Author Archives for Jay Babcock

What we've lost, concisely stated…

From “The spirit of Woodstock is dead” by Rebecca Armendariz in The Guardian:

Woodstock was all about the bands and the vibe. Today’s corporate festivals simply cannot foster the same camaraderie

….At festivals these days, everything’s about the lineup, the merchandise, the overpriced beer and complaining about having to suffer through many mediocre 40-minute sets to get to the good stuff. At Woodstock, it was all good stuff.

The wealth of music and its many specialised genres today make it harder to hold a festival everyone wants to check out. Then, who wasn’t going to want to see Jefferson Airplane as the sun rose? Nobody, man. Everyone could agree upon a shared love of Joan Baez and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Now, the internet has turned listening to music into a very solitary pastime. No one’s going to record stores anymore and getting face-time with other music fans. The thrill of the physical search for good music is gone, replaced by a glowing screen with a bed nearby. Kids scour blogs and music news sites to find hidden gems that will mould their personal taste into something worthy of bragging rights, creating something so individual and hand-picked it’s almost special (or, at least, people like to think so).

Americans today define themselves individually through their musical tastes instead of forming a collective identity with others. We’ve changed the way we consume music and have access to whatever we want immediately. Being first in line, knowing what’s cool before it’s cool, ups one’s status as a music-connoisseur.

But there was nothing singular about watching the Who play a 24-song set at 5am. Only solidarity.

The Diggers Papers No. 18: another BEDROCK ONE event flyer/poster

Arthur is proud to present scans of essential documents produced by and about the San Francisco Diggers, who were in many ways the epicentral actors in the Haight-Ashbury during the epic, wildly imaginative period from late ’66 through ’67. The Diggers’ ideas and activities are essential counter-cultural history, sure, but they are also especially relevant to the current era, for reasons that should be obvious to the gentle Arthur reader.

Most of the documents that we are presenting are broadsides originally published on a Gestetner machine owned and operated in the Haight by the novelist/poet Chester Anderson and his protege/sidekick Claude Hayward, who used the name “Communication Company,” or more commonly, “Com/Co.” According to Claude, these broadsides were then “handed out on the street, page by page, super hot media, because the reader trusted the source, which was another freaky looking hippie who had handed it to him/her.”

This particular Com/Co document is a flyer/poster/broadside by an unknown artist advertising BEDROCK ONE, a March 5, 1967 event organized by Anderson himself. (See Robert Crumb’s flyer for the same event here.)

Check out that lineup, a real who’s who of the contemporary Haight-Ashbury arts/life scene: the Steve Miller Band, the Orkustra (the band led by guitarist Bobby Beausoleil, who would later be associated with both Kenneth Anger and Charles Manson), poet Richard Brautigan, the infamous street agitators San Francisco Mime Troupe, the San Francisco League for Sexual Freedom, the Lysergic Power & Light Company, and more.

More on Bedrock One in coming days…

Click on the image to see at a larger size…

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'44 PRESIDENTS' by MZA & Maria Sputnik

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Forty Four Presidents by MZA & Maria Sputnik. Pre-order now from Garrett County Press.

A brief illustrated history of the U.S. presidency told by the presidents themselves in the style favored by modern social networking web sites, Forty Four Presidents imagines 220 years of presidential succession pancaked into a single moment — documented simultaneously by each commander-in-chief in status updates designed for easy consumption by their Facebook friends. Each status update is accompanied by a jaunty, high-contrast profile picture intended to reflect something of the essential personality (and hotness) of the president.

The Diggers Papers No. 17: BEDROCK ONE event flyer/poster by R. Crumb (late Feb '67)

Arthur is proud to present scans of essential documents produced by and about the San Francisco Diggers, who were in many ways the epicentral actors in the Haight-Ashbury during the epic, wildly imaginative period from late ’66 through ’67. The Diggers’ ideas and activities are essential counter-cultural history, sure, but they are also especially relevant to the current era, for reasons that should be obvious to the gentle Arthur reader.

Most of the documents that we are presenting are broadsides originally published on a Gestetner machine owned and operated in the Haight by the novelist/poet Chester Anderson and his protege/sidekick Claude Hayward, who used the name “Communication Company,” or more commonly, “Com/Co.” According to Claude, these broadsides were then “handed out on the street, page by page, super hot media, because the reader trusted the source, which was another freaky looking hippie who had handed it to him/her.”

This particular Com/Co document is a flyer/poster/broadside by a pre-fame Robert Crumb advertising BEDROCK ONE, a March 5, 1967 event organized by Anderson himself. Check out that lineup, a real who’s who of the contemporary Haight-Ashbury arts/life scene: the Steve Miller Band, the Orkustra (the band led by guitarist Bobby Beausoleil, who would later be associated with both Kenneth Anger and Charles Manson), poet Richard Brautigan, the infamous street agitators San Francisco Mime Troupe, the San Francisco League for Sexual Freedom, the Lysergic Power & Light Company, and more.

More on Bedrock One in coming days…

Click on the image to see at a larger size…

Diggers18a

Saturday, Aug 15 NYC: Arthur co-presents Publicist with Ian Svenonius & more all-nite, all-ages dance party

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SATURDAY AUGUST 15, 2009
ALL NITE ALL AGES DIY DISCO DANCEPARTY!!!
PUBLICIST live! with guest vocalist IAN SVENONIUS!
Plus DJs Ian Svenonius, Justin Miller (DFA)
& Jacques Renault (Runaway)
Video installation by Alison Childs (Donuts!)
Free vegan spacecakes!
Market Hotel
1142 Myrtle Ave. @ Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11206
Midnite – 6am
$10

ARTHUR MAGAZINE & GALAXIE are excited to present a rare live appearance (THE ONLY U.S. DATE!) of TRANS AM drummer Sebastian Thomson’s solo electro project called PUBLICIST this coming Saturday at Market Hotel. His set features guest vocalisms by Ian Svenonius (Soft Focus, Chain & The Gang, Scene Creamers, Make-Up, etc.). You may recognize Sebastian from other acts such as Weird War. He loves making music with his friends but he also loves to make music on his own. As he once said “I love making music with my friends but I also love making music on my own.”

Ian will be DJing for the first hour or so from his collection of soul, funk, boogie & disco 45s. Galaxie residents Justin Miller & Jacques Renault will join Ian on the decks for an all-night, all-ages afterhours disco danceparty at Market Hotel in Brooklyn. We’ll also have a laser-like video installation courtesy of Galaxie resident video artist Alison Childs and free vegan spacecakes. Doors are at midnite and we’ll go til 6am!!

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – HIPPOLYTE HAVEL


August 13 – Hippolyte Havel
Scholarly, notorious anarchist dandy, critic, activist.

August 13, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
BLAME SOMEBODY ELSE DAY.
Antigua, Guatemala: FESTIVAL OF THE VOLCANO commemorates the 16th-century uprising of King Sinicam. The re-enactment takes place on an artificial volcano built for the occasion. Traditional native music, dancing and food.
LEFT HANDER’S DAY.
People’s Republic of Congo: Three-day NATIONAL FESTIVAL.

ALSO ON AUGUST 13 IN HISTORY…
1521 — Cortez succeeds in capturing Aztec island capital city Tenochtitlan.
1818 — American suffragist Lucy Stone born, West Brookfield, Massachusetts.
1871 — Anarchist critic, dandy Hippolyte Havel born, Thabor, Austria.
1923 — Chicano Wobbly artist Carlos Cortez born, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1931 — U.S. Customs closes border to keep citizens from gambling in Mexico.
1945 — Prophetic novelist, socialist H. G. Wells dies, London, England.

'44 PRESIDENTS' by MZA & Maria Sputnik

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Forty Four Presidents by MZA & Maria Sputnik. Pre-order now from Garrett County Press.

A brief illustrated history of the U.S. presidency told by the presidents themselves in the style favored by modern social networking web sites, Forty Four Presidents imagines 220 years of presidential succession pancaked into a single moment — documented simultaneously by each commander-in-chief in status updates designed for easy consumption by their Facebook friends. Each status update is accompanied by a jaunty, high-contrast profile picture intended to reflect something of the essential personality (and hotness) of the president.