June 22– George Carlin
Premier American comic, edgy social critic.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
*Armenia: The Flaming of the Rose, the Christianized festival of Anahit, the ancient Goddess of chastity; sheep with gaily painted horns are led to church service, with food and flowers piled at the altar.
ALSO ON JUNE 22 IN HISTORY…
1633 — Catholic Church forces Galileo to recant theory Earth orbits Sun.
1909 — Black American dance innovator Katherine Dunham born, Joliet, illinois.
1935 — French surrealist René Crevel dies, Paris.
1938 — Joe Louis knocks out “Aryan supremacy” claimant Max Schmeling.
1939 — American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker dies, Monaco.
2008 — American comic, social critic, George Carlin dies, Santa Monica, California.
Russom debuts Black Meteoric Star tracks with Assume Vivid Astro Focus at Paris’ Super Festival in April, 2008 (part 2 below)
Former Arthur cover co-star Gavin Russom has new music coming out next week on DFA. He’s recording as Black Meteoric Star, and while the tunes are still rife with droning synthesizers — a la his essential Days of Mars work with Delia Gonzalez — he’s going for more of a dance floor vibe this time. Specifically, BMS is his exploration into acid house. He expands on that a bit in this 2008 interview with the UK’s Fact magazine:
“Later I became very interested in the thematic elements of early Detroit and Chicago electronic music and the cultural environments that surrounded the Warehouse. Of particular interest was the way that a piece of music technology (specifically the Roland TB-303) generated an entire musical aesthetic because of its characteristics and its limitations. The post-apocalyptic vision of a new society, armed with electronic technology, emerging from the post industrial wasteland resonated with my own political ideals, my experiences growing up in Providence and my interest in the post-WWI European avant-garde who had similar ideas.
“Of course I always come back to the fact that it’s simply interesting and powerful psychedelic music.”
The self-titled album’s out on June 9, but you can get a preview via Tim Sweeney’s “Beats In Space” radio broadcast from back in April. Russom opens with 30 minutes of BMS material, before going into a lovely DJ set including plenty of drones plus crusty voodoo folk-rock from Exuma and Archie Shepp’s “Monkey Blues.” Download the whole 90 minute podcast over at Beats In Space.
• Trinie Dalton interviewed Delia & Gavin for Arthur 21/March 2006, copies of which are still available in the Arthur Store. Click here to commence browsing.
• Assume Vivid Astro Focus made a sweet video for Delia & Gavin’s “Relevee”, which we posted back in April of 2008. Check it out by clicking here.
May 27 — Ibn Khaldun
Great Arabic historian, chronicler.
MAY 27, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*Feast of Zerowork
ALSO ON MAY 27 IN HISTORY…
1332 — Arab historian Ibn Khaldun born, Tunis, Tunisia.
1525 — Anabaptist communist Thomas Münzer executed.
1871 — Paris Commune crushed, with 25,000 massacred.
1878 — Modern dancer Isadora Duncan born, San Francisco, California.
1907 — Ecology pioneer Rachel Carson born, Springdale, Pennsylvania.
1949 — Robert Ripley dies, believe it or not.
1997 — Russian Pres Boris Yeltsin signs historic treaty with NATO.
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