Links, Tidbits, Morsels & Small Pieces

Jennifer Moon, Prison Relic #2: Typewriter, 2012, Framed photograph, book, cardboard shelf, chain, 50 in. x 20 in. x 9 in.


We don't do Tumblr, Instagram and other stuff like that at FBC! because it's full-time work that doesn't pay the bills if you join all those newfangled things on the internet. But once in a while there are some pieces and tidbits of news I want to lump together in a post, so here are a few things below.

I've just been made aware of this very long post about drugs, sexism, making a living etc. in the music world/industry. Lots of very interesting issues being raised.  Thanks to Fishrider Records in New Zealand for bringing my attention to it. I sometimes want to write a post about sexism in the creative industries but I often get discouraged because the problem is so huge.
It's not confined to the music world, as the art world and the literary world are rife with it as well.  Seriously, one female friend here in Belgium has been told by a local art world big shot "oh you know this is a very masculine milieu" implying she could forget about ever getting a job here. But I'm being heartened when I see male writers, musicians, artists, architects, etc. being supportive of feminist causes. A big thank you to them, there's a flicker of progress.

There's a King Krule LP coming out very soon. I've liked a lot what I've heard from him so far, so I'm eagerly awaiting the release. Now I was aware the kid was young, but Holy Mother of Belphégor! He's just 18.  There's an interview here, where you can spot pictures of him looking like he's in fact 14, and coming straight out of a "street urchin photorealist newsreel" of the 1930s. I wish him a long, happy, productive musical life away from self-destruction and things like that, that boy has too much talent. Sounds like he could have an interesting side career as a producer, too.

Congratulations to the happy recipients of the 2013 CCF grants, several of them being dear, dear friends of mine. Kudos Jennifer Moon, Vishal Jugdeo and Peter Wu, and also Rebecca Morris and Ruben Ochoa. Peter Wu would be my designer of choice if I can secure the funding for my Mike Kelley book, so I'm mightily pleased for him!

Still some musical news, this contemporary classical music festival is happening near London very soon. Top-notch bill, if I lived in the UK I'd go attend it for the entire duration.

Lastly, many music sites and magazines are publishing their "best albums of 2013 so far". Summer, slow news.

I'm not sure they were all issued in 2013, but my list is:
 Houses
Parquet Courts
David Bowie
Rachel Zeffira
Petula Clark (she has an album of cover out that *nobody* but me seems to like)
Hookworms
British Sea Power
Puppet Rebellion (they released a free 3-songs EP so far)
Wire
Foals
The Pastels.

I haven't heard the Boards of Canada yet. Also I like a lot Baltic Fleet but I have no idea when their music was released (I do not own it in physical form yet, I'm too broke).

Stuff that I found was a dreadful piece of shit: Kanye West.
Been told by someone I highly esteem (hi, John!) that it was "sonically innovative", er sorry, Scott Walker > Kanye West.
Plus Kanye's lyrics are the shittiest I've heard this side of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and that's a record.
While I'm at it:
Scott Walker > Matmos > The Knife.
Stuff I was told was good but I find super weak: These New Puritans.

Missed opportunities: Scott Walker, The Collection, a reissue of his 5 first solo albums that includes 'Til The Band Comes In.
 If you don't own any classic Scott Walker yet, for once I recommend you buy the CD boxset and NOT the vinyl one, as it is much cheaper.

The vinyl boxset was announced back in April as containing original mono mixes, an mp3 download card (which I like to have when I fork over the money for a vinyl because it's a back-up), etc.
 So I blindly preordered it as my birthday present to myself because one can never have too much Scott Walker original music in their life, ever.
Instead, it's all stereo mixes, no mp3 card, the vinyl sleeves came up with split seams inside the shrink-wrapped records, which for something brand new screams the absence of a quality control department. There's a photograph of Scott Walker in one of the record, which I don't really care about because I don't see the point, but if you gonna put in some extras, please print the pictures from an original negative or 4" x 5", because poorly printed scan photographs sucks and look cheap.
There are no extras like B-Sides from singles, which  don't really mind myself but I saw some record collectors bemoan the fact on specialized websites.
I'm glad some of my money will translate into royalties for Scott Walker so he can continue making his current innovative music, but I'd rather have invested in a good quality box set. Like the Beach Boys Smile one that came out about 2 years ago and was much more fun and interesting for about the same price.

 This boxset has been issued by Universal, not a small label without much capital and manpower.  I'm raising the point here because they just announced yesterday they were launching a crowdfunding site to reissue vinyl.
Gimme me a fucking break, Universal, if this is the piss-poor job you do with your own capital, I'm never going to blindly trust you again to reissue records. I'm all for supporting artists and paying for the music, in hard copies not only because they get more money from them than from mp3 and streaming (especially streaming), but  also because they're more archival. I
f you exploit the consumer like this, Universal, I'd rather spend my money on smaller labels and smaller acts than, er, future reissues of Pulp, Nirvana or Sonic Youth. All stuff that is super easy to find used!

The Revolution Of The Moon

Forgive me, beloved readers, for I have bad-punned in the post title above.
You see, like most of you, I am deep into  doing my taxes,  meaning I am not setting foot outside the FBC! tax headquarters until I can e-file or mail my return (my preferred method to keep USPS in business and its employees with their jobs) and therefore I am cabin-feverish, hence the delirious bad pun.
I'm fiscally locked-in until Monday, save for the one opening that everybody who's anybody in Los Angeles should go to this Saturday. 8 to 11 PM in groovy Koreatown, where Jennifer Moon, who's actively engaged in her art practice to start a loving revolution, is having her first solo show in about a decade at Commonwealth & Council.

If you go, not only you will have the opportunity to see the badassest show of all the bad ass shows ever, but you can also very conveniently  take home a FREE pocket book of The Revolution-approved literature: Definition of Abundance, Principle 1 of The Revolution (see picture). What's not to love?
Be there, or be the person who will have to lie in 20 years from now when they do Pacific Standard Time-III and pretend you know what it was all about.
Go there, and go support the Revolution of the Moon

Happy Saint Patrick's Day, Happy National Mike Kelley Day!

I recently made the cake above for friends who came over wanting to reminisce about Mike Kelley. It's basically this cake,  topped with cream cheese icing, and LOTS of green food coloring dumped into the batter. It was surprisingly good. You can also see from the picture above I lack fine motor skills and cake decorating abilities.

Today for the first time in my life I'm celebrating St. Patrick, for the first time because I don't have an ounce of Irish blood in my veins, I'm not even catholic, and I don't like beer. Irish whiskey will do nicely, thank you. I'm really celebrating in Mike's memory, because he loved St. Patrick's Day and I guess from now on, for me it will be National Mike Kelley Day forever. And for you too, if you wish. Kelly green is really Mike Kelley Green.

Here are below a sample of Irish bands that are not U2, if you need some musical accompaniment to the day. Also, if you wish to bake some dessert today, I recommend this recipe. The smell in your house will be totally insane. As for drinks, aside from the ubiquitous Guinness and Murphy's, I suggest you sample the Irish single malt they carry at Trader Joe's. Much better than Bushmills and slightly cheaper!


The Virgin Prunes, Down Memory Lane:




Them And Van Morrison, Baby Please Don't Go:



The Undertones, Here Comes The Summer:




And that's all for the Irish music sampler today.

Before I leave you celebrating National Mike Kelley Day, a few things. There's an opening tonight at Richard Telles, a group show that looks very interesting. 
There are a few things that should be coming up on FBC! in the next few weeks, depending on where I am with the shitload of non art-related paperwork I have to do;  and also depending on how my back pain is evolving. Right now, it's not looking too good,  so I'm not sure how much posting I'll be able to do.
I intend to write a double post on Jennifer Moon and Andy Alexander's current projects, also to write something on the Mono-Ha exhibition at Blum and Poe. There are several interesting things coming up in the next few months, like the Jennifer Moon solo show at Commonwealth and Council in mid-April, and the Will Fowler one at Kordansky in May. Also, as you may know there's a new Biennial coming up at the Hammer/LAXart, etc. with a big cash prize attached, not that I care about that part, but since I have quite a few friends whose work will be featured in the Biennial, so I'm crossing my fingers for them. And, the event everybody has been waiting for: the Jack Goldstein retrospective at OCMA opens on June 24th. Don't miss it!

Lastly, I've been asked recently if there was a Facebook page for FBC! The answer is, no, and I don't foresee one in the immediate future. This blog was started as a personal outlet almost 5 years ago after a devastating car accident, merely as a way for me to fend off the boredom during the many months that recovery took. It's not a way for me to "make it into the art world", as too many blogs - mainly based on the East Coast -  were created for,  just a way for me  to get some personal writing out once in a while. If it touches some people, I am glad, but I don't want this to become a gigantic piece of work, especially work that doesn't bring in any income. It's just a space for me to have the freedom to write whatever I want, and as stated in the header, it's unresearched and un-edited. Warts and all!

If you would like to keep in touch with updates, I believe there's an RSS Feed button somewhere (I don't use RSS myself, so I have no idea if it works or not), and I use the Networkedblogs app. to import it on Facebook. If you don't want to use these, I'd say just check in once or twice a month to see if there's an update. It's very rare that I update more than twice a month anyway.

Happy National Mike Kelley Day everybody, and happy pagan Persian Norouz to all as well!

Mike Kelley Tribute Concert At The Box This Saturday

I would like to thank all of you who sent me very sweet messages after my very personal (and emotional*) post last week. I have been especially moved by the numerous former students of Mike who gave me their testimonies about how their whole lives has been touched by Mike's teaching.  I also came to realize that there wasn't a public outlet for everyone's grief. It is my understanding that per Mike own wishes, there isn't any public, official service or memorial to be planned.    I am not going to speculate about his reasons, I just decided to interpret it as Mike's way of telling us to organize ourselves,  and not to rely on, I don't know, some designated social outlet he would have hated attending himself. So it's up to us to remember him in what we feel is more adequate, and I cannot see anything better than the concerts and performance organized in his memory at the Box Gallery in Chinatown this Saturday. Please click on the photo above to see all details.

 If you need to leave tangible manifestations of your appreciation for Mike somewhere, there is the makeshift shrine in Highland Park on Tipton Way, that seeks to recreate his More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid/The Wages Of Sin (1987). It's on Tipton Way, way up the hill on your left. If you decide to go, please respect the neighbors and come only between 8.30 AM and 10.30 PM. Be careful not to place candles near flammables.

It is a wonderful place to go, as people chose to put objects and inscriptions pertaining to whatever part of Mike's work touched them. Above, a view of a "Destroy All Monsters" dragon. I especially like that the "shrine" appropriates Mike's uncovering  of vernacular culture to revolve it full circle;  and make use of that secular gestures people have in the US of depositing teddy bears and flowers in public places in the memory of the recently departed.

 It's raining today and likely all the blankets and the stuffed animals are going to get soaked, then dry up and become smelly and dirty... which is exactly how Mike would have wanted it!

This is a blanket and platypus contributed by yours truly, while the other two stuffed animals (the ones not in the row near the wall) have been donated by the Alexander-Crosby family, Andy Alexander being a former student of Mike.  The lovely thing about this memorial shrine is that within 30 minutes of being there, I've met with quite a few people who I know were close to Mike. More blankets were added as I was leaving, which is good as there are already quite a large amount of stuffed animals, but maybe not enough blankets.
Special thanks to whoever organized the Mike Kelley shrine. I think Mike would d be pissed off that I call it a shrine... but I don't really know what else to call it.


In the next few weeks** I am going to talk to you about two different projects started by formers students of Mike, Andy Alexander with werk.by and Jennifer Moon with The Revolution. Both are projects that try to engage the art community as a locale for  collective reflection and action, and to shift the discourse back to what an artistic practice aims to do, as opposed to "having a career and making it in the art world". Many thanks to them for bringing us back to reality.


[I've just been reminded that many artists make work because they enjoy making work no matter what, whether they get recognition or not. It should go without saying].

* I was crying my heart out while writing the post, I had a migraine on top of it so I couldn't wear my glasses. And I had written it on a Word. doc format, which fucked up mightily with the html when I pasted it on the blogger interface, hence the crappy editing and weird formatting. I still can't read it now, so this post is going to stay as is in all eternity.
** I have a few deadlines coming up, so posting will be very irregular. Sorry about that.