Bruce Springsteen and Roger Waters, along with comedians Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and others, will appear at tonight’s Stand Up For Heroes concert in NYC.
You can watch it right here beginning at 5:30 PST; 8:30 EST.
Monthly Archives: November 2013
Michael Stipe Sings “Pale Blue Eyes” In Laura Levine Film
This is quite beautiful. The photographer Laura Levine shot Super-8 footage for a still unreleased film, “Just Like A Movie,” in 1983. Here’s Michael Stipe singing “Pale Blue Eyes.”
On R.E.M.’s remhq website, Laura Levine writes:
“it’s an excerpt from the original unreleased Super-8 film “Just Like a Movie.” With the sad news about Lou Reed’s passing last week, it seemed the right time to share this particular scene, of Michael singing “Pale Blue Eyes” by the railroad tracks. (The song itself was recorded earlier that day on a Walkman, with Matthew Sweet on guitar). Jeremy Ayers makes a magical appearance as Puddlefoot.”
Thanks remhq!
Discovering Something New In David Hockney’s Art
I never cared for David Hockney’s paintings. Why was that? I didn’t pay much attention to them, but on occasion he would do the cover of the New Yorker and I dismissed his work as decorative, with a sneer.
Well I was wrong.
As soon as I entered his massive “A Bigger Exhibition” at the de Young Museum in San Francisco last Friday, I realized my mistake.
Hockney is actually a phenomenal artist. The show, which is composed of mostly work he’s done since 2000, is mind-blowing. How could one person complete over 250 works of art, some of them wall-sized, in 13 years. By contrast, the Pointillist painter George Seurat, for example, could spend two years on a single painting.
I could talk about Hockney’s landscapes, which are unlike other landscape paintings. The artist has created a new visual language to let us see what he sees. There is a quality in the work that makes me think of Vincent van Gogh.
But what’s most impressive to me is Hockney’s embracement of the iPhone and the iPad as tools to make art.
The man is 76 years old. He is very successful. He could keep painting and drawing portraits and landscapes for the rest of his life. He did not need to start using new technology to make art.
But he did.
Check out the images above that Hockney made with his iPhone and an app called Brushes.
Or this piece made with an iPad and Brushes:
As I wandered though the exhibit, which takes up most of two floors of the museum, I was struck by two things.
First, when you look at the world, and I mean really look, and are open, there’s a chance of seeing something new.
And then I thought about all the rules that we come up against in life. Art is supposed to be “this,” and a novel is supposed to be “this,” and music is supposed to be “this.”
But we can ignore the rules. There’s a price to pay of course, especially if you’re not an already celebrated artist. But how are we going to break on through to something new unless we takes chances.
Listen: Jeff Tweedy Sings “The Ballad Of The Opening Band”
Next week — Tuesday to be exact — the Slim Dunlap benefit album, Rockin’ Here Tonight, will be released. Read about it here.
Buy it next week. Meanwhile dig this great cover of Dunlap’s “The Ballad Of The Opening Band” by Jeff Tweedy.
Laurie Anderson On Lou Reed
The new issue of Rolling Stone pays tribute to Lou Reed. Laurie Anderson, Lou’s companion for the past 21 years, and wife for five of those years, reflects on Lou and their relationship. It’s a beautiful essay.
Here’s some of what Ms. Anderson wrote:
As it turned out, Lou and I didn’t live far from each other in New York, and after the festival Lou suggested getting together. I think he liked it when I said, “Yes! Absolutely! I’m on tour, but when I get back – let’s see, about four months from now – let’s definitely get together.” This went on for a while, and finally he asked if I wanted to go to the Audio Engineering Society Convention. I said I was going anyway and would meet him in Microphones. The AES Convention is the greatest and biggest place to geek out on new equipment, and we spent a happy afternoon looking at amps and cables and shop-talking electronics. I had no idea this was meant to be a date, but when we went for coffee after that, he said, “Would you like to see a movie?” Sure. “And then after that, dinner?” OK. “And then we can take a walk?” “Um . . .” From then on we were never really apart.
Lou and I played music together, became best friends and then soul mates, traveled, listened to and criticized each other’s work, studied things together (butterfly hunting, meditation, kayaking). We made up ridiculous jokes; stopped smoking 20 times; fought; learned to hold our breath underwater; went to Africa; sang opera in elevators; made friends with unlikely people; followed each other on tour when we could; got a sweet piano-playing dog; shared a house that was separate from our own places; protected and loved each other. We were always seeing a lot of art and music and plays and shows, and I watched as he loved and appreciated other artists and musicians. He was always so generous. He knew how hard it was to do. We loved our life in the West Village and our friends; and in all, we did the best we could do.
Like many couples, we each constructed ways to be – strategies, and sometimes compromises, that would enable us to be part of a pair. Sometimes we lost a bit more than we were able to give, or gave up way too much, or felt abandoned. Sometimes we got really angry. But even when I was mad, I was never bored. We learned to forgive each other. And somehow, for 21 years, we tangled our minds and hearts together.
For the entire essay, head to Rolling Stone.
Don’t Buy Dylan’s “The MacKenzie Tapes” CD Unless…
Recently the Dylan website Expecting Rain, brought to my attention a Bob Dylan CD for sale in the UK (mp3s too) of The MacKenzie Home Tapes, recordings made by Bob Dylan in the apartment of Eve and Mac MacKenzie in 1961 and 1962.
Based on listening to previews of the songs on Amazon UK, and a copy of the recordings I was able to download some years ago, I would not recommend this album to anyone but a total Bob Dylan completest. On the CD, many of the tracks are fragments.
While there are a handful of worthwhile songs from the sessions, those appeared on Sony’s 50th Anniversary Collection, which was released in a very limited edition in Europe last year to prevent the recordings from entering the public domain.
It is possible that those songs — “Hard Times in New York Town,” “The Death of Emmett Till,” “I Rode Out One Morning,” “House of the Rising Sun,” “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” and “Ballad of Donald White” — will be part of one or more bootleg series recordings that will be released in the future.
You can hear excerpts of the songs here.
Watch: Johnny Marr On “Conan,” Is He The New Keith?
You know how Keith Richards is an amazing guitarist (duh), but not so good in the vocals department?
Well, same goes for Johnny Marr, the brilliant and onetime guitarist for The Smiths.
Check out this video for confirmation. The song isn’t so hot either. And the guitar playing? What do you tnink?
Banksy’s $200,000 Graffiti Balloon Confiscated By NYC Police
For his final piece of street art in NYC, Banksy attached a huge balloon that said “Banksy!” to the side of an abandoned building on OCtober 31, 2013.
Three men tried to remove the balloon from the building that same day and were arrested. Police have confiscated the balloon piece, which an art dealer told the New York Times is worth between $200,000 and $300,000.
Police deflated the balloon which is currently being stored on the third floor of the Police Department’s building on Pearson Place in Long Island City, a police spokeswoman told the New York Times.
“I don’t have it as art on the invoice,” Deputy Chief Jack J. Trabitz told the New York Times. “We have it as a balloon.”
For more of this story, head to the New York Times.
Inside The Stooges, Guitarist Ron Asheton’s Story: “Iggy was kind of a clown”
There’s an amazing story about The Stooges on the vice.com website. The late Stooges’ guitarist Ron Asheton spoke to Legs McNeil at length and now we get to read Asheton’s version of The Stooges’ story.
Talking about the group getting signed and recording the now classic first album, The Stooges, Asheton said:
I think we had three songs, and one of them was, “I’m sick.”
Jac [Holzman, Elecktra Records president] asked, “Well, you guys got enough material to do an album right?” We said yes when we didn’t, so we just busted our asses and I came up with the riff to “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”
When we went to New York to record the first Stooges album, Elecktra asked us again, “You’ve got more stuff, don’t you?”
We said, “Oh sure!”
So I went back to the hotel and in one hour came up with “Little Doll,” “Not Right,” and “Real Cool Time.” Once I had the music, Iggy came down and listened to it, and then he went up and came up with the lyrics. The next night we rehearsed one time and then we went and recorded each song in one take.
We’d never been in the studio before, and we set up our Marshall Stacks and put the volume on ten. So we started out, and John Cale, our producer, said, “Oh no, this is not the way!” But we couldn’t play unless it was high volume, we didn’t have enough expertise on our instruments. It was all power chords, and the only way we could get it done was to play big and loud.
There’s plenty more good stuff here.
And you can listen to The Stooges:
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Headed For Siberian Prison
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is being transferred to a prison in the city of Krasnoyarsk, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, in the heart of Siberia, according to her husband, Peter Verzilov.
“It’s 100 percent that it’s Krasnoyarsk region,” Verzilov told Rolling Stone during a phone interview. The information came from a source in Russia’s prison administration, Verzilov said.
Tolokonnikova’s husband believes his wife is headed for Colony 50, near the town of Nizhny Ingash, which is 190 miles from the city of Krasnoyarsk. This prison is in a much more remote location than Penal Colony No 14 in Mordovia, where Tolokonnikova was previously held.
“I think it could be a kind of revenge for what she has done,” Pavel Chikov, a rights defender and a close advisor to Tolokonnikova told Rolling Stone. “It will definitely cause a lot of trouble — it’s definitely not the most convenient place in the Russian Federation.”
Tolokonnikova has not been seen since October 20th when she disappeared from Colony 14.
On Sunday the Russian prison service told Interfax news agency that Tolokonnikova has been moved to another prison. This is the third prison that the Pussy Riot member has been in.
The Federal Penitentiary Service also said that Tolokonnikova’s family would be notified within ten days of her arrival at the new prison, per “regulations.”
Head to Rolling Stone to read their story in full.