ALSO ON OCTOBER 24 IN HISTORY…
1644 — American colonial reformer William Penn born, London, England.
1868 — Feminist explorer Alexandra David-Neel born, Paris, France.
1911 — Death of lighthouse keeper, feminist Ida B. Lewis, Limerick, Rhode Island.
1926 —Spanish surrealist screenwriter Rafael Azona Fernández born, Logroño.
1940 — So-called 40-hour work-week established in U.S. — Hah!
1955 — Eighteen-day bout of “smog” claims Los Angeles, California.
Above: Alexandra David-Neel in typical Tibetan traveling clothes, 1927.
José Antonio Sistiaga: Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Aruaren
(w/ new live score by Savage Republic)
“Basque abstract artist José Antonio Sistiaga painted directly onto film with homemade inks to create this silent 1970 feature. But Sistiaga’s strangely titled work… is different from the films of Stan Brakhage, who didn’t come to film from painting and had his own rhythm. […] [I]ts combination of color and 35-millimeter ‘scope (with about half an hour in black and white) yields the kind of spectacle one associates with musicals and [science fiction] epics.” — Jonathan Rosenbaum
A hand-painted masterpiece of the 1970s; a legendary band of the 1980s. Sistiaga’s rarely-screened ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren is a work of uncompromising beauty that absolutely deserves a wider appreciation. Savage Republic, one of the unrecognized godfathers of post-rock, formed roughly three decades ago in the midst of the Los Angeles punk rock scene and abruptly disbanded in 1989. In recent years, they’ve reformed and their unique sound (somewhat akin to a Middle Eastern surf band backed by the rhythm section from Joy Division) is as compelling and inexorable as ever. Original members Ethan Port and Thom Fuhrmann, joined by Alan Waddington and Kerry Dowling, will perform their newly commissioned score to Sistiaga’s prodigious work (presented in a stunning 35mm print from Paris.) DJ Michael Stock of Part Time Punks will be on-hand to man the decks, spinning tunes during the pre-show!
• ACCIDENTAL GUNFIRE AND UNEXPECTED NUDITY: Doug Fine is a journalist who lives on a remote solar-powered ranch somewhere outside of Silver City, New Mexico. The founding of said ranch is chronicled in his sometimes corny but ultimately pretty fascinating book, Farewell, My Subaru. In the years since, Fine has remained almost entirely off-the-grid, save for the digital connectivity by which he maintains his career as a writer, as well as his blog: Dispatches from The Funky Butte Ranch. This has led him to consider how well he would do in a real grid-crash and the ensuing collapse of mainstream civilization that might soon follow in an essay called “In The Year 2049: Would I Survive A Worst-Case Scenario?” How would he mine the perimeter of his compound? Who would make his shoes? It’s especially entertaining to compare the responses of his city-dwelling pals who are all like “you’re nuts everything’s gonna be fine” and his fellow ranchers who are like “that’s a good idea about the mines.” [Dispatches from the Funky Butte Ranch]
• DO YOU EVER PLAN ON EATING OUT IN LOS ANGELES?Pulitzer-Prize winning food critic Jonathan Gold’s “99 Essential LA Restaurants” is a delightful read even if you don’t plan on dining out in Southern California anytime soon: It’s a journey from the obscure meats of Vietnamese strip mall joints to the finest haute cuisine, and as such it’s one of the best impressionistic portraits of what makes Los Angeles such a strange, delicious town. He’s known to compare tacos and noodles to different varieties of cocaine, he follows Spanish-language media in order to keep up with Mexican-American chefs and says things like this about a Korean spot out in Torrance:
We are as jingoistic about fried chicken as the next guy, and we’ve been to dives in Louisiana where the chicken was so good it made a roomful of testosterone-crazed roustabouts weep like your mother’s bridge club that time Steel Magnolias came on TV. But Korean fried chicken really is an evolutionary leap forward — steeped in a cabinet full of spices, saturated with garlic, double-fried to a shattering, thin-skinned snap dramatic enough to wake a sleeping baby in an adjoining room.
The new edition is available this week — this is gonna be the first time we pick up a hard copy of the LA Weekly since, well, Gold’s list from last year — and you can also read it online. [LA Weekly]
• ON BECOMING ONE MORE HORSE’S ASS: After 12 weird years of living in Los Angeles, California, I’m moving to Marfa, Texas early next week. Fitting that the sky above my house in Atwater Village is dominated by a massive plume of smoke rising from a forest fire in the San Gabriel Mountains; it always feels good to commence an exodus under a rain of ash. Chambo’s Internet Activity Pages shall resume upon activation of Arthur’s Marfa Station. [Bobby Bare – “One More Horse’s Ass”]
• SPEAKING OF MARFA: Yacht recorded their most recent album, See Mystery Lights, down there in West Texas. They’re giving away copies of the instrumental version over at the Free Music Archive and I am going to be playing it all weekend — along with lots and lots of Doug Sahm — while I load the moving truck. [Free Music Archive]
Deep-space excursions that reveal the dark matter of pop culture, absurdist mythologies that transcend into tear jerking dramas…all can be found in Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite.
This forthcoming show at Synchronicity Space opens on July 31st with a video screening including 19 unique artists. 2-D and 3-D artifacts from the videos will accompany the screening and be on display throughout August. Those looking to travel through a black hole and keep your boots on: look no further. Curated by Ben Bigelow
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yrQf5X3uvI
Opening Friday, July 31st at 7PM, with video screenings from 9-10PM Synchronicity Space
4306 Melrose / Los Angeles 90029 Free
This Saturday, experimental sound-collagists and noise-makers Lucky Dragons and asDSSka will be performing a live score to the classic The Red Balloon at The Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles (co-presented by Dublab and L.A. Record). Recent performances I’ve seen by Lucky Dragons have been nothing less than magical, unifying experiences where audience members left with smiles beaming from ear to ear. Give yourself the treat of reflecting on this childhood film as the duo taps into your heart and mind in this special musical collaboration with the classically trained pianist Aska Matsumiya and David Scott Stone (The Sads, The Melvins). The film will be followed by a sing-a-long with the L.A. Ladies’ Choir.
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
Dublab has done it again! California’s favorite non-profit radio collective has been bringing choice, culturally responsible programming to the Los Angeleno airwaves for around ten years now, but its mission to foster “the growth of positive music, arts, and culture” takes place both on the air and off. Among the many live events on the Dublab calendar this Spring, the TONALISM mini-fest in Big Sur on May 28th is bound to knock your socks off– or at least lull you into a smiley, sound-drunk dream-state.
A description of TONALISM from the Dublab family:
Inspired by La Monte Young’s “Dream House” as well as the work of musicians and composers such as Terry Riley, Yoko Ono and John Cage, Tonalism combines harmonious textures with visual elements to create an atmosphere where the audience is encouraged to bring pillows, cushions and sleeping bags to lay down, listen and watch for an extended period of time. DJs, live musicians and VJs play and perform throughout the night; starting at sunset and ending at sunrise. Complimentary tea and water are provided to all who attend.
ON THE REDWOODS STAGE:
Live Performances by: Windy and Carl (Kranky) Pharaohs (members of Languis and Big Swell) Matt Baldwin / Inner Beauty Lyonnais White Rainbow (Kranky) Nudge (Kranky)
DJ Sets by: Obrian System (very special guest) frosty (dublab) Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel, Postal Service, dublab) Part TIme Punks DJ Michael Stock Andy Cabic (Vetiver) Katie Byron (dublab) Nanny Cantaloupe (dublab) Turquoise Wisdom (dublab, Small Town Talk) matthewdavid (dublab, Leaving Tapes)
Visuals by: Matt Amato (The Masses)
ON THE CANYON STAGE:
Performances Curated by Carlos Niño for dublab: Mia Doi Todd Carlos Niño & Jesse Peterson The Nick Rosen/Brian Green Duo The dublab Drone-Dreamers DJ Cool Chris of Groove Merchant GB Life On Earth! (of Dungen) and Special Guests
Set Design by: Katie Byron
TONALISM Thursday, May 28, 4:20 pm – 5:00 am Henry Miller Library Highway One, Big Sur, CA 93920 $20, all ages (does not including venue fees) Complimentary tea will be served throughout the night. Bring pillows, blankets, beanbags, sleeping bags, cushions, lay down and listen. There will be a fire pit and heat lamps but make sure to bring warm clothes because it gets cold at night.
First, President Obama’s Kenyan half brother gets arrested — in Kenya — for holding, like, one joint. Then over the course of the last week the DEA busts a series of medical marijuana clinics across California. Then cops in Fontana — formerly a hub of the pig farming industry and now a dismal commuter suburb of LA — discover 1,800 pounds of weed being smuggled inside … wait for it … concrete lawn donkeys. “Drug mules,” geddit? (At least those pickup truck rampin’ Mexican cartels have a sense of humor, right?) The next thing you know, Obama’s bro is out on the streets again, all charges dropped. Coincidence, or…? Connect the dots, friend.
You know who doesn’t have a sense of humor? All the marijuana activists that were blowing up yesterday across the internet over the DEA raids on medical marijuana clinics that took place from South Lake Tahoe in Northern CA to Venice and Marina Del Rey down here in Los Angeles County. Do you know the reason why they are so itchy about these acts of Federal aggression? Because back in March and May of 2008 Obama said some evasive but still encouraging shit to two Oregon newspapers: Southern Oregon’s Mail Tribune and the The Willamette Weekly — an alt-weekly — about basing policy on science when it comes to medical marijuana. And we block-quote the Weekly:
Would you stop the DEA’s raids on Oregon medical marijuana growers?
I would because I think our federal agents have better things to do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism. The way I want to approach the issue of medical marijuana is to base it on science, and if there is sound science that supports the use of medical marijuana and if it is controlled and prescribed in a way that other medicine is prescribed, then it’s something that I think we should consider.
Then, as if to confirm any suspicions that the casual reader might have about the Lollapalooza-types one might find staffing an Oregon alt-weekly, the interviewer asks Obama if he would get a tattoo were he placed “under duress.” That is certainly an imaginative question. But we digress …
As of January 28, Hopey’s man Eric “Lando” Holder is running the Justice Department, thus everyone from the libertarian burners at Reason to the up-against-the-wall muckrackers at Counterpunch to LA Times haberdashery columnist Patt Morrison (we kid we kidMorrison is oft very clever and funny) is like, “Lay off already!”
Get your summary of the day’s chatter after the jump.
It’s a cavalcade of long-form guitar wailing tonight — Tuesday January 20, 2009 — at The Smell in downtown Los Angeles as Fuck Yeah Fest presents the epic heaviness of dopesmoking intergalactic Viking war historians ANCESTORS alongside the equally sprawling winter beach party jams of the LBC’s MAGIC LANTERN*. You can read all about the Magic Lantern guys over at the LA Record, who of course have been down with their “uninterrupted jammage” for some time.
Headliners Crystal Antlers manage to convey their squealy-squally guitar messages in a shorter format, but they make up for brevity with a second drummer who stands up and pretty much only plays a snare. We’re not quite sure what Slang Chickens are up to, but according to their M’Space page they really like ZZ Top, which is maybe a good sign.
As is the custom at The Smell, anybody of any age is welcome, as long as they got $5. Things get going at 9pm.
*While we’re on the subject, we just wanna say that the side project from ML’s Cameron Stallones, Sun Araw, is truly on some other shit with its queasy New Age tropical dub meltdowns and y’all should not be sleeping on that 2008 Beach Head album.
Arthur Magazine 