So the “holiday” hits and suddenly we find out who’s a class-cutter and who’s dedicated to ditching their families in order to stay in the office and work. And holy shit! It’s basically all ladies here today. We’re really not missing the usual witty banter about video games, going out, eating food, and having/spending money; actually, we’re frantically trying to take advantage of this “safe space” by sponsoring a proactive Girl Corner.
Archive for November, 2008
NEW YORK - GIRL CORNER
LONDON - ENDLESS BOOGIE LIVE AT OLD BLUE LAST
From the vaults of psych collector morass Endless Boogie have pulled themselves into the light. Actually finding any copies of their two legendary chugging blues-rock albums might be stupidly impossible, but at least you can see them play on December 5th at the Old Blue Last in London. If you want to chew your hands off and crack your face at the feet of a man called Top Dollar who growls horny death like Beefheart gnawing lesions from Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s back, then come.
NO PHOTOS EXTRA - CAROLINER
Occulty folk-noise society (not “New Weird America”—that shit’s for bindi-wearing, cross-dressing pussies) Caroliner has been around so long their claims of being actually from the 1800s might seem plausible if it weren’t for all the carved foam costumes and fluorescent-painted cardboard. When they play live, which is a rare phenomenon, they cover their entire stage in what looks like totem pole hieroglyphs and references to a personal history, a secret language along the lines of the cryptic communication methods you invented with your junior high BFF just in case Mrs. Hyde confiscated your spiral full of notes and found out who fingered you at the movies the other night. Their records look like hobo arts and crafts projects cobbled together from scraps of thoughts found on a freight train, paintings of clown auras, and their trademark chicken scratch drawings. We asked them to please explain what it was all about.
MONTREAL - VICE AT EXPOZINE
If you’re planning on spending any time outside this weekend, may we suggest a free and heated event where you can pick up back issues of Vice? It’s Expozine, it’s happening all weekend, and here’s a map for you. Drawn & Quarterly’s going to be there, so’s Nadia Moss, so’s Guy Deslisle, plus about another 250 million artists and writers and small presses and zine people. It should be a fun, sweaty event full of people who like drawing and reading. So, get outside briefly, then go right back inside, grab yourself a stack of back issues, then shuffle back outside, then scurry back inside, etc, ad nauseam.
LONDON - GOOD MARKETER/BAD MARKETER
In 2005, Sandi Thom began her famous ‘online webcasts’, which attracted millions of ordinary people to her music and eventually scored her a UK number one hit. The fans who came and left messages such as ‘great tunes. really sweet’, and ‘your voice is reeeelly solful’ were touched by her music. Sure. But they were also touched by marketing. Specifically, by her now-legendary online promotions company, Quite Great PR. And every day, marketing reaches out into our lives and gives us messages about ourselves and our world. Messages like: I should be this person. I should do that thing. I should dream this dream.
Sandi wished she was a punk rocker. I wished I was a marketing consultant. Horses for courses. The difference being that my dream has since come true and I’m on 30k a year, whereas she’s probably back to waitressing at the Harvester.
NEW YORK - TREE DATING
The other morning, after a night of DJing a child actor’s bar mitzvah, which my drunk friends crashed, and then passing along to one another our various viruses playing spin the bottle at a bar, we all headed to breakfast, where we sat next to a woman named Janet. Janet was wearing an amulet necklace for protection–it was the second one she’d burned through in a week. She frantically handed all eight of us little pieces of paper and mysteriously told us to each draw a tree.
LONDON - PRESIDENTIAL ASS
Last week Salon published a commentary on future First Lady Michelle Obama titled ‘First Lady Got Back’, in which contributor Erin Aubry Kaplan makes a series of contentious assertions, from the topical (claiming that Obama’s victory entailed a personal exoneration of America’s racial history) to the outright bizarre (that right-wing attacks launched against Michelle Obama prevented the public from looking at her ass).
LONDON - KANYE WEST, JOHN McCAIN, A PIRATE AND OTHER INVENTORS
Ever since Kanye West invented Pop Art, the world has been a more confusing place. Hip-hop’s most self-regarding geek has now regarded himself as a pioneer of a supposed ‘new musical genre’. Rap has always had a little allegorical thing for the idea of the ‘beat lab’, but the way Kanye carps about innovation, it’s easy enough to imagine him stood over a bunsen burner in his stupid slatted glasses, melting down Flava Flav’s clocks into a sticky essence of cool, sucking Cristal up through pipettes, doing drive-bys on crash test dummies. Rather than just sampling Daft Punk and very famous soul songs. Pop Art is his latest invention. BTW, ever seen this?
NEW YORK - THE DECLINE OF YELLING AT PEOPLE ABOUT STUFF
It’s weird to think of the Soy Bombs and anti-WTO marionette shows of the 90s as some sort of high point in protest culture, but man has it fallen on some hard times since then. Maybe it has to do with being so ineffectual they couldn’t prevent one of the most openly villainous administrations of the past century from serving two full terms, but at some point it seems like everybody got so tied up in trying to be clever they forgot to have a point. Like did you see the fake New York Times that group the Yes Men put out a couple weeks ago claiming that the Iraq War was over? Seriously, what was even the point of that, that it would be "nice" if the war was over? These are the same guys who got Union Carbide to hold a press conference saying they don’t apologize for blowing up hundreds of Indians in Bhopal, and now all of a sudden they’re copping moves from John Lennon at his most smacked-out and wishy washy. Sad.
LONDON - THE VIRGINS, DICKS, COKE, COMPETITIONS, AND FREE DOWNLOADS
The first and only time I met The Virgins they were traveling to a gig in a limo doing coke and drinking beer from the plastic champagne glasses they keep in the kind of limo you can flag down on a street. Their show was pretty awesome, a knuckleheaded take on Jonathan Richman’s new wave blueprint. Befittingly the crowd was pretty much all made up by hot girls who were all on Cobrasnake by the morning.
NEW YORK - BLAME IT ON THE DOG
That cute expression dogs get on their faces when they know you’re about to scream, “No! That’s bad! Bad dog!” is one of photographer Peter Sutherland’s favorites. Most of the images in “Blame it on the Dog,” his latest collection of photos up now at ATM Gallery, were taken while he was traveling, having the feeling of forgetting everyday life. Sometimes that’s a really freeing thing, like when you stumble upon a buried snow cave, or you and your friends hop on a Maypole/swingset contraption in Virgin Suicides daylight, but it can also be really disconnected and disturbing. The title, he says, has to do with looking to hold someone accountable for this idea of escape. He says wasn’t intending to get all political about it, but seriously, with the world pirouetting toward the apocalypse maybe it’s about time someone took some responsibility.
NEW YORK - ART THERAPY FOR THE DUMPÈD
When today’s featured artist Nick Gazin got broken up with a couple weeks ago, he didn’t just sit as his desk listening to Black Sabbath’s "Changes" over and over so that it would show up on his ichat in case the girl who broke up with him was looking. He also hooked his hand up to a pen and let his emotions doodle as they may.
