The Fall - Victoria and Leonard Cohen - Queen Victoria

Latest in our weekly summer music series, The Fall's cover of the Kinks classic, Victoria. The Kinks were certainly the greatest British band of the 1960s that ever was (not the Beatles, not the Rolling Stones, not the Who... tho I like all of them!) and it's pretty much foolproof for any band to cover them. The Fall's video is really fun, and their cover doesn't depart much from the original (below).




While I'm at it, and in a totally different register, here's another song about Queen Victoria, titled, strangely enough, Queen Victoria, by the great Leonard Cohen



It was  also covered by the no less great John Cale, but I can't find it on YouTube.

Happy Bastille Day - Le 14 Juillet

This being a French holiday and yours truly just about to have some champagne with a friend, FBC! won't give you suggestions about what to do or where to go on this Carmageddon weekend. Just wanted to let you know most Culver City galleries are having an opening while Regen Projects and Steve Turner are opening tonight. No linkage as I have no time for this today.

If you're stuck at home, I recommend you pre-order John Cale's next EP, out on August 8, and if you do I recommend you use Paypal rather than a regular credit card, it's a bit smoother that way. I'm glad Cale is now with Domino Records and I hope the LP will be out soon.

Check this space for a The Fall song soon, meanwhile, celebrate Bastille Day like the French do: get something nice to drink, some fromage, some saucisson, enjoy!

It's Let's Lump Everything In A Post Day! The Fall, Your Social Life, And Rants.

Starting with our continuing tradition of posting monograph videos of 1 singer or  band every Summer, this week, Mark. E. Smith from The Fall shares his views about art*. His own views, not mine, but he's MARK E. SMITH for God's sake, so whatever he says is always wildly entertaining. Now, some LA concert promoter, please bring him and The Fall to play here soon, thanks.

Now, speaking of art, it has come to our attention (we are many people here at FBC!, I swear) that there was an Andy Warhol show opening at MOCA like, this week (the super short turnaround between de-installing and installing shows at MOCA nowadays is mind-boggling. I hope they still have preparators who know how to handle artworks according to standard museum procedures).
Obviously, the powers that be at our local museum haven't realized yet that there had already  been a Warhol retrospective at the same location in 2002. Now, yours truly and all my minions here at the FBC! headquarters deeply love Warhol's work, but we collectively feel that, er, there are a gazillion other artists who deserve a solo show at MOCA,  and that for example it might have been wiser to bring here the Mark Bradford retrospective. Or, not to cancel the Jack Goldstein one (kudos to OCMA for taking it on).
In any case, it's not very intelligent programming to show the same artist over and over at the same venue. Luckily they are also bringing in the Lynda Benglis show at the end of the month, but I'd love to see something original and intelligent originating from MOCA soon (as far as street art goes, the numerous FBC! staff feels it should stay there, otherwise, it's a sellout).

Fortunately there is still some cool art to be seen in Los Angeles, or in some cases to be heard, as with Musing and Some Rants (things I’ve wanted to talk about for 59 years) by David E. Stone, one of FBC!'s pal, at 323 Projects, which is a telephone gallery. You can attend the phone opening by calling (323) 843-4652 on Friday between 6 and 9 PM (how cool is that!) and then attend the exhibition 24/7 by calling the same number until August 5th. Still on Friday, and physically this time, you can go to the opening of  Super 8 The Exhibition at Christopher Grimes if you are on the Westside, from 7 to 9 PM. 
And on Friday and Saturday evening only you can go see a very rare play by Lincoln Tobier, "The Orchestra Pit Theory by Roger Ailes", at the MAK Center/Schindler House. I unfortunately can't attend and I'm pretty sad about it.




Saturday will be very busy as well, with the opening of a summer show of works on paper at ACME, a solo show at 1301 PE, and in Chinatown the event not to miss will be the opening of Taft Green  (Act Natural) and Scott Benzel (mal-dis-tri-bu-tion), two solo shows at Human Resources. Taft Green is a very old pal of FBC! and has been working on the pieces in the show for close to 3 years, and Scott Benzel has been involved a lot with making sound and music for Mike Kelley's pieces, so it's all in the family. Still in Chinatown, Jed Ochmanek has an opening at Young Art while Pepin Moore is celebrating its 1rst anniversary in the former space of China Art Objects with a performance by the collective OJO at 9 PM. You're kindly asked to bring a couple of paragraphs to read if you want to attend the performance.


That's pretty much it, and that's a lot of ground to cover for the weekend. And before I wish you a good one, let me launch another FBC! rant. 
We at the FBC! headquarters tend to use the Facebook "events" function quite a lot, and we've been lamenting the fact that 70% of the time, there's no website indicated for the event (and in the case of a commercial gallery, it looks rather unprofessional). Very often, the address of the exhibition or event isn't precised and in some cases, there's not even a mention of the city or the country where it's supposed to happen. I've been grumbling about it for a while, and one of my Facebook acquaintances has been also railing about it in regard to musicians/bands/concerts. 
Seriously folks, if you want people to come to your exhibitions, shows, plays, etc. make it a bit easier on your audience. It's nice to know where, when, how long, and in the cases of paying event, where and how to buy tickets. I'll swear you will have more attendance that way.

*special thanks to artist Julie Lequin for the Mark. E. Smith video.