This Sunday, May 17, Dutch lute-meister Jozef Van Wissem brings his own transcendental brand of Renaissance-meets-homegrown-folk-meets-electro-acoustic music to the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz, along with some electric guitar fireworks by Guy Blakeslee (The Entrance Band) and a slide show by filmmaker Jeremy Rendina. Should be a pretty magical night, especially if you’ve never seen Van Wissem in action before:
Jozef Van Wissem & Guy Blakeslee, with a slideshow by Jeremy Rendina
Sunday, May 17, 8pm
Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90027
$8, BYOB
After World War II the ruins of bombed-out areas of London were converted into community-built rickity parks called Adventure Playgrounds. Artist and Adventure Playground researcher Nils Norman, describes the incredible origin of these spaces for free-play:
Along with interventionist public artist Michael Cataldi, Norman is reviving the spirit of this phenomenon in a summer-long utopianist experiment called the University of Trash. Occupying the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, Queens, the University will be a free space for dozens of events and projects circulating aroud the themes of ecology, pedagogy, and transformation of Urban misery. The diverse list of radical projects currently scheduled events include a Free Skool, pirate radio broadcasts, guerilla architecture discussions, a Das Kapital reading group, and there’s plenty more to come. Among their more out-there missions is to recreate the sorely missed Tompkins Square Park Bandshell, a structure that was the public center of Lower East Side counterculture and revolt, and whose 1991 demolition was, for many, a symbol of the neighborhood’s dying identity.
Visit any day except Tuesday or Wednesday from 11am to 6pm. Bring a $5 donation if you have it.
Arik Moonhawk Roper (a longtime Arthur contributing artist) will be celebrating the launch of his new book Mushroom Magick this Friday in New York. In creating this book, Roper has added his own indelible mark to the long history of mushroom art, presenting over 90 of his original portraits of hallucinogenic species of mushroom alongside educational writings by friends and scholars Erik Davis, Daniel Pinchbeck and Gary Lincoff. Learn more about and see images of Roper’s richly water-colored illustrations of these mysterious fungi in this blog post.
Be warned: If you are not wary of the importance of the mushroom’s existence on earth, after reading this book you will no doubt be conscious of the fact that fungi are communicating with our world in ways that are nothing less than mind-blowing…
Friday, May 15th, 6-8pm (on view through May 30th) Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St. / New York, NY 10014 Free admission
MAY 15, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Spain, Philippines, Colombia, etc.: Celebrations of San Isidro, the saint who got the angels to do all of his plowing for him.
ALSO ON MAY 15 IN HISTORY…
1265 — Italian poet Dante Alighieri born, Florence, Italy.
1823 — Swedenbourgian Thomas Lake Harris born, Fenny, Stratford, England.
1885 — Louis Riel surrenders, ending Métis Rebellion in Canada.
1886 — Recluse poet Emily Dickinson dies, Amherst, Massachusetts.
1929 — Russian Suprematist painter Kasimir Malevich dies, Leningrad, USSR.
2006 — Algerian “Mother of Raï” music, Cheikha Rimitti, dies, Paris, France.
Hi, Rebecca and I have started a gallery in our living room. It opens tomorrow with a group show of Eamon Espey, Carlos Gonzalez, Haisi Hu, Jenni Knight, and Jonny Petersen. Come by and have a beer with us tomorrow! http://www.ambiguousmass.org/interesting/interesting.html
MUSIC YOU CAN SEE: Eamon Espey / Carlos Gonzalez / Haisi Hu / Jenni Knight / Jonathan Petersen
MAY THE ROAD RISE UP TO ROCK YOU Peter Relic rolls out for a week on tour with The Black Keys & Sleater-Kinney
Originally published in Arthur No. 4 (May 2003), with original photography by Melanie Pullen shot at beautiful Amir’s Garden in Griffith Park (these photographs were later optioned to Fat Possum Records for promotional purposes)
“Rule Number One: Never make friends with a journalist.” I wagged my finger and slurped my coffee, assuring the two young men across from me I knew of what I spoke. “Rock hacks are fretful freeloaders out to steal your shine and misquote you every time.”
We were sitting at a back booth of Dodie’s, a greasy spoon on Market Street, Akron, Ohio. It was the final hayfeverish week of May, 2002. I had driven down from Cleveland to find out how the hell these fellas—Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, co-captains of the two-piece band The Black Keys—had created such a thrilling slab of raw-dog fatback juke joint blues as The Big Come Up, their brand new debut album. To hear the Keys tell it, simplicity was the key.
“We stopped talking about time signatures a long time ago,” Auerbach said.
“We’re de-evolving,” said Carney, a Duty Now For The Future glint in his eye.
“We’ve even removed the word ‘repertoire’ from our repertoire,” Auerbach added.
The following week The Cleveland Free Times ran my column about this band yet to play a gig outside Ohio who had made, quite simply, “one of the best American records you’ll hear this year.”
Pretty soon they did play outside Ohio. I tagged along to those Detroit and Chicago shows. By the end of ‘02, the good word about The Big Come Up had gotten around; Janet Weiss, drummer for Sleater-Kinney, testified in Rolling Stone that the stuff was up to snuff. 2003 was happily wrung in playing with Guided By Voices at a New Year’s Eve beer bash in Indianapolis. Then the call came: Would the band like to open up for Sleater-Kinney on tour? The Black Keys would fly with their equipment to Portland, Oregon, rent a van, and the West Coast leg would start there in Sleater-Kinney’s hometown. Perfect. Except that contract liability on the van stipulated that no one under 25 could drive the thing. But by then Rule Number One had been broken. And so 22-year old drummer/producer Patrick Carney and 23-year old singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach cannily roped in their over-30 Cleveland journo pal to act as de facto tour mensch. Best as I can remember, it went a little something like this…
From Backyard Harvester blog: “Here are images and videos from the urbanforage walk led by Nance Klehm on Sunday. The next walk ‘n’ talk is scheduled for June 7, 3-5 p.m., at Garfield Park in Chicago.”
Arthur Magazine 