The Fall - Cab It Up

Howdy,  beloved readers!

I bet you were anxiously awaiting the next installment of our The Fall series, you know, to occupy agreeably the Summer? Like John Cale, it's hard to pick up a song as there are so many good ones (and let's be fair, a few duds, exactly like Cale). One of my favorite The Fall album is I Am Kurious Oranj, and I was hesitating between the quasi eponymous song, Kurious Oranj, and Cab It Up. Cab It Up won, if only because I believe I might have posted Kurious Oranj on the blog already maybe 2 years ago (?). I Am Kurious Oranj came out in 1988, about the same year as The Frenz Experiment, and is the result of a collaboration with avant-garde choreographer Michael Clark - another thing in common with John Cale who has written ballet music.
There's something hysterically energetic about Cab It Up,  uplifting even, so it's perfectly appropriate as a Sunday evening song to help you deal with tomorrow's bad case of the Mondays (you will just have to play the song again, duh).
Beloved readership, enjoy Mark E. Smith & band's genius, and Cab It Up!

Who Makes The Nazis? An Important Question Asked By The Fall

Howdy, beloved readership!

Yes. I know. I'm only here intermittently. What can I say? It's the Summer. The world is going batshit crazy (and that's the understatement of the week) and as you should have noticed by now, art isn't going to change it. If you seriously believe that art is going to change the world, I strongly suggest you go try and apply those world-changing art skills to abet the Tea Partiers of the universe, so to neutralize their noxious effects.*

Not that yours truly doesn't believe in the arts anymore, if you ask me, they are the only reason left for living.  So I'm going to try and swallow the art pill tonight to see a bunch of friends at the Beacon Arts Building and optimistically attend the opening of The Optimist Parking Lot.
And right after this, I'm going to something I was totally unaware of, Stan Ridgway and Michelle Shocked giving a free concert in Pershing Square, thanks to the generosity of the LA Parks & Recreation Department, and of taxpayers like you (and I). Yours truly is a big believer in the LA P&R Dept. that keeps our public swimming pools open(only $2 if you have a library card) and not only this, but if you contact them with a question, they get back to you within 24 hours. So I'm mightily pleased they have this series of free concerts in Pershing Square in the Summer, I only wish I had known about it sooner.

Who knows? Next year they may program Sparks or John Cale or the Melvins?
Meanwhile, I'm leaving you with the immense Mark E. Smith and the Fall, to ask yourself the question: who makes the nazis?



*If you understand what I meant by this sentence, you've just earned FBC!'s begrudging admiration.

The Fall - Hit The North!

Let's continue our The Fall Summer series  with Hit The North! One of my favorite Fall songs, from 1987 (I think).
Not much more to say these days, I'm busy elsewhere AND the internet connection here at the FBC! Worldwide Headquarters keeps on breaking up.
So, enjoy your Summer and Hit The North!

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.

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.

Your Social Life In A Parking Lot

More precisely, if you go tonight to LAXart there will be the kickoff  of a year-long event curated by Warren Neidich and Elena Bajo, "Art In The Parking Space". Yours truly is going to another private art event tonight, or else I'd been there to see Anita Pace, Jonathan Monk and Pierre Bismuth performing.

Aside from this, I'm sure you are all aware it is 4th of July weekend and as such many galleries will be closed on Saturday, tho I hear Human Resources is having a party at Cottage Home on Saturday (3 to 7 PM), while tonight they are doing an additional screening of Jack Smith's Normal Love.

Next week, there will be a few more openings, while the week after seems confusing because of the incoming so-called "Carmageddon". I was blissfully unaware until 15 seconds ago that the term was referring to a "violent video-game" (idle question: are there some non violent video-games ?) before signifying the horror, the horror, the 3-day closure of Los Angeles' most hated freeway, the 405, between July 15-18.
It's going to make the life of Westsiders, Valleyites  and Orangists hellish, so I suggest to all of the people whining about it to buy a few books, some records, great food, and spend that weekend having a nice staycation, so the rest of us can enjoy our life on the surface streets of Los Angeles.
Anyhow, it is a bit confusing which galleries will stay open (I hear many of those in Culver City?) or closed (I think LA Louver, call them for info).

Meanwhile, as promised last week, here's the first installment of our musical monograph Summer series, which we  inaugurated last year with John Cale. Who, incidentally, has now an official website/tumblr so now there is a reliable way to be updated on his tours, upcoming releases, etc.
This Summer, it will be the year of The Fall, with their aptly titled L.A. to start the series. Here's to hopping they will come play here very soon!

Happy 4th, everybody!

Your Social Life, Bringing You Sparks! And Ann Magnuson and Guy Maddin!

Hello, hello, dear readers, it is a time of wonderment and joy in Los Angeles, as summer is finally upon us, for a long, long time that may stretch into fire season, and also because this Saturday, at 8.30 at the Ford, Sparks are having the world premiere of The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, with no less than Guy Maddin giving stage directions to quite a few people, including veteran performance artist Ann Magnuson. And, yes, if you wondered, I was going to do a lame joke with Sparks/lighting up the stage/fire season soon upon us, but I'm too lazy for this. Or, more likely, it wasn't going to come out as a good joke. But I am totally fired up for the event, and in case there are some tickets left, they are only $18 so it would be a crime if you were to miss it.

In other visual arts-related news, longtime FBC! pal Peter Wu's exhibition at Galerie Anais is closing on June 30th, and there is an event on Saturday if I'm not mistaken.  And even if I am, go see the show!
Another show closing, one that has a "finissage" as they say is at Greene Park Gallery, tomorrow, for the exhibition Unfinished with the event "The Artist Is Not Present", organized by Warren Neidich. In case you wondered,  "finissage" is a bad French word (i.e. it doesn't really exist in French, we would say "la fin") that some European galleries started to use when having a closing event, in opposition to the French word for opening that does exist this time and that everybody uses in Europe, "vernissage" ("varnishing").  So this is a very laborious way to explain to you, readers who never studied French, that Greene Park Gallery is making a pun on the very title of its exhibition. And one on the Abramovic exhibition at MoMA last year.

Something that is opening this Saturday is the CalArts MFA show, at the Farley Building in Eagle Rock, where Mike Kelley and Michael Smith presented their joint exhibition last year. It's up only for 2 weeks, so if you can't attend the opening tomorrow, like me, make sure to go visit before July 10. A group show is also opening at Richard Telles, Six Pack.

And now, some blog-related news. FBC! is going to be a bit dormant this Summer, because, if you've been going gallery-hopping in Los Angeles recently, you have noticed that LA galleries have started importing a very East Coast habit, the *Summer Show*. It used to be that there was no hiatus around here at all, but these times are over. Instead, what's happening is many non-profit are having their fundraisers and gala, and auctions, etc. which replace openings for all the people involved.
Which doesn't mean there won't be any openings at all this Summer (there will be Taft Green at Human Resources on July 9th, for a start), just fewer than usual. So, I may announce them or not, or maybe I will just perpetuate the Summer tradition I had started last year when I posted some John Cale videos once a week. Incidentally, John Cale is in the studio right now, so hopefully there will be a (very good?) album soon.
I think this year I'm going to do a Summer of videos by The Fall, a band I have never seen live. I feel they *should* come play  in Los Angeles very soon.

Lastly, for those of you who would like to spend their summer working on their dream novel/novella/poetry, etc. and would like to try the first ever Not Otherwise Specified book contest organized by Les Figues Press, please read all the guidelines, write your masterpiece, and send it along with  $25 fee for a chance to have it published by a super rad press, make $1000 in passing and get a book of your choice from their Trench Art series.

And with this, dear readers, let me wish you a great weekend and a fantastic summer!