I don’t know about the ones on IFC, but the eleven episodes that they managed to squeeze by Fox were hysterical. You know how Family Guy and South Park are always slipping things by the censors? Well, Greg the Bunny, Warren DeMontague, Count Blah, Tardy Turtle, and their human friends Jimmy (Seth Green), Alison (Sarah Silverman), Gil (Eugene Levy) slid snide innuendo under radars the FCC didn’t even know to monitor. It’s an adult show about the making of a children’s show (Sweet Knuckle Junction) and you can get it on DVD.
—Roy Christopher, 21 July 2009
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ETERNAL YOUTH
Typically, if a band has been together for a quarter century or more, they stay famous based on their legacy. Most of their fans go to see them to hear “the old stuff.” Not so with Sonic Youth. Their latest, The Eternal (Matador, 2009) is as consistent and challenging as anything in their burgeoning catalog.
Now a five-piece—bass player Mark Ibold of Pavement and Free Kitten fame, who’s toured with Sonic Youth for the past few years, officially joined on this record—their live show is as blissful and blistering as it’s ever been. I saw them again recently at Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Alabama. This time out, they ripped through most of the new record and a handful of tracks from
—Roy Christopher, 20 July 2009
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If you are a dedicated part-time photographer who has heard of the internet, you must blog. The blog must consist of photos of things you see, do and find, with captions.
Nuno Oliveira is no different. Unlike most, though, his blog benefits from his location, the endlessly photogenic city of LA, having one camera or another to hand at all times, design skills, and the ability to capture moments that, seconds later, would make a lesser photographer think, “I wished I’d photographed that.”
—Chris Noble, 20 July 2009
Family
Uncle Jon watches the TV through binoculars. Refuses to get his eyes checked. He used to write pretty funny Christmas letters—despite the sprinkling of a couple racist quips—before he lost his sight and decided he couldn’t write anymore.
Carry’s mother just smiles peacefully during conversations. She can’t hear a damn thing. Sometimes her hearing aids emit a super-high-pitched ring that has everyone around her squinching their faces up wondering what they hell it is.
Tito Anthony has gout. I’m not sure what gout is, but it doesn’t sound good. One time, after a check-up and battery of tests, they found some cancer in his back and started radiation treatments. The guy loves his wine and cigarettes and refuses to give
—Andy Jenkins, 20 July 2009
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TIME’S UP
An 18th Century Tower, 1,111 ticking clocks and a Japanese sound artist. These things all come together in a new Exhibition from Yukio Fujimoto. The location is Perrott’s Folly, built in 1758, now interestingly caught between various types of inner city housing. It formed part of the inspiration for Tolkien’s The Two Towers and has only recently been re-opened after closing its doors twenty years ago.
Inside you’ll find a narrow stone staircase winding up to the first room which on entering appears to be empty and run down. With paint pealing from the ageing mouldings, the place has certainly seen better days. Then you notice a tiny clock softly ticking in the centre of the room, insignificant at first,
—Lee Basford, 17 July 2009
The Tower of Time is an IKON Gallery off-site Exhibition, on now until 26 July
Perrott’s Folly, Waterworks Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. Open Thursday – Sunday, 1-5pm. Free
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If The Cure were a metal band (à la Godflesh, not Skid Row), they’d probably sound a lot like Isis. An Isis record is usually a workout for your head, and Wavering Radiant is no exception. It’s their fifth long player and it showcases their strengths in spades: the solid songwriting, the slow builds, the scathing crescendos, the cathartic releases. Keyboards used to be a sign of going soft, but in the hands of Clifford Meyer, they’re as searing as the sun. With Jeff Caxide’s echoey, spaced-out bass and Aaron Turner’s gruff vocals, as well as the meandering song structures, we could consider Isis the flagship of their own genre: prog-core. Wavering Radiant is aptly named and a perfect entry point into their world.
—Roy Christopher, 17 July 2009
Tired of the same old nonfiction? Sick of sometimey music journalism? Seek out and acquire a copy of Kodwo Eshun’s mind-melting textual tilt-a-whirl, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction (Quartet, 1998). Eshun takes everyone from Sun Ra and John Coltrane to Kool Keith and Grandmaster Flash and sieves them through the theories of everyone from Paul Virilio and Gilles Deleuze to Marshall McLuhan and Manuel De Landa. It’s one part tradition-trouncing polemic, one part trip-hop philosophy, and one part ice-cream headache buzz, so take it slow.
—Roy Christopher, 17 July 2009
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JOYFULLY BEWILDERED
The third instalment of The Joyful Bewilderment’s touring exhibition recently opened in Bristol. It all began at Rough Trade’s Brick Lane space in London back in September, travelled north to Analogue Gallery in Edinburgh and has now found its way west in the roomy basement space of Here Gallery in Bristol’s Stokes Croft.
It’s an amazing collection of work from over 100 like-minded artists spanning the globe, all sharing a strong craft-based aesthetic and compulsion to create. Walking through the space, it’s almost too much to take in; you really have to slow yourself down and examine each piece as something individual and of itself before you move on to the next. The work varies from pencil drawings by James Jarvis
—Lee Basford, 13 July 2009
The exhibition runs from 8th July until 8th August at Here Gallery, Bristol. Further information can be found at The Joyful Bewilderment’s blog page
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Craftsmen are a different breed. They are meticulous, working hours on end in solidarity, repeating simple processes over and over in search of perfection. They are a patient people.
Countless hours of brazing, sanding and polishing materialize into some amazing works of art.
—Jared Souney, 10 July 2009
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TOTAL TRIPPIN
When I first saw Olympus’s wild new E-P1 camera, I froze. Because it looks just amazing. Brushed silver bodywork, a little patch of faux leather upon which to nestle your fingertips, an old-school flash hotshoe mount above the lens (no pop-up micro-flashes here which usually make a camera look like a Fitted 50:50 cap’s flipped up in a headwind), a proper round shutter release button, and another round button on the other side, chrome plate highlight lines… and a proper M-Zuiko lens stuck out the front. Just brilliant. Does retro get any better than this?
The E-P1 blows my skirt up simply because I have this camera’s film ancestor—its great-grandpa, if you will. My Olympus Trip 35 was the first
—Mark Noble, 10 July 2009
The E-P1 has garnered much interest, though film-fan David Bailey is not totally convinced
10 NOVEMBER UPDATE: Oh, wait, they brought out a new one already
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