On June 7th the Adrian Belew Power Trio (with 21 year Eric Slick on drums and his sister 22 year old Julie Slick on bass) played yet another amazing show, this time at Mexicali Live in Teaneck, NJ. The opening act was the Hackensack School of Rock, featuring kids between the ages of 11 and 17 - playing the progressive music of the group Yes.
That night one of Mr. Belew's fans received a special gift from Andre the Road Manager.
Please see the following:
gd: Tell me about yourself.
9V: I am a Duracell 9 volt battery. I was manufactured in China and came here on a container ship. It was a long voyage. I was locked in a container below deck with 3000 of my countrymen for weeks. They didn't feed us or let us go on deck for exercise. Terrible trip.
gd: Then what?
9V: After that my entire family was sold to a convenience store. One day a gentlemen wearing a Frank Zappa T-shirt came in and bought my entire family and 30 of my friends. We were thrown into a nylon bag in the back of a van and driven to someplace called Tennessee. Next thing I know, I am in a guitar in the middle of a crowded room with all kinds of amplifiers, drums and electronic gear. And cables. The thing that I remember is that there were MILES and MILES of cables. This group rehearsed this strange, beautiful and very complicated music. Very powerful.
gd: Interesting...
9V: Most things were powered by outlet strips to prevent noise and RFI interference. Only a few things were powered with batteries. I was placed in a beautiful golden guitar called a Parker Fly. It was very crowded in there. Lots of wires, circuit boards and switches. There was also an orange guitar there, too. Every night I would be shaken around violently and hear these very loud noises that sounded like dinosaurs, rhinos, seagulls and something you Americans call KingCrimsonBeatlesJimiHendrix. I am not sure what that means. We went all over the USA and Canada and then one day the man in the Frank Zappa shirt opened the ceiling, stuck his hand in and pulled me out. The next thing I know I am given to an old man who is saying, "THANK YOU ANDRE, THANK YOU ANDRE,THANK YOU ANDRE", over and over. A nice woman with the old man says, "What are you gonna do with that"? Then I am shoved into several napkins and spend the night in the man's pocket with some keys. The next day I was placed in a plastic box on a bookshelf and some pictures were taken with a cell phone.
gd: How embarrassing for you. Anything else to say?
9V: At least I am not in the dark anymore and the old man's place has air conditioning.
The Music of Darius Greene
Written by Administrator
I was born 1823, or maybe not. I once designed a flying machine in which the poet John T. Trowbridge, had misinformed the world as to it’s trial and demise. I tell you that machine flew and does to this day! I am currently in the field of Disturbances and Escapements, mainly air molecules and visual time. And soon weather manipulation. I am also attempting to construct a Freethink Apparatus, a clunky but effective device which fits around and atop the cranium, and awakes the walking tv addled numb.
I believe I have a chronic music based disease. I enjoy playing imaginary nonexistent music, though I use real instruments to do so. Comus in Oz, draped in sea harbored melodies, and lo-fi hi-fi sci-fi grits and warbles, which I attempt to invoke from Buck Roger's antique radios while they are short circuiting in the cool spring rains. I sometimes conduct tests for inter dimensional Devas and such to caress the temporal and mortal. I like the outdoors. I am a multi instrumentalist but mainly anything keyboard/piano based, harpsichord (sampled for now, sigh :( ) organs, mellotron. Many of these songs have their bass and instruments and percussives all done a'capella. Though I do love my strings: guitar, mandolin, sitar, any oddity for percussion.
Booga and Brody - Collaborative Works In Progress
Written by Administrator
I've seen and heard loads of other collaborations, and for the most part, while good, they never make you feel, or see, or hear, anything more than just the combining of art. With Booga and Brody's pieces there's something more. Instead of two artists painting the same piece, its almost like the two have melted into one artist, and then created their paintings. The result is something thats even greater than the sum of the parts. Its interesting to look at the pieces and try to find where one of Booga's contribution ends and where Brody's begins. I know both of their works so well, so I can pick it out easier than most, but in the end, the pieces seem to be painted by a greater entity than either of them.
Glubdub: Do you guys get that same sense?
Booga: i never really thought about it like that before.. i guess i can see how you got that..
brody and i are so much alike.. we bounce off each other almost non-stop. to others it may seem cruel how we talk to each other.. but its all in good fun.. one burn after another.. trying to outdo each other ALL the time. we get a little carried away sometimes, but like i said... its all in good fun.
Brody: OH yeah, “fun”, I forgot about that for a second. No, but seriously I know what you mean. I’d really rather not get into some of the deeper things that are going on, for fear of ruining the magic or the momentum, whatever you want to call it. Everyone has demons they can’t deal with, facts they don’t want to face. “Respecting” each other as much as we do and being as… I don’t really know how to put it. These newer pieces are much truer to our shared vision than earlier pieces, the amount of time and energy we’re spending on them; there’s a lot of secrets buried in these pieces. Secrets AND emotions.
Booga: right….
Glubdub: Why is the name of the show "Horrible"?
Booga: well.. we dont know if this is what we are really going to call it yet, but..... brody and i have this running joke... he calls me horrible.. but he really means 'whore-able'
after we finish all the work and take a look back at what we've done, the name could change.. this is just what i am referring to it as.. i dont even think brody really likes it.. he's just humoring me..
Brody: I don’t really care for the name “horrible”, even in the “whore-able” context. It really began as a private joke, but now it’s grown to be darker and more sinister because of certain emotions that are brought to the surface due to some of the rather deep conversations we’ve had lately. If we’re going for booga inspired names, instead of “horrible”, we could go with “pigtails and tits”, “sweet petite sweater meat” – or maybe something to do with how the pieces are all ink, paint and papier-mâché – like the “ink and paste” show or something – usually with us its got to be about sex or the lack thereof… the “lack thereof” isn’t really from “lack of trying” either. What were we talking about again?
Booga: well, lets just write a fucking book, shall we??
Glubdub: Whats the theme behind the work?
Booga: uhhh.... brody?
Brody: I don't think that there is really a relevant overall theme to the collection - its more about our relationship and the processes behind the works, the conversations and personal relations that add to the creative energies that make these all possible - if it wasn't for our intense love/hate relationship, none of this would be possible.
Booga: ok. first-off.. we do NOT have a relationship.. OR personal relations for that matter.. we just work well together and have fun. that's all.. nothing else. no relations here...
Brody: You dork, I said “revelations” not relations.
Cai Guo-Qiang
Written by Administrator
We made our annual Memorial Day trek into the city, to the Guggenheim Museum to see Cai Guo-Qiang's latest installation. Memorial Day and Labor day are great days to take off for Manhattan's delights. You're traveling against the traffic heading out to the beaches, and the city looks like a relative ghost town, almost mellowed from the bustle of it's every other day.
If you haven't been to the Guggenheim, its a large spiral staircase with installation and wall hanging space every few yards. You move up the 7 floors of concrete ramp, and the low 3 foot high wall keeps you from plunging into the lobby below. But if you have this crippling disorder that I do, then no wall is safe enough. I am drawn like a magnet to the edge of things that drop great distances.
The higher, I am the stronger the pull to its edge. I could feel myself moving toward the edge, as I stared at the 5 or 6 full size cars hanging from the museum's ceiling, exploding with wires colored like fireworks. Like most of Cai's work, this installment was the fusion of art and politics, and represented terrorism and the car bombing culture we live in.
The pull of my disorder and the magnificence of the art, grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me over the edge. I bounced from one car to the next as I descended down the drop, wheels and wires breaking my fall as I landed next a family of five from Germany, waiting in line to pay the price of admission. I had sneaked in, using the kid's stroller as a decoy, and certainly got way more from the experience than I had paid for.
Conversation with Christopher Soprano
Written by Administrator
I was doing my usual self promotion over the internet and found this painting that just struck me. I was immediately re-connected with my childhood as I stared into it. The following is a conversation with Christopher Soprano , creator of the piece.
HANK: I love this piece, whats the story behind it?
Christopher Soprano: The painting was a lost labor of love.
It started as an album cover for a local band.
The imagery was to incorporate the titles of all of the songs included on the album. That is the reason for the odd collection of objects, such as the shampoo bottle and the eight-ball.
The tentacle-like forms emerging from the phonograph are actually a physical manifestation of the music joining the girl in the room.
This was a personal piece for me since most of my childhood was spent in my room with my toys and my music.
Unfortunately this image was not accepted buy the band and I created the other 2 images you will see attached. They felt my original was "too creepy".
HANK: What was the bands music like, that the image was too creepy?
CS: The best way I could describe the Beacons' music as folk/rock but mellow. They are more positive than the first image implied. The liquid instrumens spilling out of the phonograph do resemble some 50's b-movie monster.
CS: it suffered a critical hit from a paint spill. This is a common occurrence in my studio since I try to destroy the work which I feel is mediocre. I find discarding unsuccessful work helps me move on to make something better. I do however keep a digital scan of the rejects so I can see where I went wrong without filling my studio with all of the preliminary works.
HANK: I remember having the same kind of childhood. Never really got along with my sister, and so my brother and I spent alot of time together. We were always in trouble and punished because my parents were so strict, we had to use our imaginatons to entertain ourselves while locked away in our room. What was your experience like as a child spending that much time with your toys and music?
CS: Spending most of my childhood alone in my room fostered my imagination. I was constantly making things. My favorite things to make were robots from construction paper and guns and vehicles for my action figures from Lego blocks. While I wasn't an only child, I did spend most of my time by myself; this behavior continues to this day.
If I could not go outside I had a whole universe, complete with its own soundtrack and light show; compliments of my Disc-O-Kid record player, in my room.
My creativity keeps me active so I rarely feel alone or bored. My train of thought is free to fly off its tracks. Often while working on one painting I will stop to do some quick sketches of another idea which just crossed my mind. The tangents are most often sparked by lines of songs which I create visual analogies to.
