Excerpt from Antony Hegarty’s Op-Ed via Stereogum:
“It is no surprise that as the sea turns black in the gulf with no end in sight in the midst of the biggest ecological disaster in US history, CocoRosie are the only ones to hit the zeitgeist with an album filled with psychic omniscience, entitled “Grey Oceans.” And yet it seems to be the album the indie US press doesn’t want to talk about. Bianca and Sierra Casady paints pictures of lost children across a broken land, feral, elemental spirits who roam the dreamscapes of our world, naming perpetrators, painting their memories, recovering and reclaiming power. They are unafraid to manifest their vision that the application of magical creativity could be a balm for aching souls in a struggling world.”
[Hey true believers: CocoRosie were profiled by Trinie Dalton in Arthur No. 10 way back in 2004! Still available at the Arthur Store for $5 postpaid… —Your friendly neighborhood Arthur Editor]
A 12-Step Program in Self-Reliance How L.A.’s hardcore pioneers BLACK FLAG made it through their early years by Jay Babcock
Originally published in the June 28, 2001 LAWeekly
By midsummer 1981, when the then-unknown, now-notorious Henry Rollins joined Black Flag as its fourth singer, the South Bay–based punk band had already tasted some extremely hard-earned success. Despite a set of severe hurdles — from an initial difficulty in getting local club gigs and a record deal to sensational “punk violence!” coverage by the news media and constant harassment of both the band and its fans by police — Black Flag had managed to self-release three EPs, tour North America several times, and grow from playing to a couple of dozen people at a San Fernando Valley coffeehouse to headlining shows at the Santa Monica Civic and Olympic Auditorium.
Black Flag accomplished this by developing a do-it-yourself work and business ethic which, although common in jazz, rhythm & blues and folk circles for decades, was almost unique for American rock bands at the time. It was an ethic that was hugely effective, and one that would prove hugely influential over the next two decades.
But what’s ironic about the band’s current historical status as one of American punk rock’s original DIY pioneers — “They may well be the band that made the biggest difference,” says no less an authority than Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye — is that Black Flag’s original aspirations had nothing to do with building an alternate model to the existing music industry.
“The beginning and end of it was always working on the music,” says Black Flag founder, guitarist and chief songwriter Greg Ginn today. “The other stuff was very much at the periphery.”
As they tell it now, Ginn & Co. would have been quite content to let someone else handle the mundane trivialities of being recording artists and performers: the nuts and bolts of producing and releasing records, doing publicity and marketing, booking tours, handling legal matters, lugging equipment, etc. Black Flag would play while others would work. But the music industry, broadly speaking, wasn’t interested in Black Flag—so Black Flag had to figure out, almost on their own, how to get their music heard. This is how they did it, in their own words:
Baltimore: Tuesday, June 22, 2010 8pm
at Floristree- 405 W Franklin St 6th fl
Philly: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 8 pm
at Space 1026- 1026 Arch St.
Hisham Mayet will dj after the screening
at Kung Fu Necktie 1248 North Front St.
NYC: Thursday, June 24, 2010 8:00pm – 10:00pm
at Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue New York, NY
Plus Frank Sumatra djs the after party
at Zebulon, 258 Wythe Avenue, 11 pm- ?
There will be two films, with filmmakers in attendance and Q&A after films, plus Sublime Frequencies CD/DVDs/LPs for sale after screening. The films are:
Staring into the Sun
A film by Olivia Wyatt
60 minutes
Staring into the Sun is the latest ethno-folk cinema classic from Sublime Frequencies. Ethiopia is known to be one of the oldest areas inhabited by humans and presently has over 80 diverse ethnic groups. Photographer/filmmaker Olivia Wyatt explores 13 different tribes throughout Ethiopia in this visually stunning film. Traveling from the northern highlands to the lower Omo Valley, Wyatt brings together the worlds of Zar spirit possession; Hamer tribal wedding ceremonies; Borena water well polyphonic singing; wild hyena feedings; and bizarre Ethiopian TV segments; presenting an enchanting look at these ethereal images, landscapes and sounds from the horn of Africa. The tribes featured in this film are captured with an unflinching sense of realism and poetic admiration resulting in a visual and aural feast of the senses.
Land of the Songhai
A film By Hisham Mayet
30 minutes
Hisham Mayet’s latest film explores the music and landscape of the Songhai, around the Niger River in Western Niger. Zarma mock possession hoedowns, Wodaabe trance vocal performances, Spirit possession ceremonies, Godje one sting laments, contigi string masters, comsaa griots and Sahel night markets create a bizarre and fascinating glimpse into the arid and culturally vibrant bend in the Niger river.
A scan of a card (sheet?) that was inserted with the vinyl in Robert Fripp’s 1981 solo album, Let the Power Fall, currently out of print. Scan courtesy John Coulthart. Click to enlarge…
It died in its sleep, dreaming of grass, its knives silent and still, dreaming too, its handlebars a stern, abbreviated cross in tall weeds. Where is he whom it served so well? Its work has come to nothing, the dead keep to themselves.
I once shoplifted a tin of Vienna sausages. Crouched in the aisle as if to study the syllables of preservatives, tore off the lid, pulled out a wiener and sucked it down.
I’ve cheated on exams. Made love to foldouts. Walked my paper route in a snowstorm after dark, so I could steal down a particular alley where through her gauze curtains, a lady lounged with her nightgown undone.
I’ve thrown sticks at stray dogs. Ignored the cat scratching to come inside. Even in the rain. Sat for idle hours in front of the TV, and not two feet away the philodendrons for lack of a glass of water gasped and expired.
So many excuses I’ve concocted to get by. Called in sick when I was not. Grabbed credit for happy accidents I had no hand in. Pointed fingers to pin the innocent with crimes unmistakably mine.
I have failed to learn from grievous error. Repeated gossip. Invented gossip. Held hands in a circle of friends to rejoice over the misfortune of strangers. Pushed over tombstones. Danced the devil’s jig.
Once, when I was barely old enough to walk home on my own, I hid behind an abandoned garage. Counted sixteen windows. Needed only four handfuls of stones to break every one.
TO TIMES QSQIUARE TOPPLED METAL)))) SANDAL OUTSIDE OVERDOME, SITE INVOCATION OF SCUM HEAT AND NEON SHATTERED AND ABSORBED BY IGNEOUS ASPHALT OF HISTORY
PART 1: In which our heroes call upon the dosed horn of John Coltrane, the open time slots of Fela Kuti’s studio, and the hallucinatory mojo of Kathy Acker to remove the barricades for to invoke a dance sigil in service of the psychic liberation of times square: hub of consumption, barometer of culture, shrine of empire. Use Your Feet For The Feat Of The Defeat Of The Demons Feasting On Your Future!
PART 2: In which comrade to the cause Nonhorse finds space amidst his beyond–mere–mortal–multitaskings to build a roomy nest of codified cassettery from which to deliver a highly prismatic and severely discorporating live tape manipulation set. Abridged here, the fulllll badass 2.5 hour tilthabreakadawn extent can be siphoned from the bountiful tank of the Newtown Radio archives. HEAVY
Lala Albert lives in Brooklyn where she does art and comics at night and on the weekends. During the week she works as the textile designer/whatever-else-they-need-her-for at a small fashion company in Manhattan.
About Arthur Comics We are proud to bring you Arthur Comics curated by Floating World. Be sure to click full screen for a leisurely bath in our new interactive format, an exclusive collaboration with GreenerMags / グリーナーマガジン.
The fifteenth installment in Ron Regé, Jr.’s ongoing “Yeast Hoist” series of comics, “Kept in Balance by Equal Weights” is an 8-page zine that hangs from the neck of an earthenware bottle filled with 16.9 ounces of a delicious top-fermented Belgian Abbey Ale. This unique vessel features an original design screenprinted in Belgium.
Available beginning Thursday June 17th at Whole Foods’ flagship store in Austin, Texas
A man in terror of impotence or infertility, not knowing the difference a man trying to tell something howling from the climacteric music of the entirely isolated soul yelling at Joy from the tunnel of ego music without the ghost of another person in it, music trying to tell something the man does not want out, would keep if he could gagged and bound and flogged with chords of Joy where everything in silence and the beating of a bloody fist upon a splintered table.
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