt came on our first day in Jerusalem. The taxi driver’s car stereo blared with the news of the day on our ride over to the Old City section of Jaffa Gate. Since the news was in Hebrew, I tuned it out and fixed my eyes on a sexy young soldier carrying a large, semiautomatic weapon. I started to make a joke about walking softly and carrying a big gun, when my mother interrupted me, saying, “They caught a suicide bomber at Jaffa Gate.”

My expression must have changed quickly, because the driver looked at me from his rearview mirror and said in heavily accented English, “Don’t worry. Suicide bombers are much easier to catch in the summer. They wear those big coats.” Once at Jaffa Gate, we got out of the taxi, paid our driver the 80 shekels and made our way down to the Western Wall.

On the climb back up, the stairs split into two directions. One led back the way we came, past the armed security booth; the other weaved through an open-air bazaar where Muslim, Jewish and Christian tourists alike buy their souvenirs. I quickly scanned the area for some sort of security personnel, but couldn’t see any. Then it hit me. I yelled for my mother, who was already ahead of me, walking toward a display of colorful hanging beads. She turned around, and I locked eyes with her, shaking my head.

Together we walked back up the other way, discussing whether we should have falafel or shawarma for lunch.