clara rockmore
Prepare a piping mug of ginger tea. Add one dollop of thick, local honey. Then, listen to the old-time, ethereal glamor of Clara Rockmore. Her theremin sounds like all the warbling lady singers your grandmom loves & will get you through the rainiest of drear days.
clara rockmore
Notice anything different? Justin upgraded my blog! Aesthetically it’s rather plain but the new features & widgets offer a lot in the way of customization. Check out the right column which now features a last.fm player built around my listening habits, a map highlighting places I’ve posted about and internet gold via my google reader shares. While I’m aiming for clean, organized & easy-to-read, a fancy-pants new header will debut eventually.
Oh yeah, newish writing from City Paper:
Review of last week’s Deerhunter/Times New Viking/Aids Wolf show @ The Ottobar
Women in sports movie feature
Million Dollar Baby
Rad fights but ho-hum
Wise Freeman, second fiddle
All that white man angst
Personal Best
Track star lady love
Olympic hopefuls get stoned!
Aw, back to sausage
The Heart of the Game
Real-life B-ball queen
Doing it her way, don’t hate
The fire this time
PS This Sunday @ 4 pm, I’ll be reading some poems & everybody’s favorite For Hire: Topless Dog Park Goddess of Terror at Minas Gallery & Boutique on the Avenue. Peep for details.
On the random: Have you noticed the above foliage color combo is the hotness in Baltimore? I never thought of gardens as being trendy but if the Golden West is rocking electric green and goth-girl sorta black in its outdoor planters, then it must be hip, right? FWIW this pic is from the Druid Hill Park Conservatory. More Conservatory pix here (including a daytime fox sighting!)
Hello Mobtown Molly fans! Since Ms. Mobtown nudged me to post (thx for the link!) here’s some internet gold:
Like many kids reared in the 80s, I was big on cartoons and MTV. So it’s little wonder one of my earliest, and fondest, television memories is watching A-ha’s music video for Take On Me, which mixed animation and live-action footage in portraying the fraught tale of comic-book character meets real-life girl romance. Sure it didn’t make much sense–just who were those construction workers and why were they so homicidal?!–but it was half a cartoon scored by a goosebump-raising girlyman falsetto, thus lodging deep in my malleable toddler mind. To this day, when I hear the song, I am seized by a vague apprehension of danger while envisioning a wavering, line-drawn arm rising from the pages of a comic book. Weirdo and highly idiosyncratic attachments aside, even those who hate the song will thrill to the following bit of parody, re-dubbed with lyrics describing the video’s narrative in hilariously literal detail. Guaranteed, you will never again be able to look at a pipe wrench with out bursting into song.
PS Also plz check out my most recent Noise posts, over at City Paper, including a review of banjo-slayer Nathan Bell @ 2640 (a CD release from local b-sides label West Main Development), and a behind-the-scenes interview with Los Solos series curator Bonnie Jones.
Boy at German Fest
Hello world. I’ve been working a lot lately, inching my way out debt. Terribly unglamorous. Nor does it leave much time for writing, however I didn’t pass up the chance to profile sound artist/filmmaker/musician Jenny Graf Sheppard when Bret McCabe, the arts editor over at CP, offered the piece. Sheppard is curating High Zero Festival’s Saturday afternoon performances. Def check it out.
Just for fun, check out my Google Reader finds. Thus far, it’s dominated by quirky vintage photography & modern street art.
The City Paper’s Big Music Issue is out. I’ve got a piece comparing the Baltimore and DC underground music communities in there, alongside some great articles. Michael Byrne presents three oral histories from veterans of the after-hours club scene, Al Shipley delves into Bmore’s internet radio stations and Robbie Whelan explores the state of our local Latino music scene.
Also, last week CP ran my profile of awesome hip hop duo AK Slaugher and earlier this month Fact posted the latest Clicks, Whistles and Radio Rips, featuring an interview with the refreshingly positive Randy Randall of No Age. The column also includes an exclusive remix of “Sun Spots” from good dude 100dBs.
DJ Qbert is spinning downstairs, so if you’re going for that (and you should!) come up and check us out.
Clicks, Whistles & Radio Rips is a column I’ve been co-writing with Tom Lea for Fact Magazine. Seems the older installments have gone M.I.A. after the Fact site redesign but you can check them out in full on Tom’s blog.
February 08: Interview w/ Slix, exclusive mix from Toddla T, Grime and Dubstep news & Bmore DJ mix reviews
March 08: 1st half of an interview with Jason Urick of WZT Hearts, interview w/ Grievous Angel, exclusive mix from DJ Magic & Grime and Dubstep news
I will be DJing this fundraiser for the Charm City Roller Girls:
New Order’s Round & Round (Patty Version) video:
via The Constant Siege who also turned me onto Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, below:
Too long? Peep a super-condensed clips reel from Life Outtacontext.
Kustom Kamera Kommandos
In a lovely bit of parody, Bill Brown, one of my favorite short filmmakers (and zinesters!), reworks the soft-focus fetishization of Kenneth Anger’s ’60s short, Kustom Kar Kommandos, right down to the powder-puff shammy, gentle voyeurism and lingering butt shot.
You can see Anger’s original courtesy of WFMU’s Beware of the Blog.
Yay! The pic above, of my windowsill, made it onto the You Grow Girl site! It’s the first one under ‘Garden Show & Tell’ in the screen cap below. Click to see it full size.
“…when the the orthodox mind talks and writes of God the nations go asunder; the desi, the local historical aspect of the cult symbol is taken with absolute seriousness and the chameleon is green, not red. Whereas, when the mystics talk, no matter what their desi, their words in a profound sense meet–and the nations too.”
–Joseph Cambell
[The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology]
Some new pix:
Two awesome events this Saturday:
1. Justin helped out with this interactive art exhibit masterminded by Post Typography!
2. I’ve been coaching the Charm City Roller Girl’s B-Team (formerly known as Female Trouble). Saturday, the B-Team will have its first public outing this season with a mini-bout against DC’s All-Star travel team before CCRG’s All-Star travel team takes on the Rocky Mountain Roller Girls.
Lately I have been wishing my life was like some Kenneth Anger short: all neon rococo set to love-lorn doowop. Instead, I am finally getting around to taking pictures of neighborhood icons and listening to Times New Viking.
Above is from the Matmos show @ Floristree this past Saturday
Somehow, these are related:
“Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. They then act and do things accordingly.” -Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
“Man, however, has knowledge and must overcome it to live.” -Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God
Forgot to mention this before…I made a winter mix a few weeks ago.
DL
Trax:
1. Young Marble Giants- Eating Noddemix
2. Shuggie Otis- XL-30
3. Os Mutantes- A Minha Menina
4. Lizzy Mercier Descloux- No Golden Throat
5. The Slits- Earthbeat/Daichi No Oto (Japanese Version)
6. Serge Gainsbourg- Mickey Mauosse (feat: Lisa Dainjah In Minnie Pussy)
7. M.I.A.- Jimmy
8. Loose Joints- Is It All Over My Face (Larry Levan mix)
9. Los Reyes ‘73- Adeoey
10. Scientist- Dance Of The Vampires
11. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins- Monkberry Moon Delight
PS I’ve started blogging for the City Paper’s Noise column! My first post is about The Death Set’s awesome new video.
shared items
