“COMMAND PERFORMANCE”
The Arthur Magazine Email Bulletin
No. 0031
January 19, 2006
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Our Lords, our Ladies,
1. THE INTERNET IS NOT OUR FRIEND, BUT SOMETIMES IT ACTS LIKE ONE.
Still basking in the afterjoy of seeing this week, for the first time ever, the original Parliament and Funkadelic’s July 10, 1969 13-minute live performance on the “Say Brother” public TV show from Chicago’s WGBH: total raw acid soul beauty rage funk dance noise nine-piece liberationist genius that has been locked away from the general public for 36 years. We’ve always known em as they sound on record, exist in foggy recollections and look in a precious few photographs, so to suddenly SEE them in full-on honorably improvisatory glory, riffing off three songs (What Is Soul?, I Wanna Testify, Friday Night August the 14th, noisejam), shot in a TV studio with good sound, on an accommodating set, a band in great style, with startling haircuts (check George Clinton’s MOHAWK), with an audience that gets onstage to dance, IN COLOR !?! It’s like a big find at an archaeology dig that in one instant upends half the received wisdom and confirms the hypotheses that were the ones considere
d the most optimistic, the most far-out. It’s significant cuz it’s beautiful, sweet because it’s so absolutely out-of-nowhere. Call it grace, call it a gift, call it a positive outcome, call it WE ARE NOW PEAKING greatness-in-action, check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/w/Parliament-Funkadelic-1969?v=6JcWh6KozKQ&search=funkadelic
2. NOT SURE ABOUT THOSE SCIENCE GUYS, THOUGH…
Lots of people have been in touch Kristine McKenna’s interview with DAVID LYNCH about meditation in the last issue of Arthur. If you want to SEE David Lynch talk about this stuff — as well as find out which Bob’s Big Boy he ate in the mid-’80s, what the baby was in Eraserhead, and so forth — there’s a decent-length film of one of his “Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain” college raps from last year (Emerson College, Oct 1 to be precise) that you can download for free offa here:
http://www.davidlynchfoundation.com/
3. NOT A COMPLAINT BUT AN OBSERVATION.
Something provocative that Julian Cope wrote in his recent “Address Druidion” at headheritage.co.uk: “One of the reasons I got into rock’n’roll was because much of it was the folk music of its day, and protest songs by The Fugs, The Mothers, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, John Lennon & The Plastic Ono Band, etc. were signposts of their time. Moreover, much of the punk thing – informed by the Rastas’ obsession with 1977 and the Queen’s Silver Jubilee – nailed the era lyrically to such an extent that much of what was recorded then sounded dated and anachronistic within a couple of years of its release (Patti Smith’s references to the MPLA, PLO and kidnap of heiress Patty Hearst were mirrored over here by the whole debut LP by The Clash). But few current rock’n’roll artists write specifically about the times in which we are living. I’m not so much complaining about this as wishing to hear other artists’ views on these times of meteorological, political and religious overhaul. Even the
current US underground scene – so colourful and musically dynamic – has (to my knowledge) no great lyricists providing useful (or even useless) comments about their post 9/11 world. Surely we need this kind of work to be forthcoming if the collective mental health of the culture is to stay focused. As a Muslim friend of mine reminded me at a party just before X-Mass, within his culture any discussion of Allah is proscribed, off limits, verboten, forget-about-it; which is precisely why we in the West have to explain to incomers that everything here is questioned, everything is suspect, everyone and everything is accountable – even the so-called Divine. If we are not seen to be exerting our freedoms, will we not one day lose them all? I well remember the effect of hearing ‘Bodies’ by the Sex Pistols for the first time and being shocked that my hero Johnny Rotten was speaking so directly to me, and in such a seemingly reactionary manner. The Sex Pistols singing anti-abortion so!
ngs? As my then-girlfriend had just one month before aborted our potential child, I was truly taken aback by Rotten’s lyric and – though it did not change my mind – it certainly made me question what she and I had (quite casually) just allowed to take place.”
4. OBSERVATION PART 2.
Elisa Ambrogio of Magik Markers to Marc Masters in The Wire: “At this point 95 per cent of music is a record feeding back on a record feeding back on a record. It is nullifying. I want to concentrate on music and focus inward, to concentrate on our own language of sound. To me it’s the only way any new music can exist.”
5. POUND A COLD ONE WITH YOUR FELLOW ANGELENO PEACENIKS.
Starting Thursday, Feb. 2, 8pm — and then EVERY thursday after that
the *new* Echo Park Social(ist) and Pleasure Club
will meet
at Little Joy (1477 Sunset Blvd. LA , CA 90026)
for peace, dancing, soapboxing, action-plotting, productive intermingling and other good times
with djing by people from Arthur Magazine and the good ol’ L.A. Record.
6. ARTHUR PRESENTS ESPERS and VETIVER NOW ON TOUR IN CALIFORNIA
Remaining dates of this co-headlining tour by two of America’s finest bands:
Thu, Jan 19: San Francisco at 12 Galaxies
Fri Jan 20 and Sat Jan 21: Big Sur at Quiet, Quiet Ocean Spell
Sun, Jan 22: San Diego at Casbah
Mon, Jan 23: Los Angeles at The Echo
Tue, Jan 24: Los Angeles at UCLA Cooperage
7. ARTHUR PRESENTS NEW YORK PREMIERE OF “NIGER: MAGIC AND ECSTASY IN THE SAHEL.”
Arthur Magazine and Sublime Frequencies present
“Niger: Magiv and Ecstasy in the Sahel”
2005, 70 minutes, dir. Hisham Mayet
Jan. 27, 8:00 PM
Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue, NY NY, 212.505.5181)
A celebration of life in the Sahel region of Africa, this film showcases many of Niger’s venerable music styles. Tuareg Electric Guitar trance rock, Bori cult dance ceremonies, Fulani Folk, and Roadhouse Gospel Rave-ups are some of the segments included in this latest “Folk Cinema” classic from Sublime Frequencies! Hisham Mayet delivers a spontaneous, raw, and inspiring collection of images, music, and ceremony from a nation mired in poverty and continual post-colonial disappointment.
Quoting from Mayet’s liner notes: “This is not music as commodity this is music as survival. There is a saying in Niger that goes, ‘when we die we know we are going to heaven because we already live in Hell’. Well, I think it’s more like the purgatory that we all live in and they sure have managed to transcend with an incredible natural resource: music. Dig it!”
The filmmaker Hisham Mayet will be present to introduce the screening and take questions.
Also screening: Sublime Frequencies Archive Vol. 4: 30 minutes of the patented ethno/collage medium, as well as never-before-screened previews of future Sublime Frequencies films.
For more info:
8. ARTHURBALL TICKETS NOW ON SALE
This is going to be ridiculous. There’s tons more info — and the new ARTHURBALL POSTER BY RON REGE — on the website (http://www.arthurmag.com/news/) but here in summary is what is going on, wiht the updated lineups….
The inaugural ArthurBall will take place Saturday, Feb. 25 and Sunday, Feb. 26 at The Ex_Plex, The Echo, the landmark Jensen’s Recreation Center, Taix and Machine in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles. It is an 18+ event. Capacity for the Ball is 1,100. One ticket gets you into all venues! Following is the Ball’s lineup. All artists will be performing full sets. One-day passes are $22/day. Two-day passes are $40. Tickets are now available at TICKETWEB.COM at
Or buy tix in person from these friends of ArthurBall:
* Benway Records (1600 Pacific Avenue, Venice 90291)
* Brat Store (1938 14th Street, Santa Monica 90405)
* Fingerprints (4612 East. 2nd Street, Long Beach 90803)
* Sea Level Records (1716 West Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles 90026)
ARTHURBALL NIGHT 1 – SATURDAY, FEB. 25, 4PM:
In The Ex_Plex and The Echo: JOANNA NEWSOM, OM, BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT, UNKNOWN INSTRUCTORS, PEARLS & BRASS, COLLEEN, ENTRANCE, MI & L’AU, STARTER SET (feat. leg & pants dans theeatre), WINTER FLOWERS, SOCIETY OF ROCKETS
At Jensen’s Rec Center: World Premiere of three new full-length documentary films from Sublime Frequencies: “PHI TA KHON: GHOSTS OF ISAN” (dir. Robert Millis), “SUMATRAN FOLK CINEMA” (dir. Mark Gergis & Alan Bishop), and “MOROCCO: MUSICAL BROTHERHOODS FROM THE TRANS-SAHARAN HIGHWAY” (dir. Hisham Mayet). All filmmakers will be in attendance to introduce and discuss the films.
ARTHURBALL NIGHT 2 – SUNDAY, FEB. 26, 4PM:
In The Ex_Plex and The Echo: THE 5:15ERS (feat. Josh Homme & Chris Goss), BORN HELLER (feat. Josephine Foster), GROWING, MORIS TEPPER, LAVENDER DIAMOND, TARANTULA A.D., AFROBEATDOWN, PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE SOUND, TOWN & COUNTRY, CITAY, INDIAN JEWELRY.
At Jensen’s Rec Center: Author ERIK DAVIS will give a multimedia presentation/lecture on “Visionary Media,” accompanied with visuals by Biomorphica and sound manipulations by Nalepa; Arthur No. 12 cover star GRANT MORRISON; filmmaker B+ will screen “keepintime” and an exclusive preview of his new film, “brasilintime”; the Arthur braintrust will screen a selection of extremely rare mindblowing films.
At Machine: WHITE RAINBOW will run an all-day ‘Full-Spectrum Vibrational Healing Center’ environment…
At the Taix Champagne Room: LEWIS MACADAMS & KRISTINE MCKENNA, TRINIE DALTON, BYRON COLEY, THE MARS SOCIETY and many more poets, thinkers, artists, jokers, yappers and typers TBA.
9. YOU DON’T NEED MONEY TO GET SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENING.
From the Oct 14, 2005 Guardian (recently reposted on the arthurmag.com Magpie blog):
Internet evangelists are fond of hyping the “network society”, but this, Claudio Prado [Brazil’s digital culture czar] argues, is what Brazil has been for centuries. “In a Brazilian favela, that’s the way it works,” he says. “You go and help your neighbour build their house. Or take Carnival – that’s a totally collaborative process. Sixty thousand people, unrehearsed. That’s what you do when you don’t have money. You collaborate.”
Totally,
Arthur Magazine, Canyon People Division
Los Angeles, California
Arthur Magazine 