My Bloody Valentine played at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia the other night, and at the House of Blues on Nov. 7, and at the Metropolis in Montreal the night before that. The first three clips are from the Electric Factory.
Check out “Soon”:
“When You Sleep”:
“To Here Knows When”:
“Soon,” House of Blues:
“Feed Me With Your Kiss,” House of Blues:
“You Made Me Realize,” Houe of Blues
“Only Tomorrow,” Metropolis:
This French combo has been around since 2010. They’ve made a bunch of singles and EPs but it’s only this spring that they released their first album, the brilliant and confounding, Psycho Tropical Berlin.
A few references: the Velvet Underground, “Secret Agent Man” spy music, psychedelia, electronic dance music of various types, Kraftwerk.
I got turned on La Femme by Brooklyn Vegan, a music blog that shares my approach to eating, and often points me to great music.
Below you can watch a selection of the group’s videos and, best of all, hear the entire em>Psycho Tropical Berlin album. Brooklyn Vegan says the group plan to tour the U.S. in 2014. Cool.
The man who used the tag “gorpetri” to make the winning bid of $615,000 for the painting Banksy modified and retitled, “The banality of the banality of evil,” reneged on his bid once the auction was over, according to the New York Times.
What happened next has caused some controversy in New York. Rachel Hirschfeld, an art collector whose bid of $614,800 was right behind the gorpetri bid, said she got a call on Nov. 1 from an auction official about the painting, the Times reports.
“She said, ‘You win the Banksy,’ ” Ms. Hirschfeld told the Times. “I said, ‘Why? Somebody bid more than me.’ She said, ‘He’s out.’ ”
Hirschfeld didn’t think it fair to pay the full price since she’d been bidding against an insincere bidder — obviously, in retrospect, gorpetri’s bids were not genuine. “Every bid that he made has to be out,” Hirschfeld told the Times.
Ultimately another bidder got the painting, but the auction house won’t reveal the new selling price. However, it was over $400,000, according to Hirschfeld, who told the Times she offered $400,000 and lost out to a higher offer.
For more on this story, head to the New York Times.
If you missed my previous Banksy posts, here’s an easy way to check them out: Day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six, day seven, day eight, day nine, day ten, day 11, day 12, day 13, day 14, day 15, day 16, day 17, day 18, day 19, day 20, day 21, day 22, day 23, day 24, day 25, day 26, day 27, day 28, day 29, day 30, day 31. Plus: “A Consideration Of The Politics Of Banksy’s Syria Video,” “Source For Banksy’s ‘Concrete Confessional’ Revealed,” “Banksy Update: NYC Mayor Attacks Street Artist,” and “Banksy Painting Sells For $615,000.”
Patti Smith performed in Corsica, France this past summer.
Check this out:
Is twelve million dollar sharp-man Damien Hirst funding Banksy? That’s what Daily Beast writer Lizzie Crocker theorizes today.
Crocker writes:
Despite this ostensible aversion to personal fame and publicity, Banksy agreed to be featured in Hirst’s 2006 show at the Serpentine Gallery in London, “In the darkest hour there may be light.” Speaking to The Guardian about Banksy’s work, Hirst praised the pseudonymous graffiti artist. “I’ve always thought he was great. The streets are boring…anyone like Banksy who makes it entertaining and treats people like people instead of consumers is brilliant.”
It was the beginning of a collaboration that has fueled rumors about Banksy’s identity and associations—particularly amongst those who speculate that “Banksy” is in fact a sort of performance art collective funded by art world mandarins.
For more, head to the Daily Beast.
Today, November 7, is Joni Mitchell’s birthday, and to celebrate, Alex Macpherson has written a cool tribute for The Guardian.
Macpherson’s essay begins:
When it comes to confidence in one’s own talents, few can touch Joni Mitchell. When asked about a new generation of folk singers in 1990, she responded: “I don’t hear much there, frankly. When it comes to knowing where to put the chords, how to tell a story and how to build to a chorus, most of them can’t touch me.”
There was an irony to her entirely justified ego, though. It is her insistence on undercutting truisms and mythologies that makes her commentary so biting and her confessionals so piercing. What compels Blue, Mitchell’s 1971 masterpiece, is not so much raw honesty as the scientific precision with which she dissects herself – setting what she wants to believe against what she actually believes. It’s fitting that the album ends in a cynic’s stalemate: on ‘The Last Time I Saw Richard,’ she crafts a conversation in which the narrator and her former friend are both correct about each other and also lying to themselves.
For more head to The Guardian.
Meanwhile, give “The Last Time I Saw Richard” a listen:
Graphic novel publisher Fantagraphics, facing a cash flow problem, turned to crowd-funding website Kickstarter and has raised $100,000 in two days, The Guardian reports. Cool.
Among Fantagraphics’ catalog are graphic novels by Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, Joe Sacco, and Daniel Clowes.
“Using the catchline ‘We won’t sell out, so we need YOU to buy in’, the publisher called on readers and fans to help finance 39 graphic novels and books in its spring summer 2014 catalogue,” The Guardian reports.
For more of the story, head to The Guardian.
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!
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.
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.